Quintin Jardine: Poisoned Cherries

‘Ah, but I never said I liked her.’

I laughed. ‘So you’ll not be calling the baby Primavera, then.’

‘Hell, no. Actually, I was thinking about calling her Janet, maybe Jan for short. I really did like her. How would you feel about that?’

I wanted to pick her up and hug her, but I hung on to my cool. One of my new life rules is ‘Never get emotional’. It’s the same as being drunk; you tend to say things without a thought of the consequences. Right then I might just have asked Susie to marry me, and I couldn’t have been certain she’d have turned me down.

‘I’d feel fine,’ I told her. . a considerable understatement.

‘I was hoping you’d say that.’ She smiled at me in a way she never had before. I think I realised in that moment that what we had between us was the closest we were going to get to total happiness for the rest of our lives.

‘So what do you want to do, now you’re here?’ she asked.

I scratched my chin. ‘Well, looking at the size of you, I suppose a shag’ll be out of the question.’

‘It’d be a bit crowded,’ she agreed.

‘In that case, you pack an overnight bag, I’ll have a shower, a shave and whatever else, then we’ll drive sedately up to Anstruther and see my Dad and my stepmother. ’

‘Sedately? That’s not like you.’

‘Girlie, I’ve just flown in from Los fuckin’ Angeles, so my body thinks it’s the middle of the night. I can fool it for the rest of the day, but please, allow me just one piece of untypical behaviour.’

She stepped up to me, then stood on tiptoe and kissed me. ‘Nothing you do is typical, my love.’

‘What did you call me?’

‘Oops,’ she exclaimed. ‘Sorry. . slip of the tongue; won’t happen again, I promise. Okay, we’ll do it your way. But how much have you told your Dad?’

‘I’ve told him the same as always; everything. He’s up to date; he knows Prim’s gone. He knows I was coming here, and he’s half-expecting us.’

‘He knows I’m. .?’

‘That too; the day I keep secrets from him, I’m done.’

Susie grinned. Sometimes, when she does that, she can light up a room. ‘The day you keep secrets from me you might be done, too. Listen,’ she went on, ‘I’d offer to drive us, but I have this problem with my feet just now. I have to put the seat so far back to get behind the wheel that they don’t reach the pedals.’

She wasn’t kidding either; since I’d seen her last, she had acquired a BMW sports coupe. It was low slung, and there was no graceful way she could lower herself into the passenger seat.

‘I’m not so sure about this,’ she muttered as I drove carefully out of the parking area.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that I’d be nervous enough meeting your father, but looking like this. .’

‘Susie, you haven’t been nervous since you were about ten, and anyway, you’ve met my dad before.’

‘Maybe, but going up to him and saying, “Hey Mac, I’ve got your granddaughter in here!”. . that’s different. That’s a pretty fundamental statement, sunshine.’

‘My Dad has two grandsons,’ I reminded her. ‘He’s bad enough with them, but a girl. . He’ll think you’re offering him the crown jewels.’

I leaned on the accelerator as we turned on to the slip road to the M8 and had my first hint of the power under the bonnet. ‘I’ll have your crown jewels if you scrape this thing,’ Susie hissed.

I took her at her word and stuck to ‘sedate’ as we cruised out of the city. I played with the CD controls and found that Ophelia by Natalie Merchant was lined up in the auto-changer. I was touched; I’d bought that album for her in January, but it’s late night music and wasn’t best at that moment for my advancing jet-lag. I moved on to the next and found Bob Dylan. ‘Lenny Bruce’ is one of his greatest and angriest songs, but there’s a line in it that’s pretty gross and not suitable for a lady in Susie’s condition, so I hit the button again, quick, and settled for Blue Views by Paul Carrack. . another of my January buys.

‘No!’ said Susie, and moved back to where I’d begun. ‘I like that!’ Until that moment, I didn’t know she could sing; the mother of my child is full of surprises. She leaned back in her seat and let it all out, word-perfect on each track, her full, rich contralto complementing rather than fighting with Natalie’s sharp soprano.

I didn’t say a word; I just drove and listened as we cruised. . sedately. . out of Glasgow and along the motorway that cuts Lanarkshire in half. (Smaller pieces would be even better, a native of that county once said to me.) I didn’t want her to stop, but eventually she did, during the long instrumental break on track four.

She smiled at me. ‘Sorry,’ she said, almost shyly.

‘Don’t be. Would you like to make a record? I could fix it.’

‘I know you could. And if I wanted to be Sharleen Spitieri, that’s who I’d be. . but I don’t.’ She leaned back again and picked up on track five, with its simple piano backing, leaving Natalie in her wake as she embellished the song with some added twists that its writer never imagined.

She was into the last track, singing about golden bells, when she stopped, abruptly. I glanced sideways at her, worried that maybe I’d looked as if I was nodding off.

She switched off the music. ‘Do you think you’re up to driving a wee bit less sedately?’

‘Probably, but why?’

She gasped, and winced. ‘I could be wrong. . I’ve never done this before. . but I don’t think I’m going to make it to your Dad’s.’

For a while after that, everything became a bit blurred. I’ve been in a couple of dangerous situations in my time, and I’ve managed to stay reasonably cool, to keep thinking logically.

Looking back on that day, all I can remember saying is, ‘Let’s get you to the Simpson; it’s nearest.’ After that my brain went into meltdown; I drove that M3 like David Coulthard with Schumie on his tail, while Susie did all the sensible stuff like getting the number of the maternity unit and calling ahead to warn them.

Words broke in. Susie saying, calmly, ‘Yes, my waters have broken,’ although that was not news to me by that time. Then there was something about, ‘Less than a minute.’

We got lucky on the outskirts of Edinburgh; I had to stop for a red light and I pulled up next to a police car. I honked the horn, the driver took one look and got the message; we had a blues and twos escort all the way to the new Royal Inf irmary.

Even at that it was touch and go. I drove right up to the door of the unit; where a nurse. . ‘Hello dear. I’m Sister Mickel. A bit early, are we?’. . and a porter were waiting for us with a wheelchair. If it had had a motor it would have been revved up. As the midwife helped her into the chair, Susie grunted, ‘Christ, Oz, she’s coming faster than you!’ Somewhere behind me, I heard a policeman laugh.

It got blurred again; we were rushed along to a room with a funny-shaped bed. Nurses stripped Susie; just took all her clothes right off and stuck a gown over her head. There was shouting all round; ‘Go on, that’s a lass. Push hard now.’ I realised that I was yelling as well, and that someone was grasping my hand hard enough to crush it. Then all at once, the pressure eased and there was a great collective gasp of satisfaction, into which intruded a thin wavering cry.

Sister Mickel held her up; a long, sticky, wet, pink, wriggly thing, crying full volume now that she was fully released into the world. I couldn’t see her properly though, I blinked and realised that my eyes were full of tears. I held on to Susie, my head between her breasts, and let them all out. The last time I’d cried had been when one Janet had died; now I wept for the birth of another. Cry for sad if you must, but never be afraid to cry for happy; it’s better.