Truth Lies Waiting (Davy Johnson Series Book 1) (25 page)

The launderette is
in darkness. The shop door won’t budge, the sign turned to ‘
Back in five
minutes
.’ I walk around the side of the building to the loading bay where
Les Mahago’s son, Coll, unloaded the guns I’d collected for Gus McEwan. The van
is there once more, though Laughing Boy’s nowhere to be seen. The back door to
the launderette is open and I step inside calling out ‘hello’ in case someone
thinks I’m snooping.

Les
is seated at the same small table, his son standing in front of him, scowling,
as though he’s on the receiving end of a fairly large bollocking. He turns at
the sound of my voice.

‘What
the fu-?’ He spits as I enter the room, but it’s half-hearted and we both know
it.

He
looks to his Dad for guidance. ‘Leave us.’ Les commands and he scuttles out in
silence, happy to escape his Dad’s anger. ‘And do as yer fuckin’ telt!’ Les
yells after him before turning his attention to me.

I
haven’t moved from the door yet. I’m waiting for Les to give his permission. He
inclines his head like a Mediaeval king and I move a little closer.

‘A
little bird telt me tae expect ye.’ is all he says.

There’s
a bottle of whisky on the table beside him and two glasses. I suppress a groan.
What is it with men of his age and the need to prove themselves by the malt
they drink? I can’t imagine a time when it’ll matter so much but my life has
gone so out of shape in the space of a week I wouldn’t bet on anything. The
glass closest to Les already has whisky in it but he pushes the empty one
towards me. I accept his invitation and take the seat opposite before pouring a
small amount of the liquid into my glass.

Les
studies my face as I do this, as though trying to place where he’s seen me
before.

‘I
did the job at the dockyard,’ I remind him, ‘I brought the
merchandise
here
for ye.’ He looks at me strangely, ‘Aye, ah know that.’ He says, as though
that’s not what he’d been trying to remember at all.

Les
pours himself another drink and motions for me to do the same. I don’t really
want another; but he thinks he’s being nice and Les Mahago is the kind of man
you don’t want to offend. I top up my drink and gulp at it as though I’m
expecting to find this week’s Lotto numbers etched into the base of the glass.

‘I
knew your Da.’ Les says out of nowhere.

The
whisky I’m drinking catches in my throat and I splutter for a few seconds while
trying to work out if my ears are playing tricks on me. Dad went out of our lives
so abruptly it was like he had died, and in many ways that suited us, there
were no arguments over custody or visiting rights, just the permanent silence
of a parent who falls off the face of the earth.

They’d
not even been rowing much, my parents, though when they did it was usually
about Dad’s drinking or how much time he spent at the betting shop. Mum never
talks about him. It’s as though, when he left, the memory of him had gone too.

Occasionally
I’d wonder if he’d left us for someone else, a wife who didn’t sell her body or
a son more appealing than me. Sometimes the question would form on my lips but
I saw no point in upsetting the applecart; the world kept on turning and we
kept on functioning and before long I stopped thinking about him at all.

Les
has been watching me all this time, waiting for a response.

‘Ye
did better than me then.’ I say to him. I’m surprised at the bitterness that
has crept into my voice, the armour plating that has wrapped itself around my
shoulders.

‘He
wisnae a bad man, Son.’ Les responds.

The
man I remember locked a small child in a cupboard but I say nothing, instead I
shrug my indifference.

‘De
ye no’ keep in touch then?’ Les asks.

He’s
still alive then, I realise and I hate the feeling of elation that that news brings,
as though somewhere someday I’ll see him again only this time he’ll love me. I
close my eyes and I can feel Jude beside me, sniggering at my stupidity:

Yer
a gullible wee shite, Davy, ye’ll be hearing sleigh bells next.

When
I open them again Les is looking at me sympathetically. I’m used to this. So
many adults have looked at me like that since I was small it’s become white
noise.

‘Ye
don’t know where he is, de ye?’ There’s a thud in my chest as I am carried back
to the playground, to bigger kids standing around me, jeering. A teacher
pulling me to my feet, leading me to the headteacher’s office where they talk
in hushed voices:

‘….don’t
realise what they’re saying….’

‘Oh,
I think they know, right enough….’

‘When
did ye last see him?’ Les’s question jolts me to the present and I realise my
hands are shaking. I reach for the whisky bottle but he places a hand on my
arm, ‘Ye’ll no find the answer in there, Son, trust me, many have tried.’I pull
my arm free and lean back in my chair, sullen. There’s a pounding in my chest
and my head feels like it did when I was high on painkillers.

‘He
didn’t leave us did he?’ I ask, although I’m certain now of the answer.

‘No,
Son.’ Les says evenly. ‘He was taken.’

The woman on the
reception desk’s face lights up when she sees me as though I’m a loveable scone
in short trousers, her chubby finger pointing towards the row of empty chairs
behind me, ‘Take a seat dear,’ she says kindly, ‘and I’ll tell them you’re
here.’

I
nod at her politely and shuffle backwards into a hard plastic chair. There’s a
small table with out of date magazines and someone else’s water cup, I try not
to stare at the greasy liquid inside. The corner of the room has been converted
into a kids’ play area with brightly coloured toys and building blocks and
dolls in every skin tone. I cross and uncross my arms before placing my hands
on my knees but this stance is unnatural and I try several more before
returning to my original position, slouched forward, biting my nails. The woman
is mid-forties, with a body mass index that’s way off the charts but her
clothes are cheerful and well cut and her wrists jingle with a dozen or so
bangles. She looks kind, the sort of person who doesn’t make you judge
yourself. I catch the woman’s eye and she smiles again, and I wonder if she’s
ever tempted to look at the patients’ notes and if so, she obviously hasn’t
read my father’s.

When
Les dropped the bombshell that Dad was in a mental hospital I’d thought he was
joking, only his face didn’t split into a grin when I burst out laughing. ‘I’m
serious, like,’ he’d said sternly, before answering my silent question, ‘fe
killing someone.’

That’d
wiped the smile off my face, right enough.

A
man carrying a clipboard walks up to the reception desk, says something quietly
to the receptionist which makes her laugh. The man is slim with white hair and
a kind looking face and it occurs to me that the job description requires staff
working here to be nice to people, especially since many of the patients aren’t
nice to themselves. Two young women and a man enter the reception area carrying
drinks in cardboard takeaway cups. They move towards the desk with their heads
cocked like naughty school kids. They are all wearing badges saying
Medical
Student
.

‘Sorry
we’re late,’ one of the women gushes, ‘the queue was crazy,’ her two friends
start laughing as she looks apologetically in my direction, ‘Sorry! Sorry!’ she
says to no one in particular, holding a coffee cup out to the kind man like a
peace offering. I stare at the floor and pretend to be deaf while the older man
chastises them, ‘Remember where you are,’ he says sternly. Christ, even his
bollocking is kind.

I’m
halfway through counting the floor tiles when a female staff member enters the
reception area and calls out my name. As I walk by reception the fat lady looks
up at me and I smile back at her lamely. The woman who’s collected me is tall
and wiry and her clothes seem to hang off her at angles. She has long brown
hair which looks like it’s never been cut and half-moon glasses attached to a
plain face. I have trouble keeping up with her, her pace is brisk and mine is
still hampered by my injury. We pass through a wide corridor with large windows
that let in plenty of light. Several doors lead off into a number of rooms,
some are small and look like doctors’ consulting rooms, others are larger, with
chairs around the perimeter. The woman leads me into a small room big enough
for two cloth armchairs either side of a round table. She offers me a seat then
waits while I sit before taking the other one. The chairs are high backed and
very comfy. The table between us is low, a box of tissues the only item upon
it. Across the room several brightly coloured cushions are piled upon each
other but even the pile is meticulous: the corners of each cushion are at right
angles with each other and the pattern on every one is uppermost. If I turn my
head I can see a round clock on the wall beside me and I wonder if it’s placed
there so appointments don’t run over their allotted slot.

The
woman smiles and I glance at the tissues wondering how they could be needed in
a place where everyone I’ve met seems so pleasant, but then these people get to
go home at night, are allowed to wear belts and use sharp instruments if they
choose to.

‘Where’s
my dad?’ I ask bluntly. I look around the room as though there’s a chance he
may be hiding.

‘I’ll
take you to see him in a minute.’ The woman says, ‘I just wanted to take the
opportunity to introduce myself.’ She waits while I turn to face her. She gives
the impression she has all the time in the world but I’m guessing that’s how
she gets her patients to open up.

I
am not your patient.
I say silently.

‘My
name is Tanya Abbott. I’ve known your father a long time.….’ She pauses, as
though trying to find the right words, ‘I’ve worked with him closely since he
was first admitted.’

‘Sixteen
years.’ I say quietly.

‘Sorry?’

‘That’s
how long you’ve known him.’ I tell her as I work out the maths, ‘5,840 nights
that he hasn’t been around.’ I’d worked this out in the waiting room, hadn’t
got round to working out the hours or minutes.

‘Did
you miss him then?’ she enquires.

I
don’t know how to answer that so I stare at the cushions instead.

‘What
do you remember?’ she asks softly.

I
shake my head. ‘Nothing,’ I say honestly. I close my eyes to think, to put some
order to the kaleidoscope of images in my brain. ‘Little things, I suppose,
pictures in my head that don’t make sense.’

‘You
don’t remember him leaving?’

‘Obviously!’
I snap. I think about the man that I remember. I was scared of him, I know
that. I got the brunt of his moodiness and he was angry so much of the time. My
parents’ marriage was certainly volatile, but they seemed to thrive on the
friction.

‘They’d
been rowing.’ I told her. It wasn’t a conscious memory but now that I’ve said
this it fits in with what I sensed of their mood. ‘They were always shouting,’
I add, ‘I don’t think they ever really spoke civilly to one another. She hated
his gambling, and I guess he hated her being a prozzie but was too used on the
money she brought in tae really mean it.’

‘That’s
very astute.’

‘For
a scrote, you mean.’

‘I
didn’t say that.’ She says patiently, ‘I mean that’s a lot for someone so young
at the time to consider.’

‘Not
really,’ I shrug, ‘I haven’t thought about those days in a long time. This is
the first time I suppose I’m thinking about it from an adult’s point of view.’

We
sit in silence; Tanya stares ahead as though she too is admiring the cushions.

‘He
wasn’t always angry.’ I say suddenly, recalling a time when one of his horses
came in and he bought me ice-cream. Another time I spilt a can of coke down a
clean shirt he’d just put on and instead of going ballistic he laughed. Maybe
that was the start of his madness…

Tanya
twists towards me in her chair, ‘Can I ask what you hope to get out of seeing
your father today?’

I
shrug. ‘I…I want some answers I s’pose. Why he didn’t want to keep in touch.
And why he…’ I let my voice trail away. I understand suddenly why Mum was able
to think the worst of me. After all, with the genes I’ve inherited, is it any
wonder?

‘And
what if you don’t get those answers?’ Tanya asks.

‘I
dunno.’

‘Or
what if you get answers you don’t like?’

‘Jeez,
I never been given straight answers from being a kid, you’ve no worries on that
score,’ I reassure her, ‘I’m used to it.’

‘But
this is different,’ she reminds me, ‘until recently you didn’t know where your
father was or anything about him.’

‘I
knew he was no good!’ I interrupt.

‘And
now you’ve discovered he’s been living near you all this time, how does that
make you feel?’

I
shake my head. ‘What does it matter?’ I ask her. ‘Look, I’m not the one here
needs counselling,’ I say irritably, ‘I just need to see him.’

My
head feels like it’s going to burst. Tanya’s questions are confusing; I’ve no
idea why seeing Dad is so important to me now that I know he’s here, it just
is. In the same way I managed without him when I didn’t know where he was; now
I know he’s been in Edinburgh all this time I feel like a part of me is
missing. Certainly a big part of my past anyway, yet saying this out loud to a
stranger before I make sense of it seems weird.

‘You’re
about to embark on a voyage of discovery,’ Tanya says soothingly but I start to
snigger.

‘I’m
sorry,’ I say, ‘but come
on.
’ Tanya purses her lips in disapproval and
glares at the tip of her shoe.

‘Look,’
I say in a way I hope shows I won’t be put off, ‘I promise I’m not trying to
make this into a big deal. I’ve not come here with any expectations, so I can
hardly be disappointed, can I?’

‘It
isn’t you I’m concerned about.’ Tanya retorts.

He
wants to meet me in the clinic’s garden. There’s a courtyard, behind the main
hospital building that has a grassy area with tubs of bright coloured flowers
dotted here and there. A gravel path dissects it and wooden benches have been
placed at discreet intervals for patients to spend time with visitors in a less
institutionalised environment.

I
step out into the afternoon sun, pausing a moment while my eyes adjust to the
light. It’s mid-afternoon and the temperature is still freakishly warm. Two
nurses sit at a wooden table at the far end of the garden, sipping bottles of
mineral water. A gardener is working his way along the perimeter, deadheading
flowers. There’s a bored looking lad behind him dragging a bin bag; he looks at
me with interest, then turns to look at a man sat alone on a bench waving in my
direction.

The
man is older than I imagined but I can tell instantly he’s my dad. He’s not as
big as I remember; his face is thinner and he’s bald with a straggly beard
which makes him look like a tramp. I try to ignore this unkind thought and wave
back at him as I make my way over to where he’s sitting.

‘Dad,’
I say uncertainly. The word feels uncomfortable, like I’m making fun of him. We
may be related but I don’t feel any connection. I thought there’d be a flash of
something, familiarity, emotion, I’m not sure what exactly, just that there’d
be
something.
Instead I feel like I’m approaching a stranger.

A
stranger in a nuthouse.

Dad
doesn’t get up but he grins at me like I’m a longed for visitor. His teeth are
rotten although some have been filed into pointy stumps. ‘I’m getting new
ones,’ he tells me proudly when he sees me staring, ‘Dentist’ll have to put me
to sleep though, eh?’

‘What
happened?’ I ask him. We have to start from somewhere and the reason he needs
new teeth is as good a place as any.

‘The
meds they give you here,’ he answers, louder than he needs to, ‘teeth don’t stand
a chance.’

I
nod, glancing around the garden self-consciously but no one out here seems to
give a damn what we’re talking about.

‘Did
ye bring me anything?’ he asks eagerly, like a child on his birthday.

My
face flushes with embarrassment; I hadn’t thought to bring him a gift. This
visit, this
voyage of discovery
to use Tanya’s phrase was all about me
and what I could learn from my past. I simply hadn’t thought about it from
Dad’s point of view: a visit out of the blue from a son he thought was lost to
him.

I
rummage about in my pocket and locate my cigarette lighter. I hold it out to
him. ‘Sorry,’ I mumble, ‘I’ll bring you something better next time.’ Dad
snatches the lighter from me and turns it over and over in his hands as though
it’s made from precious metal rather than cheap yellow plastic. ‘Thank you,
Davy.’ He says formally as though he’s been told to mind his manners.

We
lapse into silence, regarding each other openly. He’s wearing old man jeans and
a baggy sweatshirt. His neck is darker than his face and scaly, reminding me of
a lizard. The longer I study him I see there is a likeness between us – at last
I have someone to blame for my moon shaped face. It’s feels really weird
though, seeing him close up like this, like catching a glimpse of the future
only this doesn’t make pleasant viewing. I watch as he pockets the lighter with
care, then checks several times that it’s secure before turning his attention
back to me.

He
shuffles along the bench so I can sit beside him.

‘I
thought you’d left us.’ I tell him.

‘Aye.’
He responds, as if that had been the intention. He scans the lawn in front of
us as though looking for weeds.

‘Would
have been better if I had.’

‘It
all amounts to the same.’ I shrug.

‘Mebbe.’

‘Ye
were a bastard to us.’ I say suddenly, forgetting Tanya’s veiled warning to
tread softly.

A
shrug. ‘Didn’t mean I didn’t care.’

‘Aye,
right.’

It’s
funny how things come around. I’d been scared of him once, yet I feel nothing
now, not fear, despite what he’s done, just a burning curiosity about how he
ended up in a psychiatric unit.

Was
he mad? Or just plain bad.

‘Doe’s
ye Mum know you’re here?’ he asks, his voice lower now.

I
shake my head. ‘I figured that there must be a damn good reason why she never
told me where you were. And that reason wouldn’t change just because I started
asking questions. I didn’t want us to fall out over me coming here…’ As my
words tail off I realise it’s much more than that though, part of me is stung
by the lie that I’ve been made to live with and I need to be in possession of
all the facts when I tell her that I’ve seen him.

‘How
did ye find me?’

‘I
wasn’t really looking,’ I tell him truthfully. ‘Ye remember Les Mahago?’ I wait
while he locates him in his mind before nodding. ‘He told me he knew ye. When
he found out we’d never been in touch he told me where ye were. And why.’