Mistakes We Make (34 page)

‘You looked—’

‘I looked what?’

‘So natural with her.’

Molly half opened her eyes and turned her head towards him. ‘Really?’

‘I always thought it was a shame we never started a family. Do you think things might have been different for us if we had?’

‘You thought
what
?’

‘Well, you said you didn’t want children, and I—’

‘When? When did I say that?’

‘That first holiday we had. When we were students. We were sitting by the pool in that ghastly resort and you said the last thing you wanted was to have children.’

‘We were eighteen, Adam! Anyway, you said the same thing. God, it’s getting chilly.’

‘Here.’ He draped his jacket round her shoulders. ‘Or do you want to go back? Perhaps we should.’

She shook her head. Adam reached his hand up and touched her hair. ‘When did you cut it?’

‘A month or two back.’

‘And? You never answered my question.’

‘Did it change how I feel about myself?’ She forced herself to think about it. ‘It’s true I was trying to persuade myself that a new image was what I needed.’

‘Was it?’

‘No, though it took me some time to work that out.’

He didn’t ask what she
did
need. Eventually she said, ‘You like it?’

‘I love it.’ He picked a blade of grass and passed it through his fingers, stroking the length of it with a gentle rhythm. ‘I love you. I always have.’

Molly sat up, her eyes wide, but Adam wasn’t looking at her. He went on, his voice a dull monotone. ‘Did you love him? Tell me it’s none of my business if you like, but—’

She didn’t need to ask who he was talking about.

They were divorced. Separate. Rent asunder. Their relationship had gone through too much ever to resurrect. So why did it feel like an important moment?

‘I thought I did,’ she said carefully, then immediately felt compelled to amend her statement. She could not betray her memories of Jamie. She had called him for help and he had died coming to her. He deserved honesty – and so, now more than ever, did Adam.

‘No, it was more than that. Jamie was a friend at first. He was funny, and great to talk to, easy to be with. I can’t deny he was attractive.’

She saw the slightest tic in a muscle in Adam’s face, but he was expressionless.
Honesty
. She ploughed on.

‘He offered me all the things that you were not giving me at that time. Attention. Adoration, even. Find me a woman who would not find that irresistible.’

‘So it was my fault that you had an affair with Jamie Gordon?’

‘Yes! Partly!’ She picked half a dozen daisies in quick succession, plucking them furiously out of the ground and tossing them into a forlorn heap at her feet. ‘Oh, dammit, how can I blame you when I was the one who did wrong?’

‘If it was my fault, I couldn’t be sorrier.’

Anger flared. ‘Christ, Adam, why are we having this conversation? Why are we having it now? Couldn’t we have talked when you were so busy you never had time for me? When work was the only thing that seemed to matter to you?’

‘You were always busy too. You worked all the hours. You were driven.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious,’ she said defensively, even though her opinion on ambition had changed. ‘My job always involved antisocial hours, you knew that when you married me. But I never forgot your birthday.’

‘Oh, so that was it? We got divorced because of a late birthday present?’

They were staring at each other furiously. She could see sparks of exasperation in his eyes and thought fleetingly that she liked it better than the lifelessness that had characterised them of late. But her anger collided with his fury and words exploded out of her before she could stop them.

‘It was more than that, Adam, and you know it. We’d almost stopped speaking to each other. We certainly never did anything together any more – any spare time you had you went off out to the hills.’

‘That’s because I hated being cooped up in the office. I hated law. I detested it.’

‘Really?’ The revelation stopped her dead. ‘I never knew that.’

‘Didn’t you?’

‘You were so involved in everything. That’s why I was so angry when I found out I was still liable for that debt. You’d been so bloody busy lawyering that you hadn’t even bothered to make sure my interests were protected. I could have lost my career without that money.’

‘I know. That’s why I gave you my—’

He stopped abruptly.

‘What?’ Molly demanded. ‘What did you give me?’

He sighed. ‘I gave you my share of the remaining capital.’

Molly’s jaw dropped open. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘You weren’t meant to.’

‘So – you’ve got – how much left?’

He shrugged. ‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘That’s why this job at the farm is so good. It’s come at just the right time. I had nowhere to live, no job, and not the slightest wish to carry on working in law anyway.’

‘Oh, Adam.’ Molly pursed her lips. Somewhere inside, the absurdity of it all struck her and amusement erupted into laughter.

‘What? What are you laughing at, Molly?’

‘Don’t you see?’ Tears were streaming down her face. ‘I’ve no hankie, dammit.’

He moved closer to her and hooked a handkerchief out of one of his jacket pockets.

‘Here. What is it?’

‘All that money. Everything we worked for, you and me. It’s all gone. Every penny.’

She had to hold her sides, her ribs were aching.

‘What about your investment?’

‘Barnaby’s keeping it. I might get it back. One day. But I might not. Oh. Oh. Ohhh!’

It was impossible not to join in, her laughter was so infectious.

At last she spluttered to a halt. Her face grew serious.

‘You did that for me?’

‘It was the least I could do.’

‘Oh, Adam. What fools we’ve been.’

She reached out her arms and he pulled her close. After a minute, he tilted her face towards his with one finger and wiped away smudges of mascara with his thumbs. When he kissed her, it was like the very first time.

‘We’ve made such terrible mistakes,’ she whispered when she could catch her breath. ‘Do you think we can ever put them right?’

‘I don’t know,’ Adam said, looking into her eyes and smiling. ‘We could try.’

––––––––

‘S
he’s home,’ Adam said. ‘I went round to see her today.’

‘I take it you mean Agnes Buchanan,’ Logan said evenly.

‘She’s not good. Her speech is fairly unintelligible and her face is all lopsided. Her right arm is almost useless. She has a carer in twice a day.’ Adam gave a short laugh. ‘She may not be able to say much, but boy, that woman knows how to harbour a grudge.’

Logan took a long drink from the glass of water Adam had poured for him before he said, ‘I know.’

Adam looked at him sharply.

‘Was that what it was all about? A chip on her shoulder?’

Adam had become used to long silences in their conversations. Logan had become ruminative. He accepted nothing on a superficial level; it was as though he had to digest statements, ponder them, weigh his answers. Adam didn’t mind this. In fact, he quite liked it. They weren’t fraught gaps – they had moved beyond those into a different dimension. There was time, in those silences, to reflect on things himself. So now he waited patiently for Logan’s response.

‘No-one,’ Logan said eventually, ‘understood Agnes Buchanan. No-one saw the resentment.’

‘Except you.’

‘Once I’d spotted the false entries in the accounts, it fell into place. She’d been there forty years. She knew more about that place than anyone, your father included. Yet she felt – keenly – that no-one valued her.’

‘It’s probably true.’

‘It wouldn’t have taken much. A few words of praise now and then. A bonus. A bigger-than-inflation pay rise.’

Adam looked around the small room. This was the first flat he had restored at Forgie End Farm, and when Logan was given bail while the case was put together, he had offered him sanctuary.

‘Why?’ Logan had asked him.

‘Why?’ had also been the first question his father had put to him.

Molly had simply kissed him, which had repaid the deed a hundredfold.

He’d taken to visiting Logan Keir in prison. It had started in anger. It had started with him storming into the visiting room not knowing whether he would be able to stop himself from punching the man and beating him to a pulp for the damage he had inflicted.

Logan had sat, impassive, through the long outbursts of accusation and recrimination. Mistaking his stony face for defiance, Adam had at last come to boiling point.

‘Say something, you bastard!’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Say, “I did wrong”. Say, “I was a selfish bloody idiot and I ruined the lives of a lot of people”.’

‘I did wrong. I was a selfish bloody idiot and I ruined the lives of a lot of people.’

‘Are you taking the mickey?’

Still Logan had sat, wordless. It was the nearest Adam came to hitting him – until he saw that Logan’s eyes, staring at him, unwavering, were bright with tears.

Instantly, he felt his own fill, and before he knew it, they were both weeping deep, half smothered, silent sobs that they had to fight to disguise from everyone around. He had left, ten minutes later, without either of them speaking another word – but a tentative bond had been forged between them and they began to move forward.

‘She started, you know, a long time before I upped the stakes.’

‘I know.’

‘Those cash shortfalls. She’d been squirrelling away small amounts for years. I just found a way of getting more. Did she manage to communicate at all?’

‘Oh yes. I gather the police have deemed her fit to stand trial.’

Another silence, then, ‘Poor Agnes.’

‘Do you know,’ Adam said at length, ‘even though those pictures were all purchased with my money – well, the firm’s ... the partners’ – I found it strangely poignant to sit in those bare rooms. She felt it. The way she looked at those empty walls was heartbreaking in its own way.’

‘She won’t cope well with prison. But they’ll probably not send her down. There will be some kind of leniency.’

‘What will you do if they find you guilty?’

‘They won’t have to. I’m going to plead guilty.’

‘Really? A good defence might be able to pick holes in the police case.’

Logan gave a short laugh. ‘You shouldn’t really be advising me like that.’

‘Probably not. Personally, I think you’ve done your time already. What you did has destroyed you too.’

‘Yes.’

Logan finished his water and sat staring at his glass. ‘I’ll serve my sentence for the rest of my life. In my head. I’ve paid a price with Adrienne and the boys that has sucked the blood from my veins and turned me into a zombie. I have no idea if I will ever recover the ground.’

‘Your boys,’ Adam said with surprising gentleness, ‘will always be your boys. They’ll always love you. Your job is to start, when you can, to rebuild their respect.’

‘I know. I just don’t know how.’

‘As for Adrienne—’

Adam stopped. How did he know what Adrienne was going to do? How did any man know what was truly happening in other people’s marriages? Logan and Adrienne were living apart, but he knew they still talked from time to time.

‘There may be a chance,’ he said lamely.

Logan reached across the table and grasped his hand.

‘I never knew the meaning of friendship,’ he said, ‘until now.’

Malkie Milne stood looking at a point somewhere past Caitlyn’s right ear and said in a voice that was quite unlike his normal cheery tone, ‘I think we should stop seeing each other.’

Caitlyn stared at him, speechless.

Malkie didn’t seem to be able to look at her. She watched, appalled, as a wave of blood suffused his skin, starting at his neck and creeping all the way to his scalp.

‘I really care about you, Caitlyn, you know that, but you don’t want what I want.’

‘If you’re talking about living together—’

He seemed to gather courage, and although the blush was still hot on his cheeks, his gaze was now steadfast.

‘Aye. That’s what I’m talking about. I want my life to be full that way. I want to have someone in my arms at night when I go to sleep and in the morning when I wake. I want to hold hands in front of the telly when I’m tired, and have someone by my side when I visit my ma. I want,’ he said with uncharacteristic resolution, ‘commitment.’

‘I see.’ Insight flashed. ‘And you’ve found someone who’d like to play this role in your life.’

‘No! Well,’ the blush had returned, ‘I’ve done nothing yet, we’ve just talked. I wouldn’t cheat on you, Caitlyn, you know that.’

That was the hardest part. She did know it. Malcolm Milne was fundamentally a good man. She could look a long time before finding a better one.

He caught her hand and held it, even when she tried to pull away.

‘Look at me, Caitlyn Murray. Look at me and tell me this isn’t what you want, because if it is—’

But she couldn’t say what he wanted to hear.

‘How’s that pile of work coming along, Caitlyn?’

Caitlyn blinked away the tears that had been threatening, pulled a hankie from her sleeve and gave her nose a good blow.

‘Just one more document to do after this one, Mr Armstrong.’

‘Not getting a cold, are you? Can’t have our best worker coming down with flu.’

‘No, it’s nothing. I’m fine. Thanks.’

She’d been at Fraser, Fraser and Mutch for six months. She was good at the work because she was efficient and organised – years of having to create order out of chaos at Farm Lane had endowed her with many useful skills. Mr Armstrong seemed to appreciate what she had to offer. He’d let her take charge of some refurbishments and the office already felt like a brighter, fresher, more welcoming place. She’d made friends with Donna, the part-time bookkeeper, and Janet Reid, the senior legal secretary, who’d shown her lots of new things. She’d even managed, by a combination of cajoling and bossiness, to get Gemma, the girl on reception, to smarten up and learn to smile.