One Winter's Night (Kelsey Anderson)

by Kiley Dunbar

  Blythe cackled wickedly. ‘I didn’t say I’d acted with him.’

  Kelsey knew Jonathan would love her neighbour’s stories, even if they were, as she suspected, peppered with exaggeration. She also knew he’d be proud of her scoring freelance work with the newspaper. She’d emailed him the digital images at the same time as she’d sent them to Mr Ferdinand at exactly five to five – it wouldn’t do to miss the deadline on her first commission. They were beautifully quirky and characterful portraits of Blythe in all her dramatic lacy head-dress glory.

  Kelsey had been pleased with the pictures for the newspaper but she knew the images she’d taken on her new digital SLR wouldn’t be a patch on the deeply saturated glossy depth of the pictures hidden away in her dad’s old manual Canon AE1.

  Tossing her phone onto her bed, she reached for the heavy retro camera, so very comfortingly solid and metallic, and she wound the spool back into its metal case before flipping open the camera’s back. If she made a dash for the high street she could get the film in the last post of the day to the specialist developer she’d used since moving to England, and in a week or so she’d be sent the traditional silver gelatin prints all the way from the lab in Cheshire, one of the last of its kind in the country. Kelsey grabbed the film, stuffed it in an envelope and ran for the door.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Though those that are betray’d do feel the treason sharply,

  yet the traitor stands in worse case of woe’

  (Cymbeline)

  Mirren was a proponent of the ‘in car scream’. She’d told Kelsey about its therapeutic benefits many times, but not having a car, the advice had never helped Kelsey.

  In the past, Mirren had used the technique to scream out her frustration or to ward off tears and disappointment as she drove home from work of an evening, and she’d found the release of energy helped her switch from miserable work mode to a new frame of mind; her ‘heading home to eat ice cream from the tub and drink wine’ frame of mind.

  Tonight, as she drove through late afternoon twilight along the coast heading out of Edinburgh to the harbour town where she lived, Mirren had drawn a deep breath and screamed her loudest celebratory scream, her lungs fit to burst with exhilaration and triumphant joy.

  This was what success felt like, something Mirren had little experience of at the Broadsheet. Hard work, graft, slogging her guts out and being passed up time and again for promotions, she knew what those felt like, but actually reaping the rewards and being recognised for her dedication? Never. At least, not until today.

  She gripped the steering wheel, bouncing her shoulders off the backrest as she let her voice soar. Nobody could hear her, or see her, and no one thought she was crazy; that was the beauty of the in-car scream.

  She was going to write the best feature Mr Angus had ever read. She’d research her topic in forensic detail, she’d conduct her interviews like a reporter uncovering a world-changing scoop, and she’d write up her copy with the linguistic flare of Robert Burns, Maya Angelou and Christina Rossetti combined. To be clear, she was going to prove herself and at last get the promotion she deserved.

  Anybody could write up the court stories – the brilliant interns could do it in their sleep, instead of spending their days restocking the stationery cupboard, making coffee for other people and, on rare occasions, collecting senior reporters’ kids from school and taking them to McDonald’s until their dads were done for the day. Anybody with even a vague familiarity with the English language could write the stories she wrote. Only this morning she’d filed a sixty-word report about a woman charged with stealing twelve pairs of scissors. The accused hadn’t turned up for her court appearance and was bound over to stop nicking things for twelve months in her absence. Nothing to it. But writing a feature required a whole other skill set, and Mirren was more than ready to prove she had what it takes to wow the readers of the women’s pages in the weekend editions.

  What with the joyful vocalisations and all of her daydreaming as she navigated the congested traffic that choked up her little quayside town, she didn’t realise exactly what she had done until it was too late. Not until she had found a parking space, pulled on the handbrake and unclicked her seatbelt did it occur to her where she was.

  She wasn’t at her mum’s house where she now lived. She’d found her way back to the grey stone flat she and Preston had shared until only a few weeks ago. The softest unconscious parts of her brain had led her there, and deep down Mirren knew why.

  She’d wanted to tell Preston all about her day. He had been the first person she’d thought of when Mr Angus accepted her pitch. As her heart had swelled with pride it had nudged the little muscle of long habit that told her to get home quick and tell Preston. He’d want to celebrate, probably insist on going out to buy some bubbly and having a chippy tea on the harbour wall, watching the late boats come in, like they used to. But that subconscious reflex that forever linked feelings of home, safety and celebration with Preston was a faulty one. She didn’t live here anymore, and neither did Preston. But it was too late. Here she was.

  Mirren looked up at the windows of their flat on the second floor. The new occupants had gone for green curtains over the blinds Preston had fitted all by himself when they’d moved in together way back at the end of high school. Everyone had said they were too young, none more vociferously than Mirren’s mum, but they’d been so happy, at first, and they had shared every aspect of their lives from the ages of sixteen to twenty-eight – everything except Mirren’s cheating.

  The blue light from a screen flickered in the window. Someone would notice her soon if she didn’t get away and Mirren couldn’t bear to look at the flat any longer. Regret is a terrible, clever thing, she reflected. It mingles with all of your guilt and comes creeping up on you when you’re not expecting it, and baam! It hits you. Her chest heaved and a hard sigh forced its way out of her mouth. Then the tears welled. She’d hurt him so badly.

  She could remember it all so clearly. The first of September; the day she’d arrived home from Stratford after visiting Kelsey, resolved that she’d cheated on Preston for the last time, determined to make things right and leave him in peace. She’d had no idea how he would take it. He’d always been so docile, so gentle, accepting of people’s failings and frailties. He’d been fun too, quick to laugh and make light of difficult situations. Then there were his talents: for music (he could make his Gibson guitar sing like Springsteen); for making friends, and keeping them; for caring for people – he’d visited Kelsey’s grandfather for tea and chats when everyone else was at work or just plain busy, and nobody had ever thought to thank him properly. Poor, loving, overlooked Preston. She’d trampled on his feelings and everything he’d believed in.

  She hadn’t just told him about her fling with Will Greville – the guy with the posh accent and auburn hair and condoms in his wallet at the theatrical gala in Stratford – she’d told him about the others too, dredging up memories from years ago of men whose faces she couldn’t even remember. It had been a great unburdening, a full confession.

  Looking back now, she saw how cruel that had been; handing him the guilt that had troubled her for years, passing it on to him to convert into pain and shock. Some things are better left unsaid. Mirren had come to learn that the hard way.

  Yet, a deep part of her had resolved to go all in. That’s how self-sabotage works. She’d told herself that if she didn’t stand there, look Preston in the eyes, and reveal to him the full depth of her infidelity, there was a chance he’d simply forgive her for making a one-off mistake, no matter how much he’d suffer in silence afterwards. The thought of what that forgiveness would feel like sickened her. He’d promise never to mention it again and he’d stick to his word, and every kind thing he did for her from then on would drag Mirren down into the mire of her guilt.

  Preston had been her safe space since they were kids when the three of them, Kelsey included, were firm after-school theatre club friends. He deserved better
than a patched-up relationship riddled with lies, faithfully residing with someone unable to admit to another living soul the terrible, secret thing she’d done five years ago that kick started all the self-destruction. She would barely allow herself to acknowledge it, and she hadn’t told Preston either, not even during her great confession.

  No, he deserved better than her, always had. She’d had to bring about the absolute implosion of her relationship, making sure Preston couldn’t ever forgive her.

  It had crushed her heart to see it work so perfectly.

  He’d sat in silence, tears running down his face, distraught. He hadn’t believed her at first, then he simply hadn’t wanted to believe her. Then he’d asked her to stop talking. He had gathered up his books, a bundle of jeans and t-shirts, his laptop and his wallet, slung his guitar cases over his shoulders and walked out the door, leaving his key behind. And she hadn’t seen him since. Their friendship of fifteen long years was severed.

  She’d sat in the flat for days, letting it all sink in, thinking of the pain she’d burdened him with in order to set him free, as she replayed over and over again images of what she’d done in Stratford.

  It had been such a beautiful evening at the theatrical gala, the last day of what had been a dazzling and beautiful August. Mirren had felt like a knockout in her red, sequined dress. She and Kelsey had been roped in to taking part in a tableau vivant by Kelsey’s pushy, brilliant boss, Norma Arden.

  The thrill of being on stage that night, striking a frozen pose under the spotlights as they created the wonderfully artistic living picture in front of a cooing audience, along with the heady buzz from the complimentary drinks all evening had somehow made it seem acceptable to Mirren to take Will’s hand and let him lead her through the garden.

  It had seemed enchanted and full of music and magic that late summer’s night, as she’d followed him up the steps into the old tree house and let him kiss her in the half light.

  She remembered his velvet Elizabethan costume, and his English accent, classy and crisp, saying, ‘You really are something else,’ as he’d slipped his hands inside her dress, and for a moment she’d let her mind go blank and her senses take over.

  He’d been passionate and gentle enough, but he hadn’t noticed her breathing stilling as her excitement faded and as she opened her eyes to watch the dust motes sparkling in the dying light from the stained glass of the tree house’s antique windows. She’d let her head roll loosely against his shoulder as his breathing and his movements sharpened, and she’d thought the same two familiar words that she’d thought on other occasions with other devilishly handsome, smart-talking men: ‘This again?’

  Mirren had known then she’d have to go home and tell Preston it really was over this time. And so she’d watched his car pull away from the home they’d shared for years and the relationship they’d settled into since high school, knowing that the little flame of love that Preston had always carried for her, when no one else in the world – excepting Kelsey – adored her, was snuffed out by her own hand.

  She didn’t know how long she cried for, sitting in her car outside the old flat, but it had grown cool and dark when she lifted her head from her hands and reached for the ignition. She drove home to her mum’s house in the silence of the autumn evening.

  She’d only lasted a fortnight alone in that flat. It was impossible keeping up the rent on her own, so she’d moved to her mum’s, trying not to acknowledge that both of them knew it was absolutely her last resort.

  * * *

  ‘I’m back,’ Mirren called, placing her keys in the bowl by the door.

  The little kitchen was spotlessly clean. The strip light buzzed above her. She tiptoed over the vinyl tiles and onto the landing at the foot of the stairs. The television was on in the otherwise dark living room and through the glass door Mirren could make out the broad Scottish accents of the gritty detective serial her mum was currently addicted to. Should I go in and tell her about getting the feature? Mirren wondered. Will she be pleased?

  ‘You didn’t come straight home then?’ her mum called from the living room and at the slurred sound of the greeting Mirren dismissed all thoughts of sharing her good news. She pushed the door open and popped her head round the frame. Jeanie Imrie didn’t look round from her armchair where she sat with her legs curled beneath her.

  ‘I had a wander down Princes Street to see the sales. Didn’t get anything though.’ A little white lie was needed, Mirren knew. She couldn’t tell her mum what had happened; how her full heart had turned back into a broken one after her autopilot journey towards Preston. She was about to pull her head back out of the room and climb the stairs to bed when her mum spoke again.

  ‘You missed him.’

  ‘Who?’ Mirren made her way into the living room now, but stood behind her mum’s chair. She couldn’t mean her father, could she? Not when he hadn’t shown his face once in almost a decade?

  Jeanie, eyes fixed on the screen, nodded towards the pile of clothes neatly folded over the arm of the sofa, exactly at the moment Mirren spotted them.

  ‘Some of your things were mixed up with his when he packed his bags. So he brought them round.’

  Mirren looked towards the door she’d just come through. ‘Preston? How long ago was that?’ Her mind raced. Could she catch him up? Was he still walking to his car? She hadn’t seen it out on the street as she’d pulled around the back of their row of houses and into the garage.

  ‘An hour since.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mirren tried to shrug off the sudden hope and the disappointment. Before she could ask how he’d seemed or where he’d been going, Jeanie was on her feet and walking over to the TV, switching it off with the button at the side.

  ‘You didn’t deserve a nice laddie like that.’ Jeanie Imrie sailed past her daughter towards the door, and as she passed by Mirren caught the familiar sickly smell of whisky and cola. She hadn’t needed to look for the glass by the side of the armchair, but she did see the unsteadiness in her mother’s steps and the dark glaze over her eyes that she’d known since her childhood.

  It had been a few weeks since she’d seen her like this – not drunk, not by any means, but what her dad, long ago when he still lived with them, called ‘topped up’. But she knew the pattern, the steady daily drinking, a few whiskies every night, gradually building up into a whole bottle at the weekend, and her mother never being entirely sober for weeks at a time. When had she started again? Mirren couldn’t be sure. But she knew it meant she was going to hear her mum’s opinions on Preston tonight and there was very little she could do to avoid it.

  ‘OK, well I’m going to bed now. Night night,’ Mirren said weakly.

  ‘He asked after you. Don’t you want to know how the poor laddie’s doing?’ Jeanie didn’t meet her daughter’s eye, not once, as she bustled around the living room, rearranging the ornaments and the box of tissues with fumbling fingers, repositioning a vase of tall gladioli on its crocheted mat.

  Mirren said nothing, mentally calculating how long it would take her mum to run through her routine – there was still the compulsive bedtime wipe-down of the kitchen surfaces with neat bleach to go – and she could quietly take herself off to her childhood bedroom upstairs.

  ‘You just couldn’t look after him though, could you? Couldn’t control yourself. He was a perfectly nice boy, but did you want him? No, not you, not Mirren. She always wants what she can’t have, and look where that’s got you,’ said Jeanie, a slur slowing her speech, and all the while she was tidying the magazines in the rack by the side of the sofa.

  ‘All right, well, I’m tired, I’m going to get to bed.’ Mirren knew not to challenge her mum, it was easier just to listen and try to deflect the worst bits, try not to let it sink in. But, as she also knew from long experience, some things stick in your mind, especially when it’s your own mother saying them.

  At last, Jeanie was on the move into the kitchen, and Mirren followed her through the door and turned for the stair
s, but she knew there would be a parting shot.

  ‘If you were meeting another of your dates tonight, you ken exactly what I think of that. Don’t even think about bringing one of your men friends here. You treat this place like a hotel as it is, don’t be turning it into a brothel too.’

  Mirren paused halfway up the stairs, but didn’t turn round. Her mum was gone anyway. She heard the sound of the cupboard under the sink being opened and the hollow thud of the bleach bottle being placed on the draining board. Her mum was busy, cloth in hand.

  By the time Jeanie had scrubbed the already gleaming kitchen taps, Mirren had her teeth brushed and was changed into her pyjamas. She slid under the covers in the dark and listened for her mum making her way to her own room, accompanied by the chink of a glass against a whisky bottle at every step.

  She lay in bed thinking over every word that had been slung at her. All true. She couldn’t just be happy with her lot, she always selfishly wanted something, or someone else.

  She hadn’t needed to ask her mum how Preston was, she already knew. She’d seen his band’s Instagram and Facebook pages; they were in the middle of a tour of clubs and bars across Scotland. In the pictures Preston was smiling, or looking cool and moody, his Gibson low on its strap across his body. He’d been waiting for this moment all his life, when the local gigs, demos and studio time began paying off. Before she’d set off for that fateful weekend in Stratford in August she’d known there was an indie label showing interest in them. Preston must be having the time of his life. She hoped with a sad pang that the broken heart she’d handed him wasn’t tainting the newfound success he’d worked so hard for.

  She’d seen the pictures, posted by women, tagging him. Blurry, dark nightclub scenes, tables cluttered with glasses. Beautiful young women and the boys from the band, cheek-kisses and heads close together, white-teeth grins. It stung to be reminded how much she missed being that close to him, but she wouldn’t let herself regret setting him free. The band had a following of fans already. He’d soon be on tour in England too, and then… anywhere. The world was at his feet, now she’d let him go. He’d taken to being single as though it hadn’t just been Mirren waiting for their life to begin.