An Ocean Apart (16 page)

“Mam,” Darren piped up again, “I'm needin' the bog.”

His mother leaned across and whispered angrily at him. “How many times dae I have tae tell ye? It's no' called the bog, it's called the toilet.”

“But, Mam, you call it the—”

“Darren!”

She undid her seat-belt and stood up, not noticing that the “Seat-Belt” sign was still on. A young stewardess came along the aisle towards her. “I'm afraid that you will have to sit down again, madam, until the captain has switched off the ‘Seat-Belt' sign,” she said, pointing up to the little illuminated light above the seat.

“My wee lad's desperate for the toilet. Can I no' tak' him?”

The stewardess, uncertain as to what to do, looked along the aisle for guidance from her superior, who was in the galley at the back of the plane. Hand gestures were exchanged, and she turned back to the woman.

“That's fine. I'll take you along with him, but the senior stewardess has indicated that it would be safer if you didn't carry the little one along.”

The woman was beginning to get flustered, darting worried looks at the baby on her hip. “I canna leave her here by hersel'. Could you tak' Darren along for me?”

It looked as though a solution had been found until the stewardess put her hand out to Darren. He resolutely stuck both hands behind his back and began to wail loudly. “I want to go wi' you, Mam.”

“Please, Darren,” the woman pleaded in exasperation with her son. “Go wi' the nice lady.”

David looked up at the scene, and wondered how it could possibly resolve itself. He didn't particularly want to become involved, but realized that if drastic action wasn't taken soon, young Darren would begin to flood the plane.

“Excuse me,” he said, leaning across the seat towards them.

They all looked at him.

“I'm quite happy, if you want, to hold her until you come back.”

The woman smiled at him. “Och, thanks, mister, but dinnae you worry yoursel'.”

“I promise you, I don't mind. As I said, I've three of my own, so I'm quite an expert.”

“Do ye really no' mind, mister? I'm afraid she's got an awful dose of the cauld.”

“Come on, don't worry about it.” He shoved his papers into the seat pocket in front of him and stretched out his hands to receive his charge.

The woman handed over the little girl. “There you go, Tracy. You stay with the nice man. Thanks, mister, you're a gem. I'll no' be a minute.”

As the “toilet” party headed off up the aisle, Tracy sat on David's knee, staring at him in astonishment, her large brown eyes as round as the pacifier in her mouth, which thankfully was doing its job in preventing any outburst of protest. David gave the snuffling child a reassuring smile, then, thinking it better if she didn't have to suffer such a blatant reminder that she had been abandoned with a complete stranger, he turned her around so that the back of her head rested on his chest. He pulled in his chin to glance down at her, and thought that, for all the earthy coarseness of her mother, Tracy was beautifully turned out. Her tiny feet were tucked into a pair of cheap white plimsolls, and through the lace at the top of her short white socks were woven yellow strands of ribbon, matching exactly the colour of her little acrylic dress. Her soft, wispy hair was caught up in a white elastic band, making it sprout, like a tiny fountain, from the top of her head. David leaned forward to retrieve his document from the seat pocket, and with that, caught a whiff of the warm, sweet smell of baby, a cocktail so addictive, yet its ingredients so indescribable, save for the liberal sprinkling of Johnson's Baby Powder. It was a smell he had known so well in the past, a smell so powerful that, at one time, it had made him think that he could never live without a baby in the house.

Leaving the document where it was, he pulled Tracy close into his chest, the gentle movement of the little girl's body against his supporting hand seeming to calm his mind and dust away cobwebs from long-storedaway memories of his own children.

*   *   *

It was surprising that, during his first three months of working at Glendurnich, he hadn't been given the boot for sleeping on the job, as it seemed to be the only time that he could catch up on much-needed rest. This was all because of a small, vulnerable bundle of humanity called Sophie Rosemary Alicia Corstorphine, an angel during the day, who metamorphosed into a screaming scrap of unconsolable wretchedness in the early hours of the morning. Waking hours at night suddenly matched those of day, and even though it quite often resulted in a gritty-eyed tetchiness on the part of both himself and Rachel, she never lost patience with the baby. She would take it into bed in the middle of the night and, gathering up all the pillows behind her, would sit cross-legged gently rocking the baby, until its violent sobs receded to a gulping contentment as it sucked from her nipple. He, meanwhile, would be forced to lie pillowless, wedged into an eight-inch width of bedspace, with a hand and a foot stretched out to the floor to stop him from rolling out.

“Try singing to her,” Dr. Spiers had helpfully suggested, and, not realizing that it all mostly took place at two in the morning, “or maybe take her for a walk in her pram to settle her.”

So they tried one and then the other, only to find that Sophie would respond solely to a combination of the two. Consequently, the lights of The Beeches were often seen to burn brightly in the night, while David walked up and down in the hallway like some destitute busker, bleary-eyed and unshaven, singing soothing lullabies to his first-born child.

And then four years later, when Sophie had grown into a constantly happy, lovable child, thus making more than enough atonement for her ignominious start in life, Charlie appeared, live and kicking, with all the clichéd remarks about a future football star in the making. They battened down the hatches, prepared the pram in the hallway and the guitar at the ready, but it was as if he had been conceived by a different formula of genes (or, more likely, that he and Rachel had ironed out all their inexperience on Sophie), because the baby slept by night and grinned by day. By the time that Harriet appeared, there was enough baby-care knowhow in the household for Rachel to afford to take a back seat while her eldest daughter, just turned seven years old, took control with an accomplishment and dedication that surpassed by far the efforts of any of the morose, disinterested au pair girls that had been employed in the past to look after herself and Charlie.

And as they grew, they became a unit within themselves, independent and content with each other's company in the games that they played: Sophie the organizer, Charlie the stuntman, and Harriet the cook, the chief bottle-washer, the alien from a different planet, but ultimately the baby. Yet their relationship with each other was not one of sugary-sweet perfection, their individual strength of character quite often being the cause of fervent disagreement, and games, on occasion, would culminate in vicious fights between the two elder siblings. While they ran to their mother to get first word in for comfort and mediation, Harriet would for a moment cast an uncomprehending look after them and then return happily to their now-abandoned game—to wash her teacups or to send her spaceship into warp five.

*   *   *

“Sorry we were so long, mister.”

David looked round sharply from the window, his hand tightening instinctively on Tracy's stomach in the immediate thought that he might have unconsciously lessened his grasp on the baby. The woman was edging her way back into the seat, pushing a much-relieved Darren in front of her.

“Darren needed more than a pee. Och, would ye look at that! She's fast asleep.”

David glanced down at Tracy. Her face was turned to the side, one flushed cheek squashed hard against the front of his shirt, her eyelids flickering, her pacifier hanging loosely in her mouth.

“My, she's lookin' awf'y hot. I hope she's no' comin' down wi' the flu or anything like that. Anyway, thanks again for your help, mister.” She reached over and relieved David of his charge, and at once he felt the coolness of the plane's air-conditioning hit the warm little area which Tracy had occupied.

“Not at all. It was my pleasure,” he said, smiling across at the woman. Then, pulling his blazer around him, he took the Glendurnich document from the seat pocket and at last settled down to read it.

*   *   *

Alicia stuck her spectacles on the end of her nose and looked up at the latest school photograph that hung on the wall outside the headmaster's study to see if she could pick out her three grandchildren amongst the other two hundred or so faces. Across the hall from her, the headmaster's nervous little secretary tapped ineffectively on the door for the second time.

“Come in!” a muffled voice bellowed out.

The secretary flashed a brave smile at Alicia before slowly opening the door and putting her head round the corner. “Mr. Hunter, I have Lady Inchelvie here to see you.”

Without waiting for a reply she jumped back from the door, and within a second it flew open as if caught in a whirlwind, to reveal a tall, spindly young man in his mid-thirties with wild bushy hair and half-moon spectacles, the combination of which would have made his age indeterminable to Alicia if she hadn't come to know him so well over the past six months.

“Lady Inchelvie,” he said, stretching out a long, bony hand. “I'm so sorry, I had no idea you had arrived. I've just been having to reschedule a boys' cricket match to another venue, because the girls are going to be using the athletics track around the one out there”—he waved airily with his hand in the direction of the front of the school—“and I do rather want to prevent them from coming under fire from one of the big hitters in our team.” He smiled down at her from his lanky height. “Nevertheless, I do apologize for not springing up to meet you immediately.”

“Not at all, Mr. Hunter,” Alicia said, smiling at the dishevelled young man. “It's actually I who should be apologizing to you for being extremely disruptive and insisting that I should visit the children during the week. It's just that my husband was coming down to Glasgow for a meeting, and I thought that I would take the opportunity of a free ride!”

The young headmaster held up his hand. “Of course you should visit. Please, never think that you might not be welcome. It really is no imposition.” He swung himself round to stand at the side of his study door, his gown billowing out as he did so. “Now let's go and have a seat in my office. Can I get you a cup of tea or coffee?”

“No, thank you very much,” Alicia replied as she passed him. “I had an interesting cup of tea on the train over from Glasgow which tasted as if it might be a combination of coffee, tea and hot chocolate, so I think I've probably had my fair share.”

Mr. Hunter let out a short, almost manic chuckle, then, having seen Alicia settled on the sofa, he slumped down with a
boing
of a loose spring into an armchair and almost disappeared from view. Alicia stifled a smile, realizing that he was built like a young giraffe—all legs and no upper body. He placed his elbows on the arms of his chair at about the same level as his chin. “I hear that Mr. Corstorphine is flying out to the States today.”

“Ah, you're being kept abreast of the news, then.”

Mr. Hunter smiled. “Yes, Sophie told us on Saturday night. She said that he wasn't too sure if he would be back by next weekend, but that he certainly would be for the leave-out. She was actually quite excited to talk about it.”

Alicia paused for a moment, a worried expression coming over her face. “Mr. Hunter, how do you think they are? I mean, do they seem to be, well, bearing up all right?”

The headmaster pushed himself forward on the chair and, stretching out a long tentacle of an arm, momentarily touched Alicia's elbow.

“Firstly, Lady Inchelvie, I must tell you that they are never alone for a minute. Every member of my staff is looking out for them at all times and are under strict instructions to bring them straight to myself or my wife if there are problems. Then, as far as they are individually, all three are coping admirably. Of course, they all handle it differently. I think Charlie blots the whole thing from his mind, which might mean that there could possibly be a relapse at a later stage, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. He is as lively as ever, and a great asset to the Under-Thirteen cricket team. As for the girls, I really have to say that I am filled with admiration for Sophie in the way that she handles Harriet. For a girl of such tender years, her whole manner and decorum have been exemplary, and I have to say that she's one of the most resourceful, responsible and, without doubt, bravest girls I have ever had the honour of knowing … but…” He continued slowly, carefully picking his words. “I do know that the emotional upheaval within herself must be extreme, not only because of her mother, but also because she is at that chrysalis stage, Lady Inchelvie, and I have experience enough of being a headmaster of a mixed school to know that it is an extremely vulnerable time.” He paused for a moment to change direction, noticing a slight quiver in Alicia's bottom lip, despite her upright and steadfast comportment. “Harriet is also fine. I know this because she is relying totally on her sister as a mother figure. Of course, one realizes that Sophie can never be a replacement, but there is still an order and sense in Harriet's life. However, I'm afraid that Sophie does realize this and that only increases the burden that she is carrying on her shoulders. Now, by telling you this, I don't want to appear alarmist, but only explain to you that I do understand everything that is going on, and that I do, I assure you, have it all under control.”

Alicia smiled at the headmaster, feeling an urge to get up and hug the man for his kindness and the intuitive understanding he had of both the situation and her feelings. He rose from his chair, unravelling his legs like a couple of elasticised magic wands.