“Danny, I overheard you and Ingrid.” Danny took his first ever sip of whisky and screwed his face up in displeasure at the taste. “Are you absolutely sure you’re making the right decision?”

 “I’ve never felt so sure about anything in my whole life Judith. This past year or so has been the best time I’ve ever had. I didn’t realize my happiness until Ingrid appeared and reminded me how miserable our relationship actually became. Within minutes of being here she was dragging me down a dark well and making me claustrophobic.” He turned his head to look out the window. “Down at the beach, listening to the waves and the piping Oystercatchers, I thought ‘God, I’m free’. Not only that, but free within a community. Why the hell would I want to imprison myself in some overpriced, terraced house in a soulless city, where I know nobody except my grasping, dictatorial missus and a kid who, shaped in her mould, I’d only end up hating anyway.”

 “But Danny, he’s your son. Surely that means something?”

 “Of course it does, and that’s why I’m doing what’s best for him. It’s no good him being torn between us all the time. Much better that he has a set path to follow, and that’s either hers or mine. I’m wise enough to know that it’s going to be hers. And as for any emotional attachment, well, that doesn’t even exist yet, so it’s not like I’m going to be pining after him.”

 “But you are going to see him from time to time?”

 “That’ll be up to her.”

 “But if you do see him that’s when you’ll become attached. By then it will be too late to become a family, though, because of your decision tonight. I mean what if Ingrid gets someone else in…someone who neglects Lawrence because he’s not their flesh and blood?”

 “What if that ‘someone else’ can be a better father than I ever could, simply because he doesn’t suffer the egotism that comes with being a biological parent? Perhaps he’ll see Lawrence as an individual rather than his personal ambassador.” Judith puckered her lips while thinking about what he said. “That’s possibly why I get along so well with these kids, because they’re not my own. You know those stories we hear about new born babies being mixed up in hospital wards and going home with the wrong parents? Perhaps that should be done as a matter of course. That way we’d eradicate that emotional involvement which only ever ends in arguments, and kids would get the rational, objective guidance they need.”

 “All you’d get is mothers dying of angst and streets full of orphans sleeping rough. Take away that sense of ownership and most people would just stop giving a damn about kids.”

 Danny nodded, slowly in contemplation.

 “Truth is Judith, I just can’t abide that woman anymore. I’d love to bring Lawrence up, but we know that’s never going to happen.” Danny drained his glass and began pouring himself another. “He’ll be ok, don’t you worry about that. He’ll be brought up all nice and bourgeois, go to university, take drugs at weekends and moan about his taxes and dole scroungers. I don’t want to confuse the poor lad.” He looked down at the furrows in the wooden table, while rolling the tumbler between his thumb and forefingers. “I don’t want him worrying about the planet and wearying everyone with boring negativity. It’s better if Lawrence sees the world through his mother’s positive eyes. I’ve tried to change but I can’t, and I’ll only infect him too if I’m around. No, it’s for the best.”

 “But you have changed. You’d have to travel a long way to find someone more positive than you these days.” Judith spread her arms wide at either side of her. “This place is a temple to optimism for God’s sake!”

 “So why send me back among the heathens then?”

 Judith was delighted to learn that Gairloch would remain her home for the foreseeable future. Also, she felt she could carry on living under Danny’s roof without any guilt about broken families, having argued Ingrid and little Lawrence’s case. But this happy state was to be very short lived. Within the hour another ghost from Danny’s past would stroll into the kitchen, through the open front door.

CHAPTER: 14

 Bob Fitzgerald had been hunting Ingrid since being released from prison, but he was always one step behind and had seen nothing of her since his arrest, over two years previously. When he’d arrived in Oxfordshire, her parents had directed him to Paris on a wild goose chase and it was another year before he’d discovered her London address. Even then, fate conspired against him, with Ingrid returning home just as he was knocking on her front door. Having driven past unnoticed, she’d hidden at a friend’s for several days until he’d gone back to Glasgow.

 They say that once you stop searching for something, invariably that’s when you’ll find it. This is exactly what happened to Bob the afternoon before the night in question. He’d been driving along Great Western Road towards Glasgow city centre, when Ingrid’s Range Rover went by in the opposite direction. U-turning his battered, nineteen eighties Datsun in the face of oncoming traffic, he’d gone after her, forgetting to check his fuel gauge and breaking down just outside Fort William with no money. Having guessed her destination, he’d waited until nightfall before skulking around the little town and siphoning enough fuel to reach Gairloch. And here he was, shaven headed and looking the worse for wear in a blue Adidas tracksuit.

 Without even acknowledging the woman beater, Judith went to her room and pushed a set of draws against the door for some security. Then, she lay on her bed in the heat, listening to Hamish’s snoring next door and raised voices downstairs. Danny had evidently revealed the existence of Little Lawrence, as Bob was screaming.

 “You told me that you’d merely consoled her! It was evidently more than that…she’s got your kid for Christ’s sake!”

 “Yes, I lied and I’m sorry. I just didn’t want the truth to be misconstrued as triumphalism, that’s all.”

 The news had obviously hit Bob like a sledgehammer and a long period of silence followed. When he spoke again, his voice was much quieter, so that Judith struggled to hear.

 “You know Dan, I’ve always wanted to see you fall because your principles make me feel hollow. I thought I’d finally got you when you blackmailed me… thought you were, at last, motivated by money. But you’ve suckered me. I was watching the kids lying on the grass before I came in, all laughing and joking, and what I saw there were all the things I’ve never been able to acquire: community…association.”

 “Surely the band provided that?”

 “No. Even the band was all about competition and making sure everything revolved around me.”

 “Well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. You’d enjoy it. We’ve got some real talent emerging. For example, young Ryan Kearney’s about to sign a book deal, just as soon as he sends the finished article off to the publishers next week. I’m dead proud of him.”

 “No. The more I see how happy those kids are, the more bitter I’ll become, and then I’ll be a danger to them.”

 “But it doesn’t have to be like that!”

 “Well it is! Ok? You’ve won! By your principles you’ve created joy. You took that money, split it twenty odd ways and now you’re happy as part of a community, I can see that. But I’m a misfit and the only way I’ll ever enjoy equality is when I can see that everybody is as miserable as me. That’s why I stole Ingrid from you, screwed whores like Carina Curran and tantalised homeless Dickens with wealth. So you see Danny, we’re both egalitarians in our own funny ways.” Bob started laughing manically. “To think I’ve wasted the last two years hunting for Ingrid to spite you, because I thought you still loved her. Well, now I know you don’t I can call the search off and concentrate on salvaging something from my sad little existence.”