50. Love the bones of you
50
LOVE THE BONES OF YOU
When they finished the tea, Priscilla asked them to wait for her by the hedge. Clyde and Ursula went through it and stood on the other side, but Doogie kept her within his sight, worried that the uneven path might be too much for her.
She turned her back to him and faced the wicker chair and the shed. Her head was bent, and her hands clasped in front of her. He realised she was praying. She stayed in that position for a few minutes, then she took something out of her bag and stuck it into the wicker weave. Was it a Jamaican flag? The object was small, and it was hard to tell from this distance. When he looked away from it, he saw that she was coming towards him. He rushed forward to help her back to the better path.
Priscilla allowed Clyde to escort her out. They stopped occasionally for Clyde to point out different plants to her. She was a lot more patient than you’d imagine. She almost seemed to be enjoying herself.
Doogie and Ursula followed a few paces behind. ‘Arthur told me about Colin’s breakdown. How is he?’ she said.
‘He’s going through a bad patch at the moment, but I think he’ll get through it.’
‘I’d like to see him again before I go away.’
‘I’ll tell him. He wants a chance to say sorry to you.’
‘Then we should make it happen.’
They’d reached the car. Doogie held the passenger door open for Priscilla. She nodded at Ursula. It wasn’t exactly friendly but probably the nearest it was ever going to get.
Clyde helped her in. ‘Goodbye for now, Priscilla. I might call on you after Doogie’s gone back home. Just to check up on yer.’
‘I don’t need no checking up on, Clyde Wilson, but you can come. Just don’t get any ideas.’ She pointed at Doogie. ‘Me got enough of that with that scallywag.’
The corners of Clyde’s mouth turned up. ‘I can assure you Madam Sweeting, my intentions are honourable. I’ll be seeing you.’ He shook Doogie’s hand. ‘Samuel can rest now.’
‘What did that old fool say about Samuel?’ she said when Doogie got back in the car.
‘Nothing. Did you sort things out with Ursula?’
‘Depends what you mean by sort things out. We talked. It was enough. That cup you gave me, where did you get it from?’
‘Ursula’s shed. Why?’
‘It was one of mine. Samuel must have taken it there.’
Doogie sighed. Every time he tried to do something good, he fucked it up. ‘I’m sorry. Do you feel better for going there though? Being able to say a prayer for Samuel, did it help?’
‘The prayer wasn’t for him. It was for me. I was asking the Lord for forgiveness.’
‘I don’t understand. Why do you need forgiveness?’
She pulled her bag up against her chest. ‘Because I threw my husband out two days before he died. Samuel spent the last days of his life in that shed when he should have been with his family. If he hadn’t been alone in that damn place, we might have got him to a hospital and saved him. I took him away from them.’
‘But I thought you said he wasn’t interested in them?’
‘He wasn’t. But that could have changed. Ursula said he talked about us all the time. But he never talked to us, Dougal. All he ever talked about was vegetables and that place. The fool. The stupid idiot fool.’
‘Look, Priscilla. Samuel made his choices and there’s no reason why you had to put up with them. You didn’t do anything wrong. You gave him plenty of time to change.’ Doogie was thinking of his mum. She’d been like Priscilla once, waiting for his dad to be a different man. Until she decided it was a waste of time and she was better off without him. It couldn’t have happened soon enough for Doogie. The way she always played second fiddle to Monique used to really get to him. So did the way his dad kept everyone in their safe little boxes. Safe for his dad that is. Doogie was the only one allowed to cross the divide. No, that wasn’t actually what happened. Doogie was the only one forced to cross the divide. He’d been the one with no choices. It was kind of ironic that he’d ended up doing the same thing as his old man, given that he’d hated having it done to him. ‘My daughter and her mum tell me I’m a compartmentaliser.’
‘A what?’
‘I put people into boxes. Keep them apart. It’s a way of not having to deal with stuff that’s going on inside my head.’
‘Hmm. And are you?’
‘Yeah. I’ve always been that way. Do you think Samuel might have been too.’
Priscilla clucked her tongue. ‘That’s all modern claptrap. My generation don’t do com-part-men-talising. We just get on with things.’
‘Sorry.’
‘And if he was one of them, the box he put his family in was the smallest one of all. The Lord probably forgave him for it, but I can’t. No more fool talk now, Dougal. Tek me home.’
Doogie held the gate open for Priscilla and noticed for the first time that its hinges were loose. ‘I’ll sort that out for you next time I come.’
She patted his arm. ‘God bless you. You’re a good boy.’
He smiled to himself. It had been a long time since he’d been a boy, and even longer since he’d been blessed.
She opened the front door and made straight for the kitchen. ‘I’ll make us some tea.’
‘I can’t stay.’
‘You got somewhere to be?’
‘Yeah, I have actually. My friend’s coming over.’
‘Is she the one?’
Doogie frowned. ‘The one?’
‘The one who broke your heart.’
He leaned against a cupboard, winded. He’d said nothing to Priscilla about broken hearts, or Netta, or Claire. Or about Grace either. ‘She’s the mother of my daughter.’
‘Did I ask you that?’ Priscilla was giving him the steely stare now. She was sending him a message which basically translated meant cut the crap, I can see right through you.
‘No. She didn’t break my heart. I think I may have broken hers though.’
‘Them bad choices?’
He nodded, too ashamed to look at her. ‘Yes.’
‘And the woman who broke your heart, is she a friend as well?’
‘Yeah. I’m staying with her at the moment.’
‘You still have feelings for her?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘You got no one else back up in Scotland?’
‘Yeah, I’ve got someone. Her name’s Grace. She wants to get married.’
‘And what about you?’
Doogie shrugged. ‘Like I said, it’s complicated.’
Priscilla sent a puff of air shooting out through her lips. ‘You’re even more of a damn fool than I thought you were. No, it is not complicated. You either want this friend who broke your heart, or you want Grace. Or you want to be on your own. You make a choice. Just make it a good one that you can live with for the rest of your life.’
Doogie had spent the drive to Netta’s thinking about choices. Priscilla was right and it wasn’t really that complicated at all. It was just a matter of three simple choices. All he needed to do was decide which was the good one. The right one.
Merrie, Liza and Claire were in the garden. He couldn’t see Netta. Merrie jumped up and gave him a hug. ‘How’d it go with Priscilla?’
‘Good. She nearly ripped my head off for suggesting Samuel might have been a compartmentaliser, but I think she’d forgotten it by the time we reached hers.’
He caught Claire’s attention which wasn’t tricky since the mention of compartmentalising had attracted her interest. ‘Can I have a word?’
She went with him into the living room and folded her arms. ‘What?’ Maybe she thought he was going to have a go at her for pointing out his faults to Merrie.
‘This is going to sound stupid but go with it, okay?’
‘Okay,’ she said, slowly.
‘I never said sorry to you, so I’m saying it now.’
Her head jerked back. ‘Which bit are you saying sorry for? Abandoning your daughter? Stringing me along and pretending you were happy before abandoning me and your daughter? Or?—’
‘All of it. I’ve made a lot of bad choices.’
‘Yeah. So Merrie tells me. Priscilla helping you see the light, is she?’
‘It’s a lot of things. The other thing I wanted to say was thank you. For not giving up on me and not letting me give up on Merrie. And for being my best friend.’
‘Are you feeling all right?’
‘Yeah, I’m good.’ Doogie wrinkled his nose. ‘I’m trying to follow Merrie’s advice. I’m trying to open a few boxes and let the emotions out.’
‘Fucking hell. You wanna be careful there, mate.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘We were shit lovers, but we’ve always been best friends, haven’t we?’
‘Yes, we have. Oh and thanks for suggesting Merrie should call my mum Nana. Mum’s made up about it.’ He tried to look away, but she matched the movement of his eyes with her head until the only place he could set them was back on her. ‘She’s calling me Dad now. She said that’s down to you as well.’
‘Uh huh.’ Claire’s mouth turned into a crooked grin. She was having a good time. That much was easy to see. It was a bit more difficult to predict how she was going to react to the thing he was about to say next.
‘Thanks. It means a lot. So, I need to tell you the real reason I left Scotland. Grace said she wanted to get married, and I panicked. I know, I know. Don’t have a go at me.’
She took a step back. For a minute, he thought she was going to smack him one. It wouldn’t have been the first time. ‘Okay I won’t have a go at you, but you are a prick. What are you gonna do?’ He could tell then that she already knew and had had time to process it. Netta must have told her.
‘I’m going to tie up the loose ends here and go back home to talk to Grace. Listen, I know we’re not touchy-feely people but seeing as you’ve decided not to smash my head in, could I get a hug?’
She tutted and wrapped her arms around him. He held on, wishing she could have been the woman for him. ‘I fucking love the bones of you, Claire Fogarty.’
‘I love you too, you stupid prick. Always have and always will.’
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard her sniff.