by Denise Mina
Maureen told her about the cameraman at her work and the phone calls to her mum. Brady looked at her.‘I heard that your mother is . . . unwell,’ she said.
‘Yeah, she is unwell,’ said Maureen, grateful for the euphemism.‘There’s a thick streak of Celtic melancholia in our family. It’s the Irish blood.’
‘Celtic melancholia?’ Brady looked at her blankly.
‘Alcoholism.’
‘I see,’ said Brady.‘They said you were from an unsavoury family.’
Maureen dropped her fork. It clattered onto her plate. ‘Who said that about my family?’
‘The police,’ said Brady, and smiled at her in a way that was oddly insulting.‘What is an“unsavoury family”?Are they all drunks?’
‘The police told you that?’
Brady placed her cutlery on the plate and dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin.
‘Did the police tell you I was staying with my friend in Maryhill as well? Is that how you found me?’
‘I needed to see you,’ Brady said, as if that explained it.
‘They had no business telling you about me,’ said Maureen, feeling picked on.
‘Keep your voice down, dear,’ said Brady, and motioned to the waiter.‘I’m assuming you want coffee?’ She gestured to Maureen’s glass.‘Or would you rather have more whisky?’ The question was laughable. Maureen couldn't go home, her boyfriend was dead, she was having a shitty fucking lunch with his snotty mother and it was Sunday lunchtime. Of course she’d rather have a fucking whisky. ‘Coffee would be fine,’ she said.‘Thanks.’ Brady gave the order and tapped the PA on the arm,‘Go to the bar and wait.’ When he was out of earshot she leaned forward.‘How could you seduce Douglas knowing he was married?’
‘I didn’t know he was married.’
‘Were you planning to take Douglas away from Elsbeth?’
‘I didn’t“plan” to take him away. Douglas was an adult, he made his own decisions.’
‘Douglas was a child. If you knew him better you would have known that,’ she said, hinting at a familial subtext that was none of Maureen’s business.
They regained their composure while the coffee things were placed on the table.
Brady poured a touch of cream into hers and stirred it quickly, rhythmically.‘Did Douglas pay for your flat?’ ‘No,’ said Maureen indignantly.
‘I suppose he gave you money?’ continued Brady.‘Is that why you never bothered to get a decent job?’
‘Look, I’d only known Douglas for the past eight months. I’ve had that job for three years.’
‘But you have no ambition,’ said Brady, disparagingly.
‘You’ve never sought promotion.’
‘It isn’t everyone’s ambition to become an authority figure.’
Brady looked sceptically at her,‘Oh, come on now.’ She sipped at her coffee with a tiny drawstring mouth.
Maureen was tired of Brady’s relentlessly genteel hostility. She put her coffee cup down, shoved it away and lifted what was left of her whisky. She took a generous mouthful, watching over the rim of the glass as Brady sneered at her.‘I can understand that you’re angry, Mrs Brady,’ she said softly,‘and I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, but that doesn’t make me responsible for Douglas’s behaviour.’ ‘Did he give you money?’
‘Why do you keep going back to that?’
‘Why won’t you answer that?’
‘He didn’t give me money,’ she said.‘He never gave me money.’
Brady looked across the table with her sour eyes and Maureen suddenly wanted to get the fuck away from her and never see her again.
Brady softened her voice.‘You’re lying to me. You’ve lied to the police and now you’re lying to me. Were you drunk the night Douglas was killed?’
‘Is that why you’re so angry with me?’
‘Did you kill him?’
Maureen sat back in her chair and stared at Brady.‘Do you think I killed him?’
‘Yes,’ she said certainly, meeting Maureen’s gaze.‘Ido.’
‘How could you sit here with me if you thought that?’
‘I wanted to meet you, just once, to see.’
‘Do you think I’d come here if I did it? Do you think I could eat food with you if I did it?’
Brady broke off eye contact.‘People don’t always remember what they do when they’re drunk.’
Maureen put down her glass.‘I think I should leave,’ she said.
Brady grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her closer so that their faces were inches apart.‘They’ll catch you, you know,’ she said.‘They’ll get you, and if they don’t get you, I’ll get you.’
‘Are you threatening me with something?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Look,’ said Maureen,‘I’m nobody and I have nothing. There’s nothing you can do to hurt me.’ She twisted her wrist and freed it, threw some money on the table and walked out of the restaurant.
She went straight to a phone box in Buchanan Street and phoned around for Liam but she couldn’t find him anywhere. Finally she left a message on his machine telling him to clean the house from top to bottom and take the rubbish out because his father-in-law might come for a visit. If he didn't he'd be in a lot of trouble. It was urgent. She hoped the message was obtuse without being obscure. She bought an overpriced bottle of whisky from a pub near the station, went back to Benny’s house and fulfilled Carol Brady’s worst expectations by drinking it neat from the bottle and passing out on the settee in front of Songs of Praise. She woke up at three in the morning with a spinning head and had to sit in an armchair for over an hour, sipping milky tea and wishing the nausea away before she managed to fall asleep again.
10
Benny’s Lumber Jacket
She was dreaming a vague dream with loud banging in it. Someone was banging on the front door. She tried to open her eyes but the sunlight scratched them like sandpaper. She waited for a minute, hoping Benny would answer it or they’d stop it and go away but he didn’t and they didn’t and she couldn’t sleep through the noise. She pulled the duvet around her and felt her way along the wall to the front door, keeping one of her eyes shut. It was Una with Alistair in tow.‘Mum phoned me last night. She was as drunk as a lord, and she said you were missing.’ Una’s voice was louder than most people’s. She didn’t shout but her voice had extraordinary natural projection.
‘Well, you’ve found me now,’ said Maureen, wishing she was anywhere other than here now, feeling anything other than this.
‘I can see that,’ said Una.
Maureen raised her hand. One of her eyes was stuck shut with sleep and when she spoke she could feel dried drool cracking on her chin.‘Una,’ she said slowly,‘I am hung over today. If you need to speak, please do it quietly. If you can’t speak quietly please leave.’ She dropped her hand and went into the kitchen. Alistair and Una followed her in. Maureen poured a pint of water from the tap and drank it. A note from Benny was sitting on the table. It said he had gone to the university and that Maureen was a drunken bum. ‘I can't believe it,’ said Una, making a bad job of keeping her voice down.‘What are you doing here alone? And look at the mess in here. Where’s Benny?’
‘He’s out,’ said Maureen, with great effort.
‘Maureen, you look terrible. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you but you’ve been out all the time.’
Maureen’s mouth flooded with salt water. She bombed it down the hall to the bathroom and threw up across the cistern. Una was at her back.‘Dear God, Maureen, go to bed.’
She fussed Maureen back down the hall and put her in Benny’s bed. The room smelt strongly of Benny’s Brylcreem. Una pulled the curtains against the ferocious sunlight and shut the door quietly.
When Maureen woke up again the radio in the kitchen had been tuned to a pop
station and was making an irritating, upbeat noise. Testing her head, she slowly pulled herself upright and opened her eyes. She wouldn’t be able to eat for a while but her stomach felt strong enough to take a cup of tea.
Una and Alistair were sitting with their coats on drinking tea in the kitchen. They had cleared a space on the table.
‘Sit down,’ said Una, and turned off the radio. She made Maureen a cup of tea.‘Have you been to the doctor?’
Una lived an ordered life, she believed in medicine; doctors were the lieutenants of absolute good. When Maureen was found in the cupboard she had had a terrible shock and wanted her put away immediately and for a very long time.
‘I went on Friday,’ said Maureen.‘I'm off work but she said I’m coping wonderfully. She’s given me some medication.’ This didn’t seem to be enough to assuage Una’s fears.‘And she’s scheduled extra sessions for me.’ ‘Good. Have you seen Mum?’
‘Aye, I saw her on Friday.’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘Anything about what?’ Una blushed.
‘Look,’ said Maureen wearily,‘if Mum’s starting fights with me behind my back I don’t want to know about it. Rope me in later, okay, Una?’
‘Okay, then,’ said Una.‘The police came to see me.’
‘Did they ask about Liam?’
‘No, just you.’
‘That's good. I don't want him involved.’ Una shifted in her chair, She knew what Liam did for a living but she didn’t like to hear it said out loud.‘The papers have been phoning everyone about you.’
‘I know. They came to my work.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Mum actually asked me whether I’d done it,’ said Maureen,‘I couldn’t believe it.’
Una stood up suddenly.‘We’d better be going now,’ she said.
‘Oh, come on, Una,’ said Maureen, as emphatic as she could manage,‘what has Mum been saying about me?’
‘She said she’s your mum,’ said Una, and sat down,‘and she’ll stand by you, whatever you’ve done.’ ‘But I didn’t do it, I told her I didn’t.’ Una coughed, politely. ‘Una, what did she say?’
Una spoke quietly, like a child caught in a lie and made to finger her co-conspirators.‘She said you might not remember properly.’ She paused awkwardly, waiting for Maureen to lose her temper.
Maureen thought about it with the tired, apathetic calm of a bad hangover.‘Mum’s nuts,’ she said. Una laughed loud and high with relief.
* By the time Una and Alistair left it was six o’clock. Maureen phoned Liam.
‘Mauri? What the fuck’s going on? I came looking for you and Benny let me in and you were crashed out on the settee with an empty half-bottle on the floor.’ ‘Have you tidied up?’
‘Yeah, totally. Are you all right?’
‘God, aye, I suppose. I’m hung over.’
‘What was the message about?’
‘I saw Carol Brady yesterday. She said the police called our family unsavoury and I just thought . . . you know, it might be about you. I might have panicked but she was pretty scary.’
‘No, it was good thinking.’
‘She asked me to go for lunch yesterday. She thinks I killed him.’ ‘You?’
‘I don't feel too good, Liam,’ said Maureen. Her voice was trembling.
‘I’ll come over. I’ll get videos out and you can forget about it for tonight.’
Benny came back just in time to catch Liam skinning up on the coffee table while Maureen watched the trailers to Hardboiled, a kung-fu movie with lots of shooting in it. He had his good brown leather jacket on, the one he wore when he went to clubs looking for a lumber. They teased him about it for a while but he wasn’t up for it. He was fractious and worried about his exams. He said he’d seen the paper and Liz could sue for defamation because they’d called her by Maureen’s name.
‘Yeah?’ said Maureen.‘Why’s that defamatory?’
‘Because you’re a notorious character,’ said Benny.
Benny wasn’t allowed any mood-altering substances because he was in AA. He insisted that he didn’t mind them smoking hash in the house but he kept waving the smoke away from his face. Liam told him not to be such a tight-arse and his tense mood deepened.
When the films were over Liam went home and Benny hurried off to bed. Maureen sat in the dark on the edge of the settee and tried to cry but her eyes just stung and burned.
The next morning they were puffy and sore. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked mad. Anyone with an ounce of wit would think she had killed Douglas. She washed her face, splashing cold water on her eyes, hoping to soothe them. She wanted to go to work, she was missing Liz, but she comforted herself with the thought that it was Tuesday and she’d be seeing Leslie later.
She phoned Liz to tell her she could sue for defamation. Liz said that the booth was besieged by journalists and sensation-seekers coming for a peek at her. Mr Scobie kept trying to shoo them away but the minute he went inside they came back. He told her to shut the ticket office until he could find someone to take her place. So she was sitting alone in the dark booth, answering the single daily call for the hypnotist-show tickets because he wouldn’t let her go home without docking her pay. She said that the photograph in the paper made her look as if she had a double chin.‘He’s dead pissed off with you, Maureen.’
‘Yeah, well, he’s gonnae be more pissed off because I’m taking a couple of days off.’ Liz inhaled sharply,‘Shall I tell him?’
‘Yeah, go on. I’ll see ye later, yeah?’
‘See ye, Maureen.’
11
Shirley
It seemed to be overcast and raining every time Maureen went to the Rainbow Clinic. She got off the bus and crossed the empty dual carriageway, following the ten-foot-high wall around to the driveway.
The clinic operated out of a converted creamery, built as part of the Levanglen Lunatic Asylum estate. It consisted of a long, single-storey building with Portakabins at the back, where the admin was done. Maureen walked in the front door, went straight past the pay phones, through the main foyer and down the short corridor to the waiting room. The walls were painted yellow and covered in posters of puppies and kittens and monkeys. When it was full of patients the maniacally cheerful room looked like a sarcastic joke.
Straight across from the entry door, beyond Shirley’s desk, a set of fire doors led through to the corridor where Angus, Douglas and Dr Murray's offices were. Douglas had spoken of Murray often, usually in a less than loving manner. They had had a fight over extending the Rainbow’s client group to include patients being moved back into the community from a long-term hospital to the east of the city. Douglas thought that they didn’t have the resources to deliver the service but Murray was determined to spearhead the development and get his name on all the letters. Douglas said he was disgustingly self-promoting.
The waiting room was empty, except for a young girl sitting in the corner, pretending to read a battered copy of Good Housekeeping. She was wearing a leather jacket, combat trousers and big boots. She seemed to have cut her hair herself: it was chewed short and uneven with long lumps sticking up at the back. Her left jacket sleeve was deliberately pushed back to display an angry grid of slash scars on her inner wrist. Visible scars are a good way to stop casual approaches from the happy and content. Maureen turned away and sat down in a plastic chair against the other wall.
She had met many depressives in hospital. They were interesting company when she could coax them to talk: they seemed more in touch with reality than most people. Depressives, in full flight, can correctly estimate their chances of getting cancer, being the victim of a sexual attack or winning the lottery. They don’t dilute to taste.
The fire door to the offices opened and Dr Murray bustled into the waiting room carrying a sheaf of files. He put half of the bundle on Shir
ley’s desk and walked out to the main foyer with the rest. The combat girl watched him leave. Maureen hoped she wasn’t waiting to see him. He hadn’t even acknowledged her presence. The foyer door opened and Shirley came in, carrying a tin tray with steaming mugs and cream and sugar set on it. She put the tray down on the desk before looking up and seeing Maureen. ‘Helen?’ she said, surprised to see her.‘What are you doing here?’
Maureen motioned for Shirley to follow her out to the foyer corridor.‘Shirley, my name isn’t Helen, it’s Maureen O’Donnell.’
‘You’re Maureen O’Donnell? But there was a picture of her in the paper yesterday.’
‘I know. I know. They took a picture of the wrong person.’ Shirley didn’t bother to mask her incredulity. Maureen wasn’t particularly offended, Shirley must have seen some sights in her time and an ex-patient posing as the most recent city saddo wouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility.
Maureen took out some ID.‘It really is me. Look.’
Shirley glanced at the library card and Maureen’s cash point card, turning them over and looking at the back for extra clues.
‘Okay, right, you might not believe me but assuming I am who I say I am, will you answer some questions for me?’
Shirley thought about it.‘I dunno. It’s not about anything sick, is it?’
‘No, no, I just wanted to know who could get to see my file here.’
‘Well ...I’ll go along with it but I’m stopping if you ask me anything weird, and I don’t want to talk to you about Douglas. If you are Maureen O’Donnell then you probably know a lot more about him than I ever did, and some journalists have been hanging around and asking about him. Okay?’