The Confirmation Read online

  THE CONFIRMATION

  L G DICKSON

  Copyright © 2017 L G Dickson

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  The Confirmation by Edwin Muir is reproduced by kind permission of Faber and Faber

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Matador

  9 Priory Business Park,

  Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,

  Leicestershire. LE8 0RX

  Tel: 0116 279 2299

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  Twitter: @matadorbooks

  ISBN 978 1788030 694

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  For John, Phyllis, Hilary and Jonathan

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Andy Wightman MSP, whose book ‘The Poor Had No Lawyers’ informed James’s political ambitions, particularly his passion for land reform.

  I am indebted to Skriva Writing School and my tutor Sophie Cooke who has both taught and inspired me. To my writing buddies particularly Helen, Mary Anne and Gavin – it has been a joy to share this journey with you.

  Finally, to those closest to me, for your love, support and unwavering confidence in me – thank you.

  The Confirmation

  Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face.

  I in my mind had waited for this long,

  Seeing the false and searching for the true,

  Then found you as a traveller finds a place

  Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong

  Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you,

  What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste,

  A well of water in a country dry,

  Or anything that’s honest and good, an eye

  That makes the whole world bright. Your open heart,

  Simple with giving, gives the primal deed,

  The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed,

  The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea,

  Not beautiful or rare in every part,

  But like yourself, as they were meant to be.

  EDWIN MUIR

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 1

  Books were stacked in all four corners of the lounge – segregated into fiction and non. Endless reference books on submarine warfare and Arctic exploration sat next to derring-do stories of wartime adventure and revolutionary exploits. She knew exactly the books that would fire his imagination and hold him engrossed for hours – his attention diverted away from her. She loved the feeling of knowing that hours of searching neglected corners of Edinburgh’s secondhand bookshops had turned up another little gem – one he accepted with thanks and love. Following an almighty embrace that threatened to crush vertebrae, he would smile lovingly at her, settle down and disappear off into another space and time. She looked at them now from across the room – a mixture of pristine and faded covers, torn spines and exposed binder tape. What did he want her to do with them? Had he said? She wasn’t sure that he had so it was probably best to leave things as they were. He’d let her know in good time. All in good time.

  A tumbled pile of soft brushed cotton shirts sat heaped upon the leather chair opposite. They would need ironing but she really needed a new ironing board cover. She’d mentioned that to him before. Not that she’d expected him to do anything about it. The thought prompted her to mentally list the domestic tasks that needed attention. Tasks which, for now, would have to wait. All she really wanted to do was press her face into the familiar fabric of those well-worn shirts.

  She ignored the dull drone of her mobile phone switched to silent, and slowly stood up. Suddenly the shrill ringing of the landline shook her, making her feel dizzy and unsteady on her feet. She was forced back down. After three loud rings came the orderly click of the answer machine. It was Kirsty.

  ‘Look, it’s just me – again. We don’t want to be a pain, honestly. We just want to come round and help. Get you back on your feet. Just ring – let us know you’re okay.’ There was a short pause. ‘Well, that was all really. Love you. Love you lots.’ And then she was gone.

  She couldn’t think about Kirsty. She couldn’t think about any of them. Her head felt heavy, far too heavy and so she let the weight fall back into the soft cushion behind and closed her eyes. Something else could take the strain.

  The phones had stopped now and her head began to fill with thoughts and images of other times and places. None of it made any sense. After a while, she forced herself to stand up and made her way through to the kitchen to pour the first wine of the night.

  *

  Fifteen years earlier, on an almost oppressively warm August night, Annie walked briskly towards her destination in Great King Street. Oppressively warm was not a description normally afforded to Edinburgh weather, even at the height of summer. Sunshine-filled days were too often accompanied by the chilled haar that rolled and tumbled down the city’s thoroughfares from the North Sea but Annie could only feel warm air against her skin and no trace of a cooling breeze. She quickened her stride and turned into a street that, in its nineteenth-century hey day, had housed some of the most distinguished professional men and their families of Edinburgh. These handsome residences welcomed a more diverse mix of inhabitants in 1990 while still playing host to a smattering of top-end lawyers – her good friends Duncan and Kirsty Drummond among them.

  Annie arrived at No. 92, somewhat out of breath and feeling slightly clammy. Her new salmon silk blouse was sticking to her and small patches of sweat were beginning to appear under her arms and more annoyingly under her bust where too-tight underwire was pressing into too-hot flesh. Why did I think this was a good choice of outfit? she thought to herself as she pulled the brass bell pull for the Drummond residence. It was, after all, only a regular Friday night get-together with her old university crowd and there really was no need to impress. For some unfathomable reason Annie had felt the urge to make a bit of an effort. And now here she was standing, hair sticking to face and with small droplets of sweat beginning to appear on her top lip.

  Kirsty Drummond opened the door and enthusiastically flung her arms around her bedraggled friend. ‘Oh my god, look at you. What the hell have you been doing?’

  Annie attempted to e
xplain work deadlines, protracted telephone calls from Mother and her kitten’s predilection for ripping wallpaper, all of which had made her late and slightly bedraggled.

  Kirsty ignored all of this, admiring her friend’s new sweat-stained top, and drew Annie closer to her. ‘Donald’s disappeared down to Coniston this weekend, gorge walking I think,’ she explained. ‘Duncan came up with the genius idea of inviting our new neighbour in to make up the numbers. Hope you don’t mind but I’ve been dying to check him out for weeks now. Keeps himself very much to himself,’ she whispered loudly into Annie’s ear.

  ‘Great, fine,’ Annie replied, rummaging in her bag for a clean hankie and paying little attention to her friend.

  Donald was Kirsty’s younger brother and was often drafted in to make up the numbers. Annie had known him since he was a boy and had watched him grow from a gawky youngster into a confident outdoorsy type. He really had very little in common with his sister’s friends but was always pleasant company. As Annie dabbed her face with the paper hankie, trying not to leave any pieces of tissue on her still clammy face, she faced the dawning realisation that she was going to have to make conversation with a complete stranger. Her heart sank. Meeting new people required effort.

  Kirsty forcefully guided Annie through the welcoming light and airy hall, and just as they were about to enter the large bay-windowed lounge, pulled Annie to one side. ‘Of course, without Donald here to keep Duncan entertained, I’m afraid he’s started a bit earlier than usual in the kitchen.’

  Annie just smiled and squeezed her friend’s hand. This was not the time to offer up any views on Duncan Drummond’s excesses.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Kirsty looking relieved. ‘No point worrying about that now.’

  Annie entered the gathering and immediately saw the stranger slumped into a burst and tattered armchair in the corner of the room – one of Kirsty’s so-called great finds in the furniture rooms on Leith Walk. Annie smiled to herself – this was the first time the incumbent truly had matched the chair. He caught her eye, smiled gently and proceeded to haul himself out of the sunken seat, protruding foam and fabric springing back to life as he stood to his feet. At this point, Annie wished she’d diverted off to the bathroom to attempt some running repairs, however, she had been late arriving and Kirsty had been keen to make introductions.

  He was not an unhandsome man. His face, like the chair, was a tad worn and leathery but it merely accentuated his beautifully pale blue eyes. His beige linen suit was crumpled, soft cotton shirt unironed and frayed tie slightly askew. His brogues, however, were so highly polished Annie wondered what on earth prompted a man to take so much effort on his size tens and leave the rest of the ensemble to look so neglected. He towered over her (at least six foot five, she thought) and just as she was completing her assessment of his overall dimensions, she felt someone grab her by the elbow and thrust her clumsily towards his outstretched hand. Of course it was Kirsty. The poor man was here to make up numbers at the dinner table and satisfy the curiosity of the hostess. If things worked out well, Annie might also find herself with an interesting companion for any future dining emergencies. Whether or not either party desired this potential match-up was of no concern to Kirsty. There was an immediate logistical problem to overcome. Dinner tables should, whenever possible, comprise matching partners and compatibility really didn’t come into the equation.

  Annie’s dinner companion, who had introduced himself as James, was, according to Duncan, a high-ranking civil servant who had just moved in across the landing. As the others wandered into the dining room it was Duncan this time who grabbed her by the elbow. ‘I’ve heard he’s quite big in land management, rural stuff, that kind of thing – seems to have the ear of the politicians anyway.’

  Annie knew she was supposed to be impressed but all she wanted to do was move her now painful elbow out of Duncan’s grasp and her face away from his already gin-infused breath.

  They were all used to Duncan’s excesses but as they took their seats at the dinner table everyone seemed to feel the need to throw apologetic glances from time to time in the direction of the stranger from across the hall. Kirsty’s eyes fixed on Duncan, his behaviour becoming more erratic as he refilled his wine glass to the brim during each trip back to the kitchen.

  Annie tried smiling across the table at Kirsty to see if that might reduce the tension but she just looked even more embarrassed. Duncan always cooked at dinner parties and his food was sublime but the constant topping up of his wine glass from a hidden stash in the kitchen often resulted in his being asleep before the main course was over, leaving everyone else to savour his latest creation and exchange complimentary noises. The introduction of a stranger to the dinner table did not give rise to a change in the group’s behaviour. Annie knew that by the end of the meal everyone else would be carrying on a normal conversation and eating at a relaxed pace with mine host sat slumped and snoring at the head of the table.

  The other dining companions, Gordon and Virginia, always reminded Annie of the devoted couple from an eighties sitcom that she could never quite remember the name of. They didn’t quite extend to matching knitwear but more often than not appeared in almost identical outfits. It wasn’t clear how they managed it, as their wardrobe was almost entirely acquired from Stockbridge’s vast array of upmarket charity shops. Gordon worked in corporate social responsibility and Virginia was reading for a PhD in ‘renewable energy from land-based resources’. Not the most scintillating of dinner companions but they were simply the kindest and most well-intentioned friends she had ever had.

  James said very little during that first encounter. The Edinburgh Festivals had just drawn to a close, the natives were rediscovering their natural habitat and the artistically minded middle classes were either extolling the virtues or giving damning critiques of various performances, films and readings. This end of August, Saturday night gathering was no different. Duncan was still conscious at this stage in the evening and had decided to interrogate James on the extent of his engagement with the various festivals, but James appeared reluctant to join this earnest band of amateur critics. The rest of the group chatted about the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra and Virginia, who herself had guzzled a few more glasses than usual, waxed lyrical about the Sir William Gillies retrospective at the Scottish Gallery.

  Annie decided to push him. She told herself it was just to help the conversation flow but there was a spark of attraction – she knew there was.

  ‘Well, James, what about your highlights? Anything interesting?’

  ‘Not particularly. I didn’t get to that much this year but from the reviews there seemed to be a lot that the tourists liked.’

  Undeterred she continued. ‘Not even on the music front? What about the Usher Hall’s music programme? Did you get to any of that?’

  ‘Yes, I did actually. Some of it anyway,’ he replied, vaguely, before plunging his fork into Duncan’s perfectly constructed tian of crab and avocado.

  It was going to be a long evening. After numerous failed attempts at meaningful conversation she turned towards Virginia and they struck up a conversation on how a farmers’ food market – ‘they seem to be springing up all over the country’ – would be a great addition to the area’s culinary landscape while the prospect of any further retail developments in their lovely little ‘village’ was a complete abomination and must be resisted at all costs. Annie noticed James out of the corner of her eye, smirking and, almost imperceptibly, shaking his head.

  ‘Sorry, James, did you say something?’ she asked perhaps a bit too earnestly.

  ‘No nothing.’

  Then just as she was about to turn back to Virginia he muttered something about the well heeled of Stockbridge venting their anger at potential retail expansion when the big issues of the day like the implications of Yugoslavia falling apart were just passing them by.

  Annie de
cided to pretend she hadn’t heard him. She was trying to make conversation, have a good time with her friends and any superficial attraction she might have felt really wasn’t going to compensate, even if it was accompanied by something resembling a political conscience. But then, just as she dropped her head to resume eating, Virginia suddenly stretched her hand out across the table and placed it on top of James’s.

  ‘Of course, you’re absolutely right,’ she cried out.

  James merely looked startled and said nothing for the rest of the meal. Annie resisted the temptation to smile.

  True to form, Duncan was in a deep slumber by the time everyone had finished the delicious paella and it was left to everyone else to clear the table around him and serve up their own portion of dessert. The assembled throng had done this so many times they were really quite adept at being able to converse, tidy up, eat and drink, leaving Duncan oblivious to all going on around him. James just looked uncomfortable, unsure whether to try to converse with his host or at least rouse him before the group retired back through to the lounge. Before he could do anything, Kirsty had slipped her arm through his and marched him off.

  Suddenly James stopped her in the hall. ‘Sorry, Kirsty, I’ve got a very early start in the morning and really need to be heading off. Thanks, really though, it was a lovely meal.’

  He reached for the door but not before turning to say goodbye to the others. As he turned, his eyes fell upon Annie and he smiled the faintest, sweetest smile. She smiled back and in that instant felt an odd almost indescribable connection to this vaguely awkward and slightly irascible man. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so terrible after all, if she got to know Mr James Kerr just a little bit better.