Poisoned Cherries Read online

  She wasn’t kidding either; since I’d seen her last, she had acquired a BMW sports coupe. It was low slung, and there was no graceful way she could lower herself into the passenger seat.

  “I’m not so sure about this,” she muttered as I drove carefully out of the parking area.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’d be nervous enough meeting your father, but looking like this…”

  “Susie, you haven’t been nervous since you were about ten, and anyway, you’ve met my dad before.”

  “Maybe, but going up to him and saying, “Hey Mac, I’ve got your granddaughter in here!” .. . that’s different. That’s a pretty fundamental statement, sunshine.”

  “My Dad has two grandsons,” I reminded her. “He’s bad enough with them, but a girl… He’ll think you’re offering him the crown jewels.”

  I leaned on the accelerator as we turned on to the slip road to the M8 and had my first hint of the power under the bonnet. “I’ll have your crown jewels if you scrape this thing,” Susie hissed.

  I took her at her word and stuck to ‘sedate’ as we cruised out of the city. I played with the CD controls and found that Ophelia by Natalie Merchant was lined up in the auto-changer. I was touched; I’d bought that album for her in January, but it’s late night music and wasn’t best at that moment for my advancing jet-lag. I moved on to the next and found Bob Dylan. “Lenny Bruce’ is one of his greatest and angriest songs, but there’s a line in it that’s pretty gross and not suitable for a lady in Susie’s condition, so I hit the button again,

  quick, and settled for Blue Views by Paul Carrack… another of my January buys.

  “No!” said Susie, and moved back to where I’d begun. “I like that!” Until that moment, I didn’t know she could sing; the mother of my child is full of surprises. She leaned back in her seat and let it all out, word-perfect on each track, her full, rich contralto complementing rather than fighting with Natalie’s sharp soprano.

  I didn’t say a word; I just drove and listened as we cruised… sedately… out of Glasgow and along the motorway that cuts Lanarkshire in half. (Smaller pieces would be even better, a native of that county once said to me.) I didn’t want her to stop, but eventually she did, during the long instrumental break on track four.

  She smiled at me. “Sorry,” she said, almost shyly.

  “Don’t be. Would you like to make a record? I could fix it.”

  “I know you could. And if I wanted to be Sharleen Spitieri, that’s who I’d be … but I don’t.” She leaned back again and picked up on track five, with its simple piano backing, leaving Natalie in her wake as she embellished the song with some added twists that its writer never imagined.

  She was into the last track, singing about golden bells, when she stopped, abruptly. I glanced sideways at her, worried that maybe I’d looked as if I was nodding off.

  She switched off the music. “Do you think you’re up to driving a wee bit less sedately?”

  “Probably, but why?”

  She gasped, and winced. “I could be wrong… I’ve never done this before … but I don’t think I’m going to make it to your Dad’s.”

  Four.

  For a while after that, everything became a bit blurred. I’ve been in a couple of dangerous situations in my time, and I’ve managed to stay reasonably cool, to keep thinking logically.

  Looking back on that day, all I can remember saying is, “Let’s get you to the Simpson; it’s nearest.” After that my brain went into meltdown; I drove that M3 like David Coulthard with Schumie on his tail, while Susie did all the sensible stuff like getting the number of the maternity unit and calling ahead to warn them.

  Words broke in. Susie saying, calmly, “Yes, my waters have broken,” although that was not news to me by that time. Then there was something about, “Less than a minute.”

  We got lucky on the outskirts of Edinburgh; I had to stop for a red light and I pulled up next to a police car. I honked the horn, the driver took one look and got the message; we had a blues and twos escort all the way to the new Royal Infirmary.

  Even at that it was touch and go. I drove right up to the door of the unit; where a nurse… “Hello dear. I’m Sister Mickel. A bit early, are we?” .. . and a porter were waiting for us with a wheelchair. If it had had a motor it would have been revved up. As the midwife helped her into the chair, Susie grunted, “Christ, Oz, she’s coming faster than you!” Somewhere behind me, I heard a policeman laugh.

  It got blurred again; we were rushed along to a room with a funny-shaped bed. Nurses stripped Susie; just took all her clothes right off and stuck a gown over her head. There was shouting all round; “Go on, that’s a lass. Push hard now.” I realised that I was yelling as well, and that someone was grasping my hand hard enough to crush it. Then all at once, the pressure eased and there was a great collective gasp of satisfaction, into which intruded a thin wavering cry.

  Sister Mickel held her up; a long, sticky, wet, pink, wriggly thing, crying full volume now that she was fully released into the world. I couldn’t see her properly though, I blinked and realised that my eyes were full of tears. I held on to Susie, my head between her breasts, and let them all out. The last time I’d cried had been when one Janet had died; now I wept for the birth of another. Cry for sad if you must, but never be afraid to cry for happy; it’s better.

  “Well, look at you,” I heard her say, after a while; Susie as I’d never heard her before. “Look at her, Oz. She’s just like you.” I did; she was.

  Five.

  “Don’t you ever think about tomorrow, son?”

  “I gave that up a long time ago, Dad.”

  “Maybe you should start again. What are you going to say to Miles and Dawn when they turn up in Scotland for this new movie? When they find out about the baby they’re going to run out of sympathy for you bloody quick.”

  That was a good question; jet-lag and the stress of the day were catching up with me fast, so I gave my brain a few seconds more than normal to come up with a good answer. I looked across the garden and out to sea; it was early evening, and May Island, bathed in sunshine, seemed to be smiling at the life Coast. I’ve seen a few pretty spectacular things in my life, but still I love that view more than any other. It’s a doorway to so many memories, and, once the medical staff had pronounced Susie and wee Janet to be in the best of health, and had bedded them down for their only night in the Royal, there had been nothing for me to do but carry on up the road to Anstruther, to add another to the list.

  “Who says they’re going to find out?” I asked Mac the Dentist, still looking out to sea. Through the kitchen window, I heard the sound of rattling crockery, as my stepmother resurrected the meal she had readied for earlier in the day. There was a tension between Mary and me; I had expected it, but it didn’t make it any easier to take. I’d been her blue-eyed boy for a long time, and she hadn’t disguised the fact that she felt let down.

  My Dad gave a half-snort, half-laugh. “Will the pram not give them a clue?”

  “There won’t be any pram around. Susie and the baby will be back in Glasgow by the time they get here. I’ll be in Edinburgh. We’re not planning to put a birth notice in the Herald or the Scotsman, Dad.”

  “You might as well. Susie’s a prominent businesswoman, and now she’s become a single mother. The tabloids are going to want to know who the father is.”

  “And Susie’s not going to tell them. Neither am I.”

  “Are you not going to acknowledge your child, man?”

  “Of course I am; I do already. I’m just not making any public announcements, that’s all… not yet, at any rate.”

  “Not until the new movie’s well under way, is that what you’re saying?”

  “If you like, yes. I’m contracted already, so it would be bloody difficult for Miles to fire me. It would be a wee bit reckless of him too; I’ve become box office to an extent. Still, better safe than sorry. Once I’ve done this picture, I can cut myself lo
ose, and look for other opportunities. I have a couple of them in the bag already.”

  He frowned; I surmised that he wasn’t that pleased with me either. “So you have been planning ahead.”

  “Of course I have.” I flashed him a grin. “I might never think about tomorrow, but I’m fucking good when it comes to next week.”

  “You’ve changed, Osbert, right enough.”

  “For the worse?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say that. For the better, in some ways. For all your luck, for all your success, you’ve had too much grief in your life, too young. Your eyes have been opened to the evils of the world, okay. You’ve grown hard, and you’re devious, but you don’t seem to be bitter and you’re not living in the past. You’ll survive, and one day you might be happy again.”

  “Today’s not bad.” I told him.

  “True,” he grinned. “I canna wait to see my new granddaughter. I still wonder about you and her mother, though. Is that it for the two of you? Your ships have bumped together in the night and now you’re going your separate ways?”

  “No, that’s not it. I’ll be a good father to wee Jan. I’m on the board of the Gantry Group, and I’ll be a support to Susie that way.”

  “But what if another father comes along? What if Susie meets someone else? What if you do? What if you find you miss Prim after all?”

  “I never did miss Prim, Dad, any more than she missed me, really. We settled for each other; that’s where we got it wrong. I’m not going to do the same with Susie. If she meets someone else, I’ll handle that. I’ll protect my daughter’s interests, but I’ll handle it.”

  “Aye, son, I guess you will, in your own way, like you handle everything else. You know the thing that gets me about you?” I looked at him, but he didn’t give me the chance to hazard a guess. “You’ve never even had bloody toothache, not once in your life. Toothache is nature’s way of letting the mightiest among us know that we’re fallible after all, yet as far as I recall you’ve never had as much as a twinge.”

  “D’you think Jesus had it, then?”

  “Maybe not, but he had plenty in its place…” He stopped short. “And so, I mustn’t forget, have you.”

  My father laid one of his massive hands on my shoulder. “Don’t be afraid of settling for Susie, son, if you want to put it that way, and if that’s what’s right for you. You and Prim should never have got back together, and if I’d been up to my job I’d have told you that. But you and Jan should never have drifted apart, and I kept that truth to myself too.

  “You and Susie have this wee lass now, and that’s not a bad basis for a partnership.”

  “That’s not just up to me, Dad. Susie’s made her feelings clear.”

  “Maybe, but it’s a whole new world now. It changed about one o’clock this afternoon, when your daughter put in an appearance.”

  The great hand squeezed my shoulder, hard. “There’s just one thing I want to know. If Prim hadn’t left you, would you still be standing here right now, telling me about your daughter?”

  I hadn’t asked myself that question, but I knew the answer at once. “Yes, if I’d had to make the choice, I reckon I still would.”

  Six.

  Mac the Dentist was right about the tabloids; was he ever. We weren’t past the soup course before my cellphone played “The Yellow Rose of Texas’. It was Susie, sounding a lot less tired than I did.

  “The hospital’s had a call from one of the Sunday papers,” she said, and I could hear the fizz in her voice. “They’ve been tipped off about me having been rushed here, and that it was you who did the rushing.

  “Who’d have done that, Oz?” she asked, indignantly.

  “Take your pick. Police, hospital staff, another patient, it could have been anyone. I’d bet on the porters myself, but we’ll never know for sure. The newspaper will protect its source.”

  “Who’s protected us?”

  “We’re not entitled to protection … at least I’m not. What did the hospital tell them?”

  “They’ve referred the reporter to the Trust press officer. She’s with me now, and she’s asking how we want to play it.”

  “It’s decision time, then. What do you want to tell them?”

  “That’s up to you. If you just want to say that you’re a friend and you happened to be with me when the baby started to come, that’s okay by me. It would be the sensible thing to do, Oz.”

  It was; I knew that. Nobody at the hospital knew for sure that I was the father, other than the people who had heard us in the delivery room, and I reckoned they were bound by medical confidentiality. If I played it that way there would be no comeback from Susie, ever. No , lawyer would allow the paper to say any different and Miles would only find out if I chose to tell him.

  There was only one problem.

  “I won’t deny our daughter, Susie,” I found myself saying, ‘not for one second. Tell the press officer to give me the reporter’s phone number. I’ll issue a statement through my lawyer.”

  “Saying what?”

  “Saying that you’ve had our baby, that she’s a wee cracker, and that we’re both chuffed as hell.”

  She laughed. “I can just hear Greg McPhillips reading that to the press!”

  “Word for word, I promise you.”

  “And what’ll he say about the fact that you’re still married?”

  “The truth; that Prim and I haven’t been together for some time, and that the last time I spoke to her she was in Mexico with her new partner.”

  “You sure you want to be that frank?”

  “Certain.”

  “What about Miles?”

  “If he can’t handle it, fuck him.” Mary frowned at me across the supper table. I mouthed an apology.

  “Indeed I will not,” Susie chuckled. “You might be making a scarlet woman of me, but I’m not going to live up to it.”

  “Hey, I don’t want to do that; we’ve got things to talk about.”

  “No, we don’t. I can take care of myself

  “I know that. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Shut up, Oz. You’re tired and emotional.”

  “Okay, I will, for now. How’re you feeling?”

  “Sore.”

  “How’s wee Janet?”

  “Hungry. Lovely too.”

  “Look after her. I’ll pick you both up tomorrow, mid-day as arranged. The only thing is, we’re not going to be alone.”

  Seven.

  I was as right about that as my Dad had been the day before. There was a posse of reporters and photographers staking out the maternity unit when I drove up in Susie’s car. I recognised one bloke from my Edinburgh days, so I walked straight up to him, being as showbiz as I could.

  “Hi, Freddy,” I greeted him. “You guys expecting something?”

  “Not any more,” he answered, as they crowded around me, shoving mikes and tape recorders into my face. “You’re a fucking dark horse, big Oz.”

  “That won’t be going out on radio,” I said. The newspaper reporters grinned; the woman from the local FM station scowled.

  “Can we have a picture?” one of the photographers shouted. “You and Miss Gantry and the baby?”

  “That’s up to Susie. We’re going back to Glasgow…” I was still amazed that maternity units let patients home so quickly these days; I thought they’d have kept her in for a week. ‘.. . Maybe we could do something there.”

  “We’d rather do it now, Oz,” said Freddy Everest. “It’ll get the picture desks off our backs… and yours, for that matter.”

  We did what they wanted; I had done some shopping for Susie on the way in from life, picking her up some normal-sized gear, since all she had packed for the weekend was maternity kit. I have to say she looked terrific, as good as any movie star I’ve ever met, when we finally let the mob into her room.

  She didn’t look as good as Janet Gantry Blackstone, though, dressed in a tiny gown I’d also found at the Gyle Centre, and wrapped in my christenin
g shawl, which my Dad had produced earlier that morning, from the box in which it had been stored for thirty years.

  The drive home to Glasgow really was sedate; Susie sat in the back seat holding the baby as if she was made of nitroglycerine. This time there was no music allowed, although I don’t think that Bohemian Rhapsody would have woken wee Jan.

  “Have you spoken to Miles and Dawn?” Susie asked me, out of the blue, just as we passed Harthill.

  “I called Miles last night.”

  “Have you still got a career?”

  I laughed. I’d been saving that one up. “I surely do. He knew about you and me; Prim lied about that too. She told me that she’d said nothing to them about our thing, because she didn’t want to hurt my movie prospects. That was rubbish, of course; as soon as she got back to the States, she spilled the lot to Miles and demanded that he fire me. He told her that he never let personal things influence business decisions, and he warned her not to say or do anything to upset Dawn.

  “He was a bit pissed off that I hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him myself, but we’ve sorted that out.”

  “Well,” she muttered, ‘that was easier than you thought, wasn’t it?”

  “I suppose so; I was never really, truly worried about that side of things, but I’m glad it’s all out in the open.”

  “Me too.” Susie paused. “Tell me something, Oz. If all this hadn’t hit the press, what would you have done?”

  “About the baby, you mean? Exactly what I have done. In our own time, maybe, but I’d have gone public’

  “Why?”

  I looked at her, in the rear-view mirror. “You’re sitting there, holding our daughter, and you have to ask me that?”

  “I just want to hear you say it.”

  “Okay. Because I’ve never been as proud of anything in my life as I am of being her father.”