She was tempted to remind him that he’d once claimed he would never wear a suit because it was ‘establishment’. But she supposed they had both grown up a lot since those days.
‘Happy?’ he asked as they arrived at the restaurant, giving her the kind of wide smile that brought back so many sweet memories.
‘Happy doesn’t even come close to covering it.’ She smiled back. ‘I’d like to climb right up on to the highest point of the Castle and scream out how great I feel.’
‘I was glad to see your bruises have gone,’ he said, reaching out and touching her cheek gently with his thumb. ‘Meggie said they were bad – she was afraid they wouldn’t fade in time for today.’
‘I think that is down to the power of faith,’ Laura giggled. ‘I’m far too vain to want to look like a road accident victim, even if it would get me still more sympathy.’
Stuart laughed. ‘David rang this morning to wish you luck. I’ll have to phone him in a minute and tell him all about it. Next time I’m in London I could take you over to see him and meet Julia and his children, if you’d like that?’
‘I would,’ she said. ‘But you must give me his address anyway so I can write and thank him for his help. But right now all I want is a stiff drink.’
The small private room had been decorated with yellow helium-filled balloons and yellow ribbons. Laura stood looking at it in amazement. ‘I do hope no one’s going to pop up and sing “Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree,”’ she giggled.
‘I thought of it, but I’ve forgotten the words,’ Stuart said with a grin. ‘But we’ve got champagne and I think that says how we all feel.’
∗
The champagne went straight to Laura’s head as she had been too nervous to eat in the morning, and she fell silent. It was good just to be sitting around the table with everyone she loved, listening to their chatter and laughter, and marvelling that this was a dream come true.
Stuart was sitting between her and Angie, and they were having an animated discussion about the street children in South America and what Stuart thought ought to be done to help them.
Meggie and Ivy were sitting either side of Patrick and they both looked lovely. Ivy, in a pale pink suit with her flowing blonde hair, looked like a model, and Meggie, in a cream trouser suit, her dark bob shining like wet tar, was prettier than she’d ever been before. Three days earlier she’d been out on a first date with Sergeant James Erskine, the policeman who had come when Laura was attacked, and since then had looked as if she was capable of walking on water.
Laura had noticed that James was attracted to Meggie when he came round to take her statement. He made several excuses to call back, each time in the early evening when Meggie was sure to be home. There were several phone calls before Meggie finally agreed to go out to dinner with him, but even just a couple of hours before her date she was looking for excuses to let him down.
Laura bullied her into going through with it, for she felt in her very bones that James was the man Meggie needed. Aside from being a real dish, he was the same age as her and widowed. His wife had died of cancer five years ago, and his three children, who were now in their late teens to early twenties, still lived with him. He was a kind and sensitive man and Laura sensed that even if Meggie ended up telling him about her past, he’d take it in his stride.
One look at her sister’s radiant face when she arrived home that night was to know the date had been a huge success. James phoned at eight the following morning and they talked for over an hour; all day after the call Meggie was alternately giggly or dreamy, a surefire sign that she was smitten.
Part of the reason Laura intended to stay up in Scotland for a while was to give Meggie the opportunity to have her house to herself. She’d also warned Ivy not to drop in unannounced.
Patrick suddenly stood up and tapped a fork on a glass to get everyone’s attention. ‘I think it’s about time we ordered some food. I don’t know about anyone else but I’m starving.’
Everyone else agreed they were too and Patrick went off to get some menus. Stuart turned to Laura. ‘What would you like?’ he asked.
‘It will have to be prawns,’ she said.
‘Any particular reason?’
‘Well, when I was on remand, and still believing I would be acquitted, I used to plan the meal I’d have when I got out. I didn’t think big, not even having dinner in a restaurant. I just imagined going to Marks and Spencer and buying prawns and salad, and eating it at home.’
‘It so happens they do some marvellous prawns in garlic here,’ he said. ‘But at risk of opening up an old wound, how did you feel when they found you guilty? We’ve never talked about that.’
‘I was completely demented,’ she said ruefully. ‘I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. The closest thing to it is the old cliché of thinking you are stuck in a nightmare, only you don’t wake up soaked in sweat and find yourself in your own bed.’
‘I shouldn’t have asked,’ he said. ‘Forgive me?’
Laura smiled. ‘It’s okay. But that will be the last time I ever mention it. In fact I shall delete the word “prison” from my vocabulary, unless of course it’s in connection with other people. Robbie, for instance! Have you heard anything more about him?’
‘They only kept him in hospital a couple of days. The stroke turned out to be a very mild one,’ Stuart replied. ‘He had a court appearance and got remanded in custody in London. But Calder is still in a bad way apparently. Even if he recovers he’ll never walk again.’
‘Poor man,’ Laura said.
‘Don’t waste any sympathy on him, a lawyer should be above reproach,’ Stuart said. ‘But I wish I knew exactly what he and Fielding were up to. I bet Patrick knows, but he’s being very tight-lipped about it.’
Laura smiled at his insatiable curiosity. She couldn’t care less what the two men had done. Perhaps when Belle and Charles came to trial her interest might be reawakened, but for now she wanted to forget all of them.
‘So what about you?’ she asked Stuart after everyone had ordered a meal. ‘Are you going abroad now, or what?’
‘No, I’m taking on a job near Oban.’
‘Really! What on earth are you going to do there?’
‘Doing up a very old place. The owners want to turn it into a hotel, so it’s partly restoration and partly new build. It’s a great project, the architect’s drawings are marvellous, and we’ll be employing local men.’
‘Will you be living there then?’ she asked, trying not to sound dismayed that he wasn’t going to be working in London.
‘I’ve bought a small cottage by Loch Awe,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘It’s a bit of a mess, the old man who lived there had been on his own since his wife died, and he’d let things go. He had to go into a nursing home, so it was a quick sale.’
It stung Laura that he’d been organizing all this but hadn’t mentioned any of it in his phone calls. ‘That’s marvellous,’ she said, even though her heart was sinking. ‘You always did want to live in the Highlands.’
‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘In those days I relished somewhere primitive, but I’ve had a taste of luxury over the years and I don’t know that I’m going to enjoy roughing it this winter.’
‘You can always come down to London for a long weekend, and we’ll cosset you,’ Laura suggested.
She thought that he would make a joke about her going up there to rough it with him, but he didn’t.
It was well after ten when they finally left the restaurant. Patrick went on home, and though Angie asked Stuart if he’d like to come back to her flat with them, he declined.
‘I’m leaving for Oban in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Besides, you don’t want a lone male spoiling your girlie fun.’
He hailed a taxi for them, kissed them all on the cheek and said he’d keep in touch, and as the cab drew off Laura turned to watch him through the back window. He might look like a city slicker today i
n his smart suit, but she thought his loping walk was that of a man who would be happier in the great outdoors.
‘When are you going to see him again?’ Meggie asked, slurring her words because she’d had too much to drink.
‘He didn’t suggest anything,’ Laura said sadly. ‘He didn’t even give me an address or a phone number.’
Laura thought she would fall asleep the moment her head touched the pillow that night, for it had been a long day, and she’d had so much to drink. But once she was tucked up in bed in Angie’s tiny spare room, she found sleep eluded her.
It had been so strange seeing her old shop again, for Angie had insisted they all went to see it before going back to her flat. Very little had been changed, just a fresh coat of paint and a new carpet, but Angie was taking in more expensive designer clothes now, and a big range of costume jewellery. Ivy was thrilled to find a black leather Chanel handbag, and Meggie bought a dark red Jaeger jacket.
But while her sisters were gleefully raking though the clothes, Laura found herself looking at a chair she’d found in a junk shop and sprayed gold, and remembering how Jackie had helped her re-upholster the seat with cream velvet, and that they’d laughingly called it the ‘Versailles’ look.
She wondered then if she’d ever make another friend as close as Jackie had been. Some of the very sweetest moments in her life had been just sitting around chatting and laughing with her. Always so much laughter, and they had believed it would go on until they were very old ladies.
Once they had even joked about sharing a home when they got to seventy. They imagined themselves going on coach trips to Blackpool or a day out on the Yorkshire Moors, only they’d be going into pubs for brandy while all the other old ladies had cream teas.
It was only now she was free that it really hit home how empty life would be without Jackie. Meggie and Ivy were great, but on a different level. She and Jackie had always been on the same wavelength, they could pick each other’s brains, tell each other off, even have a blazing row and it was forgotten in half an hour. They were in so many ways twin souls, they understood each other without lengthy explanations. How could she ever find anyone like that again?
Meggie and Ivy were sleeping on the bed-settee in the lounge, and through the open door Laura could hear Meggie snoring softly, just the way she did when she was little. Forty years had passed since the three of them slept in one bed. Laura didn’t think either Meggie or Ivy remembered those days – at least, they never spoke of it. They never spoke about their father either, or Mark and Paul, but perhaps that was because they’d been so young when they were taken away by the police that they had little recollection of them.
It had been a very strange day. So much waiting around, first for the flight, then at the court for the hearing, and all the time her stomach in knots with nerves. Right up till the judge said she was free to go, she’d half expected something terrible would happen and she’d end up being taken down to the cells under the court to await the prison van.
Yet tucked away beneath the fear and trepidation there had been bubblings of excitement, and they were about Stuart, and what was going to happen next. Maybe if Meggie hadn’t drip-fed the idea that he still had feelings for her, she wouldn’t have allowed herself to slip into little rosy daydreams about him. She really ought to have known better: what man would want to try to relight a fire with someone who had not only hurt him badly once, but was also likely to be something of a liability?
He’d been there for her when she most needed someone, and maybe that had clouded her judgement about her feelings for him too. She would just have to keep on reminding herself how fortunate she was: she wasn’t destitute, she had two loving sisters, she even had the legacy from Jackie coming to her. That was enough for anyone.
The day after the appeal hearing Angie asked Laura to go with her to a lawyer to sign a legal document transferring all the rights of the shop to her, and she paid Laura £4,000 for the lease and the fixtures and fittings. Laura felt awkward about taking the money, but both the lawyer and Angie insisted she was entitled to it, and it would also prevent her having any claim on the shop at a later date.
The money couldn’t have come at a better time as Laura had only a couple of hundred pounds left in her bank account, and although Meggie had offered to lend her some more so she could buy a decent car, she’d been reluctant to do that. But now, instead of getting an old banger, she was able to buy a three-year-old red Ford Fiesta which would be far more reliable.
Once she’d got her car she went to collect her belongings from Angie’s mother’s house. Yet on sorting through the many stored boxes, she found that most of the pictures, china, ornaments and lamps reminded her of times and a person she’d rather forget, so she donated them to a charity shop.
All she kept was albums of photographs, most of them of Barney, books she’d loved, some bedding, a small case which she’d filled ten years ago with things of Barney’s – a sweater, a pair of pyjamas, his old teddy bear and paintings he’d done at school – and a beautiful cream leather jewellery box Jackie had given her on her thirtieth birthday. It was much the same with her clothes, shoes and handbags. Most were unfashionable now, and the little reminders that came with them had nothing to do with her future. She kept the cashmere camel winter coat, boots, sweaters and trousers, and some of the best underwear. But the rest she bagged up for Angela’s mother to give to a jumble sale.
Everything she wanted to keep fitted into one suitcase and two cardboard boxes. She put them in the boot of the car and drove back to the shop to say goodbye to Angie.
‘You’re not going already?’ Angie exclaimed. ‘I thought you’d at least stay till the weekend.’
Laura didn’t want to admit that she felt a little uncomfortable hanging around a shop that had once been hers, and constantly running into women she knew from the past. Her face had been on the front page of all the newspapers, and though she knew that by next week those same newspapers would be wrapped round fish and chips and her story would be forgotten, she still felt exposed and vulnerable.
‘I want to go out to Crail and visit Barney’s grave,’ she said. ‘I’m less likely to run into anyone I know there during the week than at the weekend. Besides, there’s nothing here for me in Edinburgh now. I’ll take my time going back to London, maybe stay a couple of nights somewhere in the Borders, walk a bit and get my head together.’
Angie put her hands on her hips and studied her friend closely. ‘You’re disappointed about Stuart, aren’t you?’
Laura shrugged. ‘I don’t know why everyone kept thinking we could be an item again. It wasn’t as if we’d been childhood sweethearts, separated by some cruel stroke of fate. I was unfaithful to him, that’s it and all about it. Some things can’t be mended.’
‘I don’t think that’s the case with you,’ Angie said, shaking her head. ‘No man goes to all the trouble Stuart did for you unless he’s still in love.’
‘You saw him after the court hearing. He hugged me once, told me I looked lovely and kissed me on the cheek when he left. Is that a man in love?’
‘Maybe he was waiting for you to make the first move?’
‘It’s men that have to do that.’
‘That, if you don’t mind me saying, is a quaintly old-fashioned idea.’ Angie sniffed. ‘You’ve got bags of courage, so use some of it. Go to him.’
‘I don’t know where he is.’
‘Well, find out. Someone’s bound to know – his old landlord, Patrick. Use your imagination.’
∗
It had been drizzling in Edinburgh but once Laura had driven over the Forth Bridge the sun came out, and she was acutely reminded of the last time she made this trip. It turned out to be the last time she drove anywhere of course, and it had been May then, a lovely spring day. Now it was the start of October and autumn was on its way, with the leaves beginning to turn yellow and orange on the trees.
But she was determined not to dwell on what happened that day
in May. It was over now.
There wasn’t much traffic and she made good time to Crail, drove past Kirkmay House, studiously not looking at it, and parked her car in Marketgate, close to St Mary’s church.
She had brought some potted cyclamen and spring bulbs for Barney’s grave, along with a small fork and trowel in Edinburgh, to avoid having to go into a shop here. As she entered the churchyard she filled up her water bottle from the tap at the gate and hurried over to his grave.
As always in the past, the sight of the small white marble headstone with just Barney’s name, followed by ‘born 1970, died 1981’, brought tears to her eyes. She hadn’t known what to put on the headstone, and the mason had advised her to keep it simple. But it looked so stark, with no hint of what Barney had been like, or even her feelings about him.
It was Good Friday in ’93 when she had last visited the grave. He would have been twenty-three then if he’d lived, and she could remember wondering what sort of career he would have chosen. She’d planted masses of polyanthus that day and tucked some little fluffy chicks among them, because Barney had always loved it when she made chocolate nest cakes for Easter and put miniature eggs and chicks in them.
After she was arrested, she’d worried about his grave being neglected. It wasn’t until Stuart turned up and came out to Crail that she heard it was very well kept. She assumed Belle had been looking after it.
As it was over a month ago that Belle was arrested, Laura had expected it to be overgrown with weeds, but to her surprise it looked lovely – weed-free and planted with red and white geraniums. She wondered who could have done it.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been so long coming back,’ she whispered, kneeling down on the grass beside the grave. ‘But I’ve thought about you every day since the last time I came. I shall have to take these lovely geraniums away now because they’ll only die when we get the first frost.’
She dug them out, placing them in a carrier bag, then forked over the whole surface and began planting the cyclamen and the bulbs. It was only as she began clearing up, brushing the soil off the marble surround, that she became aware of a man watching her from about twenty feet away. He was around sixty, of slight build, with white thinning hair and a green corduroy jacket.
Faith Page 54
