Lonie46

The sky darkened and the rain came down in sheets. Lonie hung the camera round his neck and tucked it safely inside his coat. They worked their way out of the trees, bushes and grass and onto tarmac. The Hillman Imp was the only car in the car park. It seemed to Audrey as he leaned against her and limped along beside her that they were the only people in the world.

Audrey opened the back door of the car and helped Lonie into the front. She wiggled off her outer jacket and took off her hat and wellies. Lonie squelched as he sat down, dripping onto the passenger seat, dripping onto the rubber mats on the floor and rubbing his stick- white hands together to generate heat. ‘You want me to take you to hospital? It’s just down the road. It’ll be no trouble. ’ Audrey turned the engine on and positioned the blowers on the fans so they were spraying out what little heat there was at Lonie.

‘Na. Ah’ll be alright. Let’s get these photos processed.’

‘Back to the office then?’

‘Nah, there’s a wee place in Byres Road. Let’s take them there.’ Lonie clutched his arms and bent forward as if he was going to be sick. He groaned in pain.

‘I’m taking you to the hospital whether you want to go or not. You might have ruptured something.’ Audrey was conscious she sounded like her mother.

His body unclenched and he sat up slowly. ‘Nah, just drive.’ Instructions were whispered through gritted teeth. ‘You drop me off and go back to the office. Tell the fatman we’ve got the photos and you can go back with that useless tool Russell and get him to take a few more.’ His voice dropped and a moan escaped as they rounded the corner and went towards Partick. ‘Tell the fatman Ah’ll be off for a few days.’

‘What will I do, when you’re off?’ Audrey took her eyes off the road as she spoke. It suddenly hit her that she’d been reliant on his lead, and although he was far from perfect, he’d helped her as much as he could. Lonie shut his eyes for a few seconds, as if thinking. She knew that he was in pain, but was selfish enough to want an answer.

Lonie took a shallow breath. Then a deeper one. ‘The best thing you can do is get some background. Find out if Father Cambell’s mother is still alive. His family.’ He moaned and shifted in his seat. ‘It’s a long shot, but find out if his grandfather is still alive.’

The car slowed as they crossed the bridge over the River Kelvin. Lonie held his hand up. Audrey pulled into the side of the road because she thought he was going to be sick. He struggled out of his seat like he was in a wheelchair. Audrey got out her side to help him, but he shook his head and she slumped back into the seat.

‘Where are you going?’ Audrey sounded concerned.

The rain had stopped but the roar of the water below the bridge made it seem there was a storm blowing. Lonie swayed and struggled to light a fag. ‘Ah’m goin’ to walk home and go to my bed. Sleeps the best medicine.’ He banged on the roof and began slowly walking down past the fruit shop on the corner.

Audrey leaned across and wound down the passenger side window. She drove slowly beside him. ‘Get in,’ she hissed

‘Ah’ve had better beating than this.’ He kept walking with the fag in his gob, his pace marginally quicker.

A white Ford Escort Van was parked near the pavement. Audrey signalled right and entered the flow of traffic, his black coat a distant shape in the rear view window.

Back at the office Audrey took her coat off and hung it over the back of her chair. She wasn’t sure what to do next. Lonie would just have blundered into Mr MacDonald’s room. That was his style not hers. She picked up the phone and asked the switchboard to put her through to Mr MacDonald’s office. Her lips dried up as she waited for someone to pick up the receiver on the other side.

‘Hallo.’ Bresslen eventually answered the phone.

‘Hallo, it’s Audrey here…’

‘Audrey who?’

‘Audrey that works in the office.’ She gave him time to digest that information and could imagine him holding the phone to his chest and letting the other male editors know who he was talking to. ‘I need to talk to you about Mr Lonnigan.’

‘How? What’s he done now?’

Audrey could hear him speaking to Mr MacDonald, but couldn’t hear what they said. The phone clicked and the burr of a deal line left her perplexed, and holding the receiver, wondering whether to phone back or hang up. Bresslen solved the puzzle by coming out of his office and strolling over to her desk.

‘What’s he done?’ In person, Bresslen was scowling and straight to the point.

Audrey choked down a laugh, but she couldn’t help smiling. ‘He hasn’t done anything. He just fell out of a tree.’

‘A tree?’ Bresslen stroked his chin and glanced at her again to check she wasn’t having him on. He still wasn’t sure. ‘A tree?’

Audrey nodded. He was grinning. She grinned back at him.

‘What in god’s name was he doing up a tree?’

Audrey explained and he slapped his knee as he laughed. He looked back towards the office and she knew he was dying to go back there and tell the story to Mr MacDonald and the other editors. He grew more serious as she continued with the story of finding the belt hanging on the other tree.

‘Why didn’t you bring the photos back here?’ was Brennen’s first question.

‘Why didn’t you take a photographer from the paper?’ was his next.

Audrey answered neither of his questions. ‘Lonie said we could go back and take some more photos.’ She shrugged and tried to sound diplomatic.

Bresslen started chewing at a loose nail and pink fleshy skin on his pinky. ‘Right. You take a lunch break or something. Get back here in about an hour and I’ll get the photographer to go back up there with you and get some more snaps.’ He sounded pleased with his decision making skills.

Audrey as a rule usually worked through her lunch break, but she decided to go to that little café on the corner, have a hot chocolate and read over her notes. Bresslen watched her sashaying towards the stairs. As he made his way back to his office he tried to remember what had made Lonie falling out of trees so funny first time round, so he could tell the other guys and make them laugh too.

Russell the photographer sat in Audrey’s chair adjusting the lens on his Nikon SP Rangefinder. He couldn’t keep from touching it, fixing it, making it better. He didn’t like to be kept waiting. He was in his fifties, bald headed, a black moustache that failed to bristle and a paunch that shortened his legs so he walked like a Corgi dog. He certainly didn’t like to be kept waiting by a jumped- up office junior. He started at her as she came into the office. Then he lifted his camera and looked through the lens at her. There was a buzz about her and she was quite a beauty. If she played her cards right, his thinking was, she could learn a lot from a professional like him.

‘I don’t like my photograph being taken.’ Audrey looked down at a small fat man, sitting in her office seat, leering up at her and there were lots of other things she didn’t like.

‘Everybody likes getting their photo took.’ Russell carefully placed his camera down on the desk and gave her one of his winning smiles.

‘You ready?’ Audrey bit her lip. She sounded abrupt and that wasn’t her intention. She’d hoped…Well she wasn’t sure what she’d hoped for. Her mouth curled up in distaste as he weaselled up out of her chair. Her feet clicked as she strode ahead of him, making no effort to wait and see if he was following.

Russell was seated in the passenger seat of the Hillman. He thought she drove rather too speedily and carefully clicked on his seatbelt. Any small talk was rebuffed by her staring at the road and accelerating as if they were being chased. He’d no doubt the old Russell magic would work. It was just a matter of time. Too soon they were getting out of the car at The Botanic Gardens.

He sniggered when she reached into the back seat and put on a pair of wellies. ‘Are we going on safari?’ he joked. She’d smiled that prim smile. Having spent a little time with her Russell had decided that apart from her sticky out breasts she was a bit mannish, probably one of those fanny lickers that preferred other women. He flexed his muscles inside his corduroy jacket and it seemed obvious he was probably too manly for her.

She seemed in an awful hurry. He could scarcely keep up. They’d got to the end of tamac and she took off again. ‘Hi,’ he shouted. ‘I’m carrying equipment. You’ll need to wait on me.’ He shook his head, but his fawn bellbottom trousers were ruined with the wet and his red wedge shoes were soaked through so that his socks knotted up his toes and it was like walking in a permanent puddle. It was with some relief when she stopped trailing through the muck. Then she shot one way and then the other past him. Her head was jerking about like an epileptic child looking at the sky. ‘Are you alright dear?’

‘It was here.’ Audrey sounded unsure, her feet kicking up leaves. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The branch and belt that Lonie had knocked down were lying on the ground, but she’d walked the short distance to the hanging tree and back.

‘What was here dear?’ Russell gave her the eye. She looked a bit confused, frightened even. He was just the man to comfort her. Lesbian or no lesbian when she’d been with a real man she’d know the difference.

‘A tree. A big black tree with black stones around it.’ Her head looked one way and then another for some explanation, but all she saw Russell’s moon face.

‘Don’t you worry. There’s plenty of trees.’ Russell started snapping her. He licked his lips. ‘I’ll take a few pretty pictures of you and the trees. Don’t you worry, dear. Just relax and live in the moment.’ He stepped closer and under her trying to get a shot up beyond her breasts and face and up into the trees. She pushed him. Caught off balance he fell on his bum. ‘Fucking lesbian,’ he said.

Audrey didn’t wait for Russell. She got in the car and drove away. She needed time to think. It felt as if her mind was unravelling and she was going mad.