There are two ways that I could tell this story.

I could start at the beginning and keep going until the story ends. That, of course, is how it happened. But it’s not how I experienced it nor how I remember it. In particular, it’s not how I remember Kathy and she, after all, is the subject of the story.

So I’ll tell this story the second way; in the order that my memories and impressions come tumbling out.

I’d go back to our student days to gather up one defining image of Kathy. It was summer vacation and some of us were staying in a ramshackle assortment of wind-battered tents on a machair in the Western Isles. It doesn’t matter which island. I can’t remember, anyway.

One day we awoke to a blue speckled sky that met a smooth, glassy, rolling sea in a distant fudge of mist. The blue swell surged unbroken until within shouting distance of the beach when it curled and burst, creamed and frothed. We had been there for a week and were leaving next day: it was our only day of perfect surfing conditions.

We rushed into our kit and prepared the boards. We struggled, floundered, were swamped and battered but it was all part of the fun. Kathy clung nervously to the board at first as she lay face-down: she climbed slowly and shakily to her feet, but once upright seemed invincible. She stood astride the board, balanced, poised, her strong, willowy figure piercing the golden light of midday, a surf-goddess.

As the dying wave finally deposited her on the gleaming sands, she leaped back to her feet, turned to those of us on the beach and yelled, ‘Come on! What are you waiting for?’

But we stood for a little while longer and marvelled.

Eventually, even Kathy would fall, but she would rise from among the foamy breakers, grinning broadly and pulsating with energy. ‘Again!’ she’d cry, ‘Us against the waves! Get surfing with Elvis!’ And it’s that sun-warmed image of her urging us on like some wave-surfing Roman Centurion that I see first when I think of Kathy.

‘Elvis’ was a nickname she’d acquired at school, when we’d had a party in the common room. Before the karaoke, Kathy had disappeared from the room her usual athletic, blonde, feminine self to re-emerge in a Presley wig and a black leather jacket, before launching into a deep, resonant rendition of Love Me Tender.

As the music faded, the room lay in awe-struck silence. In the midst of the quietness, Kathy leaned forward into the mike and drawled, ‘Thangyouvurrymuch…’

I was surprised, some months later, at her decision to study law at uni. Perhaps I thought of lawyers as dry, dusty automatons who sparkled only at the thought of cash. But gregarious, fiery Kathy, both compassionate and angry, was determined to study something, she told me, that would equip her to help the helpless. Not that her student years were spent in the ascetic, single-minded pursuit of useful learning: besides the surfing trips, I recall Kathy as the fieriest member of her faculty indoor hockey team and taking dull parties by the scruff of the neck and shaking them into life. There was that Hogmanay, three ‘o’ clock in the morning, when she led us down the middle of a quiet suburban street, belting out My Way in her Elvis voice.

Yet when she qualified and went into practice, she got a job with a traditional family law firm, doing wills and conveyancing and trust funds for the cosy middle classes.

She’d say to me, ‘I’m wasted in there! It isn’t me. I despise what I do – and I despise what you do, too!’ I had taken a Business Administration degree and was by then the Regional Manager with a personal finance company. Her attitude to my work was exactly what I’d expect of her. And, by then, Kathy and I were married.

I suppose it was as inevitable that we should get together as that, ultimately, we would break up again. We had known each other at school, tended to lean on each other at uni, and couldn’t escape each other even after we’d started working. When we became engaged, people said ‘about time, too.’

Ultimately it was a failed marriage, though, often, a happy one; but never quiet. To live with Kathy was to be out of doors in wild weather. There were sudden squalls, lowering clouds, rumbling thunder and sharp, stinging, angry showers. When things were stormy she left you drained as if you had been battling, head down, against a powerful gale. Yet, as I knew from our surfing days, wild weather can be impressive. The way a cold blast brings the blood to your skin, the sheer invigorating power of rain and the majesty of westerly gales and resounding thunder. And I loved her for her sheer force.

I remember that, throughout our marriage, Kathy was never happy unless she was doing something with her hair: having it cut, shaped, bobbed, waved, styled or streaked. Just when it looked like it couldn’t get any shorter, when there seemed nothing left to style, she would burst into the room like a sudden storm and present the latest of Pierre’s creations (without mentioning the cost).

Her hair was so modified and artificial that it looked as if it didn’t belong there, like a discarded food wrapper deposited by a passer-by. The characteristic fresh-air skin of her face was now marked by blotchiness from spending time under the drier.

‘I have to look smart for my work,’ she would say if I questioned her about it. On only one occasion did I have the courage to suggest that she looked better with her hair long. ‘You know NOTHING about hair!’ she had yelled, and the storm had raged for the rest of the day.

Yet I knew I would have been more exasperated by a typical businessman’s wife, hostess and homemaker, mild and wet, human drizzle. Once, I invited my Head of Department to dinner. Kathy refused to help me with the cooking. The boss had started going into detail about our sister companies in the Southern Hemisphere only to be interrupted by Kathy launching into a rage about Third World debt. Even wild weather takes time to wear away rock, yet I could see he was impressed.

Our relationship finally tore apart like clouds ripped asunder by an October storm. We parted on reasonable terms, though, which we probably wouldn’t have done had there been the usual slow building-up of resentment. Afterwards, I was aware that she had stayed with her firm for a while, but then some of our mutual friends led me to believe that she had moved on. I heard, some time afterwards, that she had apparently found God. It surprised some, but not me. A questioning, searching soul like Kathy’s would eventually find someone or something.

And then, two silent years. I was busy, I travelled a lot – often to that Southern Hemisphere Kathy was so touchy about – and I lost touch not only with Kathy but also with many of the friends we had in common. Until that phone call one Saturday night.

‘I need to speak to you,’ she said, waving aside my questions and greetings, ‘Come tomorrow.’

‘Are you local, still? I’ll drive over first thing…’

‘No. Leave the car: here’s how to get to where I am…’

So, next day at noon I stepped from a bus in a vast housing estate so run-down it looked like the Luftwaffe were staging a comeback. Directly opposite the bus stop was the shopping centre, a grim, graffiti-daubed row of concrete shop units, like wartime bunkers; some were empty but most battled bravely on. One unit had a rough, hand-painted sign above the boarded-up window that read, KATHY McCORMACK – PEOPLE’S LAW CENTRE.

Up a flight of steps my directions led to a squarish brick building covered in graffiti: a sign proclaimed it to be DRUMARNOCK NEW CHURCH. I slipped in at the back, and stood looking into the sanctuary. A five-piece band was banging out a simple but lively rhythm and the congregation was belting out the repetitive words of a modern hymn, accompanied by hand-clapping, arm-waving, and a few extreme cases of ecstatic jumping around. With a start I recognised the liveliest of them all as Kathy. Which should have been no surprise.

After the service she saw me at the door. ‘How are you?’ she said, smiling wryly, ‘Let’s head for the flat, and we’ll get the kettle on.’

It took nearly an hour to reach her flat in a nearby tower block: small, shrivelled women, gallus youths and nervous older men kept coming up to her with the latest news of an erring brother or son or husband or daughter. Kathy listened patiently, and seemed to know them all by name; ‘Come and see me tomorrow,’ she said to most of them, ‘I’ll sort something out then.’

We mostly chatted about old times the rest of that day in the small, neat flat. After all, many of our old times were shared. I wondered why Kathy had needed to see me so urgently, but lacked the courage to ask her directly. Once or twice the doorbell interrupted us, and Kathy would admit another miserable wretch seeking justice. She seemed to have endless patience with them: mine, in the space of an afternoon, was already wearing thin.

‘Why did you give up the Crawford, Melville and Dunbar job?’ I asked.

She smiled that smile again. ‘You know well enough. It all came to a head when I was out in the streets one night. I already knew some of the folk at the church here, and they do a sort of night run, just looking for anybody that might need help, food, a bed for the night, anything. I went along once and I’ve never forgotten that night. It confirmed everything I felt. How people who really need help with the Law can’t afford it, can’t get access to it, or are simply deterred by the complexity of it all. And those who are comfortable can use the Law as easily as they use a poker for the fire. Why should I waste my working life helping wee ladies from Bearsden to divide up their wills between their squabbling offspring, or showing flash businessmen how to avoid paying tax?’

I didn’t speak for a while: I could recognise the signs of a brewing storm.

‘So you moved out here and set up the Centre?’

‘I did – a year and a half ago, now. A few of my old clients wanted to stay with me, and they help keep us solvent. They don’t come here, of course; I visit them in their homes.’

She had given the kind of answer I expected and I still couldn’t understand. ‘I have to admire your… commitment. Righting all the wrongs. It’s very you. But I don’t envy you. All this petty criminality would depress me, grind me down.’

‘Petty criminality? Still the stuffy businessman, aren’t you? Look, most of our work is in benefit advice and help in dealing with bureaucrats. Do you know how complex it is to apply for benefits? How many forms you have to fill in? And anyway, what if I do act for minor criminals? It’s not easy to be honest in Drumarnock. And even the criminals have wives, parents – children. Don’t they have the right to be protected?’ She drained her cup and went on, ‘All of these people, the snottery-nosed kids in the street, the hot-wiring teenagers, the big fat mothers of eight, the fly-men, the inadequates, all of them, all of them matter! They’re people!’

The same old Kathy, really. A smile, a song, a squall.

I stayed the night, ostentatiously banished to the poky bare room. Next morning, she asked me to come and see the work of the Centre. We arrived just before nine; most of the shops were deserted, but a knot of nervous young men already waited outside the place, sharing a fag and talking in quick, aggressive bursts. Kathy greeted them all by name, and showed them in to a small, seedy waiting area. I glanced around at the peeling paintwork, the cheap furniture, and the little alcoves where cowed forms hesitantly told their stories to members of staff. I was thoroughly depressed by the time we went back to the flat for lunch. She already looked tired. I had to leave soon – there was a meeting at work – so I plucked up the courage to ask.

‘So why did you get in touch with me, now, after all this time?’

She smiled without looking at me, and then turned to me and said, ‘I needed someone to sound off to: and I’m used to sounding off to you. I believe in what I’m doing here, in my work, its purpose. I think it’s right, it’s the correct place for me to be, but…’ She took a few deep breaths before continuing, ‘It’s killing me, Neil. I’m still in my thirties, I’ve plenty of time, yet, but I wonder if I’m condemned to spend it all here. Am I imprisoned in this hell along with everyone else? Of course I don’t want fame or fortune or the chance to rub shoulders with the movers and shakers. But Drumarnock folk aim just to survive, to beat the system, to get by. I need more than that. But can I abandon them? And will this nice warm feeling I get for doing ‘good’ be enough to sustain me here for another thirty years?’

She saw me out to the bus stop (insisting that I’d be taken for a dealer or moneylender if I was seen in a taxi). While we waited, a small, thin man in a shell suit sidled up to her and said out of the side of his mouth, ‘Miss McCormack?’

‘Yes, what is it, Archie?’

‘Oor boey, he did what ye said, and they’ve let him off this time. I jist want tae say thanks. Goad bless ye, Miss McCormack. We couldnae dae withoot ye here.’ And he sidled off again.

I looked at Kathy. Beneath a calm, unmoving expression I could sense the doubt and the conflict.

Since then, the thought has struck me that many of our old crew would see her now as a failure, a loser, an underachiever. Clearly, she was beginning to fear that herself. Perhaps one day she’ll move back into the mainstream again, I don’t know. But, for the moment, I can recognise that she’s still exactly the way she was all those years ago on the Hebridean seas: fearless, daring, leaving us behind and outperforming us, but still looking back and urging us to follow.

About the Author

David McVey

David McVey has published hundreds of short stories and items of non-fiction, the latter focusing on history and the outdoors. For many years David worked at the University of Paisley and currently teaches Creative Writing at the Open University. He enjoys hillwalking, visiting historic sites, reading, television, and supporting his home-town football team, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy FC.