From the Outside Read online

  FROM

  the

  OUTSIDE

  FROM

  the

  OUTSIDE

  CLARE JOHNSTON

  urbanepublications.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2019

  by Urbane Publications Ltd

  Suite 3, Brown Europe House, 33/34 Gleaming Wood Drive,

  Chatham, Kent ME5 8RZ

  Copyright © Clare Johnston, 2019

  The moral right of Clare Johnston to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-912666-31-7

  MOBI 978-1-912666-32-4

  Design and Typeset by Michelle Morgan

  Cover by Author Design Studio

  Printed and bound by 4edge Limited, UK

  urbanepublications.com

  Praise for From the Outside:

  ‘A gripping read from another brilliant Scottish author.’

  Judy Murray

  ‘Clare Johnston brings us a beautifully-written tale of brotherly ties, family fractures, and finding peace with those we leave behind.’

  Leslie Tall Manning, author of Maggie’s Dream

  ‘I can’t recommend From the Outside enough! So full of heart and warmth, as well as intrigue and twists.’

  Alice Hinds, Sunday Post

  ‘Original, intoxicating and oozing intrigue, this is a mesmerising twister of a story that sucks you in from the very first page.’

  Shari Low, bestselling author of This is Me.

  For all those we’ve loved and lost.

  May we meet again.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER one

  SITTING ON THE EMBANKMENT I took in the endless expanse of blue sky, the warmth from a sun I couldn’t see melting away the worries that had been lodged in my head all morning.

  The cars rushed by along the motorway in front of me, but their noise was muted. I could see them but the sound just didn’t register.

  It was then I noticed the mangled wreck of the silver Audi sitting so hopelessly to my left, smashed and broken like the driver slumped over the inflated airbag at the wheel.

  Already, there were people all around the car. A bottle-blonde woman who looked to be in her late forties made a frantic call to the emergency services on her mobile, while others paced next to the driver’s side, pausing now and then to peer in the window.

  Finally, one of them plucked up the courage to prise open the door, only to stand stock still once he’d completed his daunting task, confronted by the terrible reality of what sat before him. He glanced nervously back at the blonde woman who was still on the phone as if to say: ‘What now?’

  ‘Check if he’s breathing,’ she said, pointing towards the lifeless victim – in doing so accepting the leadership role she had unwittingly been awarded.

  Another pause as the man tried to work out the best way of checking for breath without actually touching the body. He put his hand over the driver’s mouth, then leaned forward to put his ear next to it. A second flash of panic swept over his face. Poor guy. I’d say he was in his thirties, dressed in a non-descript dark suit, with the air of a hassled sales executive on his way to the next meeting when, sod’s law, he just happened to be one of the first to pass the scene of a terrible accident. Good for him too that he actually stopped.

  I’m hopeless in any medical situation, which is why I had absolutely no intention of getting involved. It had already become obvious to me that their efforts to assist the forty-something, Rolex-wearing man were futile.

  After all, it was me sitting at the wheel of that mangled Audi, and me watching this scene of devastation from the safety of my ringside seat.

  And I knew there was no way I was coming out of that one. I was most certainly dead.

  It occurred to me this was a strange situation to find myself in. Here I was, witnessing my own death – or the aftermath of it – as though standing by a shore watching the waves lapping against the sand. There was no emotion, just a sense of perfect calm ... and something else, something harder to define. I will call it an understanding and appreciation of what was happening, as if I’d somehow been expecting it.

  I felt more compelled to look at the people flapping anxiously around me than to study my own tragic form.

  I’ve never seen a greater look of relief than the one I witnessed on the salesman as he first heard the siren and then looked around to see the flashing lights of a police car approaching.

  As soon as it pulled over, an officer jumped out and ran to check the driver. I felt like walking over and telling him I could save him the trouble, but I knew they’d never hear me.

  I understood that I had left that world. I was somewhere else now; on my own, but not alone. Somewhere I belonged.

  It was time to move. I got to my feet, turned around and started walking up the side of the embankment towards the field of rapeseed that stretched before me – that light stronger than ever, its warmth enveloping me so that I could feel nothing else.

  Where am I going? I didn’t care. I just knew I should just keep walking.

  I had not gone far before, in the distance and through the light, I could just make out the figure of a woman coming towards me. As she drew closer I could see she had jet-black hair. Then I recognised the deep-purple, flowing trouser suit she wore. I had seen it before – clung to it when I was a child, begging her not to leave me with the neighbour while she went out for the evening with my father.

  I waved at her then ran, arms outstretched, she soon running too, smiling all the way until we met and clung to one another. ‘Harry,’ she said, so softly and lovingly. Just as I had remembered.

  ‘Mum,’ I whispered, pulling back to look into the face that had kissed me goodnight for fifteen years; fifteen years before I decided I was too old for motherly affection. The face I had yearned to see on my wedding day, ten years ago, and the face that told me all was as I had hoped. With nothing to fear, we walked hand in hand together.

  Morningside Church in Edinburgh sits proudly at the heart of a community packed full of upstanding and well-heeled members who would never dream of moving from this affluent part of the city with its array of scone-selling coffee shops and little boutiques.

  The church itself tells its own story of the genteel congregation it hosts with its immaculately-maintained gardens, ornate interior and perfectly-polished pews.

  Today, the place of worship I had been dragged to every Sunday of my childhood was much fuller than I had expected. People I hadn’t seen in years – some of whom I realised must have travelled from overseas – sat or stood among the friend
s, family and colleagues who had come to say goodbye to me.

  The minister, Bob Cuddy, had come out of retirement to lead the service. As an old pal of my dad’s, I knew he wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity to do this favour for his lifelong friend.

  My wife Sarah and I had once howled with laughter at him – most inappropriately – before he married us. He was passing on some of his unique wisdoms. The one that tipped us both overboard as he spoke so humourlessly, was a warning on the perils of the internet. Dad must have told him that I had set up an online auction house.

  ‘The internet,’ he said gravely in his strongly lilting Western Isles accent, ‘may tempt us with the promise of great wealth and prosperity, but beneath its surface there lie many evils.’ Then fixing us with a steely glare, he added the killer line: ‘I know – because I’ve seen them.’ As he raised his right eyebrow to reinforce this dramatic statement, we could no longer suppress the tide of laughter that erupted with volcanic force, spilling into every corner of the otherwise eerily silent church.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Sarah blurted out as she tried desperately to stifle what were now unstoppable fits of hysteria.

  He continued to look somberly at both of us before quietly adding: ‘Nerves can make fools of all of us.’ With that he stood up and walked out of the church hall, leaving Sarah and I sheepishly wondering if we had just blown our chance of marrying in the same place as my parents. To his credit though Bob came good and, two weeks later, happily presided over what was to be the best day of my life. I can say that now, can’t I?

  Today, Sarah cuts a very different figure as she sits in the same pew we once huddled together on to meet Bob and receive our personal, pre-marital sermon. Her joy and tears of laughter that day have been replaced with grief and hopelessness, but no amount of pain can disguise her undeniable beauty. Though she has only a slight frame, she still reminds me of the finest thoroughbred mare with her prominent cheekbones, deep brown eyes and stunning mane of thick chestnut hair. I breathe in her scent without even being near. It is always the same fragrance; a mixture of the Coco Chanel perfume she loves and the pure, effortless class of someone totally at home in their own skin. She carries herself with dignity, even when burying her husband.

  I know she too is remembering our happy times here. I wish I could tell her that it’s okay, that I’m really not that far away, just out of reach for a while. Instead, I can only passively witness her pain.

  I feel mum’s hand in mine where it has remained since she led me here. She is my helper on this side. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to come. I wouldn’t have found my way.

  She is no stranger to sadness, Sarah. Having buried her beloved father at the tender age of 12, she thought the worst was behind her. But, some 20 years later, heartache dealt another devastating blow when we discovered we could not have children together. I will never forget the anguish etched on her face as she listened to the doctor tell her that I was infertile; that I could not give her the child she so longed for. Her silent grief was in stark contrast to the doctor’s blustering demeanor – seemingly incapable of hiding the fact we were just one more couple on a long list of desperate people he would have to put straight on their fertility status before getting back to the golf course.

  I wanted to walk behind that desk and punch him, but instead I sat there and watched him shatter the hopes of the woman I loved – a woman who had never had a single thing in life denied her. Yet the one thing she wanted more than anything else was now off limits, thanks to me.

  I wonder if it has dawned on Sarah yet that, at 37, she still has the chance to meet someone else and have her family. How many hours or days would it take for that thought to creep forward? I want to sit down on the pew next to her and tell her not to waste her time worrying about how it will look, but to get on and have her children while she still has the chance. Mum is looking at me now. There are no secrets here. No private thoughts in a realm where you no longer have anything to hide.

  As my eyes meet hers, I sense the sudden knowing that is becoming a regular event for me now. She wouldn’t have to wait for the child – the child was already on its way.

  To the left of Sarah sits my dad. In his late seventies now, but still with the same devilish air I always thought marked him out from other fathers. At 6′2 he still stands tall among most men, but his imposing height is lessened with the stoop of old age, a predicament quite at odds with his pride and desire to stay strong. His balding scalp and snow-white hair further betray his years, but otherwise he is still John Melville, the respected and now retired Edinburgh architect with an inner steel that separates him from most mere mortals. This fortitude saw him climb quickly through the ranks in his early days serving in the Royal Navy.

  Whilst he had a playful and charming manner, he was a hardliner at heart and had ruled my twin brother Ben and I with an iron fist. There was always pressure on us to achieve and perform and I had danced to his tune like a captive bear. Ben, on the other hand, had turned his back on our father’s idea of success and had, in protest, simply done nothing. Today, Dad holds his head high, but his eyes tell a different story.

  Ben, my twin and something of a social misfit, sits to the right of Sarah. He stares purposefully at the ground but can’t stop himself from stealing shifty glances at the assembled congregation around him, desperately avoiding eye contact with anyone.

  He shares my father’s height and slim build, but inherited my mother’s angel-faced looks, still evident despite his typically unshaven appearance. I, on the other hand, had been slightly shorter than my brother but with a more solid build, suited to the rugby field.

  Ben was born first but was physically the weaker of the two of us, unable to feed without a tube for weeks. I apparently never caused my mother a moment’s trouble while Ben cost her many sleepless nights – from birth and right up until her death from cancer, 12 years ago at just 61.

  He was a long list of nevers: never made any friends, never found his vocation, was never where he said he was, could never hold down a relationship, was never what any of us wanted him to be. He and I clashed from an early age, defying my mother’s hopes for the kind of twins you read about who feel half of one whole, finish each other’s sentences and cry out when the other is in pain. Instead, I would cry with laugher whenever my brother came a cropper.

  But I loved him. I still love him. Today, we’re both thinking how ironic it is that I – who was so full of life – was the one who died the early death.

  Bob is speaking now. Welcoming the congregation to this service of remembrance. Let us pray, he says. He asks that my soul will find rest.

  Where do they imagine I am now, I wonder? Gone without trace? Would they do anything differently if they knew I was right here with them? Would they want me to find rest, or stay close?

  They sing my favourite hymn. Amazing Grace. I sing loudly too: ‘I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind but now I see.’

  I spot an old school friend, Michael Anderson, ten rows back and chuckle as I remember how we stole a whole salmon from the buffet at the end-of-term disco and hid it in our English teacher’s drawer to rot over the summer.

  How we tortured that poor woman on a daily basis when she remarried and changed her name from Bryant to Gore, delivering hours of entertainment as we sought to create new variants to call her, but never straying too far from our very favourite − Mrs Giant-Bore. It drove her crazy. I still remember her literally spitting with rage and frustration as she tried to unmask our innocence and expose us for the unruly little brats we were.

  She once humiliated another boy who passed a note to a friend about a girl he fancied which she then read aloud in front of the whole class. That was a crowning moment for her. It was sweet revenge then when she fell for another of our stunts one day, seizing a note that Michael and I very obviously passed each other between our desks, eventually dropping it at one point and scrabbling around the floor to find it. She couldn’t hide
the delight on her face as she pounced, prising the note from between Michael’s fingers.

  ‘And what could this be, boys?’ she asked with mock naivety. ‘Let’s find out shall we?’

  She was enjoying the prospect of humiliating us so much that she didn’t even pause to check the content before dramatically holding the note up high and reading loudly: ‘GB has the most enormous snotter hanging out of her left nostril.’

  I still laugh. It was a wonderful moment and worth the one hundred lines on the blackboard after school. I note that Mrs Giant-Bore didn’t make my funeral.

  So enraptured was I with this memory that I didn’t notice my brother getting to his feet. I snapped back to attention to catch him taking his last few steps towards the alter, walking as slowly as a death row inmate on his way to the chair.

  He attempted to rest his crumpled notes on the lectern, but his shaking hands meant he knocked them clumsily to the floor. I watched Sarah roll her eyes as he bent to pick them up before finally getting them to stay in place on the stand. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Harry Jonathan Melville was my twin brother yet, in truth, the similarities between us were few.’

  I was surprised both by the unusual note on which Ben had decided to begin his eulogy but also by the fact he seemed to be speaking with some degree of poise and purpose – despite his obvious nervousness – where usually he would appear aloof and distracted. I noticed he’d made a bit of an effort with his appearance too, looking smart in a dark navy suit he’d borrowed from my father. His hair, now greying at the front and sides (as mine had been), was clean cut and freshly washed.

  As he stood awkwardly at the pulpit, he radiated some of that mysterious appeal that had marked him out so much from others in our youth. He had been quiet but intriguing, and the girls loved him – much to my annoyance.

  ‘Harry was an achiever,’ he continued, ‘in business and in life. He started young, selling parking tickets to the unsuspecting drivers who tried to enter our cul-de-sac. Harry always got them to pay. They could never resist his cheeky grin as he politely asked them to part with ten pence.’ Ben paused to accommodate the amused titters of the congregation before continuing.