Beneath the Abbey Wall (14 page)

He found nothing.

Bereft of ideas, he retraced his steps. Almost at the top of the stairs he had a glimpse, a flash of moving white, an echo of the railwayman's sighting; “a flicker out the corner o' ma eye,” he had said.

Rob grinned in relief when sense told him that what he had seen was not a ghost but someone ducking into the close leading to Don's house. He ran up the steps and across the street, startling a horse standing waiting as his master delivered coal.

“Hello,” Rob called out. “Hello!” His voice echoed in the narrow passageway. He ran into the courtyard, almost tripping on the very old and very uneven cobblestones, and found himself staring at a vision in white who was staring back.

“I'm Rob McLean,” he said.

“I know,” she said, “I've seen you in thon band of yours.”

“Really? Did you like us?”

“Loved it, couldn't stop dancing.”

“You're a nurse.”

“Obviously.” She flicked her nurse's cap with middle finger and thumb and smiled. Rob was instantly smitten. He liked the way her mouth turned up at the corners. He liked the way her hazelnut-brown hair struggled to escape the band that held it tight to comply with uniform regulations. He liked her skin, pale from not enough sun or too many night shifts. Most of all he liked her eyes, an extraordinary bright blue, and ready for mischief.

“Do you fancy a coffee?” He came straight out with it, no fear of rejection, as so far, he had never been refused by any women, pretty or plain.

“I've just come off early shift and I have to change out of this.” She pointed to her uniform, and Rob thought,
Pity, I love a
nurse in uniform.
“And I can't ask you in as my parents would kill me if they found out I had a man in the house.”

“How about the coffee bar next to the post office? I'll wait for you here.”

“Five minutes.” She wiggled her fingers in a “cheerio for now” and managed to put her whole body into the gesture—not that Rob noticed; all he could see was this sexy lass who obviously fancied him, something he was used to.

As he waited, Rob looked around. The terraced houses were narrow, two-storied, solid stone. The backs of other houses formed the courtyard. The passageway was the only entrance and exit. Rob went to Don's house and tried to peer through the window, but the lace curtains, with what looked like velvet curtains behind, closed off the sitting room from the courtyard and the world.

“No point peering in there. The man is in the gaol.” The coalman, a sack on his back, glanced at Rob before going to one corner to open a door set in the wall, then pouring the coal in.

“Do you know him?”

“One o' the best men you could hope to meet,” the man said. “And that's all I'm saying.”

Out of the blackened face the man's eyes glinted, and Rob knew to ask no more. The glare lasted only a second, but Rob was relieved when a door opened and a lass's voice said, “Ready?” and the coalman left.

Before walking to the coffee bar, the nurse turned to Rob and said, “I'm Eilidh, by the way.”

“I'm Rob—but you know that already.” He considered whether to tell her, then decided yes. “Look, I'd better explain . . . ”

“It's fine. I know you work at the
Gazette
with Mr. McLeod.”

“Is there anything about me you don't know?”

“Well, I know who your father is, and I know where you
work, and I really like your music. And I hear you don't have a girlfriend.” She said this, grinning, looking straight into Rob's eyes.

He laughed.

They took a booth in the café well away from the door. They talked about their favorite music, found they both liked films, discovered they both went to the dancing in the Caledonian Ballroom whenever they could—“which is not often enough,” Eilidh told Rob, “but I broke up with my boyfriend as he's studying in Glasgow and I never see him, so I've no one to go with unless with a group of nurses.” She was not consciously hinting, but he knew she would not refuse him should he ask, and he really fancied the idea.

“You must be really upset about Mr. McLeod.” It was Eilidh who brought the conversation around.

“More than upset. We're all devastated.”

She liked him all the more when she saw his eyes go bright.

“Were you at home that night?” Rob asked.

“I knew nothing about it until the next day when the police came to interview me.”

“It must have been a shock.”

She said nothing.

“Did you see—or hear . . . ?”

“Can we change the subject? This is so depressing.”

He caught a glimpse of an impatient seventeen-year-old. “Sorry. It's just that Don McLeod is a friend and I'd like to help anyway I can.” Rob had heard the church bells strike three in a pause between records on the jukebox. “And it's time I was off.”

“Maybe one night we could catch the film at the Palace.” She looked across at him and smiled. “They're showing the Marlon Brando. He reminds me of you.”

“That's me, I have the bike and the jacket and the attitude—but a haystack for hair.” She had it right; Rob fancied himself as a Highland Marlon.

“I'll check my shifts and give you a call.” Eilidh had the reputation of being a pushy wee thing. Rob didn't notice.

“Great. And if you can think of anything at all that might help Don McLeod . . . Sorry, I really have to run, I've got a band rehearsal at four thirty.”

Arrangement made, they left, Rob to fetch his motorbike to drive to the Scout Hall, Eilidh to sleep.

She watched him as he strode up the street. She was watching his hair down to his leather jacket collar, his boots scruffy but fab—her latest word picked up from the television—his black trousers tighter than any she had seen, and thinking,
He's a much better catch than the last one.
It was decided; Rob McLean would be her new boyfriend.

J
oanne was trying to hurry her daughters. She had brought them home to collect their Sunday-best coats and shoes and hats, her in-laws having agreed that they could spend the night with them.

“Do we have to?” Annie asked for perhaps the seventh time. “Why can't we stay at home with you?” It was not that she wanted to stay at home, rather that she was suspicious of her mother's private life, which she thought her mother was not entitled to, or at least, not entitled to keep secret from her eldest daughter.

“You haven't had a Saturday night with Granny and Granddad for ages,” Joanne pointed out. “Granddad is really looking forward to seeing you.”

“But we were with them this morning.” Annie would not relent until she discovered where, when, and with whom her mother was spending Saturday night. The afternoon she did not care about, only the hours after dark, which she considered to be the time when adults were naughty.

“Jean, your teddy, your nightie, your Sunday-school Bible, clean socks . . . ”

“And my coloring-in books,” her youngest daughter added.

“No wonder your bag is so heavy.” Joanne smiled. “Right, out we go. Annie, I'm going to lock up whether you're ready or not.”

She opened the front door, jangled her keys, and stepped out into the weak October sun valiantly trying to penetrate the
blanket of clouds the color of dirty washing. She ignored Annie's wails, put the key in the door. The eldest girl rushed out, accidentally on purpose shoving her sister out of the way, and went ahead, out the garden gate, down the street, pretending to make her own way to her grandparents', pretending she wasn't with Joanne and her sister but always keeping them within sight, just in case.

*  *  *  

“Thanks, Mum, thanks, Dad.” Joanne smiled but the look from her mother-in-law made her realize she was overdoing it, making her mother-in-law look suspiciously at her, as though she guessed Joanne was up to no good.

“I'll see you all at church tomorrow.” That should remind them that even though she had left their son, she was still a decent woman.

“What are you doing here?” Bill Ross had come in by the kitchen door and was staring at his wife, ignoring the fact that she saw far more of his parents than he did.

Joanne wasn't ready to look at him, but she had no choice. She switched on a smile. “Hello, Bill.” She was momentarily upset by how well he was looking.

He looked at her, looked at his girls, said nothing, then turned to leave.

“You'll stay for a cup of tea.” Granddad Ross was not asking.

“I'll put the kettle on.” Granny Ross went into the kitchen.

“Say hello to your dad,” Joanne told the girls.

“Hello, Dad,” Jean said, then scuttled off to join her grandmother.

“Hello, Dad.” Annie pitched her voice in exactly the tone she knew would make him want to hit her, knowing he wouldn't dare in front of her granddad, and not caring if later she would have to face the consequences.

“Annie,” her mother said, “why don't you help Granny?”

Annie heard the plea and decided to relent; it would be her mother who paid for her defiance, not her.

Joanne looked across the room to where Bill, still standing, was trying to have a conversation with his father about football. He had his back half-turned, deliberately, Joanne thought, but all the same, she could see the change in him. His shirts were new. His heavy brown hair was cut too short for her liking; he was spruced up as though he was going somewhere, wearing a tie that she would never have chosen. And there was something about the set of his shoulders, strong ex-army, now builder's, shoulders—they seemed to have dropped an inch or so, no longer in their former position of a bull about to charge.

She liked the change in him and knew it was all Betsy's doing. To her surprise, instead of feeling guilty about their marriage, she thought,
It wasn't his fault. We were wrong for each other
. He looked across at her as though reading her thoughts. And she saw him, the father of her children, the boy who had been sent to war, who came home healthy in body, wounded to his soul. Her upbringing and education had taught her that forgiveness was the essential Christian message; she did not forgive him for the mental and physical abuse that she had endured throughout their marriage, but she felt sorry for him. And she no longer believed the abuse was her fault; no longer believed she had deserved it.

Granny Ross served tea to her husband, her son, and her daughter-in-law, then went back into the kitchen to be with the girls, leaving the door open so she could hear the conversation. But little was said.

“How's work?” Joanne asked her husband.

“Fine,” Bill replied. He put the teacup back in the saucer, which rattled. He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, as though it would magically ring out a reprieve. He put a finger
under his shirt collar to ease the newness, the sharpness of the collar, and Joanne could read the thought,
Why am I still here, why am I not off to the football
?

Silence.

“How's life at the
Gazette
?” Granddad asked but immediately regretted his choice of words as he, like the entire county, was aware it was more a matter of death than life at the newspaper.

“We're managing as best we can,” Joanne replied. “Just waiting for Mr. McLeod to be released.” Her husband's snort of skepticism annoyed her. “Yes,” she continued, “we're all working hard to keep the paper going. I'm even having to help Betsy Buchanan with the advertising and business side of things.” She was well aware of what she was saying but doubted Granddad was.

“I have to be off.” Bill stood, gave her his signature, I'm-the-boss-of-you stare, and finding it had not the usual effect, left without saying good-bye to his mother or his daughters, but taking time to slam the front door, the garden gate, and the door of his van.

For the rest of the weekend, and well into the week, until Granny Ross was able to find out more from a neighbor and notorious gossip, she puzzled over Joanne's reference to Betsy Buchanan, a woman Mrs. Ross senior was not particularly fond of, but respected, her status of war-widow absolving Betsy from the normal sobriquet of “flighty.” When Granny Ross heard the rumors of her son's fling with Betsy, she didn't know what to think, as secretly she considered Betsy a much better match for her son than Joanne: Betsy was one of them; she came from the same housing estate; she had gone to the same school as Bill—not the academy, the technical high school; her father worked in the post office; she only went out to work because she had to—unlike her daughter-in-law.

It had taken many difficult years, but Mrs. Ross now had a
soft spot for Joanne. At first she thought Joanne was too
above herself
. She respected that Joanne's father was a minister in the Church of Scotland and better educated and in a different class from them. She did not like it that Joanne's parents had disowned her for becoming pregnant and having to marry in a hurry; she took it as a slight on her family. But, she reasoned, Joanne's father is a man of the cloth and has to stick by his principles, else who in his parish would respect him? She thought Joanne a good mother, although working when she didn't have to was not what good mothers did. She also knew her son beat his wife. Her opinion on that she never shared. Only her husband knew her deep shame.