Chapter 13
HEATHER
The back of Heather’s car is filled with groceries: orange juice, milk, butter (the sensible things) plus Baileys ice cream and frozen yoghurt (because she feels like shit and needs a small pick me up).
So really, she should be taking the shortest route home.
It might be November but there’s still some warmth in the winter sun.
Despite this, Heather finds herself taking a diversion and eventually, stopping outside a two bedroomed bungalow in Portobello.
It’s a typical house for the area, only a few hundred metres from Edinburgh’s seaside esplanade: small, compact, welcoming.
The steep driveway to the garage houses a small car, the paint buffed to a sparkling red.
The raised flower beds beside the path leading to the front door have been cut back for the winter.
Heather imagines a riot of oranges, yellows and reds in the summer.
The door itself has changed. It was stained wood all those years ago.
Now it’s gloss red. To match the car? Her mother always did like to co-ordinate.
Heather stares at the house, her heart swollen, her eyes damp.
She was her parents’ golden girl, adored and celebrated.
Her every triumph at school was framed and placed on the mantlepiece.
Her father loved to tell her how proud he was.
Until, abruptly, he wasn’t. Then he made no attempts to hide his unhappiness at her ‘throwing her potential away’, firstly on an art degree, secondly on a man like Dougie. And right now, she’s hurting.
Heather was last here when Georgia had a serious hospital admission, aged four. Is that why she's back? Is this part of her processing that, yet again, her daughter’s allergies have almost cost her her life? It’s almost too much to compute.
Georgia’s allergies were already apparent at that stage.
Heather had left her parents with an array of pre-prepared food, and a long list of prohibited items. She returned here, to this bungalow, exhausted after her final accountancy exam, concerned (had she studied enough?) and anxious (was she ludicrous thinking she could pull this off all on her own?); so when she found the house in darkness, her anxieties fired.
There was no reason for them to take Georgia out on a rainy and cold November evening well after dark.
It was Doreen MacLeod, the neighbour, who told her about the arrival of the ambulance. And the tiny form which was carried from the house moments afterwards.
A frantic round of calls to the hospital tracked her daughter to the children’s ICU. Her father had fed her a peanut butter sandwich.
Peanut butter.
Despite it being on the list.
Heather appreciates now, as she did then, that mistakes can happen.
But there was something in her father’s eyes that had felt like wanton dismissal of her request. She knew what was needed to keep her daughter safe.
But her father had apparently known better.
And little Georgia had suffered the consequences.
Heather looks back on it now. Yes, of course she could have handled the situation better.
Of course she could have said her father deserved the benefit of the doubt.
Georgia’s allergy to peanuts hadn’t been proven at that stage.
It had simply been advisory given her intolerance to milk, honey and other seemingly innocuous substances.
The argument had been explosive. Her mother had stood there, mute, her face the colour of baby milk.
Does Heather blame her for siding with her father?
Yes, to an extent. Does she blame her for failing to contradict his assertion – ‘If we’re not good enough for you then don’t think about crossing our threshold again.
’ – possibly. Does she blame her for maintaining the silence and the distance between them all these years?
Absolutely she does. Does Heather regret what happened? Almost every day.
She turns the key in her car engine a notch and lowers the driver’s window a fraction.
The glass has begun to steam up. How might she react if she were to see one of her parents emerge from the house, shrunken and less mobile as Fraser now describes them?
She wonders if she might feel overcome by an urge to run towards them, to tell them about Georgia and the horrible experience she’s just endured.
To tell them she was at the hospital with a perfectly nice man–they probably remember Gerry from the Departmental Awards Evening twenty years ago–and how, despite his kindness, she sent him packing and launched herself body and soul at a man she knows is no good for her.
She can imagine her mum scrutinising the decision with her, recognising that a reckless adventurer like Scott represents all of Heather’s relationship red flags, encouraging her to trust a soft, kind, reliable man like Gerry.
It’s times like these Heather most acutely misses her mother’s calm counsel.
She sighs.
Might her mum get her current predicament?
How would she react if she were to repeat Scott’s statement to her: ‘I think I get it now’?
Might her mum say it was worth taking a risk on him?
Because there’s no denying he fills her thoughts.
Heather pulls her hair away from her face and wafts cool air towards her skin.
She can hypothesise as much as she likes but expecting buoying up from her mother is impossible now.
Too long has passed. She’s not about to force herself on people who have cold shouldered her for fifteen years and demand their support. She still has her pride.
Heather finds a crumpled tissue in the pocket of her jeans and wipes at her nose.
So many unanswered questions. So little certainty.
She allows her eyes to gaze into the distance, fixated on the optimistic shine of her parents’ new red door.
A sudden movement to the left-hand side catches her attention.
A stooped figure wearing a winter coat, tartan skirt and moccasin slippers emerges from the neighbouring driveway, dragging a plastic box behind her.
Doreen MacLeod, on bin day. Heather’s mouth drops.
If Doreen recognises her, she will most definitely tell her parents.
The one thing Heather knows with certainty is she’s not ready for that.
Not today. Doreen deposits the plastic box by the gate and scopes the street.
Heather’s eyes swivel in the opposite direction while the rest of her body freezes.
A moment goes by. Then another. Doreen is not the type of person to allow her neighbour’s estranged daughter to leave without a discussion.
Determined not to move, Heather zones her hearing in Doreen’s direction.
Is the gate squeaking? Is she crossing the road towards her, ready to rap on the car window and ask what she’s doing here after all these years? But there’s nothing.
After several minutes, Heather turns the engine on and pulls away from the kerb, her heart thudding.
She calms when she rounds the corner and her mind turns to practicalities.
The Baileys ice-cream on the back seat will be mush by now.
There’s a chance she’ll need to eat it in its entirety, straight from the carton, the moment she’s home.
She’s barely had any alcohol for months now, so who knows what will happen next if she does?
SCOTT
Scott knows the best displacement activities when he feels stymied by the world: adventure sports. Only which one to try now? He already has a ski week booked for February and Brianna seems resistant to another one over Christmas.
He walks aimlessly past the Georgian buildings of St Albans North Main Street, ambles past the four-acre Taylor Park and scoots back one road to find himself facing the Free Library.
There’s something about the ornate red-brick facade and the almost church-like exterior which immediately calms him.
Inside, the smell of books, of academia, of photocopier ink projects him back seven years when he and Brianna, still stupefied by grief, ensconced themselves here every Saturday morning.
It was like walking into a sanctuary. They each took comfort in the ritual of picking a book and the tactility of flicking through the pages.
In those early days, Brianna rushed to the children’s table keen to explore the new books on offer, or to see if her preferred reading book was there, waiting for her.
He has not been here since Brianna began to choose her reading books in the school library or, as is now the case, shunned reading altogether in preference to streaming channels or video shorts.
Now the library provides a safe, silent sanctum within the crazy bustle of his adult life.
And he doesn’t have Brianna’s needs to hide behind.
This is all for him. Check him searching out solitude. What will be next? Fishing?
Scott finds the sports section and begins to browse.
What might be a good distractor from Heather?
Hillwalking? Too tame, beside he’s done the best UK peaks now.
Climbing? His shoulder injury might put paid to that.
Scuba? There’s something about launching himself into the deep unknown that just doesn’t appeal.
Biking. That’s it. He pulls the pamphlet from the rack and flicks though the pages.
Road cycling has come on in leaps and bounds since he bought hybrid bikes for himself, Lucy and Brianna.
Now they come with titanium plates and Shimano gears and all manner of modern accoutrements. Might that be his next thing?
He flicks though the pages detailing roadside repair techniques, kit lists, reviews and adverts and finds an article on epic long-distance rides catching his eye.
The Silk Road Mountain Race has a centre spread dedicated to it.
Scott remembers this being mentioned in Morocco.
He pulls the pamphlet into view. The Silk Road Mountain Route is apparently an ultra-endurance, self-supported bikepacking race across Kyrgyzstan that covers roughly 1,700 kilometres through some of the most remote and mountainous terrain in Central Asia.
Scott peers at the images of hard-nosed riders with cricket ball shaped calves and ironman physiques tackling high mountain passes.
Could that be him, dressed head to toe in lycra, sporting an ergonomic helmet, his eyes protected by wraparound sunglasses in fluorescent yellow?
His mind starts whirring with essential purchases and a strategy.
He could start out with a local club, refurbish the old road bike from his student days, scope out some routes, use his sports watch to gauge his progress.
It’s beginning to evolve into a plan. He is so engrossed in his idea, he doesn’t initially register his phone until a nearby reader projects an audibly frustrated ‘tut’.
He grabs his phone, intending to mute the communication and continue with his planning, but a quick glance confirms it to be Heather.
They officially exchanged numbers outside the hospital last week shifting them from distant associates communicating on Messenger to something more intimate – something like friendship.
‘We’ll probably never need to be in touch, of course,’ she’d said, ‘but given you were the first one here last night, I think it might be prudent for us to share numbers.’
She said it matter-of-factly, as if it was no big deal.
As if the eleven-digit number wouldn’t haunt him every time he unlocked his phone.
All week he had debated. A quick message might be all it took.
A check-in on Georgia, for example. That would seem eminently reasonable given the circumstances, surely?
But always, something stopped him. He knows what Lorraine would say: You like this lady and I’m pretty sure she likes you.
So, tell her how you feel. Explain your background.
Give her a chance to make that choice for herself.
Lorraine never understood the sanctity of the promise he made to Lucy that day.
She seems to consider it reversible for the right woman.
Besides, what woman would truly love him given what he knows: Lucy’s accident, and thus her death, were entirely his fault.
That had been his resolve this morning, yet now a message has come in, he can’t help but pounce on it.
“Got brain freeze after eating an entire tub of Baileys ice-cream.” Is her first message.
Odd.
But grey dots indicate there is more on the way. He slips the biking magazine onto the table, pulls up a chair and waits.
“Seems I implicated myself when drunk at Georgia’s birthday. Looks like I’m hosting a Thanksgiving party in a couple of weeks. Apparently Trey would like you included on the guest list.”
Scott knows Heather well enough now to understand that any friend who stood by Georgia when the chips were down, will have all their wishes fulfilled entirely. Mattress toppers and more.
He opens his browser and searches “Thanksgiving”.
The power of Google tells him it’s the third Thursday in November.
He’ll be in Glasgow that week. A quick trip over to Edinburgh would be eminently doable.
He thinks back to that evening, the night of “the perfect fit”, and feels an element of culpability.
Heather had been pretty much press-ganged into drinking well over her limit, and he knows he’s to blame for that.
So, he does what any decent guest does. He accepts graciously and makes an offer.
“Sounds great. Can I bring anything?”
She should know the answer is no, don’t worry, I've got it covered. But if he’s coming to understand anything about Heather, it’s to expect the unexpected.
“That would be fantastic. I’ve no idea what I’m doing. Maybe you could make dessert?”
He resorts, once again, to Google. “Thanksgiving pudding” has one predominant search result: pumpkin pie. Where the hell do you source a pumpkin pie in the UK? His final search of the day confirms his worst fear. You don’t buy it – you make it.
But he is Scott Reynolds. He embarks on knife edge adventures without thought. He’s the best actuary this side of the Thames. So, he can’t show his fear.
“Nice one,” he types.
He signs out the biking magazine and returns home to strategise.