A Suitable Lie (7 page)

‘Ignore him,’ I answered. ‘I can deal with Ken Hunter.’

W
e were the last to leave the pub. The barman asked us to finish our drinks with a curt, ‘Have you two no got a home tae go tae?’ Once the door had been locked behind us Jim asked me if I wanted to carry on drinking back at his place. He lived in a flat overlooking Ayr Harbour a mere two hundred yards away from where we stood. Swayed, would have been more accurate.

‘Naw, I’m bushed. Got work tomorrow.’

‘Will Anna be waiting for you?’

I nodded.

‘With a kiss or a kick?’ he chuckled, ‘And you keep asking me when I’m going to settle down. Not me, matee. Answer to no one. Come and go as I please. Live the life of Reilly me. In fact I think I’ll change my name. Do you think Reilly Boyd would be better or Jim Reilly?’

‘Here’s twenty pence,’ I answered. ‘Phone someone that gives a shit, and get me a taxi while you’re at it.’

‘Phone a…’ Jim checked his pockets and I realised he was looking for his mobile phone. He’d taken to that whole thing better than me. I couldn’t see what the fuss was all about. Who wants to be contactable twenty-four hours a day? He looked into the distance as if accessing a memory. ‘My phone’s still on the charger at home. You can come over to mine and phone a taxi if you want.’

‘Naw, I know that if I go back to yours we’ll end up drinking to yon time. I want my bed, but a wee walk to sober up first might be in order.’

‘Awright, suit yourself. Away you go to that gorgeous wife of yours. See if she’s waiting up for some of that Big Boydy loving.’

With a wave of his right hand, he turned and walked away from me and for the first time I sensed a note of loneliness in my brother. Perhaps for all his bluster, life was less than ideal for Jim Boyd.

I
walked the long way home in a vain attempt to weaken the effect the alcohol was having on my body. My thought processes were fine but the signals weren’t quite getting through to my lower limbs. A patch of grass looked particularly inviting. Perhaps I could just lie down there for a minute.

Dangerous thinking, big guy, I thought. Better keep moving, wouldn’t want to wake up like a piece of frozen vomit. I began to run, but my head was angled several paces in front of my legs and they had to move faster to keep up.

Legs feeling a tad heavier than normal, I slowed down to a walk and, admitting defeat, looked around for a taxi. The roads were empty. If this had been a hot country, tumbleweed would be rolling down the middle of the road. Did some sort of deadly virus attack the people of Ayr while I was in the pub? Common sense made me concede that most normal people were in bed at this time.

When I was a boy and I wanted to get home quicker, I devised a system of alternately walking and running the distance from one lamppost to the next. Now would be a fine time to re-adopt this. But I was too tired.

Where were all the taxis?

Through these thoughts the realisation that I was close to home pushed through. My next obstacle would be Anna. She had probably assumed I would have been home hours ago. Would she be up waiting for me or would she be fast asleep?

Eventually, I reached the door and with relief tried to locate my keys. As I swayed on my front step I heard a cough carry in the night air. I turned to the right. At the far end of the road a streetlamp threw shadows on to the pavement. Was there someone there?

I squinted. There was a man there. Tall and lean.

My fingers had located my bunch of keys and I glanced down at my hand to select the right key for the door. When I looked back along the street it was empty. Jesus, I must have been drunker than I thought; imagining strange men in the dark. I fumbled with the key, twisted it in the lock, tripped over the doormat and fell into the hall, my head pushing open the door. I turned onto my back, laughing at my own clumsiness while trying to focus on the door lintel above me. A face swam into focus.

‘Anna, honey. There you are. Oh, there you are, no there,’ I pointed three inches to the left and laughed.

‘You big bastard, where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick.’

‘At the pub, just havin’ a few.’

‘A few?’ Anna’s face got closer, ‘A few?’

‘Aye, a few. What part of those two syllables don’t you understand? A feeeew.’ I was getting quite comfy down here on the carpet.

‘Are you taking the piss?’ Anna’s voice was higher in pitch, but coming out in a strangled whisper. Her teeth were bared and a stream of curses splattered down onto me.

‘Bastard…’ she repeated over and over and with each curse she bounced the door against my head. I tried to move out of the way and crawled a little further into the hall, which meant that my back was getting a beating. Then suddenly it stopped. Anna leant over me and pulled my head towards her by the hair.

‘If you ever do this again, you’re dead!’ she hissed into my face, hers contorted with rage. Then she let go of my hair and my head dropped onto the floor.

‘You’re on the couch.’

Her feet drummed away up the stairs.

I
don’t know how long I lay there. My back wasn’t hurting too badly, but I could feel a few bumps on the back of my head and the patch of hair that she had pulled at was still sore. What anger.
I couldn’t believe the force of her fury. Where did that come from? I crawled into the living room and up onto the couch. I propped a couple of cushions onto the arm rest, and tried to make myself comfortable. There was no question of going up to bed. Anna was far too angry.

Rightly so, I thought. I was taking the piss coming in so late. We were not long married for goodness’ sake. I should know better than to be so inconsiderate. She did have a right to be annoyed. She must have been worried sick about me. Best to leave her to calm down. I prayed that Pat had slept through all the banging, and hadn’t witnessed what an arse I was.

These thoughts accompanied the throb in my head well into the morning when sleep at last wrapped me in its bandage.

I
was wakened by small fingers pulled at my eyelids, letting the light stream in. The thump in my head started up again. My skull felt as if it had tightened overnight. My fingers tested the tender part at the back. They withdrew quickly. Still painful.

‘Is he sick?’ I heard Pat ask.

‘No, Daddy was a naughty boy last night, so he slept here,’ Anna replied.

Pat’s mouth formed an eloquently small circle, showing equal measures of shock and pleasure that his Dad could behave badly.

‘Do we have a sore head this morning then?’ Anna peered down at me with an affectionate smile. A smile that surprised me. Where was the wild woman from last evening? Had I had a nightmare? The pain in my head testified, however, that the events of the previous night really did happen.

‘You go up and have a shower and a shave, Andy. I’ll see to Pat’s breakfast,’ Anna walked through to the kitchen as if it was just another day. Not the morning after she had beaten a door off my head.

I sat up, holding my head as I did so. A couple of paracetamols would have to be first on my agenda. I looked up and saw Pat staring
at me. His eyes shone with unasked questions. I ventured a smile. At least my facial muscles didn’t hurt.

‘Were you really bad, Dad?’ he asked.

‘Really bad,’ I answered.

‘What did you do?’ he looked tiny.

‘I stayed out way past my bedtime.’ He nodded wisely at my answer. It made perfect sense to him.

M
y day at work went past in a smog of questions, self-recrimination and a little fear. Was Anna really capable of such violence?

But it was my fault. I knew that. No more socialising unless Anna was with me, I decided. But why shouldn’t I go out for a drink with my brother? A loud noise made everyone in the room look over at me. I realised that I had just heaved a huge sigh. Head in my hands, I swore. God, this was enough to give me another headache.

‘Woman trouble already, Andrew?’ Roy Campbell entered the room.

‘Why would it be woman trouble?’ I answered. ‘There’s more to life than women.’

‘Yeah, right,’ he answered. ‘Can’t live with ’em, can’t live with ’em.’ He laughed far too loudly at his own joke and patted Carol Bunting on the shoulder, ‘Isn’t that right, Carol?’

‘Yes, Roy, whatever you say, Roy, get your hand off me, Roy,’ she said flatly and looked up at him with a bored expression. When he turned around in mild shock she mouthed, ‘Twat’ at his back.

‘Christ, women are touchy these days,’ said Roy, ‘One silly cow chains herself to the railings and the next thing we know we’re not allowed to touch women on the shoulder.’ In one sentence our Operations Manager trivialised a century of women fighting for their rights.

I’d had enough.

‘Roy, do yourself a favour, say what you’ve come to say and then piss off before you alienate three-quarters of my staff.’

‘Bloody hell, Andrew. I couldn’t offend anyone. I’m just having a
wee laugh.’ He turned around and caught Carol making another face at him. ‘Isn’t that right, Carol?’

‘Yes, Roy,’ she answered with a face devoid of expression. ‘You’re dead … funny.’

‘Right. See.’ Roy opened his arms, completely missing the irony. ‘I’m funny, it’s official.’ Then, his change of tone signifying he meant business now. ‘Andrew we need to talk … in private.’ He filled the last two words with the importance of a papal decree and spoke them loud enough to make sure that everyone in the vicinity heard him.

I
n the interview room he sat down in the biggest seat. Roy always made sure he had the biggest seat. His face read of disappointment.

‘Kay is in the clear,’ he clasped his hands on the desk in front of him. ‘We don’t have enough evidence to lay the blame fully at his door. Fly bastard. He was too clever this time.’

‘So what do we do?’ I sat down.

‘Dunno. Make sure that shirt-lifter doesn’t get near the cash again.’

‘Roy, for goodness sake. Give the guy a break. One, you said yourself that there’s not enough evidence; two, his sexuality is none of your business and three … we do have another suspect.’

‘As far as I’m concerned Sheila Hunter is not a suspect.’

‘She was present at as many of the differences as Malcolm. How’s it going to look at Head Office if you haven’t investigated her?

‘Right enough,’ he said. The thought of not looking good at Head Office was always enough to have him reconsider his options. He looked into the distance over my left shoulder and thought aloud. ‘Sheila is still off sick, but looking to come back to work. I hear her husband’s been laying into her …’ I recoiled at his tone; it was as if he was dismissing his violence to her as
just one of those things
. ‘She’s due a visit from our Occupational Therapist … why don’t you go along with her?’

‘Me?’

‘Why not? You’re her immediate superior.’

‘But you’re responsible for staffing.’

‘Yes, but you’re the more sensitive type. She’ll only be uncomfortable with me.’ A rare piece of sensitivity from Roy – or was he just unable to handle people when they were not well?

A
week later I was on Sheila’s doorstep with Tracy Fenton, a human resources specialist from Head Office. Both of us were trying to assume an air of nonchalance at the fierce barking that was coming from the other side of the door. We heard a woman’s voice cajole the dog into silence and the door was opened.

‘Andy, in you come. You must be Tracy … you’d better come in.’ The yellow Labrador that sounded so frightening from the other side of the door tried to impose death by licking once we were in the house. It’s whole body wagged and it made a few desperate lunges with his front paws.

‘Toby,’ Sheila censured, ‘Calm down. You’ll get hair all over the nice man’s suit.’

‘It’s fine,’ I reassured her, wondering at the childish tone she used with the dog.

A coffee in my hand only moments later, I sat on a leather sofa in a very comfortable, large room with a pink tongue depositing saliva on my shoes. Looking around myself in admiration I began to doubt that Sheila was our thief. Who living in such a house, in one of the most sought-after parts of the town, would need to steal? Then I reminded myself that I shouldn’t make any assumptions.

For the first time I had a good look at Sheila. Always thin, she now looked on the edge of emaciation. She had made an effort with her hair and her make-up, but the colour on her face only made her look more gaunt, and the style of her hair couldn’t disguise its listless brown or its lifeless hang. Her eyes shifted around the room, never once meeting my gaze. Her fingers supplied an endless line of cigarettes to her thin lips, which were being bitten when they weren’t sucking on a tab.

‘Thanks for seeing us, Sheila,’ said Tracy. ‘Before we start, I would just like to reiterate that we are not here to coax you back to work or
to check that you really have been ill. We’re here to help you get back to work as and when you are ready and not before.’

‘Yes, you did say that on the phone thanks, and thanks for coming out to see me. I appreciate it. You’re both busy people,’ said Sheila. Her voice was so quiet, it was as if she was sitting in a church rather than her own home.

‘Don’t thank us.’ I noticed how gruff and male my voice sounded in the hushed femininity of her house. ‘It’s always nice to get out of the bank.’ Perhaps that wasn’t the best thing to say. ‘I mean that it’s nice to get some fresh air,’ I finished lamely.

‘I know what you mean.’ Sheila smiled at my awkwardness. Her smile transformed her face and even seemed to brighten her hair. Inwardly I remarked that she was actually very attractive. I had never noticed it before because she was one of those people content to stay in the background, diminishing their size and importance. Her particular tactic was to hide behind long hair while wearing clothes that were too large.

I was suddenly sure that the woman that I knew from the bank was not the real Sheila. There was no way she had walked into any door. This was a shrunken woman crushed by the grip of a bully.

‘So, tell me, Sheila, do you feel ready to come back to work in any capacity?’ Tracy asked.

‘I think so,’ Sheila then considered her answer. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Your doctor’s line is up in about ten days’ time,’ I added. He’d been circumspect and given the reason for her absence as ‘stress and anxiety’. ‘I’m sure we can arrange for you to come back, say, two mornings a week and gradually increase that over the next few months until you’re back to full time.’

‘Before we talk about your rehabilitation, Sheila can I just check with you that you have not been put under any pressure to come back to the bank?’ asked Tracy.

‘No, absolutely not. In fact everyone has been very kind.’ A tear gathered in the corner of her eye. ‘I don’t know how I would have coped without everyone’s support.’ Another tear reached her cheek
before it was staunched by a tissue. ‘You know, for ten years Ken ruled my life. Right from the day and hour we married … when I could go to the toilet, what sort of jam I could eat, which of my friends I could speak too. And if I didn’t do as I was told, by God the punishment was severe. For ten years I put up with it.’

This was a new experience for me; listening without any input being expected in return. It was clear from Sheila’s stare into space that what she needed was to hear the words out loud and not to have any solutions or judgements offered.

‘Bloody hell,’ I said. ‘That’s awful. How can this happen without anyone picking up on it?’

I looked at Tracy to gauge her reaction. She was holding herself tight as if fighting to maintain a professional demeanour. It was clear from her expression that this was a story she’d heard before.

‘Ten years,’ Sheila shook her head in bewilderment. ‘What kind of a fool was I? But you know what the craziest thing is? I miss the bastard.’