THE PROMISE OF HAPPINESS. Erin Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ led off from this landing to the top level car deck.

      A portly middle-aged man, a member of the ship’s crew, stood on the landing dressed in a short-sleeved pale blue shirt and navy polyester trousers with a perma-press crease down the front of each leg. ‘Do you want a hand, love?’ he said, in the hard-edged, down-to-earth accent of North-East Antrim, and stepped forward with one hand outstretched. ‘If you carry the wee man, I’ll help with your bag.’

      ‘No, thanks. I’m fine,’ bristled Louise automatically. She missed no opportunity to demonstrate to the world in general that she could cope alone. ‘I can manage.’

      The pleasant smile fell from the man’s face. He said nothing more, stepped back and adopted his guard-like stance once again, hands behind his back, and nodded in a tight-lipped manner to the person behind Louise. Realising how rude she had sounded, Louise ducked her head and proceeded quickly to the top of the next flight of stairs, her face flaming with embarrassment.

      She told herself she was tired and emotional. The drive across Scotland to the port of Cairnryan had taken the best part of four hours, including a stop for lunch. And she’d not slept well the night before, her sleep disturbed by dreams of Cameron. In the dream she was following him in a storm along a narrow cliff pathway on the southern side of the Firth of Forth – a path they had once walked together in happier times. He wore a bright red jacket, his dark hair plastered to his scalp by the driving rain, his face dripping with water. It was high tide and she could hear the ferocious crash of waves on the treacherous rocks below. She stopped and called out to him that it was too dangerous, that they should turn back. And then, right at that moment, without any warning at all, the coastal path crumbled and Cameron plunged over the edge of the cliff, lost to her forever.

      They had been divorced for three years – she had not seen him in as long. Why was she still haunted by dreams of him? Perhaps it was understandable – after living with someone for fifteen years you couldn’t expunge all the memories of your life together from your consciousness. And she didn’t want to. For some of the happiest times of her life had been spent with Cameron. She had given up so much in leaving him. It had taken such courage. And such bravery to build the independent life she now enjoyed.

      Why was she thinking of him now, on this day? Annoyed with herself, she tossed her head, shaking off thoughts of him like raindrops, and brought her analysis to bear on the present.

      ‘There you go again,’ she mumbled under her breath as she and Oli picked their way carefully down the next flight of narrow metal steps into the gloomy bowels of the great ship, ‘pushing people away to prove your independence.’ She hadn’t always been like this – only since Oli. She wanted to run back up the steps and apologise to the man but it was too late. Instead she resolved to stop interpreting kindly offers of help as assaults on her independence.

      ‘Not long now, honey!’ she said, doing up Oli’s seatbelt. She jumped into the driver’s seat, clapped her hands together and rolled her shoulders in an attempt to ease some of the tension that had built up between her shoulder blades. She imagined her parents, and her older sister Joanne and her three children, all squeezed into the modest home on Churchill Road watching and waiting eagerly for their arrival. It was going to be all right, she told herself.

      Once she’d negotiated the tricky ferry ramp, she set off along Coastguard Road, the old route into Ballyfergus, avoiding the harbour bypass. She passed landmarks as familiar as the back of her hands.

      ‘Look,’ she cried, slowing the car down to a crawl, and staring out the passenger window at a nineteen-sixties concrete block fronted by a big, unimaginative rectangle of dusty tarmac. ‘That’s where I went to school, Oli. That’s where you’ll go to school too when you’re a big boy.’ In the rear-view mirror she saw Oli straining for a better view, his eyes wide with curiosity.

      A car behind tooted. She waved good-naturedly and accelerated away. ‘And look, there’s the fish and chip shop,’ she said, as they passed a cluster of small businesses on Upper Cross Street. But on closer inspection she saw that the fish and chip shop was gone, replaced by a plumbing suppliers. ‘Oh, it’s not there any more. But look, there’s the library. I used to go there every week with my mum, and we will too, Oli. Would you like that?’ She kept up this bright trail of chatter, seeking out familiar, reassuring places and noticing changes too, changes that reminded her how Ballyfergus had moved on.

      Then, at last, she turned into Churchill Road, where children played in the blazing sun just as she had done as a child. Her hands began to tremble and the perspiration on the palms of her hands made it difficult to grasp the steering wheel. She pulled up outside her parents’ semi-detached house and took a deep breath to calm herself. She smiled to reassure Oli, who was looking at her with his thumb stuck in his mouth, then cut the engine. She stepped out of the car into the sunshine and a warm westerly breeze rolling off the Sallagh Braes, a ring of dramatic rounded cliffs overlooking Ballyfergus. Today the hills were framed by a cloudless cobalt sky, the brilliant shades of green softened by a heat haze rising from the black tarmac.

      Louise tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and remembered the first time she’d brought Cameron home and they’d parked in the very same spot. He’d been driving then – he always did. He’d looked at the modest house and said, ‘Is this it then?’ and she’d felt herself blush, embarrassed for the first time by her humble origins.

      Cameron had been to Watson’s, a private school in Edinburgh and studied English Literature at Edinburgh University. Although only a few years older than Louise he had lived in Paris for a year and spoke fluent French. He seemed so sophisticated and experienced. His worldliness contrasted with her sheltered, mundane upbringing. She realised she had so much to learn about everything and she was his willing pupil. The tone of their relationship was set from the outset. He was the leader, the decision maker – she was the follower, happily compliant. She allowed him to educate her, coach her, mould her. She had told him once that she would follow him to the ends of the earth and she’d meant it.

      And here she was all these years later, back it seemed, to where she had started.

      Joanne ran out of the house and Louise took a few steps towards her. They briefly embraced and cried, ‘Look at you!’ in unison.

      Joanne gave an impression of girlishness despite her forty-five years with her tight-waisted, delicate frame and long wavy blonde locks. The illusion was further reinforced by a knee-length floral printed dress, flat ballerina pumps and a cropped cerise cotton cardigan.

      Joanne’s olive-green eyes gleamed with emotion. ‘Welcome home!’ she cried and they hugged again. Louise put her hand on Joanne’s back and was surprised to feel a hard and bony frame under the thin layers of clothing. She realised now how much weight her sister had lost.

      ‘It’s good to be back,’ she choked, her eyes filling up.

      And then the neat, small figure of their mother appeared at the doorway to the house, her hand raised feebly in greeting. And behind her was their dad, with his hand on their mother’s right shoulder. Quite unexpectedly, and uncharacteristically, Louise couldn’t control her tears.

      Later, after they’d eaten a lasagne made by Joanne, and Oli was happily watching TV in the little room at the back of the house with his cousins, the women – Louise, Joanne and their mother – sat in the lounge, around the coffee table, chatting. Louise’s dad was in the kitchen with Frankie Cahoon, a neighbour from two doors down, drinking whiskey and talking about their days in the GEC factory. Louise looked down at the dainty china cup and saucer balanced precariously on her knee. It was her mother’s best china – a wedding present from her parents – adorned with delicate red roses and rimmed in gold leaf. If only her cosmopolitan friends could see her now, СКАЧАТЬ