Love Byte Read online

  David Atkinson

  Contents

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTERS:

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  EPILOGUE

  COPYRIGHT

  For my girls, Erin and Emme

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was a magical moment. My gorgeous, glamorous girlfriend was about to become my gorgeous, glamorous wife. Resplendent in her flowing ivory wedding dress, and backlit by bright sunshine, Lindsay appeared to float through the gardens of the ancient churchyard. Long grass whispered at her ankles, she held her head high, and the small bouquet clasped in her hands trembled gently. Beside her, brightly coloured flowers swayed in the warm breeze and a white butterfly that followed her progress appeared to dance with joy in the summer air.

  As the string quartet struck up the first notes of ‘Eternal Flame’ the guests all turned, gazed and smiled as Lindsay glided between them. My best man, Jamie, and I looked on, feeling almost like bystanders. We had spent ages grooming ourselves and donning our green Hunter tartan kilts, but compared to this approaching vision of loveliness, we were but tramps. Andrew Gillen, the Church of Scotland minister, stood ready and the bridesmaids, Ellie and Andrea, glowed in pale pink and bustled along behind Lindsay to prevent her dress from snagging on anything.

  Around us were ancient gravestones, the inscriptions worn away by time and harsh winters past. The contrast between life and death was not lost on me and somehow the presence of these silent and long dead witnesses made me feel more alive, keenly aware of how lucky I was to be living and revelling in that moment.

  To take advantage of the fabulous weather, the ceremony had been moved to the churchyard, and as my wife-to-be stood by my side I couldn’t help smiling. I was so proud and happy; I was fit to burst. It truly was the happiest moment of my life, and I reckoned up until then I’d had a pretty good existence.

  The minister, plump and grey before his time, was a serious man in his Sunday services. Throughout the winter and spring we’d attended nearly every week to ensure that when we came to be married, he would look upon us as parishioners rather than interlopers just wanting to use the grand thousand-year-old Edinburgh church for our nuptials.

  We’d endured lectures on the evils of drink whilst nursing hangovers from the previous Saturday night. Lindsay had nodded sagely, agreeing with the sentiment that tobacco was a dangerous drug and should be banned – whilst quietly pushing her Benson & Hedges to the bottom of her handbag – and we’d both squirmed guiltily as he’d lectured us on the folly of pre-marital sex, having arrived late, and glowing, to the service from an extended Sunday morning bout of love-making.

  On this day, however, he had beamed at us and began by addressing the congregation with a potted history of the church and its place in Edinburgh’s violent past. My attention drifted and I became acutely aware of the surroundings. I was conscious of the wind that rustled the leaves on the trees, I listened to a bird that chirped cheerfully from an ancient stone wall and I detected the bright but faint tinkle of an ice cream van that advertised its arrival on some distant housing estate. Honeysuckle and lavender shrubs produced a heady scent that drifted across the churchyard and bees busily buzzed on the flowers, gorging themselves on nectar.

  My gaze wandered over the reverend’s shoulder and tracked across the still and tranquil loch that formed the spectacular backdrop to the ancient church that made it such a popular choice for photographers and painters. As I watched, a swan gracefully spiralled down and settled on the surface, sending small ripples across the water. It was hard to believe that we were in the middle of a modern city; it looked and felt like the Scottish Highlands.

  Standing in the dappled shade provided by an ancient oak tree, I slowly became aware that the Reverend Gillen had ceased speaking to the assembled guests and was now addressing me. I took my girlfriend’s hand for the last time as a single man and the formalities began.

  As the camera of Alistair Swanson, the DVD maker, panned across the rows of smiling faces and focused in on an elderly relative, my 2½–year-old daughter Amy suddenly piped up.

  ‘Ooz that?’

  Dragged back to present reality with a jolt, I peered at the TV screen. The camera had focused onto an old woman smiling with crooked black teeth.

  ‘Ooz that?’

  I tried and failed to recall the old crone’s name. She was a former church elder who, ironically enough, became too old and decrepit to remain in her position. Abruptly the camera moved again to show an old man perched on a chair. He was twisted and bent, obviously in pain, and looked to be leering at my bride.

  ‘Ooz that?’

  I smiled at my daughter.

  ‘Ooz that?’ she enquired again.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted honestly, knowing full well that this explanation would not be enough.

  ‘Ooz that?’ This time she was louder and more insistent, as if raising the pitch of her voice might jog my memory into an answer.

  I sighed. I sighed a lot when Amy was asking me questions.

  ‘I don’t know his name, Amy. Anyway, he’s probably dead.’

  I had no idea if the old man was dead or alive. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t care too much either.

  Amy’s infant brain tried to process this statement. She had little concept of death. The scene on the TV changed and focused onto another guest.

  ‘Ooz that?’

  ‘She’s dead as well.’

  Another guest came into focus.

  ‘Ooz that?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Ooz that?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Ooz—?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Ooz—?’

  ‘Dead.’

  Soon most of the guest list had departed this earth, at least for Amy’s benefit. At some point in the next week or two, either in the street or at a playgroup, we would bump into someone I’d snuffed out and Amy would smile with recognition, point at them and shout, ‘Dead.’

  I should have known better than to play the wedding DVD when she was still awake, but she’d started to grow tired of In the Night Garden and as it was only 6.30 I was trying to eke out another half an hour of peace before the manic evening bedtime routine kicked in. So instead I was plonked on the cool wooden floor of my expansive living room, staring at my past.

  The camera lingered on the serene and smiling face of my wife Lindsay, her luxurious black hair moving gently in the breeze, dark eyes shining with joy, frozen in time within a scene that would be forever summer.

  Amy stared intently at the screen. ‘Ooz that?’

  I sighed again. ‘That’s Mummy.’

  Amy turned to me, flicked her hair from her face and blinked her dark-brown eyes, full of innocence and trust.

  ‘Dead,’ she said with certainty.

  I nodded sadly. ‘Yes. She’s dead too.’

  CHAPTER TWO

 
Half an hour after Amy was asleep, I had settled on the leather couch with a glass of Australian Shiraz and was channel surfing through SKY TV’s finest. After flirting with Wheeler Dealers for a minute or two, I plumped for an old episode of Grand Designs where a middle-aged couple were insanely trying to restore a ruined castle. It had been a long, tiring day, as were most days spent running after my toddler. Sometimes I even looked forward to going into the office for a break. As the wine started to seep into my system I slid further down the couch and began to feel my eyes closing. Suddenly I was jerked awake by my mobile phone blasting out ‘Firework’ by Katy Perry. It had become my ringtone only recently. I had selected it randomly from the stack of music files on my phone.

  The screen on the iPhone told me it was my mother-in-law, Pauline, with her regular evening phone call to make sure her precious granddaughter was safe and sleeping. I knew she sometimes worried about me too and how I was handling everything. I personally thought I was doing remarkably well, but Pauline wasn’t convinced and was waiting for me to have some kind of breakdown. I occasionally suspected she was disappointed that I hadn’t, but I wasn’t a breakdown sort of guy. Pauline was highly strung and always on the go; I was pretty laid-back and relaxed, and she didn’t get that at all. Yeah I was still hurting, angry, and trying to come to terms with my wife’s death, but I had Amy. Amy was my world now – my number one priority.

  Another difference between us was that I internalized stuff, Pauline expressed everything. She was like my wife; if she had an issue she just blurted it out, believing that getting things out in the open was the way to deal with everything.

  Lindsay always used to say that I wandered about inside my own head half the time and kept too much to myself. To a point, that was true, but I didn’t see any value in burdening everyone with trivia; if something big went wrong, then I’d talk about it, but I usually rationalized it first, to see if I could find a solution. ‘Typical male thing,’ she’d say. ‘Always trying to fix everything.’

  Only I couldn’t fix this, my wife was gone and I had to find my own way. I answered the call.

  ‘Do you want me to come early in the morning to help get Amy ready?’ Pauline asked, her jarring voice grated in my ear.

  I smiled. ‘No, it’s fine, Pauline, I’m not in the office until about ten, so if you get here about nine that’ll be fine.’

  I sensed her frustration, and lack of faith in me. ‘Have you tidied up?’

  I glanced around the untidy living room, strewn with Amy’s toys. In addition, an unwashed cereal bowl sat accusingly on the coffee table along with several mugs and a half-eaten banana which had turned mushy and brown. I could detect the faint sweet acetone aroma emanating from it.

  ‘Yeah,’ I lied. ‘Amy helped me before she had her bath.’

  The silence on the other end of the line, microwave or whatever it was that mobile’s worked off, told me she didn’t believe me. She knew me too well. Suggesting that Amy was in any way capable of helping rather than hindering me was probably my undoing.

  Too tired to argue I eventually had to let her have her way and she promised to be over by eight. Pauline had too much time on her hands. Her partner Simon, with whom she had been for the last ten years, worked as an officer on North Sea ferries. He was away a lot and sometimes only made it back home for a few days a month.

  They had great holidays together – usually discounted cruises – but I knew Pauline missed him. I was her project and chief distraction – well, myself and Amy.

  After switching off the TV I decided to switch on my iPad and check my work emails in case there were any nasty surprises waiting for me. Since Lindsay’s death I’d gone back to work at Perennial Mutual part-time, job sharing with Jenny who was recently back from maternity leave. The arrangement worked reasonably well; I worked two or three days a week on a rota basis and spent the rest of the time with Amy. The life assurance payout on my wife’s death hadn’t been huge but had been enough to allow me to give up working full-time, at least for the time being. I logged on and scrolled down my work inbox. There was nothing that wouldn’t wait, thankfully. I was just about to shut the screen down when I remembered that I hadn’t checked my personal account for nearly a week. I was unable to access it from work as the firewall blocked all non-essential Internet sites, including most email accounts.

  I glanced at my inbox, which showed forty-seven unread emails. The first was from Nabutti Ingroblu, beseeching me to send her (I assume it was a ‘her’, it could have been a he) my bank details so she could deposit sixteen million US Dollars into my account. She/he had allegedly been awarded this money as a result of a change in government in Nigeria. (Whenever I experienced a change of government all I was ever awarded was higher taxes). She/he then would meet me in London once she/he obtained a UK visa and we would make mad, passionate love in a Mayfair hotel to celebrate her windfall. Well obviously a ‘her’ then – hopefully!

  The next email was from Donna, a horny housewife from Cardiff, who wanted to meet me and exchange bodily fluids. Wow! My luck was in tonight. Next I had an offer for Viagra from an online pharmacist: ‘12 little blue pills for 12 little dollars’. Obviously they had been reading my previous two emails.

  The next proposal was from Chuck who lived in Detroit. There was a picture of Chuck in the body of the email that showed him sitting in an open-topped powder-blue Rolls Royce, waving a wad of dollar bills – à la Harry Enfield circa 1985.

  If I agreed to subscribe to Chuck’s monthly wealth programme, I would receive the ‘AMAZING SECRET METHOD’ – ‘amazing secret method’ was in huge red letters – of making millions of dollars on the Internet. I suspected that Chuck’s ‘amazing secret’ was simply to send lots of emails to people purporting to have an ‘amazing secret’ and then sign them up to a monthly payment plan for the privilege. It may also have been a slightly subtler version of Miss/Mr Ingroblu’s method of obtaining my bank account details, which he would then promptly empty.

  Although I found the whole thing mildly amusing, it saddened me to know that some people would buy into all the hype and end up losing money. Usually those who could least afford to do so. I glanced further down the list and apart from an email from a theatre group I’d once belonged to I didn’t see anything I wanted to read and pressed the delete button.

  Just as I was about to navigate away from the page, another email popped into my inbox. I was tempted to press delete without even looking at it but decided to have a quick peek. I didn’t recognize the sender: [email protected].

  Attached to the email was a picture of Lindsay and me on our honeymoon. We were dressed in T-shirts and shorts, standing barefoot on a tropical beach with sand so white it looked like it had just been bleached. When I read the text of the message I decided it had to be some kind of sick joke because it claimed to be from my wife.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Our honeymoon in St Lucia had been a fortnight of joy and self-indulgence, our once-in-a-lifetime holiday where we denied ourselves nothing. We’d come back invigorated, relaxed, and a good few pounds heavier. Lindsay wanted to try for a baby immediately. I would have preferred to wait and enjoy each other for longer but Lindsay could tempt me to her way of thinking very easily.

  ‘OK, Andy, here’s the deal. It takes on average around eleven months to get pregnant,’ she explained patiently, talking to me like I was a child.

  ‘OK. So?’

  Lindsay sighed and shook her head at my stupidity. ‘That’s an average, and includes all those fertile teenagers that get pregnant at the drop of a hat.’

  I didn’t think dropping hats had much to do with it – dropping knickers maybe – but I didn’t say anything as Lindsay was in full flight.

  ‘So, as we’re both a good bit older than the nubile teenagers, logic dictates that it will take us longer than eleven months. I’ve worked out that we will probably need around fifteen months and
that assumes that we have a shag every month when I’m ovulating.’

  I smiled at Lindsay’s serious face as she delivered her impromptu biology lesson and said, ‘Well I was hoping we would have a shag more than once a month.’

  Lindsay wrinkled up her nose and frowned at me. ‘Yeah, I should have known that out of what I’ve just said the only word you would hear is “shag”.’

  I grinned and Lindsay sighed then smiled.

  ‘OK, in your language, Andy Hunter, what this means for you is that over the next fifteen months or so we are going to be shagging constantly and I hope you will be up for it, double meaning intended. Also, I want to make sure your sperm is in tip top condition so we are cutting down on the alcohol and you are not to carry your mobile phone in your trouser pockets. I know there’s no proof that mobiles cause any problems, but better safe than sorry.’

  Of course, Lindsay became pregnant almost immediately and my promise of ‘constant shagging’ – which I actually thought sounded like a good name for a rock band – was not fulfilled. The pregnancy went as well as pregnancies could. We oohed and aahed over scan pictures, and despite feeling continuously sick for five months, Lindsay managed to wolf down a huge number of pot noodles, mint choc ices, white chocolate buttons, pickled onions, banana sandwiches and Worcester sauce crisps (no other flavour would do.) This was coupled with an urge to periodically sniff the petrol cap from our car. Not surprisingly she also consumed a fair number of indigestion tablets.

  Amy’s birth on a sweltering hot May afternoon was the icing on the cake, the fulfilment of Lindsay’s dream and a gift from the gods. At least that was how we felt for the first twelve hours. Then Amy screwed up her perfect features and howled and howled, and then howled some more. When she wasn’t howling she was screaming, when she wasn’t screaming she was bawling. The only time she didn’t cry was when she was attached to one of Lindsay’s breasts, her preference being the right one. I was the other way around as Lindsay’s right breast was marginally smaller than the left, or as Lindsay would say, ‘The left is slightly bigger than the right.’ In any case, my preferences were no longer important as we tried to figure out what was wrong with our darling baby.