The Dead Beat (13 page)

They’d just hit the bypass when Billy got a call.

He pressed Answer. ‘Hey, V, what’s up?’

Martha was dealing with chaotic traffic, rush hour where the M9 fed into the ring road. Lane-switching all over the place. She glanced over and saw Billy frown.

‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Are we in trouble?’

Billy held his hand up to her.

‘OK, I’ll tell her,’ he said down the phone, then hung up.

He turned to her. ‘Your phone’s off.’

‘I know.’

‘Cal has been trying to call you for hours.’

A taxi cut in front of them, making Martha swerve across the lanes. A Tesco lorry tooted at her.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ she said to the mirror, then to Billy: ‘What does Cal want?’

‘Eventually he called the office, spoke to V.’

‘What is it, Billy? You’re scaring me.’

‘Don’t flip out.’

‘What?’

‘It’s your house.’

Martha shuddered the car forward a few yards, easing into traffic. She frowned. ‘My house?’

‘It’s on fire.’

They saw the smoke from about a mile away.

Then closer, the smell. Acrid, poisonous, choking, even with the car windows up.

‘Come on.’ Martha spoke to herself as she pushed her knuckles into her eye sockets.

They were sitting at a red light at the Jewel, a few minutes away.

She revved the engine. ‘Fucking Edinburgh traffic.’

Billy touched the dashboard. ‘Take it easy.’

‘Don’t tell me to take it easy,’ Martha said. ‘My home’s burning down.’

Green light.

She swerved to overtake a Volvo and Billy’s touch on the dashboard became heavier. ‘Jesus,’ he said.

They turned then turned again, Billy thrown about in the passenger seat, then they were in Hamilton Terrace. Round the final corner into Hamilton Drive and Martha slammed on the brakes. Couldn’t go any further, three fire engines blocking the road.

All three had hoses unreeled and were blasting water onto the house. Smoke was pummelling out the windows in a rush to escape, flames licking out like winking eyes. Part of the roof was already gone, collapsed from the heat. Flames and smoke danced out the holes. The windows were all gone, blown out or caved in. One fire engine had a guy up a ladder, spraying onto the roof, the second one was aiming at the upstairs, the final guy was blasting water in through the living-room window frame.

The three guys working the hoses were in full heat-protection gear, arms and legs thick with padding, gas masks and helmets. Other firemen were busying themselves with checking the hoses, but a few were just standing around. Martha wondered what the hell they could be doing, surely they should at least make themselves look busy.

A crowd had gathered. Martha recognised the old guy, Fergus, from number 19 with his dog, Betty. The dog was cowering behind his legs. She saw other neighbours, people she said hello to in the street, standing around transfixed by the blaze.

She jumped out the car then didn’t know what to do. Run to the house? What for?

She remembered sitting on the living-room floor this morning, the gas fire on, the blanket wrapped round her.

Had she turned the fire off? What about the blanket?

Where were Elaine and Cal?

She wanted to run in the opposite direction, through the park, find a quiet spot amongst the bushes, curl up and sleep forever.

She stared at the smoke, trying to figure it out. The thick billows of black tapered as they stretched into the sky, twisting into sinewy strands, infecting the air around them. The smell of charred wood and brick and melting plastic and scorched glass filled her nose. She put a hand out to steady herself, touched the roof of the Mini. Cal’s car.

Where was Cal?

She staggered towards the fire. She could sense Billy next to her, but she didn’t turn and acknowledge him, didn’t want to see the look on his face, or the reflection of the flames in his eyes.

She felt the ferocious heat now, making the skin on her face flush. Her eyes stung and her mouth and throat were dry, sandy.

She tripped over the kerb and righted herself.

She got as far as Fergus, who touched her arm. ‘Thank goodness you’re safe.’

Martha was close enough now to feel the spray from the hoses. It was turning to steam as it hit the flames at the open windows. She could hear the water sizzling, mingled with the crackle and crunch of the fire destroying her home.

Fergus nodded beyond the first fire engine. ‘Your mother has been worried sick.’

Martha followed his nod and saw Elaine staring at the house, arms wrapped around herself like she was cold. She couldn’t be cold, the heat from the fire was overpowering. Elaine’s face was radiant, lit up by the flames.

Martha watched her for a moment, didn’t want to break this spell. She would have to go over and speak to Elaine and acknowledge what was happening and they would have to face up to the fact that their home and all their possessions were gone, disintegrating under the weight and heat of the fire, and the tons of water flooding into the rooms, battling the flames into submission.

The longer she put that off, the longer she didn’t speak to Elaine, the longer she could still pretend she had a home.

Elaine turned and looked right at Martha, then ran over and put her arms around her.

‘Oh, thank God,’ she said.

She squeezed Martha tight. Martha felt the roughness of Elaine’s jacket zip against her chin as she pressed her head into her mum’s chest.

‘We didn’t know for sure,’ Elaine said. ‘Cal said you had his car, that you’d gone somewhere, but there was still a chance you were inside.’

She let Martha go and they both turned to the house, warm spray on their faces, like having a shower.

‘Where’s Cal?’

Elaine didn’t take her eyes off the flames. ‘Talking to one of the fire officers. He spent ages trying to get hold of you.’

‘My phone was off,’ Martha said.

Elaine took her hand, both of them still staring at the house. A section of roof cracked then collapsed, sending a blast of heat around them.

Elaine squeezed Martha’s hand, and it felt like Martha was a little girl again.

‘Where were you?’ Elaine said.

‘Nowhere important.’

They decamped to Fergus’s house.

After the initial surge of activity, the outsized firemen in clumpy boots, the flash of their lights, the searing heat and choking smoke of the fire, after all that, this was the dead zone.

Cal and the fire officer had found Martha and Elaine holding hands. The officer suggested they might as well wait indoors, there was nothing they could do to help, and it could take several more hours to be completely sure that the fire was out. Then the forensic people had to go over the place, look for a cause.

Martha didn’t think about that.

It felt like a betrayal to leave their home still burning in the street, like leaving a dying deer in the middle of the road and driving off.

But now they were sitting drinking tea.

Or rather Martha was standing, staring out the window, her tea cold.

Fergus came in with a tray of biscuits, Bourbons and those pink wafer things. Martha thought the idea of biscuits was obscene, this whole situation was obscene.

She couldn’t see their house from here, but she could see the fire engines, the firefighters, a handful of neighbours still out there, though they were dispersing. And she could see smoke and spray, their home’s death rattle.

‘I can’t stay here,’ she said.

‘There’s nothing we can do out there,’ Cal said.

‘Tea and biscuits, though?’ Martha said.

Fergus lifted up the tray, not realising she was being sarcastic.

Martha shook her head, as much at herself as him.

Elaine was on the sofa, mug of tea clutched in her lap, head down. She lifted her head and seemed to see the room for the first time.

She looked at Billy. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Billy, a colleague of Martha’s.’

‘At the paper?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you with her today?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why was her phone off?’

Martha turned. ‘It just was.’

Elaine frowned. ‘I thought you were having the day off after the treatment.’

Martha rubbed at her temple. ‘I got bored. Anyway, I wasn’t actually at work.’

‘Where were you?’

Martha thought for a moment. Not a good time to bring this up, but when was it ever going to be?

‘Me and Billy were at Carstairs.’

Elaine looked confused. ‘The mental home?’

‘The State Hospital.’

‘What?’

‘It’s what they call the place now. But yeah, the mental prison.’

Elaine still gripped her mug in her lap. ‘Why were you there? I thought you wrote obituaries.’

‘It wasn’t work, I was looking for someone. Johnny Lamb.’

Martha watched Elaine closely, looking for something. A reaction, like a cheap soap actor.

Elaine stared at the wisps of steam curling up from her mug.

‘Does that name mean anything to you?’ Martha said.

Elaine stared out the window. Two firemen clumped past.

‘Should it?’

‘Yes, it fucking well should,’ Martha said.

Cal turned. ‘Calm down, sis.’

‘I will not calm down.’ Martha turned back to Elaine. ‘Is there something you want to tell us?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Johnny Lamb, our dad’s brother? Our uncle, who we’ve never heard about until now?’

Elaine was still staring out at the fire engines, face blank.

‘Maybe now’s not the time,’ Billy said.

‘Fuck that,’ Martha said.

Fergus was cowering in the doorway, Betty behind his legs.

‘Martha,’ Cal said. ‘Billy’s right, now’s not the time.’

‘Then when is the time, Cal? It seems there hasn’t been a right time to mention this in the last twenty years. Don’t you find that a little fucking strange? Don’t you find it just the tiniest bit weird that our mother never once, in two decades, felt the need to tell us we had an uncle in a psychiatric prison?’

Elaine put her mug down on the coffee table and got up. ‘I can’t talk about this right now.’

She walked towards the door.

‘Wait,’ Martha said.

‘No,’ Elaine said. She had tears in her eyes as she turned. ‘I’m going to see if there’s any of our home left.’

‘We have to talk about this,’ Martha shouted after her, but Elaine was already at the doorway, Fergus shuffling sideways to let her past.

Elaine walked out the front door and over to the guy in charge of the first fire engine.

‘What the fuck?’ Martha said.

Cal sighed. ‘It’s been twenty years, it can wait a few more hours, no?’

Martha turned to him, her eyes wet.

‘He’s not in Carstairs any more,’ she said. ‘He was transferred to the Royal recently. Dad signed for him.’

‘Shit,’ Cal said.

Martha gazed out the window. Elaine was gesticulating with the fire officer. Martha thought about the gas fire, the blanket. Someone had mentioned forensic officers. She tried to remember. Short-term memory loss. The ECT. A long-lost brother no one talked about. She felt the crushing weight of it all and reached out to touch the glass of the window. It felt cold, and she couldn’t imagine the heat just a few yards away, destroying twenty years of her life.

Martha was raging drunk.

She sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by the mess she’d made.

She’d spent the last two hours rummaging through the contents of Ian’s flat, turning out drawers, emptying shelves, frantically raking through piles of crap, looking for answers.

Cal and Billy couldn’t talk to her.

She knew she was being stupid. Irrational.

She sucked on a bottle of gin they’d found in the back of a cupboard. Winced. Made a face. Who the hell still drank gin in this day and age? It deserved to die in the twentieth century, along with all this other old crap.

What struck her now about Ian’s stuff was how dated it all was. That he was set in his ways might’ve been expected, but a Walkman still being used in 2014? Really? She’d seen a cassette player like his, a yellow version instead of red, on a school trip to the Museum of Scotland round the corner. A fucking museum. That’s where Ian and his mysterious brother belonged, dead and stuffed, on display in some dusty glass case down the end of a disused corridor in a museum no fucker ever visited any more.

But that wasn’t true either.

Because Johnny was still alive. Still in the land of the living, very much still with us.

At least she thought he was.

It had been too late to make enquiries at the Royal after the whole business with the house. She’d phoned and tried to use her insider knowledge as an outpatient, but she got nowhere with the night-shift nurse, and was told to call back in the morning when someone would be able to help.

Elaine had gone to a neighbour’s house, Barbara at number 11. Martha couldn’t remember Elaine ever mentioning Barbara before, let alone being best mates.

By the time the sun had dropped behind Arthur’s Seat, the fire at their home was under control. What was left was a soggy skeleton of brick and rafters, gallons of black water pouring out into the gutter and taking their family history with it.

Nothing to be done until morning.

Martha and Cal had turned down the offer of a bed at Barbara’s and had ended up here at Ian’s flat. Might as well make use of the place, since they had nowhere to call home now.

As soon as they came through the door, Martha began turning the place upside down looking for answers, for some confirmation that this Johnny character existed, that he was in the world, breathing and speaking and shitting and pissing.

She’d tried to speak to Elaine again. Nothing. A brick wall. That annoyed her more than anything, her mother using the shock of the fire to avoid talking about the past.

The fire.

Forensics.

Christ.

She drank furiously as she threw clothes, papers and other crap around. Cal and Billy tried to calm her, but everything they said made her more angry. Why did no one else take this shit seriously?

She remembered the notebook of Ian’s she’d taken that second night here in the flat. She pictured reading it in front of the fire in her living room. The room that was now a blackened shell. She pulled the notebook out her bag and rubbed at the cover with her thumb, thinking of Ian’s hands touching it.

It was all her fault.

She tried to think positively, tried to picture the reboot of her mind this morning, resetting the synapses. It had lifted the weight from her, but everything else, all of life, had swamped back in and suffocated her.

Johnny Lamb.

Johnny fucking Lamb.

She swigged more gin, made the face again. Her eyes were unfocused, her brain more so. Cal and Billy sat quietly on the sofa, watching her.

Johnny Lamb, why are you such a fucking secret?