North Sea Requiem (17 page)

The game was started and was unusually subdued. The game finished with the score nil-all. As the opposition players were leaving the field, they formed a queue to shake Coach Urquhart's hand. And Frankie's.

Joanne looked at Don for an explanation. Then she realized that many of the supporters from both teams were coming up to Don, shaking his hand, or glancing his way as though seeking approval. Not much was said beyond the occasional
Aye
or
Fine day
or
Bad business this
.

Joanne also noticed glances and nods and nudges coming from the wives, the mothers, the keepers of the first aid kits, the washers of shirts and shorts, the makers of tea and cakes and shortbread for the fund-raising sales. Some came up saying, “Thank you, Mr. McLeod.” Others just smiling or nodding. Don McLeod was emerging into the world again. His bereavement fresh, he knew the state Frank Urquhart was in.

Joanne saw and understood and was moved. As was he. She tucked her arm into his. “Tell me, Don McLeod. Nil-nil. Is it always this boring?”

McAllister laughed a loud hearty guffaw. It felt good to laugh. Joanne joined in. Don shook his head. But was smiling.

“Aye,” he said, “we sore need a good laugh . . . and maybe a dram.” He had foresworn drinking, so he added, “My feet are frozen.”

T
he court case was simple. William Stanley Ross of Laurel Avenue admitted being resident at that address with Mrs. Elizabeth Mary Buchanan, widow. He further admitted being the father of Mrs. Buchanan's child, delivery expected in four weeks' time. No one attended the hearing except Bill Ross.

There was a great deal of shuffling of papers and documents handed from one court official to the next to the magistrate, and time taken up with frowning and reading and more shuffling, all of which Bill assumed was meant to shame him. But he'd been through worse. He'd survived the battle for Monte Cassino.

He had to endure a lecture from the magistrate about abandoning one family to make another. It almost made him speak out. But the pain of a too-tight collar stopped him; Betsy Buchanan fed him really well, never leaving him to make his own tea—one of his many complaints about Joanne.

The divorce application was granted. When Bill told Betsy, she was delighted, but more than anything relieved.

“We can't get married until the decree is final,” Bill reminded her. He was surprised at himself; the thought of marrying Betsy pleased him.

“It will say on the baby's birth certificate we're not married.” She knew it unlikely the divorce would come through before a marriage. “Unless . . .”

Bill Ross was used to his future wife's scheming.

“All it takes is the right word in the right ear,” she told him. As she was usually right, and as she was the one who arranged everything in their lives—paid the bills, did the washing, the ironing, the shopping, the cooking, knew when it was a birthday, an anniversary, a wedding, a funeral—all as a good wife should, he thought no more about it.

Bill Ross waited a week before telling his parents the news, adding that he and Betsy would marry as soon as possible. He said nothing of Australia; one scandal was enough. He had seen the sense of Betsy's argument and wanted to leave, to “start over.” Leaving this wee place
to be somebody
—his words to Betsy—appealed to him.

Next he visited Joanne's prefab bungalow in Ballifeary Lane, one of many houses built for returning WWII heroes, constructed to last a few years, now feeling so permanent that it was hard for the planners to knock them down.

She was not there. Not only was she not there, he knew the girls were not with his parents.

The house looked empty. The curtains were drawn. The garden seemed neglected. Her bicycle was gone. Then he remembered. The girls now had bicycles. He had paid for them—at his father's insistence. He didn't see why he should, but as he had never been asked for money by Joanne, he decided, in front of his parents and children, to be magnanimous.

Then he had an idea. He drove across the bridge and up the hill past the castle and around the terraces, reaching McAllister's house just as it was turning dark. The lights were on, the curtains open. Annie was sitting on a sofa reading. Not a sight that surprised her father, as he had always thought his elder child preferred books to real life.

There was no sign of Joanne.

He caught a movement; a small figure crossed the room also holding a book. It was then he saw McAllister half hidden by the high back of the wing chair on one side of the fireplace, kneeling down, perhaps lighting the fire, where now a flicker of flame flared blue-red, as when newspapers were used for kindling.

Bill Ross watched as his younger daughter, the one he liked, handed the book to McAllister. He saw the man,
Joanne's fancy man,
take his daughter's hand, squeeze her into his wide armchair beside him, and open the book.

Still no sign of Joanne.

I bet she's in the kitchen cooking
. That thought, and the substantial house he'd heard McAllister had paid for in cash, enraged Bill Ross even further.

•   •   •

When she heard the back door slam enough to rattle a windowpane, Betsy went for the whisky, poured him a dram, and put the water on the side in a small jug in the shape of a West Highland terrier.

She heard Bill out. She didn't question what he was doing keeking through McAllister's window. She could make no sense of his rage, only calm him the only other way she knew, her being eight and a bit months pregnant—whisky.

In the morning she considered Joanne and McAllister and Bill and herself and the baby, who, she was sure, would be good at any sport involving kicking. No clear thought emerged, only a conviction that she had to talk to Joanne.

She called the
Gazette
office. Fiona surprised her.

“Mrs. Buchanan, it's good to hear from you. We all miss you, especially the clients.” Fiona was certain it was mostly the male clients who missed Betsy, or Busty Betsy, as the men in the print room had christened her. But Betsy was kind in a ruthless, used-to-getting-her-own-way way. Fiona appreciated that.

“You too—I really miss all of you.” She meant it. “Fiona, can I speak to Joanne?”

“I'm putting you through to Mrs. Ross now.”

•   •   •

Betsy Buchanan barely made the last few yards of the climb up Castle Wynd.

“Mind you don't drop it here and now,” a woman coming down from the library said to a heavily peching Betsy.

They smiled at each other, as Betsy didn't have the breath to reply. Once inside the office, Fiona made her sit down in her old chair in her former office and made her a cup of tea.

“Is Mrs. Ross expecting you?” Fiona asked as she handed the tea to Betsy in her same old cup, the one with painted primroses she had donated to Fiona when she left.

“It's you I wanted a word with.”

Now Fiona was wary. No one ever wanted just “a word.”

“How's the new man, Mr. Forbes?” Betsy asked.

That was enough to set Fiona off.

“He's nice enough in his own way. But he's never here. Has his own home office, he calls it. Leaving me to do all the boring stuff . . .” She talked, saying all the things she had been keeping in, and it came out in a tidal wave, a flotsam and jetsam of complaints, observations, worries, and comments, even on his wife delivering the man's sandwiches to the office.

“Why can't you bring them in with you in the morning?” Fiona had asked.

“Oh no,” Fiona was repeating Mal Forbes's words, “ ‘I need fresh bread from the baker on Eastgate,' he said, ‘not day-old bread for sandwiches.' ”

Fiona's mum worked in the bakery and said Mrs. Forbes was there most mornings at ten to eight, before the bakery shop even opened properly.

“You'll no' catch me running around after a man like that,” Fiona told her mother, and her mother had laughed. Fiona couldn't be too harsh on Mal Forbes, though; she had seen, almost every time she came to the office, that Mr. Forbes had kissed his wife on the cheek, his eyes bright, her eyes adoring.
They're in love so they are,
she told her mum, who laughed, saying
Fi-o-naa
in that long-drawn-out way she had when dismissing her daughter's opinions.

When Fiona had wound down, and when they were on their second cup of tea, Betsy said between the pauses as Fiona darted in and out to answer the phone, “I'm meeting Joanne later—just like old times. She's not at all bothered about me anymore. Especially since Bill is now her ex-husband.”

Although Betsy said this, she was never sure if her new relationship with Joanne was genuine. She couldn't see why Joanne didn't care about her and Bill. As for the stories of Bill hitting Joanne, she chose to ignore that.
He would never hit me
.

Fiona nodded. She knew as much as everyone about the Rosses' divorce and Betsy's pregnancy, and although it was interesting, she wasn't really interested. But Betsy knew Fiona would tell her mother and her mother would tell everyone and Betsy would once more be a respectable woman of the town.
Almost respectable,
Betsy hoped.

“I admire Joanne for moving in with McAllister before they're married. Goodness knows I realize what courage that takes.” Betsy was moving her head in that budgerigar-preening-itself-in-a-mirror habit of hers.

“I don't know about that.” Fiona stood, trying to invent a reason to be at the front desk, remembering what a gossip Mrs. Buchanan was, and fearing for her own secret, not Joanne's. “If you'll excuse me, Mrs. Buchanan . . .” She lifted an accounts book.

“Of course,” Betsy had accomplished what she came for. Fiona might not gossip, but her mother certainly did. Time was short. Maybe the baby would be late. Three weeks, the hospital said. Four weeks, four weeks, Betsy kept repeating to her unborn baby.

•   •   •

Betsy Buchanan waited three days before continuing with her plan.

“Joanne, nice to see you.” Betsy was waiting for Joanne in the tearooms on Church Street.

“You're looking really well, Betsy.” It was true. Busty Betsy, the
Gazette
's very own pinup girl, had that flush, that bloom that expectant mothers or those in love have: a pinkness to the skin, shining eyes, a tiredness—yes, and a smugness. And in spite of past enmities, Joanne was happy that Betsy Buchanan had taken over her ex-husband.
Gonna wash that man right out of my hair
. Joanne wanted to hum the song in triumph.

“We can't wait for the birth; Bill is convinced it's a boy.”

Betsy was blethering away. Joanne knew it was from nervousness. She had been unable to give Bill Ross a son, one of the many faults he had flung at her, and Joanne wished, with fingers crossed and touching wood, that Betsy would have a son and they would migrate to Australia. It was through this fog of wishful wishing, inventing a future yet to happen, that she heard Betsy say, “So we thought McAllister might have a word.”

“With whom?”

“Whoever can hurry up the papers.” She saw Joanne's blank look. “The divorce papers.” As she said this she leaned towards Joanne and whispered the word
divorce
as though it was the dirtiest swear word in the world.

“But why?” Joanne was not being deliberately obtuse, just not thinking clearly, wary as to what Betsy wanted from her; she
understood well what a stain it was to be
born out of wedlock
—another phrase Joanne could remember her father uttering from his pulpit.

“Look, Joanne . . .”

Joanne recognized the tone; she had heard Betsy Buchanan in full warrior-in-marshmallow-coating mode before.

“Bill stood up in court and admitted living with me. He took full responsibility for the end of your marriage, even though it wasn't his fault, and you're living with McAllister—Bill could easily have brought that up . . .”

“I am not!” But Joanne was blushing.

“That's not what everyone's saying . . . ask Fiona, she'll tell you the gossip . . . not that that girl gossips . . .”

Joanne never quite understood how Betsy, with her limited education, her never-having-left-a-small-town life, could and did come out the victor in almost every encounter between them. She knew Betsy needed a favor and she was surprised to find that she didn't mind. More than that, she admitted to herself later, Betsy was her protection against Bill's rages.
He won't be bothering me again,
she thought.

“Betsy, what do you want?”

“Your help.”

Betsy explained. Joanne listened. Joanne agreed to help. Betsy was delighted.

•   •   •

“McAllister, let's take sandwiches to the Islands.” It was twelve thirty. Joanne had parted with Betsy an hour earlier and needed to tell McAllister about the conversation.