The phone starts ringing the second she pushes a cream egg into her mouth. Half-chewing, half-choking, she grabs the TV remote with her left and freezes a naked Bill Nighy mid song, guitar strategically placed over his privates. Simultaneously, her right hand digs out the headset from under a sofa cushion. Her tiny frame disappears under a yellow Pikachu onesie.

She presses connect. Her voice as gentle and professional as she can manage, she says:

“Rognum Mental Health support line, my name is Tanya, how can I help?”

No one speaks, but the line is not silent. Tanya can make out a sloshing sound, wind is blowing against the mouthpiece of the caller. Her display spells out number withheld. A small green LED dot confirms that a live connection is in progress.

With her silkiest voice she coos:

“Take your time. That’s ok”

After a further two seconds of silence a male voice, Scottish, mature and pleasantly hoarse, asks:

“You still there, hen?”

Tanya carefully pushes the tip of her tongue into the corner of her mouth to clear away a stray trickle of sugary goo.

“I am here, Sir. I’m not going anywhere. How can I help?”

Another pause.

“I ... ,I ... ,” the voice stammers at first, but then the words come, each syllable working its way out of quicksand

“… I am eating my wife.”

I am eating my wife? Shuddering, she feels naked in her onesie. No colleagues around that she can alert. No one who can sit beside her, plug into the call, and notify the emergency services. She has given him her real name!

In slow motion she reaches across to the sofa and manages to get hold of her personal mobile. Who is the senior on call clinician? On auto pilot she double-clicks on a file marked Easter rota on her laptop, while asking as gently as possible, and without even a hint of being patronising (psychopaths don’t appreciate being patronised)

“Sir, did you say you are eating your wife?”

The excel spreadsheet on her screen reveals that Nicola is the SOCC. Reaching for her mobile, she scrolls for Nicki’s number, then fires off a text

Red flag. Potential homicide in progress.

“Sir, it’s ok. This helpline is confidential.”

This is technically a lie. In case of mortal danger, emergency services can be involved without the caller’s consent. The telephone counsellors have been told on day one of their training that it is better for a client to hate them than to end up dead. No mention in the red flag protocol of how to handle callers who are eating someone though.

“I feel such a failure. I’m letting her down.” The caller is sobbing now. Not quite the composure of a Hannibal Lecter.

“You sound exhausted.”

“I am,” he sniffles, “I am puggled, hen. The water’s jeelit, and even the wet suit isn’t helping anymore.”

Wait, what?

“Sir, are you near water just now?” She sends off another silent text to Nicki.

Callr mihgt b eoutside.

Typing with two thumbs is hard, and she is in a rush.

“Of course, I am near water,” he bellows. “It’s the only way I can get her back!”

Yep, clearly nuts. She regrets that thought as soon as it flashes into her judgmental brain. Come on, girl, empathy and unconditional regard! This guy might be raving bonkers, but he is in distress and outside somewhere. Find him.

            “You mentioned a wetsuit. Sounds like you are on a boat? Maybe in Scotland? Loch Ness maybe? I am a bit worried that you are not safe. Maybe cold?” She exaggerates her Queen’s English and hopes the ignorance of an English woman might provoke a slip up.

            “It’s Loch Torridon. T-h-o-i-r-b-h-e-a-r-t-a-n.” He spells out the name with the shortened patience of someone who has to do this a lot. “And obviously I am not on a boat just now.” Tanya breathes a sigh of relief, when he adds: “It’s a kayak, one of thae sit on tops.”

Why is Nicki not answering her texts! How long had the wife been dead? Did he have her with a nice Chianti and some Fava beans? Bollocks, her supervisor has warned her not to use humour as a shield.

“That’s a relief, Sir. I am glad you’re warm. And what’s your name? I think I already told you mine, it’s Tanya.” Maybe an appeal to his good manners might work.

“Oh, so sorry,” he apologised, “it’s Rory. R-u-a-r-a-i-d-h. McGregor.” His voice sounds calmer now, almost business-like. Gotcha.

“Hi, Ruaraidh. Do you go out on the kayak a lot?”

“She bought two of them within weeks of moving here. We have a jetty at the bottom of our garden.”

Remember your training. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

“Help me to understand,” she pleads. “What happened?”

She texts Ruaraidh McGregor, lives on Loch Torridon, jetty in garden

“She was sick,” he murmurs, suddenly so quiet, she has to adjust the volume on her headset. “She was always going to die, we knew that. You should have seen her when she told me. Gutsiest woman I ever met.”

So maybe it was euthanasia? A mercy killing?

“She had made me mince and tatties. My favourite. She used to put her own spin on it, too, added some herbs. I was never able to make it taste the same. She was wearing that dress I loved, the blue one, really short. She didnae need it, like. A pretty face suits the dish-cloot. She had great legs, even at her age, you know, but she was always a wee bitty conscious about that small scar on her knee. Used to nick it when she shaved her legs.

“’Pass me the ketchup,’ she said, ‘and by the way, the cancer is back, and this time there’s nothing they can do about it, so no use crying over spilled milk. You’re just going to have to figure it out without me, Chainey.’ She called me Chainey because of my red hair. It’s Gaelic. T-e-i-n-e.”

“She sounds like quite a woman.”

“Oh, she was, hen, she was, you’ve no idea. She used to say she was the cheese and onion to my salt and vinegar. We were so different, Beauty and the Heffalump, but when we snuggled up on the sofa, sharing a bag of crisps, we just never had any leftovers. Her breath would be honking but I kissed her anyway. Even in the end, when she was nothing but a bag of bones, bleeding gums and mouth wash. She hated me looking after her, but to be honest…,” he took a sip of something, “it made me feel like a wee hero for a change. They don’t talk about that in the stories, the knight in shining armour, scoopin’ up his loved one, takin’ her to the cludgie. Wipin’ up efter her when she cannae quite make it anymair. She’d given that cancer a right rammy, but in the end, … , in the end …”

“She was lucky to have you.”

He hesitates.

“She said that, too. Not in those words, mind. Left me a note. Included the instructions for the washing machine and the dish washer. And the phone number for the local Chinese. Cheeky mare. She never did like my cooking. And that’s just it. I tried, but I can’t make it work!”

Her mobile vibrates briefly. Finally, Nicki is responding. She picks it up. A text from her mum. Happy holidays, sweet pea, sorry we couldn’t see you again this year. Ibiza is amazing. Wish you were here. Dad says hi.

“What’s not working, Ruaraidh?”

“The recipes are all wrong. It’s all wrong. She tried to teach me to cook, but I never had a knack for it. Give me a lawn mower to fix any day. I guess I’m a bit old school.”

Time to get him back on track. “Ruaraidh, what happened?”

He pauses, and she can hear him sipping.

“She was a wee fighter, lasted three months longer than they gave her credit for. One night, her breathin’ got weird, she lay on the sofa, starin’ upwards, mouth wide open, gaspin’ for air. Sun came up, I woke up, she didnae, and that was that.

“Of course, she had already planned it all down to the nth degree. Dead classy, like. You know that Monty Python song, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, that one? She wanted that on full volume while her coffin disappeared behind the curtain. People didnae know whether to cry or whistle along. Hard to do both.

” It was so fast, so fast, before I knew it, I was driving home, with her ashes in a little scattering tube, eco-friendly, floral design. She’d bought it for twenty-four quid online.”

They are silent for a while. Eventually, Tanya asks

“What was her name?”

“Shonagh,” he declares, pride in his voice, “it was Shonagh. I tried, ye ken, I really did. I kayaked out on the Loch, just as she telt me. I opened the tube and scattered the stuff, it was like icing sugar, just grey. It floated there for a bit, then it started to sink, just down, like, into the deep black, where I couldnae see her anymair. And so I plunged the stupid tube into the water again and again to try and scoop as much of it back up as I could manage, but the damn thing started to fall apart and …”. He sobs. “But I had to get her back, I had to.”

            He tells her how he started to go fishing every day, three times on some days. He would catch Mackerel by the dozens, smoke them, boil them, grill them, find new and elaborate recipes. Every time he felt he was unable to do her justice. He would eat as much of the flesh as he could, but there were always bones. Sometimes he would grind them up and mix them into smoothies. He couldn’t waste a single gram of her.

            “I think I understand,” she lies.

            “No, you don’t,” he snaps back, “you don’t have a scooby. When I eat too much of her, I get sick and then I throw up. That way all I’ve achieved is turn my wife into vomit. If I manage to keep her down long enough, she comes out the other end as … well, … I can’t hang on to it, I can’t flush it down the toilet. So I keep it in the garden, in a plastic barrel.

            “It was ok in the winter, but now it’s spring, I hardly catch anything anym…” He stops dead. Then he exclaims: “Oh, yer fuck!” Tanya hears splashing sounds.

“Ruaraidh? Ruaraidh? What’s going on?”

“It’s a seal,” he shouts, “one of thae wee ones, just waiting, staring straight at me, the little shit, it’s mocking me, the wee fuck, I nearly went in after her.” Tanya jumps in her seat when she hears him screaming:

“Gie’s it back, gie’s it back!” His voice has cracked, then he lets out a growl, more beast than man. She hears thumping noises, water splashing, then nothing.

She stares at her display.

Caller disconnected.  

            Tanya has to take a sip of water to wash down a lump in her throat before she picks up her mobile.

            “You said ‘her’, Ruaraidh,” she murmurs, “You nearly went in after her.”

***

Copyright © All Rights Reserved