My brother and his family stayed in Edinburgh’s millionaires’ row. A house round here was said to have set you back the best part of three mill until recently. After the banks crashed and demand plummeted, it wiped a third off the valuation. As I reached their home, I checked for any signs of movement. I rolled down the car window and sparked up a Marlboro. Got about two drags in when I saw a bloke appear from round the side of the house, dragging a wheelie bin behind him. He looked about six-two, early twenties, with a shaved head and broad shoulders. He clocked me sitting in the motor and frowned. I got out.
‘I can help you?’ He had an Eastern European accent. We had so many in the city now that it was hardly worth noting.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ I said.
‘What?’
I nodded to the house. ‘That’s my brother’s place… What are you doing there?’
He scrunched his brow at me and turned away. I followed him up the path, saw he had a bit of a limp. He turned back to look at me twice in quick succession before he speeded to a hop, got to the gate and slammed it behind him.
I tried the handle — it held fast. ‘Hey, open up.’ I banged on the gate, yelled at him, ‘Get back here.’
As I stared through the slats, Jayne appeared in her dressing gown. She hovered on the back step for a moment, then bawled: ‘Who’s there?’
I set her right: ‘Jayne… Jayne. It’s me — Gus.’
She dipped her head, ran down the path and opened the gate. ‘Gus, what are you doing here?’
Now I wondered if I should have left this to Fitz, fought the urge to hug her, smiled. ‘I think we should go inside.’
The kitchen was vast. A huge oak table in the corner overflowed with plates and cups. The stranger was emptying the dishwasher. I squinted, nodded in his direction.
Jayne said, ‘That’s Vilem… He’s our lodger.’
The bloke barely acknowledged me, save a slight once-over in my direction. His manner noised me up. ‘You’ve got a lodger… Since when?’
Jayne sat down at the table, took a cigarette from a pack of Consulate menthols, lit it. She hadn’t smoked for years, since Alice was born. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, these are straitened times, Gus.’
Sitting in this house, in this area, it was the last thing I expected to hear. Vilem clattered the dishwasher closed, flicked a switch and gave me one more long stare before limping out the door. I kept my tone low. ‘A lodger, Jayne. Are you in that much strife?’
She peered over a cloud of grey smoke, didn’t look like answering the question. ‘We’re just helping Vilem out — he works at the factory… Nice as it is to see you, Gus, I don’t think you’ve come over here to talk about the state of our finances.’
My mind hazed over. I knew why I was there, but had I dreamt it all? I felt my heart slump with the thought of Michael. I tried to lock down my emotions. I took out a chair, sat opposite Jayne. ‘Where’s Alice?’
‘Bed — a late night.’
‘Doesn’t she have school to go to?’
Jayne laughed; sharp radial lines creased the sides of her eyes. I hadn’t seen them before. Age was catching up with all of us. ‘School and Alice are not, shall we say, getting along right now.’ She went to the sink to flick off her ash, checked the cupboard, said, ‘Bugger it, he’s washed all the ashtrays.’
She returned with a saucer in her hand. I looked at her with my mouth open, desperately trying to summon words, any words. How did I break this to her? She seemed to be on edge as it was. I felt my neck seize with tension. The Grouse bottle in my pocket pressed on my hip. ‘Jayne, I have some news for you and, well, I think you might want to wake Alice.’
‘What news?’
My mouth dried over. I touched the back of my teeth with my tongue — it made an embarrassing clacking noise. ‘I, eh…’
‘Well, come on then.’
I opened the top button on my Crombie, then the others. ‘God, it’s so hot in here.’
‘What is it you have to tell me, Gus?’
I felt my brow lifting, my jaw clench. I didn’t want to utter the words. But there was nothing I could do to lessen the blow: she had to know.
‘Last night I got a call from the police…’
‘Police.’
I nodded. ‘They took me down to the station. Michael had been in some kind of a confrontation.’
Jayne stalled with the cigarette midway to her mouth. ‘Confrontation? Oh, my God, he didn’t come home… I thought he’d stayed at the office.’
I started up again; my lips trembled over the words. ‘The police thought it might be better you hearing it from me. I’m sorry, Jayne, but… There was a gun fired and Michael was shot.’
She remained perfectly still. ‘Shot…’ She stood up — she actually smiled, like this was all a joke. ‘Where is he?’
I went round to her side of the table and put my hands on her shoulders. ‘Come on, Jayne… sit down.’ I placed her in the seat. Her face was immobile. ‘I’m sorry, I wish I didn’t have to tell you this but… he’s gone.’
All blood drained from her features. She jerked away from me. ‘Gone?’
‘Jayne, I’m sorry… Michael’s been murdered.’
Her eyes remained fixed on the middle distance, somewhere behind me, beyond the oak table. I tried to read her, then came a clatter of noise from behind us; her eyes sprang to life.
I turned to see Alice running out the back door.
‘Alice! Alice!’ wailed Jayne. She jumped up to see out the window, then squeezed her face in her hands. ‘Oh, God, she heard every word…’
I watched as Jayne took off after Alice. She didn’t get far, but wouldn’t have made any kind of escape anyway, thanks to the footprints she was leaving in the snow. Jayne chased her to the edge of the street, where they both fell to the ground. They wrestled for a brief moment before Alice grabbed out to her mother and they held each other. As they started to sob, I looked away.
When they returned to the house I saw their eyes damp with tears, the edges of their noses red with cold.
‘Alice, you okay?’ I said. It was a lame remark. She ignored me, held her mother.
I rubbed her back with my hand. ‘I’m sorry, Alice.’
She sobbed deeply, cries that came from a part of her that was too remote to reach with any words.
I looked out to the snow-covered street, tried to imagine myself somewhere far beyond the rooftops. Nothing felt real any more. Christ, what had happened here? How did everything go from being so normal to so fucked up?
Jayne stroked Alice’s hair. They were both bubbling with tears as they sat down on the sofa in the living room. In the open doorway, the lodger appeared. Something inside me wanted to give him a slap and say, ‘This is family business.’ But I let it slide, closed the door on him.
Jayne took a blanket from the shelf in the bay window, wrapped it around her daughter. She watched her shiver for a moment then started to stroke her hair again. She turned to me, put pleading eyes on me. I nodded, said, ‘She’ll be fine.’
Jayne said, ‘Come on, let’s get those Uggs off… Look, they’re soaked.’ She pulled at her boots and then the pair fell into each other again and hugged.
As the full realisation of the news I’d brought them hit in, I saw the misery they felt. I couldn’t watch. I eased out of the room, went through to the hall. I wandered over to a table by the window. A pile of letters beside the phone drew my eye. I picked them up, bills mostly. Gas, leccy, council tax. It took just a glance inside to see they were all printed in red. I looked up to the ceiling, sighed. Michael’s house was just as I remembered it: if he’d been feeling the pinch, it didn’t show. There was even a new plasma through in the living room. But then, maybe that was the problem: maintaining a lifestyle without the income to back it up.
As I put the letters back music started playing upstairs — bloody Lily Allen, same track that had been on heavy rotation all over. I followed the tune to what I presumed must be the new lodger’s room. I wondered about
