by Denise Mina
‘But you shouldn’t, Mum.’
‘But you’re a . . . I never know . . . if only you couldn’t ...’ She abandoned the giant brick of cheese and sat back down at the table, lifting her cup and drinking out of it. ‘I think I’ve got flu,’ she whispered, crying thin tears. ‘You should go to the doctor’s, then.’
Winnie looked helpless. ‘I’m a bit depressed,’ she said pointedly.
Maureen sighed. ‘Mum,’ she said, ‘I can't comfort you just now.’
‘I don't want you to comfort me,’ Winnie said, crying fluently. ‘I just want to make sure you’re all right.’ ‘I am all right.’
‘I worry so much,’ she whimpered.
‘You shouldn’t.’
She sat bolt upright, suddenly in control. ‘Maureen, I’m your mother.’
‘I know who you are,’ said Maureen, trying to cheer herself up. The wine must be kicking in: her moods were changing rapidly. Maybe more than two cups, maybe three.
‘I just want to know,’ Winnie said softly. ‘Did you do it?’
‘Did I do what, Mother?’
Winnie bowed her head. ‘Did you kill that man?’ she muttered, and bit her lip.
Maureen pulled away, exasperated by Winnie’s capacity for melodrama. ‘Oh, Mum, for God’s sake, you know fine well I didn’t.’
Winnie was offended. ‘I don't know fine well . . .’ she turned away as if she’d been slapped.
‘Yes, you do,’ said Maureen. ‘You know I didn’t kill him. You’re so camp, I swear, you’re like a bad female impersonator.’
‘I don't know you didn’t do it,’ said Winnie solemnly.
‘You’ve often done things I didn’t think you were capable of.’ She stood up and walked over to the sink, taking her cup with her, standing with her back to Maureen as she rearranged the glasses on the draining board. ‘Like what?’
‘You know . . .’ And she whispered something under her breath, something that ended with ‘Mickey’. Maureen hadn’t heard her say the name since the hospital. She could feel herself shrinking in the chair.
‘Don’t worry,’ Winnie said, lifting her mug. ‘I’ll stand by you, whatever you’ve done.’ She finished off her wine.
It was a low blow, hinting at the abuse. It was the meanest thing she could have brought up. ‘You drink too much, Mum,’ said Maureen, returning the compliment. ‘You wouldn’t be on the verge of hysteria all the time if you drank less.’
Winnie turned and looked at her, furious at the mention of her drinking.‘How dare you?’she said, tight lipped.‘I paid for your taxi.’
‘I didn’t want you to.’
‘But you let me.’
Maureen pulled ten quid out of her wage packet and slapped it on the table. ‘There’s a tenner, Mammy. That’s us even.’
Winnie screamed at her, ‘I don’t want money.’
Maureen rolled her eyes just as George appeared at the kitchen door. ‘Oh,’ he said quietly, ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘Hello, George,’ said Maureen.
‘Hello, pal,’ said George, and frowned. ‘Heard about yesterday. Nae luck.’
He didn’t talk about it much but Maureen suspected that George’s early life hadn’t been a bundle of laughs either. He had a charming talent for minimizing grief and, living with Winnie, he often had cause to use it.
‘Aye,’ said Maureen, suddenly tired. ‘It wasn’t good.’ He patted the back of her head gently and turned to Winnie. ‘Any bread, doll? The seagulls are at the window again.’
Winnie gave him some from the tin and he wandered off, ripping up the slices into uneven lumps, leaving a trail of crumbs through the hall. She came back to the table and shoved the tenner at Maureen. ‘Take the money back,’ she said. ‘I was just feeling a bit uptight. I’m sorry for shouting at you.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t try to pay for things if you don’t really want to.’
Winnie sat down at the table. ‘I know. I just . . . I get nervous . . . and now this.’
‘Don’t worry, Mum, the police’ll find them soon.’ She looked at Maureen and brightened. ‘Do you think so?’
Maureen nodded. ‘I know they will.’
Winnie sat up and looked at the huge block of cheese sitting on the work top. ‘What the hell am I going to do with that much cheese?’
Maureen looked over at it and giggled. ‘Mum, why in God’s name did ye buy that?’
Winnie shrugged, confused by her own behaviour. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time. We were using it as a garden ornament until we ate enough off it to get it through the door.’
They sat together and laughed at the industrial lump of cheese. Maureen looked at her mum. Winnie was happy to laugh at herself, neither sad nor angry, demanding nothing: this was old Winnie, Winnie from before the drinking got really bad. And then she stopped laughing and looked at her empty cup and old Winnie was gone. She lifted her hand and brushed back Maureen’s hair, but she was pressing too firmly against Maureen’s head and some caught on her engagement ring. She tugged it hard. Maureen tried hard not to react in case Winnie thought she was rebuffing the kindly gesture.
‘How are you coping?’
Maureen rubbed her bruised scalp. ‘Okay.’ ‘If it all gets too much for you,’ said Winnie, ‘I want you to promise me that you’ll go back to hospital.’
‘Mum, for God’s sake, I’m not the maddest person in the world, they don’t keep a vacant bed just for me.’
‘I know, but I’m sure they’ll take you if you say you were in before.’
Maureen shrank further into the chair.
When she got outside she walked a couple of blocks and stopped at a bench in front of a Baptist church. It was dark and spitting rain. A man on the other side of the road was walking a tired old dog. He talked to it, whispering encouragement, calling it by name. The dog stopped, panting for breath, its legs almost buckling under the weight of its body. The man tapped its back and the old dog moved off.
She smoked a couple of fags, imagining herself at home, in her cosy wee flat, before any of this had happened. She took a bath in her blue and white bathroom and sat butt naked on her settee, watching the telly and eating biscuits and letting the answerphone catch the calls.
She took a cup of tea in to Benny in the bedroom. He was sitting on the side of the bed, a shallow table in front of him with textbooks open on it. He had been sharpening his pencils into the muddy dregs in a coffee cup. He must be frantic about his exams. He put down his book and asked earnestly if she wanted to talk about yesterday.
‘No, not just now. I can’t even think about it yet.’
‘Okay,’ he said, looking solemn and nervous.
‘Are you all right about it, Benny?’
His expression melted with relief. ‘God, it’s a bit freaky, isn’t it? You don’t think of these things happening to people like us, do you?’
‘I guess not.’ She gestured to the books. ‘You got an exam tomorrow?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s next week but I haven’t done nearly enough.’
‘You always say that and you always pass. Try and put Douglas to the back of your mind just now and concentrate on your exams.’She lifted the dirty cup with the sharpenings in it. ‘I’ll take this filthy item away.’
Out in the hall she could hear someone scratching quietly on the door. She looked out of the spy-hole. Leslie was standing in the close holding her crash helmet and slowly brushing her hair off her face with the other hand. She had dark circles under her eyes and looked knackered. Maureen threw the door open. ‘Leslie.’ She grinned broadly.
Leslie stepped into the hall, reached out to Maureen and squeezed her arm. ‘All right, hen?’ she said. Her voice sounded as if she had been smoking heavily and/or had just woken up. ‘How ye doing?’
‘Yeah,’ said Maureen. ‘I take
it Liam phoned and told ye?’
‘Naw, the police came to see me.’
Maureen pointed into the bedroom and Leslie kicked the door open a little and stuck her head in. ‘’Right, Benny, man?’
Maureen heard Benny ‘Aye’ from the other side of the door. Leslie pulled the door shut and pointed at it. ‘Working,’ she said. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you call me, Mauri?’
‘Auch,’ Maureen shrugged uncomfortably, ‘you’ve got enough on.’
‘For fucksake, I’m not running the world, Maureen.’
‘I know, I just . . . I’ll be all right.’
‘You’re pathologically independent.’
‘Anyway,’ said Maureen, heading for the kitchen, ‘d’ye want a cup of tea?’
‘Coffee,’ Leslie put her helmet on the settee, ‘I need a strong coffee.’ She went to sit down and caught herself. ‘Let me get it,’ she said, almost staggering into the kitchen.
Maureen went after her. ‘Fucksake, Leslie, go and sit down.’
‘No,’ said Leslie, shaking her head adamantly, ‘I should get it.’
‘It wasn’t me that was killed, Leslie. Go and sit down.’
Leslie looked dismal. ‘I’m so fucking sorry, Maureen. I didn’t like him but I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah, well.’
They stood close to each other, looking over one another’s shoulders for a moment. Maureen said,‘I feel as if we should hug each other or something.’ ‘D’ye want to?’
‘No,’ said Maureen. ‘Not really.’
‘I wish ye’d have phoned me,’ said Leslie quietly.
‘If I need ye I’ll phone ye.’
‘Don’t leave it until you need me. I’m your pal not the fire brigade.’Leslie exhaled loudly and opened her eyes wide with surprise. ‘This is a mental thing to have happened.’ ‘Jesus fuck,’ said Maureen, ‘I know.’
Leslie said that the police had questioned her about Maureen’s relationship with Douglas. They seemed more interested in that than in finding out the times of the dinner at the Pizza Pie Palace. And then she asked Maureen to tell her what had happened. The knot in Maureen’s stomach tightened. She couldn’t talk about it tonight: it would make it seem real.
‘Ye want to hang on to the shock for a bit longer?’ asked Leslie, sympathetically.
‘Yeah,’ said Maureen. ‘Yeah, shock’s good.’ Leslie said that she was exhausted because she had been working on the appeal submissions, they had to be completed for Tuesday morning and she was having trouble understanding the law books. She asked Maureen not to tell Benny – he’d insist on giving her a hand and he had his exams to study for. Maureen told her she was pathologically independent.
They smoked a cigarette together, Leslie ripped the filter off hers to make it stronger, trying to wake herself up. Her lips and teeth were covered in bits of tobacco after every draw. Maureen laughed at her and leaned over the table. ‘Go home, ya daft bastard.’
Leslie gave up and squashed the fag out in the ashtray. ‘Mauri, hen, I can’t just leave you.’
‘Leslie, I’ll see you on Tuesday afternoon. My life’ll still be crap on Tuesday afternoon.’
Maureen showed her out, warning her to drive carefully on the way home.
‘Look, phone me if you want to talk about Douglas before then.’
‘Go away now,’ said Maureen, shooing her down the close.
Feeling strangely cheerful, she turned the television on in the living room and went into the kitchen to make herself a sandwich. The mid-evening news came on. Carol Brady, MEP for Strathclyde, was coming back from an ecology conference in Brazil after hearing the tragic news about her son, Douglas Brady. Maureen stepped into the doorway and watched the footage. Carol Brady was walking very fast through a large crowd of baying newsmen at the airport, walking with great purpose, and Maureen had a definite feeling that she was coming to get her.
The statement from her press office said that the family were very upset about Douglas’s death and would appreciate the consideration of the press at this difficult time. They had every faith that the police would find the person responsible very soon.
A senior police officer was shown at a press conference saying that everything was under control and could anyone who had seen anything please phone and tell them about it. They gave out a special number.
7
Journos
She went to her work the next day, suspecting nothing. It was a miserable damp Saturday and the ticket booth wasn’t busy; even the phones were quiet. Liz was on better form. She told Maureen a funny story about a long-dead uncle’s nervous alopecia.
Mr Scobie was out so they took turns using the phone and wandering off to the toilet for a skive. Liz went off to the loo with a newspaper and Maureen lifted the phone. Liam wasn’t at home so she left a message on the machine. She had barely hung up when he phoned back. The police were talking to everyone they knew, he was worried someone would let something slip about him. ‘Did they speak to Mum?’
‘Yeah,’ said Liam. ‘She was as pissed as fuck. I was waiting downstairs for her. I dunno what she did but they couldn’t wait to get her out of there. She kept shouting, “Habeas Corpus.” I could hear her downstairs.’
‘Alcoholism – the Secret Disease,’ giggled Maureen, quoting the name of a pamphlet they had been given at school. A well-meaning guidance teacher, Mr Glascock, had called them out of class and taken them to the counselling suite. He told them about a support group for the families of alkis called Al-Anon and gave them pamphlets. They thanked him for his concern and said yes, they would definitely come and see him if they needed someone to talk to. They ripped the piss when he left.
The school had found out that Winnie was an alki when the headmistress phoned her about Liam’s disruptive behaviour in class. Winnie staggered up to the school, told the school secretary she was a wanker and fell asleep in the waiting room. She couldn’t be wakened. George had to come and get her, carrying her out of the school and into the car, still snoring her head off. The teachers stopped giving them a hard time after that, they looked on them pityingly and made allowances when they didn’t do homework. It was insulting the way they spoke to them, as if their lives were pathetic and always would be, as if they couldn’t help themselves. Maureen would rather have been treated as a bad child than a sad one. Liam's defiance was more ambitious: he strove to be.
‘I saw her yesterday,’ said Maureen.‘She actually asked me if I did it.’
‘I think you should stay the fuck away from all of them,’ said Liam soberly.‘For a while, at least, until this is over.’
‘Do the police know about your business—’ He interrupted her.‘No. That’s not for the phone really, pal,’ he said.
She apologized.‘Did you think about what I said, the time thing?’
‘Yeah, Mauri, it’s garbage.’
‘What about the cupboard thing?’
‘I’d tell them about that. Ye don’t want them finding that out from someone else. How’s your head?’ ‘Yeah, the usual. Bursting.’
Liz came back and it was Maureen’s turn for a skive. She locked herself into a toilet and smoked a fag, thinking her way around her flat again, sitting in her bed drinking a coffee, standing in the morning sunlight looking out of the window in the living room. She was coming back into the office by the side door as Liz took the ‘back in five minutes’ sign down and lifted the blinds.
Two men were standing outside, waiting. Maureen stopped. There was something wrong with the picture: they were too close to the window, bending down, looking under the blind as Liz lifted it. The nearest man was wearing a lime green woollen suit under a black overcoat. The second was dressed in a multi-coloured ski jacket and holding a camera with a long lens. He lifted it slowly to his face, as if he were stalking a nervous bird, and pointed it at Liz. The man in the lime suit shoved a fist holding
a dictaphone under the window and barked at Liz,‘How do you feel about your boyfriend’s murder, Miss O’Donnell?’ The photographer was snapping pictures of her. The man with the dictaphone shouted again,‘Did you murder him, Miss O’Donnell?’
Liz came to life. She rammed the change tray hard into the soft skin on the journalist’s wrist. He yelped but held onto the dictaphone. She slammed the tray quickly backwards and forwards, cutting bloody parallel ridges into his hand as he tried to pull it out. The second man took photographs of her doing it. She stuck out her tongue and made a mad, angry face at him.
Gathering her wits, Maureen slid along the wall to the window, leaned over, and pulled down the blind. She stood still and Liz sat silently, listening together, afraid to move, as the men cursed and banged on the window and the side door. After a while they stopped.
‘They won’t really be away,’ whispered Liz.‘They’ll be across the road or something.’
At Maureen’s suggestion they shut up the office, left by the goods entrance and pissed off to the pictures for the afternoon. They saw a miserable film about a man who ran around shooting people.
‘That was fucking rubbish,’ said Maureen, when they got outside.
‘Oh, I liked it,’ said Liz,‘I think he’s dishy.’ Liz offered to cover Monday for Maureen, she owed her a shift anyway.
‘That’d be great, Liz, I need a couple of days off in a row.’
It was getting dark already and the streets were Saturday tea-time quiet, when families gather together to watch crap telly and unpack the shopping. Even Benny’s close was silent, she couldn’t hear any of the usual noises of TVs or children shouting. It felt dead.
Benny had left a note on the coffee table saying that he was at an AA meeting and would be back later. Maureen turned on all the lights in the flat, put the television on in the living room and tried to think about anything that wasn’t Douglas. The house began to close in on her.
She started to make something to eat, not because she was hungry, just to keep herself moving. She found some bread but couldn’t see any butter in the fridge.