The Low Road (9 page)

“Not much,” he began. He was not offered a drink. She didn't indicate a chair. Seeing that this was the way of it, he gave his account of the trip to Glasgow as though he was in the witness stand.

“He did his thirty days. Was released. A reporter at the
Herald
told me she'd heard there are people looking for Jimmy. She doesn't know who, but she's investigating.” He refrained from lighting a cigarette, even though he needed one. This was not a friendly meeting; this was an interview.

“A man I knew as a boy came looking for me to warn me off,” McAllister continued.

That made Jenny look up. “And?”

“This man, he didn't mention Jimmy's name, ‘my friend' is what he said, and . . .”

“His name?”

“Gerry Dochery.”

Jenny was shaking her head, indicating she had never heard of him.

“He's well known, runs protection rackets, though sometimes he'll take a contract, so I was told, but I couldn't find out how, or if, he is connected to Jimmy.” He knew he wasn't being completely honest but then again, he was reasoning, Gerry Dochery only mentioned “my friend.”

“So,” Jenny said after taking a sip of a clear, peat-smelling drink, obviously an Islay malt. “So,” she said again slower this time, “what do we do now? Have you an idea where to look for him?” She knew that if Jimmy were hiding, he'd be hard to trace. If not impossible.

“Not really. Mary Ballantyne, the reporter at the
Herald,
she has a better chance than most of finding Jimmy.”

“Tell her there's some money in it for her.”

“I don't think that will make a difference. Mary is in it . . .”

“For herself.”

He'd meant her career. But maybe “herself” was more honest.

Jenny sighed. “Aye, a woman needs to be tough to get on in a man's world.” She was looking into the depths of her glass as though it held the secret to her son's whereabouts. Then looking at him with her black-currant eyes, she said, “But you'll help this Mary woman when you're back down to the city to find ma Jimmy.”

“I've a newspaper to run and family to . . .”

“Mr. McAllister, the McPhee family befriended you. If Jimmy needs you, you'll be there.” This was said not as a threat, just a certainty. Friendship with a non-Traveler was not given lightly—if ever. “And your Joanne, she'll recover.” This too was said with absolute certainty. “She's stronger than you think. She survived thon no-good husband o' hers, didn't she? Kicked him out? That
lass has spirit.” Jenny was waving his concerns away in a gesture that, not for the first time, made McAllister marvel at her resemblance to the Queen Mother. She continued, “And didn't Donal McLeod run the newspaper for years before you came up here wi' your fancy new ways? You owe us, McAllister. Go to Glasgow. Find our Jimmy.”

“I'm sorry. I can't. Joanne . . . I can't leave her.” He met her stare. And shivered. For all the legends and gossip about this woman, Jenny McPhee, head of her clan, rumored to have the second sight, also rumored to be a witch, he had seen only her courage, her fortitude. Never before had he felt someone look right through him to the bone, and look away, leaving him feeling he had failed the inspection.

“So be it,” she said, “but if you change your mind . . .”

“I can't.”

Walking down the pathway to his house McAllister felt light-headed, and for once it was not whisky. He had been shaken by the way Jenny had gazed, seemingly into the depth of his being. And a suspicion was sprouting; there was more to Jimmy's disappearance than she was telling, and if she didn't want him to know what or why he was in trouble, he would never find out.

The sound of recorded voices and canned laughter came down the hallway from the dining room, now the girls' domain. The dining table had disappeared under the spread of artwork, pots of poster paint, paintbrushes, crayons, fabric, pots of glue, and red lentils. The television on top of the china cabinet, which now housed Jean's dolls, was on, the volume loud.

McAllister asked, “Done your homework?”

“I don't have any,” Jean replied. “I'm too young.” She turned back to the obviously American show that had her mesmerized.

Annie looked up from rug, where she was sprawled with the journal from Glasgow open on the floor. She had a pen in one
hand, and with the left arm she was shielding the page, anxious that, even at across the large room, he might read her writing.

“Mum's upstairs. She wanted a lie-down,” Annie told him.

He went to the kitchen, made tea, took a cup upstairs to Joanne.

“Knock, knock,” he said to the half-open door. But when he went in, she was asleep. Her fear of the dark often made her sit up all night, lights illuminating every nook and cranny of the house. But the summer nights were a scant five hours long.
Thankfully
, he thought. The doctor, on a home visit, had said when McAllister mentioned this, “Give her time.” So he did. But it distressed him nonetheless.

He put the cup down on the bedside table and leaned down to touch her hair. She didn't stir. He watched her sleeping. She looked herself when asleep; that was the Joanne he wanted back so badly, it was an ache in his chest. He felt powerless. And most of all he felt trapped. He was certain he could not live the rest of his life with an invalid.
Too selfish, too stuck in my ways, too used to living life to suit myself, too old to change,
he admitted to himself. Yet he knew he would never abandon her.

He went downstairs and made cocoa for the girls.

They went to bed themselves, Annie saying she would tell Jean a story. She hadn't told anyone and had sworn Jean to secrecy, but Annie was writing stories, trying them out on her sister, and if her sister stayed awake until the end of the tale, she would transcribe it into a notebook. From now on, she had decided, the best stories would go into her new journal.

It was mid-evening, and once again McAllister was alone with his whisky and a book. He was reluctant to put on a record, half listening for Joanne, half worried she might have a nightmare and he might miss her cries.

He fell into a reverie; not a nightmare, not a dwam, more a
fantasy. He was back in the city, in a tall room with deep casement windows overlooking a square, much like Blythswood Square. There was the sound of a piano being played, Brahms, he fancied. There was a woman, indistinct yet familiar, the identity not yet revealed. He had a newspaper on his lap, a whisky in hand, and he was reading a page five in-depth analysis of some current topic, again not revealed, but he knew he had written it.

“Are you awake?”

The voice startled him.

Joanne was standing in the doorway, holding her arms around herself as though she was cold.

He smiled. “Come and sit down. Can I get you tea, a drink?”

“Later. First tell me about Jenny. How is she? Did you reassure her Jimmy can look after himself? Tell me all about it.”

Since the attack, and the possibility of brain damage not yet clear, he wasn't certain how much he should tell her. The specialist had warned that worry was bad for her. He'd told her that, and she had been furious.

“McAllister. I had a horrific experience. I was hit on the head, locked up in the dark, I nearly died, but I'm alive. And I'm very, very grateful. These spells I have, they will pass. I have to believe that.” She looked at him, and her eyes shone bright with the intensity of her resolve. “But one thing, McAllister: I always know when you try to hide bad news from me, and when you do, I'm scared it's about my health. All of you—you, the doctor, my mother-in-law—think it best to keep things from me, but it's not. I hate it.”

He smiled and nodded. “Sorry. I'll do my best.”

“Just treat me as though everything is normal . . . which it will be soon.”

Looking at her, at her ghostly skin, her wrist bones sharp knobs on stick-thin arms, the dark shadows under her eyes, and
the gingerly way she moved, he knew that was not possible. And the lapses in memory, the searching for simple words, the way she seemed unable to concentrate for more than half a minute on any simple task like reading the newspaper, that worried him most of all.

But he did as asked and told her of Jenny's concern that Jimmy hadn't returned home to prepare the horses for the Black Isle Show.

“And all you found out was that he did time in Barlinnie?” she asked when he finished.

He thought of lying, then remembered her plea. “No. A childhood friend came to see me at my mother's flat to warn me off.” He told her about Gerry Dochery, but not of his reputation, only saying he was a petty criminal. She seemed to believe him.

He finished by telling her his mother would come north for their wedding, and she seemed satisfied. And not once did he mention Mary Ballantyne.

“I'd love that cup of tea now,” she said. “And would you put on one of my new records?”

He selected Kenneth McKellar. He took the record out of the cover, put it on the turntable, and aligned the needle, letting it gently drop into the grooves. The young tenor's voice, sweet yet strong, floated across the room.

Ae fond kiss and then we sever,

Ae fareweel, alas, for ever  . . .

McAllister could not bear to hear any more. He fled to the kitchen and busied himself with the kettle, the teapot, and a plate of shortbread. No longer could he hear the melody, but the words, he knew them by heart.

Had we never loved sae kindly,

Had we never loved sae blindly,

Never met—or never parted,

We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

He rejoined Joanne in the sitting room to pass the evening chatting quietly, with long silences, mostly comfortable; Joanne had the knack of sitting, saying and doing nothing, seemingly content. He put on more music, the
Pastoral Symphony.
Anything but “Ae Fond Kiss.” And nothing more was said about tinkers or criminals or health. Or the future.

W
ednesdays at the
Gazette
were busy. Seldom frantically busy—this was a local newspaper in a small town—the stories were subbed, set by the typesetters picking out the type with tweezers, checked again by Don McLeod, reading upside down and back to front as easily as he did normal type. The spaces for the advertising and the articles set, there were sometimes gaps; these adjustments Don made on the stone. But not many changes; with over forty years' experience, he knew how much space a story would take with only an
and
or a
then
to be deleted or the font size of a headline changed. The
Gazette
would be published on time and, much to McAllister's chagrin, the most-read column was “Births, Deaths and Marriages,” or, in newspaper parlance, “Hatched, Matched and Dispatched.”

Between five o'clock and seven in the evening on deadline day, Don was up and down the stone stairs—the only exercise he ever took, several times an hour. He seldom answered the phone in the reporters' room—that had been Joanne's job. This afternoon, the phone wouldn't stop. He picked it up to shut it up. A voice yelled loud enough for him to hear even though the receiver was only halfway to his ear.

“McAllister, answer the bloody phone!”

“Now what would you be wanting with our esteemed editor?” Don asked. Rob McLean looked across the desk at Don and,
seeing his expression of part amusement, part exasperation, assumed it was someone they knew.

“It's bloody important.”

“And who might you be, Miss Important?”

“Mary Ballantyne, crime reporter,
Glasgow Herald
.”

“Wait a wee moment, Miss . . .”

McAllister walked into the room.

Don laid the receiver on the table. “It's yer girlfriend from Glasgow,” he said and slipped off his stool to go back down to the stone. He heard no protest at his joke. But he did catch a glimpse of McAllister's face.

He's looking guilty
, Don thought. And halfway down the stairs he was shaking his head, thinking,
For the love of the Wee Man, that's all we need.

Now Rob was curious, and was trying to listen in as McAllister took up the receiver.

“McAllister. Oh, hello. No. I haven't seen today's
Herald
. Really?” He listened intently as Mary told him the gist of the newspaper article. “And you're sure there's a connection between this man and Jimmy McPhee?” He listened for a minute more, then said, “Of course. I'll let her know. And Mary . . . be careful.” McAllister was not being condescending when he said this; the new development was disturbing.

Now Rob was really interested. Even though the editor's back was turned, Rob could feel the tension. “Bad news?” he asked.