Duplicity (7 page)

‘Will I like it in Aberdeen?’ Sean had asked. ‘Maybe I’d better stay here with you and Gran.’

He had felt his heart lift then, but said, ‘What about your mum and dad, though? They’d miss you, and you’d soon be wanting to see them again, and Susan. No, son, you’ll like Aberdeen and you’ll forget all about Yarmouth in a short time.’ And about your grandad, had come the sobering thought.

He watched Sean shifting his position in his sleep. He was now lying with his feet against his grandfather’s leg, his head against the side of the carriage, one hand dangling over the edge of the seat and the other flung across his forehead. He looked so sweet and defenceless that Arthur had to restrain himself from grasping him up in his arms, and had to swallow several times to get rid of the lump in his throat. Knocking his pipe out in the ashtray, he put his feet up on the seat opposite.

No one else had come into the carriage - probably worried that the boy would be noisy when he woke up; but his Sean was never noisy. Well, not all that much. He fell asleep himself eventually, vaguely aware of the station noise at York, but the next time he surfaced was in Newcastle.

It was daylight now and he took a newspaper from his pocket. It was yesterday’s news, bought before they’d boarded the train in London. But it would occupy his mind and turn his thoughts away from the parting that had to come. He dozed again after a while, and in no time, it seemed, they were in Edinburgh, the milk churns clanking and a magazine trolley rattling alongside the window.

Sean sat straight up, wide awake at once. That was the best of being so young, there was no land of in-between, when the worries and anxieties of the day, forgotten in sleep, came crowding back to haunt you. ‘Is it Scotland yet, Grandad?’

‘Yes, son, this is Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.’

‘I’ll soon be seeing the mountains, then, and that’s two capitals I’ve seen, because when we were in London, you said that was the capital of England.’

‘That’s right. You’re a clever one, fancy remembering that. You’ll get on just great at your new school, I’m sure.’

Sean looked thoughtful. ‘I wonder what my new school will be like? Do the people in Aberdeen speak a different language, Grandad?’

‘You’ll think so until you get used to them.’

‘Will they laugh at me for the way I speak?’

‘I don’t think they’ll laugh, but they’ll likely find it difficult to understand what you’re saying.’

‘Why will they? I don’t speak funny.’

‘It’ll sound funny to them, though, Sean.’

The small lips pouted for a second. ‘I don’t think I’m going to like it in Aberdeen, Grandad. Can’t I go home to Yarmouth with you to live?’

Arthur was secretly pleased - there was nothing he’d like more - but shook his head. ‘You can’t do that, son. Anyway, you’re not going to be living right in Aberdeen. Your new house is more than twenty miles north of that.’

The guard blew his whistle, the train left Waverley Station and, after the scary journey through the tunnel, they could see the scenery again. With the quicksilver change of childhood, Sean forgot his qualms about the new life ahead of him.

‘Is that a mountain, Grandad?’ he asked in great excitement. He was pointing to the Castle, on its pedestal of volcanic rock.

‘Not really, but we’ll see one soon.’ Arthur stood up and took the duffel bag from the luggage rack. ‘Your Gran put something in here for us to eat. What say we have some breakfast?’

‘Ooh, yes, please, Grandad, but I’ll have to go to the toilet first.’

How could he have forgotten the most important of the boy’s needs, Arthur chided himself, recognising the same need in himself now. ‘Right, then, off we go.’ He hoped that the toilet would be free, or if it wasn’t, that they wouldn’t have long to wait until it was. Thankfully, most of the passengers had been up and about earlier, and they just had to wait a few minutes. Luckily, the Forth Bridge caused a diversion, as Arthur had told Sean just the week before that when he had travelled home from Aberdeen during the war, all the passengers had thrown pennies over the bridge for luck. So he dipped into his trouser pocket, took out a handful of small change and selected a penny for the boy to throw from the open window of the nearest carriage. ‘It only brings good luck,’ he instructed, ‘if it goes into the water.’ Unfortunately, the coin landed at the edge of the bridge, but bounced over the side and splashed into the river far below. Arthur wondered if Sean would worry about it not going straight into the water, but he seemed to be quite happy with his throw.

Back in their seats, Sean eagerly opened the duffel bag and pulled out a plastic container. ‘What’s in here?’

Soon they were munching sandwiches and drinking Coke out of tins. ‘It’s like a picnic, isn’t it. Grandad?’ Sean looked up into his grandfather’s craggy face, but the excitement on his own small countenance vanished as a shadow passed over it.

He’s thinking there’ll be no more picnics for the two of us, Arthur mused. It was going to be a heartbreaking business for both of them to say goodbye when he had to leave the boy. But even before they had finished eating, he was keeping constant his vigil.

‘That’s a mountain this time, isn’t it? Say yes, Grandad.’ He pointed to a mound in the distance.

‘No, no, that’s only a slag heap. Coal, you know.’

Mountains seemed to hold a deep fascination for the boy, but the old man realised that he’d been born and brought up in East Anglia, flat as a pancake, so he had probably never seen anything higher than a small hill.

They continued their journey, with Sean jumping up at intervals to say, ‘I don’t see any mountains yet, Grandad.’

When Arthur did at last point out the ranges that could be seen in the distance, his grandson was rather disappointed. ‘They’re too far away. I can’t see them properly.’

At Montrose, he was interested to see all the equipment lying around in the oil complexes. ‘Will my daddy be working with things like that?’

‘Like enough, lad, and he’ll be out on the oil rigs as well, I believe. Remember, I showed you a photo of one the other day?’

When the train passed Stonehaven, with less than half an hour to go before it reached Aberdeen, Arthur started to dread their arrival. ‘I hope your mum and dad’ll be there in time to meet us.’

‘What’ll we do if they’re not there, Grandad?’

A note of alarm sounded in the piping voice, and the old man regretted speaking his fears out loud. He had only succeeded in transmitting them to the boy. ‘No problem, son. We’ll just go in for a cup of char. There’s sure to be a tearoom there somewhere.’

The problem was pushed to the back of the boy’s mind when they passed a range of low hills. ‘Are they mountains, Grandad?’

‘Only little ones, lad. They’re likely the foothills of the Grampian Mountains. I’ll show you on the map when your dad unpacks it.’

They fastened up the duffel bag, took their coats off the rack and were standing at the door of the carriage as the train drew into the platform at Aberdeen Joint Station. It was a long walk to the ticket barrier and Sean was still tired. Even as he walked steadily forward, he surreptitiously wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Is it much farther, Grandad? I wish I could see Mummy.’

‘Come here, son, till I clean your face. It’s all sooty from poking your head out of the window on the Forth Bridge.’ The deep voice held a gruff note as Arthur took out his handkerchief, wet it at the boy’s tongue and scrubbed the greyish rivulets on the tear-stained face. ‘Your mum wouldn’t want to see you dirty, now, would she?’

It wasn’t long until they could see the ticket collector, and just behind him were a smiling Marge and John Rouse. ‘Mummy! Daddy!’

It was all Arthur could do to restrain Sean until they went through the gates. As they settled into the thankfully empty Capri, Marge took her son on her lap for the last stage of his daunting journey.

‘Mummy, where’s Susan?’

‘We left her with the lady next door. She was still very tired after yesterday. Did you enjoy being on the train, darling?’

‘Oh, yes! Me and Grandad saw all of Scotland.’ Then, rather wistfully, the boy added, ‘But we didn’t see any mountains near us. Grandad said there weren’t any near the railway line.’

Marge Rouse winked at her husband. ‘Wait till you see our new house, Sean.’ She gave an odd laugh as if she were hiding a secret joke.

The boy looked at his father, who was also laughing. ‘D’you understand what the Scotch people are saying, Daddy?’

‘We haven’t had time to speak to many of them,’ John began, but was interrupted by his father.

‘Scots people, Sean, not Scotch;’ Arthur felt obliged to correct him, because all the Scotsmen he had ever met during the war had always objected to anybody making the same mistake. ‘Scotch is either whisky or broth,’ they would say He didn’t give his grandson this explanation, however, and waited for him to ask, but Sean’s face had turned bright red with excitement.

Arthur looked in the direction where the boy’s eyes were turned and nodded happily. ‘Yes, lad, that’s a mountain.’

They had left the city well behind them and there was no mistaking the massive shape towering into the sky. ‘It’s called Benachie,’ John informed them, ‘and it’s not one of the highest mountains. Our home is just along this road.’ He turned off to the left, and in a few minutes drew the car to a halt in front of a modern villa.

‘That Bena-whatever-you-called-it looks like it’s right at the bottom of our garden,’ Sean observed, reverently, as they walked up the garden path.

His father shrugged. ‘It’s not really, though. It’s a good few miles away, but the estate agent said that lots of people climb to the top to see the wonderful view.’

‘Will you climb up to the top with me, Grandad, before you go home?’

‘Oh, well … I’m not able to climb mountains nowadays, son. I’m too old.’ And he hadn’t felt inclined to climb any when he was younger, either, came the thought.

‘Will you, then, Daddy? Please?’

John laughed. ‘One of these days, maybe.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘No, I’ve a lot of things to do tomorrow. We’ll wait until some time after Grandad goes home.’

‘Must we wait, Daddy? I want to climb it tomorrow. I’m going to love the mountains, especially Ben-thingummy.’ He rushed through to the kitchen where his mother was setting the table for a meal, and discovered that the window there commanded a panoramic view of the huge mass.

‘We’re going to have a lot of good times up there, me and Daddy.’

Looking at the boy’s radiant face when he went back to the lounge, Arthur realised with a sinking heart that this mountain was to be the love in Sean’s life now - a love to replace even his grandad.

They spent the rest of the day helping to unpack the tea chests and arranging the furniture to suit Marge, who couldn’t always make up her mind where she wanted things to go. From time to time Arthur noticed Sean going to the back door, or looking out of one of the windows, to see the impressive Benachie.

‘Wait till I tell the boys at school I’ve got my very own mountain at the end of my garden,’ the boy said, his voice quivering with the thrill of it, then his face fell. ‘I forgot. The boys at this school won’t be the boys I used to know.

The ones here will know Ben-a-whatever better than I do.’ Disconsolately, he went to his grandfather and pushed his small hand into the large one, and Arthur ruffled his hair in sympathy.

By 7 p.m. they were all exhausted. Marge put Susan to bed first, then gave Sean a bath before he went to his. John poured out a couple of drinks and handed one to his father. ‘I think we deserve this, Dad, don’t you?’

They sat in companionable silence for a while, then John asked hopefully, ‘Have you changed your mind about coming here to live? There’s plenty of room for you and Mum, you know.’

Arthur shook his head. ‘You don’t want us old folk living in your pockets, son, and the sea has always been my life. It’s in my blood.’

John gave up. ‘I know that, but remember there’ll always be a room waiting for you if you ever change your mind - or you could come for a holiday any time you like.’

When Marge returned to the large airy lounge, she said, ‘They’re both sound asleep. Sean was absolutely shattered and was off as soon as his head touched the pillow.’ She collapsed on to the settee and held out her hand for the glass John had risen to fill for her.

It wasn’t very long before the three adults realised that they, too, were shattered, so the whole household was asleep by ten o’clock.

The daylight streaming in through the uncurtained window woke Arthur. He listened to the unaccustomed country sounds - birds twittering, a cow lowing nearby - then swung his legs stiffly out of bed. As he dressed, he looked out at the dark outline of the mountain Benachie, with white mists swirling round its top - not a peak, more a plateau. There was something about a sight like this that grabbed you, he thought. No wonder some men go mountaineering. It had never appealed to him, though, and he was too old now even to consider it.

He walked into the kitchen and made himself a cup of tea, then decided to take a walk before breakfast. Putting on his coat, he noticed by the clock in the hall that it was only five past five.

‘Where are you going, Grandad?’ came an anxious little voice. ‘It’s not time for you to go home already, is it?’ Sean was also fully dressed. ‘I heard you getting up, so I got up, too.’

‘I’m just going for a little walk, lad. If you want to come with me, you’ll need a coat.’

The boy disappeared, to come back struggling into his bright red anorak. He took his grandfather’s hand and the two crept out like conspirators on some unlawful mission.

The keen wind whipped colour into their faces as they stepped briskly past the cluster of houses and turned, naturally, into the road leading towards the mountain, Arthur all the while listening to Sean’s chatter. ‘Mummy and Daddy’ll get a shock when they know what we got up to, won’t they Grandad?’

‘You’re right, son. Maybe we should have left a note.’

A young woman passed them on a bicycle. ‘Aye,’ she called, ‘fine mornin’. You’ll be fae the new hooses?’