One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (26 page)

‘Catherine’ he heard someone call her. That was it. She was saying hello to everybody, individually, while Hutchison was cherry‐
picking longer conversations. Davie’s stomach hollowed with the understanding that she’d inevitably get to him, and when she did, this charmed spell of anonymity would forcibly be broken. It seemed crazy, but he felt scared.

Actually, maybe it wasn’t that crazy. In the days when he knew these people, he’d always been scared. The difference now was that he’d learned responses more sophisticated than sticking a boot in their faces. He exercised one of them then, slipping away quietly to the toilets and waiting there until the voices died and everyone had dispersed.

More sophisticated, yes, but not much more constructive. It would be easier later, at the party, he’d told himself. And it probably would have been, if only he’d had the front to go downstairs and enter the bloody thing.

Still the jacket sat there, but he knew he wasn’t putting it back on.

Coming here at all had been a mistake, he thought, then retracted that. It had been right to try. Better to make the trip and find the gates closed than spend the rest of your life wondering. He could go home to Collette and the kids now and never look back again. Wasn’t that what he’d wanted anyway?

Then there was a knock at the door, causing him to sit up straight. He didn’t reply, relieved the TV wasn’t on any more. They’d go away in a minute. No‐
one knew he was here, so whoever it was had the wrong room.

The knock was repeated.

‘David?’ called a female voice, tentative, nervous, like she might run away if he did open the door. ‘David Murdoch?’

Which changed everything. She knew he was in there, knew
who
was in there. Taking a deep breath, he got up and opened the door. She didn’t run away. They stood and stared for a long second, mutually aware of there being no going back now that they had seen each other.

‘Can I come in?’ she asked eventually.

Davie searched for the right way of saying yes but failed to find one involving words. A bewildered nod and a standing aside served in lieu. She walked in but didn’t seem any less awkward than had she stayed out in the corridor.

‘Catherine, isn’t it?’ he managed.

‘Catherine O’Rourke,’ she confirmed. Something fell into place.

‘You’re the … I mean, you’re “RSVP Catherine O’Rourke, Clamour PR”.’

‘That’s right. Business unavoidably mixed with pleasure. Except that you didn’t.’

‘Didn’t what?’

‘RSVP.’

‘I know. Sorry, I—’

Catherine was effusive in heading off his apology, appalled that he thought she was chiding him. ‘No, no, I’m just saying. I had no idea you’d be here until I saw you in the lobby earlier. Then you disappeared. I thought I’d catch up with you later, but you didn’t materialise at the party, so …’ She bit her lip, devoid of the professionally affable poise she’d shown downstairs. There was something going on here that Davie didn’t get.

‘So what, are you contractually obliged to say hello to everybody on the guest list, no matter where they are?’ he asked. The atmosphere badly needed humour, but his own awkwardness sabotaged his delivery. Accompanied by such a faltering apology for a smile, it could as easily have been a put‐
down.

She reciprocated with an equally unconvincing attempt.

‘No,’ she said. ‘But I
was
aware that you hadn’t appeared at the ballroom tonight, and I was wondering …’ She sat down on the edge of his bed and sighed, blowing air through her lips like a pressure valve. She looked up at him for a moment, then looked away again as she spoke.

‘I was wondering why you had come all this way and then not shown up at the party, so I thought I should see whether there was something wrong. Then I remembered your vanishing act at reception and it struck me that if there was something wrong and you didn’t want to see anybody, the solution wasn’t for me to go bothering you.’

Davie felt there was an obligation to acknowledge the obvious and invite an explanation.

‘But you did anyway.’

She nodded. ‘You couldn’t face them, could you?’ she asked.

He shook his head.

‘But somehow you feel you must.’

Davie nodded, this time with a half‐
decent smile in reward for her perceptiveness.

‘Well, same goes for me,’ she explained, making what was obviously a testing effort to look him in the face. Whatever was going on, he still wasn’t getting it.

‘
You
couldn’t face them?’ he asked.

‘I couldn’t face you.’

Davie was lost. He moved his jacket to one side and sat down opposite the bed.

He remembered Catherine O’Rourke. It was hard not to: she’d been one of the most attractive girls in the school, and he couldn’t imagine her getting kicked out of anyone’s bed for farting these days either. He recalled the name now as much as the face, a necessary adjunct to changing‐
room sexual discussion. A byword for beauty, lust and impossible desires, as much as his had doubtless been for violence, anger and fear. What he didn’t remember was ever having any kind of interaction with her whatsoever.

(Unless)

‘None of the others know you’re here,’ she told him. ‘Or that you’re missing, rather. You weren’t on that big guest list in the lobby.’

‘Oh yeah, because I didn’t RSVP,’ he replied, smiling, further confused but half‐
hopeful that she was changing the subject.

‘No, because you were never on it,’ she explained, apologetically.

‘Eh?’

‘It’s Gavin’s party, you see. He submitted a list of names to me, and yours wasn’t one of them. Please don’t be offended.’

After watching her sit there, so portentously burdened, Davie couldn’t help but laugh that this was what had been worrying her.

‘Never bother,’ he said. ‘I wouldnae want me at my school reunion. Why d’you think I’m skulkin’ aboot up here?’ He looked in her face for the appropriate smile of relief but, perplexingly, it wasn’t forthcoming.

‘So who invited me?’ he asked. ‘You?’

‘Well, not quite. My PA came in kind of sheepishly one morning and told me Gavin’s wife, Simone, had phoned to request that invitations go out to a couple of people he hadn’t put on his list. One of them was you. She also asked that Gavin be kept in the dark about it. The two of them aren’t the most happily married couple in the world.’

‘Why me?’

‘She was mischief‐
making, I think. She invited you and Matthew Black because Gavin specifically didn’t want either of you here.’

‘Gavin didn’t invite Matt Black? Me I can understand, but I mean—’

‘I brought it up myself when I saw the list. He was afraid there’d be tabloid reporters crawling all over the place if it got out that Matt Black was coming, and he said he could do without the resort getting drug‐
party headlines before it had even opened.’

‘But you went ahead with Simone’s requests, anyway. Both of them.’

Catherine nodded.

‘Even though she’d have no way of knowing if you hadn’t.’

She nodded again, this time biting her lip once more. Davie still wasn’t getting it, but suspected whatever ‘it’ was, he was heading in its direction.

‘Like I said, Matt I can understand,’ he continued. ‘He’s a big star and everybody would want to see him on the off‐
chance he turned up. But why me, Catherine?’

(Unless)

‘This isn’t easy for me,’ she said. She ran a hand through her hair, as though composure without would substitute for composure within. ‘Even when I approved the invitations, I suppose I thought it would make no difference, as you weren’t likely to travel all the way from America just for this. I didn’t hear back from you, so I’d got used to the idea that you wouldn’t be coming and I wouldn’t need to have this conversation after all. Then boom, there you were in the lobby.

‘When you didn’t appear at the party I was sort of relieved, but then I realised that if I didn’t talk to you now, I’d be carrying this around for the rest of my life.’

She shook her head.

‘What is it, Catherine?’ Davie asked softly.

She took a breath.

Then what sounded like a volley of gunfire beat her to breaking the silence. They looked at each other suddenly, then burst out laughing at the fright they’d got, the noise having broken the growing tension in the room.

‘God,’ she said, holding a hand to her chest. ‘Fireworks. I thought for a moment—’

The noise repeated itself, then again, then more frequently. Screams could be heard mutedly through the windows. Davie got to his feet and reached for the sliding door to the balcony. The crackling bursts and the sounds of hysteria became clearer as soon as he pushed the panel back a few inches.

‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ, what’s gaun’ on?’

He moved rapidly to the edge of the balcony, Catherine emerging just behind him. As soon as he caught a glimpse of the scene below, he pushed her back and ducked out of sight himself.

They scuttled inside, bowed low, and tumbled to the floor together once they were through the doorway. Tears were forming in Catherine’s terrified eyes as the sounds of screams and gunshots continued to rise from the terrace. Her mouth attempted to shape words but got nowhere.

‘Wh – what are we going to do?’ she managed in a broken whisper.

Davie climbed to his feet and looked around the room, though for what he wasn’t sure. He’d left his big book of escaping from terrorist situations at home. Hide, was the first answer that came to mind, but it seemed like a poorly defined concept. He needed specifics.

‘We’ve got to get out of
here
, that’s for starters. We’re like rats in a trap. Come on.’

Davie reached down and helped Catherine to her feet, then put a silencing hand over her mouth as he heard the approach of footsteps in the hallway outside. He motioned her into the wardrobe and closed the door after her, then looked about for a chib, but it was too late: the footsteps had halted. The card‐
lock whirred and clunked.

‘… an it’s still nothin’ each, right? They’ve hit the bar aboot six times, the posts are practically fawin’ doon wi’ the leatherin’ they’ve had, an’ that’s no’ the only thing fawin’ doon: they’re divin’ like fuck every time they get intae the penalty box. Except, the ref, he’s clocked how desperate they’re gettin’ an’ he’s giem’ them fuck‐
all, right? So they’re goin’ fuckin’ mental an’ their fans are wan decision away fae a pitch invasion. Noo, we’ve no had a shot at goal the whole gemme, an’ they’re the Ayrshire league champions, so the way we were playin’ that season, we’d have been happy comin’ away wi’ anythin’ less than aboot five‐
nothin’. But five minutes left, Ger Milligan punches it oot tae me an’ I first‐
time it up tae Billy Ross harm’ up the right wing. Tam Keenan’s makin’ a run through the middle, an’ their defence is chargin’ back like fuck. The ref’s a fuckin’
mile
back an’ there’s nae linesmen in a wee first‐
round gemme like this. So Billy fires the cross in an’ Tam gets in ahead o’ the defender, except he’s no timed it right for the header, so he just sticks the haun oot an’ punches it intae the net. Ref saw fuck‐
all ’cause Tam’d his back tae him, so he gies the goal. They aw go mental, an’ the berrs roon the touchline are startin’ tae sharpen sticks, you know? So Franky, the manager, he goes tae the dressin’ room an’ just piles everybody’s gear intae the minibus an’ drives it right up behin’ oor goal wi the back doors open, wavin’ tae us tae aw pile in soon as the whistle goes. Trouble is, that stupit cunt Billy’s only gone an’ won us a corner, so we re aw up the other end when the ref blaws the final whistle. Noo, by this point the berrs have noticed Franky’s escape plan an’ JESUS FUCKIN’ CHRIST—’

Bursts of gunfire erupted deafeningly around the room. The sound was so loud it seemed to be everywhere at once. Then the screams started, and they
were
everywhere at once. The gunmen swept into the function suite from the main doors at the front, moving swiftly to encirde the gathering almost as soon as their initial discharges had rung out. People ran into each other, falling, tangling, totally and understandably losing it. There’d been no time for moments of disbelief, just an instantaneous transition from social discussion to mortal terror, erasing in less than a second all the evening’s events, words, context. It was probably the clothes, Ally reckoned, rather than the guns; more the semiotics than the semi‐
autos. Ski‐
masks and camouflage gear: paramilitaries. Terrorists. Real terrorists. Indigenous, unexotic, common or garden. Not fuzzy‐
picture‐
quality news‐
report towel‐
heads, but the green, green (or orange, orange) terrorists of home. And so what if their heyday was over, this was proof in action of ‘race‐
memory’.

Plaster dust fell in clouds from the ceiling where the heralding bursts had struck. Ally swallowed. In real life, the bullet‐
deadliness quotient was always set to maximum. Around him was mayhem. People ran like sheep, erratically, unthinkingly, finding every direction blocked by gunmen. Still the shouting and screaming continued, amid occasional further bursts of machine‐
gun fire over their heads. At the front entrance, uniformed staff from the lobby, together with Jim Murray (who’d been at the bogs), were being prodded into the mêlée by still more bad guys.

The hysteria would exhaust itself, he knew. Panic would give way to fear and resignation. He could hear it already as the screams and shouts diminished. A few more moments and all would be still. A few more moments and he would be a hostage. If he wanted to swap the Bonnie Bedelia role for the Bruce Willis one, he had to find a way of doing so now or never. The question was, did he? Never mind heroism – from a purely self‐
preservational point of view, making an undetected run for it didn’t seem quite the obvious option it did on celluloid. He wasn’t paralysed by any inability to think of what to do, but rather by an extremely vivid ability to think about the consequences. Take your chances among the no‐
threat extras as they wait – obediently and cooperatively – for rescue, or single yourself out for the seek‐
and‐
destroy treatment.

Even the moral obligation aspect was greyed‐
out. If the opportunity arose, did he risk all in a heroic attempt to rescue the others, or did he have a greater duty to Annette and their unborn child to take whatever course would better assure his personal survival?