Field of Blood

She kept her head down, holding her hood shut over her mouth, and jogged across the road. Cold water squelched between her toes. She’d have wet feet for the rest of the day and would have to pack the boots with toilet paper when she got home and leave them by the fire.

Naismith must have been quick off the mark. The back door to the van was locked by the time she reached it, and the chassis juddered as the engine rumbled into life. She ran around to the driver’s window and banged on it, afraid she might have waited in vain and ruined her monkey boots for nothing.

From inside the cab Naismith smiled down at her, his quiff a little askew from being caught in the rain. He wound down the window a little, pumping hard with his elbow, and shouted into the street, “Refreshers?”

Paddy smiled up into the rain, letting go of her hood so that it slipped back a little, the rain ru

He looked puzzled.

“The van,” she shouted again, pointing to the lane. “It doesn’t stop there. I wanted to ask ye about it.”

He frowned down at her.

“He doesn’t stop there,” she repeated.

He shook his head and pointed to the passenger door, holding his mouth up to the open window. “Ca

Paddy nodded and ran in front of the van, the white headlights giving detail and texture to the black river coming down the hill. She opened the passenger door, stuck one foot onto a chrome-trimmed step built into the side of the van, and pulled herself up into the cab.

It was warm in the cab and still smelled of fresh morning rolls. The seats were thick, cream-colored leather with brown piping trim.

“Oh no, my duffel coat’s drenched.” She pulled the wet material away from under her. “I don’t want to wet your seats.”

“Good leather doesn’t mind wet so much. It’s the cheap stuff that hates the wet.”

He reached across her chest to the door, his elbow coming just too close to her tits to make her feel comfortable, and pulled the door shut behind her. He saw her stiffen away from him and retracted his arm quickly back towards the wheel, upset that he had frightened her.

“I’m not… I didn’t mean that,” he said, suddenly embarrassed. “I was just shutting the door.”

“Oh, aye,” said Paddy, feeling she had wrongly accused the nice man. He looked so crestfallen and ashamed that she felt she should offer him a squeeze of her tits just to show she didn’t suspect him of trying to cop a feel.

“Well.” He tried to smile, but looked miserable and nervous. “Anyway, what can I do ye for?”

“Yeah, listen, I waited for the ice-cream van, and it doesn’t stop there.” She pointed up the road again.

He looked blank, and she suddenly realized that he hardly remembered her.

“I was asking ye about the Baby Brian Boys the other evening, I don’t know if you remember.” He shook his head a little. “I said they had no reason to pass the Wilcox house, and you said the ice-cream van stopped there and they’d’ve come down to buy pe

“I remember ye bought a packet of Refreshers.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, you must talk to a hundred people a day. I watched, and it turns out that the van doesn’t stop there at all. But I wanted to ask ye if it used to, ye know? Like, maybe the ice-cream guy- Hughie, you said his name was?”

She looked at him and he paused for a beat before nodding.

“Yeah, did Hughie used to stop there? Did he change his routine because the wee boy died and he felt bad or something?”

A fat drop of rain fell from Paddy’s hair, racing down her face and dripping off her chin.

Naismith looked startled, as if he was seeing her for the very first time. “Good God in Govan, you are absolute soaked. Here.” He flicked on the cab light and looked for something on the floor.

The inside of the cab was a work of art. The covers of 45 records had been taped around the inside of the windscreen: Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Vaughan, Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, colorized pictures of young men, their teeth laughably white, their lips a camp pink. The pictures were held to the window by a mesh of Sellotape, yellow and crusty after years in the sun. At the right hand of the windscreen, just where the driver’s eye would fall most often, was a pastel drawing of a blond Jesus in a blue dress, smiling kindly at the circle of small children gazing up at him.

“This is a wee palace,” said Paddy, enjoying the big leather chair molding around her body, watching him feel under his seat.

He sat up and smiled. “It is, aye.” He handed her a brown, stale-smelling towel, sewn double along one seam, like a pocket.

Paddy dabbed at her hair politely, avoiding her mouth and nose, and pointed at the religious picture. “I didn’t have you down for a Holy Roller.”

He nodded, looking straight ahead, watching the rain fall onto the windscreen. His eyes flickered down the street, checking each door for customers. “Born again,” he said quietly. “I’d led a worthless life before and maybe will again, but through the grace of God I have known peace.”

It sounded like a load of Protestant codswallop to her, but he seemed sincere enough, if a little melancholy. Born-agains were usually a bit more upbeat about the experience. She imagined she saw him blink away a tear before he spoke again.

“Hughie may have changed his routine. I don’t really know.” He lifted a hand and ran his pinkie nail between his two front teeth. “I don’t really know.”

Paddy smiled, and looked at the towel in her lap. “I wondered because, see, if the van stopped further down there when the baby went missing, then the boys’d probably go around the back and not even pass the Wilcox house.”

She played with it, rolling it around her finger, a long, golden strand of hair so thick it was almost coarse, retaining its gentle wave despite being pulled tight. She was enjoying the familiar texture before she realized what it was. She’d know it anywhere. It was one of Heather Allen’s hairs.

Still staring forwards, eyes zigzagging from door to door, Naismith raised his hand above his head, moving slowly, trying not to startle her. He found the switch without looking and turned off the cabin light. Softly his arm dropped, his fingers alighting on the steering wheel. They sat still together, Paddy’s eyes fixed on his face. Orange streetlights filtered through the molten rain on the windscreen. His features looked as if they were melting.

“So maybe he changed his route,” he said softly.

Her face was frozen. “Maybe.”

He turned to look at her, and she could see that he was sad. They looked clear into each other’s eyes for the smallest moment, Paddy’s eyes pleading with him not to touch her, Naismith regretful but resolved to do what he had to do.

“You’ll catch your death walking home in this weather,” he said stiffly. “Let me drop ye off somewhere.”

He started the engine before she could speak, releasing the hand brake and engaging the clutch. The van slid forwards a foot into the black future, but Paddy’s suddenly scrambling fingers felt along the door behind her, jerking the handle down. She threw her weight against it and dropped backwards out of the cab into a wet void. As she fell, turning her head to see where she would land, she felt Naismith’s hot fingertips brush her ear.

She made contact with the ground two feet before she expected to, landing heavily on the side of her leg, twisting it and dropping the towel. She was winded, lying in a flowing inch of rainwater, conscious of the ominous numbness in her knee, when behind her she heard the hand brake crunch on and the driver’s door fly open. A scalding burst of adrenaline brought her to her feet, but her knee wouldn’t straighten and she fell. She rose again on all fours, springing forwards, hands slapping on the wet ground, through soft mud on the grassy verge, out to the main road, and over to the deserted bus station without remembering to check for traffic.