Chapter 59

Yvonne woke with a start and groaned quietly when Marcus closed the door.

"Morning," he said, doffing his shoes and walking in his socks across to the kitchen.

"Where am I?" she asked, looking pale and drawn. He stopped, confused, and took a step back to get into her line of sight.

"You say that like you ask it a lot?"

"What?"

"You don't... If people wake up somewhere unfamiliar they usually look surprised. They sound different to that. You didn't look surprised."

"You've never woken up somewhere unfamiliar?" She reached up to rub at her temples, but gave up as her arms obviously pained her to move.

"Yes," he said, after a moment's thought. "I've been camping. I went on holiday a few times. I moved here. I was surprised when I woke up."

"Don't worry about it, Marcus," Hope said as she shuffled around the corner from her room, obviously freshly showered.

"I'm not worried," he told her, but there was an edge to his voice that caught her attention.

"I just... I guess I end up in strange rooms a lot," Yvonne admitted, quietly, turning away from them a little as she settled into her seat. Marcus didn't hear the tone of her voice, but Hope recognised the resignation in it.

"That explains it," Marcus said, and carried on into the kitchen. Yvonne twisted gingerly round in the seat and looked back towards where Hope leant against the wall by the kitchen door.

"Is he for real?"

"Yeah," Hope said with a slightly wistful smile.

"This is what you meant by that Ansberg thing."

"Asperger's. Yes."

"What... that is..." Yvonne slowly trailed off as the pair of them realised that that wasn't what was really on their minds, but what was wasn't something they wanted to give voice to. Hope leant against the wall, still yawning occasionally, until Marcus emerged with a plate of toast and headed for his room with a deep scowl.

"What are you up to today, Marcus?" she asked, and he turned, a slice of toast halfway to his mouth.

"Not much. I need to do some work on encryption and matrix calculations later."

"Me, too. Fancy giving me a hand?"

"Sure."

"Thanks."

Marcus carried on with his journey to the bedroom, and Yvonne padded into the kitchen with Hope.

"What was that all about?"

"Our IT course."

"OK. Except that you wanted to talk to him way before..." She cut off at the sound of feet outside, and they watched Shawna hurry past on her way to the bathroom.

"If you tell Marcus you want to talk to him about what's troubling him, he'll clam up. If you tell him you want to talk about something else, and then slip it in to the conversation, he tends not to notice and just gets on with it."

"You think something's on his mind?"

"He's... I don't know what it is, but he's not himself at the moment. Yeah."

"So why are we going out?" Marcus' frown deepened as he passed Hope his spare helmet.

"I need the fresh air," she told him, wrapping her hair behind her head with experienced hands, "and Shawna needs some space, too. Plus, I want some pictures of 'The Tallship' for something I'm doing in Journalism this week, and, frankly, I like riding the bike."

"Right," Marcus said, and stepped over the bike lazily, offering a hand to her to help her slightly more difficult ascent.

Once she was settled in place he pulled away, letting her relax against his back. Despite the slight misdirection of her explanation, she genuinely did feel better for the ride. As they rode, she worked through in her head what she was going to say. Marcus was tense — she could feel it through his thick jacket — and that tension had been obvious in the house.

Shawna was being quiet and Marcus talkative, which wasn't a good sign from either of them. She understood Shawna's mood — or at least the cause of it — but she wasn't the best person to talk to Shawna about Connor. Marcus was. But he was spending all his time talking about everything else.

That was strange in itself. When Shawna was upset, Marcus was usually almost silent, hovering nearby, waiting to help, but now he was forcing himself — sometimes painfully — into conversation, trying to pretend that everything was fine.

She sat up in surprise when the engine switched off, and looked up to see the ship bobbing gently in the harbour. She quickly slid off the bike and tugged the helmet off as Marcus put the bike up on its stand.

"What do you think about over there?" she asked, pointing to a raised section of the harbour wall nearby.

"It's a dais?" he ventured, after a moments thought. "Quite a nice dais. Interesting architecture."

"What do you think about it for taking pictures."

"I thought you wanted picture of the boat?"

"I want to stand there and take pictures of the boat. How do you think they'll come out?"

"Not that well. You'll be shooting straight at the bow. I'd stand over there," he said pointing the other way. "Then you can get a broadside shot."

"Good point. It's below the deckline, though, I kind of wanted to get a shot looking down on it."

"I'll pick you up, if you like."

"Marcus!"

"What? You don't weigh much. It won't be a struggle."

"I think I'll just try standing on the wall."

Shrugging, he followed her along the harbour front as she considered the boat. When she had the shot she wanted she put her hands on the wall, and jumped, trying to climb up onto the stone balustrade.

Marcus hands wrapped around her waist and hoisted her effortlessly up to the point where she could fold her legs underneath her and put her feet on the stone. She giggled and felt her heart race, biting at her lip as she admitted to herself that it was only in part because of the fifteen foot drop down to the water below and mostly because of the thrill that shot through her when he hoisted her into place so easily.

She calmed herself, conscious of Marcus hovering a few inches from her feet in case she slipped, and quickly snapped off a half-dozen shots of the boat. She turned to get down, and Marcus was waiting once more, arms outstretched, to catch as she jumped.

"I can manage," she assured him, sitting down and sliding gently off the edge as he shuffled back to giver her space. "Thank you, though."

"Ready to go?"

"In a minute." She waved the camera. "I need to check that these shots are good enough, and I want to write something while I'm here, while I can see it, you know."

She sat on one of the wooden benches nearby, and patted the seat beside her when he didn't move. She determined that at least two of the shots would show what she wanted and put the camera back in her zip-up pocket.

"Can I ask a question?" she said once she had looked up from her notepad to see him staring across the harbour at nothing in particular.

"Sure," he said, not turning.

"What was Shawna's 'bad anniversary'? I don't want to go putting my foot in it by saying the wrong thing."

"March 14th."

"I... I meant what was it the anniversary of"

"Oh." He turned to look at her, gnawing at the inside of his lip. "I'd like to tell you. You could probably help her more than me, but... I can't."

"Why not?"

"She wouldn't want anyone to know."

"Sometimes... sometimes what people want and what they need aren't the same thing."

"Maybe," he acknowledged. "I'm not sure I'm the best person to make that decision, though."

"Maybe not, but who else is there?"

Marcus just shrugged and turned back to watching the harbour.

"Is that what's been bugging you this week, that you don't know how to help?"

"Part of it." He sighed, settling back into the seat. "That I can't help her now. That I might not be around to later."

"Are you going somewhere?" Hope folded her laptop closed, turning to look at him.

"Have you been watching the news? That new mental health bill's going through parliament again."

"I saw a few things about it, yeah. Why?"

"They're going to sign into legislation the right to lock people away if they're considered dangerous without them actually having to have done anything."

"No-one thinks you're dangerous, Marcus."

"Really? Go down to the Maryhill police station. Ask them for my file. Caution for affray..."

"That's a long way from considering you violent, Marcus."

"Is it? Is it really? This government's looking for ways to get prison figures down. This is ideal. And the worst bit is that it probably will cut crime a little. Some of the people they lock away would have become violent, otherwise."

"Marcus, that's not going to happen to you."

"How do you know?"

"Why would it? One incident, which was justifiable..."

"If it was justifiable, I wouldn't have been cautioned."

"If it's the difference between going to a secure hospital and being free, I think Shawna would come forward with the truth."

"Maybe."

Hope started, visibly, at Marcus' lack of faith.

"No, not maybe, Marcus. For sure... What's with you and Shawna?"

"I'm not... I don't know that it's going to last," he admitted after a long pause. Hope started to answer, but held herself in check and thought quickly about how to deal with things. Deep down she felt something urge her not to pry, to let things run their course, but she pushed it down with a sense of shame and looked up at him.

"What makes you think that?"

"She keeps saying that I'm going to find someone else."

"But you know that's not going to happen, right? I mean, not that you couldn't, but you wouldn't."

"No, but... She might."

"Do you think she would?"

"Well, she keeps bringing it up."

"You think she's putting the idea in your head so she can justify it herself when she does it?"

"My father said it's called 'projection.'"

"Ah... your father."

"What?"

"No, carry on. Tell me about projection."

"Well, it's when you have feelings that you can't accept about yourself, so you accuse other people of them — project them onto someone else. I couldn't find an explanation of why."

"Alright, I know I'm not your father, but... couldn't it just be fear? I mean, Shawna's clinging to you at the moment, has been since Connor MacNamara the other night."