A Suitable Lie Read online

  ‘Mum.’ I made a face and fought down a cringe. Here I was, the manager of a large part of a massive organization and with nothing more than a look my mother could have me behaving like a shy, thirteen-year-old.

  ‘Can’t a mother be pleased with her son?’ she asked, squaring her shoulders and looking around herself, taking in the counter and the team of staff working behind it. Her expression said, my son’s your boss and he’s done me very proud indeed.

  I often wondered what my mother would have made of her life if she’d had the same ambition for herself as she’d had for her sons. She had a bullet-eyed view of the world and an ability to assess what was going on around her that often left me feeling inadequate. Not that I agreed with her on every occasion, she was my parent after all, and a young man has to find his own way in the world.

  ‘I hear she’s a bit of a looker,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve been talking to Jim.’

  She hoisted her bag – a garish orange – into a more comfortable position on her shoulder. ‘At least he tells me stuff.’

  ‘Aye, well, Jim’s got a big mouth.’

  I understood Mum’s perspective. She was understandably curious. Anna was the first woman I’d shown more than a passing interest in since Patricia’s death four years before. But I wanted to be sure we had something before I introduced her to my family. And more importantly, before she met Pat.

  He often asked about his mum. He understood – as much as a child could – that his mother was ‘in heaven’ and he had recently begun to ask if he was going to get another one.

  Perhaps the answer to his question was in the fact that every moment away from Anna had my stomach twist with longing. It would have been easy to have her over at mine every night, ask her to stay till morning. But my sensible side kept reminding me that it had only been four weeks since we met. Who knew where this was going?

  Except I did know.

  From that moment on the wall down by the shore.

  Could I afford to fall in love again? My grief for Patricia had almost broken me and I was self-aware enough to know that part of me was holding back because I wasn’t sure I could go through that again. What if I let this love take over and I lost her as well? There wasn’t just me to think about this time.

  ‘This is more than a wee fling, isn’t it, son?’ My mother was studying my expression.

  ‘Haven’t you got a bowling match to prepare for?’

  She snorted, pleased she could still read me.

  ‘I knew that your father was the man for me on our second date.’

  ‘Yeah, I know all the stories, Mum.’

  ‘So, tomorrow night.’ Thursday was late opening at the branch. ‘When you come to collect Pat, bring whatsername…’

  ‘Anna.’

  ‘… with you. We’ll make it casual. A friend dropping by. It’ll be easier for Pat that way.’

  I nodded, seeing the sense of what she was saying. Plus – I was allowing myself to relax into the idea now – it meant I would get to see more of Anna. Trying to juggle her, the job and Pat was becoming increasingly difficult.

  The next evening, I picked Anna up from our other branch. Well, around the corner from our other branch. I wasn’t quite yet at the stage where I could allow my colleagues in on the secret.

  Anna sat in the passenger seat with a long, slow exhalation, followed by a deep breath and then a tight smile.

  ‘Hey, gorgeous,’ I said and leaned across to kiss her cheek. As my lips pressed against the cool of her skin I felt her face rise in a smile and caught the delicate heat and spice of her perfume. I read the sigh and the tight smile that welcomed me. ‘You’re not nervous are you?’

  She shifted in her seat and clicked her seatbelt into place. ‘Feel like I’m sixteen…’ she paused. Reflected. ‘No. Don’t think I was this nervous when I was sixteen.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘Mum’s great.’

  She raised an eyebrow, then reached across and patted my hand. ‘Just what you should say.’

  ‘She is. Honest.’ I took her hand and gave it a little squeeze. ‘She never comments on our girlfriends. Never judges.’ I studied the traffic, saw a space and moved into the stream of cars that flowed down Miller Road.

  Anna laughed. ‘She’s a mum. She’ll be judging.’

  ‘If she does, she’ll keep it to herself.’

  ‘Yeah. Well.’ Anna looked away from me, out of her window. ‘You’re a man. You guys miss all that stuff.’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘Reading between the lines.’ She turned back to me. ‘That’s where women communicate.’ She took another deep breath. Exhaled. ‘Anyway. How do I look?’

  ‘Fantastic.’ I took my hand from the gear stick and gave hers another squeeze. She had changed out of her bank uniform and was wearing black jeans and a bright-pink top. ‘And Mum loves colour, so you’ll fit right in there.’

  Anna pulled at the neck of her top. ‘Jesus,’ she laughed. ‘I can’t believe how nervous I feel. This is ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s also very cute. Makes me love you even more.’

  She pinked. ‘And that right there is the best thing you could have said, Andy Boyd.’ She picked my hand up to her lips and kissed the back of my fingers.

  Mum made lasagne for the adults and mince and potatoes for Pat. He was openly curious about Anna, hardly taking his eyes off her for the first ten minutes. Then he handed her one of his dinosaur toys, which was a clear sign of his approval.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Anna asked as she eyed the lump of plastic in her hand.

  ‘Let Anna eat her dinner in peace, Pat,’ said Mum.

  ‘Diplodocus,’ answered Pat, demonstrating that, no matter how much trouble kids had interpreting the world of adults, the Latinate name of a long-dead species was, quite literally, kids’ play.

  ‘Is he your favourite?’ asked Anna.

  Pat snorted. Looked over his shoulder at a box in the corner. His toys had all been tidied up before we came to the table and he was clearly itching to get back to play with them. ‘Velociraptor. He’s my favourite ’cos he’s small and fast.’

  ‘Just like you,’ I said and rubbed the top of his head, mussing his hair. He stuck his tongue out in response.

  Once we’d finished eating, Anna insisted on helping mum with the dishes.

  ‘Another woman in my kitchen?’ asked Mum with mock seriousness. ‘Cherish the thought.’ She smiled to show that was exactly what she meant. ‘Next time, for sure, Anna. This time, why don’t you take the easy way out and make the coffee?’

  ‘Deal,’ said Anna with a grin.

  Pat and I launched into the box of toys while the women went into the kitchen, no doubt to begin the dance in earnest. A few minutes later Anna emerged with a tray of cups and a cafetiere. She was wearing an expression that was half pleased, half harassed.

  I sent her a smile of enquiry. She smiled in reply. My male brain read that everything was fine. And this was confirmed a short time later when Mum pulled Pat onto her lap.

  ‘Why don’t you let this wee guy stay with me tonight?’ Mum asked. ‘Let you guys do some adult stuff.’

  I raised an eyebrow. Anna blushed.

  ‘Adult stuff?’ I asked.

  ‘Go to the pub. Go for a walk. A drive? Do something without this…’ She reached under Pat’s arms and give him a tickle. ‘… wee monster.’

  ‘Great idea.’ I stood up. Although Anna and I stole every moment we could together, we had rarely managed to spend a full night together. Waking up with her in bed beside me had so far been a rare treat during our short romance. ‘You okay with that?’ I asked Anna.

  She gave a coy nod to my mother and a smile to me that promised much.

  ‘Right.’ I rubbed my hands together. ‘Let’s get this Verocirictor into his bath.’

  ‘Velociraptor, silly,’ replied Pat.

  Between us, Mum and I wrestled Pat into the bathroom and out of his clothes. Once the bath was run, I
plunked Pat into the water and placed an enormous tower of bubbles onto the top of his head.

  I turned to leave the bathroom.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said. ‘I’ll pick him up on the way to work in the morning and take him to nursery.’

  She nodded and almost gave herself a wee hug, she looked that pleased to have him all to herself.

  ‘And don’t be spoiling him.’ I warned.

  She tutted. ‘Silly Daddy. That’s my job.’

  I gave her a look, wanting to know what she thought of Anna, but didn’t ask, knowing she tended to keep her own counsel.

  ‘Have fun, son,’ she said and got down on to her knees at the side of the bath. She studied me as if she wanted to say something. Then settled for, ‘But just take this for what it is, eh?’

  3

  Certainty that Anna was the woman for me arrived in a setting that would have had a film director purring. After a wedding meal for friends of mine at the Marine Highland Hotel in Troon, Anna and I went for a walk. With the fairways of the famous Troon golf course before us and the hills of Arran melting into the horizon, I steeled myself to ask the question.

  It was too soon.

  Was it too soon?

  What if she said no?

  The late-August sun painted the scant clouds above Goatfell a deep crimson. We stood in silence, Anna’s head resting on my shoulder as we enjoyed the calm after the happy tumult of the wedding. Anna looked up at me, her button nose begging for a kiss. I obliged. She giggled and rubbed the spot with the palm of her hand. A feeling settled over me, a cloth of silk floating to land on a cragged rock. Carefully I examined it.

  I had known plenty of moments of pure joy with Pat, but since Patricia’s death there was always something missing. The rough and blemished surface of my soul needed to be clothed in silk and colour. I needed a woman in my life.

  ‘You never talk about, Patricia,’ she said quietly, as if unsure of herself, and studied my expression for a reaction.

  ‘You’ve just thrown me from my…’ I looked into her eyes, trying to judge what was behind the question, and feeling somewhat deflated. ‘I was just about to…’

  ‘And now you’re deflecting me from my question,’ she said with a small smile. She stepped in front of me and held both of my hands. ‘I want to get to know you, Andy. And that means I need to know everything…’

  ‘But … I was just about to…’

  ‘I can handle the fact you were married before. We all have a past. You didn’t just appear in my life, fully formed as Prince Charming.’ The breeze lifted a lock of hair and gently left it in front of her right eye. She tucked it back in place, her gaze never leaving mine.

  ‘Prince?’ I snorted and resisted the urge to pretend to fart.

  ‘She must have been pretty special for you to fall in love with her.’

  ‘Well out of my league, actually.’ I leaned forward and kissed her lips. ‘Just like you.’

  ‘You don’t need to do that, Andy.’ Her eyes were full of understanding. ‘I’m not threatened by the thought of your dead wife. In fact I’m impressed at how you’ve dealt with it all and provided a lovely home for your wee boy.’

  ‘Yeah, Andy Boyd. Model father.’ I stepped to the side, and holding her right hand pulled her along with me as I walked towards the golf course that nudged onto the grounds of the hotel. Truth was I read the clear-eyed honesty in her remark and couldn’t handle the compliment.

  We came to a deep sand bunker and seeing that there was no golfers about, Anna removed her shoes and sat on the edge, trailing her toes in the cool of the sand.

  ‘Mind your dress,’ I said. ‘You’ll get dirty.’

  ‘It’s just a dress,’ she grinned and patted the turf. ‘Have a seat.’

  If she didn’t mind getting grass stains on her dress, I didn’t mind getting them on my suit, so I sat beside her. She sighed and rested her head on my shoulder.

  ‘This is lovely. Thanks for bringing me, Andy. Couldn’t have been easy to introduce me like that to all your friends.’

  ‘Strikes me that they’d better get used to you being around.’

  ‘Yeah?’ She poked at my thigh.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said and kissed the top of her head.

  We sat in silence for a time, enjoying the breeze, the stretch of grass and beach and the moment with each other.

  ‘I can’t imagine how tough that would have been. You get the wonderful gift of a beautiful boy and your wife dies at the same time. That would have pushed lots of guys into permanent residence in the local boozer.’

  ‘Aye. Hidden shallows me.’

  ‘Stop it,’ she said, admonishment light in her smile. ‘You’re fooling no one, Andy.’ She looked into my eyes, hers warmed through with empathy. ‘Died in childbirth.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor woman. That’s the kind of thing you don’t expect to hear nowadays.’

  ‘Patricia had a heart condition. She’d had it since childhood actually, but was determined she wouldn’t be defined by it, you know? Went ski-ing, horse-riding. All kinds of physical things that pushed at her limits.’ I smiled at the memory of her determination. Saw her in her parent’s kitchen arguing with her father that she would do whatever the hell she wanted. ‘Her parents tried to wrap her up in cotton-wool. God she hated all of that.’

  ‘I think I would have liked her,’ Anna said.

  ‘I don’t know anyone who had a bad word to say about her.’

  We sat silent for a moment.

  ‘Her heart?’ asked Anna. ‘Was that the…’

  I nodded. ‘The doctors advised that she shouldn’t get pregnant, that it would be too much for her.’

  ‘But she was determined to have a child?’

  ‘No, it was an accident. We’d kind of resigned ourselves, you know? We’d have each other and that would have to be enough.’ I shrugged. ‘And I was fine with that. Patricia was on the pill. I was lined up for a vasectomy…’

  ‘And she fell pregnant…’

  ‘Yeah. She had a tummy bug. Couldn’t keep anything down for about a week. And that was enough to let my wee swimmers in.’ My laugh was tinged with sadness as I remembered that was how she described it to my mum. ‘Patricia point blank refused any medical intervention. Her parents wanted her to have an abortion. They blamed me…’ I had a memory of her father at our front door, pleading with me to talk her out of having the baby, saying I was holding a gun to his daughter’s chest. ‘They were beside themselves with worry throughout the pregnancy.’

  ‘You can understand that, surely?’ Anna asked.

  I turned to her and saw the sparkle of a tear in the corner of her eye. I gave her hand a squeeze.

  ‘Course I do. I was scared too, but Patricia convinced me she could handle it. She sat staring at the photo of the first scan for hours. Pat was nothing but a dot, but you’d have thought she could see his wee face there.’

  Anna sniffed. Wiped a tear from her cheek. ‘Jesus, it’s heart-breaking.’

  ‘I think she knew…’ I turned to face Anna. I’d never articulated this thought to anyone before. Couldn’t trust myself to say the words out loud. ‘In fact, I’m sure she knew her heart couldn’t deal with the trauma of childbirth; it was as if she felt she was leaving something better behind, you know? She nearly died when she was a teenager and she felt that every moment after that was a bonus. And this baby was the biggest bonus of them all.’

  As I said the words, I felt the last piece of an easing. As if I had finally and fully put Patricia to rest.

  Anna sniffed again. ‘I don’t know if I could be that brave.’ She got to her feet. Wiped down the seat of her dress. ‘C’mon, let’s head back to the wedding.’ I stood and helped her get the grass off her dress.

  ‘Cheeky,’ she laughed as I touched her backside.

  Then, hand in hand we walked back to the hotel. I chose a rather sedate pace because I didn’t quite want the moment to be over and I still had an unanswered question to ask.

  ‘Anna.�
�� I turned to face her and held her slender fingers in mine. She looked up at me with a small question in her eyes and a smile that caused a catch in my throat and a tightening in my chest.

  Given what we’d just been talking about I wasn’t sure of my timing, but it was there, burning in my mind and heart and I had to spit it out.

  I couldn’t believe we had only met eight weeks before and yet in that instant I was never more sure of anything in my life.

  ‘Anna,’ I said, my voice quivering and barely audible.

  ‘Andy?’

  ‘We’re getting on really well, aren’t we?’

  She nodded; a question in her eyes.

  ‘You love Pat, don’t you?’

  ‘He’s a wee dreamboat.’

  ‘Would it be ok if I asked you something?’

  Her answering nod was slow. She too seemed caught up in the moment, her eyes wide with expectation.

  ‘Do you want to go inside? I’m freezing,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, Andy.’ She thumped my arm, turned and walked back towards the hotel.

  ‘Anna,’ I reached her in three easy steps. ‘I’m sorry, honey. I just got nervous there. But there really is something I want to ask you.’

  ‘Yes?’ she looked up at me, suspicion shrinking her eyes.

  ‘I want to ask you…’ I licked my lips. ‘I mean, what I want to say is…’Anna said nothing, she merely looked up at me with an unreadable expression.

  ‘Well, what I want to ask you is…’ Shit, I really was nervous. ‘You and me are getting on really well. Really well. And I was wondering…’ For Christ’s sake just say it, man. ‘How do you fancy getting hitched?’

  Anna turned and walked away.

  I was stunned.

  ‘Anna?’ I caught up with her again.

  She turned and smiled and thumped my arm again. ‘Gotcha.’

  The stag was held two weeks before the wedding. The two-week hiatus supposedly to give me time to recover from whatever tricks the lads would play on me. Having participated in the humiliations of a few of my friends over the years I thought two weeks would be just about enough.