by Lesley Kelly
I’m almost buying this when I remember his phone call to Danny earlier this evening. ‘Aye well, after your recent call to DS Jamieson I’m sure he’ll be around to arrest me any minute. Or did he tell you I had an alibi?’ He’s looking increasingly uncomfortable. ‘Why me, Father? Why did you give him my name?’
He jumps to his feet and starts shouting. ‘Because people like Marianne always end up in the shit, and scum like you get away with everything.’
I take a couple of steps back. He seems to calm down a bit. ‘You were leaving town, Staines…’
‘They do have Polis forces in England – they could have found me.’
He laughs abruptly. ‘I wouldn’t have cared if they did, Staines. You had it coming.’
‘Why – ‘cause I like a drink?’
He looks at me like I’m stupid. ‘Because you worked for the Stoddarts! You were part of the whole Stoddart machine. Half my parishioners owed Isa money, and there’s you, wandering round bold as brass with her tallybook, trying to find which one of them you were going to turn over to Lachlan and his thugs.’
I grunt.
He pushes me. ‘What do you think would have happened to Marianne if you’d grassed her up to Lachlan?’
It doesn’t bear thinking about. Lachie was very attached to his mammy. I remind him of the most relevant point. ‘But, I didn’t grass on her.’
‘And why was that, Staines? Was it because deep down you’re a decent, kind-hearted soul, or was it because we gave you £1,700 not to?’
I stare at the floor and for a horrible minute I think I’m about to start crying again.
He walks over to me and looks at the scar. ‘So, what did happen tonight?’
I shake my head. ‘Can I tell you in the morning, Father? I need to get some rest.’
He says nothing, but he makes no attempt to stop me when I head for the stairs. As I climb I wonder exactly how far Father Paul would go to protect his parishioners. I’m definitely putting a chair under my door handle tonight.
Father Paul doesn’t put the TV back on, and a few minutes later I hear him turn in as well.
1998
The beginning of the end for Paula and me was the Open University degree. By the time the kids were toddlers, Paula was going stir crazy stuck in the flat and she was looking for something to keep her mind occupied. She had had the prospectus for six months, but she was suffering a crisis of confidence and hadn’t managed to send her application off. Like a fool, I encouraged her.
‘You’ve already done a year at university – of course you could handle it.’
‘I dunno Joe – that was five years ago. What if my brain’s turned to mush in the meantime?’
I leant over and kissed her hair. ‘Don’t give me that, Paula. You can do this. Now come on – get that application filled in.’
In the end I stood over her until she filled in the forms for ‘An Introduction to the Social Sciences’. I should have checked the rest of the course content; the ‘Women in Society’ course nearly killed us. They might as well have renamed it All Men Are Bastards And What Were You Thinking Marrying One?
Yet against all odds Paula and I made it to our tenth wedding anniversary. It fell when I was home on leave, and Florrie volunteered to babysit so we could have a night out. Paula didn’t like leaving the kids for long so we went for a meal at the pub in the village. We’d moved to Aberlady, a village in East Lothian; Paula grew up in the country and fancied the same lifestyle for our children.
I poured us each a glass of wine. ‘Here’s to us. Slainte.’
We clink glasses. ‘Ten years. We’ve been busy.’
‘You have anyway – you’ve got your BA, and your job.’ She’d recently been employed as a researcher in the Scottish Executive.
‘And you’ve been all over the world.’
‘And you’ve raised two kids single-handed while I did that.’
She laughed. ‘I’m not complaining, Joe.’
Looking at her sitting there, slightly flushed from the wine, I thought how much I loved my wife. And as always, when I admitted to myself how happy she made me, I then immediately got feelings of panic because I couldn’t understand why she was still with me. Every time I went back on the ships I convinced myself that she wouldn’t be waiting when I got home. I tried not to show anything, and reached over and took her hand.
‘I love you, hen.’
Two weeks after our anniversary I started sleeping with one of the waitresses on the liner. Donna was in her early twenties, small and slight, with long brown hair. She wasn’t outstandingly pretty, but I knew I was knocking on a bit, so all-in-all she was a bit of a catch. She was also a dyed-in-the-wool bunny-boiling lunatic, but I wasn’t aware of that at the time. She’d got me at a disadvantage: she knew all about me from what the other waitresses had said, but this was her first trip so nobody knew anything about her.
It started the same way it always does, with a bit of banter, and meaningful glances over the dirty dishes. I’d worked my way up to chef by this point, with my on-the-job vocational training certificates safely under my belt. I was glad of the distraction that Donna presented because the trip hadn’t got off to the best of starts. I opened my cabin door to find that I was sharing with Pers the Stinky Swede again, and in ten years he hadn’t got any better-tempered or sweeter-smelling.
Donna knew that I was married but I didn’t think that she was too bothered. The second time we slept together she tried to figure out what my situation was.
‘So – your wife?’
‘Aye,’ I said cautiously, not really liking where this was heading.
‘Are you separated?’
‘Naw! What makes you say that?’
She leant across me to get her fags off the bedside table. ‘The fact that you’re shagging someone else?’
I didn’t say anything. This was a delicate situation and I feared for my balls if I told her the truth, told her that this didn’t really mean anything to me.
She lit two fags and handed one to me. ‘So, are you just staying together for your kids?’
I thought for a minute. ‘No, I wouldn’t say that.’
‘You still love your wife?’ she asked, with a look of disbelief.
I shrugged, and she lay still staring at me.
It was turning into the trip from hell. We were short of kitchen staff so I was doing more shifts than I should be, and was taking speed to get me through my shift, and having a drink or several to bring me down again at the end of the day. But my biggest problem was Donna. She turned out to not be quite as relaxed about my marital status as she made out, and she’d started pressuring me about where I saw our ‘relationship’ going.
I tried to take it down a notch or two, but it wasn’t that easy to avoid someone on ship. If Donna’d noticed any change in my manner she wasn’t letting on. She’d got my rota memorised, and every time I finished a shift she seemed to be waiting at my cabin door for me.
I reckoned I was down to around two hours sleep a night by now, which wasn’t doing my paranoia any good. I’d got all these thoughts about Paula going round in my head. I thought that if a loser like me can find someone to sleep with, what offers was she getting? Why, with all her qualifications and that, would she even want to be with me? The older she got, and the more she improved herself, the more I could imagine her thinking that she could do better for herself and the kids.
I started phoning her at odd hours. Except I didn’t realise that I was phoning at odd hours, I just phoned every time my paranoia got out of control, then realised that it was actually three in the morning where she was. She dealt with it pretty well, considering she’d got to get up in the morning.
‘Joe – what’s the matter?’
The phoneline crackled and hissed while I tried to think of what to say. ‘Nothing. I just wanted to talk to you that’s all.’
‘At 3 am?’
‘Shit. Sorry. But you’re OK? There’s nothing you want to say to me?�
�
There was a pause while she tried to work out what the hell I was on about. ‘Like what? Joe – are you OK? You’re not working too hard?’
‘No, no. Sorry. I’ll let you get back to sleep.’
I hung up and turned round to see Donna standing behind me. I tried to smile. ‘You OK, hen?’
She didn’t say anything.
It was no wonder I ended up with the sausages talking to me. After a particularly sleepless night (due to Donna who seemed to be powered by Duracell) I got up at 5.30 am to get the breakfasts started. I was staggering around due to the lack of sleep when I heard a voice. I looked round the kitchen but nobody else looked up.
‘Over here.’
I looked in the direction of the voice. It was coming from the frying pan.
‘You shouldn’t be here, pal. You need to be with your wife and bairns.’
So, I jacked the job in and caught the next available flight to Edinburgh from Alicante. It was nice to be home. On my previous visits I hadn’t really had a chance to explore Aberlady fully. It was a bonnie place, bang on the shoreline, a real wee tourist trap. I was back a week when I popped in for a pint at one of the pubs and got chatting to the manager. He was looking for, wouldn’t you know it, a qualified chef, and a couple of drams later a happy arrangement had been arrived at.
I couldn’t believe that everything was falling so neatly into place. I’m not just saying that – I really couldn’t believe my luck and immediately started looking for things to worry about. I didn’t have far to look.
Paula wasn’t as delighted to have me around full-time as I had hoped she’d be (and neither were the kids, but that was another matter.)
‘I wish you’d talked to me first,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t pressuring you to come home.’
Which was true, but started me wondering why she wasn’t keen to have her husband at her side. ‘Don’t you want me around?’
She looked impatient and shook her head. ‘No, no, I didn’t mean that, it’s just that I’ve got used to being here on my own, and doing my degree and that.’
I reached over and held her hand. ‘Well you’ve got your degree now – we can spend our spare time doing family stuff.’
She didn’t look too thrilled at the prospect. ‘But the thing is these days you really need a post-grad qualification to get anywhere. I was thinking about doing a management course or something like that.’
Post-grad qualification? She was moving further and further away from me.
I started getting suspicious that she’d found someone else. It was nothing I could really put my finger on, just a couple of phone calls that I overheard that I couldn’t quite make sense of, and, oh yes, my rampaging paranoia.
Seeing as the poor lassie didn’t get much of a social life between working full-time and bringing up the kids, I guessed that she’d met someone through work. One morning I noticed her making an extra effort with her appearance. Usually she wore a black or a navy suit, with minimal make up and flat shoes, a no-nonsense look. This day, however, she was wearing a skirt and heels, and spent about half an hour doing her hair and make-up. Right, I thought, this is it, if I wanted to know, it was now or never.
I called in sick to the pub and got the bus into Edinburgh. I had to hang around outside the Scottish Executive for two hours before I saw her, but it was worth the wait. She was with some older man and they were laughing and joking together. She didn’t see me and I followed at a discreet distance and saw them go into a restaurant. I didn’t know what to do. Half of me wanted to follow her in there and accuse her, and the other half didn’t want to know. Maybe if I ignored it she’d get over it and we could go on as before. I could get a better job, maybe, or go back to college. Whatever it took.
But the inquisitive half of me won and I pushed open the door to the restaurant. I marched up to her table, and she jumped in surprise.
‘What are you doing here?’
I ignored her and focused on the Suit Guy.
‘Are you sleeping with my wife?’
The Suit spluttered into his drink, which I couldn’t help but notice appeared to be a soft one.
‘What?’ he said, and started to laugh.
‘Right you – outside.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Joe.’ Paula buried her face in her hands. ‘Brian, can you give us a minute?’
‘No problem,’ said the Suit and disappeared off to the bar, no doubt for another fresh orange and lemonade.
‘You are having an affair though, Paula, aren’t you? I mean look at you – all done up to the nines.’
She glared at me. ‘I had an interview this morning, Joe, and I got the job. Brian’s my manager and he’s taking me out for lunch to celebrate.’
I slumped into the seat vacated by her boss, and my relief began to be overtaken by embarrassment.
‘I’m sorry, love.’
Paula didn’t respond, and sat swirling her wine round the glass.
‘I can change, hen, get a new job, whatever you want me to do.’
‘Joe…’
She said my name softly which made me start to panic. She should have been yelling at me. I kept talking to try to stop her saying anything. ‘Go to college, anything.’
‘Joe, the job is in Brussels.’
‘But…’ She’d never mentioned this before.
‘The kids and I will be moving.’
I was confused. If she was expecting me to move country she could have given me some warning. Then I realised. ‘And I am not invited.’
She took a gulp of the wine. ‘There’s someone else, Joe. He’s already got a job out there and I’m going out to be with him.’
I grabbed the remains of her wine off her and downed it. ‘I’ll pack my bags tonight. I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of your new life.’
‘My new life?’ She picked up her handbag and rummaged around in it. She pulled out a letter which she slammed down in front of me.
‘What’s this?’
‘Read it.’
I slid the letter out of the envelope and started to read. Donna.
‘Paula, this doesn’t mean anything…’
She laughed. ‘Finish the letter Stainsie – the second paragraph from the end is a particularly interesting dissection of your sex life. Good to see that this Donna woman has done both primary and secondary research.’
I wasn’t quite sure what Paula meant by this but I turned the letter over and saw that Donna’d left no stone unturned, detailing not just every sexual encounter I had with her, but everyone I’d ever slept with on board. Not for the first time I cursed the gossip-mongering bastards I’d had to work with.
The waiter arrived in the middle of the pregnant pause that followed.
I stood up. ‘I better let Brian have his lunch.’
The first couple of months at Lachie’s passed in a stupor. True to my word I’d moved out of Paula’s that night, and not having anywhere else to go, I turned up on Lachie’s doorstep. He looked at the state of me and the bags I was carrying and gestured me in without a word. The next few nights passed in a haze of drunkeness, and I dedicated the days to sleep. After about a week I pulled myself together and started thinking about getting another job and finding somewhere more permanent to live. When I told Lachie this he laughed.
‘What’s the point of getting a job?’
Because we’ve not all got rich mammies, I thought to myself but all I said was, ‘Well, aside from the need to eat, I need to start paying Paula some child mainten ance.’
He snorted. ‘Let your bitch wife look after herself. She’s got a new man on the go – let him pay for the kids.’
I was about to object to him talking about Paula like that when he carried on:
‘I’ll get you some work, cash in hand. And you can stay here as long as you want.’ He passed me another can of lager, and somehow it was a done deal. You’d think a Catholic boy would know better than to sell his soul so cheaply.
Of course, it wasn�
�t really within Lachie’s power to give me a job. Mrs Stoddart was running the show now. Lachie was a wee bit vague on the details of where his dad was these days, but he’d dropped a few hints about Spain. Whatever the circumstances of Guthrie’s departure, Mrs Stoddart was definitely in charge of hiring and firing. She didn’t look too impressed when Lachie suggested putting me on the payroll, and I couldn’t really blame her. An unemployed, alcoholic chef is no one’s solution to an HR problem.
But she couldn’t refuse her Number One Son anything, so she compromised by giving me a few quid on a retainer for some unspecified duties, and I kipped at Lachie’s for nothing. Oh aye – and all the free booze and pills I could stomach, from Lachie’s endless supply.
The situation was an insult to my dignity. I’d no money, no friends, and Paula hadn’t left any forwarding address, which showed a remarkably realistic view about her chances of getting any child support. I should have picked myself up there and then and slept rough, or if things got really bad, gone back to my dad’s. Instead I stayed at Lachie’s for the next nine years.
And it wasn’t like living with him was easy. I was completely dependent on him, and it would take a bigger man than Lachie not to take advantage of that. Living with Lachie was like being back at school; we still spent most of our days sat in front of the TV bickering, the only difference being the number of channels to choose from. Lachie wanted me to be the enforcer that I never was at school. When we were out he still picked fights with people, and expected me to sort it out. But this wasn’t school anymore; we weren’t dealing with schoolkids who were frightened of his dad, and I spent most of my life in serious danger of a kicking.
The flat was a bloody midden. Whatever else Ma Stoddart was forking out for, it wasn’t for a cleaner. There was a pile of dishes in the kitchen that had a crust that was halfway to being penicillin, and there was a layer of dirt round the bath an inch deep. The only thing in the flat that ever moved was the pile of boxes that took up half of the floorspace in the living room. When I first moved in I made the mistake of asking what they were.
