Page 43 of Playing By Ear

They’d gone barely a hundred feet before Mrs. Talbot sidled down the cracked concrete walkway of her villa. “Mornin’, Mr. MacKray,” she sang in a half-friendly, half-fawning tone. “Is this our Jimmy come back to us?”

“He’s all grown up.” Martin puffed out his chest and put a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Calls himself James now.”

“Ah.” Mrs. Talbot eyed the vigilant mastiff.

“Layla, sit,” Martin said, though she was already in the process of sitting.

Jamie glanced back at Gerry, who’d stopped several yards behind and stood as still as a heron on the prowl.

Mrs. Talbot reached out to Jamie over her hedgerow. He took her hand, smiling down at the familiar face that had greeted him each day on his walk home from St. Cecilia’s primary school with her son and daughter. What were those two doing now? Who were they, these people with the luxury of remaining the same, who never had to break away only to return, unfitted?

He would have asked Mrs. Talbot, if he could remember her kids’ names or find the nerve to admit he’d forgotten them.

She turned to Martin. “Thank you for sorting that incident with the plumber.”

“Och, nae bother,” he said with a wave. “We take care of our own here. Next time you’ll use our guys, aye?”

They spent a few minutes in small talk. Though Mrs. Talbot was overly solicitous, she showed no hint of pity toward Martin, which was encouraging. If the nearest and nosiest of neighbors hadn’t yet sussed out his cancer, maybe the MacKrays could keep it under wraps for a wee while.

Jamie needn’t have worried about his father wearying, for they were stopped at every fourth or fifth house. Neighbor after neighbor materialized to do a spot of gardening or haul out the rubbish, though it seemed early in the year to garden and it clearly wasn’t bin day.

This trek wasn’t about visiting the loch and seeing the swans. This was about flaunting Jamie for all Provanpark to see.

Nearly half an hour after leaving home, they finally exited the housing estate and arrived at the small commercial area containing most of Provanpark’s businesses, all partly or wholly owned by MacKray Enterprises.

“My wrist almost cramped from waving to everyone back there,” Jamie said. “Feel like I’m on a carnival float.”

“Your people have missed you,” Martin said.

“They’re not my people.”

“They’re my people, which means they’re yours, too.”

“Can’t they just be their own people?”

His dad laughed. “Come on, does that square with what you know about humans? Nearly everybody belongs to somebody, so they may as well belong to us.”

“And who do you belong to?”

“To them, of course.” Martin swept his hand to encompass the pub, chippy, curry place, launderette, and corner shop. “When I was a wean, Provanpark had nothing. Glasgow had this grand idea of moving people out of the tenements and into these council estates. Brand-new houses but nae services, nae place to buy food or drink, much less see a doctor. Without a car, you couldnae get so much as a newspaper without taking the bus over to Royston. And the polis? Couldnae be arsed to patrol here to catch burglars and rapists. Some fucking land of opportunity. But we sorted it all, me and Mickey. Now there’s eyes everywhere in Provanpark, and naebody gets hurt.”

This familiar refrain rang truer now, Jamie hated to admit. In the last ten years, he’d lived in nearly every corner of the city and seen the deprivation that came with chaos.

But was Martin’s realm really better off, when its so-called serenity was born of fear? A dictatorship might be peaceful, but only for those on the Dear Leader’s side.

“Listen, Jimmy. These people love me. They love us.” Martin beamed at the businesses under his thumb. “Mind what Reggie Kray once said: ‘The center of the world can be anywhere you want.’”

Jamie tried not to laugh. “So if Provanpark’s the center of the world, and you’re the center of Provanpark…”

His dad grinned. “Now you get it.” He squeezed Jamie’s shoulder, not hard enough to hurt. “Our family is the heart of this community. We keep the blood pumping through all the other bits.” He tapped his own chest with his fist. “And without a heart, a body finds itself six feet under.”

As they walked on, Jamie’s own heart began to sink. His father hadn’t changed at all.

“Jimmy!” Rita cried out from behind the pastry case as they entered the café beside Hogganfield Loch. “Look who’s a right sight for sore eyes.”

“Hiya.” Though no blood relation, Rita had been practically an auntie to him and Belinda. “The place looks so different.” Rita’s Sweeties had upscaled in the last decade, adding a coffee bar to its array of decadent homemade cakes, pastries, and biscuits. At a corner table, a thirty-something couple were Instagramming their treats.

Good. The changes would keep Jamie from falling into the nostalgia trap.