'I'm not married.’
'"Beth Lauriston"…It's a name you remember. I suppose that must be an advantage.’
'I could have kept my name, that's not why I didn't marry,' the woman said, with a little smile that came and went at once.
'Weren't you ever in love?'
The woman tilted her head, peeping up. She's here on her own, Lucy thought, and wary in case I'm going to make a scene of some sort.
'My painting has been everything to me.’
'That's hard for me to imagine. All I ever wanted was to be married and have a family.’
'That must be nice.’ And as Lucy stared not understanding, 'Having a family.’
'Oh, yes,' Lucy said. 'My little girls.’ For a moment, tiny hands were warm in hers and then they were gone. She couldn't see their faces. 'So even if a man wanted to marry you, you would have said no.’
'There weren't so very many offers,' the woman said, and the little smile appeared and went again.
'Even if he was ready to give everything up and marry you.’ When the woman frowned, Lucy pointed back towards the painting of the boy on the ice. 'Did someone tell you about it? I meant what I said about it seeming real. As if it really happened and he told you about it.’
'I wouldn't want to talk about that,' the woman said.
'Is he dead?'
'Who?' The word came as a gasp, with something of fright in it.
'When you said that. I wondered if he was dead.’ And Lucy pointed back towards the painting.
The woman instead of answering turned a page of the book which lay open on the table in front of her.
'And now he's dead. You're sad, but you kept something of him alive. At least you have the child.’
She didn't take her eyes from Lucy, turning a page without looking at it.
Touching wood, Lucy thought, as if I was someone who had come to lay a curse upon her
'The painting, I mean, imagining him as he must have looked as a child.’
'I'm sorry,' the woman said, 'you've got it wrong. That's a painting of my son.’
When in the summer term the University held a memorial service for Maitland, Lucy was almost sure Beth Lauriston hadn't come. By that time, however, she could not remember her face very clearly, so it was possible she was there.
Afterwards some of the staff walked with her to her car, shook hands, said the last meaningless things. On impulse, she pulled over at a quiet spot on the campus road and walked down to the edge of the loch. It was warm and the water was blue that had been grey and ringed with ice all winter. She picked up a stone, a flat one that you might send skipping across the water, and then held it forgotten in her hand. At some point during the service, she had been trying to remember the last time Maitland made love to her. She had been trying to remember as much as she could, but the minister's voice made it hard to concentrate. It had seemed just then desperately important not to lose any of it, since that was the last time anyone would make love to her. The holiness of the heart's affections. The phrase had run in her head. The words not meaning anything. A quote from somewhere. Holiness. Heart. Affections.
When she heard the noise of someone coming down the slope to her, she didn't mind that it was Sam Wilson. It was unlikely she would see him again.
'I don't want to interrupt,' he said. 'It was just that during the service, I wasn't thinking of Maitland's work or how distinguished he was. It was something that happened just after I'd come here, and seeing you I felt I needed to tell you. When I came at first I was an academic warden. In one of the halls over there.’ Across the loch white concrete blocks crouched beneath soggy hills drying out under the sun. 'Dreadful narrow little rooms like passages. So depressing. I think that makes people cruel. There was a ringleader, of course. And the one they picked as a victim. In the lavatories graffiti on the walls. "Rodney is scum.” Does that sound silly? I thought he would end by killing himself. I told Maitland. He was…very fierce. I do believe he saved that boy's life.’
As he finished, his voice broke and he began to sob. Unable to stop, he made angry little chopping gestures with his hand.
'I'm so ridiculous,' he wept. 'You've been remarkable. Wonderfully brave. I'm so sorry. '
'It was kind of you.’ She wondered if she should lay her hand on his arm, but wasn't sure he would want that.
'You must miss him so much.’
It came into her mind that now Maitland was dead there was no one to remember her as a girl. While he was alive, and whether or not he wished it to be so, that young girl and how she had looked being in love was held in memory.
She doubted if Sam Wilson would understand any of that, and so instead she said, 'The place where he died was so awful. Such a shabby room.’
'I'm a Christian, you know. Not that I push it at anyone. But I find it does help.’
'If it wasn't for the thorns and the poor hands with nails through them. I wish instead of the Cross we had a symbol of the cave and the rock rolled away. That would be a better thing to have in our thoughts.’
'I never heard Maitland say that.’ Like a boy he wiped with his fingers at the tears drying on his cheeks.
'No,' Lucy said, 'I thought of that by myself.’
If you enjoyed reading A Stranger Came you may be interested in Ripped by Frederic Lindsay, also published by Endeavour Press.
Extract from Ripped by Frederic Lindsay
Prologue
ONE DAY IN THE BEGINNING
‘One day in the beginning’, Jamie said to her, 'if I put my wee bobbie into your vagina, you'd get a rare tickle.'
She knew what his bobbie was; it was one of the names the boys used for that part of themselves. All of the small ones, the five year olds or the six year olds like Jamie, when they got excited or worried would absent-mindedly clutch themselves there. Because she was a year older, and for other reasons, she felt superior to Jamie. When she told Miss Sturrock what Jamie had said, Miss Sturrock pretended to be too busy to listen.
'I don't have time for your nonsense,' Miss Sturrock said.
She looked at Miss Sturrock's neck; it had gone red at the front, all the way down to where it went into her blouse out of sight.
'I know what his bobbie is,' she said, watching Miss Sturrock's neck, 'but what does “vagina” mean ?'
'That's not a word you're allowed to use. It's a rude word,' Miss Sturrock said.
'I don't think Jamie should be allowed to use rude words to me,' she told Miss Sturrock.
Miss Sturrock pretended not to hear.
'I don't think,' she said, 'Jamie should be allowed to use rude words like – '
'Stop it!' Miss Sturrock cried, not pretending any more. Her eyes were watering as if she was getting ready to cry. 'I don't believe Jamie said any of that to you. He didn't say any such thing at all!'
It made the rest of the morning interesting, trying to get Miss Sturrock to explain what the word meant, and wondering why she would not give Jamie a row.
At the end of the day, she took her coat off the peg and put it on. There were twenty pegs on each side but only fourteen children in the school. She counted the pegs on her side. When she had taken her coat, all the pegs were empty. In the quietness, she could hear the sounds of Miss Sturrock tidying away. Softly, she turned the handle on the door of Miss Sturrock's toilet and peeped in but was disappointed. It was nothing- only a lavatory seat like the girls' ones only bigger and a wash-hand basin. A sound behind her made her turn round.
'Go away,' Miss Sturrock said. She was standing at the end of the corridor by the classroom door. Her hands were hanging by her sides, and she didn't look or sound angry. She said: 'Just go away. Why can't you be like your sister? Why can't you be like anybody else?'
When she came into the playground, they were waiting for her. 'You're a clype,' Peter said. He had a fat round face and thick red hands that looked as if they were swollen. 'You've been trying to get our Jamie into trouble.' He was Jamie's cousin, but everybody was everybody's cou
sin. Except her. And Francesca, of course.
'You are a crapule.' She said it carefully, making the word sound exactly the way her mother used to say it.
His mouth gaped at her, like a fish in a box at their stupid harbour. The thought made her smile and at once without any warning he kicked her on the front of the leg. She screamed tears and rage; and over that, as if she were listening for some other sound, she heard one of the boys sniggering.
They were all round her, laughing and pushing, and then they were going away. So quickly that her mouth had not emptied of its screams, they were all gone, running off round to the side of the shed. In the quietness, she looked up and Miss Sturrock was watching at the window; the teacher's face made a white circle and the brooch swinging below it sparkled through her tears.
The school and the field beside it were at the top of the hill and that was the end of the village. The Woman whom Francesca and she were supposed to call Mummy stayed in a house at the bottom of the road that wound down to the flat ground beside the harbour in two loops. Half way down, Fat Chae was crouched by the edge, but his mother wasn't with him. Although he was almost grown up, his mother was always with him. 'Poor wee thing it's hurt.' It wasn't easy to follow what he was trying to say, since even his tongue was fat and flopped between his lips as he spoke. She hunkered down beside him to get a better look. The feathers on one side were all puffed out so the bird looked fat and round, but the other side was broken and the wing was pulled half off. Two yellow legs stuck out thin and stiff. The fish lorry coming down the hill threw a streak of brown mud on to the white feathers. 'You are stupid,' she said. She stood up and stirred the bird with her foot. 'It's not hurt, it's dead.' A soft smear came out of the dead body of the bird across the shining toe of her shoe.
Fat Chae struggled to his feet. She heard his breath wheezing in his chest. 'I've got a sweetie in my pocket do you want a sweetie?' His lips mumbled them as if each word were a plump gobbet of sweetness.
She shook her head. The thought of eating anything he gave her made her sick.
'Money,' he said. 'I've got money in there you can have it in there.' He pointed at his trouser pocket and pulled it open with one finger. With money she could buy sweets of her own, they would be nothing to do with him; but when she pushed her hand into his pocket, having to squeeze hard against the fat thrust and straining of his thigh, there was no bottom to the pocket and she touched the soft bulging place between his legs. She tried to pull her hand out and for a moment it was held by the tightness of the cloth as if she was in a trap.
'I hate you,' she said. She bent and wiped the soft dead stuff from her shoe, but even when she shook her fingers some of it clung to them. She reached out and rubbed them clean on the ragged sleeve of Fat Chae's jersey.
He stared at the mark puzzled. 'It was a joke, boys do it told me to do it.'
'I hate you. Fat pig.'
He looked up at her. 'Your mother was a whore,' he said dearly, spacing out the words as if he had borrowed a voice for an effect of mimicry.
Don't you talk about my mother! The words in her mind were like the screams which had come from her mouth when Jamie's cousin kicked her, but she had learned not to say them aloud when anyone spoke of Mother.
'Your mother,' he said, and hesitated, trying to get it right, ‘your mother was – your mother was murdered.'
Straight above the harbour the sky was grey but beyond the church it was black. That was like the sea which was grey near the land and black as black far out. Only where it met the sky there was a thin strip of whitey cloud like an eyelid.
Somebody's hit the world, and it's got a sore face.
When she came into the kitchen, the Woman looked round from the oven and asked, 'Why are you limping? What's up with your leg?'
'I don't remember,' she said.
She could not think of a reason then why her leg should be sore.
'Was it the boys?' the Woman asked anxiously. She lifted a tray from the oven with a big shape wrapped and hidden on it. The kitchen was heavy with warmth. 'Have they been tormenting you again?'
'I pay them no attention.' She watched as the Woman set the tray on the big wooden table. 'They're just common fishermen's sons.'
'Don't let your daddy hear you saying that! He wouldn't think it was funny,' the Woman said, staring at her in fright. That was stupid, the Woman's husband was not her father, stupid, but she said nothing, watching as the Woman unwrapped the shape on the tray.
'A lovely bird.' The Woman patted it with the backs of her fingers. A bird? It was nothing like the puffed staring brokenness under the hedge; and yet, there were the legs, but it had no wings to fly. It was uglier than the bird under the hedge.
As she watched, the Woman peeled strips that hung curling from her fingers. 'Bits of bacon, that keep it moist and sweet' she said. Then took a long clean knife and starting at the top cut down, until a wall of white meat toppled over and did that twice more. Then took smaller pieces, and at last with the tip of the knife pushed out curls from the bony corners. She turned the tray and did it all again, the white walls dropped in the same way and again with the tip of the knife she pushed out the last twists and curls of the meat.
'Here.' The Woman held out a dangling length and she opened her mouth and the Woman dropped it warm on to her tongue. 'No more, mind.'
She watched and the Woman took one of the legs and bent it and twisted until it pulled loose. Where it tore free red liquid gathered under the torn place.
'Oh, it could have done with a while longer.'
With her fingers the Woman worked at the gap, and brown chunks and strands were piled on another plate. The pool of red widened.
'We'll do something with those bits, to be on the safe side.'
'What's that? The red stuff?'
'It shouldn't be there. It's a big bird, right enough.' Blood. It was blood.
The piece she had started to swallow came up her throat and she would be sick but nothing came. She spat out the chewed horror from her mouth.
'You wee bitch!' the Woman cried. 'Get out of this kitchen! That was deliberate badness. You did that out of badness!'
At the gate she watched the boats hurry nearer through the dark water. The one who tried to make her call him Daddy would be on one of them bringing back the big-clawed creatures caught in a crib. He would drop the creature into boiling water and it would die. When it was dead, he took it out and broke the shell with a spoon and took out the pink and brown stuff inside.
Was there no blood in it?
Fat Chae, who liked to watch the boats come back, was walking down to the harbour beside his mother. They walked slowly without speaking. His mother was always with him though he was almost grown up.
'There you are, ' the Woman said. She had come to the door. 'Come back in here.' When she went inside, the Woman gave her a kiss. 'I shouldn't have lost my temper with you.' She felt the Woman stroke her hair. 'Poor thing, poor lamb, poor motherless bairn.'
The best thing was to smile and put your head against her. She felt the hand stroke, stroke her hair. 'You're a good girl. You're my girl now. That's what you're going to be,' the Woman said. 'I don't pay any heed to what they say. I know you'll grow up to be a good girl.'
It was silly to be afraid of blood. I won't scream, she thought, not even if it is coming off her fingers on to my hair.
BOOK ONE
1 After Midnight
SATURDAY, AUGUST 25TH 1988
After midnight; Murray Wilson kept his head down and climbed towards Sunday bells and an old woman's voice.
It had been an unprofitable week; there had been too many like that on the string recently. That day, however, he had worked at his trade. After lunch, he had taken a bus out into the country. Half an hour was enough to change worlds. Among the neat bungalows, he found the right neat bungalow and at his knock a nice suburban lady shading forty, in green slacks and a halter top, appeared. Her smile was pleasant, but there was too much caution in it, which l
et him know that he was at the right house.
'Mrs Jerrold?'
'Yes?'
She made it into a question, but the lack of a denial was all he needed. She watched his hand as he pulled out the envelope. He held it up and her eyes moved as she read what was scrawled across the front : Gone Away.
'Your writing? Or Mr Jerrold's? Anyway here you are and here I am, and you've probably had one of these before.' With a natural movement, he passed her the envelope. 'Would you like to write a cheque for me now? If you don't, the only place your husband will be going away to will be court.'
'I couldn't give you a cheque,' she said. 'My husband handles the money – anything to do with money.'
'He wouldn't mind,' he said. 'If it has to be done, maybe he'd prefer if you did it.'
'I don't have a cheque book. Don't you see I can't help you?'
'I was trying to make it easier for you,' he said. 'But I don't mind waiting.'
He sat in the front room surrounded by the expensive furnishings for which his clients would like to be paid. At one point in the afternoon, she brought him a cup of tea, and said suddenly as he drank it, 'He tries hard. He doesn't drink or gamble. It's not his fault.' When he went upstairs to the lavatory, all the doors to the bedrooms were closed. He opened each of them, one had a bed and a table, the second was empty, in the last there were mattresses on the floor and children's clothes scattered on the bare boards and stuffed into cardboard boxes, the kind firms use to deliver a washing machine or a television set.
It was his trade to know how to persuade people to give information, to accept documents, to make statements that had to be signed against what they saw at first as their own interests; and this was done not by force but by his understanding of what would influence them. For instance the opinion of neighbours, the effect on their business, the hope of leniency if they co-operated, sometimes shame, conscience perhaps or some picture of the person they had once imagined themselves to be. Part of his trade was to be able to get into a house, and sit, and wait. After a time, two little girls arrived in from school and sat side by side on the couch watching him with wide eyes. 'Play upstairs,' their mother said at last. 'It's only a man who's come to see Daddy.' When Daddy came home from hunting, he wrote a cheque and held it between trembling fingers. 'You won't have any trouble with that,' he said, staring at his signature as if he felt in it some special power to cure what ailed him. It was the woman though who came to the door and asked, 'Are you proud of yourself?' whispering so that her husband would not hear.
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