The Homecoming

by Anna Smith

Genres: General Fiction; Historical Fiction; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

In the tiny village of Westerbank in the south west of Scotland, the 1960s are not about rock'n'roll and drugs; they're about survival, making a bare living out of a struggling farm or working for a pittance at whatever job comes along. Nonetheless in this close community friendships go deep and the pub of an evening is a cheery place, at least until too much drink is taken. Fifteen years ago, Joe McBride left Westerbank under a cloud, and in his absence life has moved on, the secrets he took with him disturbing only occasionally those who were caught up in them. But now Joe McBride is coming home, a changed man, and one who needs to face up to the past before it's too late. The truth about the mysterious death of a young girl fifteen years ago is about to come out, and nothing in Westerbank will ever be quite the same again.

Release date: October 17, 2013

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 227

Sample

At first Maggie wasn’t sure what it was. It looked like a bag of clothes that somebody had dumped. But when she squinted against the glare, she could see a glint of sunlight on a balding forehead. She looked again, more closely this time, from the head down, and sure enough there were shoes attached to the bottom of the trousers. It was a man.

Instinctively, she swiftly looked straight behind her up the path to the farmhouse where the smoke was swirling out of the chimney as her mum prepared breakfast. She would be safe there if she ran, if he tried to attack her. But she knew she couldn’t run because of the choking tightness in her chest from the asthma. No. If she wanted to get back home safe, she would have to go now, walk fast, so that she didn’t get out of breath. But she was curious to see more, and found herself taking a couple of short steps towards the figure lying still in the ditch. She stopped just a few feet away from him and squatted down to get a better look.

It was definitely a man, and he was sound asleep, his head resting on what looked like a rolled-up coat. She watched quietly, hardly breathing, in case her wheezing woke him. She watched him breathe out every two or three seconds, and in the silence she could hear a whistling noise coming from the tiny gap where his lips parted just a little. He looked peaceful, his pale face smooth, but his thinning hair made him seem older than her dad, whose hair was blond and thick. Maggie smiled to herself, scanning him from top to toe, observing his grey trousers, frayed at the bottom, and shoes with holes in the soles. He must be a tramp, she thought. The ones she had seen before were always lying drunk at fairs or in the streets on the few occasions she had visited the city with her parents. One always stuck in her mind: he had been lying asleep over an iron grille on the pavement outside the train station in Glasgow. Steam was coming up through the metal and Maggie’s mum had told her that would keep him warm. She told Maggie to pray for him, because he was somebody’s son. The tramps she had seen always looked grubby and smelled of stale drink and cigarettes. Now she leaned closer and sniffed. This one didn’t. She had never been this close to one before and she was fascinated.

The silence was shattered by the loud, low rasping of a magpie that had landed on the fence post above the man’s head. The noise startled him out of his slumber and he woke, his eyes wide as though he was surprised to find himself there.

Maggie fell back onto her backside with the fright, but scrambled to her feet immediately and stood over him. She stepped back as he made to sit up. She was ready to bolt, if she had the puff.

‘You better not try to murder me,’ she said, walking backwards. ‘My dad’s just up at the house and he’ll kill you if you touch me. And you’d better watch my brother too. He’s only thirteen, but he does judo and he could kill you easy. I’m nine. And you’ll never catch me because I can run really fast,’ she lied, standing with her hands on her hips, a safe distance from him, trying to look brash. She hoped she could make it to the house without collapsing if he made a grab for her.

The man sat up, rubbed his eyes and looked straight at her. His face broke into a smile. He raised a hand as if to signal to her that he wouldn’t harm her. Then he raised two hands together and spread them out in a pleading way as if to tell her to calm down, everything was fine.

‘Who are you?’ Maggie said, thinking now he was probably not a murderer.

The tramp said nothing but smiled at her, raising his eyebrows. There were tiny wrinkles at the side of his eyes.

‘What’s your name? Have you got a name?’ she persisted, moving a little closer to him.

He made no response, but began to get to his feet. He put out his hand again in a calming motion as Maggie moved back a step or two. She stood her ground.

‘You must have a name. Are you foreign? Do you not understand me? Listen. Me, Maggie. Me, Maggie. You?’ She made exaggerated gestures pointing at herself, then to the tramp, the way she remembered the story of Robinson Crusoe when he met Man Friday.

He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. When he stood up, Maggie noticed he looked quite thin, as if he needed a good feed. He dusted the grass off his trousers and jacket, then rubbed his chin, and sniffed in the morning air as he looked across the wide open fields where the Flahertys’ black and white heifers had come closer to the fence and now grazed peacefully, watching the scene.

‘Can you not talk?’ Maggie said, a bit exasperated. ‘Are you deaf?’

The tramp shook his head.

‘Can you hear me?’ she said.

The tramp nodded.

‘But you can’t speak?’ Maggie said, enjoying the excitement of her find.

The tramp nodded.

‘So you can’t speak but you can hear?’ Maggie said.

The tramp nodded, smiling. He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a tiny shiny pebble and handed it to her. She was hesitant at first, but took the smooth stone in her hand and examined the bright rust and blue colours that ran through it.

‘Are you hungry?’ she said, rubbing her stomach, forgetting that he wasn’t deaf.

He nodded, rubbing his stomach and smiling.

‘Come with me. I’ll ask my mum and dad if you can get something to eat at our house. My mum’s making the breakfast. It’s French toast. Do you like French toast?’ she asked, walking backwards as he followed her.

The tramp smiled and walked alongside her as they headed up the pathway to the farmhouse.

Through the kitchen window, Kate Flaherty looked out across the farmyard and down the lane edged blood-red with the fuchsia bushes in full bloom. She loved this sight on a warm summer’s morning when the rays rising across the fields signalled a scorcher of a day ahead. It had been like this for more than a week now and she was praying every day that the weather wouldn’t break so they could bring in the hay, unlike last year when torrential rain ruined all the crops, leaving them with barely enough hay for the animals. She and Frankie were still counting the cost.

In the distance, she caught a glimpse of someone walking towards the farmyard with Maggie. Kate was drying her hands on a tea towel and peered out of the window, wondering who it was that had come to visit at this time on a Saturday morning. She turned the ring of the cooker down and went out to the door to greet them, still with the towel in her hands.

‘Who’s this now, Maggie?’ she said, not recognising the man, and a little suspicious of the gaunt, shabby figure who walked a step behind her daughter.

‘Mum. Mum. Look. It’s a tramp. He was lying sleeping in the ditch at the bottom of the path. He’s all right though. He’s friendly. But he can’t speak. He can hear though,’ Maggie blurted out, her voice beginning to wheeze from the excitement and the short, brisk walk from the end of the path.

Noticing her breathlessness, Kate went towards her and automatically looked for any signs of distress. She lived in dread of Maggie collapsing from the asthma that had plagued her since she was a toddler. She touched her daughter’s pink cheek with the back of her hand.

‘I’m fine, Mum,’ Maggie said, touching her mother’s hand, anxious not to be fussed over in front of her new friend.

Kate felt awkward but she managed to smile at the stranger before turning towards the byre and calling for her husband.

From the darkness of the byre, a cow made a tired moaning noise as if it was in distress. Kate knew one of their cows was calving and Frankie and their son PJ had been up since daybreak with her.

‘Bit of a problem with the calf,’ she said to the stranger who looked towards the byre from where Frankie and PJ emerged, squinting in the sunlight.

‘This is getting really serious. We’re going to have to get the v—’ Frankie broke off when he saw the stranger in his farmyard. He squared his shoulders and quickenend his step. Kate knew he didn’t have time for visitors today. If he didn’t get the calf out soon he could lose it, as well as the mother who was one of the best cows in the prize herd he had been breeding for years.

‘What’s all this then? What’s going on? Who’s this?’ Frankie sounded impatient and aggressive, and Kate could see how exhausted and frustrated he was. He wiped drips of perspiration from his brow with his forearm. His shirt was drenched in sweat and his hands and dungarees were caked with blood and gunge from the exertion of trying to pull the calf out of its mother. PJ stood at his side, picking bloodied skin from his hands. Kate reached out and took her son’s hand, examining what she recognised as rope burn.

‘I’d better get you something for that,’ she said.

Frankie looked from Maggie, to Kate, then to the stranger in front of him.

‘What’s going on?’ he said again.

‘He’s a tramp.’ Maggie gave them the news and described how she had communicated with him. She smiled at the tramp who stood with his hands by his side, looking slightly afraid.

Everyone looked at him. The Border collies came out from where they had been lying drowsing below the tractor and circled the tramp. They sniffed around him, then sat down at his side.

‘See,’ Maggie said, happy that the dogs liked her new friend. ‘Molly and Rex like him. He must be all right.’

The tramp reached out a hand to one of the dogs and stroked its head.

‘Jesus wept, Maggie!’ Frankie said. ‘What have we told you about talking to strangers?’ He looked with exasperation at his daughter. ‘Have you a name?’ Frankie asked the stranger briskly. ‘What are you doing here? Where are you from? Listen, pal, I’m a bit busy for visitors.’

The tramp stood quietly. He touched his lips with his finger and shook his head.

‘I don’t think he can talk, Frankie,’ Kate whispered. ‘I think he’s a mute. Maggie says he can hear.’ She put her hand over her mouth. ‘Is he maybe from the asylum?’ she whispered, thinking of the huge mental hospital which housed in locked wards all the psychiatric patients from the surrounding area. For as long as she could remember, Calvin Hospital, the grim, grey sandstone building just a few miles away, had always been there, and wild rumours about the asylum had conjured up images of fear among the locals for generations. People who had ventured there, either to visit or work, told stories of inmates locked up and tied to beds. Others spoke of electric shock treatment and rooms where mentally ill patients paced up and down all day long or sat rocking to and fro. Inmates who didn’t appear to have too much wrong with them stood at windows, gazing into the grounds and forests beyond. Sometimes people escaped and were caught, and villagers in Westerbank could terrorise their children at night with the threat that they had better get to bed because a loony had escaped from the asylum and was headed up their street.

‘Maybe we should just tell him to get on his way,’ Frankie whispered back. ‘We don’t know who he is or where he’s been. And I’ve a cow in there that might die if I don’t get that calf out in the next half-hour. I don’t have time for social calls.’

Maggie’s face fell. The stranger shifted on his feet. They all stood in awkward silence. The tramp walked towards the barn. Frankie and PJ looked at each other.

‘Maybe he can help us, Da. An extra pair of hands would be good right now. Get the calf out,’ PJ said as the two of them walked after him.

‘Listen, pal,’ Frankie said, quickening so he was in front and facing the tramp. ‘Do you know anything about farm animals? Do you know anything about cows? The calf’s coming out hind legs first.’

The tramp nodded and touched his chest. He stuck his thumbs up.

‘I think that means he does know about animals, Da,’ PJ said.

Frankie looked at the tramp who was smiling enthusiastically at him. ‘Would you be able to give us a hand? The cow’s a bit old and she’s having real trouble. If we don’t get the calf out soon we’ll lose both of them. Can you help?’

The stranger nodded his head and shrugged his shoulders.

Maggie followed them to the barn and stood in the doorway, watching.

Inside, the brown and white cow stood unsteadily on her feet. Steam rose from her nose and her breath came in short gasps. The stranger rolled the sleeves of his blue and grey checked shirt, went forward to the cow and put his arms round its neck. She flinched, but he leaned into her and seemed to make gentle shushing noises with his head close to hers. The cow appeared to settle. He softly ran his hands across her back until he was behind her. Then he pushed his arm gently inside her up to his shoulder. Frankie and PJ stood watching silently, the rope in their hands. Suddenly the stranger looked at them, his eyes wide.

‘Have you got him?’ Frankie said. ‘Have you got hold of its legs?’

The stranger nodded.

‘Quick, PJ. The rope.’

They handed him the rope with the loop and watched anxiously as he pushed it inside the cow and yanked it tight. Frankie raised his eyes to PJ, both thinking the same thought. Whoever this man was, he had done this time and again. All three of them pulled on the rope, gently at first then with more pressure. Finally the small creamy hooves emerged, then the black and white spindly legs. The cow gave one last groan as the calf slipped out covered in slime and dropped onto the straw. Frankie was on his knees quickly to make sure it was alive.

He looked up, his face beaming.

‘It’s fine. It’s a girl, PJ. You’re an auntie again,’ he joked, smiling. ‘And you know, you could just as easy have been an uncle.’ He sat back and watched as the calf teetered to its feet after two attempts and nuzzled into its mother. While a bullock would have fetched more at the market, the new heifer would be a welcome addition to his breeding herd, or could be sold off along with some others as a yearling.

In the gloom, Frankie looked into the stranger’s pale face. Their eyes met and Frankie sensed that whoever this drifter was, he was harmless. He noted how rake-thin he was, then reached out and shook him warmly by the hand.

‘You look as though you could do with a good feed,’ he said.

The tramp nodded and smiled. Maggie’s face lit up.

‘Come on. Let’s get washed up and get some breakfast inside us. I don’t know about you, pal, but it’s been a long day so far and it isn’t even noon.’

Everyone filed into the house.

‘You’re a nutcase, our Maggie,’ PJ said as he shooed away the dogs. ‘Picking up strays. What if he’s escaped from the asylum?’ He ruffled his sister’s hair. ‘But I’ll tell you this. He saved that cow in there just now. No doubt.’

‘No. He can’t be from the asylum,’ Maggie whispered. ‘He’s not mental. He can hear. I’m going to ask if he can stay.’

After they had eaten, Kate and Frankie watched out of the window as PJ, stripped to the waist, chopped logs with the long axe while Maggie and the tramp stood by. The muscles in PJ’s lean, adolescent frame rippled under the straps of his dungarees. Maggie smiled proudly to the tramp at the strength of her big brother.

‘He was half starved,’ Kate said, lifting plates from the table. ‘Did you see the way he wolfed down that food? Maybe he’s not eaten for days. Who do you think he is, Frankie? Is he maybe one of those gypsies from the caravans that landed in the village a few years ago? I hope not. Because once they get the road to the house you can’t get rid of them. I was glad when the lot of them finally went.’

‘I don’t know,’ Frankie said, studying him from the window. ‘He doesn’t look like a gypsy. He seems a peaceful type. Harmless. I don’t think he’s from the asylum. But you never know. Do they not sometimes let people out if they’re older? I’ll tell you this though, he’s been around cattle before, that’s for sure. He was inside that cow and pulling the calf out like an old hand. Had that cow calmed down like he’d known her all his life.’ As he spoke, he suddenly felt concerned as the tramp hitched up his trousers, which were held up with a piece of rope, and motioned to PJ to let him chop some logs. PJ looked across the yard to the window before he handed over the axe.

‘For God’s sake. There he’s handed an axe to a total stranger,’ Kate said, ready to move to the door.

‘Calm down, woman. Let’s just watch for a second.’ Frankie touched her arm gently.

The tramp raised the axe above his head and chopped clean through a fat log. It split and fell beside the small pile that was building up. The tramp smiled to Maggie and PJ who once again looked back at the kitchen window. Maggie waved, and gave a thumbs-up. The tramp placed another log and split it in half. He kept going, chopping the pile of logs effortlessly despite his scrawny frame.

‘He’s wiry enough anyway,’ Frankie said, stroking his chin. ‘Could do with some help like that around here, with the hay to be brought in and stuff.’

‘Oh, Frankie. You don’t even know where he came from. He could be anybody,’ Kate said. She knew they needed help but couldn’t afford to pay farmhands after the miserable crop last year left them with huge losses. But she was wary of taking on a total stranger, especially one who couldn’t even tell them where he came from.

The door opened and Maggie came in full of excitement.

‘Do you see how strong he is, Dad? Look at the logs he’s chopped. I think he’s brilliant. He’d be great helping with the hay. Can he stay?’ Maggie looked from her mum to her dad, her eyes pleading.

‘We don’t even know his name, Maggie,’ Kate said. ‘I mean, where did he come from?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Who needs a name?’ Maggie said. ‘I think he maybe fell from the sky. Why don’t we just call him Sky? That’s it. Sky. That’s what we’ll call him.’ She was smiling with delight at her logic. ‘Wait till I tell PJ,’ and she ran out of the door and across the yard.

‘I think we’ll keep him on. For a few days anyway. He can sleep in the caravan. It’s only lying there empty anyway. What do you think, Kate?’ Frankie said, knowing the decision was made.

‘Well, at least he won’t make a lot of noise.’ Kate smiled. ‘All right. We’ll let him stay and see how it works out. But we’ll need to keep an eye on him. Just in case.’

Through the open window they could hear Maggie telling the tramp that since she didn’t know his name, she would call him Sky. She looked up to the sky and pointed. He smiled as though he was quite happy with the name.

As Frankie walked out of the house, his nearest neighbour Tom McBride pulled into the yard in his battered old blue Ford Cortina. Maggie spotted him and sprinted across to jump into his outstretched arms.

‘Uncle Tom! Uncle Tom!’ she screeched as if she was seeing him for the first time in years, even though they met nearly every day.

Smiling, Tom scooped her up and held her upside down.

‘There she is, my best girl! How’s every single bit of you?’ Tom pulled her towards him and held her up in mid-air as though she was a doll. Maggie giggled, her legs kicking wildly. He stood her down and pulled a paper bag out of his trouser pocket.

‘Sweets for my sweet,’ he said, shaking the bag in front of her. Maggie thrust a sticky pink sweet into her mouth immediately.

‘Look, Uncle Tom,’ she said through bulging cheek. ‘We’ve got a new worker. I found him. He’s my friend. He can’t speak, but he can hear.’

Frankie walked towards Tom, smiling at the way his daughter worshipped his friend. He delighted in how close they were because he would trust Tom with his life. Often on a summer’s night he and Kate would walk down to Tom’s farm and they would sit at the table in the farmyard with a drink or they would stroll down to the village for a pint to hear the latest gossip. Tom had been a great friend to Frankie when Kate was trying to settle into the role of a farmer’s wife, getting used to the quieter, slower way of life after years of working as a teacher in a primary school in the town a few miles away. An educated man, Tom would bring books for Kate to read, and slowly Frankie had also begun to read and enjoy glimpses of a world beyond the hard graft he had been used to growing up on the farm. And Tom had been a tower of strength when they lost their first baby, Emily, after just a few weeks.

Frankie saw Tom glance curiously towards Sky and PJ.

‘Who’s Mr Universe?’ Tom said, jerking his thumb in the direction of Sky who stopped chopping and smiled towards him.

‘He’s some guy who I’m going to take on for the hay. Seems fit enough,’ Frankie said. He didn’t want to admit that he had no idea where his new worker came from. He told Tom he was just passing through and wasn’t able to speak. Frankie said it matter-of-factly as if mutes came in and out of his farmyard every day.

They both stood watching as Sky methodically chopped, while PJ piled up the logs into a wheelbarrow.

‘Our Joe’s coming home from America.’ Tom looked at the ground as he spoke, then at Frankie.

Frankie had hoped never to hear those words. He felt his stomach tense and his hands begin to sweat inside the pockets of his dungarees.

‘Is he?’ he said finally. He didn’t really know what to say. Joe McBride was coming home.

Frankie looked ou. . .