Faith - Lesley Pearse [122]
‘What is it, hen?’ Robbie asked.
She couldn’t speak. Her bowels had turned to water, an icy chill running down her spine. Stuart was just staring at them, his eyes as cold as a February morning.
‘Fancy you being here too, Stuart,’ she said, trying to cover her shock with a quickly thought-up explanation. ‘This is Mr Fielding, my boss at the casino. We’ve been discussing a new job he’s got for me.’
‘Good to meet you at last, Stuart.’ Robbie’s hand shot out to shake Stuart’s.
Stuart’s lips curled back in a snarl and he looked scornfully at Robbie’s hand. ‘Fuck off, arsehole,’ he said, then stepped back into the room he was working in and slammed the door behind him.
Laura stood outside the door for a moment, not knowing whether to plead with him or just go. Robbie took her arm and led her away.
‘Just stick to what you said when he gets home,’ he told her. ‘He can’t prove anything.’
‘He doesn’t need to,’ she said sadly, remembering the look in Stuart’s eyes. ‘That he saw me here when I was supposed to be with a girlfriend is enough.’
Robbie put her into a taxi, thrust a £20 note in her hand and said he’d come to the club the following night to see her. Laura felt sick with fear. She would stick to her story and explain that she ran into Robbie while she was in the Old Town and he asked her to come back to his hotel to talk to her. But she knew Stuart would ask why she went to his room rather than stay downstairs in the lounge. What possible reason could she give for that?
She picked Barney up and held his little hand tightly as they walked back to Caledonian Crescent. She was aware he was talking to her, but she was too immersed in her own anxiety to listen.
‘You aren’t listening to me, Mummy!’ he said indignantly, pulling on her hand. ‘I said Gregor had a hamster called Will, and I asked if I could have one too.’
‘Maybe, darling.’ she said. ‘We’ll see tomorrow.’
Six o’clock came, then seven, and still Stuart hadn’t come home. She bathed Barney and put him to bed.
‘Will Stuie read me a story when he comes home?’ Barney asked, his big, dark eyes looking anxious because he’d picked up that she was worried.
‘He won’t be in till late, so I’ll read to you,’ she said, and sitting down beside him she read two of his favourite Mr Men books.
Stuart didn’t come home at all. Laura realized by one in the morning that he must have gone to his parents.
Later, as Laura returned from taking Barney to school, she found Stuart’s father waiting in his car outside the house. She ran to him, assuming he had a message for her.
‘I’ve come to collect my lad’s things,’ he said as he got out of the car. His face was craggy and cold. ‘He’s nae coming back.’
She tried to explain to Mr Macgregor once they were inside that Stuart had misunderstood what was going on the previous day, but he just shook his head. ‘My lad is nae numbskull,’ he said. ‘Just put his things together and I’ll be away.’
Laura felt as if her heart had cracked wide open as Mr Macgregor picked up the heavy holdall with Stuart’s clothes, then moved across the living room to pick up his guitar. Somehow the guitar was everything of Stuart, and once that was gone he was really gone too.
The sound of the key turning in the cell door told Laura it was time to get up, and she wiped the tears from her face with the edge of the duvet cover. She had only wanted to remember the happy times with Stuart, not bring back all that guilt and sadness.
She saw in the New Year of 1975 huddled up in her bed crying. She heard a few days later from a neighbour that Stuart had gone to London and her heart shattered.
10
Laura waved as Stuart and David Stoyle came into the prison visiting room. She noticed that all the other women suddenly looked more animated and that they glanced at her in envy, but then one handsome male visitor at Cornton Vale was remarkable, two was astounding.
When Stuart had asked in his last letter if his lawyer friend