My Last Confession Read online

  They drove past the dense West End and along the Great Western Road, with huge trees, flowers in the middle and beautiful Victorian town houses on either side. Jeremy felt uplifted. This was better. But then the houses got littler and the flowers more shrivelled, and then Amanda pointed and he turned into a dowdy street filled with badly maintained boxes.

  ‘This is us!’ she said, outside number 43, and he stopped the car and kissed her on the lips and wondered if the girl who had grown up in this house was the same girl who had sucked his dick somewhere between Penrith and Carlisle.

  Amanda’s parents were older than he expected – approaching seventy, maybe – and nicer. Mrs Kelly was round and short, with thick grey hair, a lifetime of smiles lining her face. Her husband – slim, fit, moustached and Brylcreemed – was less smiley, but no less lovable. They hugged their girl (‘Oh, my darling girl!’ her mother said over and over), they hugged him (‘Welcome to the family, son!’) and they served soup that had been simmering since Amanda phoned ten miles after Motherwell.

  The house was a four-room box filled with Amanda memorabilia – ballet photos, badminton trophies, beauty college certificates – and it smelt nice. Jeremy noticed that everything about Amanda seemed different once they walked through the door; her clothes changed from bright and bohemian to old-fashioned and comfortable, her chat from urban and hip to giggly, gossipy. Jeremy wasn’t sure how he felt about the changes initially.

  After a no-nonsense dinner of lamb stew, Amanda’s mother put on some old family videos. They drank beer as they watched Amanda performing in her Primary Three nativity play with chubby grin. They laughed as she long-jumped in the school sports aged eleven, and as she poked out her tongue while sunbathing on holiday in Portugal aged fourteen.

  All four were getting a little tipsy as they pored over old report cards …

  Could do better.

  Lacks concentration.

  Seems bored.

  … and were positively pissed when the photo of Amanda and her first boyfriend, Peter Bishop, found its way onto the coffee table.

  ‘Oh God, what was I thinking?’ Amanda said, examining the fifteen-year-old boy. He was very good-looking. Her comment had obviously been intended to put Jeremy at ease.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ someone said. The voice was not a happy one.

  ‘What you were you thinking, Mand? Disappearing like that?’

  Her mother was drunk enough to confront her now.

  ‘Ten years without coming back. And there were times we thought you might be dead!’

  Amanda put the photo album and the beer down on the coffee table, walked over to where her mother was sitting, knelt before her, and buried her head in her lap.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Amanda wept. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking! I love you! I know it sounds corny, but I wanted to try and find myself.’

  And did you?’

  ‘I found Jeremy,’ Amanda replied. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you.’

  Amanda’s father joined his girls on the sofa while Jeremy watched with a tear in his eye.

  *

  They spent three days organising a party to celebrate their marriage. Jeremy mostly managed to keep his mobile switched off, even though his second-in-charge was having a nervous breakdown. The glass from Germany had arrived for the patio doors in the Finsbury Park project but was the wrong size. And the water pipes in one of the cheaper rentals had burst, damaging the immaculate dining room belonging to the gay couple downstairs.

  ‘Send the glass back,’ Jeremy said. ‘We won’t pay unless it’s what we ordered. Then ring the plumber and the insurers. Easy.’

  The party was at to be held the Grantly Hotel, a three-star job two blocks further into pebble-dash hell, and Mand’s parents were insisting on paying for it.

  ‘We won’t hear of it!’ Mr Kelly had said when Jeremy opened his wallet. ‘It’s the least we can do for our Mand.’ Jeremy had never conceived of shortening Amanda’s beautiful name, but there it was – Mand.

  At first, Jeremy wasn’t sure how he felt as the pieces of Amanda began to click into place. Mand. Who was she?

  They went for drinks at a West End pub. Amanda’s friends gathered around a table and fired questions at her. What have you been doing? Why didn’t you write at least? How did you two meet? Did you know Peter Bishop is divorced already? Jeremy drank it all in – how bohemian and unselfconscious the pub was, how much they all loved Amanda, how bubbly she was in their company. He had a great night, and he worked the crowd so thoroughly that they all approved of him wholeheartedly by the time they left.

  That night he and Amanda kissed in bed and didn’t stop for hours.

  ‘I think I love you more than I did before we arrived,’ he told her.

  ‘I’ve been a bad daughter.’

  ‘They forgive you. They love you. And I love everything about you.’

  He loved that she was wildly spontaneous but could also slob on the sofa for hours watching Anne of Green Gables. He loved her family and her roots. Most of all, he loved her willingness to tear herself away from them and start afresh with him in London.

  *

  At the wedding party, Jeremy smiled at his wife, the pieces of her together now, complete.

  Red swirling carpet, twenty large round tables and a teensy DJ. At least thirty over-seventies drinking beer faster than at least fifty under-thirties. Small children running in circles on a larger-than-necessary dance floor, and a cauldron of mince on a table beside a cauldron of mashed spud.

  Jeremy loved mashed spud, and when he saw the cauldron he nearly cried because it reminded him of his best and earliest memory.

  The party had all the perfect ingredients:

  A groping drunk uncle.

  A father’s moving speech – ‘We were given this girl from God, and every day we thank him.’

  A tearful mother who used her daughter’s inebriation as a good opportunity to make Amanda promise never to disappear again like that! To come back twice a year at least, keep in contact. ‘Promise me, Mand! Promise me!’ she said.

  ‘I promise!’ Amanda said. And she meant it. Her desire to flee had diminished since she met Jeremy.

  The circle at the end spun fast around them, Auld Lang Syne, in and out, in and out, and it took hours for them to say goodbye to everyone because everyone had so much to say:

  I love you

  Don’t tell anyone but you are my favourite cousin.

  You’re much nicer than that Peter Bishop, who’s divorced already!

  Mate, you’re a lucky bastard!

  Goodbye, son.

  Goodbye, Dad.

  Goodbye, Mum.

  Amanda puked all the way to the end of the Great Western Road, up Loch Lomond, over the Rest-and-be-Thankful, through Inveraray and to the Crinan Canal. It was 3 a.m. by the time they arrived. Jeremy lifted her up and walked into the luxurious waterside lodge they’d rented for two weeks. Two whole weeks together reading books, walking, talking, cooking, fishing, making love. Bliss.

  ‘Oh shite, I’ve barfed ma load on the hall carpet,’ Amanda said, her accent now as strong as her breath.

  ‘That’s all right, my darling. I’ll clear it up. Just you lie down and sleep.’

  12

  Throughout my life, when people have told me not to do something, I have had an overwhelming urge to do it.

  ‘Don’t look now!’

  ‘Don’t have sex on a first date.’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t drink more than two glasses of this cocktail!’

  ‘Please don’t talk to Amanda,’ Jeremy had said.

  I fought it for a while, especially as there was no need whatsoever for me to visit Amanda. The report required half an hour’s interview and half an hour’s typing. Full stop. End of story. Should’ve finished it already.

  But I was consumed with curiosity. What was his wife like? Did she still love him? Believe him innocent? Who was the victim, Bridget McGivern? Did Jeremy and/or Amanda know her? />
  As soon as I got back from the interview with Jeremy at Sandhill, I rang the salon Jeremy said she worked at. A very grumpy male boss answered the phone and then put her on. Amanda was desperate to hear news of her husband, but she was working late.

  ‘Can you come in?’ she asked, before arguing with her boss in the background. ‘I’m going to do her nails!’ I heard her say.

  I hated manicures almost as much as I hated the manicured. From what I could see, they were mainly reserved for the section of society that had no use for hands, who sat for long periods waiting for polish to dry – wiggle and blow, wiggle and blow – for those who had more time than reasons to live, who had no need for typing, whose worst fear was the breaking of a nail.

  As I walked into the Pine Tree Unisex Hairdressing Salon in Newton Mearns, my opinion of manicuring wasn’t challenged as I beheld stationary ladies in lines, wiggling and blowing, wiggle and blow.

  What was Amanda doing there? She was beautiful, skinny as a malinky, with thick red curly hair. Her clothes were bohemian and comfortable and her smile was captivating. If she wore make-up, it was impossible to tell. She was natural and flawless. If I’d seen her at a party, I’d have wanted to talk to her. My kind of girl. She looked way too interesting to be interested in nails.

  Amanda seated me at her tiny table and dipped my hands into warm honey as I told her about the pre-trial report.

  ‘How is he?’ she asked.

  Dilemma – he’d not only asked me not to talk to her, he’d also said he didn’t want her to know he was having a hard time. I desperately wanted to tell her that he wasn’t fine, that he was probably being bullied and might be in danger. But on the way to the salon I’d asked myself if I’d want to know in the same situation. If Chas was bruised and scared, would I want to know when all I could do was worry?

  ‘He’s fine,’ I lied. ‘He’s coping. How about you? How are you coping?’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘Of course I’m not. But Jeremy’s innocent. I know he is. Did he tell you his mother won’t corroborate his alibi? Fucking bitch. She wants him locked away. I don’t know who killed Bridget but he didn’t. A monster did.’

  Definitely my kind of girl. Upfront, no-nonsense.

  ‘My life has exploded in my face,’ she said, looking at me and smiling kindly, ‘and your nails are a bloody disaster.’

  ‘Did you always want to be a nail technician?’

  She laughed at this. ‘I wanted to travel, and you can do this anywhere.’

  We paused for some hand rituals – cleaning, drying, massaging – and I entered a dimension unknown to me before then, the anaesthetised state of the manicured, and my opinion of the ladies in lines began to change.

  ‘I used to do Jeremy’s nails, on the sofa at night. It was one of “our” things.’ She took a brown leather case from her bag and touched it almost lovingly. ‘He gave me this set to use, especially for him.’

  The leather set was beautiful and had her initials burnt into it. AK. Inside were stainless steel implements of all shapes and sizes.

  ‘Are you married?’ she asked me, the remnants of my clipped nails falling onto her felt cloth.

  ‘No,’ I eventually answered, having given the question more thought than it required. I’d never thought of myself as the marrying type. I’d never wanted to waste ten grand on a party that I probably wouldn’t enjoy with people I hardly knew. I’d never wanted to be the centre of attention, or to be given away like some Christmas hamper. Weddings made me cry, and not for the usual reasons. At my work pal Marj’s I cried because her husband was a fuck-face. He always got pissed and then he pissed wherever he so pleased – I caught him peeing in my Sainsbury’s basil plant one night, and Marj said one of ‘his things’ was to stand over her and let loose in the bath. Even more than that, he was a misogynist who only ever became animated when talking to other men about fucking-Celtic-this-and-UEFA-that. I don’t think he ever looked me, or any other woman, in the eye. God knows his piss must’ve tasted like Lindt chocolate ’cause for the life of me I couldn’t imagine why else Marj would have married him. I howled uncontrollably as she headed down the aisle to merge with her flabby lump of crusty urine.

  Then there was my cousin’s wedding in Skye. I cried at the that one ’cause I was so embarrassed. I’d asked a really cute guy called Jamie from Uni to accompany me there. I’d fancied him for months, but he was Mr Popular, awfully cute, good at everything, and rich. He agreed to come, and the sexual chemistry was so huge we couldn’t talk to each other at all during the six-hour drive. We just sat there, our chemicals fizzing across his gear stick. I changed into a very sexy outfit and we raced to the church just in time for the ceremony. He followed me to our seats and when we sat down our bodies were so close I had goose bumps all over.

  ‘You’ve got something stuck on your back,’ he whispered in my ear.

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied, excited by the heat of his whisper. I reached round, but couldn’t feel anything. ‘Can you get it?’ I asked. He didn’t seem keen. ‘Please,’ I said, fluttering my eyelashes.

  He put his hand behind my back. I heard a sticky-tape sound. Then he handed me the panty liner I’d removed before getting changed.

  It was used.

  Clatty, disgusting, idiot.

  I was so overwhelmed with embarrassment that I began crying. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I scrunched the thing up and put it in my handbag.

  I drank too much champagne while the photographs were being taken and ended up in the bed of my (single) hotel room before the speeches, moving my head from side to side to try and quell the pre-vomit spinning. The following day, we drove for six hours in silence again. Not because of our fizzing chemicals, but because the lovely Jamie thought I was a tosspot, and he was right.

  So weddings weren’t my big thing.

  But when Amanda asked me if I was married, my entire body felt as though it’d been dipped in her hand-honey. Mmm, marriage. A public declaration of my love for Chas. An official merging of our families. Chas could officially become Robbie’s father. We could love each other for eternity, officially. Who was I? What was I thinking? Why was I suddenly wanting things on paper? It didn’t make sense, but the thought of marriage now seemed officially yummy. It was warm and romantic and nonsensically delicious. And I found myself wondering why Chas hadn’t asked me to marry him. Why hadn’t he invited me to the Rogano one night and gotten down on one knee and embarrassed me with his well-rehearsed speech? Why hadn’t I leafed through wedding brochures and Hello magazines to find the perfect dress, the perfect hotel, the car, the piper and all that wedding shite?

  ‘Where were you married?’ I asked, returning from lala land for a moment. I was interested in her, but I was also picturing different possibilities for me and Chas: the gloomy Highland castle, the posh hotel; the marquee, the University Chapel, Gretna Green, Mum and Dad’s back garden, Sri Lanka.

  She didn’t answer the question directly, but told me about their wedding party in Glasgow, when she introduced her find to the family. It was the happiest she’d ever been, she said, filing my nails.

  ‘Where’d you go on your honeymoon?’ Hmm, I thought. Where might Chas and I go? The Great Barrier Reef? Kerala? On safari?

  When Amanda told me the Lock House, on the Crinan Canal in Argyll, I tried not to show my shock, because it was the place of the murder.

  ‘Some honeymoon,’ Amanda said. ‘The first night I puked. And on the second day Jeremy was called down to London for an emergency. An A & E nurse rang to say his mother had been admitted to hospital with a suspected heart condition. The next time I saw him he’d been charged with murdering Bridget … my biological mother.’

  ‘Biological?’

  ‘She gave me up at birth. I was adopted.’

  13

  Chas and I had our first fight that evening.

  For two years we’d smiled and kissed and said I love you at least once a day. We’d laughed together over elaborate b
edtime stories in Robbie’s room, then snuggled after dinner on the sofa while making various forms of physical contact. In the week before my job, I’d also crammed in an inordinate number of battery-induced orgasms and we’d started to consider ways to one day integrate Chas into the procedure.

  But when I got home that night, our happy loving routine flew out the window.

  ‘Jesus!’ I said instead of hello. ‘Why is the hall wall covered in cake mix?’

  ‘It’s not cake mix,’ Chas said. ‘We were making a potion!’

  ‘The washing basket is overflowing, there’s no food in the fridge. And why haven’t you asked me to marry you?’

  ‘Do you want to get married?’ Chas asked. ‘If you want to, then we can,’ he said, which put me on the defensive.

  Confusing myself as much as Chas, I told him of course I didn’t want to get married. Who needs a bit of paper? Marriage was old fashioned and a sure way to stuff up a good thing and anyway, what sort of girl hangs around waiting for a guy to ask her, like that’s the only way it can happen? ‘It’s pathetic!’ I said, with a tone that made Chas wish he’d been gay.

  I did synchronised huffing, tidying and apologising, and in the end Chas did the sensible thing and went for a walk while I put Robbie to bed and filled my stomach with the (cleverly hidden) dinner he’d made. And even though pizza didn’t warrant meal-status like the leg of lamb I’d been dreaming about all day, the one I’d asked him to take out of the freezer and cook with rosemary, it filled a void. So by the time Chas got home I was ready to give him a huff-free apology.

  ‘Thanks for dinner,’ I said. ‘I’m crazy, aren’t I?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘I met this woman today and she started talking about her wedding, and I felt all gooey about it. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not me.’