Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

‘Aye go on,’ I huff.

‘What the fuck’s up wi’ you, doll?’ Mandy willnae let it go. ‘It’s no like there’s gonnae be a TK Maxx in Spain by the way. Or any shops that are any fucking good. Eh?’

I cannae fool Mands.

When Carly’s off looking at bibs and that, I go, ‘Buying crap for a wean that’s no born… for Bekki – it’s like… like the fucking Universe is gonnae go Fuck off, Lorraine .’

‘That’s mental.’

‘Aye, but.’

Mandy puts her arm round me. She’s no the freshest after a day trauchling round town, and I get a big whiff of BO off of her. ‘It’s gonnae be OK. Scans are all normal, aye? And we’re gonnae get Bekki back. We’re gonnae get our wee lassie back, Lorraine.’

‘They bastards… they’re smart, aye? They’re maybe gonnae rumble it.’ I get my arse moving, pushing the trolley through the lines of bairns’ clothes to the tills.

In the queue, Mandy starts back in. ‘Bastards gave it their best shot, disappearing and that, but they havenae a fucking clue. Have a wee bit faith in yourself, hen.’ She puffs. ‘God, would you listen to me giving it Pollyannas?’

When we were wee, any time any good shite happened, like we were in the park with our pals and we all had cones, and we were lying on the grass licking them, and the sun was shining and that, and I’d go, ‘This is barry,’ Mandy would go, ‘It’s just a fucking cone’ and ‘Fucking Pollyanna’ and I’d be all, ‘Shut your face Misery Mandy.’

Felt bad, when I got old enough to work out what all had gone on. No wonder Mandy wasnae a laugh a minute, eh? She kept letting that fucker Billy do that shite to her so he wouldnae go all the way with me, and she got infections and that, and that’s why she couldnae have bairns.

I go, ‘Thanks doll.’

‘They’re smart, aye, but you’re smarter than ninety-nine point nine per cent of the population. Just you mind that, Lorraine.’

Connor got me doing this IQ test he found on the net and I aced it by the way. Came out my IQ’s a hundred and sixty-seven. And Connor’s like that: ‘Christ on a cheesy biscuit! You should be the fucking Prime Minister!’

Mandy goes, ‘You’re one smart cookie.’

‘Aye, okay I’ve got a brain on me, but near enough two fucking years to find Bekki? It’s like we’re no meant to get her.’

‘That’s mental.’

‘I’ve got a bad feeling, Mands. A bad fucking feeling.’

Thought it would be easy to find them. Once we’d got photies of them off of Pammie, all we had to do was go to all the places they could be – Torridon, Perth, St Andrews, fucking Amalfi, fucking Australia – and go round asking folk if they’d seen them because they’d kidnapped a wee lassie. Get Connor searching for Ruth and Alec Morrison on the net and checking out folk’s blogs and sites and that from they places. Checking out nurses and botanists. Every botany department in the English-speaking fucking world.

Nada.

Fucking two years wasted.

‘Two fucking years,’ I goes.

‘That’s nothing,’ goes Mandy. ‘Look at all they fuckers on FAF. How many of them are gonnae find their bairns ever ?’

Right enough.

I’d been all out of ideas, sitting on my arse watching this daft TV show with Connor, The Big Bang Theory , about a load of dowfie wee fuckers in a university, and then I’m jumping up out my chair and I’m like that: ‘Oh my God’ and Connor’s: ‘What?’ and I’m: ‘Alec Morrison’s one of they, aye? One of they boffins? How’s he gonnae survive outside a fucking university, out in the real fucking world?’

Connor’s nodding. ‘Aye! Like pandas and that. They can only eat bamboo, aye? They cannae survive in any other habitat. They’re too specialised.’

‘Aye, he’s like one of they fuckwit pandas. He cannae do a normal job. He cannae transfer his skills. Maybe he’s no working in a botany department, but he has to be in a fucking university. He’s maybe just moved departments, eh?’

So me and Connor get searching the net: all they university department web pages, any department to do with biology, looking for his face, because it’s ninety-nine per cent he’ll have changed his fucking name.

Nada.

Then we try web pages for conferences, press stuff, boffins’ blogs and that.

And bingo.

There’s his geeky wee face in the background of a photy showing some professor retiring. At the Microbiology Department at Edinburgh University.

Two fucking years, but.

Mandy’s pulling her heid back into her chins like she’s up for a rammie, like she’s gonnae belt any fucker gets in her road.

‘They’re that arrogant, they think moving a wee bit west to east and changing from bot-logy to bile-ogy’s gonnae stop us finding them? They’re that fucking complacent, Lorraine?’

Aye.

Fucking Alec moves from Glasgow to Edinburgh University, from botany to microbiology, and the fucker thinks that’s him disappeared? He’s all: They wee windae-lickers willnae even know what the fuck a university is. Fucking arrogant wee fuck.

Thought he’d been smart not putting a photy on his profile page on the departmental website. All that meant was Ryan and Travis had to park up on campus and wait till they saw him coming out the front door of the Microbiology Department. Follow the fucker home.

‘Aye,’ I goes. ‘Fucking complacent.’

Having spent an hour lovingly constructing ‘Jed-Bag’ from a pair of old jeans of Neil’s, one of his old shirts, a pair of Flora’s tights, Caroline’s make-up and some rags, Beckie and Caroline had hung him by the neck from a branch of the sycamore.

Now Beckie was doubled up, hysterical, as Caroline aimed another kick at his crotch area, which she followed up with a jab to the eye, sending Jed-Bag spinning on the rope.

They’d made his head by stuffing old pillowcases into Flora’s tights and used make-up to do long-lashed, wide-open eyes and a manically smiling mouth like Mr Blobby’s. They’d tied up the ends of Neil’s jeans with string, so Jed-Bag’s sausage-like legs ended like Christmas crackers. And at his crotch Caroline had hung one of those orange mesh bags you bought onions in, inside which she’d arranged a carrot and two onions which were now receiving heavy punishment as the targets of Caroline and Beckie’s ninja skills.

Was this appropriate, really?

But Beckie was having such fun. Flora didn’t have the heart to object.

‘Who needs a blender,’ grinned Neil, sitting back in his favourite lounger with a cold glass of ginger beer.

Flora stood behind him, arms folded, watching their daughter over his head. That was all she seemed to do now – watch Beckie. Whenever Beckie was out of her sight she felt twitchy, unable to settle to anything. Instead of walking to and from school, she now drove Beckie there and back. And she’d started arriving at the school half an hour early to pick her up. Which was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if the teachers were going to let the Johnsons take her, was it?

She no longer let Beckie play in the garden on her own.

This morning Beckie had begged to be allowed to ask Thomas over – ‘And if he’s here, you don’t need to be hovering round me all the time, do you, Mum?’ – and Flora had gone next door to issue the invitation.

Ailish hadn’t even let her over the threshold.

‘Sorry Flora, he’s Skyping his gran.’

‘Well, maybe when he’s finished? You could bring him over?’

Ailish had smiled mechanically and started closing the door. ‘Sorry Flora, I’ve got to…’

She couldn’t even be bothered making up a believable excuse.

Ever since the incident with the Johnsons in the street, Ailish had been treating Flora and Beckie like lepers. Flora had tried to explain what had happened, but, unsurprisingly, the information that Beckie’s delinquent birth family had found out where they lived hadn’t seemed to help.