Chasing Angels (41 page)

Just as she had expected, he didn’t call by the time she left the next day, and she knew with absolute certainty that she would never see him again. Now it was over, and yet he remained a
loose end and always would. It went against the grain, but maybe growing up was accepting that sometimes you couldn’t tie off every one. She had spent her entire life doing just that,
thinking each time that she would be able to get on with her life after the next one was dealt with, but the truth was that there was always one more, then another. That was a fact, and the only
way to avoid that was to do as Peter had done, retire behind a big wall and never again talk to ‘outsiders’. She remembered the time he had accused her of having no interest in other
people, well now she understood that he had in fact identified his own greatest fault. He had looked at his very similar sister and seen the greatest difference between them reflected in the
mirror, only instead of facing up to it he had shifted the blame on to her. On the plane back to Heathrow she couldn’t stop thinking about their cold, emotionless meeting. There had been no
great reunion, no resolution even of their old differences, no ‘Well, cheerio, mind and keep in touch,’ even if neither side meant it. All she had was confirmation of how things had
been, how they were and how they always would be. Peter had gone from her life for ever; it was almost, as that nice chap had said, as though he was dead. But what was it about men, she wondered,
that sent them scurrying off into fantasy if they didn’t like the reality they had? Con had retreated into drink and Irish martyrdom, her mad cousin, Harry, had taken to his insane, though
highly lucrative, world of mystical forces, spiders and conjuring tricks with gusto, rarely visiting Planet Earth. Even the old Orangeman she’d never met needed his sash and his marching
bands to get by, and Angus, much as she loved him, had run up the white flag as he and Bunty were approaching the ends of their lives, making sure he wouldn’t be the one left behind to cope
alone. But Peter, poor Peter – now there was an odd concept! – was the saddest of all, condemned to spend what was left of his life among the waving palms of the tragic purple land of
Oz. He, like all the others, had found the harsh realities of his true background and early existence so unbearable that he had abandoned Peter Kelly from Moncur Street, and become reborn as
Brother Peter, and in the process of running away from the East End he’d become trapped in Never-Never Land. Yet the women coped no matter how hard life was, they had no option because the
men were all escaping to their boltholes. Lily coped with Con, as Kathy had herself, she had even been there at the end, with bad grace, it was true, because she hadn’t wanted to be there.
And Jamie Crawford, living in his nice semi in Moodiesburn in his fantasy respectable world, his one of each children, and his repressed wife sacrificing herself and her dreams to keep it together
for him, because she had to, she was a female after all. Even horrible Old Aggie had been left with the forbidden fruits of Frank McCabe’s loins, raising his child and letting him get on,
unscathed and unimpeded, with the strange life he wanted to live, keeping their secret till the end, or near enough. And poor old Jessie the whore, who Kathy had despised all those years. Well, she
had made the best of the bad breaks life had dealt her after the men in her life escaped too. Big Eddie Harris had tried to live out his big-time gangster fantasy and been dispensed with for being
a nuisance, leaving Jessie with his child. Then Sammy Nicholson had taken a header down his own stairs, and OK, maybe he was only stupid, but Jessie was still left to cope. Even thick
Claire’s unknown father had walked off, scot-free, as had all the other men Jessie had had through her hands, not to mention other parts of her anatomy. She had provided them with a few hours
of fantasy and, once the money had changed hands, they had walked back to better lives than she had ever had, doubtless underpinned by wives too busy to lead them around on all fours like dogs,
telling them what naughty boys they were and occasionally slapping their arses. And now she lived in an obsessive, anxious world, terrified of germs, beset by rashes and weeping flesh, paying more
than her customers ever did for the way she’d coped, for being a woman. Dear God, with all those men standing by in the wings, it had even been left to the diminutive Maggie to save the
collapsed horse the day Frank McCabe wanted to murder it! Rory was the only man she had ever met who dealt with life as it was, but then, Rory was Rory, the fabled exception that always proved the
rule.

She thought of Margery Nairn, sitting in her nice, neat Bearsden villa, waiting for Kathy to bring news of her missing daughter. What was she to tell Margery, who’d probably done no one
any harm in her life? She’d tell her that Rose was indeed part of a cult, that she’d had a long talk with her and Peter and there was nothing anyone could do, because they were happy
and content. That was it; she’d lie. Margery would be heartbroken enough with that, but she’d cope, because she was a woman, she had no choice. Then she thought of herself, of her
secret dead child lying with Lily and the other Kelly women all these years in St Kentigern’s, and of her flight to the West Coast. Wasn’t she living in a fantasy world as well? No, she
damned well wasn’t, she wasn’t the one who needed a high wall to protect her from being contaminated by the rest of humanity! She had found a life that suited her, but she hadn’t
turned her back on the East End. She could’ve, of course, she could’ve told the doctors treating Con at the outset not to contact her again, that she wasn’t interested. But she
hadn’t, she had kept in touch, interrupted her life, her
real
life, and gone back to Glasgow when she had to, and in those last three months she had nursed him. She’d hated it,
she’d objected loudly and often, but she’d still done it. What had happened was that she had outgrown her background, she had moved on from the poverty and the pain of her childhood and
found something better, but she had never been ashamed of the East End. She was, and always would be, ‘that Kathy Kelly’, and even if she’d walked away, she had always come back
when necessary, just as she would when Jessie’s time came, though where they’d find a coffin antiseptic enough for her to lie down in was anybody’s guess. All the men she knew, on
the other hand, had
run
away, and chosen to inhabit their individual fantasy worlds rather than reality. Peter had as much responsibility for their father as she had and, as everyone knew,
had been worshipped and adored in return for his blatant negligence; Peter had cut and run without a thought. In his need not to be who he was, he had become someone else, a poor, sad, brainwashed,
wannabe if wingless angel, exiled in a land he could never leave. She had always thought he was the survivor because he’d managed to travel far enough to stay out of reach of Con’s
demands and needs, while she had struggled to stay afloat. But she
had
stayed afloat, that was the point, when the dust had settled
she
was the survivor, not Peter, Peter had sunk
without trace. She felt tears welling up again; maybe growing up meant admitting to feelings for people who probably didn’t deserve them, she thought. ‘Next thing ye know, ye’ll
be greetin’ for Con!’ she chided herself, then added, ‘Naw, ye’re takin’ things too far again, Kathy!’ She determinedly diverted her mind to going home. This
time tomorrow she would be back in Drumsallie, sitting with Rory by the fire he’d set in the cottage, and Cat would be waiting to pounce on her and rake her with his claws again. It would be
cold, there would be snow on the ground and she’d have to wrap up to keep warm, though it would never be as warm as it had been in the furnace of LA. Cold winter, numb toes, chapped lips, now
there
was something to look forward to, she thought happily. In a couple of months she would be back at work in Glenfinnan, spreading the word to the tourist hordes about Bonnie Prince
Charlie, chancer that he was, watching them lift Rory Mark II’s kilt to see, as Mavis loved to say, if there was anything worn underneath. This winter her alter ego, Lillian, had done no work
at all, she’d been placed in mothballs for the duration. Maybe this was an opportunity to try something new as Kathy Kelly, though of course she wouldn’t tell Rory, not till it was
finished and she was satisfied with it. If she did it, that was. She wondered if there would be a letter waiting for Lillian from Ishbel Smith, and how her greatest fan would take it if Lillian
disappeared and wrote no more of heroic Bruces.

The picture of Peter pushed its way into her mind again. As she’d left Gabriel’s Gateway she had turned to look at her brother for what she knew in her heart would be the last time.
He was standing looking back at her with his dead eyes, looking, but probably not registering. She wondered what Lily’s reaction would’ve been had she lived to see her only son like
that. Disbelief, sorrow and hurt, no doubt. Maybe there were some things, she thought, it was better for Lily not to have known about. What was it Lily used to say about them? ‘The same, but
different,’ that was it, and Kathy used to protest ‘But a helluva lot different, well!’ And she’d been right, but she still felt unutterably sad. Kathy Kelly who always
insisted on having the last word, even, as dear old Jessie had said, if it was a daft word, had had to accept that sometimes there is no last word, daft or sensible. Then she remembered the hideous
outfit Peter had been wearing, the purple shirt with the stand-up mandarin collar, the thong sandals, and the baggy purple trousers. Even feeling as sorry for him as she did, she couldn’t
help laughing. At the end of the day he was still arrogant, better-than-everyone-else Peter Kelly, wasn’t he? ‘
What an arse he looked
!’ she thought, chuckling to herself.
‘
What an
arse!’

16

Getting from London to Glenfinnan took longer than getting from LA to London. She had only just made the six o’clock evening train from Queen Street Station, and when she
finally arrived at a quarter to eleven at night, Rory was waiting for her. As usual there was little ceremony, he just nodded as she got off the train and followed him to his van.

‘So,’ he said, starting up the engine. ‘Are you planning to stay this time, or have you come up with a few more imaginary relatives to get you away from the place?’

‘I’m staying, you daft sod,’ she replied.

‘Charming as ever,’ he grinned quietly.

‘I’m too tired to be charming,’ she protested. ‘I’ve travelled halfway across the world, you know!’

‘Aye, and you canny expect anybody up here to know anything about foreign travel,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if any of us have ever moved out of the place, is it?’

‘What I meant,’ she said, ‘was that you of all people should understand!’

‘Well, sounds to me as if you’re maybe angry because you’re regretting being back. Is that not the case?’

‘I have never met anyone in my entire life who could twist things the way you do, Rory Macdonald!’ she shouted at him. ‘You know fine what I mean!’

A fresh fall of snow had coated the familiar landscape, making it glow in the dark, and in the silence the van tyres creaked through the snow. The headlights picked out the startled eyes of deer
by the roadside, forced down from the hills by the cold to find food on lower ground. Beside her Rory grinned silently, pleased with himself for provoking a reaction from her. She looked at him,
smiling, too, despite herself. She had disliked this annoying man at first sight and the years hadn’t changed him; no one could ever mistake Rory for an angel, winged or otherwise. He was
just as annoying today as he had been way back then, yet somehow he had become inextricably linked with everything she thought of as ‘home’. She couldn’t explain how or why he had
become so much a part of her life. He just had, that was all.

A SCENT OF BLUEBELLS

Family prejudice forces a young couple to flee to Glasgow in World War One, where tragedy and deceit shapes their future. They called her Auld Nally – the local
moneylender in one of Glasgow’s roughest areas, Inchcraig. But once she’d been Alice McInally from Belfast, beautiful and beloved by her childhood sweetheart. Though his family was
Catholic and her Protestant, their families had been close for generations, and the young couple were too naïve to anticipate the angry opposition their marriage plans would unleash. Their
only hope is to leave Ireland, knowing they will be cast out by their well-to-do families and can never go home again. But the couple’s dream of a bright future founders in the realities of
war-torn Glasgow, and Alice ends up struggling to make ends meet in the only way she can. Somehow she must protect the children in her care, even if that means relying on the man Inchcraig knows as
‘him’, and living among people far from her background, people she comes to like and admire and doesn’t want to leave. Every day, though, she must live with a lie told many years
ago with the best of intentions, a lie that could unravel and destroy everything, unless she can find the exact time to put it right…

CHASING ANGELS

Kathy Kelly, born in the heart of Glasgow’s East End, comes from a family torn apart by conflict. She grows up with a sharp wit and a quick temper, constantly
challenging those who cross her: her reproving grandmother, Con, her hard-drinking father, even the local priest – Kathy takes no prisoners. But at least she copes, unlike her older brother
Peter, who disappears as fast as he can. Kathy also escapes – to the Highlands. Here she finds work and a home with the Macdonalds, an eccentric, easy-going couple. But Con’s death
drags Kathy back to Glasgow, where she is forced to look at things afresh, at past events and the people she knew so well – and begin the search for her missing brother, a search which will
result in an extraordinary, devastating discovery.