Иэн Рэнкин - The Flood

‘I told you that you must trust me and not believe anything Robbie tells you. You’ve got to believe what I’m telling you now. Robbie is fed up with me. He’s fed up of having to go out begging. He knows that it’s me that brings in the money anyway. He’s started to sell me, Sandy.’ Her voice faded to nothing for a second. She coughed again, swallowed, and continued. ‘I’ve got to do things for money, you know, with men. Nothing really serious. But it’s horrible.’ Her voice became a whisper, like a ghost in his burning ear. ‘Robbie makes me give him the money. It saves him having to do any work himself, you see. That man in the alley... You almost... Well, you know.’

I don’t really know, Rian, he wanted to say. Tell me. Tell me. He was ashamed of his grown erection, but there was disgust in his heart. Beer and pie and fruit churned uneasily in his stomach.

‘It’s not anything too serious yet, but I’m afraid. We had to leave the camp, you know. It was because our Auntie Kitty wanted to use me for much the same thing, I think. I’m not sure now. But Robbie still goes to see her. I think she’s poisoned his mind against me. Oh, Sandy...’ Tears glimmered in her lashes, but would not fall. ‘I don’t know what to do. Robbie’s all I’ve got. Don’t tell him I told you. Please don’t. But I had to tell you. I had to. I love you, Sandy.’ She looked at him and sniffled.

Sandy was staring hard at the beach where two gulls fought over a scrap of food. He was thinking back to his evenings in the mansion. It did not seem to fit. Hadn’t Robbie been the one who looked scared? Hadn’t Rian seemed the strong one? Robbie had been quite good to him, had said things. He could not think straight. Sandy thought that it must be after five. The film would be coming out. He had to catch the bus. His mother. His friends. What about Robbie?

‘What about Robbie?’ he said.

‘What time is it?’ she asked. He shrugged his shoulders. Easily, she slid from the sea-wall and walked coyly over to a strolling man, who told her the time with a leer. Sandy examined her, this girlfriend of his. He realised that he had not the power to make her truly his, that any decision would be hers and hers alone. He shrugged off the knowledge, but felt wounded by it all the same.

‘It’s just five o’clock,’ she said. ‘I suppose I should go and get Robbie.’

They walked along the esplanade together, their bodies about a foot apart, their arms dangling close to each other.

They spoke little. He left her near the snooker hall and walked back along the esplanade towards the bus stop. He went into an amusement arcade and was asked by the proprietor if he could prove his age.

‘I’m just past eighteen,’ he protested.

‘Well, you don’t look it, son. If you don’t have any means of proving your age then you’ll have to go.’

‘But I got served at the Harbour Tavern!’

He found himself astonished and back on the pavement. Seagulls laughed overhead. He glared at them as they swerved high in their inviolable space. He would build wings and swoop up beside them, grabbing with nimble hands and throttling them into his sack. Nobody would laugh at him then.

Colin, Clark and Mark were unmistakable, even against the low and orange sun. They were coming down from the High Street like spent gunslingers. Sandy walked towards them.

‘Hello, Sandy. What was the film like?’ asked Colin before Sandy could ask him the same question. ‘Did you get in?’ It took a second for the truth to dawn on Sandy.

‘Of course I did,’ he said. ‘Where were you lot?’

‘We didn’t get in. Not old enough,’ said Colin, while Mark and Clark asked Sandy for details. The four young boys, nearly men but not quite accepted as such, walked with hands in pockets towards a revving bus, Sandy lying to his friends gloriously about a film he had just not seen.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Mary. She was sobbing. Her blouse was disarranged. She plucked fibres of wool out of the travel-rug. Andy rubbed his hair, scratching at the scalp. He sighed.

‘No, I’m sorry, Mary,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t even have tried. I apologise. I don’t know... the wine and everything. I just felt, well, I’m sorry.’

Mary’s sobbing increased. She shook her head violently.

‘No, no, no,’ she said, ‘it’s not you. It’s me. Me. I’m to blame. But you’ve got to listen to me, Andy. I don’t want to talk about it, but you must listen.’

Andy lay back. The sun was low over the hills. They seemed so very far away from everyone and everything. Yet it had not happened. He had planned it all to perfection, but Mary had not allowed it to happen. He felt embarrassment more than anything else. He had timed everything so well. The second bottle of wine had been finished. Mary had been lying on her back with her eyes closed. A light breeze had curled around the rock, wafting over her face, drawing fine strands of silver hair across her eyes. Andy had bent low over her and kissed her neck, then her chin, then her ready mouth. He had slid down beside her and held her in his arms. Finally, and a long time later it was, she had panicked and pushed him away, gasping. She had sat upright and rigid. She had begun to weep.

Now she summoned up the courage to speak.

‘Andy,’ she said, ‘I’ve not slept with a man for over sixteen years.’ She was still pulling fibres out of the travel-rug. Andy watched her fingers as they slashed at the wool. ‘In fact, since the night... the night Sandy was... was conceived. I’ve slept with no man since that night.’ She looked up at him. Her eyes were difficult to interpret, melting yet defiant. ‘I’m frightened, that’s all. I need time. Please give me time.’ These words were evenly spaced by slight pauses, as if she were rehearsing a speech. Andy’s eyes were on hers as she spoke, but she closed her eyes suddenly as if fatigued. A single tear pushed from her eye like a chick escaping from its shell and wriggled its way down her cheek.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked softly. She shook her head. He wanted to press the point, but could not. She lay in his arms and slumbered until the sun fell away from the earth and the evening grew too cool for human sleep. It was time to return home.

The elderly man, hands dumped in his pockets as if stitched to the material, spat on to his favourite spot of pavement and watched the boy through slanted eyes. He had just left the bookmaker’s, having lost a couple of crucial pounds, and was now, in his eternal bitterness, confronted by the memory of his only son’s tragic death. He watched closely as the boy jauntily walked down from the direction of Cardell towards him. He curved his hands into taut fists. He was old perhaps, but there was strength in his heart for hatred, and hatred was what he felt for the boy and the whore of a witch who was his mother.

Sandy came to the low wall around one of the elderly persons’ bungalows. He hoisted himself on to it and, dangling his legs, thought about Rian and her cryptic words to him. Could he believe her? And if he did, what more was she hiding from him?

The sun was shining again, and there was even sceptical talk in the town of a drought. Sandy looked across the road to where the fruit shop sat. He had no money today for fruit. A small foreign car slowed as it near him. It stopped. The window was rolled down slowly and a voice called him over to the car. A bearded but young man craned his head out of the window as far as his seat-belt would allow. His blue eyes glistened. Sandy could not meet their intensity. He looked casually off into the distance as he crouched beside the yellow car. He saw an old man’s figure hunched outside the betting shop. He knew who that man was. His eyes found their only shelter on the mottled tarmac of the pavement.