There's Only One Danny Garvey, page 21
She turns her head. Her look invites the question.
‘Want tae talk about it?’ I offer. It’ll be a distraction.
With you? This is said in surprise, not with any aggression. As if she thinks I wouldn’t be interested. But I am. I have my own emotional battlefield. It’d be nice to focus on someone else’s for a change.
‘Well, aye. Why no’?’
She sighs again. Her professional demeanour is founded on ambition, control and drive, of trusting her business instincts. Now, confronted with the unpredictability of a close relationship, she suddenly seems much younger. Unsure of herself. Something I can identify with.
We’ve reached this point – I’ve reached this point – where I need a bigger challenge. You were right about me not really fitting in with Billy’s company. He’s working hard to elevate it, but when all’s said and done, it’s a small local business that doesn’t really need full-time legal representation. And it’s really difficult for a woman to be taken seriously in a closed business community when her father is her boss.
She leaves a gap. Offers me the opportunity to comment. But I don’t. I’d rather listen. Understand.
I’ve had an offer. A big law firm in Edinburgh. My eyebrows rise. It’s a great opportunity for me. And the job is in an area of corporate law I specialise in.
‘Edinburgh’s no’ that far,’ I remark, thinking I’ve understood the root of the issue with Joe, given that it isn’t so far removed from my own.
The job’s based in London. Full-time.
‘Ah. I see. An’ Joe isn’t pleased about that?’
No. He isn’t. Anne Macdonald pulls the car over into a lay-by at the top of the Electric Brae. We’re not alone. Numerous other cars – mostly filled with excited kids – are experiencing this weird natural phenomenon. The optical illusion of seeming to move forwards when actually going backwards. A sensation we both recognise.
‘Well, that’s a big deal,’ I say. ‘That’s no’ fallin’ out over nothin’.
No. You’re right, I don’t suppose it is.
A gull lands on a waste bin next to the car. It stares us out, expecting us to drop food out of the window just like everyone else in the lay-by. It waits, defiantly.
We’re at a crossroads, she says, and it could be said of almost everything in my complicated life. She’s speaking for both of us. We can’t conduct a long-distance relationship. Life just isn’t like that anymore. I’m having to choose between my career or him.
‘What would you feel if he’d been the one havin’ tae go?’
She pauses, reflecting. Like it’s a perspective she hasn’t considered.
I’d want him to take the opportunity. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for him giving up on his dreams. Settling for something less. But it’s different for him. He’ll inherit his dad’s business. He already has all he wants. When I told him about the job offer, his reaction was to ask me to marry him.
‘Fuck sake,’ I splutter. ‘That sounds well thought-out!’
I then spend half an hour telling her about my own situation; the heart-tugging similarities, if not the shared financial circumstances. But I suspect she isn’t really listening. Isn’t completely paying attention. The gull shites on the windscreen.
She smiles, and then laughs.
She’s made a good life for herself, has Louise-Anne Macdonald. She has choices. She might not see that right now, in the midst of this personal dilemma. But there’s no doubt it’s a better life than she would’ve had. Stuck in Barshaw, existing. Unappreciated, just like the rest of us. I’m pleased for her.
We arrive at the Texan billionaire’s hotel. All talked out. Neither of us in the right frame of mind for PR showboating.
And we leave in silence too. We don’t speak on the journey back to Barshaw. We don’t talk about the meeting in a luxury hotel with its new American owner and his representatives. We don’t mention the positive discussions about next season’s club sponsorship. We don’t make any reference to the wandering hands of the Texan businessman’s son – that touched her arse as the staged photographs were being taken. And we don’t say anything about the fight I got into trying to defend her.
She wants there to be no mention of this. Ever. She drops me off in Cumnock and drives away without any further acknowledgement.
The library is quieter than usual. I’m told that the opening hours have been reduced. Local Authority funding has been redirected. Edna, the librarian with whom I’ve developed a first-name-terms relationship, is surprised I haven’t read about it.
‘Council cutbacks,’ she says, middle-class politeness masking righteous anger. ‘Nobody values peace an’ quiet an’ the time to reflect anymore. Books are becoming redundant, Danny, now they’ve got the internet.’
The library will close soon. Not just for the day. For good. Crawford Cramond, the councillor who once had eyes on The Barn, has decreed it. It’ll finally be off the council’s estates maintenance bill. It’ll become a betting shop, or a fucking McDonalds, or a mobile-phone emporium. A response to society’s acceptable addictions. She goes into a backroom to make tea for us. I get up and start ripping the final chapters out of hardback books in the biography section. It matters little now, I suspect. These unimportant stories of self-indulgence will get pulped. Nothing surer. And if people don’t already know that Anne Frank died at the end, then they shouldn’t be allowed near a library in the first place.
Beyond my sadness for Edna, and disdain for the hypocrisy of a few small-minded capitalist councillors, it matters little. My twin research projects that were born here are now all but complete.
Other things are also ending. We have a handful of league games left. If we lose them all, we’ll still finish fifth. We’re ninety minutes away from a regional cup final, and the committee have sanctioned decent bonus incentives. The club is suddenly awash with positivity, but I can’t share the satisfaction with the person to whom it should mean the most.
These conflicting feelings. These fucking headaches. I’m suddenly ashamed of how I always blamed Libby for her indifference towards me. Higgy may have persuaded her not to abort me, but I’ve accused him of doing that for his own ends.
The day after the funeral, a note with my name on it was propped up against the salt cellar on Higgy’s table. In it, he tried to explain. Libby had made Higgy promise never to tell me, but in a moment of weakness, months ago, he’d spilled it to Raymond during a prison visit. He was merely looking for guidance – did Raymond think Libby would want me to know before she passed away? The only surprise here was that my brother had kept this secret. Maybe only until the time when it could have maximum impact, though. Had the roles been reversed, I suppose it’s what I’d have done too.
The box of my things in the upstairs bedroom was Libby’s project. A hidden collection of achievements that encapsulated her pride in me and allowed her to bury the remorse she felt for having wished me gone before she had even met me. And the truth of the banner? Who can really tell? But I now suspect Raymond threw it out, blamed Libby and then took my pocket money from me in return for ‘saving’ it. Higgy’s note concluded with him forgiving me for what I’d said to him in the back room of the pub, and pleading for my forgiveness in return.
Since Higgy reinforced Raymond’s truth about Libby, I can’t look him in the eye. He fucking betrayed me, after all. I couldn’t forgive that. But weeks have passed and now, he’s all I’ve got. I don’t know what to do around him. Higgy’s stopped coming to the games. Stopped being a part of the thing he loves most in the world. Stopped being in his own house when I’m there. He spends his time in The King’s Arms. The one place he’s unlikely to encounter me – the ghost in the machine. Doreen brings Damo to our matches now. She sells the hot food from the van and Damo stands by me. I’m currently serving a ban for ‘aggressive behaviour’ during a recent game at Whitletts, so Harry Doyle has taken a more active role on the touchline. And it seems that I’m banned from seeing Nancy too. We’re all just getting along by not getting on.
I’m ashamed of the things I’ve been put through. I’m ashamed of the person I am.
But Higgy and I are here now. His money is running low and the pub is no longer an option until giro day. We navigate his small house, avoiding each other as much as possible. I want to tell him that I’m sorry for his pain, and for making it worse. That I love him; that Libby was so very lucky to have him in her life. But I can’t. I can only hope she told him this.
We draw three-all against Annbank in a blustery, rain-soaked evening match at The Barn. Billy Gilmour scores a hat-trick but gives the match ball to Damo. I haven’t the heart to tell my young player that we’ll need to get it back as the club budget doesn’t stretch to brand-new footballs. But it does give me an excuse to speak to Nancy, if she’ll see me. I leave it a couple of days, repeating the words I’ll use like an actor heading for an audition that might change his future.
‘Hi. Ah was hopin’ ye’d have waited the other night.’ In the dress rehearsals, Ah’ve missed ye was the opening gambit. In the moment, though, it didn’t feel right.
‘Danny, it’s difficult, y’know?’ There’s no hostility. Just weariness.
‘Aye. Ah get that. Have ye seen Raymond recently?’ I ask her.
‘No. He went off the rails a while back an’ Damo was really upset. My mam threatened tae phone the police if he didnae go. He’s away back tae Galston now.’
We’re back sitting on the same bench. If we’d been teenagers, we might’ve carved our initials into it after the night at Alison Currie’s house.
‘That whole thing wi’ Raymond … ah should’ve acted differently,’ she admits.
‘Nancy—’
‘No … let me finish, Danny. Ah need tae say this.’ She sighs deeply. There’s a weight to get rid of. ‘There’s a deep connection, ah can’t deny it. More than just Damo. For years ah felt that I was the only thing that could save Raymond fae himself. That if I abandoned him, he’d be finished. But there were too many excuses … too many times pleadin’ for forgiveness for some bloody stupid avoidable trouble he’d got himself intae. An’ ah couldn’t stand ma mam’s holier-than-thou attitude. Ah know she meant well, but she was just desperate tae tell me that she’d been right about him all along.’
I lift her chin with my hand. She’s crying. She wipes her tears.
‘Raymond’s like a drug. Excitin’, an’ a rush at first, but then ye know the more ye see him, the more ye know he’s goin’ tae leave you wi’ nothin’, an’ probably even kill ye.’
I’m not here to talk about Raymond. I came to find a way back to Nancy. Her son is the route. He’s all I’ve got to negotiate with.
‘Listen, Nancy, ah didnae want tae overstep any marks, here, but ah’ve been lookin’ up some things. About Damo’s…’ I stop myself from adding ‘condition’, although that’s what I think it is. ‘Some studies ae kids wi’ similar behaviour patterns … that are similar tae Damo’s, ah mean.’ I’m treading warily here. Aware of the very thin ice that I’m standing on. I wait for her to close the conversation down as she has done many times before. But she doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything. I’m being allowed to continue. ‘There’s tons ae these cases…’
‘Ah, right … he’s a case now?’ The ice cracks. One wrong move and I’m straight through it. Frozen out.
‘Sorry. Ah didnae mean that.’
‘Danny, ah was jokin’.’ She relaxes. Puts a leg over the other and sits back, sipping her coffee.
‘Ah found this study, up in the library at Cumnock. It was describin’ young kids that were considered tae be disruptive in their school classes or emotionally unstable in some way.’
She’s listening and I’m unsure if this is information that she already knows. Or whether I’m breaking new ground.
‘When was the first time ye can remember there bein’ an issue wi’ Damo?’ I ask this too formally; like I’m an analyst in a lab, or a psychiatrist inviting her to recline on his sofa. But she answers.
‘It began when he was about six. We got called tae school. Ah remember a silly young lassie, his teacher in primary two, callin’ him wilfully nonconformist. Ah mean, for Christ’s sake, he was a six-year old kid … they’re all like that at that age! Raymond was ragin’, as ye’d imagine.’
‘He was there?’
‘Aye. It was just before he went inside. There was an argument wi’ Mr Masson, the head teacher, an’ Raymond pushed him over a desk. Masson called him retarded.’
‘Damo? Or Raymond?’ This makes her smile.
‘Damo. Raymond just bloody flipped. Damo’s in there, absolutely screamin’, teachers come runnin’. Police called … the usual story. An’ Raymond’s already up on the assault charge. Just couldn’t help himself. Damo’s stuck in the middle of these three men all shoutin’ an’ swearin’ an wrestlin’ his dad out the school. Ah wis mortified. An’ it took weeks for Damo tae get over it. Nightmares, wettin’ the bed, screamin’ for hours on end. You name it.’ She wipes her eyes. I take her hand, as if I’m guiding her through the maze of her painful memories. ‘Of course, a few months later an’ Raymond’s got the jail, an’ everybody at school just gives up on him. Assumes it’s aw tae be expected comin’ fae a home wi’ a parent in prison. For the last three years at that school, ah often felt ah was there just as much as Damo! There was always somethin’ goin’ on. Him gettin’ teased or bullied. Ah remember one time this wee bastard tells Damo to show everybody what he does when he goes to the bathroom. Damo pulled down his trousers an’ pants in the lunchroom an’ tried to do a shit in the middle of the floor.’
‘God sake,’ I say, then: ‘Kids forget things quickly, if they’re occupied wi’ other things.’
She corrects me. ‘Children don’t just forget trauma. It’s always there, under the surface.’
‘Can ah ask somethin’. Ye might think a bit … strange?’
She smiles. There’s a bemused look on her face. She’s so easy to talk to though. ‘Well ye can try.’
‘See the three guys? Did they all have beards?’ She laughs.
‘Funnily enough, they did.’
She nods intently for almost half an hour as I put forward my theory that Damo is autistic. She has heard of it but doesn’t know exactly what it means.
‘Ah read about this young lassie fae Australia. She wis the same age as Damo is now. She was gettin’ bullied an’ made intae an outcast fae these horrible wee preteen bitches. She was becomin’ a social misfit,’ I tell Nancy. ‘The school performed these tests that revealed her tae be “retarded”.’
Her eyes widen at this.
‘She eventually dropped out ae the school. Her mother took her tae mental health agencies for help. The girl struggled tae make eye contact, tae speak tae people properly … tae control the meltdowns. Nancy, this isnae somethin’ he’ll just grow out of. That’s just one story though…’ I hand her the manila folder. ‘There’s hundreds ae them, all followin’ the same basic patterns. An’ they’re all now classed as “intellectually gifted”. I think Damo’s what’s known in here as a “high-functioning autistic”.’ I explain this theory. ‘Ye should hear him at the fitba. He knows everythin’ about statistics … games fae years ago. Scores, sendin’ offs, everythin’. It’s like he only needs tae hear or see somethin’ once an’ then it’s locked in here forever.’ I point to my temple. I know she’s acknowledged this as well. There’s just hasn’t been any support for her to push back against what she’s been told. ‘Football is his anchor. The only thing that keeps him sane. He needs tae be in a different place,’ I tell her. ‘Somewhere that’ll support him, and you. No’ just stickin’ him in a corner an’ brandin’ him retarded.’
I walk her home. It’s a beautiful day. Late winter-crisp and unseasonably dry. Spring’s just around the corner. The hopefulness of the season’s conclusion being pre-empted, somehow.
‘Ah’m probably goin’ tae be leavin’,’ I say.
Nancy looks surprised. And maybe a bit disappointed, although maybe I’m misreading her. I’ve been guilty of that before.
‘Aye? When?’ she asks.
‘After the final.’
‘Where are ye goin’?’
‘Ah don’t know yet. Need tae get away fae here though. Back up north, maybe.’
‘That sounds nice.’
I’m not sure what she means by that. Nice? That’s a bit like special, isn’t it? The indifference irritates me.
This is only the third time I’ve seen Nancy since the day of the funeral. Once, through the baker’s window as I was running past. The second time, just last week when I picked up Damo to take him to our home game with Whitletts, which naturally we won. The awkwardness between us, Doreen like a custody supervisor ensuring there’s no rule-breaking at the handing-over of the child. He’s the only thing connecting all of us now; a shared desire not to take away the thing that he loves most.
I ask how she is. She answers matter-of-factly, by reaffirming that Raymond is staying in Galston. Despite everything, she’s still putting him first. Before her own happiness. It explains why he and I haven’t encountered each other. That’s it. A collection of fragile, damaged adults unable to communicate with each other. Repeating the behaviour of their parents.
I catch the bus to Glasgow. Get the train out to Mount Florida. I arrive at the National Stadium an hour before the time of the SFA disciplinary hearing, having agreed to meet my chairman here. I wander around downstairs. I marvel at the gallery of legendary players who played on this world-famous pitch in front of truly staggering crowds, when football, not religion, was the opium of the people.
My phone rings. It’s Anne Macdonald.
Danny?
‘Aye?’
It’s Anne. How are you?
‘Ah’m fine. You okay though?’
She doesn’t answer this. Instead: I just wanted to call and say sorry for the way you were treated at the hotel the other day. That was unacceptable, she says.
