Donor, The

by FitzGerald, Helen

  He googled, as usual, and only found one helpful article. It was titled ‘Dial a gun’. Apparently it was possible to get a gun within two hours in Scotland. Unfortunately, the newspaper article did not offer the telephone number. What it did say was that gang members in Glasgow were arming themselves with guns more and more often.

  What gangs did Georgie know of?

  The Young Mayfield Posse, perhaps? Or The Broady up the road, regularly accused of setting fires to wheelie bins and throwing bricks into the windows of the dining rooms bordering the park?

  He decided on the latter. Georgie often disappeared down to the park, often came back smelling of drink. It was dark. The local hoodlums might just be there.

  The local park offered dog walking for the older residents of Will’s neighbourhood and a drinking and fighting playground for their children and for the youngsters who lived on the other side of the river. They didn’t have to swim over, the poor people from yonder schemes, but they had to walk further, and it was worth it, because in the park there was always something going on.

  Like tonight.

  A group of ten or so boys aged around seventeen were hanging around the lane that separated the park from the terraces. Swearing loudly and throwing bottles at the bench, they noticed him coming and quietened slightly. Maybe he was a cop, they probably thought. Or just some middle-class arsehole come to make their lives more interesting.

  ‘Excuse me!’ Will said before he got too close. ‘I want to talk to the leader.’

  The boys laughed. Like they had a leader. Like they weren’t fuckin’ democratic.

  ‘We’re socialists,’ a boy yelled. ‘You can talk to all of us.’

  Will moved a little closer, worried a bottle might come his way, or a knife, or a bullet. ‘I don’t want any trouble,’ he said. ‘Honestly, I just need some information. I’d rather not talk to everyone.’

  One of the boys stepped forward. ‘Information is expensive.’

  ‘I’ll talk to you,’ Will said, flashing the ten-pound note he held between his fingers to indicate that, yes, the boy would be paid for his cooperation.

  They spoke in the bushes halfway down to the river. ‘I need a gun,’ Will said. ‘Just feeling tetchy, would like to have one in case of trouble, you know?’

  The young man burst out laughing. ‘A gun? You kidding me? Why would I know how to get a fucking gun?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Will said. ‘I just thought …’

  ‘I know exactly what you thought, you stuck-up prick. Now fuck off,’ he said, taking the ten pounds.

  *

  Hmm. Okay, that didn’t go to plan. Will decided to try another tack. He went home, got his car keys and drove to the roughest pub in town. It was in the East End, a notorious haunt for Glasgow gangsters. Cynthia used to meet Heath there for a drink. (‘He’s an old friend, Will. I need to keep up with my friends!’ she used to say.)

  The pub looked like an oversized shipping container rendered in grey concrete. Will was scared as he walked in, although no one turned around, no one stopped talking. They liked strangers in these parts.

  ‘Pint, thanks,’ he said as calmly as he could, downing it quickly with a trembling hand and ordering another.

  A group of middle-aged men spoke seriously in the corner. Looked like the guys in The Sopranos, only weedier and scarred and pinched. He waited till one of them went to the loo, and followed him in.

  It probably wasn’t gangland etiquette to do business while pissing. Nevertheless, Will decided to broach the subject full flow. ‘You know who I should speak to here?’ he said, pleased with how cryptic he was being.

  ‘Anyone you like,’ the guy said, not flinching, shaking his dick, zipping his fly, and leaving.

  He returned to the bar, ordered another pint, and when he felt drunk enough, he said to the barmaid, a woman of around fifty, with bleached hair and orange make-up, ‘You know where I can get a gun?’

  The barmaid looked at him like he was an alien. ‘No,’ she said, moving to the other end to take an order.

  Shit, this was not going well. It wasn’t easy to get a gun at all. He sipped his beer slowly, his mind racing as to the next option – Gun shop? Rifle club? – when a man in his thirties, with a scar from right ear to lip, sat beside him, whisky in hand, and said, ‘What type you looking for?’

  Surprised at the sly and excellent exchange of information in the establishment, Will said, ‘Handgun. And bullets. Long as it works, if you know what I mean. I have cash.’

  ‘Sorry,’ the guy said. ‘Can’t help you.’

  Will watched the man leave the bar and walk over to his table. He sighed, downed the rest of his drink and stood to leave. As he did, he noticed a beer mat in front of him, which had a phone number written on it in blue ink.

  In the car outside the pub, Will dialled the number. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘I was talking to someone in the pub just now.’

  ‘Alexandra Park, just inside the entrance, one hour,’ a male voice said.

  The man in the park wasn’t the one he’d met at the bar. This one was barely twenty, wearing jeans and a hoody. He had a suitcase in his hand. ‘Two hundred,’ was all he said.

  Will counted the money, handed it over and took the suitcase, not knowing what was inside, hoping, praying, that it would be the gun he had ordered, forgetting that what he’d ordered was the weapon he would use to take his own life.

  *

  At home an hour later, Will held the gun in his hand. He didn’t know what it was called. He didn’t know how to load it or use it, or anything. It was icy cold, small, scary. He touched it tentatively, put it on his desk, and wrote under section 7:

  7a. Work out how to use it

  He searched a long time before the correct image appeared on screen and took his time practising how to load and where to squeeze. Satisfied he had this right, he turned to:

  7b. Where to shoot

  In the head, he decided. Right temple.

  7c. Where to do it

  He had to be reasonably close to a hospital, or at least he needed to know that an ambulance was on its way. He looked up the average response time for an ambulance in the area – which was twenty-two minutes. Should be fine, as long as he called first. He added:

  7d. Be at home; ring ambulance first

  7e. Write note to ensure kidneys are donated to the girls

  As soon as the girls became ill, he’d registered as a donor, but he needed to make sure his kidneys went to the right people. He drafted the note he would write:

  Dear Sir/Madam,

  Please donate my kidneys to my daughters, Georgie and Kay Marion. Yours faithfully,

  Will Marion.

  7f. Ring the girls and let them know they need to go to the hospital

  7g. Shoot yourself in the head (right temple).

  The last two points were where Will became unstuck. His handwriting became very wobbly as he wrote them down. How could he press the trigger? He imagined pressing it, holding it against his temple and just doing it. Or just not doing it.

  And what would he say when he rang the girls? ‘Hey, Georgie! Hey, Kay! Just ringing to say I’m about to shoot myself in the head. Can you come home now? If you hurry, maybe you can catch a lift to the hospital with my dead body?’

  They would be devastated. They would be angry. They would hate him. They would hate themselves. And go mad with the guilt.

  *

  Will hid the gun in his filing cabinet under G, closed his notebook and exploded. Tears spurted from his eyes. Liquid from his mouth and nose. His fists bashed walls. His mouth spurted words: ‘I can’t do it! I’m too scared! I’m a useless arsehole!’

  He threw CDs from the shelf, found the one he was looking for and stamped on it. Twisted it. Stamped again. ‘It’s not time to say goodbye.’ He fell to the ground, paused … ‘But my list is all done. It’s all done.’

  Twenty minutes or so later, and a little calmer, Will lay on the carpet and hugged himself. Suicide wasn’t just i
mpossible because of his cowardice and fear, the aftermath would be unbearable for the girls. How could he leave Georgie and Kay to deal with it? Could he really do this? Would they cope?

  Kay, maybe.

  But Georgie? The guilt would eat her up. She was like an emotional satellite dish, picking up signals from all around her, buzzing with worries, constantly empathising.

  ‘What will I do?’ he said out loud. ‘What am I going to do?’

  It took him a long time to realise that all he could do was get himself together, make sure the girls were okay and be a father to them. They were okay, weren’t they?

  Were they?

  Where were they?

  He’d been considering suicide for hours. A new day had come and gone. It was getting dark again. And the girls weren’t in the house. Will phoned their personal mobiles – no answer. Most parents would ring friends or boyfriends at this point, but Will immediately rang the hospital.

  ‘Mr Marion,’ the nurse said. ‘I was about to call you. Georgie and Kay didn’t come in for dialysis this evening. Is everything okay?’

  42

  He thought I was staring but I wasn’t. I could see him, standing behind the bushes, watching me. I hadn’t moved for about a half an hour. Still, he watched. I’d decided that in a minute’s time – I’d been counting down for twenty minutes – I was going to suddenly stand up. I wondered what he would do. How he would react.

  It was time.

  I stood up.

  I planned to stand still for several minutes. Would he move at all? Not yet.

  Several minutes later, I stretched my arms to the sky. Would he find this interesting? He hadn’t moved. He was still watching. Must have found it very interesting.

  I decided to walk slowly out of the park. Would he find this fascinating?

  He followed me – about fifty paces behind, I reckoned – must’ve found it very fascinating.

  I decided to run. All the way from Pollokshaws Road to Newlands Park, as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast considering my poor health and smoke-addled lungs.

  He ran too, twenty strides behind. Must’ve been enthralled.

  I decided to stare in Newlands Park. I sat by the small pond at the dip of the hill, cross-legged, and stared. I decided I would do this for two hours.

  Would Preston have the stamina?

  The minutes passed more quickly than I expected. In my stare, I didn’t imagine so much as remember. Not bad things, to my surprise. Good things, when things were better. I remembered me and Kay as toddlers, playing on the trampoline. She had so many rules about safety, Kay. I ignored them all. Double bounced her, for example. We always ended up laughing, despite the injuries. I remembered the first grownup movie I watched with Dad. It was Back to the Future. We sat on the edge of the sofa the whole way through, both loving it. I remembered those stupid caravan holidays on Arran – exploring caves, climbing hills, eating too much at the pub, playing charades, the three of us snuggling in bed. I remembered Dad saying, ‘I am the luckiest man alive to have you girls. I am the happiest, luckiest man alive.’

  I remembered that he said this all the time, once a week or more, probably.

  Each minute was filled with happy memories.

  Occasionally, there were gentle interruptions from the present: a tummy rumble, a baby-filled pram stopping by the pond, a dog pooing on the grass, Preston shuffling from his chosen position behind the tennis shed, schoolchildren having a swing before homework, tea and bath, a couple, holding hands.

  And then – in the second hour – this:

  ‘Preston MacMillan, you are under arrest. Put your hands in the air.’

  I saw him run from the tennis shed towards the park exit. He was a fast runner.

  ‘Stop now!’ a police officer shouted, but Preston kept running, through the park gate, across the road and up the street. I ran towards the exit to see what was happening. Three officers were chasing him on foot up the street, one of them gaining on him as he neared the main road at the end, another shouting at him to stop, another radioing for back-up. Just before the intersection, the fastest officer caught up with him and pounced on him. Panting as I reached the scene, I watched as the second officer handcuffed him and as the third radioed to cancel the back-up.

  ‘What have you done?’ I said as he lay face down on the asphalt.

  As the police man-handled him across the road and into the car, Preston told me as much as he could about what happened with the drug dealer. ‘Will you visit me?’ he asked as they pushed him down into the back seat.

  I said I would.

  43

  It didn’t take Will long to find Kay. She was in the third hospital he called. When he arrived, she was lying across several chairs in the Accident and Emergency Department, knuckles white as she clutched her black phone in her sleep. Was that really Kay? Where had her face gone? The one with expression and colour? And her body? Once strong and vibrant, now a shell.

  ‘Kay, honey?’ Will said, touching her bony shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’

  She opened her eyes. ‘Dad?’

  ‘Are you all right, darlin’?’

  A beat. ‘I’m not. I’m really not.’

  He held her as she cried. Tough, positive, non-crier Kay, sobbing in her dad’s arms.

  ‘Do you know where your sister is?’ Will asked.

  ‘No. Our mother visited Georgie last night and she ran off not long after. Didn’t come back.’

  ‘Let’s go find her, darling.’

  *

  Will and Kay were both in a panic about Georgie when they arrived at the house, but there was no need to worry. She was there, on the sofa, staring.

  She didn’t talk at all as Will drove them to the hospital for dialysis. And she stared into space, comatose, while the machine went to work on her. Will sat in a chair opposite his daughters, watching blood moving through tubes, arms lumpy and throbbing at entry point. They were thin yet puffy, both of them. And yellow. And so unhappy-looking that he would have shot himself right there if the gun hadn’t been filed under G in his office filing cabinet.

  This room, the dialysis unit, had become their second home, and Will hated it. He hated seeing his girls tied to their machines, itching for time to pass, four long hours a shot. He hated watching the others come and go. He hated seeing the girls make friends with those whose only common features were illness, depression and this parallel world. Hated seeing them envy the ones who got the call, pity the ones who never would, hated that they both, now, seemed to have lost the will to live. The waiting, the machines, the sickness, it had driven them both mad.

  When they got home five hours later, Will stopped Georgie from following her sister upstairs. ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘Okay,’ Georgie got herself a glass of water and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘Let’s talk about the pros and cons of Georgie Marion. There are more cons, it seems.’

  Shit. Will slumped into his chair. ‘Let me explain.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  He paused. How could he explain? ‘I was pissed and stoned,’ he said.

  ‘Good one. Just like Mum.’

  ‘More than that. I was angry with you.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘You make me so angry sometimes, Georgie.’

  ‘Kill me, then. Save Kay.’

  ‘You know why you make me angry? I realised it after I wrote it down.’

  ‘Let me think. I’m horrible and mean and unhappy and selfish … what else was there?’

  ‘Because you’re right.’

  ‘You should’ve listed that as a pro. Whatever that means.’

  ‘You’re right. I’m a useless arsehole. I never do anything. I never achieve anything. Can’t even decide where to go abroad, so we never do.’

  ‘So what? You want me to feel sorry for you? Help you?’

  ‘No, I want you to know I love you so much. Maybe it’ll make you squirm to say this, but you’re my best friend in the world. I love you and Kay th
e same. But you know me. You challenge me. Every day I spend with you is a day I learn something about myself. Usually things I don’t like, but you’re right to show me those things.’

  Georgie hadn’t looked at him yet, but she was softening, he could tell.

  ‘When your mother left you took on all the anger. Someone had to. I couldn’t. I had to try and look after you. Not only that, you looked after your sister. She’s actually much more vulnerable than you. More straightforward, less moody, but I can see you in ten years’ time, doing great things, Georgie, being someone really amazing … and being my pal. God, do you press my buttons, though.’

  ‘You are an arsehole.’

  ‘I know I am. A big smelly one.’

  ‘A huge smelly one.’

  ‘I would never choose between you. I would never ever hurt you.’

  Georgie paused. ‘Kay needs it most. You should force her, just tell her and that’s that.’

  ‘I can’t do that. I won’t. And she wouldn’t let me. Will you forgive me for what I did?’

  ‘Yeah, I will.’

  ‘Will you promise never to hurt yourself?’

  ‘If you promise never to read my diary.’

  As they hugged, Will whispered to Georgie, ‘You remember how we used to decide where to go on holiday?’

  ‘Bessie up or down.’

  ‘Go get your sister.’

  * * *

  Will, Georgie and Kay sat around the kitchen table. Will’s hands rested side by side, palms down, in the middle. Underneath was a five-pound note.

  They were all staring at the hand.

  ‘Bessie up or down?’ Will asked Kay.

  ‘Get her to choose,’ she said.

  Okay then, Georgie, ‘Bessie up or down?’

  Georgie breathed in, held her chin up with her fists, breathed out, stared at her father’s hands, and said … ‘UP.’