A Life for a Life by Andrew Puckett Page A

ducked under the water and began swimming away from her; soon she couldn’t see him for the ripples made by the other swimmers. About half a minute later he bobbed up at the far end of the swimming pool over a hundred feet away. She swam over and joined him. He was still panting.
    ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ she asked.
    ‘Used to go swimming a lot.’ He grinned at her between breaths. ‘In Glasgae, if y’ didnae like footba’, there was only swimming left.’
    ‘Most people prefer to swim on the water, not under it.’
    He shrugged. ‘It’s just something I’ve always liked doing. I did a diving course in Israel a few years ago.’
    ‘Why Israel?’
    ‘Why not? It’s hot and the life under the Red Sea is… well, y’ have to see it to believe it.’
    ‘D’you still go there?’
    ‘I went last year. Why? Fancy coming with me?’
    ‘I might.’
    Later, in the pub, he asked her about her family. Her father had been a teacher, she told him, her mother too, until they married.
    ‘Dad could have been a headmaster if he’d been prepared to move, but Mum wouldn’t leave Avon.’
    ‘Roots?’
    ‘Deep ones in her case – I’ve lost count of the number of cousins twice removed I’ve got round here.’
    ‘It didn’t stop your brother moving away – Africa, isn’t it?’
    ‘Botswana. He’s a teacher too and he loves it there. He comes home every Christmas, burnt to a cinder, but you can see he’s itching to get back.’
    ‘Older than you?’
    She nodded, then looked at him curiously. ‘D’you ever see your family? You never mention them…’
    He shrugged and looked away. ‘I try to see my mother at Christmas, but…’
    ‘Yes?’ she prompted.
    ‘I know it sounds bad, but she always has my brothers over when I’m there an’ I’m… I’m not comfortable with them. Nor they with me. I don’t really belong there.’
    She half smiled. ‘You make it sound as though you’re a refugee from a foreign country.’
    ‘Have you ever been to Glasgow?’
    She shook her head. ‘But I thought it was supposed to be the cultural centre of Europe now,’ she said innocently.
    Fraser snorted. ‘Now that would depend on which bit you were in and who you might be listening to. Would you jump at the chance of an invite to a social gathering in St Paul’s?’
    ‘Aren’t you being rather judgemental?’
    He didn’t reply and she said, ‘I suppose not, but every city’s got its dodgy areas, hasn’t it?’
    ‘Aye, an’ I grew up in one,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s fine well for a person to drive through an’ say, “Oh, what an interesting community”, but they wouldn’t want to live there.’
    The bitterness in his voice surprised her, but she didn’t say anything, sensing that he would go on.
    ‘Remember how I told you I was good at academic work? Well, in the school I went to, that was the quickest way to social oblivion. Even my brothers were embarrassed by me.’ He paused again, then seemed to come to a decision and went on: ‘The only way I could gain any kind of street cred was to prove myself by my deeds out of school. So’ – he took a breath, released it – ‘I joined a gang of joyriders, learned how to break into cars, hot wire the engines an’ drive round like a maniac terrorising people.’
    ‘How old were you?’
    ‘Fourteen, fifteen.’
    ‘Hormones,’ she said. ‘Testosterone.’
    He shrugged again. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Didn’t you get caught?’
    ‘Eventually, which was probably the best thing could have happened.’ He smiled without humour. ‘My form teacher came to court and spoke for me and I only got probation. But you know what really got me? The old man whose car I’d stolen had to come to court to give evidence, and when I looked at him, I saw what I’d become. When I promised never to do it again, I meant it,’
    ‘Did you keep the promise?’
    ‘Aye. But I had no real friends after that and just lived for the time I could get out.’ He looked up at