Beneath The Skin Episode 42

Walt imagined what it would be like to wash up here, amid the din, the chaos, the sheer press of humanity, and feel yourself isolated

Fifteen minutes until the Dundee train. He wandered over to a kiosk selling coffee and bagels. There were two women in front of him, mother and daughter perhaps. The mother was jingling loose change in her hand.

She was one of those tall, elegant types who look wealthy without trying: wellpressed slacks, lots of gold jewellery and a statement scarf.

His mother hated scarves. She could never tie them properly, she said. They ended up knotted tight around her throat like a noose. He shivered.

“I think we should go back. Call someone,” the woman was saying. The girl shrugged. She was young, heavily made up. “He was a homeless.”

“A homeless? What kind of language is that?” Definitely her mother.

The girl lifted two cardboard cups from the counter and the mother paid. “I’m just saying. You see them all over. He was probably just getting a heat.”

“I’m not surprised. He was in his pyjamas!” They passed Walt in a drift of perfume.

“Yes, sir?” The barista looked at him hopefully.

“Um... I’ll have... No, it’s okay.” He turned and walked after the two women. “Excuse me – the man in the pyjamas?”

They both stopped and looked at him as if he was barking, as if they’d never even mentioned pyjamas.

“I’m looking for someone. He’s missing from a care home.” “Oh dear.” The elegant woman put a hand to her neatly knotted scarf. “Well, we saw a man in there.” She pointed to the central waiting room.

The girl nodded. “He had an overcoat on, over his pyjama bottoms. And slippers, those leather ones. I thought they were shoes at first. We thought he was a homeless man.”

“You thought. I said we should call someone. Look, there’s a policeman.” Walt thanked them and ducked away. The waiting room was crowded with tourists, all the benches taken. And then he spotted him, over to the side, next to a rubbish bin. He approached cautiously, as if the old boy might suddenly bolt.

“Hey, it’s me...” He realised he didn’t even know the guy’s first name. Had anyone ever mentioned it? He’d become “Mouse’s dad” or “William’s granddad”. He groped around for a suitable form of address. “Mr Morrison, it’s me, Walt.”

The man looked up. His eyes were bright, but fearful. At some point in the night, he’d had the presence of mind to don an old mackintosh. It wasn’t his; that much was obvious. It engulfed him, sagging from his shoulders and all but concealing his paisley-patterned pyjamas.

This was probably why he’d gone undetected for so long. He looked shabby, out of it, a vagrant; the type of person no one wants to look at.

It was amazing that he’d managed to get this far. A place of movement and travel, of people going places. Had he made some kind of connection in his head? Walt imagined what it would be like to wash up here, amid the din, the chaos, the sheer press of humanity, and feel yourself isolated, with no sense of the future. It was no great stretch of the imagination.

“What are you running away from, my friend?” Walt crouched in front of him, his voice low. The man glanced at him briefly and then fixed on a point beyond his head. His skin was grey, stretched.

Didn’t they get dehydrated very quickly at that age? He’d get him a cup of tea. And then what? He couldn’t leave the old boy here. Maybe he could phone the house, tip off Mrs Petrauska.

“We told the policeman.” The elegant woman had followed him in. When he looked round she was stooping towards the bench, as if she were viewing a distasteful exhibit in a museum. Fine face powder had settled in the wrinkles around her mouth. Walt got up sharply.

“Right, come on, Dad. You gave us a fright. Let’s get you home.”

“So it’s your father?” The woman straightened up too. She looked at him as Galen had done, like something didn’t add up.

“Excuse me, I need to get him home.” He seized hold of the old boy’s elbow. The man pulled away. “Not going!” he said hoarsely.

“Come on now.” He pasted on a fake smile. “He has Alzheimer’s.”

The woman bared her teeth in a charitable smile. “Maybe the policeman will be able to help.”

Walt pulled the elbow again and this time the man slapped him away.

“No! Coby? Where’s Coby?” “You want to see Coby?” Walt leaned in to him. The old man’s unwashed smell mingled with the staleness of the old coat. The old eyes teared up; he nodded. “Come on then. I’ll take you to him.”

The man got stiffly to his feet. The woman stepped back.

Walt grinned at her. “Panic over. Thanks for your help.” His peripheral vision flagged up a flash of hi-vis yellow coming towards him. He linked his arm through the old man’s and marched him quickly through the exit.

Outside the station, the air was solid with the threat of rain, and the thunder loud and frequent. The taxi driver got out and raised a brow as Walt, breathless, manhandled Mouse’s father and his Bergen into the back of the black cab.

“One too many at the Nor Loch.” He gave the driver a what-can-you-do-with-them shrug and piled in. The guy got slowly behind the wheel. More fluorescent yellow caught his eye, but it was only a workman toiling up the ramp from the station concourse.

The back of the cab was roomy, with a cloying smell of pine, but he felt entombed. He was burning like a furnace under his clothes, heart hammering. Like it or not, he was going back to Stockbridge.

“Where to?” The driver turned in his seat. “Coby,” the man said. “Coby.” “Cockburn Street?”

“No,” Walt said quickly. “Saint Stephen’s Church? Ssh, Mr Morrison. I’m taking you home. To Maura? Alys?”

The taxi eased into the traffic. The man fell silent for a long while, his head nodding, as if he were asleep. Maybe he had just given up. And then suddenly he jerked awake. His eyes were so lucid that Walt was taken aback.

“Alys,” he said, quite clearly. “I was looking for Alys.”

“Why?” Walt held his breath. “Why?” The old man glanced once more out of the window. His gaze was distant.

More tomorrow.

Beneath The Skin, by Sandra Ireland, is published by Polygon, £8.99. Her latest book, Sight Unseen, is out now.