Red Bones - Ann Cleeves [41]
In the kitchen he felt the same mix of irritation and affection. Evelyn was standing at the table rolling out pastry, the sleeves of her sweatshirt rolled to her elbows. She’d be making a fruit pie because she knew it was his favourite. She had so much energy. Maybe she felt trapped here on the island. Maybe she’d sacrificed all her own ambitions to be here, bringing up her two boys, keeping the family together while Joseph was working for Duncan Hunter. It couldn’t have been easy for her struggling over the finances, watching Jackie Clouston and the other fishing wives with so much money that they didn’t know how to spend it, knowing that if she’d been born into a different family, or married into one, she’d have been wealthy too. He knew there were times when she brooded about it.
‘There’s tea made,’ she said. Then with a frown, remembering, ‘Or would you prefer coffee? I can easily do that. The kettle’s not long boiled.’
‘Tea’s fine.’
He poured the tea and helped himself to a bowl of cereal, found a clear corner of the table.
‘Would you be able to phone that nice Inspector Perez today, sort out when we can fix a day for the funeral?’
So Michael can arrange to get up here, he thought. So she can show her fine eldest son off to the whole island, with his fancy suit and his hand-made shoes. And it occurred to him then that his relationship with his mother was troubled because she cared so much more for Michael than she did for him. I’m jealous, he thought, astounded. That’s what all this is about. How could I have been so dumb that I didn’t realize?
‘Perez might come to Whalsay,’ he said. ‘It depends what the Fiscal said.’
‘You mean he could be here to arrest Ronald?’
Sandy shrugged. She didn’t have to sound so pleased at the prospect. But she’s jealous too, he thought. Jealous of Jackie and the flash house on the hill and the new BMW every year and the trips to Bergen on the boat. After Andrew’s illness you’d have thought she’d have realized there was nothing to be jealous about, but she just couldn’t help herself. She doesn’t really want Ronald prosecuted, she only wants Jackie’s nose put out of joint.
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘He’s gone over to Setter. That cow still needs milking and the hens and the cat need feeding.’
‘I’ll wander over. See if he needs a hand.’
He thought she was going to say something to stop him. Perhaps she wished the two of them got on as well as Sandy did with his father. But she stopped herself. ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘The rain’s stopped and the mist has lifted. It’s a fine day for a walk.’
By the time he reached Setter, his father had finished with the animals. Sandy found him standing in the kitchen. He waited in the doorway and looked in. His father looked lost in thought and it seemed like an intrusion to blunder in, but he felt kind of foolish just waiting outside. At last Joseph saw him.
‘It’s hard to think of this place without her,’ the older man said. ‘I keep thinking she’ll come up behind me, full of mischief and gossip.’
‘How did she keep track of everything that was happening in the island?’ Sandy had wondered about this before. His grandmother knew about his friends’ escapades and love affairs before he did. No wonder Evelyn had talked about her as a witch. ‘She didn’t go out so much towards the end.’
‘She made it to the Lindby shop every couple of days,’ Joseph said. ‘People were always coming to visit her. Cedric called in every Thursday to chat, but it wasn’t only her own generation who liked her company. Besides, she could smell a scandal like other folk smell rotten eggs.’ He looked around the room, seemed to be scoring the details on to