BARRA’S ANGEL
Eileen Campbell
Fourth Estate
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Copyright © 1999 by Eileen Campbell
First published in Great Britain in 1999
The right of Eileen Campbell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9781857029772
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007401864 Version: 2016-01-04
This book is dedicated to the following:
My husband Robert, for more reasons than I can squeeze on this page. You have my love, my gratitude, and my admiration – always. (And I forgive you for buying the motorcycle on our anniversary!)
My daughter Laura. I don’t know why I was awarded the special privilege of being your mother, but I’m more thankful each day that I was. The infinite pleasure of knowing you would be gift enough.
My son Andrew, who can tap-dance with the best of them – and who carries my heart on his wings.
Contents
Rose glanced over her shoulder at the kitchen clock. Ten to four. Barra would be out of school soon, but when he’d arrive home was another matter. She sighed, and continued scrubbing the tatties. The velvety sound of Nat King Cole soothed her in her labours and she hummed along to her favourite, ‘Nature Boy’. The song reminded her of her son each and every time she heard it, and she smiled. For wasn’t it Barra himself in every line?
The smile dissolved, tugged downwards into a frown. If only Chalmers could see what she saw, could try to understand the boy – just a wee bit. Rose placed the tatties in the pan and dried her hands, tutting at her husband’s scarf which hung carelessly on the back-door knob. Three times this week she had hung it on the hallstand, and three times Chalmers had taken it off; only to leave it dangling behind, having decided at the last minute that the April sunshine would last another day.
Rose reached for the scarf, holding it for a moment against her cheek. Her heart lurched, an uncomfortable habit that had begun just weeks ago. Please God, let me be wrong. I couldn’t stand it … Then fury, white-hot and suffocating, rose within her.
Well, Chalmers Maclean, if it’s Sheena Mearns you want, you can bloody well have her! Rose wrapped the scarf around the doorknob, once, twice, three times, twisting it within an inch of its life.
She gave the stew more of a skelp than a stir, and walked back into the living room. The LP had