Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

And there’s Jed coming out the patio doors behind her, pissing himself laughing. ‘It was an acccccc-ident so it was.’

‘No it wasn’t! I poured his vodka down the sink and he must have gone and got Dave out of his cage and stood on him!’

‘Right you.’ I’m in Jed’s face. ‘This is your last fucking warning, right? You leave the wean alone, and that includes all of her belongings, right? You leave her be or you’re outta here, and you think I’m fucking joking? Aye, go to the polis then, you think we havenae got a contingency plan? They’re never catching up with us but you go to the polis and that’s your arse back in the Big Bar L before you can say I’m a fucking fuckwit .’

Jed’s effing and blinding, shuffling back in the house.

‘Sorry hen,’ I goes, and I pull Bekki into my chebs. ‘Poor wee Dave, eh? But it would’ve been quick right enough. He winnae have suffered.’

‘How do you know?’ she’s gasping.

‘Aye,’ goes Corrigan, coming out the pool and getting a good deek at the late lamented Dave. ‘He was maybe going “Fuck’s sake” when Granda’s size ten was coming down on his heid, and then he’s like that: “Where’s my fucking brains?”’

‘That’s what you say every day, isn’t it, Corrigan?’ Bekki’s back at him. She’s pulling away from me, standing there with the manky dead hamster in her hand, chin up like the wee fighter she is. ‘You know you were wanting a tattoo? How about that right across your forehead? Where’s my fucking brains? ’

Ryan and Connor and Mandy are pissing themselves.

‘Da!’ Corrigan goes to Travis. ‘She cannae say that, eh? That’s a fucking hate crime! I’m fucking dyslexic!’

‘Aye son.’ Travis is giving Bekki evils but he cannae think of a comeback, so he cannae.

‘If it was a crime to hate you, Corrigan,’ goes Bekki, ‘they’d need to build like a hundred new jails because everyone who’s met you would need locking up.’

‘Belter,’ goes Ryan.

‘Shut it yous!’ I goes. ‘We’re leaving in five, right, so get your shit together and let’s get to that fucking beach.’

‘I’m not coming,’ goes Bekki.

‘Aw Madison-hen, but you’re gonnae like this wee place, right, there’s a barry wee café serves Coke floats like me and Mands had when we was bairns, and there’s a wee harbour and that.’

‘I’m not coming.’

And she’s running back in the house.

I give her ten and then I go to her room. She’s got Dave’s remains in a cardboard box that had biscuits in it, and she’s got a wee pink scarf tucked round him.

‘Aw, that’s nice, eh?’ I goes. ‘Wannae have a wee funeral and bury him in the garden?’

She’s no saying nothing.

‘I’m sorry, doll. Jed’s a f… a mentalist, eh? But he’s no gonnae do nothing like that again, I can promise you that.’

‘I want Mum.’

I puff. ‘Bekki darlin’, Flora’s no your mum. She’s just a fucking random, and if she finds out where you are, I’m no gonnae lie to you, hen, she’s gonnae try and kill you an’ all.’ I’m in her face. ‘So shut it about that bitch. We’re your family that loves you to bits, and we’re all you’ve got, so you’d better start fucking appreciating us and what all we’ve done for you, right? We’ve put it on the line for you, Bekki, we’ve had our lives turned upside down by that bitch but we’d do it all again for you in a heartbeat because we fucking love you, right? Now get your flip-flops and get your arse in that fucking people carrier.’

She stood, just for a moment, in the shadow of the harbour wall, in the tepid few centimetres of water lapping at the sand, and looked out to the horizon where a cruise ship was slowly crossing from right to left. Her first holiday with Alec had been to the Lake District, and they had stood like this looking out over Windermere as Alec had burbled on about how the lake had been formed by glaciers.

She had pretended to be interested. ‘The glacier kind of scooped it out?’

And he’d opened his mouth and shut it again, and smiled at her, and said, ‘Pretty much.’

She’d learned later that his mother had told him not to ‘pontificate at the poor girl’.

She closed her eyes.

Beckie’s voice said, ‘Boats have barnacles. Maybe there’s some on that one… Yes, look! Connor, come and see! If you lie here you can see them, you can see their tentacle things. They aren’t actually tentacles, they’re legs, but they don’t need legs to walk so evolution has made them into swishers to swish the food into their mouths. See!’

‘Aye, mad. Check that one, swishing like a bastard.’

‘And they’ve got the longest – you-know-whats of any creature compared with the size of their body, so they can reach other barnacles and – you know.’

She couldn’t breathe.

She wasn’t imagining this. That really was Beckie’s voice. And that must be Connor Johnson. The voices were coming from the other side of the harbour wall.

‘Ex-rated, eh, Beckie?’

A silence. Then:

‘I hate your dad, Connor.’

‘Aye, well, join the club. Hey, Beckie. Hey, it’s okay hen.’

And now Flora was running up the sand, running round the end of the wall and into the harbour and Beckie , it really was Beckie, lying on her stomach on the stone quay with her face pressed against her bare arm.

Connor Johnson was patting her back.

How had her legs got so long?

And her hair was cropped short like a boy’s. And her ears – what had happened to her ears? They weren’t pixie any more. They didn’t stick out from her head at all.

It was Beckie?

Then the boy looked up and said, ‘Aw Jesus’ and the girl looked up and –

‘ Mum? ’

And Flora was running along the quay towards them, saying ‘ Beckie! ’ over and over again, and Beckie’s face was alight and she was scrambling to her feet, but then the smile was gone and she was backing away.

She was actually backing away.

And the joy in her face had been replaced by –

Oh God.

Flora stopped dead. ‘Beckie, darling! Listen – I don’t know what they’ve been telling you, I don’t know what lies they’ve told you about me but –’

‘You killed Dad.’ Her voice was carefully controlled.

‘Oh Beckie, no! Of course not! That was Ryan Johnson. The police know that now. When they catch him, he’s going to prison for what he did.’

‘You told me you killed him. So don’t lie.’

‘I never told you that! You know I didn’t. How could you think I would kill Dad?’ She took a step towards her.

Beckie took another step back. ‘You wrote me a letter and you said you never wanted me to contact you again and you killed Dad –’

‘Oh, no, darling. No . I never wrote a letter saying that. Lorraine must have faked it.’

Beckie was still backing up, tears coursing down her cheeks. ‘ Don’t lie! ’

The boy suddenly spoke. ‘She’s no lying, Becks.’ He was a tall young man, in a blue T-shirt and dark jeans, with a gentle face. ‘That was Maw. That was Maw wrote that letter, right enough, making out she was your maw. She telt you, Beckie, that your maw didnae want nothing to do with you, and she telt your maw the same thing about you, but it wasnae true. I’m sorry, hen. I’m that sorry, eh?’ His face had gone bright red.

Beckie was crying.

And Beckie never cried.

She was crying and staring at Flora.

‘So do you – do you – do you still want me really?’

‘Oh darling!’ And in three strides Beckie was in her arms and Flora was saying, ‘My darling, my darling, I don’t want anything else in the whole wide world.’