‘It’s a special anniversary, Mum. Thirty years. And you’re special too, you and Dad. You can’t put a price on that. Besides—’ she grins broadly at her mother, ‘I got a good deal.’
‘I’m glad.’ Susie stands up. ‘Your father and I really appreciate this, sweetheart. We’ll book the visit as soon as his album’s recorded.’
‘That going well?’
‘The usual.’
‘Is he unbearable yet?’ Mannie knows her father.
‘Not yet. It might go that way.’
They chat all the way to the front desk, where Susie enfolds Mannie in a big hug. ‘Sweetie, thanks so much. For the voucher, of course, but just for being here. I really appreciate it.’
More than you can guess, today
. A shard of doubt penetrates her defences. Adopted?
‘Loved it. Thanks for lunch, Mum.’
And she’s off, her hair swirling gloriously around her neck, her coat bright amid a sea of dark suits. Susie watches her for a few seconds, pride rising like a wave rolling in towards the shore.
My beautiful daughter. We’ve done well with our children, Archie and I.
Today, thirty years ago, she and Archie were married. She pushes thoughts of Elsie Proudfoot out of her mind.
Avoiding Tom Coop was never going to be possible for very long. When Susie gets back up to her office, there he is, like a vulture waiting to scavenge on the bones of the dead. Not a vulture, he’s not nearly so magnificent a bird. A carrion crow, his black suit heightening the likeness, his nose, hooked and large in his skinny face, like a beak, poised to peck.
The similes are all Susie can do to lighten her feelings at seeing him hovering so purposefully, but they’re enough to allow her to summon a smile (the rigours of a good training in dramatic expression again) and to greet him with a veneer of cheeriness. ‘Tom. Hello. Are you looking for me?’
Behind him she can see Karen, pulling a sympathetic face and mouthing, ‘Sorry!’, her hands spread wide in a gesture of apology. There’s only so much she can do to protect.
‘Got a minute?’ His voice is bird-like too, small and squeaky – but this man has power and can be spiteful. Susie, aware of this, schools herself to tact.
‘Sure. I can give you ten, but I do have visitors due then.’ The lie comes easily. ‘Come on in. Karen, could you buzz me when the front desk calls please?’ Code for, ‘Help, don’t leave me too long with him’.
‘Will do.’
Susie takes the seat behind her desk. She could have taken one of the chairs at the small table, designed for one-to-one meetings, but the desk puts distance between them and gives her control – or, at least, an illusion of it. That lasts around three seconds.
‘I think you know why I’m here,’ Tom says, and not even the squeakiness of his voice can mask the menace of his tone.
‘If you’re going to talk about the interview this morning—’
‘What do you think?’
Susie hasn’t learnt her skills for nothing. Add media training to drama and the combination makes her a formidable interviewee. She knows it and Tom knows it. Ignoring his tone, she talks over his interruption as if he hasn’t spoken, ‘—then I hope you’ll agree I made my points clearly and pleasantly.’
‘And they were completely at odds with our policy.’
‘Actually Tom,’ she pauses and smiles at him, keeping her voice level and polite, ‘the Party doesn’t have a policy on cutting arts funding.’
‘It was a decision we had to take, given the current financial climate.’
‘There are other things that can be cut.’
‘That would hit the poor harder.’
‘It’s a weak argument. In my experience, the “poor” get as much from being involved in the arts as anyone else. And in any case, I was talking about schools. About education, Tom.’ She leans over the desk, as if about to confide some important secret. ‘And this government believes education is at the heart of our national success.’
‘Meaning standards of excellence in numeracy and literacy,’ he trots out the usual patter, ‘as you well know.’
Susie can see that he’s preparing for a long speech. Summoning her most charming tone, she says sweetly, ‘And as you know, Tom, I was elected on a very specific commitment to the voters of Hailesbank – and that was a promise to defend the arts in Scotland. I can’t turn round and ignore that, it would be a betrayal of trust.’
‘And a raft of other policies as well. Policies most voters would rate more highly than arts,’ he says severely. ‘Like health and transport. You don’t have to defend all the decisions, Susie, but you don’t have to speak out against them either.’
Susie says nothing. She merely allows a silence to develop. Tom grows uncomfortable. She watches it happen. Well-versed in reading body language, she notes the shift in position on the seat, the dropping of eye contact, the fiddling of the fingers. In the end, he stands abruptly, says brusquely, ‘We’re not pleased, Susie, not pleased at all. I would advise you to watch yourself carefully.’
Or what? Susie thinks, standing too.
‘Do drop by again, Tom,’ she says, moving round her desk and extending her arm towards the door in a gesture that clearly invites him to leave. ‘It so good to discuss points of policy, don’t you think?’
He’s gone. She sinks back onto her chair, surprised to find that she’s shaking slightly.
‘You okay?’ Karen comes in, clutching a sheaf of papers for signing. ‘I was about to call through but you seemed to be surviving.’
‘Oh yes. Sure. Surviving. I can handle Tom Coop.’
And, of course, she can. But will there be a price to pay later?
Archie Wallace leans away from his keyboard and stretches. When he becomes lost in his music, he forgets time. This trait is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he can go for very long periods totally absorbed in his task, but on the other, he becomes increasingly prone to knots in his neck, aches in his back, cramps in his legs and stiffness in his fingers. Most ailments he can deal with, but he’ll have to watch the stiffness in the fingers. Fingers are his career.
Archie has spent a lifetime in music in one guise or another: schoolboy strummer, band member, teacher, composer. Three years ago he got together a scratch band for someone’s fiftieth birthday party and they ‘just rocked, Susie’, as he put it when he arrived back at the cottage in the small hours, exhausted but exhilarated. The band found a common base in folk music, threaded a distinctive rock interpretation through their songs, hit on the name Celtic Rock and quickly established itself as a force for innovation and excellence in folk-rock fusion.
‘You okay?’ Sandie Alexander, Celtic Rock’s vocalist and sometimes fiddle player, finishes a brilliantly improvised jig on a theme he has come up with and lowers her violin.
‘Dying for a fag, if truth be told,’ Archie grimaces wryly.
‘Archie, you don’t fucking smoke.’ Sandie is tiny, still pretty at forty, the only woman in Celtic Rock and also – to Archie’s amusement – the coarsest spoken member of the band.
He lays down his pencil and stands up. He gave up smoking years ago but the lure of a coffee and a cigarette still has him in its thrall. He glances at the old school clock on the wall. One thirty already, no wonder he’s hungry – he rose with Susie at six and started work immediately after her interview. ‘Doesn’t stop me craving the things,’ he grins. Prince, roused by his movement, lurches to his feet too, his tail wagging.
‘Is that the bloody time? Jesus.’
‘Mmm. It’s been okay though.’
‘Yeah.’
‘That track will play to Jake’s strengths, don’t you think?’ Big, bearded Jake is the lead guitarist, his fingers astonishingly dextrous despite his size. Jake’s opening riff in Celtic Rock’s ‘On the Wilder Side [Mountain Thyme 2]’ – the track that established them as a chart-topping phenomenon – has become as instantly recognisable as ‘Stairway to Heaven’.
‘Hope the fucker appreciates the hard work we do to make him look good,’ Sandie lays down her instrument and yawns. ‘I’ll have a fag anyway. Got to look after the old vocal chords.’ She flashes a grin at Archie from behind an untidy mop of brown hair and lights up. Sandie’s husky vocals have become legendary.
Archie doesn’t like her smoking in the studio, but he lets it pass. ‘Hungry? I can make a sandwich.’
‘No ta, Archie. Got things to do.’
‘You on for another session tomorrow?’
‘I’ll be here. But not at fucking six in the morning.’
Archie opens the door of the stables he converted into a studio many years ago, when they had so little cash he’d had to do all the work himself. Still, it feels like his. He knows every floorboard, every cable. The old oak door looks great because he spent days sanding and polishing it. The roof is watertight because he climbed up and perched there precariously for weeks on end stripping, felting, slating. Pride and familiarity blend to produce a feeling of deep inner tranquillity.
Sandie slides past him and grinds her cigarette butt into the cobbles with her heel. ‘See ya, then.’
‘Bye, Sandie. And well done,’ he calls after her retreating figure. She sticks up two fingers without looking round. He grins. Impossible to know, with Sandie, whether she means ‘fuck off, don’t patronise me’ or ‘peace, man’. Either way, she’s probably being ironic. He listens to the retreating roar of her motorbike, balances for a moment on the sill of the doorway and allows himself to luxuriate in the benevolent heat of the sun, like a lazy cat. His mind strays to Susie’s thick, wild hair, the colour of liquid caramel shot through with strands of the purest dark gold. It reached her waist, back at college. He spotted her on the very first day, wasn’t able to take his eyes off her – no-one could. Her ready smile and infectious laugh, and the sheer energy packed into every movement, made her a magnet for admiration.
Susie of the amber eyes.
Susie the unattainable.
God, she was beautiful then. Still is. How the heck did he finally land her? Not then, not at once, not at college at all, in fact. There, she was perpetually surrounded by a crowd of admirers, men and women, a popular girl despite her beauty. In an arena where talent and looks can be the objects of jealousy and spite, Susie MacPherson always managed to avoid it, because fundamentally she was warm-hearted.
Too warm-hearted?
Archie shakes his head to clear the unwelcome memory. Those months of suspicion and doubt were the hardest of his life. She doesn’t know that he knew, he’d always believed her love was only worth having if it was willingly bestowed.
He shakes his head again. He won’t allow himself to return there.
Across the yard, the front door of the cottage opens and his son Jonathan emerges, a mug in one hand, a magazine in the other. Archie waves a hand in greeting. Jon, hands full, nods and calls, ‘Hi Dad!’
Jonno still lives at Cairn Cottage – for now.
It will always be home to our children, thinks Archie, whenever they need to be here.
They bought the place twenty-eight years ago for family life, able to afford the property only because it was well out of Edinburgh and in a state of almost complete disrepair. Now it looks charming, but it will be another few months before Susie can plant out her tubs in the courtyard. In summer, their lush purples and sumptuous reds added vibrant flashes of colour to the grey stone.
No matter how busy Susie is, she insists on caring for them. ‘My flowers connect me to the earth,’ she protests, whenever he offers to take over the task of weeding and watering.
By May, Archie thinks, it will be picture perfect – for now, he’s just pleased to see sunshine. He starts across the cobbles and calls to his son, ‘Morning, Jon.’
‘It’s afternoon, actually, or hadn’t you noticed?’
Archie grins. ‘Don’t you be cheeky to me, my lad. I’ve been working since dawn.’
‘Saw Sandie leaving. Get on okay?’
‘Not bad at all. Another track pretty much there.’
Jonathan Wallace rearranges his long limbs to make room on the bench for his father. He’s tall, like Archie, and his character is more like Archie’s than Susie’s, but his features more closely resemble his mother’s and his amber eyes and rich reddish-brown hair are most definitely hers.
‘What are you reading?’
Jon waves the magazine. ‘
Mac User
.’
‘Riveting.’
‘All right, I confess. I’m a techno geek.’ He closes the magazine and lays it on his lap. He has inherited Archie’s long fingers, and their gracefulness, but the keyboard he uses is a computer one, not a piano. ‘I love this stuff.’
Archie sinks down onto the bench. ‘Still nothing on the job front?’
‘No. Well, I suppose you could say yes. I got another thanks but no thanks this morning.’
‘That’s a shame. I’m sorry to hear it.’
Jon puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out some notes. ‘My rent.’
Archie looks at the money, but doesn’t reach for it. ‘You don’t need to do this, son.’
‘I do.’
‘Your mother and I—’
‘I know. You don’t need the money blah blah. But I need to give it to you, Dad.’
He so needs to be independent, thinks Archie, his heart swelling as he looks at his son. Pride at Jon’s determination mixes with regret about the circumstances that are forcing him into the situation. He takes the notes, but peels one off and hands it back. ‘We agreed you’d do the hens while I was so busy, remember?’
‘I don’t need to be paid—’
‘I won’t let you do them unless you take the money. Just don’t tell your mother.’
The harmless conspiracy draws Jonathan close to him. Archie loves both his children, but Mannie is her mother’s daughter, confident, ambitious and well established, while Jon needs more support. Archie’s challenge is to find ways of helping his son that are acceptable.
On this occasion, it seems, he has judged it right. Jon takes the note and puts it back in his pocket. ‘Okay, Dad. Thanks.’ He’s clearly aware of the game the two of them are playing. Archie can see that he has weighed the manoeuvre up in terms of its admissibility in his own strict rules of conduct and found it tolerable.
‘Happy Anniversary, by the way.’
‘Thanks.’ Archie is amazed that Jonno has remembered.
Jon’s generous mouth twists into a wry smile. ‘Mannie reminded me. She was seeing Mum for lunch today. She gave her a gift from us both.’
‘Jonathan.’ The generosity moves him. A lump lodges in his throat and he has to fight through the swelling to speak. ‘You didn’t need to – but thank you.’
‘Okay.’ Jon is embarrassed. ‘No problem. You taking her out somewhere nice?’
‘The Shore.’ He names a restaurant in Leith, the port district of Edinburgh.
‘Cool.’ He stands up. ‘Better go. I’ve got a double shift.’
‘Back late again?’ Archie says sympathetically.
‘Yeah.’
‘See you tomorrow then. Did you do them already? The hens?’
‘Yeah.’ Jon pats his pocket. ‘Got to earn my keep. Three eggs. I put them in the kitchen basket.’
‘Great. I’ll have an omelette to keep me going. Drive safely.’
‘Sure. Enjoy your dinner. Hugs to Mum.’
‘Bye.’
As Archie showers, he finds himself humming a new tune. It arrived, more or less fully formed in his head, after Susie’s television interview and it still pleases him. He jotted the refrain down before Sandie arrived for their morning’s work, but he hasn’t written any words yet. They’ll come later.
He dresses with unusual care, picking dark trousers instead of his usual jeans, a heavy cotton shirt in a deep hyacinth blue that Susie bought for him and that he knows she loves, and a dark gray cashmere jacket. His hair, though white now, is still thick. He uses the dryer for speed and brushes it through so that it falls in place neatly above his right eye just in the way Susie approves of.
He’s feeling oddly nervous. Why be apprehensive about dinner with your wife? It isn’t as if Susie has found recent fame, she’s been a household name for years, ever since she was cast, age twenty-six, as a passionate lesbian in a television period drama series that really took off. What a role to achieve stardom with!
Yet he is tense – perhaps because the sight of that man on the television this morning has thrown him, or maybe because anniversaries are occasions for retrospection. Looking back disturbs memories, and there are some things he would rather forget.
Time to go.
It doesn’t help that Susie is late. Archie is used to the fact that these days she perpetually fits in more engagements than are realistically feasible, but the gift of her presence is all he wants today. The pianist in the bar is playing jazz classics, but with a kind of smug swagger that irritates Archie. He’s sure the guy knows he’s there and is trying to show off. Any moment now he’ll be asked to do a guest turn, something he only enjoys if he’s in the mood, and his mood is most definitely not conducive right now.
Then there’s something about Susie, when she appears, twenty-three minutes late, that he finds disconcerting. She seems distracted.
‘You did well, this morning.’
‘Hmmm?’ She’s scanning the menu, the glasses she now needs for reading perched on the end of her nose. He finds them endearing. He wants to grow old with this woman. He longs to possess her completely, but Susie is like a bird that needs to fly free and he has always known she has to fly home to her perch by her own choice. Anything less would diminish what they have.
‘On the television.’
‘Oh. Thanks.’
‘What did Tom Coop have to say?’
She lowers the menu. ‘I’ll just have the sea bass.’
‘No starter?’
‘I’m not really hungry.’
Archie, who is ravenous, is disappointed, but he hides his feelings and says gallantly, ‘Then I’ll just have the fish pie. Coop?’
‘As predicted.’
Goodness, she’s curt. ‘I was going to order champagne before the meal, but maybe you’d like to move on to wine?’
‘Just a glass. I’m driving.’
‘I can drive. I caught the train in.’
‘It’s okay. I’ve got to keep a clear head. There’s so much on.’
Any sense of happy anticipation Archie might have had begins to evaporate. Susie is not given to moodiness, but there have been periods when her vast reserves of energy have burned out, leaving her on the verge of depression. When she was filming at Calgary Bay, for example – though of course, her strangeness then was something else entirely. Archie has to force himself to put the thought aside. Susie thinks their marriage is perfect, the children believe it, the press (thank heaven) has never probed. And it was twenty-nine years ago and has all been long forgotten.
‘You all right, sweetheart?’ he asks, trying to mask his concern. He doesn’t have Susie’s thespian skill.
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’
All his life Archie has been the diplomatic one. He seldom acts on impulse, preferring to gauge the situation and weigh up how to respond with care. It has worked well for him. Susie is the impulsive one, the risk taker, the maker of snap decisions. He holds his peace and moves the conversation on. ‘How was Mannie?’
She softens visibly. ‘She was lovely. She’s doing so well, Archie. They’ve given us a hotel voucher.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘Isn’t that sweet of them?’
‘Jon can’t afford it.’
She says brusquely, ‘He wants to be an equal.’
‘And he is. He’s just not earning yet.’
‘He needs to feel—’
‘I know what you’re saying, Susie.’ Heavens, they’re arguing! This isn’t what he planned. His diplomatic gene kicks in again, the peacemaker in him yearning for harmony. ‘It’s a very generous gesture. I’ll look forward to a chance of getting away. Let’s order, shall we?’
‘Cheers. Here’s to us.’ He raises his glass and chinks Susie’s.
She lets him make the toast, but she doesn’t offer one back.