Bareback

by John Burke

  Hannah ran mentally through her own programme as she washed up the breakfast things.

  The Pictish Guild meeting this afternoon could be a crucial one. She had to inspire them, inflame them, prepare to lead them into battle. No shirking this time.

  When she had dried her hands she went into the sitting-room and began striding up and down with the portable cassette recorder in her left hand, leaving her right hand free to gesticulate and hammer her points home. First of all they must prepare their own short list of nominees for the Bareback Lass, to be presented at the Pipers’ Ball with strong recommendations which Sir Nicholas would be foolish to ignore. Hannah could have jotted down a few notes, but liked to hear how her own voice came across when she played it back, and check on the necessary emphasis here and there.

  Next would be the final touches for the Pictish Guild Parade.

  She had wanted to launch a women’s counter-display last year, but too many fainthearts had jibbed at the last minute. That eternally havering Madge Carruthers was the worst of the lot. ‘My Jock’s always been a staunch supporter of the Ride-outs. The men, I mean. He’ll no like this way of looking at things.’

  ‘You let your husband dictate to you?’

  ‘He doesnae dictate. It’s no like that. We . . . well, we sort of discuss things. Between us.’

  ‘Discuss things?’ Hannah echoed scornfully. ‘Between you? And who gets his way in the end?’

  This year she had stalled as long as there was the prospect of her own daughter riding as the Bareback Lass. Now she was in a fine crusading mood to confront the might of Kilstane male chauvinists with the full might of the Kilstane women. The Guild simply had to assert its principles in the teeth of outmoded male prejudice. And if there was any attempt to block their ride, there might well be a cavalry battle in the streets of Kilstane. People would be talking about it for years to come.

  Just as she was enjoying the playback of her final peroration, there was a ring at the doorbell.

  If it was one of the women come to cry off, God help her.

  Hannah marched to the door and flung it open.

  Sandy Craig said: ‘Long time no see.’

  He had put on weight since their divorce. His always coarse features were puffier than before, and there were pink smears in the whites of his eyes. He had gone very jowly. Not enough exercise, maybe, with those little floozies he seemed able to pick up in every bar: or was he losing out even on that nowadays?

  ‘Going to invite me in?’

  Warily she stood back. He tried to pat her bottom as he squeezed past. She knocked his arm aside.

  In the sitting-room he looked around appreciatively. When she sat in her usual place on the couch, pushing the tape recorder to one side, he slumped down beside her and put a hand on her knee.

  ‘I made a silly mistake, didn’t I? Should never have let that little creep whisk you off. Didn’t realise what I’d be missing.’

  He sounded so utterly sincere. He had always been the smooth con man, at any given moment really and truly believing every word he was saying. You couldn’t call him a liar – not till later.

  She was very conscious of him there, so close. It had started just like this, indecently soon after David Torrance’s death, and gathered speed, with him setting the pace. After they were married she had come to hate him; or believe she hated him. But he was as real and solid as she remembered, and she hoped he couldn’t sense the quiver that was running through her.

  ‘You know’ – it was as if he had plucked her confused thoughts out of the air – ‘we were pretty good together. In one way anyway. I wouldn’t mind one of those weekends we used to have. They were great, remember? Before we got married.’

  ‘Yes, that’s just how you enjoyed things. Before getting married. Then afterwards with all those others. No responsibilities. That’s how you’ve always liked it.’

  ‘All right, all right, Queenie.’

  ‘And don’t call me Queenie.’

  ‘Look, I’ve admitted I was stupid. I keep wondering . . .’

  ‘Do you?’

  She moved closer to the sofa arm. Sandy edged along to pin her against it, and put his hand on her knee again. He was never one to waste time on subtle preliminaries. ‘Ever thought of ditching Archie?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me that that drip’s better than I was in the sack.’

  ‘Am I not?’

  ‘You know you’re not. Chinless wonder. And I bet he’s not too well endowed in other parts of his anatomy, eh?’

  Shamefully she laughed.

  ‘There we are, then,’ said Sandy.

  ‘No we’re not. We aren’t anywhere.’

  Sandy looked over his shoulder at the open door to the hall and the foot of the stairs. ‘Expecting him back any minute?’

  ‘No. He never comes back in the morning. Never gets back till evening, as a rule.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘You can’t just come walking in here like this,’ she said desperately, ‘and expect me to –’

  ‘Expect you to what?’

  ‘I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Never used to call it work.’

  ‘Look, what have you come here for?’

  ‘You know darned well.’ His grin was insufferably confident. ‘I can tell you’re with me. I could always tell when you were in the mood.’

  ‘I’m not in any mood. Least of all for you.’

  His hand moved, tightened. ‘Come on. We both know what it’s all about.’ His fleshy lips pounced on hers. She wriggled free and waved towards the door, indicating he should clear out. When he tried to pull her back she stormed out into the hall. But she could not bring herself to open the front door. Following her, he gazed up the stairs and chuckled.

  ‘Come on, don’t waste time. Don’t pretend.’

  ‘I’m not pretending.’

  But she was wavering towards the stairs when there was the sound of a key in the front door.

  Sandy muttered: ‘You said Archie never came back in the –’

  The door opened as Kirsty let herself in. She stopped, staring.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘He’s just going,’ said Hannah.

  Kirsty glared a half-formed accusation, then went on towards the kitchen.

  Sandy looked pleased rather than alarmed, as if he would have been amused by a showdown. But he kept his voice subdued. ‘Look, like I said, why don’t you ditch him? He showed you how to do well out of me. Isn’t it time you did well out of him?’

  Of course. She might have guessed. The settlement and the alimony had hurt him, and even after she remarried he hadn’t recouped enough to get back on his feet.

  ‘And if I did get money out of him,’ she demanded in a fierce undertone, ‘what would I be expected to do with it?’

  ‘You could come into partnership with me. Look, I’ve got some business ideas I’d like to set up, but the way things are just at this moment –’

  ‘You don’t change, do you? That’s the only reason you came here. Hoping you could get round me. Snivelling about money. That’s what you’re missing.’

  ‘It’s not like that. All right, so I played around. I’m telling you now: I can see it was stupid. I can see that.’

  ‘You can only see it because it cost you money. Lost you money, in the end.’

  ‘And what about you? Don’t tell me you gave me up for Archie Ferguson because he could shaft you five times a night? Look, we belong together, you know that.’

  ‘Money,’ she repeated. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Haven’t asked you for a penny yet. If we’d got upstairs there, I wouldn’t have charged you a penny for my services. Given you the lot free of charge.’

  She tried to slap his face, then held back because of the noise it would make. There was no telling whether Kirsty was listening at the kitchen door.

  ‘Get out of here.’

  He kissed
her before she could stop him. The smell of booze and stale cigarette smoke on his breath was just the way she remembered it.

  As she opened the door he said: ‘Is there any law against Archie handling his own divorce? Save a lot of expense all round. We needn’t be too hard on him.’

  Again she wanted, crazily, to laugh, and at the same time yell at him.

  ‘What divorce? What are you on about?’

  ‘It’s a tempting idea, isn’t it? Getting things back where they belong. This time with a bit of useful capital.’

  ‘Why should you suppose I’d ever want to –’

  ‘Because you do, that’s why. I made a mistake, all right. But so did you. A big mistake.’ He pushed his face into hers again. ‘There’s got to be a way of getting rid of him. Think about it.’

  Kirsty came back along the passage and stood in the sitting-room doorway, silently but frankly challenging the two of them. In her coldest voice Hannah said: ‘All right, Sandy. Any financial matter should be discussed with my husband. You have to talk to Archie.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him all right.’

  She was horrified to find how unsettled she felt after he had left. All the life had been sucked out of the place. Archie had never supplied any life worth mentioning. She had almost forgotten what it was like to feel . . . to be hungry . . . No, she wasn’t going to let herself imagine things like that.

  It was difficult to go back and concentrate on her speech, but by the time she and Kirsty had had a silent early lunch together the adrenalin was flowing again, and she set off to address her Pictish ladies at full volume.

  That evening Archie did not even bother to ask how their meeting had gone. Not that she ever got any pleasure out of telling him anything that happened. He played no part in her real life.

  She thought of Sandy Craig. With all his faults, there had been somebody there. He had walked away, yet he was still somehow around, filling a space Archie Ferguson could never hope to fill.

  She did not tell Archie about the visit. Let him find out for himself, when Sandy walked into that office of his. If he did get round to it.

  It must have been all talk. What could Sandy Craig really expect to get out of Archie?

  Chapter Five

  On Friday morning rain fell warm and lazy. It had stopped by early afternoon, but the streets and pavements were still slimy underfoot. Trickles from the guttering down the window of Archie Ferguson’s office were like snail traces distorting the gilded lettering.

  He was only vaguely aware of what was going on outside. The dry papers on his desk were far more fascinating than the damp swishing sounds of the street. Some of the spidery handwriting was hard to interpret even with a magnifying glass, and many of the sheets were out of order. Even so, he was beginning to build up a remarkable story from the late Sebastian Cameron’s collection. When it came to a full professional valuation, he wondered just what price might be set on them by different people – those who might want to buy and publicise them, and those who would want to suppress them.

  With some reluctance he turned to more recent documents taken from Cameron’s safe. There were the shop lease, some bank statements, some shares and a sheaf of recent correspondence. He read the top letter. Then re-read it. He was just about to settle down to more detailed examination when Miss Elliot rang through to say that he had a visitor. She sounded quite shaken. He knew all Miss Elliot’s nuances, every note of approval or disapproval in her voice, and could imagine her face at this very moment: taut and disapproving.

  ‘Mr Ferguson, it’s Mr Craig. Mr Alexander Craig.’

  ‘What on earth does he want?’

  ‘He says he prefers to talk to you personally. Shall I tell him you’re –’

  Her voice was cut off by an even more indignant squeak as the inner door opened to admit Sandy Craig into Archie’s office. Archie spluttered a protest. ‘Now look here, you can’t just barge in and –’

  ‘Calm down, laddie. Shouldn’t be any formalities between us, should there? The two of us. I mean, we’ve had a lot in common in the past, eh?’

  Without waiting to be asked, he drew a chair up to the far side of the desk. Instinctively Archie laid a folder across the papers he had been studying.

  ‘Whatever it is you’ve come about’ – he kept it as stiff and discouraging as possible – ‘cut it short. I have a lot to do.’

  ‘Cut it short? Right. I was thinking of a deal.’

  ‘I can’t imagine any possible deals, as you call them, which would interest me.’

  ‘Let’s put it this way. I could do with a bit of a financial boost right now.’

  ‘Ah. You’re hoping in some devious way to suggest Hannah or I owe you some recompense?’

  ‘I looked after her all those years.’

  ‘Not so many years. And “looking after her” is not quite the phrase I would employ.’

  ‘I looked after her,’ Craig repeated, ‘until you came along and put her up to those legal tricks so you could get your hands on her. I reckon you owe me. All that settlement money you soaked me for – and once it was in the bag, you married her yourself.’

  ‘There was never any question of my making a profit.’

  ‘Turned out a bit of a loss, eh? Hard lines. But come on, you asked for it. She’d never have gone ahead with divorcing me if you hadn’t been so keen on your rakeoff.’

  ‘Rubbish. Hannah approached me, not the other way round.’

  ‘Funny, that. When I was talking to her yesterday –’

  ‘Talking to her yesterday? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Shall I prove it by describing your sitting-room furniture, and the wallpaper? And maybe the bedroom – or don’t you know much about that?’

  ‘She never said a word about this to me.’

  Craig leered. ‘And why d’you suppose that might be?’

  ‘I don’t believe a single word of this.’

  ‘Look, I told you I was here for a deal. What’s it worth to have her taken off your hands?’

  ‘Why on earth should you suppose –’

  ‘Come off it. You poor, bloody downtrodden little sod.’

  ‘I think you’d better leave these premises.’

  ‘You wish to God you’d never helped her get rid of me, and lumbered yourself. Sort of negative equity – that’s what they say nowadays, isn’t it? I’ve told you, I’m here to offer a deal.’

  Archie said it again. ‘I can’t imagine any deal which would interest me.’

  ‘A quickie divorce. How does that grab you? If you make it worth my while.’

  ‘She’d never consent.’

  Even as the words left his mouth Archie knew he had made a tactical error, like an attorney in court walking straight into an opponent’s trap. It was as good as assuring Sandy Craig that he had assessed Archie’s feelings correctly.

  ‘You know how to go about these things,’ Craig went on with renewed confidence. ‘Mutual consent’s all the thing nowadays. But you have to wait a while, don’t you?’

  ‘Mutual consent?’ said Archie bitterly.

  Craig laughed in appreciation of the absurdity of that. ‘Good old-fashioned adultery is still the best thing if the other partner’s unwilling, right?’

  ‘She’d not be willing to commit adultery just to please me.’

  ‘But she’s already done it. Yesterday morning. To please me. And herself, from the way I understood it.’

  Archie tried to sneer disbelief. He was not very good at sneering. And Craig was so convincing. Every note rang true. From past legal experience Archie knew that this was the mark of the true con man. An obviously flagrant liar couldn’t con anyone into handing over money, information, or love. He had to be convinced of it himself as he said it; and could believe the exact opposite an hour or two later when it suited him.

  Finally Archie managed it: ‘She wouldn’t.’

  ‘Ask her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘No, somehow I didn’t t
hink you would.’

  ‘You’ve no proof.’

  ‘Ah, is that what worries you? No photographs. No witness. But suppose I guarantee to supply proof? Hotel bills, the lot? Dirty weekend, chambermaid ready to testify in court. And you’re rid of her.’

  ‘You’re talking monstrous rubbish. I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘Dream of it.’ Craig got up and swaggered towards the door. ‘A free man again. And it wouldn’t cost you too much. I’ll offer you a reasonable bargain. You can afford it, and you want it. Come on, you’re the sly one, organising this sort of thing every day. Fix it for your own benefit for once. We’ll both be better off.’

  Archie tried to get out words that didn’t belong in his ordinary vocabulary. ‘Are you . . . in love with my wife?’

  ‘Oh, let’s not go overboard. Cut the sentiment, right? Let’s just say that I can give her things you can’t. Her moneysworth. Oh, that I can promise. Think about it. I’ll come back with the evidence, right? And you can do all the checks you want.’

  Miss Elliot rang through again, to announce the arrival of Mr James Brown. She was usually far from welcoming any appearance of Jamie, but for once she seemed positively eager to steer him into her employer’s presence.

  ‘Right.’ Craig got up and held out his hand. Archie ignored it. ‘Work out the details. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’

  Jamie Brown, like his predecessor, did not hesitate to sit down facing Archie.

  ‘Right, what progress are we making?’

  He had come to discuss progress with the Cameron estate. Archie kept the folder in place across the papers. ‘I might ask you the same,’ he said. ‘There still seem to be some documents missing. Including your lease of the flat above the shop.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say? I must have that at home somewhere. No problem. And perhaps if I could have the key, I could go through the shop and dig out anything else. Save you the trouble. And give us a better idea of just what has to be cleared out when we do get an offer for the place.’

  ‘I think it would be better if we went round together.’

  He tried to concentrate, tying Brown’s usual quickfire bluster in with facts and discrepancies in the papers he had just been assessing. But his mind kept wandering. He refused to believe that Hannah would have let herself be fooled again by Sandy Craig. In their own house. In the bed they shared without any of that sort of thing.