The Big Chill

by Doug Johnstone

  ‘I assaulted him,’ Jenny said.

  Fiona froze with the glass at her lips.

  Jenny swallowed. ‘I went to see him in prison.’

  Fiona lowered her glass and leaned forward. ‘Holy shit. What was he like?’

  Jenny looked at the painting behind Fiona’s head, bright red with slashes of yellow. It looked angry.

  ‘He played me,’ she said. She hadn’t admitted this to Dorothy or Hannah but if anyone understood Craig like Jenny did it was his current wife. ‘He played innocent. Can you fucking imagine?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Fiona’s eyes were alive for the first time since Jenny walked in.

  ‘I fell for it, got angry. Next thing I knew my fist was in his face.’

  Fiona raised her glass in a toast. ‘Bravo.’

  ‘He’s pressing charges for assault.’

  Fiona looked out of the window, eyes watery. ‘He’s always got what he wanted, hasn’t he?’

  ‘We let him.’

  ‘We did,’ Fiona said. ‘I’m sorry I took him from you.’

  Jenny laughed. ‘I’m not.’

  Fiona smiled, wiggled her nose. ‘I was horrible. I didn’t give a shit who I was hurting when I started things with him. He pursued me and I liked it, isn’t that fucking awful?’

  Jenny sat back in the seat, felt the expensive upholstery. ‘You don’t have to apologise.’

  ‘Of course I do. He was married, had a daughter already, and I didn’t give a fuck. Some member of the sisterhood.’

  Jenny swallowed. ‘I kissed him.’

  Fiona frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The night he stabbed me,’ Jenny said. ‘And one time before that. We got drunk and I kissed him. I was going to fuck him if Hannah hadn’t got in touch about Mel.’

  Fiona sat still. ‘Shit.’

  ‘It was partly revenge, I wanted to hurt you. I knew he had you and Sophia, I just didn’t care.’

  ‘It’s not us,’ Fiona said. ‘Remember that, it’s him.’

  ‘He played me, just like he did in prison. He dialled up the charm, pretended to be interested again, we fell back into old patterns. It felt so comfortable, to be with someone who knew me.’

  ‘He’s a charming snake.’

  ‘But he was only doing it to keep tabs on what we’d found out about Mel, what the police knew.’

  Fiona finished her wine and topped up. Jenny looked at the glass with envy, that would make things easier.

  ‘Stop it,’ Fiona said. ‘Listen to us. We’re talking about him again, that’s what he wants, that’s why he’s changing his plea. He can’t stand the idea we might forget him.’

  Jenny’s eyes were wet now and she felt a tear drop onto her hand.

  ‘But I can’t forget,’ she said, touching her stomach, feeling the scarred skin.

  ‘Me neither. It’s pathetic, isn’t it?’

  Jenny wiped the tears from her cheek. ‘To us he’s just a fucked-up ex, but he’s Hannah and Sophia’s dad.’

  Fiona sighed, a sound from the bowels of the earth.

  A delivery van rumbled along the setts outside, sparrows flitting between trees.

  ‘What can we do?’ Fiona said eventually.

  Jenny shook her head. ‘I have no idea. I tried to get a meeting with his solicitor but it’s a non-starter. I have the name of the psychiatrist who gave him the diagnosis to change his plea.’

  ‘He won’t speak to you,’ Fiona said.

  Jenny rubbed her hands together in her lap, felt them wet from her tears.

  ‘I’ll make him talk to me,’ she said, but her voice had no conviction.

  20

  DOROTHY

  Dorothy dipped the last of her cabbage dumpling in the sharp sauce and popped it in her mouth as she looked out of the window across the road. She was in Tea House, a no-nonsense Chinese café on Clerk Street, and she was watching Warners Estate Agents on the corner of Patrick’s Square, where Sandra Livingstone worked. She could see her now at a desk in the office, chatting to a prospective buyer or seller. Dorothy sipped green tea and looked around. Old plastic tables and chairs, peeling wallpaper, chatter from the kitchen mingling with the smell of ginger and garlic.

  Outside the window buses queued at the stop, the pavement a throng of students and locals. She loved this part of town, upmarket cafes next to nail salons, scruffy old pubs cheek by jowl with fancy sweet shops, acupuncturists, a skate shop, vintage clothes, vaping joints, Drum Central, a circus equipment store with a unicycle in the window. A huge Chinese supermarket along from the old art deco Odeon, boarded up and waiting for a new life.

  She checked her watch. A bus peeled away, unblocking the view, and Sandra’s seat was empty. Dorothy watched a minute longer, finished her tea, put money down for the bill. Sandra left the office pulling a jacket on and headed up the street. Lunch break.

  Dorothy followed at a distance, hidden in the crowd. Sandra dived into Tesco Metro and Dorothy followed, saw her choosing a sandwich from the refrigerated section. She didn’t look like someone whose daughter was missing. But that was unfair, we all put on a front, we all have to get on with our lives. But if Jenny had gone missing when she was fourteen, Dorothy would’ve spent every waking moment on the streets trying to track her down.

  Dorothy left as Sandra paid at the till, waited in the gloomy vennel round the side of the shop, then emerged as Sandra came out and walked into her.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sandra said, then realised who it was. Her face fell.

  Dorothy didn’t try to pretend it was coincidence, she just wanted an honest reaction from Sandra when she saw Dorothy. Now she knew she wasn’t welcome.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ Dorothy said.

  Sandra had the scowl in place. ‘What do you want?’

  Dorothy kept her face bright. ‘Any news on Abi?’

  Sandra moved her Tesco bag from one hand to the other, ran fingers through her hair. ‘No.’

  ‘I spoke to Mike about her.’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘And I went to see Neil Williams.’

  Sandra swallowed.

  ‘Didn’t Mike tell you?’ Dorothy said. ‘He gave me Neil’s name and address.’

  Sandra’s teeth were gritted. ‘Neil’s out of the country.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘He travels a lot.’

  ‘Doing what exactly?’

  ‘Sales.’

  ‘That’s quite vague.’

  ‘He’s my ex-husband, I don’t keep tabs on him.’

  ‘But you’ve spoken to him since Abi went missing.’

  Sandra shook her head. ‘What’s the point, he’s out of the country.’

  ‘So you said.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Dorothy splayed her fingers out. ‘Would you happen to have a phone number for him?’

  Sandra narrowed her eyes. ‘Why are you so interested in this?’

  ‘Your daughter’s missing, Sandra.’

  ‘You think I don’t know that? You think I’m not worried sick?’ Her hand was at her temple, pressing hard. The vein under her fingertips throbbed. ‘You seem to think you care more about my daughter than I do.’

  ‘I don’t think that.’

  ‘Please,’ Sandra said, voice shaky. ‘Leave me alone.’

  She started walking and it took Dorothy a while to catch up on the busy pavement.

  ‘I was wondering,’ she said. ‘Even if Abi’s biological father is away, maybe she’s staying at his place?’

  Sandra was outside a fabric shop, bright sari material shimmering in the window. She shook her head and stopped walking with a rustle of her shopping bag. ‘She doesn’t have keys.’

  ‘Maybe Neil gave her a set.’

  ‘He never did that.’

  Dorothy saw something in Sandra’s face, a flicker in the eyes. ‘So you have spoken to him?’

  This got a big sigh. People skirted past them as they stood like rocks in a stream, gradually worn down by the water, millenn
ia of erosion, the degradation of the self. Dorothy felt suddenly tired and sensed the same deep-boned fatigue in Sandra.

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, I have,’ Sandra said.

  Dorothy raised her eyebrows.

  ‘He hasn’t heard from her, hasn’t given her keys and has no idea where she is.’

  There was something rote in the way she delivered the line.

  ‘And you trust him?’ Dorothy said.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  Dorothy smiled. ‘Well, he’s your ex-husband for a reason. Do you trust him?’

  Sandra frowned, almost puzzled. A young man bumped her with a backpack and apologised, but Sandra stared at him like she would swing her lunch at his head. She turned back to Dorothy but it felt like the thread of their conversation was broken.

  ‘He wouldn’t lie about this,’ she said.

  Dorothy thought about what the neighbour said in Leith, lots of people coming and going at that flat.

  Sandra gathered herself and went past Dorothy. ‘I have to get back to the office.’

  Dorothy touched her arm and she shook it off. ‘What about Mike?’

  She stared at Dorothy. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Do you trust him?’

  Sandra’s jaw went tight. ‘What are you implying?’

  Dorothy breathed in and out. ‘A stepdad-stepdaughter relationship isn’t easy.’

  Sandra pointed a finger and angled her head, trying to keep herself in check. ‘This has nothing to do with you. Leave us alone.’

  Dorothy held her hands up, two passing teenagers giving her a sideways glance. They were about Abi’s age, and she wondered if they were on their lunch break or bunking off.

  Sandra strode across the road, dodging a taxi and a van. Dorothy watched her all the way to the office then stood wondering about all those empty properties the estate agents were trying to sell. All those properties Sandra had keys for.

  21

  HANNAH

  ‘So how have you been since last time?’ Rita said.

  Hannah looked around the bright counsellor’s office and felt like her head was going to burst. A sick laugh escaped her mouth, shocking her, so cynical. She didn’t want to be cynical, but what was the universe doing to her?

  She looked out of the window and tried to breathe, imagining her lungs as a mechanical device, her heart just a pump doing its job, not trying to crawl out of her chest and strangle her. It was a stupidly bright day out there, pink and white explosions of cherry blossom along the Meadows’ pathways.

  Rita shuffled on her plastic seat in a leather skirt.

  Hannah smiled. ‘Let’s see, since I spoke to you last my murderous dad called me from prison, my mum then visited him in prison and assaulted him and he’s pressing charges. I passed out at Mel’s memorial service, which was then cancelled, and a lovely old professor in the physics department has killed himself. And I found his body.’

  She felt sorry for Rita, having to deal with this shit. Hannah would never make a good counsellor, the idea of separating yourself from the problems of others, she couldn’t handle it. She didn’t know how Indy coped with the funerals, the bereaved, all that emotional stuff. Didn’t it grind you to dust?

  Rita had a notepad open on her crossed knee, the pen wavering above it, but she didn’t write anything, just stared at Hannah. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘I know, right?’

  ‘If I were you, I would be in bits.’

  Hannah felt her fingertips tingle, flexed her hands in and out, swivelled her wrists. ‘Yep.’

  Rita looked like she’d been hit by a bus. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  Hannah bit her lip, harder than she meant to as tears formed behind her eyes.

  ‘Hugh drank acid,’ she said. ‘That’s the professor. The same acid Schrödinger mentioned in his cat experiment.’

  Rita frowned. ‘Does that mean something?’

  Hannah went wide-eyed, held her arms out. ‘I really wish I knew.’

  ‘You spoke about Schrödinger last time,’ Rita said, flicking through her notebook. ‘The many-worlds theory?’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘Stupid wishful thinking. The idea that every moment splits, and somewhere there’s a parallel universe where Mel and Hugh are alive. How is that any different from believing in heaven?’

  Rita shrugged, left space for more comment.

  ‘It isn’t,’ Hannah said. ‘I used to love physics, the big ideas, the way equations flowed, the logical sequence of cause and effect, but it’s all bullshit. We know nothing about the physical universe, even less about the emotional one.’

  ‘You’re understandably upset.’

  Hannah sat forward. ‘I’m understandable, that’s good. At least something is.’

  Rita nodded to herself, a non-committal, sounding-board gesture that was meant to convey she was really listening.

  ‘Say something,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Remember the de-stressing techniques we talked about.’ Rita put the notebook down. ‘Breathing, calming.’

  ‘Being calm is not an option here.’

  Hannah’s chest was tight, and she remembered standing in the lecture theatre for Mel’s memorial as the world went black.

  ‘Tell me about passing out,’ Rita said, mind reader that she was.

  ‘Stress.’

  ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

  Hannah sighed. ‘The pills don’t work, I did that before. I know my own body and mind better than any GP.’

  ‘And yet you’re passing out from stress.’

  Hannah sat back, crossed her legs. ‘I can’t help it if my life is stressful.’

  ‘I’m just trying to help.’

  Lungs, heart, do your job, stop trying to choke and strangle me.

  Rita smoothed her skirt, left her hands in her lap. ‘Do you want to talk about your dad?’

  Hannah remembered their conversation from last time, Bladerunner and replicants. The police interview at the start of the movie.

  She formed her hands into a gun shape, pushed her index fingers into her own mouth, spoke through gritted teeth.

  ‘Let me tell you about my father, right?’

  She made the sound of a gun firing and jerked her head back, then smiled.

  ‘So you found him.’

  It was a statement not a question, but Hannah felt she had to answer.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m so sorry you had to see that.’

  Hannah frowned. She was in the gloomy front room of Hugh Fowler’s house on Lygon Road, round the corner from King’s Buildings. She’d walked past the street sign a hundred times leaving campus, always imagined it was called Polygon Road with a couple of letters fallen off. She’d never been down the street until today, when she got the call from Hugh’s widow, now pouring tea into china cups.

  Wendy Fowler was the female equivalent of Hugh, in her eighties, small and compact, cardigan with thinning elbows, the bulge of a tissue tucked into her sleeve. Her comfy slacks were pulled too high, the jumper underneath the cardigan making her body seem like a stuffed toy. She had wispy white hair and wore a pearl necklace. She added milk to the tea and passed it over with a steady hand. Offered a plate of biscuits, pink wafers.

  Hannah shook her head. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

  Wendy pressed her lips together and poked the tip of her tongue between them. ‘I don’t know.’

  That was such a general statement Hannah didn’t know what to do with it.

  On the walls were colossal, detailed maps of Greenland, Baffin Island and Svalbard. They were framed and hung as a triptych.

  Wendy saw Hannah look at them.

  ‘We used to love exploring,’ she said. ‘When we were younger and fitter.’

  Hannah tried to imagine being with Indy until they were that age, sixty years of shared experience, thrown away with a single swallow of acid. She pictured herself and Indy in matching cardigans, tramping over Greenlandic glaciers, spotting a polar
bear in the distance, gazing at the northern lights in the crystal night. She pictured finding Indy slumped over a desk with foam coming from her mouth.

  Hannah tried to breathe. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything.’ Wendy sipped her tea.

  ‘You don’t seem very upset.’

  Wendy waved a hand around the room. ‘This is all so small, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Hannah drank her tea and wondered if it was laced with something. She was still getting olfactory flashbacks to the almond smell of Hugh’s acid bottle. She smelled it wherever she went, imagined poison in her veins.

  Wendy waved at the maps. ‘Those great expanses, the ice sheets, the tundra. The scale of it.’ She turned to Hannah. ‘We both lived very long and full lives. Lives full of love, too.’

  ‘So why end it?’

  Wendy smiled. ‘Why stick around? We have no children or grandchildren to hang on for.’

  Hannah thought about what Hugh said on the phone about losing a child. She swallowed hard. ‘But why would he leave you?’

  Wendy placed her cup and saucer down carefully. ‘That’s the wrong way of looking at it.’

  Hannah had never felt more out of step with the universe than right now, talking with an existential widow and drinking probably poisoned tea in a dead man’s parlour.

  Wendy got up slowly and went to the Svalbard map. ‘Do you know about the Global Seed Vault?’

  Hannah felt a shudder through her, she was losing her grip. ‘Sorry?’

  Wendy tapped the map. ‘On Svalbard. The Norwegians built a giant bunker full of samples of all the world’s seeds. In case of apocalypse. It’s supposed to last thousands of years. One of the problems is how to communicate the vault’s purpose to future generations. Who knows how humans will be communicating thousands of years from now?’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because it’s interesting, don’t you think?’

  ‘So we’re totally insignificant compared to the massive expanses of space and time? I already know that, I study physics.’