Exile (17 page)

“When did she stop coming in?” asked Maureen.

” ‘Bout a month ago. ‘Fore Hogmanay. She came in Boxing Day but I put her out. She was begging people, not even tapping, but begging for drink.”

Leslie leaned across the bar eagerly, letting her hands fall over the far edge. “Ye put her out?”

“Aye.” He pointed to an old-fashioned black-on-white enamel sign hanging on the wall:

No Football Colors.

No Spitting.

No Hawkers.

“Don’t need it,” he said, wiping the bar closer and closer to Leslie’s arm, reclaiming his space.

Leslie sat back.

“She can’t have been disrupting ye, surely?” asked Maureen.

“See those old swines over there?” He gestured to his only customers. The old men heard him and their chat fell silent. The barman raised his voice. “They were asking what they would get for their money. Auld swines, playing on the lassie’s weakness for the drink.” He lowered his voice. “That’s pensioners for ye — they can smell a bargain a mile off,” he muttered, as if the bargain-hunting skill of the elderly was an unspoken universal truth.

Maureen turned back to the bar. “So, she was bothering ye?”

“She wasn’t bothering me, hen, but I’m a publican, not a vulture, and if ye need a drink that badly you won’t get it here.”

“Where would ye get it?” asked Maureen.

“The Clansman. It’s a couple of blocks down.” He pointed over his left shoulder. “I heard she was drinking in there. It’s a hole.”

Maureen finished her whiskey. “Right,” she said. “Thanks very much for your help.”

“No bother, ladies. Call again.”

The wind had risen and Maureen had to peel her wet hair from her face as they walked. They headed away from the main road, following the barman’s directions, passing progressively meaner tenements with smaller and smaller windows. The area deteriorated quickly; the blocks of flats got higher and less cared for. Pseudo-tenements, built in the fifties and sixties from prefab concrete slabs, stood in the holes left by German bombs. Three streets down from the Lismore they reached a desolate block of burned-out and boarded-up flats. The Clansman was on the far corner. A very drunk man was standing outside, holding on to a streetlight, his hips swaying softly from side to side as if his knees were full of mercury. Frosted windows sat high on the wall, an old pub device to stop women and children from seeing in. The front door heaved against the press of men, opening slightly, and the sweet smell of drink wafted into the street, as subtly enticing as a pheromone signal. Leslie pulled open the door, pushed her way through the crowd at the door, and Maureen followed in her wake.

The bar was filthy but still looked too classy for the dead-eyed men drinking wine and smoking ten-packs of Club. The carpet was as shiny as linoleum. Candle-shaped electric wall lights were dim beacons through the layered smoke, and empty glasses sat abandoned on every surface. The drinking men were shouting to one another and laughing, some the entertainers, some the entertained, a distinction determined by who was holding the money that night. Hard men jostled with cardboard gangsters, the lesser mortals who fed off their detritus, mimicking their language and stealing their stories. Maureen could see Ann drinking in a pub like this. There were no other women in the bar and Ann wouldn’t have been stuck for hopeful beaux, keen to buy her a drink and see what they got in return. Maureen and Leslie squeezed their way through to the bar.

“You get the drinks and I’ll ask around,” Maureen shouted, over the noise.

“I don’t like this,” said Leslie, looking furious because she was scared.

“Hey, you.” The voice was deep and husky. “The women, there.”

They looked over their shoulders but couldn’t find the speaker until a tiny man wriggled in between them. He had a large head of greasy black hair, a protruding lower jaw and lopsided shoulders, the result of a jaunty wave to his spine. He was drinking a tumbler of purple wine and grinning up at them. “I’m Malki,” he shouted, staring at Leslie’s leathers, holding his hand up to her face for a shake. Leslie looked at his hand and declined, but Malki took the snub in stride and grinned at her again. “Are ye a polis wummin?”

Maureen leaned into Leslie’s ear. “Leslie,” she muttered, “gonnae go and sit down? No one’s going to talk to us.” Leslie nodded reluctantly and turned away from the bar. Maureen went for the double. “And stop looking so angry,” she said. “They’ll think we’re trouble.”

“I’m not looking angry,” snapped Leslie. “It’s the way my face falls.”

“Are ye, though?” Malki was staring at Leslie’s back. “Are ye a polis? I like polis, especially the wummen.” He hacked a laugh, looking from Maureen to Leslie. He saw that they weren’t joining in. Unperturbed, he stopped laughing abruptly and took a sip.

“I’ll go,” said Leslie, pointing to an empty table at the back of the room.

“Aye,” agreed Maureen, “you go.”

Leslie sloped off and Maureen slid into her place at the bar. “Hey, Malki,” she said, “listen, do you come in here a lot?”

“Aye, how?”

“We’re looking for a lassie called Ann — ye seen her?”

Malki’s eyes shifted from side to side. “Naw,” he said, and turned to the bar.

Maureen leaned over to him and smiled. “How d’ye know ye haven’t seen her?”

Malki looked around the bar for someone.

“Will ye let me buy ye a drink?” she said, waving a tenner under his nose.

Malki relaxed a little. “Aye,” he said, toasting her with his glass. “Large red.”

She leaned over the bar, showing her tenner and trying to catch the attention of one of the staff. They were running around at the far end of the bar, handing drinks and taking money, waiting for their turn at the till. Impatient for his free drink, Malki stood up on the foot rail. “Service!” he screamed, louder than anyone should in an enclosed space. “Service!”

A young barman walked over to them, his heavy hooded eyes looking tired and pissed off. He tipped his chin at Malki.

“More wine,” shouted Malki, and pointed to Maureen’s tenner. The barman looked from the money to Maureen.

“And two whiskeys,” yelled Maureen.

The barman hesitated, looking at her, wondering what the fuck she was doing in there. He decided it didn’t matter anyway and went to get their drinks. Malki was pleased to be seen at the bar with a woman and a tenner. He smiled at her.

“How are ye fixed?” asked Maureen.

Malki frowned at her. “I’ll get ye one back,” he said, unconvincingly.

“I don’t want one back,” said Maureen. “I just thought — if you’re a bit stuck.”

She was leaning into him, shouting intimately, when the crowd parted behind them and a shaft of light hit the side of Malki’s head. Maureen looked into the flat plane of his ear and found herself inches from a nest of the biggest, ripest blackheads she had ever seen. Reeling with nausea, she caught herself and shouted again, looking over his shoulder this time, “I thought, since I want information about my pal, you might find a use for a fiver or so?”

Malki looked up at her, a greedy glimmer in his eye. He stopped himself and looked around the bar again. Whoever he was looking for wasn’t there. Malki turned back to her. “We’ll sit down,” he said, pointing at the barman coming back with their drinks.

Maureen paid, and they carried the greasy glasses over to Leslie. She was sitting alone at a table on a raised platform two steps up from the floor of the pub, glaring and daring anyone to speak to her. No one had tried. They sat down and arranged the drinks on the dirty table. Maureen offered Malki a fag and he took it. “So, do ye want a fiver?” she asked, as she lit it for him.

“No,” he said. “But I want a tenner.” He grinned, screwing up his eyes; it was less of a smile than a disguise.

Maureen hesitated, trying to look reluctant so he wouldn’t push the price up again. “Well, okay,” she said finally. “But answer everything, okay?”

Malki looked at his full glass of wine. “Give us it now,” he said.

Maureen shook her head. “After,” she said, wishing any fucker had approached them but this wee bastard.

“Now.”

She sat back. “Forget it, then,” she said.

It took less than thirty seconds for Malki to tug her sleeve.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “After.”

Maureen took out the folded photocopy, sliding it under the table to Malki’s lap. He looked down at it. “Recognize her?”

Malki nodded vigorously, looking at his drink, imagining the glass full again.

“When was she in here?”

“Weeks ago, haven’t seen her since.”

“Where did she go?”

“Dunno. She just doesn’t come in anymore.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“I tried.” Malki smiled a horny smile. “I always try.”

“Who did she hang about with?”

This was clearly the question Malki was afraid of. He glanced around the faces in the bar. “Everyone, everyone,” he said. “We’re all pals.”

“You can tell me,” said Maureen, flirting with him. “She’s a friend of mine.”

But Malki wasn’t playing. He drank some wine and puffed his fag nervously, looking to the left and correcting his gaze so suddenly that Maureen knew he’d seen something. “Was she hanging around with someone in particular?”

He crumpled his face into a smile again. “Are yees polis?”

“No,” said Maureen, leaning across the table to him, closing the circle, making it just the two of them. “See, Malki, her man was hitting her. We want to make sure she’s not gone back to him.”

Still grinning, Malki shook his outsize head at her. “She’s not with her man,” he muttered.

“Is she with another man?”

Malki was about to answer. He teetered on the edge of indiscretion, swaying at the precipice, looking down and making himself dizzy. Leslie sat forward to increase the pressure and shoved him back onto safe ground. He looked at her. “You’ve got a lovely big arse, you,” he said loudly.

Leslie wanted to hit him and Malki felt it. “Gae us my money,” he said.

Maureen was dismayed. “But ye never answered me.”

“I did so answer ye,” said Malki, ready to make a scene if he didn’t get his cash.

“Malki, here’s the thing,” said Maureen, thinking on her feet. “Leave your drink here. Go to the toilet and come back and I’ll give ye the tenner. Okay?”

He looked bemused.

“I know he’s in here,” said Maureen. “I know ye’ve just looked up and seen him. So, you go to the toilet and on your way past him you scratch your head and I’ll know. That way you’re not telling me and I’m paying ye anyway okay?”

Malki hovered, reluctant to leave a drink but more reluctant to walk away from someone holding his tenner.

“It’s the only way yell get the money.” she said.

He paused and looked at his glass. “I think I’ll take my drink with me,” he said, and stood up. “That way I’ll have something anyway.”

“Ye can buy ten glasses of wine with a tenner, Malki. Make a night of it, eh?”

Malki shuffled away into the crowd. A third of the way round the bar he raised his hand high and scratched his head. He was standing in a milling crowd of drunk men and it could have been any one of them, but Maureen knew immediately whom he meant. He was fatter now, his face bloated and watery, pink with drink, but she knew him. He was a head taller than the short drunk men around him, wearing a rain-warped donkey jacket and drinking a half pint of red wine. He was looking at her and he recognized her too. He put out a hand, pushed the men in front of him aside, and made his way over to their table.

“Mother of God,” said Maureen, shrinking into the table. “Mark Doyle.”

“What?” asked Leslie.

“Mark Doyle. Pauline’s brother,” whispered Maureen.

Leslie hadn’t heard her and he was standing by their table before Maureen had the chance to say it again.

“How are ye?” said Maureen.

“Aye, what’re yees doing in here?” His diction was drawled, like a tough guy used to getting fat lips in fights. He stood by the table, looking them over.

“We’re trying to find a pal of ours,” said Maureen.

He nodded slowly and looked at Maureen. He had very bad eczema — his skin was flaking and painfully dry. A raw patch under his left eye was oozing clear fluid, and lumps of scalp were falling away under his thick hair.

“What’s your pal’s name?” he said.

“Ann,” said Leslie, squaring up to him. “Her name’s Ann.”

Mark Doyle slid into Malki’s vacant chair, putting his drink on the table and reaching down to his ankle. For a moment Maureen thought he might have a knife in his sock and she flinched before realizing that he was only scratching his leg. She fumbled a cigarette out of her packet and lit it. His big, scalded hand sat on the table. He finished scratching and looked up, curious and blinking slowly as if he was drunk or on medication.

“I know you from somewhere,” he said to Maureen. “Where do I know ye from?”

“I think”—Maureen was terrified—”I knew your sister.”

“Pauline?” he said wistfully. “You knew Pauline?” He stared at the table and Maureen watched him. He looked up. “Did ye know her well?” He was watching Maureen’s face, trying to see what she knew.

Maureen took a draw on her cigarette. He was still looking at her, waiting for an answer to the unspoken question, his eyes tired and old with a knife threat beneath them. “No,” she said, “not very well. I was at her funeral because of my pal …”

Shaking slightly, he managed to breathe in, expanding his chest to fill his crumpled shirt.

“Do you know Ann?” she said, changing the subject before it started again.

He shrugged carelessly. Maureen took out the photocopy, laying it on the dirty table in front of him. Ann’s black eyes looked up at him. “She was here, aye. Hasnae been in for a while. I seen her in London.”

Leslie shot forward in her chair. “In London?”

He turned to her. “Aye, hen. In Brixton. In a pub called the Coach and Horses. Lot of Glasgow folk drink there.”

“Whenabouts did ye see her?” asked Maureen.

“Month mibi.” He stopped and gazed at his hands. “She was keeping rough company. That’s a bad thing for a woman to do. I warned her.”

He looked at Maureen, his eyes bright and open, telling her something she didn’t understand. She felt cold to the core. As she folded the photocopy with tremorous hands Mark Doyle stood up and straightened his coat. She shouldn’t be sitting here, peaceful in his company. Out of respect for Pauline she should at least have insulted him.