Deception and Desire Read online

  Mac was slimly built but strong, every inch of his five-feet-nine frame lean hard sinew. His hair was light brown, his eyes several shades darker. Like Steve he was something of a loner; unlike Steve he did nothing to try to disguise it. Whilst Steve presented a deliberately laid-back approach Mac was genuinely happier with his own company or that of one or two friends. He could not be bothered with forming superficial relationships, social intercourse bored and irritated him, and he preferred reading, listening to music or walking in the wild countryside to drinking and partying in noisy, smoke-filled bars. But beneath the almost gentle exterior there ran a vein of iron and another of fire. Few people had ever seen Mac’s temper but it was there all right, slow to be roused but so explosive when it erupted that those who witnessed it never forgot.

  He and Steve had only one thing in common, their Christian name – though it was years since he had used it. At his school the boys had still been referred to by their surnames and his friends had soon abbreviated MacIlroy to the nickname Mac. He like the name – whilst the Snottys and the Fatsos and the Weedys could hardly wait to leave their nicknames behind Mac adopted his and took it with him into the world. Only his parents called him Stephen now. To everyone else he was simply Mac.

  Perhaps he and Steve would never have crossed over the boundary between comradeship and friendship if it had not been for something which happened whilst they were diving one day.

  The two of them were checking out the equipment in the fathomless ice-cold water beneath the rig whilst the third member of their team, a cheery Cockney named Des Taylor, acted as their bell man, when Steve discovered a loose nut on one of the valves. It was a routine enough occurrence and Steve began to tighten the nut, bracing himself against the pull of the water by jackknifing himself into a crouching position with his feet pressed against the foot-diameter pipe. He had done the same thing many times before without mishap but this time something went wrong. As he put his weight against the massive spanner it suddenly slipped, crashing backwards and smashing into the mask of Mac, who was just behind his left shoulder. The mask cracked and instantly ice-cold water poured in, half blinding Mac as well as totally disorientating him. Air and gases streamed out from the fractured mask in a rush of bubbles and he floundered helplessly, knowing he had to regain the bell quickly or drown, yet unable to see which way to go and too shocked to be able to think clearly.

  Steve acted instantly. He grabbed Mac, dragged him back to the bell and stuffed him, choking, through the hatch. Des pulled them in, closed the hatch and signalled for an immediate return to the surface whilst Steve tried to stem the bleeding from Mac’s face, which had been injured by the force of the blow. It was a routine enough accident and working as a team Mac had not been in mortal danger, but it was enough to forge a bond between the two men.

  When he had arrived to begin work on the rig Steve had taken bed and breakfast accommodation in Aberdeen whilst Mac, with his longer experience and stabler financial state, had rented a house. Now, when the latest stint was completed and the team went ashore, Mac suggested to Steve that he might like to move in with him.

  ‘Are you sure, pal?’ Steve asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Mac replied. ‘ The place is far too damned big for me on my own.’ He did not add that he had always baulked in the past at the thought of sharing with any of the other men, who were liable to run wild and go on endless benders when they escaped from the rigours of life on the rig. But he knew Steve well enough to know that he was unlikely to behave in that way – though he did not know him well enough to know the dangerous secrets that lay behind that smooth exterior.

  ‘What the hell am I doing in a hole like this?’ Steve asked irritably.

  It had been a long day’s diving and by the time they were through the hot water in their suits had lost its heat and they were chilled to the marrow. Not even the customary dash to the recompression chamber had done anything to warm them – Steve’s fingers had fumbled hopelessly as he removed his helmet, he had thudded awkwardly to the deck where anxious hands had peeled off his suit and when he had got to his feet again to run for the chamber in the five short minutes before the dangerous and sometimes fatal sickness known as ‘the bends’ began, his legs had almost given way beneath him.

  His instinct for self-preservation had taken over then; somehow he had regained his balance and his numb limbs had obeyed him. He had reached the chamber with just seconds to spare and as the pressure built, returning his body to the state in which he had been working all day, he found himself wondering why he had ever thought he would enjoy diving for a living and why the hell he was sticking with it in these God-awful conditions.

  Briefly he remembered his days on the Keys, the searingly hot sun on his bronzed body, and thought he must be out of his mind to ever have left it. But at least diving paid well – and didn’t carry the threat of a prison sentence! A few years of this and he would have saved enough to set himself up for life – legitimately. Steve relaxed his aching limbs and waited for the ‘blowdown’ to be completed, letting his mind rove over the ways he could use his savings. A leisure complex, perhaps – a luxurious health hydro where he would employ well-trained specialists in diet and massage, and every sensual bodily need would be indulged. There would be weights halls, gymnasiums, treatment rooms and, of course, a swimming pool, sauna and solarium. The vision brought a little warmth back to his chilled body and he smiled briefly as he enjoyed the irony of it. Supreme comfort paid for by supreme suffering. He might, of course, decide upon something different, but whatever it was, one thing was very certain. The money he earned here on the rigs would not be squandered on wine, women and song. It had been earned too hard for that.

  The blowdown procedure completed, Steve, Mac and Des returned to their quarters to change into warm dry clothing – thick Arran sweaters and heavy-duty jeans worn over longjohns and vests that reminded Steve of the ones his father had worn when the snow lay thickly over the hills and mountains of Vermont. But he was still cold; not even a hot drink and the stodgy supper of beef stew and dumplings followed by spotted dick with thick, cornfloury-tasting custard could reach the chilled core of him, and as the three men relaxed in the commissary, furtively swigging at a flask of brandy they had smuggled in – alcohol was forbidden on the rigs – the frustration bubbled to the surface once more.

  ‘What the hell am I doing in a hole like this?’ he asked of no one in particular.

  A small, wiry man, universally known as ‘ Tiger’, who was sitting at the next table overheard and laughed.

  ‘I sure as hell know what I’m doing here – making enough bread to keep two wives and six children in the manner to which they have become accustomed!’ he quipped in his thick Scottish brogue.

  ‘You’ve only got yourself to blame, Tiger,’ his mate, a brawny north-countryman, cracked back at him. ‘You should have kept your lead in your pencil!’

  Tiger grinned ruefully – it was common knowledge that a messy divorce, two wives, a girlfriend in Aberdeen and the brood of children that had resulted from his time ashore kept him penniless.

  ‘And if you couldn’t do that you should have made a sharp exit,’ the northerner, a man named Derek Bradley, continued. ‘ God knows how many brats I’ve fathered – I don’t, and I sure as hell don’t want to know. Love ’ em and leave ’em, that’s what I say.’

  ‘That’s a bit rough on the women concerned, isn’t it?’ Des said.

  ‘Why? Whores, most of them, anyway – as good as. They see us coming with our pay rolls bulging and they want a good time. Well, let ’em have it, I say, and if they get a bit more than they bargained for – tough!’

  ‘So what do you reckon has happened to all your kids then, Des?’ Tiger asked.

  The northerner shrugged. He was enjoying himself, enjoying playing the brash hard-hearted stud.

  ‘How should I know? Whining round their mothers’ skirts, stopping them from going out and getting a bit of the other? Dumped on somebody who’s fool
enough to want them? Strangled at birth, for all I care!’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ Mac said. His voice was low but full of anger and disgust. Steve glanced at him and saw a muscle working in his cheek.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, MacIlroy?’ the northerner asked rudely.

  ‘The way you are talking. It’s bloody offensive.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says me. You’ve got a big mouth, Bradley …’

  ‘That’s not all that’s big!’

  ‘… and you ought to learn to keep it shut.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Bradley grinned. ‘And are you going to make me?’

  ‘I might – if you don’t put a sock in it.’

  Bradley tipped his chair on to its two back legs, grinning. Arguments, even fights, were not unknown on the rig – when a lot of red-blooded men were cooped up together for weeks on end friction was inevitable. But Mac, known for being placid and quiet, was rarely involved in any of them.

  ‘Fuck off, Mac,’ Bradley jeered. ‘ Go tie yourself in knots.’

  ‘You foul-mouthed son of a bitch, Bradley!’ Mac was on his feet before either Steve or Des could stop him. His fist shot out, connecting with the northerner’s jaw and sending both him and his chair crashing backwards. ‘Now get up and say what you just said again!’ he challenged him.

  For a moment Bradley was so astonished that he lay where he had fallen, then with a roar he staggered to his feet. Blood was pouring from a split up and one of his front teeth protruded at a crazy angle.

  ‘You bastard!’ Still half dazed, yet strong as an ox, he went for Mac and the two men ricocheted around the commissary, sending furniture flying as they crashed into it. At first there were a few cheers, then, realising that this fight was going to go to its bitter end, Steve, Des, and a couple of the others intervened, separating the protagonists with some difficulty.

  Mac’s face was by now as bloody as Bradley’s. A cut over one eye was pouring blood down his cheek and already the brow bone was swelling and darkening. His knuckles were grazed, his sweater streaked with blood, his heavy-duty jeans ripped at thigh level where he had cannoned into a corner of the self-service bar. But his expression was still one of blind fury.

  ‘Just keep your filthy mouth shut in future!’ he yelled over his shoulder as Steve and Des led him away.

  ‘Goddamit, Mac, what did you want to do that for?’ Steve asked as they bundled him into the cabin he and Mac shared. ‘The bloke’s a loudmouth – nobody with any sense takes notice of him.’

  ‘Well it’s about time somebody did,’ was all Mac said through swollen and bloody lips.

  Steve and Des exchanged glances. They were more surprised than anyone at Mac’s violent reaction – it was totally alien to everything they knew about him. But for the moment the reason behind his fury was unimportant. There was a certain amount of first-aid patching up to do – fast. Unless they could work like expert corners at a bare-knuckle fist-fight, Mac was going to have cause to regret his rashness in the morning.

  ‘I’m sorry, fellas,’ Mac said.

  He was quiet now, the fury spent. His face covered in iodine and plasters, he looked a sorry sight.

  ‘Sorry? Don’t be sorry – best entertainment we’ve had for weeks,’ Des said. ‘But what the hell was it all about?’

  ‘The guy just got to me.’ Mac was sitting on his bunk, head bent, knees splayed, a cup of coffee laced with some of the illicit brandy held in his hands between them. ‘The way he was talking – thinking he was being so damned clever. It just got to me, that’s all.’

  ‘But why?’ Steve asked. ‘We all know he’s got a big mouth. You’ve never let it bother you before.’

  ‘It was the way he was going on about leaving bastards scattered around the country like confetti and not giving a damn that really caught me on the raw. I was adopted, you see. Stupid thing to be sensitive about, I suppose, and most of the time I’m not. But I can’t say I’m sorry I hit him. He had it coming.’

  ‘True.’ Des grinned. ‘It wasn’t all one-sided though, was it?’

  ‘So, if you were adopted you don’t know who your real parents are, I suppose?’ Steve said. The idea was fascinating him – after all, he had spent the best part of his adult life trying to lose his heritage.

  ‘As a matter of fact I do know – or I know who my mother is, at least,’ Mac said. ‘ I fancied finding out so I sent for my original birth certificate.’

  ‘And?’

  Mac shook his head. ‘ It’s funny really, the way things work out. I’d always had this picture in my mind of this poor kid who had to give me up because she couldn’t afford to keep me. It was the kind of story I used to tell myself to explain why she let me go. I even had some bloody romantic notion that if I could find her maybe I could make things up to her, buy her some nice things – you know what I mean. But it wasn’t quite what I expected.’

  He broke off. He was talking too much, he knew, but the fight and the illicit brandy were loosening his tongue, making him want to share the things he had never expected to mention to another living soul.

  ‘Well?’ Steve prompted him. ‘What was the result?’

  Mac shook his head. ‘Bit of a fiasco, really. I’d prepared myself for finding out she was destitute, or living in a high-rise council flat or something. But the truth came as a bit of a shock. My mother – my real mother – doesn’t need my help at all. She could buy and sell me several times over.’

  Steve leaned forward. ‘Who the hell is she, then?’

  Mac sipped his drink, wincing as the hot liquid burned his cut lip, but it was nothing to the pain inside him, the irrational pain of rejection that had smouldered in his heart for years and been fanned to a fierce fire when he had finally read what was written on his original birth certificate. The shock he had felt then was just as fresh, just as new now as it had been the day he had discovered that whatever the reason his mother had abandoned him it had not been because she could not afford to keep him.

  ‘Have you ever heard of Vandina?’ he asked.

  Des looked blank, but Steve knew.

  ‘The ‘‘Touch of the Country” people, you mean?’

  ‘The same. Then perhaps you have also heard of the woman behind it – Dinah Marshall?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘Dinah Marshall is my mother.’

  Steve’s breath came out in a soft whistle.

  ‘Dinah Marshall is your mother?’

  ‘That’s what my birth certificate says.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘It doesn’t say. Some bastard like Bradley, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Who is this Dinah Marshall?’ Des asked.

  Steve told him.

  ‘Shit!’ Des ran a hand through his thinning hair. ‘You’re having us on, aren’t you, Mac?’

  ‘Would I joke about a thing like that?’ Mac put down his cup, reached in his pocket for his wallet and extracted a piece of paper. ‘There it is in black and white if you don’t believe me.’

  He passed it to Des. Peering over his shoulder Steve also verified the details.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ he said.

  Mac replaced the birth certificate in his wallet and the three men sat in silence. For the moment there was nothing else to say.

  ‘Have you ever thought of trying to get in touch with your real mother?’ Steve asked.

  He and Mac were alone, sprawled on their bunks reading the newspapers and leafing idly through copies of Playboy and Diving News.

  ‘Thought of it, yes.’

  ‘But not done anything about it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I figured she might not be too pleased, me turning up out of the blue. If she didn’t want me then, why should she want me now?’

  ‘Could be circumstances have changed. Could be she’s regretted what she did. You hear of women who have their kids adopted spending their whole lives wondering what happened to them – wishing they could se
e them again, that sort of thing.’

  Mac was silent, and Steve went on: ‘She’d have no way of finding you, would she? Information like you have is a one-way traffic over here, isn’t it? They wouldn’t tell her who adopted you even if she asked. Any approach would have to come from you.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Well – why don’t you?’

  ‘And risk getting rejected twice over?’

  ‘It’s a chance I’d take if I were in your shoes. I wouldn’t be able to resist it, meeting her face to face, seeing what she’s like and what she’s got to say for herself. It might not have been at all the way you think. Maybe she had a damned good reason for giving you up.’

  ‘Maybe. I can’t think of one – unless it’s that I was a nuisance to her.’

  ‘But if you don’t give her the chance to explain you’ll never know, will you? She might fall over herself to make it up to you – and seeing who she is, that couldn’t be bad. If she took you to her bosom as her long-lost son you’d never have to work again.’

  Mac’s eyes darkened. ‘ I don’t want anything from her – now. She doesn’t owe me a damned thing.’

  ‘You’re crazy. She’s worth a mint!’

  ‘I don’t give a damn. She didn’t want me then and I don’t want her money now. It would choke me. Always supposing she wanted to make it up to me, which she probably doesn’t.’

  ‘You were standing up for her when you gave Bradley a beating.’

  ‘Not necessarily. He just riled me. Leave it, Steve.’

  Steve shook his head, thinking that Mac had a tile loose. He’d done a little reading up on Dinah Marshall since the night Mac had revealed she was his natural mother. The reading had confirmed what he already knew – that Dinah Marshall’s company, Vandina, was very big in the business league, turning in substantial profits besides being world-renowned for style and quality. He had also learned that Dinah and her husband Van Kendrick were childless. It was his hunch that if Mac played his cards right he had a great deal to gain. But it was typical of Mac to be mulish about taking advantage of the situation. It was typical of Mac to refuse to take advantage of anything or anyone, come to that!