Troubled Waters (2 page)

In her terror, she veered off the pavement and all but collided with the wing of a passing car, catching the blare of its indignant horn as its brake lights receded and
merged into the red lights of the T-junction ahead of her. A cyclist, having to swerve to avoid her, hurled abuse at the top of his voice. Something in her mind began to scream. Standing still in the gutter, feeling the world racing around her, spinning out of control, she bent over, covering her eyes with her hands.

‘Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.’ That was what Mrs Smollett had said the last time in the games room. On that occasion, one of her teacher’s manicured hands had been pressing on the small of her back, and the woman had been inhaling and exhaling in time with her, sounding like a steam engine. But it wasn’t working. Not here and now. Not without Mrs Smollett.

‘You all right, dear?’ a stranger asked, coming towards her and bending over slightly to reach her level, to be face to face with her.

She said nothing, relieved when she saw the woman’s companion, a little boy on a scooter, wrinkle his nose and incline his head, signalling that they should move on, mind their own business. The scent of stale coffee tainted the woman’s warm breath. Suddenly, alarmed by the uninvited proximity, the girl stood up straight, crossed her arms against her chest and walked off, eyes looking directly ahead as if she had heard nothing, seen nothing. The mother and son might have been as insubstantial as ghosts for all the notice she took of them.

Through the constant drone of the Leith traffic she could make out snatches of music and, hardly conscious of what she was doing, she began to search for the source of it. Having adjusted and readjusted her course innumerable times, she eventually found herself opposite an open doorway at the far end of Madeira Street. Standing outside it, peeking in, she blew on her fingers, her whole
body chittering with cold. Then, drawn by the light and the sound of piano music streaming from the door, she walked inside.

Everywhere there were people, all talking, all laughing, and every one of them seemed to be holding a glass. A woman, much of her tanned flesh on show, glowered at her as she pushed past, their buttocks touching in the closeness of the crush. Observing them both, an old fellow winked at her. Someone had dropped a packet of crisps on the floor and she could hear them crackling as they broke under her feet. Accidentally she jostled a plump lady’s elbow, making her spill her drink over herself and curse out loud in annoyance. Burrowing on, she lowered her head and kept pushing through the crowd until, unexpectedly, she found herself in a corner. Turning round she spotted a small alcove with a table and two chairs in it. There was even an open packet of nuts. Following the wall with her hands until she reached it, she sat down, now eye-level with the surrounding shirts, ties and blouses.

‘Like a wee drink?’ a smiling man asked her, tapping the side of his wine glass as if to show her what a drink was.

‘Donald!’ The white-haired lady beside him said, frowning.

‘What?’

‘She’s a child!’

‘No, she’s not, she’s a young lady. Well, what’s she doing in here if she’s a child, I’d like to know?’

‘Leave her alone!’

‘I am. I was only asking if she’d like a drink, for Heaven’s sake! There’s no harm in that, is there, Hilary?’

‘Yes. There is.’

The girl was no longer listening to them or to anyone, anything. She was gazing out of the window, watching the snow pouring from the sky like water in a waterfall, hypnotised by the perpetual movement. A young man had taken the only other seat and was glancing at her, taking an occasional gulp from his beer glass as he did so. Had he chanced upon the crock of gold at the end of the rainbow he could not have looked more pleased. After a couple of minutes, he plucked up the courage to speak to her.

‘D’you like the snow?’

Hearing his voice, she turned to face him and, for the first time, he saw just how extraordinarily beautiful she was. Her dark, long-lashed eyes met his and as they did so, she shivered and a slight tremor started up in her right hand. To stop it, she slapped her left over it, trapping it.

‘You cold?’ he asked.

‘You’re wasting your time, boyo,’ Donald said to the youth. ‘She’s probably foreign, immigrant Polish or something. She doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t understand.’

‘Just because she didn’t answer you!’ his wife snapped, putting her empty glass on the table and waiting, expectantly, for her husband to do the same. His was half-full of gin but, smiling at her with his mouth only, he obeyed.

Listening to the background music, the boy sat with the girl, getting no reply to any of his questions, collecting more drinks and, after a while, staring at her openly as if she was an object. She ate the peanuts in front of her, singly and slowly, and then, unselfconsciously, licked the inside of the packet. His eyes always on her, he stacked and restacked his pile of beer mats. Twice while they sat there, he had to fend off the attentions of drunken men, telling one of them that she was his sister and giving the
other, more insistent one, a shove. He, his balance long gone, careered into another customer, getting a hard stare for his pains and quickly retreating back into the anonymity of the melee for his own safety. Under the table, the boy slid his foot beside the girl’s, feeling the warmth of her flesh through the leather and heartened that she made no attempt to move it away. They had an understanding, wordless, but real.

Twenty minutes after going into the BP kiosk, the man hurried out of it. He was jingling his small change in his pocket, whistling as if he did not have a care in the world. Once he had done his belt up he glanced into the mirror, expecting to see the girl’s familiar, anxious face behind him. But there was nothing. He could make out the road beyond, the cars zipping past, the buildings and pavement, but no human being. Maybe she was kneeling down for some reason? Was playing Hide and Seek, larking about, making a fool of him? Now, of all times!

Feeling his heart speeding up, rapping against his ribs, he ripped off the belt and climbed out of the vehicle. He grabbed the back door and yanked it open. Nothing: there was nothing there. He got in, knelt on the seat, looking forward as if, somehow, she might have concealed herself in the foot-well of the passenger seat. No one was there either. Under the seat? Not a dickey bird. Heavens above! She had done it again, scarpered into the night, and dropped him right in it. This time, Lambie might not forgive him.

Breathing rapidly, too shallowly, he clambered out of the Mazda and began looking about him. Snow was still falling all around, disorientating him and making
everywhere appear strange, new and other. Even the sounds of the traffic seemed muted. No footprints were visible on the garage forecourt. The queue in the kiosk had been long, certainly, but not that long, surely? He should not have gone to the Gents, too; that was it. That had been silly, added another five minutes to his total. Undoubtedly, the bloke with the wrong credit card had done the bulk of the damage, but the queue, the Gents, it all added up. She had probably stayed still for quarter of an hour or so, then lost all hope, and gone in search of him or something. The stupid, stupid little ninny. On her own, outside the car, she was as vulnerable as a snail without a shell, as a new-born baby on ice. Anything could happen.

Panicked by the thought, he raced back down Great Junction Street, accosting people as he passed them, demanding to know if they had seen her, getting strange stares, shakes of the head and, from one, a mouthful of foreign curses. In case she had doubled back, he looked again at the car, illuminated brightly within the distant forecourt lights. A youth was ambling next to it, casting sidelong glances into its windows. Had he locked it? Blast! All he needed now was a theft!

He raced back, and once in range, pressed the button on his key fob, supporting himself against a lamppost, panting, his lungs aching, made raw by the frozen air. While he stood there, unable to move, he scanned his surroundings, pirouetting slowly on the spot for a three hundred and sixty degree view. There she was! She was standing by a bus stop on the other side of the street, only a couple of hundred yards away.

Forgetting all about his lungs, he shot off in pursuit, slipping on the smooth road surface and almost losing his
footing in front of a car in his haste to get to her. Once he was close enough to grab her, he realised that he had made a mistake, turned on his heel and began the long trek back to the garage.

This was hopeless, suicidal. He must get on. She would be all right for now, would survive. Someone would look after her. Someone always did. First thing tomorrow, he would return with a plan, track her down properly, if she had not been returned before then. This had happened before, would not be the last time either, and he had business to attend to. Very important business indeed; and somehow, somehow, he would square it all with Lambie.

When the landlord called last orders the hum in the pub became louder, a few drinkers making their way through the crowd to the bar, others leaving their empties on the tables, bestowing beery kisses on each other and departing into the night, to be startled by the chill air. The girl sensed the movement around her, felt uneasy at the change and caught the boy’s eyes. He, pleased that she seemed to have noticed him at last, got up and interrupted the stream of people going out to allow her to join the flow.

Once outside, he took her cold hand in his and began walking eastwards, in the direction of his home. A couple of hundred yards on, exhilarated by her company, he let go of her hand and playfully backed her against the tenement wall, caging her there with both his arms. Hesitantly, he placed his head on her breast as if to listen to her heart, astonished to feel it on his temple as it thumped against her ribcage. As he raised his head to kiss her, she poked him in the chest, dislodging his arm and ducking out of
his unwanted embrace. Free, she began to run, her long legs as ungainly as a new-born fawn.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he said, looking round blearily for her, hurt and disappointed. Did she not want to kiss too? On a magical night like this, peaceful and still, heavenly, what could be nicer than the feel of warm flesh on warm flesh? She had only to say if she didn’t like it.

At three-thirty in the morning, a householder in North Fort Street dialled 999 and asked for the police. She had been unable to sleep, had risen every hour or so to get a drink of water. Sipping it by her bathroom window, a figure had caught her attention. Someone, she said, was curled up in a doorway opposite, and the snow was falling on them, like it would on a wild beast.

‘Homeless?’ the call-handler asked.

‘They must be.’

‘Have you tried the Bethany Christian Trust or the Salvation Army or someone? That’s a social services problem, not really a police problem . . . not an emergency.’

‘It might be a child, for Christ’s sake, it looks little more than a child.’

‘You should have said that first, dear. We’ll send someone round the now. What’s the address?’

2

Before dawn that same day, a man lowered himself into a dinghy as it swung about at the stern of the Safety Boat. The deckhand above him hurled its painter down to him and, despite the howling of the wind, he heard the clicking noise made by the anchor chain as it was being pulled in by the winch. ‘Are you not staying?’ he bellowed, grabbing the oars and starting to pull. Lit up by the crewman’s torch, he was still facing the larger vessel. Concentrating hard, he rowed the grey inflatable dinghy away from them, now exposed to the full fury of the weather himself. Straining against the cross-current, he lowered his head, putting his back into it, battling to cover the last few yards to his lonely destination. A wave caught his bow and, for an instant, he thought it would tip him over, upend him into the cold, grey water. Spray, thrown up by a mistimed oar-blade, lashed his face, dripping off the side of his ears and running down the inside of his collar.