Chapter 20 #2
The men drank their lager and chatted about minor things, but all talk brought them back to Falabay and it was a shame to be away from the island and talk only of home. They fell into silence and watched the office girls squeal as they downed a tray of free sambuca shots.
“We should ask for free drinks,” Cal said. “That’s discrimination.”
“Aidh—don’t you dare!”
He liked the way Innes scolded him. He raised his pint and hid his grin.
The women demanded another round of free shots.
It was shameless. Things like this mortified him and yet he couldn’t help but admire them.
He leant closer. “My granny used to take me to the opticians in Stornoway. Do you know that tearoom in the Narrows? She’d sit there, drinking her tea and smoking her fags, but she would keep one eye on the room and eventually she would nudge me and go, ‘See that lassie over there? She’s no gonnae finish they chips.
Go over there and ask if you can have them. On ye go!’”
“My goodness.” Innes cringed. “Did you go over?”
“Once. The girl was so shocked that she let me take her leftovers. You could tell she had these tiny wee teeth because of the imprint she made in the bread. Ella just nodded in thanks. Then she had the cheek to scold me about pride. But see the thing is, I knew the girl’s sister.
She was in my year at school. For the next two years I was known as the lad who begged for crusts. ”
“That’s . . . not good.”
“Next time we had lunch she tried the same fucking stunt but I refused to do it. So she got up in this great big huff. She cruised round the teashop, looking down at all the tables like a teacher during exams, and then she stops and asks this workie if she can clear his plate for him. The poor guy thought she was a waitress, or senile – who the fuck knows. But she took his plate, brought it back to our table and ate the crusts and the bits of . . .” He made a sprinkling motion.
“Garnish?”
“Yeah. Garnish. And the whole time the man just sat there and watched her eat the leftovers of his lunch.” Cal put his thumb knuckles to his eyelids and massaged his eyeballs.
“Have you ever had sambuca? You’re going to hate it!
” Before Innes could argue he went up to the bar and returned with the drinks, which he was forced to pay for.
“Dear God above,” said Innes, sniffing the booze. “Is the plan to kill me?”
“Depends. Do you have that ‘new van’ money on you?”
They downed the shots. The aftertaste of anise made them wash their mouths out with lager. Cal hadn’t eaten since that morning and he felt the drink begin to unknot his mind. He gave himself a shake and tried to relax. “OK. So, if my father is your best friend—”
“That sounds so childish.”
“OK, if my father is your oldest friend. Then tell me something I don’t know about him.”
“Did you ever think the things you don’t know are things he doesn’t want you to know?”
“You make him sound almost interesting.”
Innes reached into his pocket and took out some notes. He waved them at Cal.
“Fine.” Cal grumbled but he snatched the money and went back up to the bar.
As he waited for the barman’s attention, he turned around and saw that Innes was watching him.
When he turned back to the bar, he rested all his weight on one leg and pushed out his rump a little.
He waited a few seconds and then he glanced back at Innes again.
Innes was staring out at the rain.
He returned with the pints and two drams of whisky.
He put his thumb in his mouth and sucked the spilt malt.
Innes studied him a moment. “Are you aware that when you drink your left eye starts to twist a little?” Cal clamped his hand over his eye.
He spun around looking for a surface to check his reflection in.
“It’s been dipping all night, like the fuel gauge on the old van. The more you drink, the more it dips.”
“Fuck. No wonder I can never sneak in the house.” The men smiled into their pints. After a while, Cal reached into his pocket and produced a sheet of foolscap. He unfolded it carefully. The ink had bled in the rain. “I was wondering what we would talk about, so I prepared some questions.”
“Am I such hard work?”
“Not as hard as my dad.” He smoothed the paper. “OK. What star sign are you?”
“I don’t believe in that guff. But I was born in July.”
“Cancer. Good. Loyal. A little dull. And question two. What was your mother like?”
Innes flinched. “I don’t really remember her . . .”
“Oh, now I feel bad.”
“Well, I remember how busy she was. See, my father was always away with the navy. I used to hate porridge but I’d ask for it every morning because I realised she’d have to stand still and stir it and that meant I could come up behind her and lean against her.
This went on for months, until our Sorley got jealous and told her he wanted Frosties like all the other kids. ”
“Was she good-looking?”
“Do you want to meet the man who would admit his mother was not good-looking?” He swirled his pint. “To me she was very beautiful. And she loved us. I know that.”
Cal thought about his own mother. At college, every other man he had met – no matter if they were bastards, or cowards, or imbeciles – was certain of their mother’s love for them.
“Do you resent having to care for your father?”
“Is that one really written down?”
“Asking for a friend.”
“Tell your friend it’s none of his business.”
“OK, then. Were you sad when Charles and Diana got divorced?”
“That cannot be a serious question.”
He had been working up to asking Innes what he thought of his mother walking out on his father.
He was dying to know what only Innes could know as John’s closest friend, but he couldn’t come at it directly because he knew Innes would mutter some evasive island banality.
Oh terrible, terrible, an awful sad time for all, sure.
He glanced at the rest of the questions and they seemed childish and pointless now.
“I think my dad is allergic to wool. Do you think that’s possible?”
“He is,” he said with certainty. “He’s allergic to cats, too.” He reached out and pushed the top of the page until the paper folded closed. “There must be other things to talk about?”
The bar filled up. They passed the time by watching each of the office girls play out her saga. They laid bets against them: who would cry, who would puke, who would be bundled into a minicab, and who, ultimately, would end up with the vain-looking wide-o in the box-fresh trainers.
Innes took out his cigarettes and offered one to Cal. Cal reached over and took the ashtray from an empty table. Innes narrowed his eyes as he stared through the smoke. “If you’re so fond of questions, then let me ask you one.”
“Ask away.”
“Why did you come home?”
“My granny was unwell—”
“No,” he cut him off. “What was the real reason?”
Cal put his thumb into his nostril and dug around for a moment, thinking, deciding on how honest he wanted to be. “I suppose I was scared.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“Everything. It wasn’t easy moving somewhere I didn’t know anyone.
Then there was no jobs at the end of it and I realised I’d have to move again.
Somewhere bigger. I could never phone home and ask for help.
Any decision, or any trouble I was in, I had to figure it out on my own.
Do you know how lonely it is to be the first person in your family to go to college? ”
“I have some idea.”
“I caught scabies in my second year. I came out in these itchy red sores and didn’t sleep for weeks.
I finally plucked up the courage to tell my dad, to ask what it was and if I should go to hospital or not, and all my dad wanted to know was how I caught it.
” He chuckled sourly. “I caught it from someone in the library. Sad, right?” He took a draw and held the smoke inside before expelling it in a series of hoops.
“I learnt I could never tell him about my actual life. I think that’s why I’m in so much debt.
I just wish I had someone to phone, someone to ask. ”
Innes made a small murmur of understanding. “Everyone says it’s harder to leave. But it’s much harder to stay.”
They stared at one another before they both looked away.
“I see how you are with your brother.”
“And how is that?”
“A little jealous, if I’m honest.” The bar was crowded now. A young man passed behind Cal and knocked into him, soaking his back with a slosh of lager. He passed on without apologising. “Do you think I’m a failure?”
“No. I was a little disappointed. But for you, not in you.”
Cal snorted as he snubbed his dout. “You know, you’re part of my problem.”
“Me? Aidh—what does this have to do with me?”
“My father makes all kinds of excuses about why he wanted me home. But let’s be honest, he can manage the croft by himself, he would rather manage by himself.
He’s lonely, Innes. And he doesn’t know how to admit that.
I would have come home just for that but instead he’s invented all this other stuff and .
. .” He caught himself. He should be careful not to mention the tenancy.
“I think you’re being a little unkind. We’re islanders. We’re built for leaving. We’re made to be left. It’s nothing new.” He pinched his cigarette between his fingers. “But I can’t imagine how it must feel to raise a child on your own and then have that child leave. Can you?”
“I didn’t leave him, I left home.” He put his pint on the table with more force than he intended.
The lager jumped and the men watched the foam slide down the glass.
“And he left me first. He looked at me and he looked at Jesus and he chose Jesus. He stepped beyond that white cloth to be Saved and left me on the other side. I was nine years old. My mam had just run off and he did that!”
“You know he means for you to follow him.”