The place smelled of onions. There was something bubbling in a pot. Potatoes probably, pandering as ever to Baggins.
She turned. I have no idea what was going on with my face. I expected her, of course, to freak. As if she would know. As if she could tell that I'd spent time with Jones.
'Hey,' I said, tentatively.
She regarded me curiously, as if she couldn't quite understand something. Then she looked at my empty hands, then back to my face.
'Where've you been?'
I wasn't sure what to make of the question. Had I been a long time in the park? Had she not actually seen me for over four months? I stood there looking nonplussed. Empty headed I dare say.
'Where's the milk?' she added.
'Milk,' I repeated.
'That's why you went out, like, ages ago.'
'Sorry,' I said. 'Forgot.'
'What were you doing?'
'I...eh.. just ran into Matt,' I said, grabbing the first name that came to mind.
'Matt's back?' she said. 'Wow. Why didn't you ask him over?'
Like I hadn't envisioned that kind of thing happening as I'd travelled down the M4. I mention my best friend, and out of the blue, it turns out he's moved off somewhere in the last four months. I shook my head.
'Sorry, not that Matt. One of the guys who comes into the shop. You don't know him. I'll go and get the milk.'
'It's fine. Dinner's almost ready, you can nip out after.'
She was smiling. I couldn't remember Brin smiling, it seemed so long.
'How could you forget the milk?' she said, but there was that mocking tone in her voice, like the old days when we used to tease each other. 'It was the only reason you went out.'
I shrugged.
'Just, you know, Matt...'
'You're such a spaz,' she said, but she smiled again and turned back to the hob.
I watched her for a while. I wanted to hold her, feel her arms around me.
Baggins appeared at the door. She stopped, gazed at me for a moment, her mouth open. I looked back at her, slightly apprehensive. She was more likely than her mother to pick up on something weird. Suddenly a huge smile came to her face.
'Daddy!' she cried, then ran towards me and threw herself into my arms. 'You're back!'
I lowered myself, but not much as she seemed to have grown, and hugged her tightly. I shut my eyes for a while and we held each other for a long time. Or it seemed like a long time, but we were soon broken up by Brin saying, 'What's with you two? Come on, go and sit down, dinner'll be on the table in a couple of minutes.'
I straightened up, but Baggins kept holding on to me.
'Come on,' I said, 'let's go and sit down.'
She held my hand as we walked through to the dining room. Everything looked the same as when I'd left. It was evident that Baggins had set the table, and I sat down in my usual position. Baggins sat opposite me and, as I took a drink of water, I could see her staring.
'Where've you been, Daddy?' she asked. 'You were ages. And who was that other man?'
I stared across the table. Suddenly I wanted to cry, but I had to keep it together. I wanted to break down, let it all go. I needed to. I was back, sitting at the dinner table with my daughter, and she was looking at me with those same old big eyes.
We sat in silence for a while, Baggins looking at me curiously, me unable to speak. Keeping it together. That was all.
Brin came in carrying three plates, laid them in front of us. Pork loin, cooked with apple, onion and cider. Mashed potatoes. Sugar snap peas and baby corn.
She poured herself a glass of white wine, then hovered the bottle over my glass.
'Want some?'
I nodded. Wasn't sure that I could speak.
'Waiting for your waitress to arrive, eh?' she said, as she poured.
She laid down the bottle, drank some wine, and then started cutting into her pork. For a moment she carried on as if everything was normal, and then finally she stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth and looked at Baggins and me, still sitting unmoved, staring at each other.
'Did I miss something?' she asked.
I shook my head and took a sip of wine. It started out as a sip and finished up as drinking half the glass in one go. Brin watched me with some curiosity and then shook her head and finally put the food in her mouth.
I caught Baggins's eye, but realised that I could barely look at her.
'Eat your dinner,' I managed to say, and then started to cut into my food. I really didn't feel like eating, but I did feel like downing the rest of the glass of wine, and then taking another.
'Did you like the way I got you off the plane, Daddy?' said Baggins.
I looked at her, glanced at Brin. Baggins was staring at me that way she did, the way that all kids did, searching for approval from their parents.
'God, Baggins,' said Brin, rolling her eyes.
'What?'
'She's been saying this to me since you didn't travel on that plane, as though the reason you were pulled off it was her doing.'
'That's not what I mean,' said Baggins.
I looked at her, my mind imploding.
'What do you mean?' asked Brin.
Baggins finally took a mouthful of food. Brin stared from her to me, completely lost as to this strange dynamic that had suddenly manifested itself at the dinner table. Strangely, though, the Brin that I had known before I left would have been judgemental and annoyed, whereas this Brin, this wonderful Brin who I hadn't seen for ten months, seemed amused, and only slightly exasperated.
'It's like living in a Muppet version of Tinker Tailor Solder Spy,' she said, laughing, then took a mouthful of food.
'Daddy understands me, don't you, Daddy?'
God, those eyes, so innocent. I was still on the verge of tears. Had it been her doing? Had she thought me off the plane, taken me to the happy place she'd suggested? Had it been that simple?
A simple explanation for a seeming impossibility.
I nodded. It felt like Brin was staring at me as if I was a completely different person from the man who had stepped out to get some milk.
'Music!' I said, forcing out the word.
I got up from the table to the docking station, fiddled with the iPod and set the songs to shuffle, then tried not to look at either of them as I sat back down. Brin was staring at me, nonplussed. REM's Bad Day kicked off, and I wondered if Michael Stipe had done enough to produce some strange, ethereal alter ego.
'I thought we'd agreed not to listen to music at the table for a few weeks?'
I glanced at Baggins, who gave me a look. It wasn't much, just a slight movement of the mouth and a twitch in her eye, but it was enough. It said, don't worry, daddy, it'll be tricky for a day or two, but I'll see you through it all right.
'Oh well,' said Brin, 'just leave it. It's nice. Nice to have the music back.'
*
We played a board game after dinner, then watched some TV. We let Baggins stay up later than normal, then she asked me to read to her, which of course her mother thought was very odd, as it'd been two years since either of us had read to Baggins at bedtime.
I wondered if Baggins was actually wanting some conversation about where I'd been and what I'd been up to, but she seemed entirely accepting of me being back, and genuinely wanted me to read, that was all. So I read The Hobbit.
Brin and I went to bed at the same time. She was reading Victoria Hislop. I had a history of the fall of Berlin at my bedside. I picked it up and read a couple of pages, although nothing went in. Just a series of atrocities and Russian names and German names. The second I closed the book I forgot everything I'd read.
Brin turned out the light. I wrapped my arms around her, and then we made love. It had been a very, very long time. It felt different. And better.
Brin slept quickly and easily. I lay awake, taking in the night. The curtains were partially open and orange streetlight stabbed into the room. I lay like that for a long time. On my back, wide awake, staring at
the shadows and the parts of the wall illuminated from outside.
I wondered about the three Jigsaw Men. Would Agent Crosskill and Agent Jones really be so convinced by the old CIA report that they'd stop looking for the fourth member of the band? And would my Jigsaw Man be right? If they just killed those other three, would they suddenly re-materialise elsewhere? I couldn't help thinking that, more than likely, they would be left in confinement for all eternity.
And then there was the other me, now in confinement. Would he be back? Shouldn't I be thinking of taking my family and going off-grid? My parents had considered never giving me a name, so they could keep me out of the system. In the end, however, they'd needed the child allowance. How mundane.
The night drifted on.
I woke up in bed to the knocking. Knocking. There was knocking. Someone was knocking. Why was someone knocking?
Clicked on my phone to check the time. 03:58. No one knocks at 03:58. No one knocks anymore. But I was sure I'd heard it. It was a knocking I'd heard before, and it had just come again. It hadn't been a dream.
I got out of bed and walked to the bedroom door. Out onto the landing. It was dark out there, all the other doors closed, and no light coming from downstairs. The only thing visible was a sliver of light along the bottom of Baggins's door. She'd fallen asleep with her bedside lamp on again.
I stood in the darkness listening, waiting for the knocking to come again.
###
Also by Douglas Lindsay
The Barney Thomson Novels
#1 The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson
#2 The Barber Surgeon's Hairshirt
#3 Murderers Anonymous
#4 The Resurrection Of Barney Thomson
#5 The Last Fish Supper
#6 The Haunting of Barney Thomson
#7 The Final Cut
Other Novels
Lost in Juarez
The Unburied Dead (DS Thomas Hutton #1)
A Plague Of Crows (DS Thomas Hutton #2)
We Are The Hanged Man (DCI Jericho #1)
Barney Thomson Novellas
The End of Days
The Face Of Death
Barney Thomson, Zombie Killer
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Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! Page 27
