The Walk Home (20 page)

“My faither was practical in the end. He had tae be. For aw our sakes.”

Eric had a good clutch of Standard grades, and he could still draw.

“It was the wan thing he still did, in his room, behind his closed door.”

Papa Robert knew a man at the shipyards—a time-served draughtsman, and in the district lodge like he was—so he showed him some of Eric’s work: still lifes from school, fish and fruit, meticulous. Brenda remembered the man coming up to the flat, and Eric being told: he was to be washed and combed and dressed, and to speak when he was asked.

The whole interview was awkward.

“A shambles, Papa Robert said, after the Brother had left.”

Lindsey nodded, tight-mouthed, like she could just imagine it: Papa Robert’s bitterness. But Brenda didn’t want her to see it that way, so she stopped her at the close steps, telling her:

“My Da got Eric taken on, but.”

The job had got Eric back on track. He’d served out his apprenticeship; Eric earned a good wage and got promoted through the ranks.

“He liked the work an aw. Till he was made redundant.”

But from the look on Lindsey’s face, Brenda could see she’d lost her again. It was enough to make her want to cry out sometimes, to take the girl by the shoulders, give her a shake and make her count her blessings. A healthy boy, and a bright one too, a home of her own and a husband who provided; a husband who doted as well, and could still be persuaded, Brenda was certain. It wasn’t so different from her own life, and she saw no sense in the girl giving up, just because it wasn’t perfect. What more did Lindsey want?

Only the girl was standing at the door, ready for inside, sofa and silence; sorrow on her small face. And then Brenda thought how Lindsey’s dreams were only small ones, after all. Let her have them. A wee bit of happiness, a wee family growing in a good place: where was the harm? Folk had the same dream, the world over. It was all Eric had wanted too, for him and Frances, and hadn’t she’d railed against her father, for being too stubborn to accept that? So Brenda sighed, digging out her keys, bringing the conversation to a close:

“Eric’s job. The wan Papa Robert got for him. It was how he met Franny, aye? When she started workin at the same offices.”

At least that raised a smile on Lindsey’s lips. The first Brenda had seen in ages. But it was a dry one, at the irony, with no warmth or strength. Not the kind that could sustain you.

It shook Brenda, how she couldn’t give Lindsey strength these days; how she couldn’t find the right words, the right things to
tell her. And that it was Eric she was looking to: the one who’d got away.

He drew Lindsey something most times she visited: tokens of his appreciation to take home, Brenda had seen them. None of the pictures were of Franny, much as Lindsey had always hoped for one, and she had herself. Brenda thought a drawing of Franny, or a story about his good years with her might be helpful. Just what Lindsey needed.

But Eric was drawing their Dad now. And not just their childhood days on Drumchapel either, with Papa Robert’s roses; most of the pictures Lindsey brought home were of a different order. They looked more like Papa Robert’s stories, of the farm where he’d spent his boyhood, the family’s lost Louth acres, so Brenda couldn’t help herself feeling nervy.

Her father’s stories didn’t have the happiest ending.

Her brother’s happiness was rarely long-lived either. If he could just tell Lindsey something that would give her heart. Was that too much to ask?

Lindsey never said if she was coming, she’d just be there at Eric’s door, mostly it was late morning, and he’d be sitting, drawing.

“You take care ae her,” Brenda told him, when she came cleaning, like she reckoned he needed telling; Eric thought he couldn’t do anything but. Lindsey was always welcome. She’d shown him care he’d not known in years; a kindred feeling, so long missing, and it had made all the difference, having her there and looking through his sketches. Talking him through them, like they meant something.

She’d been quieter about these new ones, Eric’s first attempts
at drawing Ireland, and he wasn’t sure yet himself, what sort of picture they’d make, so he longed for more time with Lindsey, and talk. Only he did think Brenda was right: the girl was just too withdrawn these days.

“Take her out, wid you?” his sister told him. “Bring her out ae hersel, don’t let her brood now.”

Lindsey had good reason, Eric thought. But he knew from his own life what that was like, because he’d been just the same after Franny died, and he’d been glad then of any help he’d got. Brenda had come calling, often with Graham, and Eric remembered how that had helped, taking his young nephew on afternoon visits to John Joe’s. His brother-in-law had done his bit, too, walking him to his appointments, at the hospital and at the doctor’s, talking the long route back through the West End and Botanic Gardens.

Those walks had given Eric respite, so even if the late winter days were sharp, he did take Lindsey out, and to better places than Brenda could anyhow. Over the Kelvin to the warm glasshouses, or out on cold and sunny treks to the high ground of Ruchill Park, cutting back behind Firhill along the quiet of the canal banks. They mostly walked in silence, but then one chilly March afternoon, Lindsey stopped on the towpath and told him:

“I’ll have been here ten years soon.”

She said it straight out, with no lead-up, and she made it sound an age. The low sun on them both, Eric stood with her thinking it felt like five minutes since she’d come into all their lives, and he was glad of every one of them. Only then Lindsey said:

“When I left home, it seemed like Glasgow was far away. Turns out it isn’t.”

The warmth had gone out of the day by then, and the air bit at Eric’s cheeks and fingers. He looked at Lindsey’s face, young
and stern, and how she’d pulled her jacket sleeves down against the cold. He thought those years would feel like for ever to her, especially lived in Drumchapel, so he smiled at her, gentle:

“Where would you go, hen? If you could.”

Trying their old game. But she just shook her head, like there was no point playing any more:

“Graham’s not for moving.”

Eric sighed for her:

“Drumchapel tae his bones, aye?”

He didn’t mean it unkindly; Malky was too, in his own way. For all that he laughed about Papa Robert and his roses, Eric knew his brother-in-law, and that he was in it for the long haul: if enough good people stayed, the scheme could still be a decent place. But Lindsey kicked at some loose stones under her feet, and he thought she wouldn’t want to hear that.

They were near the end of their usual route, where the path took them down to the street; Eric was due to deliver her to the bus stop, because she liked to be in good time for Stevie, only Lindsey told him:

“My boy. He’ll not be a boy all that much longer. Next thing we know, he’ll be leaving home. Then what am I going to do?”

She was trying to make light, her pretty mouth gone all twisty, rueful, but Eric could see she was frightened; the way she spoke about her young son, like she was no longer of use to him. Lindsey stayed where she was too, not done yet with speaking. She took a breath and then she said:

“You and Franny. Did you live out at Greenock?”

“I took a room out there, aye.”

Eric nodded, curious that she was asking: Greenock had never been on her elsewhere lists, was she looking for a bolt-hole for her and Stevie? Eric told her:

“I got moved up a grade at the shipyard, and the room came up there about the same time. That was before we were married, but, me an Franny. Just courtin.”

“But you wanted to be by her?”

“Aye.”

He had. He’d wanted away from Drumchapel, and Papa Robert; just Franny, that’s all he’d thought he needed then. It made Eric smile again, soft, to remember how that felt, and Lindsey saw it.

She blinked at him, like she wanted to hear more, and it never failed to move him, how this girl was interested. What could he tell her? Something to make her smile, Eric decided: that would be good now. So he cast about for a memory, of the life when he still had Frances.

“We’d borrow a car, at weekends, fae wan ae Franny’s neighbours. An we’d drive up tae the high slopes, up above the houses.”

Franny had always wanted him drawing. Not just for work.

“She grew up in Greenock, so she’d find me the best views. Out across the Clyde, aye?”

He’d sat and sketched, while she’d sat and knitted. Or she’d have a book along.

“She liked it anyhow, my Franny, just bein out and up high. That peace, aye? She grew up in a small house, wae a big family.”

Eric laughed.

“Did they like you? Her family,” Lindsey asked. Eric thought she was blushing at being so forthright; it was like she’d wanted to know all this for ages. “Did they mind?”

“Us gettin wed?”

Lindsey nodded.

“Her grandmother tellt her she’d go tae the bad fire.” Eric smiled. “Her parents, but, they werenae bothered. Franny was
over thirty, aye? Old tae be unmarried. They were glad tae see her settled.”

Lindsey was quiet after that; no need to ask what Papa Robert had thought. The girl knew how it was, when your father wouldn’t come to your wedding.

The sun was setting, the last of the day still visible in the gaps between the Maryhill tenements: gold and purple, it lit up the water. Time to go now. But Eric wanted to tell Lindsey more; his mind still turning back, to Lochcarron holidays, his Skye honeymoon, and how he and Franny had their first rows when they got home.

“She had her ain ideas,” he said. “Franny was like you that way. The shipyard wouldnae have married women on the books, so I thought she’d be stayin at home, darnin my socks, pressin my work shirts. Only Franny wouldnae have it. She went out and found hersel a new job.”

Eric hoped it might console her, to hear he’d been a stick-in-the-mud husband too, and that he’d seen sense in the end. But the girl just looked at him, sad. What was she thinking?

The banks were gloomy, but the canal still bright, the reedy backwaters radiant, like the western sky. Lindsey said:

“You left everything for her.”

She said it like she approved. But like she didn’t know if Graham could do the same for her. Then she turned and started making for the road.

Eric saw her onto the bus, and she waved a hand to him from the top deck as it drew away, but she cut such a lonely figure up there, it left Eric shaken.

He’d left everything, just like she’d said. And Eric knew she
hadn’t meant to, but Lindsey had unsettled him, even so; she’d roused unquiet thoughts. He knew all too well how it felt to be alone in this world.

Slow down the road towards home, Eric turned over the girl’s words, his mind turning over itself, going back to his own lonely times, after Franny died.

Brenda had come to see him, whenever she could manage. But it was a long haul from Drumchapel, and she’d had her boys to look out for, all still so young then. John Joe had done his best, keeping track of Eric’s prescriptions, counting out his tablets on the kitchen table, when he thought Eric couldn’t see him, making sure he was keeping up with the dosage. But he’d had his own life too, his work and his doos. His brother-in-law was a good man, but Eric had known he was a burden.

Back at his desk, he’d intended to do more drawing, but Eric found he could only sit; wretched thoughts crowding his mind, pushing out the happy times he’d meant as a comfort to the girl.

All those weeks of Franny’s last treatment, Eric remembered: how when she was in the hospital overnight, he used to sleep on her side of the bed until she came back. And how he slept there again, in the worst months after he’d lost her; it was the only way he could trick himself into getting some rest.

Memory had Eric dry-mouthed. That bleak and fearful time, long past.

Lindsey had made the break too, from home and from her father. And now what?

Eric thought he had to warn her not to cut herself adrift. He didn’t think Graham would leave Drumchapel, and it was too hard to think of the girl alone, like he’d been.

Stevie’s Mum wasn’t always in the playground. None of his school pals got picked up any more, so he didn’t mind that too much. But he didn’t always know which way to go from the gates: back to his Gran’s, or to his old house where his Dad lived. No one had told him what was happening, or which one was meant to be home now, and it left him feeling nowhere, so he made for the high blocks some afternoons, seeking out his cousins.

They were finished with their exams, working different jobs, but even if they weren’t there, Stevie mostly found different kids to knock about with: boys from school, or whose dads he knew from the band. Stevie played keepie-uppies in the echo-loud stairwells, or dares outside, jumping off the roofs of the bin sheds, running pure breakneck along the high walls. Or he played nothing if there was no one about, just hanging around the lift doors. It was best if he left it a couple of hours until he went to his Gran’s; if he could put off being alone with his Mum. The way she looked at him sometimes. Better his Gran was back from work to do the talking.