– there’s an angel called Jamie in the woods. He knew my name and everything, and he can just disappear when he feels like it. And he’s met famous people. Famous dead people. Look, Mam, look! He showed me this.’
Barra jumped from the chair and broke into a tap-dance. ‘Al Jolson showed him how to dance, Mam. And he showed me.’
Rose grabbed him in the middle of a twirl and sat him back on the chair. She could see her knuckles white on his shoulders, but she didn’t care.
‘I don’t know who this “angel” is, but he’s definitely not right in the head – and if you go around telling people about him, they’re going to think the same thing about you.’
Barra’s face turned to stone, his eyes, as green as her own, luminous with defiance.
‘I don’t care what they think.’
Slowly, Rose drew her hands away. Giving them both time to recover, she lifted her cup and emptied her tea down the sink. As if she didn’t have enough on her mind …
Turning, she folded her arms across her chest, and once more sought her son’s gaze.
‘Like I said, Barra, everyone knows yir name, and there are hundreds of trees up there he could have disappeared behind – you’d’ve only had to take yir eyes off him for a moment. And just because he could do a couple of tap steps doesn’t mean he met Al Jolson.’
‘Think what you like, Mam. I know he’s an angel.’ And Barra did know. It didn’t matter what Mam thought. For the first time in his life, it didn’t matter.
Silently, Rose counted to ten – and back. As patiently as she could, she began again. ‘I’d have said he might be one o’ the boys from the shows, but they’re not due for another month yet. And they wouldn’t be that well dressed.’ She tried a smile. ‘Honest, Barra, can you see an angel wearing a white shirt and grey flannels?’
‘I can’t help what he was wearing.’ There was a new tone in Barra’s voice, a tone which sounded dangerously close to insolence.
Rose felt her temper snap. Her heart had borne its share of emotions over the years, but anger had never been one of them. Until the party.
That night, the night of her fortieth, Rose had found anger. She didn’t want it. If it was some sort of mad gift, she wished she could give it back. But it was here, it was here in her home, and in her heart. And even as she fought against it, she acknowledged it, welcomed it.
‘I warned you, Barra. Warned you – and warned you.’ Her voice was rising, strident even in her own ears. ‘But you wouldn’t listen. You’re as thrawn as your father, and I wouldn’t care if you both walked off into the bloody woods tomorrow – and never came out!’
Her fury found its target. Barra tucked his legs beneath him, seeming to gather the circumference of the table in his arms before bringing his head to rest in their cradle.
‘You don’t mean that, Mam.’ His voice was muffled, and Rose knew that he was close to tears.
She pulled out the chair opposite and sat, her hand reaching to stroke her son’s crown. Never, never before had she wounded him like that.
‘Oh, Barra, I’m so sorry, son.’ She swallowed, trying to get past the knot in her throat. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe you …’
‘But you don’t.’
She sighed. ‘Let’s just keep it to ourselves for now,’ she pleaded. ‘The boy’s probably staying around here somewhere. I’ll ask Olive. She’ll know, if anyone does. Please … Promise me you’ll no’ go round talking about angels until I can find out who this Jamie is.’
Barra sniffed.
‘Please, son. Promise me, Barra.’
Barra raised his head, and shrugged wanly. ‘OK. But you’re wrong, Mam.’
‘And, Barra, not a word to yir father. Not yet.’
‘I wouldn’t, anyway. He wouldn’t believe me.’ With that, he climbed from the chair and headed for the stairs.
Rose rubbed her forehead. She would give this Jamie a piece of her mind when she found him – if she found him. Barra’s imagination had led her on more than one wild-goose chase before now, but then, how could she blame him? He’d had the childhood she had wanted for him, the childhood she had missed so badly herself. And if he was more naive, more … gentle than other boys his age, so what?
In her heart, Rose wanted to keep her son just the way he was, to prevent him from adopting the rough, tough, swaggering arrogance of his peers. And yet, as she reached to refill the kettle, she wondered if she’d been wrong to protect him so fiercely from the world. For wasn’t it these same attributes which had first attracted her to Chalmers – that same ‘manliness’ (there was no other word for it) which attracted most women, and especially the Sheena Mearnses of this world?
Footsteps sounded on the path. Chalmers had been talking about building a garage ever since they’d moved here, but the old Morris van was still parked at the kerb. Rose usually heard its approach, but not tonight. Tonight she’d been distracted by angels, for God’s sake!
‘’Lo,’ Chalmers said, opening the back door and leaning on the handle while he cleaned off his workboots on the mat.
‘Hello yourself,’ Rose answered.
‘What’s wrong with your face?’
Rose knew her husband’s day had gone little better than her own. No sense making things worse. ‘Nothing, Chalmers. It’s just … nothing.’
‘Supper long?’ Chalmers removed his newspaper from his pocket and hung his jacket on the knob of the kitchen door, frowning absent-mindedly at the state of his scarf.
Rose gritted her teeth. Just once, just once could he take the bother to hang it in the hall.
‘I’m just boiling the tatties,’ she answered, placing the pan on the ring. ‘The stew’s ready.’
‘Pudding?’
‘Apple crumble and custard.’
Content with the answer, Chalmers sat down and spread his paper. He glanced around as though missing something, and Rose slid a battered ashtray across to him. Chalmers nodded his thanks and reached in his shirt pocket.
‘Hell’s bells!’ He threw a crumpled pack of Gold Leaf and a box of matches on the table.
‘They’ll be in the van,’ Rose offered, knowing her husband’s habit of mislaying his reading glasses – glasses which, at the ripe old age of forty-one, he detested having to wear at all.
Chalmers yanked open the back door, disturbing Socks the cat who had chosen the top step for a late afternoon nap. Socks, never pleased to see Chalmers under the best of circumstances, reacted by striking at his ankle with a hefty paw adorned by a ferocious set of claws.
Chalmers kicked out, yelling, but Socks was already at the end of the path, stopping
