28 #2
‘I just . . . with the dogs and everything . . . I thought it would be a good idea. It has been made very clear to me that it isn’t, and that there are quite a lot of things she’d rather be doing today, none of which involve me.’
‘Tough day?’ she says, lowering her voice.
Lowell looks around, makes sure there’s nobody about. ‘Tough everything,’ he says, and for a moment, as he watches his beloved daughter storm off with all her ten-year-old might, his voice catches, just a little, and Janey’s heart goes out to him.
‘You wouldn’t believe how vile Essie was as a teen,’ she says, consolingly. ‘She was pure vileness. All the time. Like, she would not stop until I was completely crushed to the floor. I’m sure there’s some evolutionary reason for it that temporarily escapes me . . . ’
She’s aware she’s babbling, but fortunately Lowell smiles. ‘Oh, lord. She’s not even a teen yet. How much worse is it going to get?’
Janey opens her mouth to mention the piercing wars, then wisely decides against it.
‘How’s your ex?’
‘Bonkers as conkers,’ says Lowell without elaborating. ‘How’s yours?’ he adds, politely, and Janey can tell he is trying to make up for the one-sidedness of the night before. She finds this quite touching.
‘Someone else’s problem,’ says Janey. ‘Have you thought about buying Verity some chips?’
‘She’s vegan now.’
Janey frowns. ‘I hope she’s getting everything she needs. I’m not a nutritionist but she seems awfully . . . ’
‘She’s fading away,’ says Lowell. ‘She gets a lot of messages from her mother about food. Mostly, avoid it at all costs, I think.’
Janey winces.
‘Oh, sorry. I am trying, Janey,’ he says. ‘I know I sound bitter and awful and mean, but I am trying so hard, and God, I don’t know what to do.’ He looks at her. There are heavy bags under his eyes. ‘Do you think . . . would you mind . . . ? I’m sorry, I’m leaning on your good will . . . ’
He is. Janey wished she minded more. ‘What is it you want?’
‘Well, you speak her language, and she won’t talk to me . . . I know this is a terrible imposition, but do you think you could hang out with us for a little? You must be sick of the sight of me, I realise.’
‘Actually,’ says Janey, ‘I was just bringing Essie over to check on the dogs.’
Her phone pings. It’s Essie, telling her she’s going to lunch with Gertie and Struan, is that okay? Lowell clearly doesn’t need her this weekend. Of course it is okay. Essie doing something that isn’t lying indoors staring at her phone is always okay.
Janey makes up her mind. ‘Sure,’ she says. And he smiles at her so gratefully and, well, gratitude isn’t as nice as fascination, she supposes, but it might have to do for now.
*
Janey and Lowell move rapidly to where Verity is standing, staring out to sea.
‘I’m a friend of your dad’s,’ signs Janey. ‘And we were going to get some chips.’
‘Are you his girlfriend?’ signs back Verity, and both Janey and Lowell frantically shake no. Didn’t need to be quite that fricking frantic, thinks Janey, but keeps it to herself.
‘No, I used to be your audiologist.’
Her face crinkles a little in faint recognition.
‘You were very tiny. And the cutest thing I ever saw.’
There is a tiny twitch in her mouth. ‘Was I?’
‘Adorable,’ says Janey. ‘I’d have taken you home.’
Verity smiles, then her thin face stiffens. ‘You wanted to cut my brain open and put a computer thing in it.’
Janey blinks. ‘We wanted to help you the best way we could,’ she says. ‘Your parents always did. Everyone wanted the best for you.’
‘Well, nobody cut my brain open.’
‘And that’s fine,’ signs Janey. ‘Chips?’
‘I’m vegan.’
‘So are chips! I thought that was the first thing everyone learned when they went vegan!’
Lowell waves from in front of the food truck. Janey signs to him rather than speaking aloud. ‘Three bags please. And some Irn-Bru.’
‘What’s that?’ signs Verity.
Janey considers how best to translate the bright rust-coloured national soft drink of Scotland, rumoured to be made from iron girders, and simply cannot manage it.
‘It’s a drink,’ she signs. ‘I hope you’ll like it.’
Verity looks extremely uncertain. ‘My mum doesn’t like me eating processed foods,’ she signs.
‘Well, this is a drink,’ signs Janey, and Verity seems not unhappy with that.
Lowell comes back with the delicious chips – Janey would have dearly loved a lobster roll too but doesn’t want to upset the vegan – and they sit in a line on the harbour wall, Verity kicking her feet against the stones, like any other kid in the world.
They watch the passage of a great container ship, and Janey, as is her habit, looks it up on her phone. ‘Off to Singapore,’ she signs.
‘How do you know?’ signs Verity, who seems alright talking to her, but is still studiously ignoring Lowell.
Janey shows her the app, and they spend a happy twenty minutes tracing the boats that come past, covering Janey’s old Samsung with greasy fingers, taking bad smudgy photos of the boats, their vastness dwarfed by the sea and the great horizon.
Verity regards the Irn-Bru dubiously.
‘I cannot believe you have a Scottish child who has never tasted Irn-Bru,’ signs Janey. ‘What is wrong with you?’
‘Thalia was never keen,’ says Lowell out loud.
Verity reads his lips, and clamps her mouth shout. ‘Mummy won’t like it,’ she signs, her hands nervous.
‘That’s okay,’ says Janey, glancing at Lowell.
‘Of course that’s fine,’ he signs. And goes off and gets some bottled water.
‘Are you looking forward to seeing the puppies?’ signs Janey after he’s gone.
She nods. Then leans towards Janey, looking over her shoulder to make sure Lowell is queuing at the van a good distance away.
‘Daddy is not allowed to open my brain.’
Fortunately Janey has long experience of children, and often children who are confused or distressed by the process of living in a noisy world with limited or zero access to what all the noise is about.
Calmness is a skill she managed to conquer, she often thought glumly, in every part of her universe except for when dealing with her own beloved daughter.
Other people’s children, of course, were always easier.
‘Of course he isn’t,’ she signs back. ‘He’s not allowed to if you don’t want him to.’
‘I don’t.’
‘I get that completely.’
Verity kicks her heels loudly against the harbour wall as if venting frustration.
‘It’s okay if you can’t hear,’ she signs. ‘You’ll get no arguments from me.’
‘Medical companies are just trying to make money.’
‘Then I would like a nicer car,’ signs Janey, and the girl looks at her, not cross, just curious. ‘Sorry, bad joke.’ Then she points at Lowell. ‘He just wants to see you.’
‘He’s old. He’s not like other daddies.’
‘That’s not his fault.’
‘Mummy says he had bad ideas about things.’
‘I think,’ signs Janey carefully, ‘both your mummy and your daddy tried their best. I don’t know your mummy but I know your daddy loves you very much. Sometimes people have different ideas about what the best thing is.’
‘I miss Mummy,’ says Verity, and she looks younger than ten suddenly.
Janey nods. ‘I bet.’
‘Daddy doesn’t want me here.’
‘He does. He really does.’
Lowell comes back over, the worried expression still on his face. ‘Hey, sweetie,’ he signs, handing over the water.
‘I don’t want single-use plastic,’ Verity spells out, quite laboriously. Lowell squints to follow it.
‘Ah,’ he says out loud. Then, ‘Well.’
Janey decisively crumples up her empty chip wrapper and pops everyone’s in the bin.
‘I think,’ she signs, ‘it is PUPPY TIME.’
The sign for puppy is literally a dog but small, and she deliberately over-pantomimes the smallness of it, hunching her shoulders over and even sticking out her tongue, until Lowell laughs, and even Verity smiles reluctantly, and they get up and head for the car.
‘Thank you,’ mutters Lowell as they get in. ‘Thank you. She’s still not talking to me . . . but she is talking.’
‘Nnnnnnn,’ says Verity from her seat in the back, a sound which Janey recognises immediately as almost any deaf child telling people to face them while they talk, but which seems to startle Lowell.
He absolutely has not spent enough time with this child, she thinks, and feels sad.
She nudges him and he looks at Verity in the car mirror.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he signs, turning round awkwardly from the driver’s seat and freeing up his hands.
‘WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?’ she signs furiously.
‘Nothing! Just seeing if J-a-n-e-y wants to come to see the dogs with us.’
‘That’s all?’
‘Of course.’
‘You’re not going to do treatment?’
Lowell’s face sags again. ‘Of course not. Of course not. I never would. Your mum wouldn’t let me take you if I was going to do something bad would she?’
‘She’s gone away without me,’ signs Verity.
Janey is impressed by her fluency in signing – she is beautiful to watch, her hands flying through intricate patterns as if conducting a tiny orchestra – but she would normally be a little concerned about how little effort Verity makes to speak along with it.
Then she reminds herself that she is not responsible for this child, and it is absolutely up to Verity how she lives her life.
Or Verity’s mother, she also thinks, but tries to quell the thought.
One thing about getting older, she has found, is that you may not share people’s points of view, but you can learn to understand.
There’s always a reason for it. People aren’t as black and white as the movies would like you to think. Which is a shame.
‘She’ll be back very soon,’ signs Lowell, and the devastation that his only child believes that to spend time with him is the same as being abandoned is writ large across his heavy features.
*
Once they reach the house, Verity leaps out without waiting for a signal.
‘You should put the child locks on,’ Janey murmurs to Lowell, who nods.
Verity is obviously not scared of much. She looks up at her old home without interest. It is weird, Janey thinks, just how incredibly aggressive an act turning your back can be. Lowell is rubbing the back of his head. Then he goes and fetches her bag.
‘I can head—’ says Janey.
‘Please don’t,’ he says, with feeling. Janey finds herself stiffening a little. She’s a health professional, but she’s not here in a professional capacity. She’s not staff.
He realises immediately. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘You are going to have to get on with her at some point,’ says Janey, as kindly as she can, without trying to sound like their bloody social worker.
‘I know, I know .’
‘I think I know a few creatures who are ready to help.’
It’s a nice enough day that the puppies are in the outside run but of course Verity hasn’t heard them scrabble and yelp, tearing about.
Felicity has stayed inside. But Lowell has already opened the door, and the large shaggy beast tears into the sunshine, a ball of huge hairy energy, flopping ears and tongue.
‘Of course!’ says Janey, amazed at herself for not realising. ‘Verity and Felicity. Of course. Truth and Happiness.’
She turns to Lowell to tease him for calling his dog and child matching Latin-based names, but he is not listening: in the dead centre of the lawn, buried in one another, heartbeat to heartbeat, are one little girl, and her enormous dog.
Janey sees that his eyes are full of tears. Oh, no, she thinks. She can talk herself out of anything, tell herself she is too old and too daft for everything. But it is very hard to watch this huge man cry and not want to go to him with every fibre in her being.
She remembers, briefly, that some men cannot bear to show weakness, or to get caught in the act of it, and that these men, if seen undone, can be dangerous.
But she does not think Lowell is this type of man.
She moves towards him, stands side by side, lets her hand graze his.
Sure enough, almost as if he doesn’t know he’s doing it, he grabs hold of it, squeezes it, surprisingly hard, and a tear runs down his large cheek.
‘It’s okay,’ she says, soothingly. ‘It’s okay.’
‘I miss her so much,’ he says.
Verity and Felicity have recovered now, and are now examining each other, inch by inch, Felicity sniffing everywhere. She starts licking Verity’s ear.
‘Look,’ says Janey. ‘She’s saying, you won’t believe what happened to me. I was just hanging out with this wee guy, right. He was short, but . . . you know, good with the banter.’
Almost despite himself, Lowell smiles.
‘Next thing I know . . . six of the buggers, driving me crazy, playing me up half the night...’
He looks at her. ‘You’re funny,’ he says.
They’re still holding hands, they both realise at the same instant, and Janey is so enjoying – cannot help it – the heel of his large rough hand in hers.
Rough from gardening, she supposes. It is a reassuring hand: huge, not sweaty.
The top has black hair on it, but not too much, and she finds herself wondering about his chest again. She lets his hand drop.
Dog and girl start to walk around the garden, Verity’s fingers knotted in Felicity’s white-grey fur.
‘She used to do that when she could barely walk,’ says Lowell, unable to tear his eyes away.
‘Did you never let her ride her?’
‘Don’t,’ says Lowell. ‘For years you couldn’t turn your back without her trying to climb on. Felicity never minded. I think she would have carried her if she could.’
He steps forward and opens the chicken wire gate where the pups are in the run.
There is an instant commotion: Felicity looks round, then Verity follows her lead.
The puppies have found them, tumbling, bouncing in the green spring grass.
Verity lets out a squeal, then, oddly, does exactly what her father did: she lies down flat, spreadeagled on the grass; happily relinquishing and giving herself up to being pawed over, sniffed.
Smokey nips at her buttons, and Argyll and Bute start a tug of war over her shoelaces.
It is clear from Felicity’s wagging tail and Verity’s heaving ribs that she is laughing.
Lowell stands still.
‘Go,’ says Janey, softly. ‘Go and talk to her. I think you’ll be fine now.’
He starts.
‘Of course,’ he says. Then he turns, looking her up and down. ‘You’re a remarkable woman, Janey Munroe.’
‘Yeah, yeah, whatevs,’ she says, brushing it off like a joke.
Inside, it pings, lights her up like a fairground bulb.
‘I’ll send Essie over next week,’ she promises, and then she watches: the tall burly man, the thin pale girl, who has jumped up as soon as he got there, brushing the little yipping dogs off her.
He starts talking. Janey can see every word they say.
She turns away. This is private; she turns and leaves.
She doesn’t see his eyes following her as she goes.