‘I’ll try. Promise.’
I watched him from the doorway as he slid into his car, then drove away, with a last wave through the open window.
And then I folded; without warning my legs turned to jelly. I eased myself back to the kitchen and up on to the stool that Bob had been using, then poured the last of the orange juice into his glass. What the hell have I done? I asked myself.
Then I answered. ‘I’ve enjoyed the best sex I’ve had since before the two of us split up. I’ve made no promises and no commitments. And on top of that, I feel better about myself than I have in years.’
So why can’t I smile about it?
‘Because I’m worried about my man. He’s on the edge and I don’t know what he’s going to be like when he comes through it.’
I took the OJ upstairs and had the warm bath I’d promised myself. I put in some crystals, and wallowed for a while, pleased to find that although I was out of practice and had been holding nothing back, I wasn’t sore or even tender. When I’d had enough, I dressed, and began the rest of my day, as I’d described it to Bob. I use a cleaning service, but the kids’ bedrooms needed attention. I’ve never expected Trish to be a domestic as well as a carer.
I put a little less concentration than usual into the tidying of bedrooms and the changing of linen, for my mind was still full and running over. I’d described Bob as a man on the edge, but what the hell was I? I’d been lying to myself, I realised. I hadn’t come back for the job and the kids, not for those considerations alone. I hadn’t planned the night before, and I repeat, I hadn’t invited him for more than dinner, but maybe I’d been waiting for my opportunity all along.
Lecture preparation was out of the question. I owe my students my one hundred per cent attention and they weren’t getting it that day. A little girlfriend time might be a better alternative, I decided, but it was a short list, reduced to one, really, by the obvious truth that I couldn’t call Alex. So I rang Paula Viareggio; she and I have always got on well from the time that Mario and she came out of the closet, when Bob and I helped them along by inviting them to dinner parties as a couple.
‘You busy?’ I asked her once we’d got past the opening exchanges. ‘Or are you just too pregnant to come out and play?’
‘I’d love to, Sarah,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got a social event tonight and I’d better rest up for it. Would you like to drop in here instead, for coffee and a chat? Mario’s out. There’s some stuff going on at work that needs his weekend attention.’
‘Fine by me. I’ll look forward to it. I’ll do some essentials shopping, then come to you. Around eleven thirty suit?’
‘Perfect.’ I thought she’d hang up, but she didn’t. ‘What’s put the bounce in your boobs?’ Paula doesn’t do subtle.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You sound sparkly. Have you got a new man?’
‘Me?’ I laughed. ‘Honestly, no.’ It was the truth; nothing new about him.
I got out of my work clothes and made a list of the things I needed for the house and for the kids when Trish brought them back on the following Monday. I was in the act of reaching for my car keys when the phone rang. ‘Dammit!’ I muttered. Then my heart jumped a little mouthwards. I wasn’t on call, so who. .
I could only imagine one thing: Bob, full of guilt and contrition, and maybe anger, calling to blame me for the mistake he’d made and threatening me with everything short of deportation if I ever breathed a word.
I was half right. ‘Hi,’ he said, quietly. I heard a seagull in the background and guessed he was in the garden on his mobile. ‘I think I’m calling to apologise. I was way out of order last night, moaning to you about my life, and then taking advantage of you.’
‘I see,’ I murmured. ‘There was a point this morning when I told you I still love you, if I remember right. Or didn’t you hear that?’
‘Yes, I heard. The bugger is, it’s mutual.’
‘Then don’t go apologising. I also said I won’t go back to where we were, and I meant that too. As for. . all that sweaty stuff, you were a man in great need of getting his ashes properly hauled. If you’d gone anywhere else for that, then I would have been seriously pissed off. Now chill out. What are you doing anyway?’
‘I’m playing with our daughter, as it happens. That’s it, Seonaid,’ he called out, ‘pass me the ball. You know what, Sarah? She’s gorgeous.’ I had a melting moment, but I wasn’t about to let him in on it.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘And she knows it too. Enjoy yourselves. I’m going out.’ I hung up and grabbed my keys, but I hadn’t reached the door before the phone rang again. I smiled and picked it up. ‘Yes,’ I chuckled, ‘I still love you in the morning.’
‘That may be too much information, Sarah,’ Joe Hutchison said, solemnly.
‘Then forget you ever heard it,’ I replied cheerfully.
‘I will, although I’m curious about who you thought I might be. I wonder, my dear,’ he continued. I knew it was favour time, ‘My dear’ told me so, ‘I know that you’re not on duty this weekend, but something’s come up.’
My switch to work mode is automatic. ‘Crime scene or major accident?’
‘Crime scene. Thing is, Sarah, our Roshan is fine for run-of-the-mill stuff, but this isn’t something we can ask him to handle alone. It’s multiple and it’s messy. I’d go myself, but my dear wife has plans and besides. .’
You’re the prof, and you’re not getting any younger, I thought, but didn’t say it. ‘Where is it?’ I asked.
‘Leith, near Ocean Terminal. DI Pye is the officer in charge. I’ll let him know you’re coming.’
‘It’s all right, Joe; I have Sammy’s mobile number. I’ll call him myself. As it happens, I was heading for Leith anyway. I’ll tell my chum I’ll be a little late.’
Cameron ‘Cheeky’ McCullough
I know there are cops who don’t approve of Sauce and me, big Jack McGurk for a start; and I can understand why.
My grandfather has been a very bad man in his time; people like Jack, people who don’t know him, think he still is, and that he always will be. People who do. .
No. I can’t say that. The truth is that people who do know my grandpa would never talk to me about him, so I don’t have anyone else’s educated view to go on, other than my mum’s and my aunt’s, and you wouldn’t hang a rat on the word of either of them.
My aunt, Goldie (her real name’s Daphne, but she hates it and nobody ever dares call her by it), is as hard as nails and every bit as dense. My mother, Inez? Grandpa says that Cadburys named a chocolate bar after her. You know, the crumbly one. Dear mother is doing time at the moment for a series of robberies. She even got me involved in the last one, by persuading me to drive for her to pick up a load of gear that she said she’d bought cash from a shop, to be collected out of hours. When we were arrested, Grandpa hired a good lawyer who got me out from under, but to this day nobody in the world, apart from Sauce, believes that I took her at her word and didn’t know what was going on. I did, though, I really did; I persuaded myself that she was telling the truth, because what mother would be stupid enough to involve her own daughter in a scam that could put her in jail?
I tell you all this to explain the closeness between Grandpa and me. He’s always been the major figure in my life, the one who’s raised me and influenced me. He’s very young to have a 23-year-old granddaughter. That’s because my mother got herself knocked up when she was still under sixteen, and didn’t tell anyone until it was too late to have an abortion. . although Grandpa says he wouldn’t have allowed it anyway; he really is a moral maze, that man.
I have no idea who my father is. His name doesn’t appear on my birth certificate. My mum’s always refused to discuss him, and all Grandpa ever said when I asked him was, ‘Doesn’t matter, kid. You are you.’ When I was eleven, I plucked up the courage to ask Auntie Goldie; she’s always scared me, for as long as I can remember. She glared at me with those cold eyes and said, ‘Eff you.’ It took me another two years to tell Grandpa about that conversation. When I did, he explained that she’d meant, ‘Father Unknown.’