G03 - Resolution (15 page)

They took the arcing pedestrian bridge over the motorway and went in search of a great Glasgow curry.

Hugh suggested the Indian Trip restaurant: he said he’d been a number of times with his wife and the food was good. He still wasn’t letting on about the purpose of the meeting but Maureen had a feeling she wasn’t going to like it. “It’s always busy,” said Hugh, filling the ponderous conversational space. “We’ll be lucky to get a table.”

But she didn’t want to eat: she just wanted to hear what he had to say and go somewhere and get pissed alone.

The area they were walking through was too near to the town to be residential. Not yet the coveted West End, it was a transient area of cheap hotels peopled by disappointed businessmen and twenty-four-hour shops. Great sweeping Georgian terraces were deserted or chopped up into mean little offices. One block away was Kelvingrove Park, midnight home to homosexual encounter groups and muggers. Si McGee’s business was around here. Maureen imagined the ghost of Home Gran across the road somewhere, mopping up in a gym or hoovering at reception. Maybe that’s where she’d got the inspiration to wear tracksuits all the time.

When they got to the restaurant Hugh asked the waiter for a table upstairs. It was a strangely shaped room, an angular rhomboid with dark walls and windows on two sides looking down the length of Sauchiehall Street. Yellow and red car lights traced the line of the long road. A soft breeze whispered through the open window, whipped up by passing lorries and buses.

They ordered and the waiter jotted in his notebook as he backed away from them. Maureen and Hugh both felt uneasy at the intimate surroundings: it felt like the start of a reluctant love affair between desperately unhappy people. Hugh kept his eyes on the road, sitting back in the shadows, out of view of the street. The food came quickly. Maureen looked out of the window as the sun set low over the road and ate a mouthful of bindi bhaji. The aromatic flavor and slow-heat aftertaste were lost on her. She didn’t want to eat.

“How’s the bindi?” asked Hugh, gnawing his way through tan-doori chicken, getting the red food coloring over his mouth and chin.

She sipped her lager to clear her mouth. “Nice. A man came to my door the other night,” she said, “and gave me a citation.”

“For Farrell’s trial?”

“I don’t want to go but he said I have to.”

Hugh picked up his shandy. “He’s right,” he said, sipping and swallowing. “You do have to.”

The restaurant was busy, and around them tables of men and women chatted and laughed together, oblivious to the crying girl in Maureen’s cupboard.

“Are they going to ask me about the letters?”

“No,” said Hugh. “The letters aren’t relevant anymore.”

He chewed between the parallel bones on a wing. A small yellow lump of fat, tinged red at the edge, fell onto the table. Maureen frowned. The whole point of Angus Farrell sending the letters to her had been to help prove his insanity. “I thought he’d use them to prove he’s insane?”

“No,” said Hugh certainly. “They had a hearing six months ago and found him insane but he’s better now. The drugs have worn off.”

Maureen didn’t understand. She was sure that was why Angus had sent the letters. “Is he saying he’s guilty, then?” she asked.

Hugh put down the pared bone, cleaned his chin with his napkin and leaned across to her. “No.” He didn’t seem to want to add anything to it.

Maureen wondered why he had asked her here and wished he’d get on with it. She abandoned her dinner and took out a cigarette under the table so that Hugh wouldn’t see the duty-free packet. She used Vik’s disposable lighter and inhaled deeply. “The citation guy, he said I’d go to jail if I don’t turn up.”

“He’s right,” said Hugh.

“That’s not very fair,” she said. “You can’t jail people for being frightened.”

Hugh held up his hand. “Wait a minute,” he said slowly, “it’s not the police who do that. Anyway, if no one had to give evidence no one would ever go to jail. There’d be a lot more frightened people around.”

Maureen drew on her fag and pushed strands of bindi around her plate, glancing up at Hugh, who had gone back to eating his chicken.

“This is nice,” he said. “D’you want to try a bit?”

“What if I go but refuse to answer certain questions?”

“They’ll put you in jail to consider your position,” said Hugh, looking up at her through his red eyebrows, warning her not to disappear.

“Is there nothing I can do about it?”

Hugh picked a lump of clear gristle out of his mouth and laid it on the side of his plate. “Just go and tell the truth, Maureen. That’s the smart thing to do.”

Maureen laughed bitterly. “The smart thing?”

“Maureen, the legal system has been coercing reluctant witnesses for over a thousand years. You’re not going to think up anything they haven’t come across before.”

Maureen drew on her cigarette again and reminded herself that none of it had happened yet. It was all in the future. She kicked him gently under the table. “How are you, anyway? Why weren’t you at the survivors’ meeting on Thursday?”

“Work. How was it?”

“Aw, ye fairly missed yourself.” She flicked her ash onto the floor. “Colin was very sad, Alex was very angry, and I was very confused.”

Hugh smiled sadly. “That sounds … uplifting. Sheila told me you went back to her house for a cup of tea.” He was building up to ask her about Michael.

“So, how’s your head this week?” she asked, heading him off at the pass.

“Fine. D’you not want to talk about it with me, Maureen?”

She thought of Vik lying on her bed, his burnished skin, and the sheet slipping off the dip on his hip. “Not just now, no.”

Hugh looked out of the window. The eggshell skin beneath his eyes flushed blue to match his watery eyes. “Well, what do you want to talk about?” He sounded annoyed, as if she were cutting him out, as if she’d invited him here on false pretenses. A table behind them was getting out of hand, overexcited and noisy.

Maureen looked out of the window with Hugh, trying to make it the two of them together again. “Where’s the gym around here?”

“There’s no gym around here,” he snapped.

She blinked long and hard. “I’m entitled not to talk about this.”

“I know, I know,” he nodded. “I’m just tired, I’m worried.”

“Sheila shouldn’t have repeated what I said to her, you know.”

“And I shouldn’t be here with you,” said Hugh, under his breath, watching the road in case he was seen. “I shouldn’t be here with a witness in an upcoming trial but I’m worried. Don’t do anything to your dad, Maureen. You’ve got to keep your nose clean.” He looked up at her. “Please, don’t do anything. I can contact the Social Work for you. I’ll pick your dad up, me and the guys’ll give him a kicking in the back of a van and warn him, but please, don’t do anything.”

The image of Hugh kicking Michael in the back of a van pleased her. Hugh, holding the crescent moon aloft, lifting his leg sadly but justly, and a withered, vanquished Michael on the floor at his feet. “Why do I have to keep my nose clean?”

“Look, Joe McEwan thinks Farrell’s getting off because of you. He fucking hates you — he’s hell-bent on getting you for something.”

She sat back. “Joe thinks he’ll get off?”

“There is a chance. Because of the acid and other stuff. There isn’t that much evidence, really. We’ll be lucky to get a conviction on Douglas Brady. It really depends on Martin Donegan’s case being proved successfully.”

“Fuck,” said Maureen simply.

Hugh furrowed his eyebrows. “Fuck’s an understatement.”

“And I’m getting the blame?”

“I’m afraid so.”

The color had drained from Hugh’s face and she noticed for the first time that the whites of his eyes looked dry and yellow. “Are you well, Hugh?”

Leaning his elbow on the table, Hugh rubbed his face. “No,” he said quietly, “I’m not. I’m tired and this heat makes me feel sick.”

“I think you should go home and get some rest,” she said, signaling to the waiter for the bill, hoping they’d never be this intimate again.

Outside the night was humid and rank. Dark currents flowed down the road as night swirled into the city. A drunk man was staggering across the road towards them, shouting at the sky, shaking his fist at ghosts. A crowd passed him and a heavily made-up woman bent double, bawling at the man that he was fucked in the head, her voice cracking, her boyfriend dragging her away by the arm.

“The city’s crazy when it’s hot,” said Hugh, pulling on his jacket. “Some poor bastard’s gonnae get it tonight.”

He said he’d walk her home to Garnethill but she wanted to get away from him and said she’d planned to visit Kilty who lived in the opposite direction. She wanted to tell Kilty about Vik and have a girlie squeal and feel normal. Hugh insisted she get a taxi but she didn’t have the money and knew he’d try to give it to her if she said so. She hailed a cab and climbed in, waving to Hugh, trying to look cheery and untroubled as the taxi drove away, calling out of the open window that she’d see him on Thursday. The cab drove a block and turned the corner. “Can ye let me out here, driver?”

Watching her resentfully in the rearview mirror, the driver went farther down the road than he needed to, adding twenty pence to the meter before pulling over.

Maureen took off her jacket, tied it around her waist and walked. The ragged blue remnant of the day lingered on the horizon. Following the tree-lined avenue that led through the center of the park, she passed a small clearing set around a high statue of a forgotten military hero being brave on a horse. Three young men stood talking to one another in the shadows, smoking. They watched her pass, angry eyes sliding to the side, watching her because she was watching them. Slow cars glided up and down the avenue and guilty-looking men walked quickly by, staring at the pavement in front of them.

Joe McEwan would never let her go. If she did anything to Michael, Joe would make sure that she paid for it. She didn’t want to spend the next ten years in jail — she didn’t want to sit in an ugly cell, smoking wee fags and being told what to do, least of all for Michael. She took a deep breath and looked up. She hadn’t done anything yet, not yet. She took a right and headed for Kilty’s house at the Botanic Gardens.

When she had first come back from London, Kilty lived in Maureen’s sitting room. In all that time Maureen had never fathomed her, never identified a consistent pattern of behavior, could never anticipate her. When they first met, Maureen thought Kilty had no chip on her shoulder and found it incredibly refreshing. As they grew closer Maureen realized that Kilty’s chips were of a different shape and size, invisible to her because they weren’t familiar, but they were there. Kilty had a horror of marrying well and living near the country. She was a mesmerizingly odd woman, tiny and slim with features that should have made her ugly — buggy eyes and thin hair — but she looked exotic and beautiful.

The morning Kilty’s parents arrived, unannounced, to visit them in Garnethill they were unable to hide their shock and disappointment. It was a Sunday morning and Maureen was wearing the dressing gown Kilty had given her. It was an antique, a rotting apricot silk thing with a scary stain on the hem and a rip on the arm that Kilty insisted had happened during a tangoing incident in Rio. Maureen went to get dressed and when she came back Mrs. Goldfarb asked her what the stains on the living-room floorboards were. Maureen said that it was a spill of balsamic vinegar from a salad she had been serving to friends. Mr. Goldfarb remarked that it must have been a very big salad: the vinegar had spilled everywhere.

Her parents had bought Kilty a flat as an inducement, to get her out of the poky house in the bad area. Kilty refused to go househunting with them. They chose a flat near to the children’s home where she was working and had to blackmail her into coming to look at it. She had made Maureen come with her.

Maureen gushed about the flat, but it wasn’t hard. Despite being decorated by a lilac lover it had definite possibilities. It was in a well-preserved Victorian tenement and overlooked the large glass dome of the Botanic Gardens, illuminated at night like a giant luminous mushroom. The windows were floor to ceiling and the rooms large and plain. Kilty accepted her parents’ gift, and Maureen and Liam helped her paint every bit of the flat white over one long weekend. Kilty lifted the carpets and lino from the floors, varnished the bare boards and filled it with sturdy utility furniture.

Maureen looked up at the living-room window. It was dark but she thought she could make out the flickering blue light from a television. She crossed the road, climbed the stairs to the door and pressed the buzzer. Kilty’s voice crackled over the intercom. She yippeed when she heard it was Maureen and released the door. As Maureen climbed the steep stairs she saw Kilty hanging out of the storm doors to her flat, dressed in gigantic stripy pajama bottoms and a Charlie’s Angels T-shirt.

“Hiya,” called Kilty, as Maureen wearily climbed the stairs. “There’s a scare-u-mentary on about sharks and I’ve got a bottle of gin.”

Maureen broke into a sprint.

Una’s fingernails were pressing hard, digging into the drum of Alistair’s thumb, piercing the skin. “Bastard,” said Una. “You shitty, shitty bastard.”

“Breathe,” he said.

The midwife smirked to herself as she checked the monitors. “I expect they told you to expect this in the classes.” She smiled at Alistair across Una’s belly. “I hated my hubby when I was in labor. Doesn’t seem fair when you’re in all that pain.”

Una’s contraction ebbed away and she gasped for a deep breath. She stared up at the midwife, holding Alistair’s hand just as tightly as she had been when the contraction was coming. “He left me,” said Una loudly, concentrating hard to speak as another contraction hit, “for my neighbor. When I was three months pregnant.” She lost her breath to the contraction and turned red, her face contorting. She was holding Alistair’s hand so hard that her fingernails buckled against his skin. He began to bleed.

It was half four in the morning and the maternity unit was quiet. Across the corridor, sitting in the waiting room, Winnie O’Donnell dabbed her eyes and prayed to a distant god. Dear God, she prayed, please, God, if there is a God, don’t let it be a girl. She took out the Alcoholics Anonymous card and reread the serenity prayer. She’d have to pray for acceptance if it was a girl, but it might not come to that. Please, God, thy will be done, not a girl, thy will be done. Finding no comfort, she unclasped her hands and looked up. Behind the long window, dawn was breaking over Glasgow and Winnie’s reflection was fading. She could see her outline, the white hankie to her face, and the doorway next to her leading into the bright corridor. Asleep in the seat next to her, George was drooling onto his chin, his big work-swollen hands clasped in his lap, his legs sprawled untidily in front of him. Una was across and two doors down, giving birth to Winnie’s first grandchild. Winnie hung her head again. Please, God, don’t let it be a girl.