The Day She Died: A Novel

by Catriona McPherson

  The first time I’d ever met this bloke was a prime example. It had been months ago, maybe even a year ago, and he’d been dressed different then—a polo shirt and trousers like a uniform, ponytail under a baseball cap. He’d been standing in front of the Disney princesses birthday cakes in Morrison’s, just staring. I’d noticed him because usually it was women who stood in front of cakes and stared. Then I’d seen him again at the Kiplings, with a sponge sandwich in his hands, a chocolate one, and he was gripping it so hard his knuckles were white and his chest was moving up and down so that the untucked polo shirt hem lifted and fell underneath his wee bit of a belly. He put it back on the shelf just as I passed him and, when I turned at the aisle-end, gawping over my shoulder, I saw him heading back to the bakery section. I couldn’t help myself. Inappropriate, unprofessional. I followed him.

  It wasn’t until I was right at his side that I noticed what he was doing, and by then it was too late to back away. And in my defence, Lauren, that I’d been talking to about stuff, had just the day before told me that I should … Oh God, I don’t know. Typical Lauren guff. Own my past, feel the sadness, bring what I was missing into my life whatever way I could. I liked her a lot, but I didn’t always listen. Anyway, I steamed in.

  “Excuse me?” I said. “Can I help you?”

  He stuffed the handful of notes and coins back in his trouser pocket and turned, frowning. “Eh?” His voice was a bark.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. He picked up one of the cakes without looking. “How?”

  “I don’t mean to butt in … ” Liar.

  “I’m just—” He put the cake back on the shelf. “Cannae believe how much they are. Size of them too.”

  “Can I get it?” I asked.

  He blinked, drew his chin back into his neck. “Why should—”

  “Please? I haven’t got a wee girl. I’ve never bought a Disney cake. Goan let me buy it for yours.”

  He stared at me for such a long time that my heart started to pump, and I wondered if he could see my shirt going up and down like I could see his. I remember wondering if he was drunk. I also remember thinking I’d never seen anyone look so angry who wasn’t actually shouting and, between work and my childhood, I’ve seen a lot of angry people. Random acts of effing kindness my arse, I remember thinking. Steve was right after all.

  “Sorry,” I said. I saw his hands clench into fists at his sides and I took a careful step backwards. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Sorry I barged in.”

  “Right,” he said. “You’re sorry.” For a minute I thought he was going to say that playground thing, you will be. Moving slowly, I backed away.

  He sounded angry now too, standing in the middle of the aisle, growling into his phone, the wee girl chewing a fig, solemn eyes fixed on him.

  “Becky, for Christ’s sake,” he was saying.

  Becky. Of course he had someone. He was just a friendly guy and the rest of it was my imagination. Not that there was much “rest of it” anyway. Only just that a couple of weeks after the cakes, he’d come to the Project one afternoon when I was on my own, and he’d just kind of stood there.

  “Have you got a form?” I’d asked him. “Are you just looking? We’re not actually a charity shop, not really. You need a form if … ” He was shaking his head, sort of smiling. “So, you’d be better off up at Cancer Relief, actually.”

  “I’m not after clothes,” he’d said, and he’d smiled wider.

  But clothes was all we had, so what was he doing here? And that was the moment I thought I knew what the smiling was. He wasn’t here to buy stuff; he had come to see me, talk to me, maybe ask me something. I smiled back at him and, without another word, he opened the door and was gone. I puzzled over it for a minute or two and then put him out of my mind.

  Good thing too, since it turned out there was this Becky, whoever she was, that he was talking to now.

  “It’s not forever, Becks,” he was saying. “It’ll stop again.”

  I wasn’t listening, but I had to squeeze right past. I don’t think he even noticed me. It’s not forever. I was at the fridges. Pomegranate and raspberry juice. No drinking tonight. I’d put myself back together right as rain after the bit in the cupboard, but it had cost me. I was drained, kind of heavy and soft, like a birthday balloon three days after the party, and one glass of wine would be one too many. I’d put pomegranate juice in a stem glass and pretend. “It’s not forever,” I said to myself. What would that be then? Sounded like a duff job, or staying on your friend’s couch. But “It’ll stop again” sounded like … what? Noisy neighbours? Hay fever? I put on a wee spurt to catch some more of it on the next aisle.

  At first I thought he’d gone. The trolley was crossways between the shelves with the wee girl standing up in it, holding onto the side, looking over. She was probably four-ish, I thought, not big enough to climb out but plenty big enough to try. And she had the look of a climber to me. Standing four-square with her hands clamped on the rim. As I watched, she pushed up the sleeves of her jumper, all but spat on her palms. So even though her dad was a bampot and he hated folk sticking their noses in, I scooted forward, letting my trolley carry me, and that’s when I saw him. Sitting on the bottom shelf in a space where someone had taken a jumbo pack of kitchen roll away, his head in his hands.

  He’d been sitting like that the third time I’d seen him too.

  My flat’s right opposite the library on Catherine Street, and public libraries are total nutter magnets. (Steve would go daft if he heard me say it, but nobody ever asks what I mean.) They’re always open, always warm, and they can’t turn anybody away, so it stands to reason if you’re the sort that couldn’t get past a bouncer or maybe you’d have a security guy follow you round Safeway, the public library’s the place you’ll go. And if you smoke, then the bench outside the public library’s the place you’re going to go for a break.

  Mind you, he wasn’t smoking the day I saw him there. He was just sitting, with his head in his hands, staring down at the ground. I watched him a while—I was doing nothing better—until he stood up and went back inside. Then I decided to go over and change my DVDs.

  Another mystery solved. He’d only been waiting for his photocopying to get done. A great big pile of it from the reference desk where they keep the papers and all the history of the town and that. He’d maybe just been thinking, with his head in hands that way.

  I was pretty sure he wasn’t just thinking now, though, sitting there on the space on the bottom shelf.

  “Dad?” said the girl. “Daddy?”

  “Hey.” I hunkered down beside him. “I’m sorry for sticking my—Are you okay? Your wee one’s worried about you.” His hair had fallen forward over his face and arms and it made a solid barrier; that crinkly hair’s like armour if you brush it down. I turned and smiled up at the wee girl. She scowled back at me. She had a great face for scowling, her eyes, nose, and mouth bunched together, plenty of cheek and jaw all around, and her own halo of red hair fluffed out in a cloud all around her Alice-band. I can take or leave pretty wee girls, but plain wee girls melt me; I was one myself. Still am.

  “I don’t think your Daddy’s feeling too good,” I said. I gave her one last smile—like dropping a stone down a well—and looked around for help. There was no one. Because what kind of moron buys kitchen roll and cleaning stuff in Marks and Spencers? He was moving. I turned back and got ready to leg it if he looked like going for me.

  “She’s gone,” he whispered. “She’s left me.”

  “Your girlfriend?” I whispered back. I’d assumed he was a divorce case that night with the cakes, assumed he was going round to see his kid at the mum’s, not wanting to turn up empty-handed. “Could take your wee one back to her—” He needed to get over himself and stop spooking his daughter was what I was thinking.

  “My wife,” he whispered. �
�Ruby’s mum. She’s gone.”

  “Oh,” I said. Big help.

  “Dad?”

  “Can you call someone?” I asked him. He lifted one of his feet and his phone was under it, smashed and flattened. “Here,” I said, rummaging. “Use mine.”

  “I don’t know any numbers.”

  “God, I know,” I said. “Everybody’s on speed dial. If you—” If you stamp on your phone you’ve had it, was what I was going to say.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said, pulling himself up, holding onto the shelf. But he swayed, and his ruddy face went grey in streaks under his eyes.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Go out and get some fresh air. Do you actually need any of this stuff?” I nodded at the bags of apples and bread rolls around the wee girl’s feet. He nodded. “Do you need anything else?” He just stared at me. “Milk? Tea? Bog roll?”

  “Nappies,” he said, and I flicked a glance at the kid in the trolley. I was usually great at guessing ages. “Pull-ups, I mean. Twenty-four to—Oh my God!” And his feet went out from under him again. He sat down like a load of washing someone had dropped there, right down on the floor.

  “Okay,” I said. Too bad if I offended him. I twisted the cap off the posh juice. “Have a slug of this, it’s pure sugar. Are you in a car? Yeah? Well, you can’t drive. Take the wee one outside—Ruby, is it?—and I’ll get your shopping and meet you. I’ll drive you home.” I lifted Ruby out of the trolley, setting her down on her feet, waiting for her hands to let go of my arms, once she was steady. “What kind of car is it?”

  “Skoda,” he mumbled, standing again.

  “Go,” I told him. “I’ll get this. For real this time.”

  “What?” His eyes were blank in his blank face.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  He didn’t remember me. No clue. Not from the cakes day, or the time he’d been in the Project, or even the day I’d been skulking about the library when he was getting those copies done, and I thought for sure he’d clocked me that time. He must have looked away like that, quick and sure, because … because he doesn’t smile back at strange women who smile at him in Marks and Spencer’s food hall? Because he’s a happily married man? Not anymore he wasn’t, from the sound of things. Or maybe his wife was the jealous type? Only it looked like she’d set him free.

  I stood and watched as he walked away. He was bent over to one side a bit so he could steer his daughter with a hand on her back, and it made him look kind of broken, like he kind of was.

  There was no sign of them at the back door. I scanned the street both ways, looking for a Skoda, wishing I’d asked what colour instead of what kind. But there was no one sitting in any of the parked cars. Maybe he’d hoofed it; maybe these apples and nappies were mine to keep now. I almost went back inside to get a refund—good old Marks—and go out through the front and home. Then I wondered. Irish Street, the back street, was all offices and permits. He’d never have parked right here. He’d be down in the proper car park at the Whitesands, like everyone else. Because, even while I was standing there, I could see that this time of day, half-past five, everybody was headed down there. Like Irish Street was draining out through the side alleys, people all pouring the same way down to the river.

  Worth a try, I told myself. Last thing he needs is another let-down now. So I hoisted the shopping bags off the wall and joined the stream. Funny thing, though. You’d think at half-past five folk would be tired—plodding back to their cars—but I was getting passed, people hurrying nearly, and there was a bit of a thrum going. At the bottom of the street, they all crossed the wide road, edged around the rows of parked cars, and made for the railings. I followed them with my eyes, and there he was. His car—a battered hatchback, no hubcaps, paint dulled down to a matte finish with age—was right by the edge, and he was leaning against the door, facing the water. Staring down into the water, in fact, so I hurried, scuffling over the four lanes with the bags hitting my calves, swept up in all the crowd hurrying with me.

  Ruby was strapped into a booster seat, still holding the bag of figs—shoplifted without me noticing—but not eating, and he was looking straight down into the water, like I said. He was the only one, though. The folk who’d hurried down the alleys were staring at the far bank and taking pictures with their phones. On the other side of the river, a police van and an ambulance were parked on the grass, half a dozen guys in high-vis jackets milling about.

  “What’s going on?” I asked him.

  “Divers,” he told me. As he said it, two heads popped up like seals from the rolling grey of the river, and the high-vis jackets lined up at the fence to look over. The crowd on this side made a noise all together like they’d been practising.

  “Poor buggers,” I said. “It’d take more than a wetsuit and mask before I’d jump in the Nith. Has somebody hoyed a dead dog off the bridge again?”

  He shrugged. I put the bags in the boot and got in behind the wheel. He slid in to the passenger side.

  “Seatbelt,” I said. He didn’t move. “Seriously, when you see me reversing out of this space, you’ll wish you had.” But his lips didn’t so much as twitch. “What’s your address?”

  “That’s a lot of cops for a dead dog,” he said.

  I looked in the mirror. “What’s your address, hunny-bunny?” Fingers crossed it wasn’t too far.

  “Fifteen stroke three Caul View, Dumfries,” she said, triumphant.

  “Clever cookie,” I told her. Caul View was just across the river. Five minutes away, even in Dumfries’s excuse for a rush hour, as long as the road wasn’t closed for the divers. In fact, if the dead dog had been lobbed in off a balcony instead of the bridge this time, a Caul View balcony was a contender.

  As I had that thought, I felt a wee cold trickle of something down inside. Why would that be? Maybe it came from the way he was staring at the cops and divers. And what he’d said too. That’s a lot of cops for a dead dog. Just for a minute I was glad we weren’t alone, him and me. I caught Ruby’s eye again and smiled.

  “Caul View, eh?”

  “Only but we moved,” she said. “To the seaside.”

  “Right,” I answered. “Okay. Listen, sweetie, what’s your daddy’s name?” He was still sitting like a carved rock beside me.

  “Daddy,” she said. I remembered thinking that about my dad too.

  “Okay, Daddy,” I said, tapping him on his knee. I started the engine and put the car in gear. “Where am I going? Eh? Say Becky’s not finished packing yet? Where will we go to find her?”

  “Bypass,” he said, at last. “A75 to Stranraer.”

  “Right,” I said again, thinking I’d already shelled out for Marks and Spencer’s pull-up nappies and, even if I felt like a pig for asking, I’d need him to chip in for my taxi back. The chances of getting a bus after dark were exactly nil.

  I’d no idea how long it would be before the next time I went home.

  Three

  And how weird is it that I enjoyed the journey? He never said another word for twenty miles and Ruby went into a car trance, thumb in her mouth and eyes glazed, but I like driving and I don’t get to do it much. I hadn’t been out of Dumfries for weeks, hadn’t been west since spring, and I could feel the town lifting off me in big grey flakes, like that kiddy-on microscope film from the washing powder advert, that shows the dirt floating away.

  Dumfries and Galloway; there’s a clue in the two separate names. Flat grey plains by the sea, flat grey moors up above them, and wee grey towns from when Scotland had mines, just the spot for a free clothing project. In Dumfriesshire, they’ll put a car park on the banks of the river instead of picnic tables and, if a beautiful old house is falling down, they’ll give it a shove to help.

  And it is a beautiful house, even without the magic garden, but it was the garden that swung it. JM Barrie came to visit there—a family with a sister and little brothers
and a big smelly dog—and he sat in the garden and wrote Peter Pan. Right here in Dumfries, while the brothers played at pirates. So of course it should be a children’s centre, but it took a shed load of people donating and protesting before the council gave in. And even then someone on the committee took on cowboys to save a quid, and they nicked the lead off the roof or something (Father Tommy knows the story but he won’t tell me) and vanished. Nicking the lead off the roof of a children’s respite centre. That was Dumfriesshire for you.

  But Galloway? Out of the world and into Galloway, as my granny used to say. Can’t fling a stick without hitting an artist’s studio, or a cheese-makers’ commune, or a stone barn that’s been turned into a theatre. Cottages painted like ice cream, harbours full of sailing boats, folk eating scallops. In Galloway, if you get more than six miles from a handmade candle, an alarm goes off and a beeswax SWAT team copters one out to you. I’d have moved there from Caul View too. We even had to stop for dairy cows crossing the road. Pain in the neck it must be if you did it every day, but it made me happy.

  Only, when we’d got past Castle Douglas, a road sign said Stranraer 45 Miles and I thought I’d better check.

  “Uh, how far are we actually going?”

  “Gatehouse,” he said. “Sandsea.” Then silence for another ten miles, as we drove into the sea-light, towards the sinking sun, until I heard, “Next turn.”

  The “next turn” was onto a farm track between two fields. And not even a good one—grass up the middle and deep ruts from tractors so that the belly of the Skoda scraped along. I winced and clenched myself up off my seat is if that would help us, but the man didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t move in all the time it took to cross the fields in that flat milky light from the water, not until we’d passed under some trees and came to the farmyard itself, the usual dilapidated war zone, with its pallet gates and string hinges, piles of tractor tyres and oil drums. Then he jerked right forward, craning out of the windscreen and either side, gripping the dashboard, holding his breath. I slowed.