And the Land Lay Still

by James Robertson

  ‘But you’re still here.’

  ‘Well, it’s different in a hoose like this, eh? And the lassies are aye at the school. Once they’re away, maybe Marie and me’ll spend mair time oot there tae. It’s a good life. Sun, swimming pool, cheap food. And nae hassle. Nae bastards chasing ye for tax or getting jobs done. Aye, I can see us oot there six months o the year.’

  ‘What are your lassies called?’

  ‘Tracy and Shelley. Tracy’s sixteen and Shelley’s fourteen. Right wee madams they are. Cost me a fortune but that’s daughters for ye, eh? What aboot your Kirsty? She must be grown up by noo, is she?’

  ‘How do you know about Kirsty?’

  ‘Word gets aroond, Ellen. Ye can leave a place like this but ye dinna ever really leave it, dae ye? Ye dinna speak the way ye used tae but ye’re aye yersel. Folk in Borlanslogie aye ken aboot the folk that left. So she’ll be, what, nineteen or thereaboots noo?’

  ‘You’re well informed, Denny. She’ll be twenty in a few weeks.’

  ‘I’ve aye kept my ears open for news aboot you, Ellen. We go way back. I was glad tae hear ye were daein aw right. Ye had a book published, didn’t ye?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Two? Ye must be loaded.’

  ‘It doesn’t work that way with books. I’d say, looking at this place, you’ve done better. Money-wise.’

  ‘Money-wise but no style-wise, ye mean? Ach, ye were ayewis a wee snob, Ellen, in spite of whaur ye grew up. I’m no criticising. I liked that in ye, ye ken. It showed ye were gonnae go places. No like me.’

  She glanced round the room. ‘You’ve done fine. Good money in the taxi business, is there?’

  ‘See, there ye go again. Aye, the cabs are okay. Used tae drive one masel. No noo. Get other buggers tae dae aw that. Had tae clean up some drunk bird’s puke once ower aften. Plenty o boys oot there that like the hours but no me ony mair. Same in your line o work, is it no? Back shifts, night shifts, double shifts. Ye get tae a bit where ye wonder what the bloody point is, don’t ye?’

  ‘I don’t work like that any more.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. Ye’ve sorted it.’

  They were circling round the subject, the big presence in the room. She thought he looked uneasy, as if he wished she’d drink up and leave, as if he’d keep her at arm’s length as long as he had to. But just as she thought that he said, ‘So why are ye here, Ellen? Ye want tae tell me aboot Charlie?’

  ‘That was going to be my next question,’ she said.

  ‘What dae ye want tae ken?’

  Her mouth was dry. She picked up the soda and drank from it through the straw. Denny sucked on his, making the ice rattle. They could have been two bairns again.

  ‘He’s deid,’ he said.

  For a few seconds nothing moved anywhere in the world. She put her drink back on the tray.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Aye. One of my drivers heard aboot it. He was in the army. He was killt in an accident on a training exercise. That’s what I was tellt.’

  ‘I heard he joined up,’ she said.

  ‘How did ye hear that?’

  ‘Friend of a friend. A policeman. Apparently things got too hot for him in Drumkirk. Is that right?’

  ‘Aye, that would be aboot the score.’

  ‘Were you involved?’

  ‘No me. I steered clear of Charlie back then. I was bad news but he was really bad news. So I steered clear. There was a lot of heavy stuff gaun doon in Drumkirk but I wasna a Drumkirk boy. I was better oot o it. I got in again later. Efter Charlie was awa.’

  ‘But you introduced me to him.’

  ‘Aye, I did. That was before.’

  ‘You must have known what he was like.’

  ‘I had an idea. But I thought you could look efter yersel.’

  ‘So did I.’

  He put his empty tumbler back on the tray. ‘He battered ye, didn’t he?’

  ‘Aye. No just battered, Denny.’

  He saw in her face what she meant. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It wasn’t your responsibility. Was it?’

  ‘I heard he was violent wi a couple o other lassies. But I didna hear that till later.’

  ‘You don’t have to make excuses. Or apologise.’

  ‘I’m no apologising. It was a lang time ago. Twenty year.’

  She nodded.

  ‘And then ye had Kirsty?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And she’s his?’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘And did he ever ken aboot her?’

  ‘Not unless you told him.’

  ‘I never seen him again. Some other guys I kent, they’d had enough o him. He didna ken whaur tae stop. There was a big fight and the next thing he was awa. I dinna ken if they forced him oot or he went aff his ain back, but I kind o think he must hae decided tae dae it.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Maybe he wanted a bigger challenge. Maybe he thought he’d take the army on and see who’d win.’

  ‘And the army won.’

  ‘Naw, I dinna think so. It was an accident. I think they baith lost. I bet Charlie ended up being a good sodger. He probably … found himself.’ She could tell he felt embarrassed even saying it. She wondered if Denny had ‘found himself’, here in this barren room in this soulless house with his womenfolk away out and him on his own waiting for them to come back. She wondered if he was a good father and what that meant, ‘a good father’. She wondered if she was a good mother, if she’d ‘found herself’ with Robin. She thought of Kirsty and how much she loved her and that she would have to tell her that her father was dead.

  ‘You aw right?’ he said.

  ‘Aye, I’m fine, thanks. When was he killed, can you mind?’

  ‘Two, three year ago. Nae mair than that. Ye could easy find oot.’

  ‘Aye.’ The silence returned. She wanted to know more, she didn’t want to know anything. She was happy, she was sad, she was shocked, she was relieved. She didn’t know what she was.

  ‘What about you?’ she said.

  ‘It’s naething tae dae wi me, Ellen. I don’t need tae find onything oot. I’m just telling ye because ye asked. Because ye’re here.’

  ‘No, I mean, what were you doing all that time?’

  He stood up and went to inspect the painting over the fire. ‘This is aff the record, right?’

  ‘I’m not here as a journalist, Denny.’

  ‘Ye might hae a wire on ye.’

  ‘Dinna be daft.’

  ‘Are you warm enough?’

  ‘More than.’

  ‘I’m gonnae turn the fire aff then.’ He bent down to the switch and when he came back to his seat she saw that he had broken out in a sweat. He drained the melted ice from his glass.

  ‘I done some bad stuff, Ellen. I seen some bad stuff and I heard some bad stuff and I done some o it. Afore the cabs it was drugs, onything really. I’m telling ye, even the cabs are bad these days. It gets so ye’re aye looking ower your shooder tae see wha’s coming. In the cities the Russians and the Albanians and the Chinese are aw muscling in. It’s only a maitter o time afore they reach Drumkirk. I’m wanting oot afore they get here. Quit while ye’re ahead, that’s something I learned a lang time ago. Ye were right earlier on. Look at this place. I canna complain. I’ve got away wi stuff. Ye think it’ll aye be like that, ye’ll aye get away wi it. Then ye think of what ye’ve got tae lose. Marie and the lassies.’ He breathed in and out hard, as if he were pumping himself up for a fight. ‘See if onybody tried tae touch them, I’d kill them. I wouldna stop tae think aboot it, I would just kill them and then I’d think aboot it.’

  She believed him. If somebody tried to hurt Kirsty, she’d be the same. For the first time since she’d come into the house she felt a kinship with Denny, a line going back to their childhoods. He looked across at her and she saw his brute strength and his brute fear together.

  She said, ‘Did you ever do that? Kill someone?’

 
He shook his head. It wasn’t a denial.

  ‘Off the record, Denny. I’ve always wondered about you. How come you got such a light sentence for that political business? How come they let you out so soon?’

  ‘Don’t fucking ask,’ he said.

  ‘How come you got away with a lot of things after that too? You must have sailed so close to the wind. I know you.’

  ‘Ellen,’ he said, ‘I was a different man then. I was a fucking eejit. I’ve got a wife and bairns noo.’

  ‘Is that why you have the electric gates and the dog? Is that why you check out the cars that park outside? You think somebody’s coming for you one day?’

  ‘I’ve made plenty o enemies,’ he said.

  ‘What happened, Denny? What happened after they let you out?’

  ‘Some things are better buried.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘Just leave it alane, aw right?’

  ‘Did somebody buy you?’

  ‘Ye could say that. Ye could say I paid for it onywey. Paid for being an eejit.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I did a job. Unfinished business. I finished it. That’s aw ye need tae ken.’

  ‘What did you do, Denny?’

  ‘Just. Fucking. Leave it.’

  Silence again. She thought, there is a world beyond my world that I can hardly imagine any more, let alone touch. I don’t want to touch it. Denny doesn’t want to touch it, but it touches him. It’s in his eyes. He lives with it every minute of the waking day.

  She said, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘Onybody else, I wouldna hae let them start. But I aye liked ye, Ellen. Ye’re smart.’

  ‘I was out of line.’

  ‘Ye’re closer than ye think.’

  They looked at each other. She thought, Charlie Lennie is dead. That’s what I came here to find out. I don’t need to know anything else.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said.

  He jumped to his feet. ‘Are ye sure? Ye dinna need tae. Ye could wait for Marie and the lassies. They’ll no be lang.’

  ‘I need to go and see my mother.’

  ‘They’ll be sorry they missed ye.’ But she knew if she was away before they returned he’d wash her glass and not mention her to them.

  They walked across the gravel past the angel or the nymph, whatever she was. At the gate he held out his hand and she took it in both of hers and his other hand came up and joined too, a good hard grasp.

  ‘Dae ye mind my granny?’ he said.

  ‘Oh aye, I mind her fine,’ she said. ‘I mind when she died.’

  ‘She was a wicked auld bitch but I’ll tell ye, she had a great life and we kept her at hame right tae the very end o it. Nooadays folk stick their auld people in nursing hames as soon as they pee the bed. Fucking barbaric that. Nae fucking respect. I thought my gran was a rotten crabbit auld witch but I fucking respected her tae, and I would never hae let her end her days in one o thae shiteholes. And it’ll be the same wi my mither tae. If she canna cope in Spain or doon the road she’ll come here. I look efter my ain. That’s aw ye can dae, Ellen, eh? Look efter your ain and fuck everybody else. Eh?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Maybe you’re right, Denny. But I hope you’re wrong.’

  He did the thing with the gadget and the gates swung open and she stepped back on to the road again.

  ‘I hope I’m wrang tae,’ he said. ‘But I’m no.’

  §

  Ellen arrived at her mother’s house half an hour after Mike. She apologised for having taken so long. Mary poured her some tea. ‘Whaur were ye?’ she asked.

  ‘I went to see Denny Hogg. A childhood friend,’ she explained to Mike.

  ‘Denny Hogg?’ Mary cried. ‘That gangster!’

  ‘If he’s a gangster he’s been one since he could walk,’ Ellen retorted.

  ‘Of course he’s a gangster,’ Mary said. ‘Hoo else could he hae a hoose like yon? It’s a ranch, Michael, up on the hill, wi a big wall for keeping the riff-raff oot even though he’s nae better than the rest o us. He thinks he’s J. R. Ewing.’

  ‘He runs a taxi firm,’ Ellen said.

  ‘That’s no aw he runs. What did he hae tae say for himsel?’

  ‘Och, nothing much,’ Ellen said. ‘We were just catching up.’

  Mary snorted. ‘He and Ellen used tae play thegither,’ she said. ‘He’s a bad, bad laddie.’

  ‘Tell me how you got on, Mike,’ Ellen said, unsubtly changing the subject. ‘Did you get any good pictures?’

  It wasn’t until they had left Borlanslogie and were driving back to Edinburgh that Denny Hogg’s name came up again.

  ‘Your ma didn’t seem to have much time for the gangster,’ he said.

  ‘Denny? No, she doesn’t like him.’

  ‘You were away for ages.’

  ‘Denny and I have a long history. He stayed next door to my granny’s house, where I spent a lot of my childhood. Most of it, in fact. He went down the pit but chucked it after a while, and then he got into some trouble and ended up in the jail, but he wasn’t there for long. He’s looked after himself, Denny. He was made for the ’80s: every man for himself, that’s his motto. My mother doesn’t like him because he’s a dealer, or at least he used to be, and because she thinks she knows something else about him. But she doesn’t.’

  ‘What does she think she knows?’

  They were crossing the Forth Bridge and it was gusty but that wasn’t why she gripped the wheel hard and kept her eyes fixed on the carriageway ahead.

  ‘She thinks he’s Kirsty’s father,’ she said.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘But he isn’t. Her father was a man called Charlie Lennie. It was Denny that introduced me to him. I used to curse him for that, but not any longer. Charlie Lennie’s dead.’ She was quiet for a minute, weighing up what more she wanted to say. ‘I just learned that today,’ she added. ‘I’d thought he might be, but I didn’t know. Denny told me. So I can draw a line. It was a bad relationship. You knew that, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s what I guessed.’

  ‘You guessed right. But that’s it. He’s dead. It’s over.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

  ‘Not in any more detail than that.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Even if he wasn’t dead I’d be fine.’

  ‘Will you tell Kirsty?’

  ‘Aye. I’ll tell her at once. That the father she never knew is dead. And then that’ll be over too.’

  ‘Did she never meet him?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘And she never wanted to. She has Robin. We both have Robin.’

  ‘He’s a good man,’ she said.

  ‘Everybody says that,’ Ellen said. ‘Whenever Robin’s name comes up, people say, “He’s a good man.” And you know something? They’re right.’

  §

  The article appeared in the Observer a few weeks later. Ellen subsequently told Mike that she’d had a row with her mother about what she’d written, but that Mary had said she thought his pictures were good. Mike told Ellen that he’d waited in vain for a comment from his father, and that, eventually, when Mike had phoned him, Angus had said he thought it was a fine piece of writing. ‘And the pictures?’ Mike had asked. (They’d used one of the boys on the roundabout, one of the men in the pub, one of the Co-op women, a shot of the main street and a big spread of the pithead.) ‘Aye,’ he’d said. ‘Not bad.’

  ‘And that,’ Mike said, ‘was that. Not bad.’

  ‘Old bastards,’ Ellen said. And they both laughed. What else could they do?

  §

  It felt like a long drop from Westminster to Glenallan these days. When David Eddelstane came back for weekends, held surgeries, opened a fête or a new industrial estate, it was sometimes hard to believe that anybody at all had voted for him in 1992. He represented the constituency in the House of Commons but he no longer had a sense of who or what he was representi
ng. Four and a half years on the only friendly faces now belonged to old dears in retirement homes who weren’t quite sure if he was the minister or the doctor. Even businessmen and bank managers – the kind of people whose votes the party had once been so sure of it hadn’t even bothered to take them for granted – even they looked pissed off at him these days. They weren’t going to vote for anybody else but by God, their looks said, you’re asking a lot if you expect an X in the box from us, you shower of arrogant bastards. It wasn’t so much the corruption they objected to – although they didn’t like it – it was the fact that government ministers and MPs kept getting found out. Hardly a week went by without some new scandal being gleefully exposed in the media. The utter futility of John Major’s ‘Back to Basics’ campaign, in the face of wave after oily wave of sleaze washing in, was well beyond a joke. Insider trading, cash for questions, dodgy foreign investments, dodgy foreign arms sales, dodgy everything. And then the sex: multiple adulteries, homosexual affairs, affairs with secretaries, love children with secretaries, toe-sucking mistresses, whipping sessions with rent boys, assignations with prostitutes, death by auto-erotic asphyxiation. (That was the one that always got to him. The tabloids had made their usual saucy meal of it, but it was just tragic, a horrible, lonely tragedy.) There was even talk in some circles that the PM himself wasn’t as pure as the driven snow. And he, David Eddelstane, was included in the general denunciation, even though he’d not been found out. Yet. Not been splattered across the tabloids. Yet.

  There was a lot of psychobabble in the media every time a prominent public figure was caught in a compromising situation: he wanted to be found out, he needed to get caught. Well, perhaps. But David did not want to be found out. Not for the time being, thank you, no. He’d much prefer to lose his seat and disappear into semi-obscurity first. In fact, once you were semi-obscure, nobody gave a damn about your secrets.

  Things had never been the same since the poll tax. Internal party splits over Europe hadn’t helped. Fifteen per cent mortgage interest rates and the meltdown that followed Black Wednesday had dished the myth that the Conservatives were more financially competent than Labour. Sleaze was the icing on the teetering cake. If David represented anything at all, it wasn’t this particular bit of Scotland at Westminster, it was the Tory Party in this bit of Scotland, and frankly, not only was he not making much of an impression, he’d rather have been flogging tickets for a seal cull at a Greenpeace rally.