S K Paisley

by Take a Breath (epub)

  All the way to the police station, Lena couldn’t get the image out of her mind.

  Lena couldn’t look her mum in the eye when she entered the room. There was no sensible place to look other than down, but the physical strain of it was hurting her head. She didn’t want to look at her, at the black rings under her eyes and the lines on her forehead.

  She was surprised by how small her mother looked, her arms wrapped around her body like a blanket. Seeing her dispassionately, as a stranger would, Lena noted the long, unkempt hair, the thin puckered mouth, washed-out baggy T-shirt and raggedy sweatpants. She had the face and posture of a woman much older than thirty-seven, her good looks long vanished. From her slackened facial muscles, Lena could tell she’d already been drinking.

  Another woman joined them. The velvety tone of her voice marked her out as a social worker and made Lena shudder. The woman looked Lena and her mother up and down appraisingly.

  During the interview Lena could sense her mum willing it to be over, affronted by the shame of it all. She was of the generation that still respected professionals and she was mortified that she’d caused a fuss over nothing, wasting time that could have been used on someone more deserving. Lena wished her mum didn’t think like that.

  Were you held against your will? Forced to do anything you didn’t want to do? Paid any sums of money? At any point offered or given drugs? Lena could feel the burn of her mum’s glare as she did her best to explain that she’d lost track of time. That she’d gone to a party. Lied about her age. No harm had come to her. No one was to blame but her. It wouldn’t happen again.

  No matter how earnestly she protested, though, she got the feeling they never quite believed her.

  After a grilling on her home life, they were eventually satisfied and allowed her to go.

  On the bus home she wanted to reach out to her mum, to say sorry or try to explain, but the wall that had been building between them was tangible now, too strong to break through. They sat in silence.

  Back at the house, Lena went straight to her room and listened to her mum and Jason arguing downstairs. Lena heard her mum telling him not to interfere, that she’d deal with her daughter her own way. Lena was grateful; it was the first time she could remember her mum sticking up for her. But she knew there’d be trouble. It was humiliating for him that the law had been laid down and she was certain he wouldn’t let it go.

  Lying alone in the darkness, she watched the headlights of passing cars creeping over the ceiling. Her mind was whizzing with all that had happened. Just one weekend, but somehow she felt different now. She didn’t feel like she was in her own bedroom. It didn’t feel like her own bed. She didn’t belong to them anymore. This thought saddened and frightened her as she turned and sank her face into the pillow.

  At school the next day, she kept her head down amid a storm of stares and whispers. Gillian had leaked details to anyone who would listen, talking up her own part in it, exaggerating other bits for effect. Lena obviously had some serious mental problems and as her best friend she couldn’t stand to be around to watch her self-destruct.

  After Lena’s mum had contacted the school to say she hadn’t come home on Saturday night, Gillian had held out for most of Monday before being forced to confess all – the party, the drinking, the older boys she’d left Lena alone with. Gillian was ignoring her now, annoyed that Lena had usurped her position at the centre of the drama.

  The worst thing for Lena was the concern. In the female teachers it brought out their maternal instinct, while the male teachers kept a wary distance. Some pupils were admiring, others disapproving. Either way, she didn’t care. She just wanted to be left alone. The only person who had any right to say anything was her mum, but Lena wasn’t sure any meaningful conversation would ever take place between them again.

  Chapter Seven

  Left alone in the dark, Paul sat tied to his prison chair, reliving dead memories. The fire Annie had lit earlier had long since faded, but among the ashes some embers still burned fervently. As he stared into their hypnotic glow, it was the memories from those early days that kindled. It smarted and stung to remember, but even so, he found them to be a small glimmer in all the darkness. In the cold room he found surprising warmth.

  *

  It had been a long week, like any that starts with a Monday afternoon wake-up call from the police. He’d had to scratch together every penny he could to make up for what the girl had put down the toilet. Calling in debts, asking favours, ripping off a couple of easy targets with placebos and extra laxative powder. He’d been busy. Coming off the back of a six-month sentence, there’d have been some raised eyebrows if he’d gone crying about a lost stash. Flushed. At least she’d had the sense to do that. He deserved it for having been so stupid. Being forced to swallow the loss himself was painful, but it was better than three years for possession with intent to supply.

  The rain was drumming relentlessly on the streets, the wind hurling billowing sheets of it against tarmac, brick and mortar. As his taxi splashed through the downpour, Paul tuned out the driver, who was fishing to find out which team he supported. Old Firm nights were always the same. He had never understood how, for so many, a group of men running around a pitch provided so much meaning. If they didn’t get you with religion, they got you with football and somehow in Glasgow they managed to combine the two.

  The club where he worked had been bouncing all night, with a lot of people out either celebrating or drowning their post-match sorrows. A good night for business. And Paul badly needed that. Finally, at around 2 a.m., dead beat, he had decided to call it a night.

  The taxi pulled up outside his flat.

  “Keep the change,” he said, then made a quick dash for the front door to his block. Cold water trickled down his neck and fat droplets feathered his nose and lashes as he felt inside his pocket, among crumpled notes, for his keys. At least the street smell of vinegar and grime would be washed away tomorrow.

  The door was off the snib. Someone had bust the lock again. He sighed.

  Diving into the damp hallway, he looked around for the jake that had knocked in the door, but there was no one. Shaking off the excess water, he got in the lift then rattled towards home on the fifteenth floor.

  When he stepped out of the lift, the door crashed shut behind him. Only one light, at the opposite end of the corridor, was working, buzzing incessantly.

  Maybe it was the noise that unnerved him as he walked to his door. The reason he stopped before he put his key in the lock, unable to shake the sense that there were eyes on him. He had an instinct for trouble and something didn’t feel right.

  Out of the shadows, a hooded figure darted towards him. Paul turned and primed himself, his right hand swinging back, key clutched tightly between index and middle finger. The figure cowered from the impending blow and Paul managed to hold the punch.

  Her hood fell down and she turned towards him. Ropey threads of dark hair latticed her face. She looked like a half-drowned cat hanging from the scruff of its neck, waiting for the final dunk to finish the job.

  Paul slowly brought his arm down, his heart pounding. “What the fuck are you doing? I nearly fucking knocked you out.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  He turned back to his door. He could see her straightening herself behind him.

  “You’d better get out of here. I might yet… Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused?” he said, enraged. He’d wondered how long it would be before she showed up again. He opened his flat door and turned on the light. She was waiting behind him but he stood in the doorway, blocking the entrance. “Little girls shouldn’t be out this late. Go home to your maw.”

  His hall light lit her face and he saw her burst lip and swollen cheek.

  “Please.” She swayed on her feet. Her skin was grey, her lips tinged blue with cold. She was shaking uncontrollably.
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  He hesitated in the doorway, not able to slam the door in her face. “You can’t come in here. I can’t have the polis up at my door again.”

  “It’s only for one night. I had nowhere else to go.”

  He looked at her battered face and felt a dull, spreading anger.

  Standing aside, he let her into his flat. Her sodden jacket dripped on his floor. His act of kindness apparently overwhelmed her and she choked back big snorts. Closing his door behind them, all thoughts of sleep and a warm bed disappeared into the night air.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  Chapter Eight

  Paul ushered her into the living room. She sat on the couch and he brought through a dry towel. The room was warm. He sat beside her while she patted her hair down. She knew he was waiting for an explanation but when she opened her mouth to speak she was silenced by stage fright. Her thoughts were muddled and she was tired and confused; all her energy had been sapped trying to keep warm. Coming here had made sense earlier, but now that she was sitting face to face with a baffled Paul, she felt overcome with emotion and couldn’t quite put it all into words. All she could do was breathe deeply and concentrate on her fingers. She saw that they were wrinkled and as she watched they began to blur with tears.

  The atmosphere at home had been tense all week. When she got back from the police station she’d gone straight to her room, waiting for the showdown that never came. Next day she got up, went to school, came home. Straight up to her room again. Her resolve to avoid the two of them had lasted the whole week.

  Saturday was the first day she spent any time outside her room. Her mum had a cleaning job and Jason was out at the football. With the living room to herself, she stretched out on the couch and watched daytime TV.

  She knew the avoidance tactics were stupid. That she had to face them at some point. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. If it had just been her mum, the stalemate would have been over days ago. In the past they’d never slept on a quarrel. But with Jason there, everything was different. Ever since he’d moved in a few months before, he’d been throwing his weight around. And her mum let him. It was like she’d forgotten everything Lena had done for her. It was impossible to even get her mum alone.

  Jason and her mum had met at the pub down the road. Jason was visiting friends in the area. It was karaoke night. While sipping a soda and lime, her mum had quietly moved the room with “One Day at a Time”, a song made famous in Glasgow by Lena’s namesake. According to Jason, he had brought the house down with a rendition of Robbie Williams’s “Angels”. They were cheering for an encore up and down the streets. The guy who ran the karaoke even thought Jason was a professional singer.

  Of all the women Jason could have had that night, he chose her mum.

  They’d come home afterwards for a cup of tea. Lena had been sitting on the couch reading a book for school. He took the book from her hands, pretending to study it, swaying where he stood. “Me,” he said, then slapped the book with the side of his palm, “I just pick up a book and boom! It’s read. That’s all I do, is read.”

  That was how most of his stories went. Bigging himself up, creating his own legend. How hard he was. How many fights he’d won. Women he’d conquered. Lena rolled her eyes and her mum secretly smirked. At first he had been a joke between her and her mum. They laughed at him behind his back.

  “He’s harmless,” her mum would say.

  And as long as he was a joke, Lena didn’t mind. It was nice to see her mum getting out and dressing up again. The last few years had been tough. After Frank left and took Annabelle with him, it had all just fallen apart.

  Lena had liked Frank. He had genuinely tried to help. With Jason it was always grand gestures. Flowers. Chocolates. But nothing they actually needed. He made good money as a driving instructor but after all his monthly debts were paid off there never seemed to be anything left. He had a lot of excuses: his ex-wife bleeding him dry, his sisters cheating him out of his inheritance. There was always some tale of persecution. Things were never, ever his fault.

  The first time the three of them went out together, Jason had driven them to Harry Ramsden’s and then to the cinema. He had a few drinks but said he was still OK to drive because of his super reflexes.

  On the way there, Jason had cut up another driver. Hitting the horn, he drove right up beside the other car and yelled at the closed window, “Watch where you’re going! Ya Paki bitch.”

  Lena’s mum had turned round from the front seat and smiled apologetically.

  “Do you know, Lena, why Asian women are the worst drivers?” Jason said. “It’s a well-known fact. There’s only one Asian woman in Glasgow who can drive. And she does the test for all of them. With the veil on, no one can tell the difference. So if you see a woman with a veil behind a wheel, steer clear.”

  It must be great learning to drive with him, she thought.

  At dinner he flirted with the waitresses. Lena’s mum didn’t notice. She looked at him with starry eyes. It was that look that made Lena start to worry.

  A few weeks later his bags were sitting in their hallway when she came home from school. She went into the living room, where the two of them were sitting on the couch, a litre bottle of vodka half-finished on the table. Jason was posing and flexing his muscles. Her mum was fondling them, massaging him like he was a sacred cow.

  “Lena, we’ve something to tell you,” she said.

  “I’m moving in,” Jason interjected. “So I can lie low. Can’t show my face in Cardonald for a while.”

  Lena’s heart sank as he told the story.

  “My ex was having problems with the neighbour. When I went round to sort it out, the cow punched my ex in the face, so I nutted her. Turns out her husband’s a bit of a hard man. Wants to kill me.”

  Lena left the room. Bewildered at how she could have let it happen. How she’d managed to drop the ball so spectacularly. She thought it had all just been a bit of fun. But here he was, living under their roof. Just when she’d thought things were getting back on track. Just when she’d thought there was a chance Annabelle could come home. It would never happen now. How could her mum let her down so badly?

  Lena heard them at night when they stayed up drinking, stepped over them the next morning when she left for school. Jason started calling in sick to work. At first just the early-morning lessons, then all of them – either too hung over to drive or still over the limit. He went to the doctor’s with depression and returned with a line to say he couldn’t work. Her mum held him when he cried.

  But he was still the man of the house.

  At just after five that Saturday afternoon, Lena heard a key click in the door. Her shoulders tensed and her feet moved automatically to the floor. She hadn’t expected either of them back for hours.

  Jason came through from the hall into the living room, dressed in team colours, smelling of fish supper and beer. He didn’t say anything as he walked past, just lifted the remote control from the table in front of her. He sat in the armchair and flicked over to the football results.

  The Grandstand theme music played. A voice began to read out the scores. “St Mirren, nil, Dunfermline Athletic, one—”

  “I was watching something,” Lena said, but only half-heartedly. It maddened her that he got away with more childish behaviour than she did.

  “And now I’m watching this.”

  A sigh of frustration escaped her. He sneered. It was the most anyone had said to her in a week.

  She got up off her seat and huffed into the kitchen. She knew he wouldn’t have done that if her mum had been there.

  “Bring me in a beer!” he called after her.

  In the kitchen she walked in a circle, clenching and unclenching her hands.

  “I said, bring me in a beer!” he yelled again.

  She went to the fridge, opened a cold beer a
nd took it through to him, hating herself for doing it. She wanted to scream Fuck off! in his face, but she knew she wouldn’t. There was always an unspoken threat when he asked her to do stuff, challenging her to find out how far he would take it if she said no.

  There was a scoffing glint in his eye when she handed it to him. She had to look away. It burned her every time she couldn’t hold his gaze.

  “And in today’s Old Firm match, Celtic, one, Rangers—” said the voice from the TV.

  “That’s right, ya fucking cheating CUNTS!” he shouted back at it, his face a strange shade of red.

  Lena walked away in disgust, back into the kitchen to make a sandwich. She didn’t plan on coming out of her room again that night.

  And that’s when it all went wrong.

  She started to hum a song. Not deliberately. It was in her head. One of the football songs she’d heard the boys at school singing. The tune was catchy.

  “Stop singing that fucking song,” came his voice, menacing, from the living room.

  She stopped instantly, then laughed a little, nervously. That song really annoyed him. She went back to making her sandwich, then started up again. It was her house and she could sing if she wanted to. It was meant to tease him. He deserved it.

  “I said, stop singing the fucking song,” he repeated, from behind her.

  She jumped when she turned round and saw him standing there, propped against the kitchen doorframe. His tone of voice should have been a warning, but she ignored it. Why should she stop? What was he going to do about it? Whatever it was, she could take it.

  “You’ve got your mum wrapped round your little finger, haven’t you? If I was in charge…” he spat drunkenly, his cheeks branded with rage.

  But you’re not in charge, she screamed internally. You’re just a big, ugly, fat-headed bully.

  In a misguided act of defiance, she sang louder. All the frustration and anger she felt towards him, she poured into the lyrics in protest, until the veins were popping out of her temples.