Hilary Bonner - When the Dead Cry Out

Mac had just let her go. Watched her defiantly flick her long light-brown hair over one shoulder as she walked out of the big old granite house on the outskirts of Inverness where she had been brought up, a house that he and Sally had hoped to fill with children — but that had not been destined to happen. Clara, a slight, pretty girl with big round hazel eyes like her mother’s, had been the only one. Sally MacDonald’s mental strength had not been matched by her physical state. She suffered ill health throughout her all-too-short life. Before and after Clara there had been a series of miscarriages brought to a halt only by Mac’s decision that they would never try again for another child. Enough was enough. Sally had died aged only forty-seven, eight long years before his fateful confrontation with his only daughter. Now it looked as if he were going to lose all that remained of the woman he had adored, his only daughter, and his grandchildren.

Mac had felt as if a stake had been thrust into his heart. But he didn’t show his feelings, of course. Mac was a dour Scot. Strong. Unbending. To give in, to tell her he’d accept any bloody man in her life as long as he didn’t lose her, to tell her he’d gladly give her everything that he had, that would have been a terrible display of weakness. That would never have done.

And so Mac had stood holding open the front door as Clara had walked briskly down the garden path. It had been mid-October, and the borders which framed the two small lawns on either side of the path were still planted with the straggly remains of summer bedding plants. Sally MacDonald had always looked after the garden, and she had loved the colourful blaze of busy lizzies, petunias and geraniums. Sean tried to carry on in every way just as his wife had liked it. Things didn’t work out quite like that, though. The garden never looked the way it had in her time. That year, at least, Mac had managed to get the bedding plants in, but by October they had degenerated into the kind of mess Sally would never have allowed. And so, it seemed, had his relationship with his only daughter.

Clara did not look back. She did not say goodbye. She just stepped into the waiting cab, called to take her to the railway station, without even a backward glance.

Mac had wanted to cry out: “Don’t go. Please don’t go. Not like this. Never like this.”

The words wouldn’t come. He had watched Clara’s departure in grim silence. Mac was a stubborn man. He heard nothing from his daughter after her return to Torquay, and neither had he expected to. Clara had also inherited his stubbornness.

At Christmas he had almost relented. He had written a conciliatory message on a Christmas card to Clara and enclosed a healthy check, not the sort of money she had been asking for but a nice present all the same, with instructions for her to buy something nice for herself and the girls. Then he had ripped the envelope up and thrown the whole lot into the fire.

Nonetheless, he had looked every day at his post and hoped for a card at least from Clara. There had been nothing. Mac had spent Christmas alone. He had friends. There had, even then, been women friends. Mac had been a red-blooded man in those days, solvent and not unattractive. There had always been women in his life. But he had almost masochistically enjoyed spending Christmas in solitary misery, bemoaning his estrangement from the daughter he adored.

It was Clara’s birthday in early May. Mac had gone through the same routine. He’d written a letter and a check and put them in an envelope. Then he’d ripped up the lot. The little girls’ birthdays were in July. They had been born just a week apart, Lorraine in 1968 and Janine in 1969. Mac sent them a card each and a postal order for ten pounds and this time he posted both. But he neither expected nor received acknowledgement.

Several times between July and the following Christmas Mac considered telephoning Clara. He wanted a reconciliation more than anything else in the world. Under any terms. He was prepared to give his daughter anything she wanted. Indeed, anything her dreadful husband wanted too. But making the first move was very difficult for him. Twice he actually forced himself to make the call. On the first occasion he got the Parkview Hotel answering machine. On the second Richard Marshall answered. Both times Mac hung up. By then, however, he was reassured by at least hearing Marshall’s voice and learning that the family were still at Parkview. It had occurred to him that they could all have moved on and he might really have lost touch with the daughter he loved. Presumably they had coped with their money problems. Marshall had probably conned some poor old ladies again, thought Sean uncharitably.

All the while he hoped that his daughter would make the first move, that she would contact him. But there was no word. Finally, the second Christmas, Mac could stand it no longer. Again he bought Christmas cards and wrote Clara a check, agonizing for days over the amount. He was not prepared to send anything like the five thousand Clara had originally asked for to bail her and Richard out of trouble. In Scotland in 1975 you could very nearly buy a castle for that. But he did want it to be a substantial amount. Eventually he settled on one thousand pounds. Still a great deal of money back then. And twenty percent of what he had been asked for. Mac was a percentage man.

This time he actually posted the cards and the check and he also sent Clara a letter, regretting their quarrel but not apologizing, of course, in which he enquired after her welfare and that of the children and expressed a wish to see them all again so that they could talk.

Again there was no word. But in his January bank statement Mac noticed that his check had been cleared, which somehow made him uneasy. It wasn’t Clara’s style. He had half-expected the check to be returned. Clara, even Clara in need, could very easily be that stubborn. But it was out of character for his daughter to accept such a large sum of money without acknowledgement, particularly under the strained circumstances, Mac thought. She must really be very desperate indeed, he reflected. And he didn’t like to think of that, whoever she was married to.

Eventually, a couple of weeks later, he phoned again. Once more Richard had answered the phone. The conversation had been brief and to the point.

“I’d like to speak to my daughter, please.”

“Sorry, Mac, she doesn’t want to speak to you.” Richard’s voice had been level enough.

“Then I’d like to hear her tell me that.” Mac had forced himself to respond equally levelly.

“No chance. I’ve just told you. She never wants anything to do with you again.”

Mac, of course, had snapped. Instantly. He had been much less controlled in those days. Clara’s disappearance had changed him, more than the passage of time, he thought. After that it was as if nothing mattered that much except a pursuit of some sort of justice, and he had been forced to accept that there was no point in being anything other than calm about it or he would just go mad.

Back then, unaware that he was probably already dealing with a major tragedy, he had lost his temper and shouted down the phone.

“In that case I won’t send her any more checks. I’m sure you’re well able to take care of your family, a big man like you—”

Marshall had slammed the phone down on him. Mac didn’t try again. Instead he cursed himself. He really had done a good job of trying to mend bridges. A really good job.

He had not attempted to contact his daughter’s family again until her birthday in May. Once again he sent a card and a check for a thousand pounds. Once again he waited hopefully to hear anything from her. Once again he heard nothing yet once again the check was cleared.