by Iain Maloney
‘I mean is she hurt? Do we need to take her to casualty?’
Hannah shook her head, dirt rising from her like smoke, like ash, a hand to her cheek, coughing. Then Dad was up and running, free from them and into the house, leaving them all standing, out the other side I heard the Saab rev, screech out of the drive. Below me in the garden Hannah looked up, saw me watching. For a moment we stared at each other, me kneeling on my bed, her in the garden covered in dirt.
I pulled the curtains closed.
Aberdeen, Summer 1990
In the summer between school and university I got a job at the Beach Leisure Centre. Every day when my shift finished I spent an hour or two on the climbing wall. I was climbing 6a/b routes, taking it in turns with Roddy, who worked there full-time. I was trying for a hold just beyond my reach, made a lunge for it and missed. Roddy lowered me to the ground, laughing. ‘What was that?’
‘You saw.’
‘It looked like you were trying to high-five the wall, not grab a hold.’
‘You’ve got these holds set up for people your own height. You’re discriminating against the shorter climber.’
‘Did you not see the other hold?’ This third voice made us both turn. Graeme and Tony, geared up for their climb. Graeme pointed. ‘Straight up instead of across. You get your left hand onto that, shift your right foot from there to there, and you’re home.’
‘You climb six-b?’ I asked.
‘In fourth year,’ Tony snorted.
‘You go first,’ Graeme said to him.
Roddy and I were done but I decided to stay for a bit and watch. Graeme had been climbing for years and I was curious to see how good he was. Roddy set to cleaning chalk off the holds. Tony, all tied up, took his position at the start of the 7a route, Graeme holding his rope.
‘Do you climb the same?’ I asked him.
‘First climb, to warm up. I’m trying seven-c. Haven’t managed it yet. You see up there, the reach from underneath the ledge? Tricky.’
It looked nigh impossible. ‘Do you climb every day?’ I hadn’t seen him around. Things had been weird with Graeme for the past couple of years. I’d been clearing a space around me, shedding friends, focussed only on Dad and getting into university. I didn’t have time for all that social bullshit.
‘No. Tony’s working for the council cutting grass so we come down whenever he’s free. You work here, don’t you?’
I blushed. That meant he’d seen me in my uniform. ‘Yeah, just for the summer.’
‘Nice. You get to use the wall for free?’
‘Yeah. I could… I mean…’ What was wrong with me? ‘I climb after work every day. If you want to. I mean, if Tony’s busy.’
‘Cool. Tomorrow?’
So we started climbing together. He was a good teacher, patient but firm. I moved up the grades, pushing myself, pushing my body. I could feel a hardening, a new kind of strength. I took to working out in the gym, lifting weights, circuits. I was burning, packed with potential energy. I’d started running seriously after Piper Alpha. Ran until I was so empty I couldn’t feel. This was different, fulfilling rather than draining.
It didn’t take long before I started looking forward to those climbs and on the days Graeme didn’t come, Roddy would take the piss. ‘Just because your boyfriend’s not here, that’s no reason to throw yourself off the top.’ I knew Graeme had split up with Julie, that she was off to drama school in London. There was chemistry between us, something about the stretch of his neck when he reached for a hold, the tightness of his calves. I knew I was bisexual, had made my peace with the fact even though I hadn’t come out to anyone – no one asked, convinced I was as frigid as Mark had claimed. But I hadn’t been attracted to a man in a long time. So what were these feelings for Graeme? I put it down to loneliness, warm memories, shared interests. Whatever. He was leaving at the end of the summer and I had an unconditional from Aberdeen. And with Dad as he was, relationships weren’t an option.
The summer passed in a cycle of sun and rain, temperatures rising and falling like an EKG, the usual for Aberdeen. I worked, I climbed with Graeme, I looked after the house, paid the bills, made sure Dad had clean, ironed shirts for work, woke him in the morning, took the empties to the recycling bins, and read in my room while he raged. I’d discovered a memoir, Dislodging Fossils by Kiana Lau, a Hawaiian geologist and feminist. She wrote about her childhood, a horrific past, her parents killed when Mauna Loa erupted in 1950. It was heartbreaking, her memories of the heat and loss intertwined. But she had strength. Life moved on. In a lively, sardonic style she wrote about her experiences as a woman in science, the sexism and sexual harassment, but also the discoveries, the theories, the work she did. I was captivated by the book, by the woman, the personality that spoke to me through those pages. I imagined the volcanoes of Hawaii, the islands, the sea. I’d go there one day, I decided. Go to Pele’s home. Kiana Lau’s home. When I left Aberdeen. When I could leave.
It was our last climb. It was Wednesday and as of Friday I would be an unemployed student. When I came out of the changing room afterwards, Graeme was waiting for me, sitting legs stretched out, one over the other, a spiral notebook open in his lap, mouthing something.
‘First sign of madness, talking to yourself,’ I said. ‘Not running today?’
‘I’ll go later. I fancy a hot chocolate. You?’ I must have paused too long. ‘If, you know, you’re not busy or anything.’ This confident, cool boy was shy.
‘Sounds good.’ I unchained my bike and wheeled it along the beachfront to the café, locking it up again. Café Continental served their hot chocolates in tall glasses with marshmallows and whipped cream. I’d loved them since I was a kid and Kim, Lesley and I used to come down regularly. I hadn’t seen either of them since the end of school.
‘So when does term start?’ Graeme asked after the waiter brought out drinks.
‘Next week. Well, matriculation and all that stuff is next week. Classes are the week after. How about you? Glasgow’s later isn’t it?’
‘I’m not going.’
I nearly knocked my glass over. ‘Not going? Why?’
‘Don’t want to.’ The way he said it, it sounded almost petulant, like a small boy. He was looking at the table, tapping his long teaspoon so the handle rose up and tapped back onto the wood.
‘But your dad? He must be—’
‘Then he can fucking go to Glasgow. Shit. Sorry Carrie. You know my dad, you can guess how he took it. It hasn’t been fun at home, he’s been raging since… Jesus, look who I’m saying this to. I didn’t mean… sorry.’
‘It’s okay. Start again. Why don’t you want to go? Is it Glasgow? Law? Do you want to do something else?’
‘I…’ he laughed, a self-deprecating mock laugh. ‘I want to be a professional snowboarder.’ He looked straight at me.
‘Are you good enough?’ I didn’t mean it to come out like that, but I’d never seen him on a board. He spent every winter on the slopes, had even been to New Zealand in our summer to get his fix, but so did a lot of people. How many were good enough to turn pro?
‘You know I won that competition?’ I shook my head. That was news to me. He looked surprised, hurt. ‘Last January, in Switzerland?’
‘Sorry. Yes.’ I tried to keep the cold out of my voice but couldn’t quite.
He was silent for a moment, in thought. ‘January. Yes. Sorry. Your mother.’
‘You won a competition?’
‘Yeah, the European Amateur Snowboarding Championship. I won the Halfpipe.’
‘Congratulations.’
He laughed. ‘Thanks. Well, afterwards I got offered sponsorship. It’s impossible to get sponsorship. I mean, nobody gets sponsorship. And they offered me.’
‘So they’d pay you?’
‘Yeah, I’d use their gear and they pay for me to travel around the world competing in all the pro games.’
‘And your father says no, go to law school.’
‘He says to get the la
w degree first so I’ll have that to fall back on. He doesn’t get that by then it’ll be too late. I can’t put it on hold for four years and come back.’
I stirred my marshmallows around the glass, pink and white whales chasing each other. ‘If you get sponsorship you don’t need your father’s money?’
‘No.’
‘And you’re old enough that you don’t need his permission.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’ve made up your mind.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’re scared that if you go against your father’s wishes, he’ll never forgive you.’
His face, open. ‘Yes.’
I looked at the clock. 17:43. Dad would be in Under The Hammer, probably on his second pint. He’d stagger home at about half twelve, sleep fully clothed on the sofa with the TV and the stereo on. In Edinburgh and Durham students were moving into halls, unpacking bags, meeting new friends, going out to explore their new homes. ‘You’ve got to do what you want. If you wait until it suits him, it’ll be too late.’
‘He should be happy for me. No one gets sponsorship. No one.’
‘At least he gives enough of a fuck to be angry.’
I left him on the front, my legs pumping the pedals up Beach Boulevard, sweat breaking out on my head, on my back, tears pricking my eyes. Graeme had to get out. Had to follow his dreams. He had to. It was all so unfair.
Aberdeen, December 25th 1990
Whether anyone was dreaming of it or not, we had a white Christmas. The garden under snow like Atlantis under the waves, the corner of the barbecue prodded through black, the shed roof a miniature ski run, but the heating was on high and the oven was helping, keeping everything warm for Christmas lunch. The table was set, same as every year: crackers from Marks and Spencer, red and green napkins, all the good cutlery and dishes, coasters and hot plates ready for the veg, the turkey and trimmings, the sausages wrapped in bacon. The radio on, festive cheer from the BBC. Wine glasses. Wine. Waiting for a family.
In the living room, the tree was felled, the framed Monet over the fireplace smashed, whisky sticky on the wall and mantelpiece. I’d just closed the door.
I had my fleece and my slippers on, so I was toasty. I refilled the teapot, added a couple of fresh bags and returned to the dining room, pushed the crackers aside, opened my binder.
Another memorable Christmas then. Christmas last year. 1989. It was like some soap opera through there. Hannah rattling pots and pans, slamming drawers and attacking parsnips with one of the knives Dad sharpened the night before, standing in the garden with the steel refining each blade until it drew blood. Him out there, in the garage, the pieces of his mountain bike spread around him on newspaper and rags, the latest thing he had dismantled. The fight. The shouting.
This year, 1990, the silence.
Focus on your books, Carrie. Focus.
First Year Geology wasn’t that tricky. All the books I’d read, the field trips Dad took me on. No one really studied geology at school so the lecturers assumed a starting knowledge of zero. Not that I was being complacent.
I turned page after page, searching for something, anything I hadn’t learned properly.
Our first Christmas since she left. Ten months since she moved to Bristol to be with Frank Carpenter. I should have known he couldn’t take it. That he would run off. I should have known, but I hoped.
All I seemed to do, hope.
I thought about phoning someone; phoning Graeme but he was in Austria, celebrating a silver in his first competition as a professional; phoning Kim or Lesley but they were both at their grandparents’. Someone from uni, Calum, Mel, Nicola, but I didn’t know their home numbers and no one stayed in Aberdeen over the holidays. Why would they? Christmas is for families but what did you do if your mother walked out and your father hadn’t been home since yesterday morning and the car was gone and the drinks cabinet was emptied?
You cooked Christmas lunch and studied for your exams.
He always came home in the end.
I wiped my eyes on the red Christmas napkin, dabbed at my notes trying not to smudge them any more. The paper ripped. Pushing down the urge to tear the page out, crumple and throw it, I clicked up the lever so the arches opened and gently lifted it out. The sheet below was a little damp but nothing to worry about. I found the next empty page in my pad and copied my notes afresh. I only needed to glance at the original. It was all memorised, it was all in there, layers and layers of knowledge, strata pushing down, compressing whatever else might be in there. Fossilising things best forgotten.
Oven off. The state he’d be in when he eventually rolled up, he’d be lucky to keep down cheese on toast let alone a turkey dinner. I’d lost my appetite too. I packed up my notes. As I passed the front door to go upstairs I pulled the curtains back and looked out at the bright white world. Fallen snow had covered the tracks his car made out of the drive. If he came home now he’d never get it back in.
The phone shrilled into the empty house. It’d be her. Hannah. She still called once a month or so when the guilt got to her. I watched until it stopped, grabbed my ski jacket and gloves from the hall cupboard and stepped out into the bitter wind.
In the garage I stretched out my muscles, calves and hamstrings, touched my toes, rolled my shoulders, my neck, made my arms supple and strong. The urge to run was explosive but I wouldn’t reach the street before falling. I took the shovel and rammed it into the snow, the gravelly scrape as the blade raked along the driveway. There was nowhere to put the snow but onto the laden lawn. I flung it feeling the strain of my muscles. Bent again, another load, another.
The heat. I was putting too much into it but the energy had to go somewhere. Dig. Throw. Dig. Throw. Memories threw themselves at me.
Dad in the kitchen, a knife stabbed into the wooden chopping board.
Another heap of snow on the pile.
Dad on the hall floor, face down, a crystal whisky tumbler smashed, blood leaking from his hand into the carpet.
Another shovel load, the scratch of metal on stone.
Half of the driveway was clear, but flakes were drifting down again.
Sisyphus.
Dad gone for days, somewhere north, drunk on the roads, driving at full speed. Each time reminding me of the first time I didn’t know if he was coming home, and each time I hated him for making me hate him.
I leaned on the shovel, out of breath, hot.
More images. Hannah this time, her face changing, hardening, she’d already left him for Frank Carpenter in her heart but Dad made it so much easier for her to walk out. Why did she wait so long to leave?
I kept her secret, thinking there would be a better time to tell him.
Memories.
He was away. Hannah’s Merc was in the driveway, February 1990, not even a year ago. Her boot open, suitcases, boxes, bags.
‘So you’re leaving us.’
She had the decency to be crying. ‘Caroline.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Carrie. I can’t stay. I can’t do it anymore.’
‘Has the commute to Bristol finally got you down?’
‘It’s not like that—’
‘You’re not going to Bristol?’
‘I am but… he’s not the man I married, Carrie. He’s changed. He… he scares me. Since Piper Alpha—’
‘Don’t you dare blame him for that. Blame that for this. You were with him that day. While Dad was fighting for his life you were flat on your back with Frank fucking Carpenter.’
She flinched. We’d never spoken about it. What was there to say?
‘It’s hard to understand, I know. We’re your parents so you can’t view it objectively. Our marriage has been over for a long time. We’ve both… strayed. Him much more than me, not that that excuses me, I know. The truth is, Carrie, we only stayed together for you. If you hadn’t… we’d never…’
Something in me froze, crystallised. I could feel myself frosting over, arms folded r
igid across my chest. ‘Go then. We’ll be fine without you.’
‘Caroline, Carrie, he needs help. Professional help. What’s wrong with him, it’s a mental illness. Without help he could…’
‘What?’
‘You finish school in a few months. Then you’ll be away to university. I was going to wait until then but I can’t take it. Even those few months… I’m sorry Carrie. I can’t do it anymore.’
‘And what happens to him?’
‘Maybe my leaving will shock him into getting help.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’
She shut the boot. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That makes it all right then.’
‘Carrie—’
‘Go.’
I continued beyond the driveway and cleared the pavement outside our house, shifted a path from the road, a valley between two hills of dirty snow and sand ploughed up in the gutter. I could have kept going along the pavement, round onto Midstocket, up onto the Drive and out of the city, gone forever.
Scottish Highlands, December 25th 1990
A car horn blasted over the desolate landscape and it took Marcus a moment to realise it was him doing it. He let his arm go slack and it fell from the steering wheel into his lap. The vision of Piper Alpha blazing in the night gave way to the morning sun. There was a bottle of Laphroaig on the passenger seat, about two inches left. He took a swig, the burn of it confirming he was alive, he was awake. Merry Christmas. Marcus Fraser, still alive. Survivor.
Where the fuck was he?
The Saab was parked on a patch of grass at the side of a single-track road. He clambered out into the bitter bracing air and fumbled for a cigarette. The hills were covered in snow, dirty off-white patches, a mottled effect of dark brush, bare rock, puddles and bogs. About twenty metres ahead the road curved to the right, the hill blocking his view of what might be lurking. The road back wriggled like an uncoiled intestine along the shore of a smallish loch before disappearing behind another hill. It looked familiar but most of the roads in the Highlands were familiar. How had he got there? Shards of memory. Christmas Eve in Under The Hammer. Mistletoe, a kiss from that solicitor, Isobel. No taxis to be had. Icy roads home.
