‘I’m a lousy dad, and I’m ashamed of it.
‘That’s not what my daughter would tell you, and I don’t imagine that my younger children would either, if you were to put the question to them. But it’s what I believe.
‘Jesus, what have I just said? How self-revelatory is that? I called Alex, “my daughter”, as if I had only one, yet I have two. Seonaid’s approaching the age that her half-sister was when Myra’s car hit that tree. When that happened, afterwards I was consumed by the need to care for Alexis. My employer, the police force, understood completely; my bosses went out of their way to ensure that my shifts were synchronised with the hours of my childcarers, even though I was in CID, at the sharp end. They told me that they wanted to keep me, and that they’d do whatever it took to make things work. But it wasn’t easy. I was demanding of the people looking after my kid, and a few of them bit the dust. It reached the point when I was considering walking away from the job, but just then we found the perfect woman to take care of Alex. Daisy was an artist, and she lived in the village, so her career dovetailed perfectly with mine, and everything was sorted. I was able to do a proper job as a police officer and be a responsible loving dad at the same time, and Alex and I made it all the way through as a family unit until she flew the nest and went off to university in Glasgow.
‘I look back on that now, and I ask myself, “Skinner, how selfish was that?”
‘For I had an option all along: my old man was a successful solicitor in a prosperous town. He was the founder and head of a law practice that could easily have accommodated me while I finished a law degree, and would have given me a job for life afterwards. The firm would have become mine. That route was open to me at every point in my young adult life. I could have taken it whenever I chose, moved back to Motherwell, studied, and then put in a conventional working day that would have let me spend as much time with my kid as other dads did. Mr Skinner junior, man about town, director of the football club, member of Bothwell Castle Golf Club, Rotarian, all that conventional stuff that we need people to do to make the respectable world turn. Would it have harmed me as a person? No. Would it have been better for Alex? Yes.
‘But you know that I didn’t. No, I stayed put in Gullane and I would not be moved from the cottage that in truth had been Myra’s more than it had been mine. I stayed in the force and with Daisy Mears’ help I climbed that fucking ladder. . as relentless and ruthless as folk will tell you I was. In other words, I put my career before the best interests of my lovely wee daughter. I was a hands-on cop; I was famous for never holding back. And no kidding; there were times when if things had gone wrong, Alex might have been an orphan.
‘I’m not proud of that, any of it. I’m not proud of the fact that I haven’t learned either. Did you hear me just now? It was as if I was ignoring Seonaid’s very existence. I have a second family, and I love them, yet it feels as if they’re on the periphery of my life, in a great big bubble. I can see them, touch them, be with them, but somehow they’re not real. . apart from James Andrew that is, apart from the Jazz man.
‘He’s my firstborn son, and in my macho mind that makes him special. Mark, though, he’s more like my charge, my ward. . which he is in a way, I suppose being adopted. And Seonaid, she’s lovely, just lovely, but she’s like a wee doll, and I just can’t relate to her, because I don’t know how to, I’ve forgotten how to, because my second family has become almost entirely subordinate to my job. Just like my third marriage is, and ours was, only now I’m married to a woman who seems to have the same crap priorities as I do.’
‘Wow,’ she said. ‘And all I asked was what was on your mind.’
I gazed at her.
‘I haven’t learned a fucking thing, have I, Sarah?’
She gazed back at me across the breakfast bar in her brand new kitchen, in her brand new old stone house. Two plates lay between us, each one cleaned of all but a few strands of dark fried onion, and a couple of smears of mustard. Her elbows were on the dark wood surface and her hands were cupped around a crystal tumbler, half filled with clear sparkling water.
‘Not a fucking thing,’ she agreed. ‘But you’re not a lousy dad. You’ve just described most of the men in this country; job first, family second. Overall, in terms of your contribution to parenting, I’d say you were ahead of the game. What about me? I’m a career mom, always have been, always will be; that’s my choice. Do I beat myself up over it? The hell I do.’
She took a mouthful from her glass then set it down. ‘As for differentiating between your two daughters, I see it, but I can understand it. It doesn’t rile me, even though I’m Seonaid’s mother. I can put your past behind me, Bob, even if you can’t.’ She let her point sink in, before continuing.
‘Alex is an adult now, and she’s been part of your life for the best part of the last thirty years. By the way, you go ask her whether she’d rather have been brought up by a lawyer in Lanarkshire or by a cop in one of the nicest places in Scotland and see what she tells you. Our Seonaid, she’s just past being a toddler. If anyone who didn’t know you saw you, Alex and her in the street they would assume that she was Alex’s kid, your grandchild, not yours, your daughter. But what they would see, and they’d be right about, is that you love her like crazy, and if you haven’t learned yet to relate to her in the same way you do to her sister, then that is no big deal to me.’
‘And my marriage?’ I said. ‘That’s all perfectly normal and understandable as well, is it?’
‘Now that,’ she replied, ‘I cannot say. I’m not part of it. You have to work that one out for yourself.’
I whistled, and took a sip of the red that I’d brought for my own consumption, although I hadn’t planned on drinking more than a glass. ‘At the moment, that’s a hell of a lot easier said than done. I wouldn’t know how to begin, that’s my problem. Give me a clue.’
‘I’m a bad person to ask,’ she warned. ‘I don’t like the lady; I never have, and I never will.’
‘Nevertheless, you’re honest.’
She smiled, in a way that I hadn’t seen for a while. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said. ‘Okay. Describe your marriage to Myra, in one word.’
‘Passionate,’ I replied instantly.
‘Beyond doubt,’ she agreed. ‘Now describe ours.’
I had to think about that, but not for too long. ‘Volatile,’ I replied.
‘Agreed. Now describe your marriage to Aileen in one word.’
That took me much longer. Eventually I murmured, ‘Sanitised.’
She nodded. ‘I think I get your drift. Everything clean and stainless steel, all the forks and knives in their own section of the drawer.’
‘That’s it.’
‘And now it’s been pulled out and the cutlery’s all over the kitchen floor.’
I chuckled softly. ‘You could say that.’
‘I just did. But the thing is, do you prefer it that way? Would you rather have it chaotic than neat and ordered?’
‘I. .’ I hesitated.
‘You don’t need to answer that one, honey,’ she told me. ‘You can’t do neat and ordered. It’s not how you are. You might have been repressed for most of your childhood, but once you broke out there was never any going back.’
She picked up the crystal and took another drink; I saw that her hand was trembling slightly. ‘From what I know of Aileen, she must,’ her forehead wrinkled, as she leaned on the word, ‘have everything neat and ordered, including you. Ah, but now she’s discovered that she can’t bend you to her way. .
‘Fuck me, Bob,’ she exclaimed; her change of tone startled me, ‘isn’t it obvious? The woman’s the leader of a political party, she’s led the country for Christ’s sake! She’s a fucking dominatrix, but you, my man, will never be dominated.’
She paused. ‘You shouldn’t have got me started on this,’ she warned. ‘You thought you had this nice new family unit, with wild, unpredictable Sarah three thousand miles away, and the kids loved and looked after by new step-mommy. Well, do you know what? None of our children have ever mentioned the woman to me, not once. The only mother figure they ever talk about is Trish. With the boys, that might just be sensitivity, but not with Seonaid. She prattles on about everything that happens around her in Gullane, and she only ever mentions you, her carer and occasionally, Alex. . although I reckon she thinks she’s her aunt. That’s what I resent most about Aileen, Bob, not the fact that she lured you away from me with smooth talk, sympathy and some probably indifferent sex; none of that matters alongside the fact that she’s my children’s stepmother and she doesn’t care about them! She doesn’t fucking care!’
She was glaring at me, a tear tracking down each cheek. ‘Shit,’ she shouted. ‘Get me a proper glass and give me some of that fucking wine, will you.’
I fetched another goblet from the kitchen cabinet from which I’d seen her take mine. ‘You sure about this?’ I asked, holding the bottle poised.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I’m very sure.’ I poured a large measure of the robust red from Oregon that I’d spotted in Waitrose and bought because I like West Coast American wines, preferably from north of California. I made to set it in front of her but she shook her head. ‘Not here; living room. There I can turn the lights down. . for no other reason,’ she added, ‘than because I look a mess.’
Actually she didn’t. Sarah doesn’t cry very often but when she lets go, it makes her look angry, and gives her eyes a light that’s anything but weak. I followed her through to her living room, carrying my glass and hers, with the bottle jammed under my arm. She’d given up on the Vichy Catalan. We didn’t need to turn on any lights, far less turn them down; there was still enough outside to give us all we needed. She flopped down on to a big brown suede couch and motioned me to join her. I handed her the plonk and she killed half of it in a single swallow. She held the glass at arm’s length, peered at it, and nodded approval. Then she picked up the bottle and poured us each some more.
‘You and I were having bother long before Aileen came along,’ I pointed out, quietly.
‘Sure,’ she agreed. ‘Mutually inflicted, I think you’ll agree.’ I couldn’t argue otherwise.
‘And pretty obvious to all and sundry,’ she continued, ‘most of all her. You were a sucker for those doe eyes and that gentle but firm demeanour. And so was I for the equivalent, I’ll grant you.’ She looked at me, sideways. The tears had gone. ‘We were pretty fucked up then, weren’t we?’
I sank back into the soft upholstery and gazed at the ceiling. ‘Sarah, I’ve been fucked up for years,’ I admitted. ‘I had all sorts of things inside me, but I kept them all bottled up; you know that.’
‘Yeah,’ she whispered. ‘And I wasn’t there for you when it got too much, but she was. So I have nobody to blame but me, have I?’
‘Blame,’ I repeated her word. ‘Blame, blame, blame. Why are we so concerned about blame, all of us? Why don’t we allow ourselves our faults, our imperfections? We’ve all got them.’
I didn’t see her smile, but I sensed it in her voice. ‘That you should say so. You’ve spent your life fighting against yours.’
‘Oh yes? And what are they?’
‘All the things that make you strong,’ she replied, cryptically.
I drained my glass and shared the rest of the bottle between us. ‘What am I going to do, Sarah?’ I asked, as night fell in her living room.
‘About being a lousy dad? Nothing, ’cos you ain’t one. About fighting for what you believe in? Same as you always have done. March forward into the shell-fire and go down in a blaze of glory, if that’s what it comes to. About your marriage? That’s not for me to say, but you must stop feeling fucked up, because you aren’t, not any more. The way I see it, your confidence has been undermined, but you could never admit that, not even to yourself. You used to have nice long thick hair, Samson, even if it was grey, but you’ve been shorn. You can still see what’s happening around you though, and those locks will grow in again.’
‘That’s very biblical,’ I murmured. ‘Need I ask who you’ve cast as Delilah?’
‘No, you need not. Can I ask you something?’
‘And if I said no?’
‘Indeed,’ she chuckled. ‘Bob, you always fought against the idea of being chief constable even when Jimmy Proud tried to talk you into it. You were afraid it would sideline you as a cop. What made you change your mind? Or was it a who?’
‘It was a few people, a few things said; but finally,’ I conceded, ‘it came down to one person.’
‘But it hasn’t sidelined you, has it? Not like it was supposed to.’
‘No.’ I stopped her before she got to where she was headed. ‘It’s a mess, Sarah, isn’t it?’
‘You’re an expert in those, honey. You’ll get by.’ She turned to look at me and her eyes were bright. ‘I’ll promise you one thing. Before, when you needed me, I wasn’t there for you. Well, I’m here right now.’
I leaned towards her and kissed her, and that’s when I knew I was in real trouble.