Beneath the Skin (13 page)

35

Mrs Petrauska arrived with a Tupperware box of vanilla pastries, as if she'd been sitting waiting for the call for hours. She was the sort of person who loved a good emergency.

‘I told her zis would happen.' She touched her smooth brow with the back of her hand. ‘A tragedy.'

‘Not yet.' Walt waved her into a chair. ‘Help yourself to tea or whatever. I'm going.'

‘I have my own chamomile.' She patted her coat pocket. ‘You go to search? They are lucky to have you, a soldier. So lucky!'

He swerved away from her smile. He met William's eyes as he took a last look around the kitchen. ‘Be good, kid.'

He'd dumped the Bergen beside Shackleton, out in the hall. He grabbed it on the way past and let himself out silently into the daylight. The breeze was cool on his heated face. The rain had paused, but he could still smell it in the air, that taste of oppression. He hated thunder. It was worse than clapping.

He shouldered the pack, paused to light a fag, shielding the flame of his lighter from a sudden nip of cold air, eyes narrowing as the breeze whipped his own smoke back at him. He wondered where the police would search first. Probably the park, the banks of the river; all the places that would be most dangerous for an old guy in a state of confusion. He breathed out a ragged plume of smoke, slanting his face to the sky, and set off in the opposite direction.

As he walked, his thoughts turned to William's collection, to the black box.
Not your business now. Let it go.

He thought about the strange collection of photographs.

We don't talk about Uncle Coby
.

Only someone was still talking about Uncle Coby. An old man, wandering lost and alone in the big city. Was he still calling?

He arrived at Waverley as the first peal of thunder rumbled in the distance. Was there safety in numbers? He joined the mêlée, and the thunder became lost in the underground rumbling of trains. He blended in, one of many guys in faded denim with rucksacks and grim expressions. Like them, he stared at the departure screens and prayed for a sense of direction. A pigeon fluttered down and landed beside his foot. Somewhere near the rafters, a precise, nasal female voice announced the train departures: ‘The next train to depart platform nineteen is the eleven twenty-four to Dundee, stopping at Haymarket, Cupar and Leuchars.'

Dundee would do.

He automatically checked his left sock. The two twenties Alys had given him a few days earlier were still there, tucked in for safekeeping. Any wages had been erratic, but welcome. He had a stash of notes folded inside his boxers at the bottom of the pack, but he had no idea how long he needed that to last. Finding a job and a room in Edinburgh had been pure luck, and he doubted that luck would hold out. But there were hills above Dundee; if necessary he would buy a tent and hole up. He couldn't look beyond that.

A woman dragging a tiny suitcase on wheels banged into him, and he did that thing of apologising, even though he was the stationary one. He stepped back, realising he'd been staring at the departure screen for an unnaturally long time. His rucksack snagged on something. He apologised again, turned, and there was Galen. They both made surprised noises, and the pharmacist cleared his throat.

‘Oh. Are you looking for Maura's father?'

‘Are you?'

‘Um, well, she phoned me about it, of course, but I'm afraid I'm off to a conference today. In York.'

Walt nodded, waiting for him to notice the rucksack. The guy was wearing the same sludge-coloured suit, with a slight flare to the trouser leg. His beard looked freshly cropped, and he was wearing rimless spectacles. Mouse had told him a funny thing about the glasses: they had a language all of their own. Perched on the end of his nose, he was waspish; on top of his head, distracted. If he took them off and chewed the leg, he was leading up to something.

Galen took off his glasses and peered at Walt with eyes that matched his general sludge-coloured appearance. Even his greying hair and beard carried a faint sandy hue.

‘Are you going somewhere? Leaving in a hurry?'

The rucksack had been spotted. No hiding from Galen. Walt grunted something, and the guy tapped his front teeth with the tip of one spectacle leg. What the hell did that mean?

‘It's a strange time to take off, isn't it?' he persisted.

‘I'm going to visit a friend. In . . . the north.'

‘Must be important, with Maura in the fix she's in.'

‘Must be an important conference.'

‘It is.' He bit down on the hard plastic. ‘Look, it's none of my business, um, Walter, but I wouldn't like to see Maura . . . taken advantage of.'

‘Me neither.' Walt looked him squarely in the eye.

The tannoy clicked and whined: ‘The next train to arrive at platform ten is the eleven-fifteen to York.'

‘Ah, that's me.' Galen hesitated, replacing his spectacles and checking for his ticket in the breast pocket of his jacket. ‘So where are you going, in the north?'

Walt glanced up at the board above the platform barriers. ‘Helensburgh.'

‘That's west.'

‘North-west.'

Galen tipped his glasses to the end of his nose. ‘Well, you'd better go. That's your train, about to depart.'

‘Plenty time. You'd better hurry though. Isn't platform ten across the other side?'

‘Is it?'

‘Yeah, you don't want to be late for your conference.'

‘The train now arriving at platform ten is . . .'

‘Oh, gosh.' Galen hitched up his briefcase and straightened his tie. He looked about to say something else, but instead hurried off with a mumbled goodbye. He was a man struggling with Something That Doesn't Add Up. Walt gave a grim smile. Fifteen minutes until the Dundee train. He wandered over to a kiosk selling coffee and bagels. The smell made his mouth water. There were two women in front of him, mother and daughter perhaps. The mother was jingling loose change in her hand. She was one of those tall, elegant types who look wealthy without trying: well-pressed slacks, lots of gold jewellery and a statement scarf. His mother hated scarves. She could never tie them properly, she said. They ended up knotted tight around her throat like a noose. He shivered.

‘I think we should go back. Call someone,' the woman was saying.

The girl shrugged. She was young, heavily made up. ‘He was a homeless.'

‘
A
homeless? What kind of language is that?' Definitely her mother.

The girl lifted two cardboard cups from the counter and the mother paid. ‘I'm just saying. You see them all over. He was probably just getting a heat.'

‘I'm not surprised. He was in his pyjamas!'

They passed Walt in a drift of perfume.

‘Yes, sir?' The barista looked at him hopefully.

‘Um . . . I'll have . . . No, it's okay.' He turned and walked after the two women. ‘Excuse me – the man in the pyjamas?'

They both stopped and looked at him as if he was barking, as if they'd never even mentioned pyjamas.

‘I'm looking for someone. He's missing from a care home.'

‘Oh dear.' The elegant woman put a hand to her neatly knotted scarf. ‘Well, we saw a man in there.' She pointed to the central waiting room.

The girl nodded. ‘He had an overcoat on, over his pyjama bottoms. And slippers, those leather ones. I thought they were shoes at first. We thought he was a homeless man.'

‘
You
thought.
I
said we should call someone. Look, there's a policeman.'

Walt thanked them and ducked away.

The waiting room was crowded with tourists, all the benches taken. And then he spotted him, over to the side, next to a rubbish bin. He approached cautiously, as if the old boy might suddenly bolt.

‘Hey, it's me . . .' He realised he didn't even know the guy's first name. Had anyone ever mentioned it? He'd become ‘Mouse's dad' or ‘William's granddad'. He groped around for a suitable form of address. ‘Mr Morrison, it's me, Walt.'

The man looked up. His eyes were bright, but fearful. At some point in the night, he'd had the presence of mind to don an old mackintosh. It wasn't his; that much was obvious. It engulfed him, sagging from his shoulders and all but concealing his paisley-patterned pyjamas. This was probably why he'd gone undetected for so long. He looked shabby, out of it, a vagrant; the type of person no one wants to look at.

It was amazing that he'd managed to get this far. A place of movement and travel, of people going places. Had he made some kind of connection in his head? Walt imagined what it would be like to wash up here, amid the din, the chaos, the sheer press of humanity, and feel yourself isolated, directionless, with no sense of the future. It was no great stretch of the imagination.

‘What are you running away from, my friend?' Walt crouched in front of him, his voice low. The man glanced at him briefly and then fixed on a point beyond his head. His skin was grey, stretched. Didn't they get dehydrated very quickly at that age? He'd get him a cup of tea. And then what? He couldn't leave the old bugger here. Maybe he could phone the house, tip off Mrs Petrauska.

‘We told the policeman.' The elegant woman had followed him in. When he looked round she was stooping towards the bench, as if she were viewing a distasteful exhibit in a museum. Fine face powder had settled in the wrinkles around her mouth. Walt got up sharply.

‘Right, come on, Dad. You gave us a fright. Let's get you home.'

‘So it's your father?' The woman straightened up too. She looked at him as Galen had done, like something didn't add up.

‘Excuse me, I need to get him home.' He seized hold of the old boy's elbow. The man pulled away.

‘Not going!' he said hoarsely.

‘Come on now.' He pasted on a fake smile. ‘He has Alzheimer's.'

The woman bared her teeth in a charitable smile. ‘Maybe the policeman will be able to help.'

Walt pulled the elbow again and this time the man slapped him away. ‘No! Coby? Where's Coby?'

‘You want to see Coby?' Walt leaned in to him. The old man's unwashed smell mingled with the staleness of the old coat. The old eyes teared up; he nodded. ‘Come on then. I'll take you to him.'

The man got stiffly to his feet. The woman stepped back.

Walt grinned at her. ‘Panic over. Thanks for your help.' His peripheral vision flagged up a flash of hi-vis yellow coming towards him. He linked his arm through the old man's and marched him quickly through the exit.

Outside the station, the air was solid with the threat of rain, and the thunder loud and frequent. The taxi driver got out and raised a brow as Walt, breathless, manhandled Mouse's father and his Bergen into the back of the black cab.

‘One too many at the Nor Loch.' He gave the driver a what-can-you-do-with-them shrug and piled in. The guy got slowly behind the wheel. More fluorescent yellow caught his eye, but it was only a workman toiling up the ramp from the station concourse. The back of the cab was roomy, with a cloying smell of pine, but he felt entombed. He was burning like a furnace under his clothes, heart hammering. Like it or not, he was going back to Stockbridge.

‘Where to?' The driver turned in his seat.

‘Coby,' the man said. ‘Coby.'

‘Cockburn Street?'

‘No,' Walt said quickly. ‘Saint Stephen's Church? Ssh, Mr Morrison. I'm taking you home. To Maura? Alys?'

The taxi eased into the traffic. The man fell silent for a long while, his head nodding, as if he were asleep. Maybe he had just given up. And then suddenly he jerked awake. His eyes were so lucid that Walt was taken aback.

‘Alys,' he said, quite clearly. ‘I was looking for Alys.'

‘Why?' Walt held his breath. ‘Why?'

The old man glanced once more out of the window. His gaze was distant.

36

The welcome party that greeted the fugitive was noisy and slightly chaotic, spilling out into the hall: Mrs Petrauska, all theatrical and lapsing into Lithuanian, and Mouse, pale and drawn. William, hanging back in the kitchen doorway, looked suspiciously like he'd been crying. There was no sign of Alys. Mouse grasped her father's hands and tried to make eye contact.

‘We were
worried
,' she said. ‘You shouldn't have gone out alone.'

The old man looked at the carpet and shuffled his feet. The dance teacher produced a heavy coat from somewhere and draped it over the thin mac, as if the man were an athlete at the end of a gruelling marathon.

Unnoticed, Walt stowed the telltale Bergen behind Shackleton. He would leave it there until things settled. The bear's great claws snagged his collar as he edged around it.

‘Thanks, Walt. Where was he? How did you find him?' Mouse was suddenly beside him. The gleam in her eyes surprised him, and something other than numbness unfurled in his chest. He was glad; glad that he'd been able to do his bit, that he'd eavesdropped on two posh women at a bagel stand and manhandled her old man into a taxi. Because he would never have known the end of the story, otherwise. He placed a hand on her shoulder. No one saw, just Mouse. He clocked her sideways glance, and when she looked at him she gave a little smile, which could have been grateful, knowing, wistful – anything.

‘Later,' he said. ‘Tea first. The old boy must be parched.'

‘Tea!' She laughed as if to say ‘there you go again', and turned away from him, ushering everyone back into the kitchen.

Walt sighed and glanced up at the polar bear. It had that distant, noble, seen-it-all-before look. He told it to fuck off, before joining the others in the kitchen.

The old man had climbed out through the unlocked window in his room. Mouse was furious; she was going to lodge a formal complaint, and look for somewhere else for him to stay.

‘If it wasn't for Alys,' she'd said, ‘I'd look after him here.'

Walt told her not to be so daft. The old boy would fall on the stairs and crack his neck. He gave her a dozen reasons why it wouldn't work, without ever asking the burning question: why did Alys want nothing to do with her father? There were other questions too, like who was Uncle Coby and what had he done?

But what did he care? It was their shit. He had enough of his own, and any day now he was going to get the hell out of Dodge.

Mouse made the appropriate phone calls and within fifteen minutes the home manager herself rolled up in a new Audi. She had a nurse with her, all starchy and pressed. Walt almost expected them to produce a hypodermic needle like in a bad horror film.

The fight had gone out of the poor old boy. He stood up when commanded, docile as a sheepdog, with Mouse hanging onto his arm. Mrs Petrauska was fussing around him with the coat; when it slipped off his narrow shoulders she folded it neatly and laid it over the back of one of the chairs.

‘You did give us a fright, Mr Morrison,' the manager cooed. Walt noticed that she didn't handle him herself, just stood back and observed. She was itching to write things down, he could tell. Any morsel of conversation that might exonerate her from blame.

‘The police have now been stood down, Maura,' she said, as if this was a full-scale terrorist attack, ‘though I expect they will have questions as to where he was, who found him, et cetera.'

‘I expect so.' Mouse remained tight-lipped. They shuffled into the hall.

‘We're going to take you back with us, Mr Morrison. In the
car
,' she said loudly into his face.

‘Coby,' said the man. No one let on he'd spoken, except William, who caught Walt's eye. There was a smudged look about his cheeks. The kid had definitely been crying.

The old boy was loaded into the car. The nurse sat beside him in the back, like a prison escort.

‘Better that you don't come.' The manager tilted her head at Mouse, found an appropriate smile. ‘You can visit tomorrow, once we have him settled back into his routine.'

Mouse nodded mutely. The manager got behind the wheel and strapped herself in. She waved as they drove off – relieved, perhaps, that there hadn't been more of a fuss. In the back, the old man was leaning into the window, looking up at the sky. There was a lifetime of sorrow in his eyes, as if he'd lost all the good bits and couldn't quite remember why he was sad.

Mouse stood for a long time on the pavement, just watching the empty road.

‘Good,' said Mrs Petrauska. ‘All is well. I will take myself home.'

‘Yes. Yes, thank you so much,' Mouse said.

The woman stepped lightly up the steps to the dance studio, leaving Mouse and Walt together on the pavement. Mouse turned to him. She didn't have to say anything. He held out his arms and they bumped into each other, and stood like that for a long time.