‘She was my aunt,’ Chick said. ‘Aunt Senga.’
‘Aunt Senga?’ Maybe she was, but somehow nothing Chick said ever sounded as if it was true.
I told him that, according to Mrs Macbeth, Miss Anderson had a terrible fear of premature burial and Chick said, ‘Is that so?’ and took out a penknife from his jacket pocket and without any preamble jabbed Miss Anderson in the back of one of her hard veiny hands. I screamed, but quietly, given the hushed atmosphere of the funeral parlour and the undoubtedly illegal nature of the deed.
‘She’s definitely dead,’ Chick said, as if he’d just done me a favour. But I had already left.
Next we spiralled up the slopes of the Law, the extinct volcano on whose ashy skirts Dundee was built. We parked, like tourists or lovers (and we were definitely neither), got out and walked round in a circle to view the full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree panorama on offer. There was snow on the Sidlaws and the Tay was the colour of polished tin.
‘Aye, it’s a bonny place,’ Chick said, ‘from this distance anyway.’ He took another half-bottle of Bell’s from his pocket – I had a vague, rather queasy recollection of having finished the last one.
‘Go on,’ Chick said, ‘it’ll put hairs on your chest. Just like Sidney,’ he added and laughed – an odd phlegmy noise that ended in a hacking cough and an unpleasant choking that apparently could only be cured by lighting a cigarette.
‘So do you think someone’s killing the old people?’ I persisted.
‘Did I say that?’
‘Maybe it’s Watson Grant. Maybe he’s hoping to kill Mrs Macbeth before Aileen leaves him and he’s killing other old people to divert attention from his real victim – Mrs Macbeth.’
‘You read too many books.’
It began to snow – cold wet stuff that melted as it fell. ‘That’s enough of the great outdoors,’ Chick said, climbing quickly back in the car.
The snow grew thicker, whirling round in the eddies of wind at the top of the Law so that sitting in the car was like being inside a giant snowshaker. Dundee began to disappear behind a white veil while Chick drank his way steadily down the half-bottle. The odd thing about being with Chick – odd given the severe defects in his character – was that I felt safe with him, as if no harm could befall me in his presence. Maybe that was what it was like to have a father. But how could I know?
I tried to encourage him to tell me more of his own story. This request elicited a barrage of bad feeling, Chick again cursing the cow and the loss adjuster, particularly the loss adjuster’s canary-yellow Capri.
~ How do you adjust a loss? Nora asks, ladling out potato soup, viscous with starch.
‘Maybe you adjust to it,’ I suggest.
~ I don’t think so.
Nora is distinctly gloomy tonight – perhaps on account of the seaweed aperitif .
We set off back into town. ‘You’ve wasted enough of my time,’ Chick said. ‘I’ve got other fish to fry, even if you haven’t.’
‘It’s you that’s wasting my time,’ I said. ‘I have an essay—’
~ Too much dialogue, Nora sighs. I prefer descriptive writing.
As we drove back along the Nethergate we were accompanied by a great winter sunset painted across the western sky in livid colours – blood-orange and vascular violet – as if somewhere up-river a terrible fiery massacre was taking place. The rays of the dying sun, reflected in the water, made the Tay appear (just for once) to be a river of molten gold. A hard frost was already falling and the smell of snow was in the air.
‘Do you prefer that?’
~ Yes.
It must be a huge feat of celestial engineering to get the sun to come up and down every day. Of course, I do know it’s not quite as mechanical as that. But I like to think it is. Within seconds the sun slipped out of sight, gone to the antipodes or wherever it goes, and we were left with a darker kind of darkness.
Nora frowns. Now you’re just being whimsical.
‘That was a braw sunset,’ Chick said. ‘Fancy a Chinky? We could go to the Gold Lucky.’
‘Well . . . OK,’ I said.
‘Got any money on you?’ Chick asked, when we’d finished our meal – including a second order of banana fritters for him – ‘I seem to have left my wallet at home.’
The sea in the sound is grey and choppy this morning and as uninviting as old bathwater. Even the playful narratees have deserted it for warmer waters. The wind has blown too much lately, ruffled our minds, decomposed our thoughts. The air holds moisture like a cloth.
We are in the kitchen, sitting by a fire made from damp driftwood and bits of abandoned bird’s nest. We are down to the last dustings at the bottom of the tea caddy. Perhaps we will die of starvation and thirst here.