by RL McKinney
Around midnight, Catriona knocked on his door. A full week had gone by since she’d told him about the rape. She hadn’t slept properly since, and they hadn’t spoken of it again. She felt like a balloon that was running out of helium. She drifted just above the ground, neither rising nor sinking, pushed by the changing breeze, bumping between obstacles, unable to control her own direction.
‘Dad?’ The door was closed but she could see light beneath. He was playing the guitar, very quietly.
The guitar stopped. ‘What?’
She pushed open the door and was hit immediately by the tang of dope. He was sitting in a chair beside the open window, wrapped in a quilt, holding the guitar, smoking. On a little table in front of him, a pad of paper with musical notation.
‘Oh my God, is that a joint?’
He glanced at it and put down the guitar. ‘Aye.’ It didn’t seem to bother him that she’d just caught him getting high. ‘What’s up, Cat?’
‘I can’t sleep.’ Outside, a heavy wind was sweeping around the woods. It whistled down the chimney. Lines plinked against metal masts. Branches creaked. Cold breath blew into the room.
‘Join the club.’ He held out the joint. ‘You want some of this?’
‘No! Where did you get that?’
‘I have my sources. For medicinal purposes, obviously.’ His voice was croaky and the corner of his mouth turned up. ‘You sure you don’t want some? It’s good.’
‘I don’t like it.’ She sat on the bed, watched him take a hard toke and felt uncomfortable. Everything was the wrong way around. She was the one who was supposed to get caught doing things she shouldn’t. He was supposed to lecture her about right and wrong, about the dangers of turning to substances for consolation, about slippery slopes, all of that. Had he forgotten that he was the parent? She turned away and surveyed his bedroom. A stack of dusty books, jumpers and jeans draped over the bedstead, a couple of empty mugs, guitar picks, CDs, coins. Blue badges that said Yes and Aye. A framed picture of herself as a wee girl: a scrappy tot in red wellies, dragging a stick in the sand. Another of himself on a stage, hair falling over his face as he bent forward, pulling the bow across the fiddle strings, a moment of joy captured like a butterfly in a jar.
She picked it up. His hair was fully dark then, his face unlined. He looked happier than she’d ever known him.
‘It’s been a fucked-up week,’ she said finally.
‘Yup.’
‘Are you all right?’
He laughed in his throat, stubbed out the roach on the outside sill, shut the window. ‘Better than I was half an hour ago.’
‘Give me a percentage?’
A detached shrug. ‘Twenty-one point four.’
‘That’s crap.’
‘I know that, boss.’
‘What are you going to do about it? Apart from getting completely off your face.’
‘Can I come back to you on that? Further exploration is required.’
‘I need you to do something for me.’ She drew a long breath. ‘I need you to take me to see Mum. I have to tell her.’
Calum stared at her for a moment, suddenly reconnected with reality. Then he took off his glasses and pressed his fingertips into his eyes, squinting like he couldn’t quite focus. ‘Are you asking me for a lift, or are you asking me to be there with you?’
‘I want you to be there. And I want you to be … ’ She trawled for a word that wouldn’t embarrass him. ‘You know. All there.’
‘Sober, you mean.’
‘Aye. No offence.’
‘What are you trying to say?’ He had a dopy wee chuckle to himself and his hand made a scraping noise as it moved across his cheek. ‘It’s fine, Cat. I’ll just need to sort out someone to look after Granny.’
‘Will you do that? I want to get it over with. And there’s something else. Would you … take me down to Edinburgh? I want to talk to Kyle.’
‘Ah. Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
‘Dad … I can’t get him out of my head. Every time I see someone walking towards me, I think it’s him and I can’t breathe. This is just going to go on and on. I have to tell him what he did. He probably doesn’t even realise.’
Calum chewed his lower lip and said nothing.
‘I’ve thought about this. I’ll meet him somewhere public. I’ll be fine.’
‘I’m not sure I will.’
‘It’s not about you.’
He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. ‘Okay. Aye … if that’s what you want to do. I’ll take you.’
‘Thank you.’ She shivered. ‘It’s freezing in here.’
‘Get under the cover.’
Catriona pulled back the duvet and lay down in his bed, and he lifted the guitar and began to play again, a tune as delicate and soft as a lullaby. She let her head sink into the pillow and remembered staying with him when she was wee. His flat had strange sounds and shadows that made her scared, and he’d sit on the floor beside the bed and play the guitar to keep her safe until she fell asleep. Sometimes he sang in Gaelic, and the meaningless syllables would wash around her like warm water, his voice soft and smooth as sanded oak.
‘Dad, can I ask you something? Have you ever been climbing again?’
‘No. Hillwalking, but not climbing.’
‘How come?’
‘I don’t think my knee would take it.’
‘Isn’t that just … you know … a handy excuse?’
‘Probably, but I’m sticking to it.’
‘I don’t want to go back to university.’ She hadn’t planned to say it like that, but it was the foremost thing in her mind, a relentless alarm going off, making sleep impossible.
‘Then don’t.’
She shifted her head on the pillow so she could see him. ‘D’you mean that?’
‘Aye. You’ve a home here as long as you want it.’
Alert again, she scurried to find a purpose for herself. ‘I was thinking I could do like … the Open University, or … maybe there’s a college, or … ’
‘When you’re ready. You need to be okay first, that’s the most important thing.’
‘Are you sure I’m not in your way?’
‘Catriona, wheesht. Just … ’ he sighed and sounded unbearably sad. ‘Wheesht now. Lie down. We’ll talk tomorrow.’
He started playing again, a sweet melody that sounded more American than Scottish and made her think of a long straight road across the desert. Tears pooled in her eyes, ran down her nose, and wicked into the pillow. She let them, felt her breathing become thick and congested. She turned over, pulled the other pillow against her face and cried until eventually the convulsions in her body subsided and let her slip into sleep.
CATCH
He sat there with his fingers in his hair. For two or three seconds, gravity pulled him forward and he felt like he was sitting on the edge of a precipice. Like the time he dangled his feet over the rim of the Grand Canyon. Michelle had dared him, and you couldn’t refuse one of Michelle’s dares unless you wanted to be taunted for weeks. Maybe she thought it would cure him. It didn’t, it only caused him to break into a cold sweat and become ashamed of himself in front of hundreds of tourists.
The dizziness passed. Jenny poured more wine and took a greedy drink, shuddered slightly. She had stopped crying but looked stunned, like a wounded rabbit waiting to be attacked by gulls. ‘I feel sick.’
Calum nodded silently and left his glass on the table. Any more wine and he would lose control over the things that came out of his mouth. There was enough venom swilling around the room already.
Catriona had disappeared upstairs and taken shelter in her bedroom, leaving her parents to negotiate the fallout. They argued about it because it was their habit to argue about everything to do with her. After a volley lasting more than an hour, they’d fallen into an exhausted ceasefire.
‘I don’t want to fight with you, Jen.’
She turned away from him, as if his words came with a bad smell. ‘Are yo
u and Cat actually getting on?’
‘Aye, we are.’
‘That’s nice for you.’ Her lip curled with cynicism.
He bristled. ‘It is nice, actually. It’s long overdue.’
‘You can’t blame me for that.’
‘I don’t.’
She stared at him hard, looking for the lie, possibly preparing to open a whole new line of attack. ‘So, you two are all cosy again, and you’ve let this go all summer without telling me.’
He kept his voice as low as he could. ‘Jenny, she only told me last week.’
‘But you knew something was wrong when she came to you. You knew she was hiding something.’
‘Aye, and I spoke to you about it, as you’ll recall.’
‘I wish you’d just brought her home, Calum.’
‘As far as I was concerned, she was home.’
‘Well you were wrong. She lives with me.’
‘Catriona made a choice to come to me. She’s an adult, I can’t control her any more than you can.’
‘Oh my God, you’re so bloody irresponsible. Have you taken her to the doctor? What if she’s pregnant? This is so typical of you.’
Typically irresponsible: always her favourite line. She’d hauled him over these particular coals so many times, they didn’t even hurt anymore. ‘She isn’t pregnant.’
‘You know that for sure?’
‘I have one bathroom in my house. I know she’s had her period.’
She got off the sofa and he followed her into the kitchen, where she began loading the dishwasher so furiously he thought the plates would break.
Jenny started in again. ‘So that’s it for you. She gets raped. She gets fucking raped and she drops out of university, but hey, she’s not pregnant. She isn’t going to repeat my mistake and ruin her life by having a kid at nineteen, and so everything’s just peachy. You’ve won. You’ve got your daughter working with you and she wants nothing to do with me, and God only knows what you’ve said about me to make her feel that way. You’ve won, Calum. Good for you.’
‘Jesus Christ, Jen, there is no possible way for anybody to win out of this situation.’
She whirled around, a paring knife in her fist. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t you dare step up on the moral high ground and try to lecture me. Don’t talk to me. If you speak to me right now, I might stick this knife into your stomach. I mean it.’
Jenny’s temper always had an edge of drama in it. In the past, he’d been able to call her bluff, but right now he wasn’t quite brave enough. He slid away from the kitchen doorway and returned to the living room, sat down again, closed his eyes, and tried to listen to the tempo of his own breathing. Tried to focus on slowing it, opening his lungs slowly, closing them slowly. It felt like if he breathed in too deeply, he might either scream or vomit. There was a pain in his chest.
How did you distinguish heartbreak from a heart attack? He supposed if he keeled over, he’d know.
She was sobbing in the other room. Clattering the dishes and sobbing, not bothering to keep it quiet. Then the sound of breakage and a curse.
He went back to the kitchen. She was hiccoughing into a tea towel with a broken wine glass at her feet. Pushing the glass aside with the instep of his boot, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest. She kept her arms folded up between them like armour but let him hold her, her body jolting with each intake of breath.
He stroked her hair. ‘I’m not trying to win anything. I should have been here for you. For both of you. If I had the time back, I’d stay.’
‘Well you don’t get the time back! So say it all you like, it doesn’t mean anything.’ Her voice was muffled against his jumper. ‘You didn’t want to stay with me, and that was the end of it.’
He spread his fingers in her hair and didn’t try to deny it. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry doesn’t change anything, Calum.’
‘You’re right, okay? I’m admitting that. We have to stop fighting. She needs us. It’s not going to get easier for her. She hasn’t dealt with it yet, in her head. She’ll need us both, Jen. Believe me.’
She looked up at him, face a scarlet, swollen mess. ‘What do we do?’
He brushed her cheeks very gently with his fingers, wiping away the tears and pushing the moist hair out of her eyes. ‘Just be here to catch her, that’s all.’
AFTER
Catriona took off her headphones and listened. Her parents had gone so completely silent there could only be one possible explanation: he was gone. Either Jenny had thrown him out or he had taken off, to the pub or even home. In spite of his promise to take her to Edinburgh, to stay with her, to keep her safe, he was gone again. He couldn’t stop himself. Disappointment burned like a fever across her face. She should have known better than to trust him. Well, that would be the last time. Trust was overrated anyway, she’d known that all along.
She lay on her back, trying not to cry, trying to convince herself it didn’t matter. It wasn’t so bad, being back here. Surely Mum would go easier on her now that she knew the truth. She could find a job and make the best of things, and at least Kate and Eilidh were here. Maybe eventually they could all share a flat together. She listened to the familiar creaks of old Mr Stoddart climbing his stairs next door. Beyond that, she heard the hiss of car tyres on the wet street. Geese flying overhead, a noise that announced the coming of the darkness and always made her sad. From somewhere outside, a peal of feminine laughter, a boy’s voice, the scrape of high heels on pavement.
It was the time for gathering in and sheltering down. She should be getting ready to go back to uni. Her friends would be packing and celebrating their final days at home, drinking, clubbing, shagging, laughing. She felt like an invalid who could only look on from afar, gradually losing any desire to join them.
Now there was only one last person to confront. Calum was supposed to drive her down in the morning. Damn him, now she’d have to ask her mum for money for the train and explain why she needed it. And she’d have to face Kyle alone. As much as the thought terrified her, maybe it was for the best. This way, at least she’d know that she’d stood up for herself. It wasn’t how she’d imagined it, but she’d called him to ask for the meeting and she wasn’t going to back out now.
He’d been his typical smooth self on the phone. ‘Jesus Bloody Christ, it’s the Stray Cat. Where you been, girlfriend?’
‘Visiting family,’ she said. The word girlfriend made her shudder, but she kept her voice steady. She had to give him enough truth to stop him asking any more questions. ‘Uni was pretty full on at the end of term. I needed a break.’
‘I phoned you a hundred times. Everyone’s saying you like … went a bit mental and were in the psych ward or something.’
‘I haven’t been in the psych ward, Kyle. Don’t believe every bit of gossip you hear. My mum told me you phoned the house.’
‘I was worried about you.’
‘Really? Okay, look. I’m coming down to Edinburgh tomorrow. Meet me at Peter’s Yard at three. We’ll talk then. Can you do that?’
‘Yeah, all right. I’m going to a Yes rally at Holyrood after that. You should come. Unless you’ve changed your colours.’
‘I haven’t, but I’m busy tomorrow night. I’ll see you at three.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
You do that, she thought as she hung up.
She might have crumbled at the sound of his voice on the phone, but she didn’t. She’d given away nothing, and she was proud of that. If she could make that call, she could face him.
This time tomorrow night, it would be done.
There was a noise downstairs: the rustle of a body moving around on the leather sofa. Catriona got up, slipped on her old pink dressing gown and poked her head into the corridor. Jenny’s bedroom door was shut and there was silence from within. She moved as quietly as she could along the landing and down the stairs, and looked into the living room.
Calum was asleep o
n the sofa. Relief flooded her. ‘Thank God,’ she whispered. She sat on the arm of the sofa, feeling weak and guilty. Very softly, because she didn’t really want him to wake up, she said, ‘I’m sorry, Dad.’
His face was resting on one arm, his other arm hanging down to the floor, knees at a sharp angle, feet draped over the arm of the sofa. His blanket had fallen off. It looked uncomfortable and she considered waking him, offering him her bed. She was almost a whole foot shorter than him; she could stretch out on the sofa without a problem. His knees would hurt him in the morning if he slept there all night.
But he was sound, breathing heavily, clearly long past any discomfort. She smiled in the darkness, picked up the blanket and draped it over him, tucked it in at the side. Then she went back up the stairs and got into her bed.
YIELD POINT
They were driving south on the A90, passing Laurencekirk. The particular combination of land and sky – fields of ripe wheat, rising west to the hills under a stormy purple canopy – reminded him of the road trips he’d taken across America before he got married. They were the best times of his life, riding across deserts and plains and farmlands, camping out, stumbling across jam sessions in unlikely bars, meeting his fellow travellers: men and women who loved being on the road more than anything else in the world. Out there he could understand why oil was so fundamental to the American idea of freedom. Without it, there was no onward movement. No movement, no escape. No escape, no freedom. That open road was everything.
In Scotland, you could move but you could never escape. Everything here was more controlled, more claustrophobic, always hemmed in by the sea. Space was an illusion. You could never be out of anyone’s reach, not even out on his remote little fringe. He’d loved all that American distance for the first few years. He’d loved the freedom of wheels and money, but eventually it left him hollow and lonely for something he couldn’t name. He had never properly connected with anyone in America, not even Michelle. He spent those hazy months after his breakdown lying in the Southern California sun, reading old books of Scottish poetry that he’d had since school and they made him so homesick that he was willing to give up everything and come back.
