by Peter McLean
I sighed and got under the shower. Whatever; I’d worry about it after I’d sorted myself out a bit. I had a good long shower to wash it all away, and afterwards I even shaved and everything. New day new start, and all that shit.
I came out wrapped in a big fluffy bathrobe and padded through to the kitchen in search of coffee. I found Mazin waiting for me there.
“Lord Keeper,” he said with a deferential bow of his head.
He poured coffee into a fine china cup for me. You know, so I didn’t have to strain myself I supposed. For fucksake.
“Morning,” I said. “Where’s Trixie?”
“The Madam Guardian is out on business, I believe,” Mazin said.
I frowned. I didn’t know what business Trixie had to be out and about on, but the thought of it didn’t give me a warm feeling. Trixie’s business was hurting people, as a rule.
“Oh,” I said. “Right.”
I sat down at the kitchen table with my coffee and Mazin leaned close to me.
“We have another little piece of business of our own, Lord Keeper,” he said.
“We have?”
“You asked us to find someone for you,” he reminded me. “She has been found.”
I blinked. Christ, that was quick, I thought. I had taken me six months to not find Debbie, and now it seemed Mazin and his people and his money had done it in a week. They would have found me despite my amulet if I hadn’t sunk so far under the radar that I was practically living in the fucking netherworlds. The money was the key, of course. Money opened doors, greased wheels, loosened lips. Money made life easier, that’s what it was for. I sighed. The Burned Man had always said as much, and I realized now that it had been right.
Thank you, it said in the back of my head. It’s about bloody time you started listening to me again.
I ignored it and looked up at Mazin.
“Where?” I said.
“Not far,” he said. “A nice bungalow near the National Gallery of Modern Art.”
I’m not exactly arty and I wasn’t too sure where that was but in Edinburgh a nice bungalow meant both “outskirts” and “one of the posh bits”. It sounded like Debs had done well for herself over the last year or so. And so she should, thinking about it. Debbie was a bloody good alchemist. Up here, away from all the baggage of London, she had obviously made a fresh start for herself. Away from me, more to the point. Did I really want to go and inflict myself on her all over again?
I didn’t really know what I wanted, but I knew I had to see her. Maybe to make sure she was all right, maybe just to see if she had stopped hating me yet. I couldn’t shake the thoughts I had had before, about that nice normal life I was never going to get now. Losing Debbie had come to symbolize the loss of that life, for me. Did I think seeing her would somehow give me back that chance? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t help thinking it was something more than that. I didn’t know what, not really, but I knew I had to see her.
“Right,” I said to Mazin. “Let me get some clothes on and have a bite to eat, then you’re driving me over there.”
“And the Madam Guardian?”
“Won’t be coming with us and doesn’t need to know about it,” I said firmly.
I gave him a look that I knew he didn’t want to argue with, and after a moment he nodded.
“As you say, Lord Keeper,” he said.
An hour later I was in the back of the huge Mercedes as Mazin drove us expertly through the early afternoon traffic. We headed west and over the Water of Leith into tree-lined streets of neat stone houses. This area was money, that much was plain, but in a very Scottish sort of way. There was nothing flash on show but everything was neat and modest and restrained, the cars on the drives all very expensive without being showy – Range Rovers and Jaguars rather than Ferraris, if you know what I mean. After another ten minutes or so Mazin pulled up at the kerb outside a smart detached bungalow with a big garden. He turned to look at me over his shoulder.
“Should I come with you, Lord Keeper?”
I was about to say no but… well, it had been a long time since I had seen Debs and we hadn’t exactly parted on good terms. What if she didn’t want to see me? Hell, for all I knew she could have married a twenty stone psychopath by now. I resented it, but I nodded all the same.
“Yeah,” I said. “To the door, anyway. Then we’ll see.”
Mazin nodded and got out of the car. I waited for him to open the back door for me, then I stepped out into the late morning wind. I had spent the entire drive mentally rehearsing what I was going to say to her. I was wearing one of the new suits Mazin’s tailor had run up for me, and my gorgeous new coat. What with “my man” opening the door of the two hundred grand car for me, I was feeling quite well to do all things considered.
I straightened my lapels and strode up a long stone path to the front door of the house with Mazin at my heels and my heart in my mouth. I mean shit, I might look like a millionaire now but I was still me, you know what I mean? I knew that was exactly what Debbie would see when she opened the door. Just me, not the suit or the car or the pretence. And that was even assuming she did open the door.
I rang the bell and waited. I could hear a baby crying somewhere, but other than that the street was quiet. I had just about decided she was out or hiding or something when the door eventually opened.
“Debs,” I said. “I, um. Hi.”
So much for my rehearsed speech then. That had been a fucking waste of time and no mistake.
“Oh fucking hell,” she said.
We stared at each other, and no one fell into anyone’s arms.
“Um,” I said again. “How are you?”
She sighed. She looked tired, tired like she hadn’t slept for a week. There were dark circles under her eyes and her auburn hair was pulled back into an unkempt ponytail that said she just couldn’t be arsed any more. Even more than she usually couldn’t, I mean.
“Christ,” she said. “What are you doing here? And who the hell is he?”
Always answer the easy question first, that’s my advice.
“This is Mazin,” I said. “He works for me.”
“Oh,” she said. “Right.”
“Look, can I come in?” I said. “Just me, I mean. Mazin will wait in the car.”
If Debs even glanced at the car I missed it. So much for looking impressive, not that it really did in this neighbourhood. Her nextdoor neighbour probably had something almost as good, and she had never cared about cars anyway.
“I suppose so,” she said.
She stood back from the door to let me in and just as I stepped over the threshold the baby started crying again. This time I realized the sound was coming from inside the house. Debs ushered me in and shut the door in Mazin’s face without blinking. I sighed and let her show me into a sitting room that was mostly given over to some sort of huge, weird chemistry experiment. Some things never changed, I thought.
“Sit down and don’t touch anything,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
I perched on the edge of a brown leather sofa and stared at the miles of glass tubes and pipes and valves and beakers and God-only-knew-what that were set out across two dining tables pushed together. Bunsen burners hissed and things bubbled and steamed and dripped, and I had no idea what any of it was. Debbie is seriously clever, in case I hadn’t mentioned it. A puff of purple smoke vented from a valve somewhere in the middle of the huge contraption, making me jump.
She came back a moment later, and she had a baby in her arms.
I stared at her. It was a little girl, maybe six months old, wrapped up in a pink blanket with pictures of white bunny rabbits on it. The baby was still crying, her face scrunched up pink and red and tearful. Debs took something out of her pocket and slipped it into the baby’s wet, toothless mouth, and a moment later she was quietly content. Debbie is an alchemist, after all.
“Um,” I said.
Debbie had a baby girl.
I did a quick bit of maths. T
he last time I’d been to bed with Debs was maybe three months before we split up. Which was about a year ago now.
She had a baby girl.
A six month-old baby girl. Nine months of pregnancy meant…
Oh fuck me.
“Is…” I started.
Is she mine? I had been about to say, but that would only have started her screaming at me. As far as I knew I was the only boyfriend Debbie had had since we were at university together, the poor cow. Of course the baby was mine.
“Is this really happening?” I asked instead.
“It’s already happened, Don,” Debbie said. “It happened six months ago, in Glasgow General. It hurt like all hell for twenty sodding hours, and you weren’t there.”
I stared at her.
“Did you want me to be?” I asked. “I mean Christ, Debs, I didn’t even know.”
“No,” she said. “No, you didn’t know, and no I didn’t want you there. Not really.” She swallowed and looked down at the baby. “Sort of, anyway. I mean maybe part of me did, I don’t know.”
I smiled awkwardly at the baby. I know fuck all about kids, and I certainly never really thought I’d be a father. I had entertained fantasies, perhaps, but I had never believed in them. Not really. What the bloody hell did a father even do? I mean, I knew what my dad had done. He’d gone to work and then he’d got drunk and then he’d battered my mum, or me, or both of us. No, I wasn’t going to be a father like my dad, that was for bloody sure.
Aren’t you? the Burned Man sneered in the back of my mind. You sure about that?
Shut up, I told it.
“Can I hold her?” I asked.
“No,” Debbie said.
“Right,” I said. “Right, OK. Fair enough. I… Jesus Debs, I didn’t… I didn’t have any fucking idea.”
“I know,” she said.
I looked at her then, sitting opposite me on a dining chair with that tiny little person cradled in her arms.
“Did you know?” I asked her. “Before you left, I mean?”
“Yes,” she said. “I knew, Don. I wasn’t showing then but I was eleven weeks gone when your slut almost tortured me to death. Of course I knew. I knew, and every minute of it I was terrified for my baby.”
She was never going to forgive me for Ally, was she? No, of course she wasn’t. Why the bloody hell would she?
“You didn’t tell me,” I said.
“No,” she said again. “No, I didn’t. It was never really the right time, and then… well. You know what happened.”
I remembered finding Debbie tied up in the back of the van where Aleto the Unresting had taken a bullwhip to her. Yeah, I knew what had happened all right, and that was before everything that had happened since then. At least Debbie didn’t know about the rest of it.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling utterly helpless.
I mean, I could hardly blame her for not telling me. I’m not what most women would regard as a catch, to put it mildly. And after Ally then… well yeah. I had to admit I could see her point.
“What do you actually want, Don?” Debbie asked.
I looked at her, and at the baby, and I realized I had no fucking idea. I didn’t know how to be a father. But I wanted… oh fucking hell, I wanted to learn.
“Do you need anything?” I asked after a long, painful pause. “Money, or… or anything.”
“No,” she said. “I’m perfectly capable of providing for my own daughter.”
“Right,” I said.
I scrubbed my hands over my face and sighed. My daughter, I noticed. Not ours, hers. No, I hadn’t missed that. What was I even doing there? I honestly had no idea. I had wanted to see Debbie, sure, but this had thrown an almighty spanner in the works. I was a father now, that had to mean something. Didn’t it?
Maybe not to her, but it did to me. Seeing that little baby girl was like seeing light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel of depression and addiction. I could have got down on my knees and thanked the God I had lost faith in that I hadn’t taken my own life after all.
“Look, I mean… how do we do this?”
“We don’t do anything,” she said. “You crawl back under your rock and I carry on doing what I’ve been doing for the last six months, and everything goes back to normal. I don’t want you here, Don.”
Fucking charming that is, the Burned Man thought, and I must admit I had to sort of agree with it. A bit, anyway.
“Look, Debs,” I started, but she cut me dead with a look that could have frozen a blast furnace.
“You don’t,” she said, slowly and clearly, “get to walk in here and be Daddy. You don’t get to do that, Don.”
I sighed. No, no I supposed I didn’t.
“Right,” I said. “Can I, you know, at least be in touch?”
She looked at me for a long moment, then her shoulders slowly seemed to relax. A bit, anyway.
“I suppose so,” she said. “You already somehow know where I live. Look, give it a little while. Let me get used to the idea. After that, well, we’ll see.”
I nodded and stood up.
“Right,” I said. “Well, I can’t say fairer than that I suppose. I’d better be off but, yeah, I’ll be in touch.”
Debs followed me down the hall to show me out, but she didn’t say anything until I was out of the door and starting back towards the waiting Mercedes.
“Don,” she called after me.
I turned back, a smile forming on my face. Bless her, she always had been a bit of a soft touch. I knew she’d come round.
“Yeah?”
“Her name is Olivia, not that you asked,” Debbie said, and shut the door on me.
Oh fuck, I hadn’t had I?
I got into the car and slammed the door behind me.
“Go,” I growled at Mazin, and closed my eyes as the huge car pulled away from the kerb.
Nothing ever got simpler.
Chapter Eleven
Of course Trixie was waiting for us when Mazin let me back into the apartment. She didn’t look best pleased.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Out,” I snapped at her.
Mazin looked from me to Trixie and back again, and I realized if I didn’t tell her then he would.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s been a long day already.”
“Oh?”
I ushered her into the sitting room, away from Mazin, and sat down on one of the sofas with a long sigh.
“I went to see Debbie,” I said. “I had Mazin’s boys track her down for me.”
Trixie lit a long black cigarette and paced over to the locked window.
“I see,” she said.
“Not like that,” I said. “I mean, not like a boyfriend or anything. You know I love you, Trixie.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
“I mean, I just wanted to… I don’t even know. Just to make sure she was all right, I suppose.”
That was bullshit and I knew it, but how could I possibly explain to Trixie my longing for a life I couldn’t have, with a woman I didn’t even want any more. I could barely explain it to myself, and if I had told Trixie that what I really wanted was that life but with her, I think she would have laughed at me. I don’t think I could have stood that.
“And is she?”
“Well, um,” I said. “I mean yeah, I think so. She’s, um, she’s had a baby, Trixie. My baby. A little girl. From before. I didn’t know. That she was having a baby, I mean.”
That was possibly the most garbled explanation anyone has ever given, but Trixie seemed to understand.
“I see,” she said. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not a lot, probably. She didn’t exactly make me feel very welcome.”
“No, I don’t suppose she did,” Trixie said.
She picked up an ashtray and sat down opposite me with it balanced on her knee.
“Yeah,” I said, and put my head in my hands.
�
��Do you know anything about being a father?” Trixie asked.
“Well I’ve got a fair idea of how not to do it,” I said. “Other than that, no. Not a clue.”
Trixie nodded. “I thought not,” she said, which wasn’t exactly reassuring. “Does Debbie have everything she needs? Is the child loved, and well provided for?”
I thought about the nice house in the nice area, but the thing that really came to mind was that pink blanket with the bunny rabbits on it. I felt my eyes stinging.
“Yeah,” I said. “She’s loved, and she’s fine.”
“Good,” Trixie said, and nodded. “Then that’s taken care of. If you want advice Don, I’d say leave it be. For now, anyway.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what Debs said,” I said. I sighed and changed the subject. “Where have you been anyway?”
“London,” she said.
I blinked. She had been to London and back in a couple of hours, from Edinburgh? I remembered that she seemed to effectively be able to teleport, for all that I had never actually seen her do it. I had seen Adam do it though, and he had even taken me with him once. It was possible, I had to admit.
“Oh,” I said. “Why?”
“I went to meet Adam,” she said, and I almost wished I hadn’t asked.
“Right,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as strangled as it felt. “Um, why?”
“I wanted to know what Menhit is planning,” she said. “I thought he might know.”
“Oh,” I said again. “And, um, did he?”
Trixie sighed and blew smoke up at the ceiling.
“Not really,” she said. “But he thinks it might be something to do with my Dominion. He doesn’t think it’s dead, Don.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t think it is, either. The Burned Man said much the same thing, in fact.”
Trixie gave me a look, and I winced. I knew she hated the thought of the Burned Man living in my head. It did though, so there we were whether she wanted it mentioned or not.
“I see,” Trixie said.
“I think…” I said, “I think Menhit cast it down into Hell, but that’s all. It’s probably still alive down there by the sounds of things.”
“I doubt she likes to leave a job half done,” Trixie said.
