Among the Missing (33 page)

Ron nodded, too. Earlier that day, on Silva’s orders, he had warned Mr. Sturrock he might need to take some hours off at short notice.

“Or I might not, it depends,” he’d said, not sure what mood Sturrock was in. “I’m on standby. To take a … someone to hospital. She’s having a baby.”

“Fuck’s sake. You having a wean? Congratulations in order, eh?” Sturrock had said.

Immediately Ron not only corrected him but had an elaborate lie ready. No, he wasn’t the father, in fact he hardly knew her, she was the partner of a friend of his. She wasn’t due until early October, but the friend was working on the rigs, putting in all the hours right through till the end of September, and they’d just moved and she had no family here. The friend could get off the rig in under three hours if the baby came early, but his partner was nervous. Ron was the backup to take her to hospital in case he was delayed. Almost certainly he wouldn’t be. It was just for her peace of mind.

Mr. Sturrock had grumbled a little, then told him to inform the office if he had to go off-site and keep his time sheet straight, and be grateful he worked for a fool ready to let him away at the drop of a hat to be a fucking ambulance service.

Afterward Ron wondered why he had lied at all, never mind so extravagantly. There had been no need to pretend that the mother was almost a stranger; he could have said that she and the baby were close to him without going into the peculiarity of their arrangement. Why, when every part of him wished he could be the child’s father, was he so afraid that someone might suppose he was? Because he didn’t deserve to be, that was it. What he deserved was what he most dreaded, to be found out for what he was instead: a man who had killed children. If that happened, Mr. Sturrock—everybody—would turn on him, outraged that he was trying to pass himself off as fit to take care of anyone ever again. All he deserved was to feel like a monster for the rest of his life.

He and Annabel continued to bow under Silva’s dictatorship. It was the price they paid to have her reanimated and back with them. It was lovely, they said to each other privately, to see her looking forward so much to the baby. A new life is a healing thing.

One day at low tide Silva untied the partly submerged white boat
from the jetty and dragged it onto the shore. Ron hadn’t looked at it in months, but now she wanted it fixed up.

“Suppose the baby starts coming and we can’t get hold of you?” she said.

She bailed out the rainwater and tipped the boat over, and Ron cleaned off enough of the clinging green weed to inspect the hull. It was sound, but the boat was barely eight feet long and made of a light plastic. An oarlock was hanging loose, and one of the oars was split at the handle end; although the paddle was in one piece, it would be difficult to use.

“We can mend it. Or we’ll get another one,” Silva decreed.

Ron laughed and chucked the broken oar on the ground. It would make a few sticks of kindling. “You can’t go out in a thing that size, not even with two oars,” he told her. “It’s going nowhere, not without a motor. Look at it. It’d be just about all right on a duck pond.”

“But someone here before us must have gone out in it. Fishing, maybe.”

Ron shrugged. “Probably brought it down here and realized it was useless in more than a breath of wind. Anyway, look at your arms. You couldn’t row three feet with Annabel on board. You’d never make it down to the bridge.”

“I can row a boat all right,” Silva said. “I want it ready, just in case.”

He shook his head. “You wouldn’t be safe,” he said and started back to the cabin, away from her objections. “There’s no need, anyway. I’ll be straight up in the launch when the time comes. It’s all arranged.”

In September, suddenly the weather turned colder. The cabin floors were damp all the time, and Ron began to wonder how he could put in a decent layer of insulation that wouldn’t involve hours of disruption and threaten Annabel’s calm. He thought carefully about her calm, and how to keep her cheerful. Lately, though she hadn’t the will to withstand Silva, she was often impatient with her. She complained of being bossed about, and being uncomfortable and bored. Silva was, by turns, irritable and morose, and she was also constantly watchful, like an investor with a stake in a dumb but valuable animal. Ron was struck by the simplicity of his function in it all, which was to move between the two women as a force dedicated to both of them equally, no matter how wayward or unaccountable either of them became.

Drafts whistled in through the windows and walls, and they had to keep the stove alight all day. He set to work on getting in a log supply for the months to come, but pinewood burned up fast, and he was having to go farther and farther into the forest to find dead trunks he could drag back for cutting. But it occurred to him over and over that secretly he was delighted all these obstacles had presented themselves, otherwise where else would he be now, what would he be doing?

More and more was being required of him, and it was exhausting, but also exhilarating. He loved how the land was sodden and chill and how the sky lowered; he hoped for a dramatic, freezing winter. All day long he walked around trying to keep his gratitude hidden.

The cranes and concrete pourers were at work; dull cranking sounds vibrated around the small group assembled on the jetty. Even after several months, the bridge talk was still an ordeal in public speaking for Mr. Sturrock. He could not look at even familiar faces as if he had seen them before; he stared over his audience’s heads for fear of making eye contact, and called above the noise.

“As you can see, the last segment has been brought along the new roadbed, and the crane will lift it into position within the next forty-eight hours. This represents”—a gull streaked past him, shrieking—“a significant achievement, and not a little way ahead of schedule. Thank you for your attention, ladies and gentlemen,” he added with a formal smile as he folded his speech back into his pocket.

The tiny group nodded. They had been expecting all this because they had been on several bridge walks already. This was the very last one and numbers had tailed off to just three; the bridge would be reopening in a few weeks. Ron recognized every face, and so did Rhona and Mr. Sturrock. Two of the three were a couple whose interest had become for some reason obsessive. Each time they made a day of it: after the tour they would drive up to Netherloch for lunch and in the afternoon walk through the forest to the top of the Netherloch Falls. There they would take photographs of the river snaking from the far end of the loch and widening into the distance as far as the bridge, and on the next walk, after Mr. Sturrock had finished, they would pass the new pictures around in a way that seemed to Ron strangely agitated and boastful, as if the gap between the broken bridge ends were being closed
under their personal supervision. Today as usual the woman produced some new photographs, but apart from himself, Mr. Sturrock, and Rhona (who all saw the bridge every day), there was only Colin, the third member of the audience, to show them to. He took them reluctantly. The woman could not permit his indifference; she pointed out this and that detail, eager for him to show more pleasure. Not that she didn’t understand that the restored bridge was no compensation for his loss, of course not, but still, a new bridge. That was something positive, wasn’t it, something that would help everybody move on? Colin’s big face worked away with an expression of polite interest. Handing back the last of the photographs, he sighed.

Rhona stepped forward. As this was the final bridge talk, she said, she was sure the group would want to take this opportunity to join her in thanking Mr. Sturrock. A thin, clacking round of applause rose and died. One by one the three shook Rhona’s and Mr. Sturrock’s hands and then one another’s, and began to drift away, pulling off their hard hats and depositing them on the ground at Rhona’s feet. Colin lingered. It was four weeks since his tribute to the victims and his dead wife. Since then, he had been quieter than ever. He looked as if he might have wanted to speak but instead nodded to Ron and turned away.

Rhona was applying something glittery to her lips and shaking out her hair. She grinned at Ron, who knew what was about to happen; she’d let him in on it two weeks before, apologizing that she couldn’t include him, too.

“And now, John,” she said playfully, turning to Sturrock. “I am spiriting you away. I’m taking you for lunch at the Royal Highland Hotel. I hope you’re hungry?”

“What? Steady on, now. Lunch? The Royal Highland?” Sturrock said. “There’s no need for that.”

“Away you go, it’s on us. Just a wee thank-you from Forward Voice PR. Your talks have helped us deliver a key campaign objective, rolling out the message to our community stakeholders.”

He stared at her. “Fuck me. I can’t just go off having
lunch
. I need to get back over the other side.” He turned to Ron. “You need to get back over yourself, eh?”

“I’ll be here when you’re ready,” Ron said, smiling.

“It’s all arranged,” Rhona said. “Our managing director Malcolm’s
going to join us, and so is Mrs. Sturrock. So there you go. Table’s booked. See you later, Ron. Thanks a lot for waiting.”

Mr. Sturrock was now pleasantly bewildered. “Christ, you in on it, too?” he said to Ron. “Well, thanks a bunch, son.”

After they left, Ron picked up the hats and packed them in the boat, then walked over to get his own lunch at the service station. There were at least two hours to kill, and when he caught sight of Colin there, hunched at the same table as last time, for a moment he considered slipping away. But Colin looked up and saw him, so he bought sandwiches and tea and joined him at the table. From Colin’s face, it was obvious there was no right thing Ron could say, but it wasn’t possible to say nothing at all.

“So. That’s the last of the bridge walks. That’s it, now,” he offered, hoping Colin would pick up on the idea of their finality. What else could the man do? It
was
the last; there was nothing more to be said or done. Ron knew he was being lazy about Colin’s suffering, but he couldn’t enter into it. He didn’t really like him. While Colin certainly had ample cause to suffer, Ron suspected he was in any case inclined to be sorry for himself.

“If you’re about to say something about moving on, don’t bother,” Colin said. He pulled his pudgy fingers across his face before he spoke again. “That woman with her fucking photos.”

Ron shrugged. “Yeah, sorry, mate. It’s still tough going, is it?”

“Her, everybody. People at work. The number of people that say it.
Moving on
. They say maybe it’s a blessing I didn’t know her that long, like that makes it better.”

“Aren’t they just trying to help?”

“They think I should be getting over it. Some people tell me I’m lucky, I should be glad I wasn’t in the car with her.”

He blew his nose into a rag of used paper handkerchief with an embarrassing, piteous
honk
that blasted little wisps of tissue across his chin and cheeks.

“So, anyway, that’s the last of the bridge walks,” Ron said. “No more trailing up and down from Huddersfield. You’ll be getting your weekends back, a bit of time to yourself. Any plans?”

Colin glared at him. “I’ll still be coming. Why would I not still come? She’s still here.”

“Oh. Okay. Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“You know the worst thing people say? They say be glad we weren’t married long enough to have kids. Because imagine what that’d be like, they’d have lost their mother and I’d be left to cope on my own.”

Ron knew how this line of thinking went: grief for loss of what you did have, beside grief for loss of what you did not but might have had, is a lesser grief. He also knew this thinking for what it was, the well-meaning, ill-contrived, and fatuous condolence of outsiders, people uninitiated in loss.

“It’s not like that,” he said.

“No,” Colin said, his voice faltering. “They don’t know how stupid it is. They don’t know how cruel.”

“They don’t mean to be cruel. Nobody understands what it’s like to lose somebody until it happens to them.”

“I don’t mean that,” Colin said. Then his face collapsed and his shoulders started to shudder. The used tissue went up to his eyes, but huge, splattery tears were already dropping on the front of his clothes. Ron watched them roll like raindrops down his barrel chest. “I mean, don’t they think I’d be glad if there was a kid? Don’t they think I’d
want
to bring it up? I’d do it now if I could, I’d do it right, by both of them. I wish she knew that. I wish we’d had the kid. But we didn’t and now it’s too late.”

“The kid?” Ron said. “You mean you lost one, you lost a baby? I’m really sorry. That’s really tough.”

Colin nodded and cried noisily into his hands. “I never thought I’d want them both so much. They’ve both gone, and it’s my fault. Nobody knows. Nobody knows.”

“It’s not your fault, mate. Listen, it happens. Miscarriages happen. Nobody’s to blame.” Ron now wanted to offer comfort to this large, off-putting man, but his words were having no effect. “Here,” he said, pushing Colin’s mug toward him. “Here, go on, take a swig of that. You need to calm down.”