North Sea Requiem (11 page)

She made the short walk to her hotel just in time. Back in her room, the papers still in the envelope unopened on the dressing table seemed to brood with a malevolent presence. She took a deep breath. The feeling of imminent tears she had felt outside the café, the pain when the wind blasted her ears making her fear for her hearing, all had vanished at the thought of rereading the report.

Printed and bound, making it all the more real, was the full report from the Fatal Accident Enquiry: the final report from the air force, the police, the investigating officer on the loss of the aircraft over the North Sea; the long and frustrating report, months
in the making; a report that reported nothing; a report thick on theories but light on hard facts; a statement that recorded that no sighting, no evidence, no leads had been found. The conclusion left the inquiry open. And six years later, still nothing, except more speculation. All that was certain was that the aircraft set off over the North Sea and did not return.

•   •   •

The taxi driver wished Mae Bell good night. She walked down the path to McAllister's front porch and was about to ring the bell when the opening piano riff, faint but clear, from the record player in the sitting room, hit her with such force that she had to hold on to the door frame.

The voice started. Her own. The lyrics undid her now as much as they had when she had first sung the song in Paris.
Blue Moon . . .

She could feel him holding her, dancing slowly, the hum of him singing vibrated through her, the words he would say, whisper, again and again,
Please adore me.
She did, she always would.

Robert
. His name, as so often before, came out in a sob. She clutched her bag with the two unsent letters to her chest; she had the final two unsent letters; she had finally tracked them down. The letters, his passport, his dog tags had been kept in Edinburgh with the rest of his belongings—not returned to her as promised.

Sorry, madam,
the officer at RAF Kinloss had said.
The police didn't return your late husband's property and we hadn't an address for you.

Now she had Robert's notebook—doodles, half-written melodies and song lyrics, and his binoculars. His clothes she couldn't bear to touch and had left behind. The unposted letters she kept with her. She slept with them next to her pillow; she read them and reread them. In among his descriptions of his work, his colleagues, the weather, there was an anxiety, and a mention that he had made a stupid mistake, upsetting someone. Nothing more.
She needed company. Was glad to be on McAllister's doorstep. She rang the doorbell.

The door opened. Joanne was startled to see Mae looking half a foot smaller. Joanne would have noticed the tears if Mae hadn't quickly turned away and fumbled in her handbag, saying, “Darn, I think I left my cigarettes in the taxi.” Mae took out a packet. “No, here they are.”

“I've been telling McAllister for ages he needs a new bulb in the outside light.” Joanne was aware she was blethering, and didn't know why. “Come into the sitting room, and here, I'll take your coat. McAllister will get us a drink . . .”

“I thought you might like this.” McAllister grinned at Mae and put the recording on again. This time Mae was prepared. This time, when the piano trilled the opening notes, she could smile. And when the saxophone came in, she could see him, Robert, and smile. At him. At Robert.

“One of my favorites.” She raised the whisky glass he handed her. “Thanks.” She took too large a gulp and almost choked. Not from the whisky—she couldn't bear hearing that song again. “I hear things have gotten worse since I left.”

“It's hard to credit how someone could do such a thing, especially up here.” As opposed to Glasgow, he meant. “Have you heard any more from the anonymous letter writer?”

“No. Then again, maybe the person thought the threat was successful. I did leave town not long after I received it.” Mae shrugged. The anonymous letters were not her only concern. What she had discovered in Edinburgh superceded everything else—not that she was sharing.

Joanne was enjoying the ease of the conversation between Mae and McAllister. Like old friends, she thought. It felt important that Mae like McAllister. That Mae validate Joanne's choice of maybe future husband.

“How would the person who wrote the letter know you left?” she asked. The thought came that the letter writer might know of Mae's return and threaten her again. “I'm really glad you're back. It's dull without you . . .”

“Let's hope the letter writer feels the same.” Mae Bell laughed.

“I hope you're not including me in ‘dull.' ” McAllister gave a grin, loving the way Joanne could no more hide her emotions than stop the tide turning.

He stood. “Any requests?”

“Basie?” Mae Bell asked. She did not want to risk anything associated with Paris.

And as the night wore on, as the clock struck late, and the wine and whisky sank and the music did its magic, the conversation, the laughter, the stories, flowed and floated, as various as a highland cloudscape, and Joanne never did find the chance to ask about Mae's trip to Edinburgh. Which was good; it saved Mae from lying.

When it was time to leave, Joanne said she'd share a taxi with Mae. McAllister suddenly looked bereft. Mae raised an eyebrow. McAllister saw her watching him. He looked away. Joanne didn't notice—too busy with the books she was borrowing.
So that's how it is,
Mae was thinking.

The taxi crossed a deserted town, the women sitting in the back, thinking on the same subject, thinking from such opposing viewpoints that it would startle them if they shared.

Why doesn't she stay the night with that fascinating man? He's pretty attractive in a world-weary way,
Mae was thinking.
She must know how much he wants her and tries to fool herself he doesn't. But it is a small town. It is 1958.
Mae knew how hard it was for the amorous of the community who were not married.
Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, trysts consummated in the backs of cars, down cold, lonely lanes. Even a hay barn is out in this climate.
She remembered a hay barn in France
with Robert. They were grown-up adults, and married, but it was irresistible—
and itchy
.

She stood on the steps of the hotel, waving good-bye to Joanne, before knocking on the door with her lighter, waiting for the night porter to open the door. Seeing him look at her, then ostentatiously look at his watch before letting her in, the word
suffocate
came to mind as she remembered that all small towns were the same.

•   •   •

Joanne too was wondering why she didn't stay with McAllister. It was not the fear for her reputation—half the town had them already bedded but not wedded. It was not that she was not attracted to him. And, given half a signal, she knew he would love her to stay, to sleep in his huge bed, which she had looked at when staying once before in the spare bedroom, the bed that one day might be the marital bed—if only she could stop prevaricating, stop holding back, stop . . . She paused.
Stop being so scared?

She sighed as she stepped out of the taxi. Opening the garden gate, she looked up at the stars, contemplating the heavens, finding solace in the beauty of a bright Milky Way, dreading the cold waiting in her little house, knowing that inside the thin walls, in her tiny bedroom with the narrow bed, and no fire, it was often colder inside than out.

McAllister's bed would be warm,
she was thinking as she filled the hot-water bottle. Again the fear and doubts crept up on her as steadily as a dose of the flu.
I'm not yet divorced and I'm thinking of marrying again? Glutton for punishment you are.

The next morning, a banging on her door awakened Joanne. Suddenly. She hated that, preferring to come into a new day slowly. She looked at the time: Twenty-five past eight. She'd slept in.

The banging started again.

The girls were at their grandparents'; perhaps something had happened.

“I'm coming.” She did what she never did, what she was brought up to believe was “common”: she answered the door in her dressing gown.

The man was holding a large envelope and a clipboard. He and the envelope had an official look.

“This is from the court,” he said. “Sign here.” He knew what the letter was. Looking at her, with her hair uncombed, her eyes tired, and an aura of stale alcohol about her, he decided he now knew why the documents were being served on her.

She signed. Glancing at his freshly shaven chin and his smartly pressed suit and white shirt and blue regimental tie, she could see on his face, as he handed over the documents, what he thought of her.

“Thank you.” She pulled her dressing gown tight, stepped back, shut the door, and without opening the summons said, loudly enough for the man to hear from halfway down the path, “About time.”

She was shaking the envelope above her head as triumphantly as a winner with all the correct lines in the football pools. “About blooming time.”

It was only when she was on her second cup of tea that the thought struck her, hard. She knew, because she had typed up the reports often enough, that the
Gazette
reported all Sheriff Court proceedings, including divorce. The fact of the case, details of the proceedings, all would be there for all to see. No wonder Betsy Buchanan, her husband's girlfriend, wanted to flee to Australia. But she, Joanne Ross, she would be here to face the gossips, the curious, the outright malicious. Her children too, her girls . . . someone somewhere sometime would bring up their parents' divorce. The elation evaporated, leaving a stale scent of defeat that Joanne Ross was familiar with and accepted.

And the fantasy, the dreaming of what she would call herself after the divorce, came back—as anxiety. Joanne Ross, I will no longer be Joanne Ross.

Joanne McAllister was not in her thinking.

•   •   •

Chiara Kowalski née Corelli had been Joanne's closest friend for five years. The had met over ice cream; the Sunday ritual cone of ice cream, the one treat she could afford for her girls before she took the part-time job as typist at the
Gazette
.

Chiara and her family had been true friends through the disintegration of Joanne's marriage, but divorce? Joanne sensed—she did not include Chiara's husband in this, as she knew he lost his faith when he lost his homeland—that for the Corelli family, a separation was acceptable, divorce not.

Joanne did not confide in her sister, nor her brother-in-law—a minister in the Church of Scotland—for the same reason. “Till death do us part.” She felt it hypocritical, the Church's attitude to marriage. She had been subjected to physical and mental abuse. It had been accepted, although gossiped upon, that she could set up a separate household. Her husband already had another woman pregnant. But when it came to a divorce, it was she who would wear the mark of Cain, not her husband.

McAllister; she knew she could, should talk to him. He would listen. He would smile. He would be sympathetic, encouraging even. But he found it hard to see why she was so ambivalent about a divorce, about marrying again.

She needed to talk. She needed someone who would know that a divorce was more than a civil matter before the Sheriff Court, more than a matter of gossip and innuendo and losing your good name; it was the end of who she was and the beginning of—
of what?

•   •   •

“
Gazette
.”

“Hello, Mae Bell here. You left a note at my hotel.”

“It's just . . .” Joanne didn't want to explain; the newsroom was busy, and McAllister, Don, Rob, Hec, and Mal Forbes were all there.

“I get it, you can't talk,” Mae said, “Twelve thirty at Gino's café?”

“How about the tearoom in Arnotts? You know it?” she did not want Gino Corelli to guess at their conversation.

“I'll find it.”

“As I was saying,” Mal Forbes continued, “we can make this page more profitable if we add advertising editorial—which I know you all think is not good newspaper ethics, but if it's clearly marked . . . and paid for . . .”

“Let's see it again.” Don pulled the mock-up towards him. It was a cartoon-like drawing, lines of copy squiggled in, clear black borders around the quarter-page, and
Advertisement
in a small font at the top.

“Up the font on the top heading and I see no problem.”

McAllister shrugged. The proposed advertisement was a six-month contract, not something he could dismiss.

“So we're agreed then,” Mal continued. “The copy will change regularly, but we need someone to write it, and being women's interest stories . . .”

“No.” The word was out of her mouth before she thought.

“I'm thinking that as you're the only woman writer on the
Gazette
 . . .” Mal's point was reasonable.

Oh so reasonable,
Joanne acknowledged to herself. “I'm fed up with being given all the so-called ‘women's business.' ”

“This page is the women's page. You're the only woman reporter.” Mal was looking straight at her. She could see that he genuinely couldn't see her point.

“Sorry, Joanne. I don't get your objection.”

She wanted to yell,
Stop patronizing me,
but she could see that underneath the neat, horizontal eyebrows, there was no malice, only bewilderment.

Don interrupted. “Children . . .” He meant it as a joke. It offended Joanne nonetheless.

They continued on the small matters that needed writing up, filing, discarding, dealing with—the everyday business of producing a weekly newspaper.

When the meeting was over, she ignored McAllister's smile and went on with typing, and the noise of the machine, which Joanne complained was as ancient as a claymore from Culloden, drowned out any further conversation.