G03 - Resolution (41 page)

Maureen smiled. Two women and no father. In the penny-dreadful version of the story those women would be the monsters who had turned him into a sexual predator and the missing man simply a source of sadness to him. She sat back, looking down the table at all of her friends. Still feverish with exhaustion, she imagined lifting them all away from here, taking them to a cliff-top table overlooking a calm sea and having a lovely dinner together, a last supper. Winnie would be funny and George would be dear. Jimmy Harris wouldn’t look so hungry and Leslie would have her baby in her arms. At the end of the night Maureen would retire with Vik and they’d cuddle each other and talk lazily about nothing much as they dozed off into a deep sleep. As she looked at them, Maureen felt she was in an idealized afterlife, where all was love and peace and everyone she cared about was looked after.

Liam finished his sandwich quickly and nodded her outside for a smoke. She was nervous that he might ask her about last night or following Michael. “Why are ye wearing a top that says ‘porn star’ on it?” he said, when they got to the steps.

“Cheer myself up,” she said.

“You don’t look well.”

“I’m very tired,” she said, remembering to use her left hand to rub her eye. “I didn’t sleep last night at all.”

He looked at her curiously. “Ye were asleep at ten o’clock when I phoned.”

“Oh,” she said stiffly, “yeah, but I woke up then and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

The steps were busy with smokers. Three uniformed policemen stood at the bottom between the gates, comparing something on their ungainly utility belts. A crowd of well-dressed confident people were standing in a circle and laughing loudly. Maureen saw nervous Aggie Grey hanging on the edges of the group and realized why they were happy. They had no interest in the case going either way, they were journalists. Aggie spotted Maureen coming down the steps and averted her gaze, smiling at the ground, making a discreet thumbs-up. Maureen did it back and when she looked again Aggie was smiling up at the building.

Joe McEwan was a couple of steps down from Inness, absent-mindedly scraping the arch of his shoe on the stairs as he talked. He looked up and saw Liam and Maureen coming out of the door. He shot them a polite smile, pressing his lips together and looking away. Liam gave the same smile back and sat down a distance away, resting on a pillar to light up. The last time Maureen saw Liam and Joe together they had hated each other. She could tell they had seen each other in the meantime — recently, by the looks of things. Joe would have told Liam about Michael. She could see Liam asking him not to tell Maureen, just until the trial is over, please, just until then. Neither of them had any idea that she was involved; Joe McEwan had finally decided that she was a victim of circumstance just when she stopped being one. Liam gave her a cigarette and she took it in her left hand, leaning over the match in his hand to catch a light.

“Are you Maureen O’Donnell?” It was one of the men from the group of journalists.

“No,” said Maureen.

“I think she’s still in the canteen,” said Liam helpfully.

Maureen looked out over Glasgow Green, busy with lunchtime sunbathers. Leslie and Kilty came out and Vik and Shan joined them all, and they sat on the steps of the High Court and smoked and were together.

The afternoon was shorter. Shirley had relaxed a little and answered when Paulsa asked her the time. Maureen went to the loo to have a fag every so often, just to keep herself awake. She found a newspaper tucked behind the cistern as if someone was coming back for it. She read an article about how television was damaging everyone in some indefinable way. Back in the waiting room she soaked up the sun through the small window and planned her night. She was going to have a bath, a long, hot bath, and she was going to drink whiskey.

The police officer stuck his head round the door again and told them that the court had finished its day’s business and they must all come back the next day for nine thirty sharp.

When she walked out into the lobby Maureen saw Elsbeth Brady and her mother-in-law walking down a corridor towards her, looking angry. “You should be in the witness room,” said Carol Brady.

Maureen didn’t say anything. She was tired and had no reason to apologize to either of them anymore.

“I suppose you’re enjoying this, are you? Being at the center of it all,” said Elsbeth, with an unkind smile.

Again she said nothing but crossed her arms. A long, hot bath, whiskey and peace. The women looked her up and down, read “porn star” on her chest and brushed past her, walking down the stairs to the door. Leslie was standing beside her. “Was that Carol Brady?”

“Aye,” said Maureen. “And Elsbeth, Douglas’s wife.”

“Douglas’s widow,” corrected Leslie.

“Her nose has been running all day and she kept sniffing really loudly,” said Winnie. “I think she’s allergic to not getting attention.”

Maureen didn’t think they’d all be able to come the next day but she wanted them all to be together for just a little longer. She insisted that they go across the road to a cafe. She wanted to go for a drink but was afraid of putting temptation in Winnie’s way. As they went into the cafe she saw Liam whispering urgently to Winnie. He gathered himself together and came over, telling Maureen that he had to go and get a part for the car. The guy wouldn’t wait for him and he’d see her tomorrow. She knew he was lying. She knew that he had to go and see about Michael.

The Val d’Oro cafe had small seating booths in yellow, trimmed with red like a child’s toy. They sat in adjoining booths, Leslie and Jimmy Harris with Winnie and George, Maureen and Kilty with Vik and Shan. They ordered drinks and rolls. Shan asked for two egg rolls and a roll with sausage.

“He eats all the time,” confided Vik. “You’ve never seen a constitution like it. More food goes through him than Safeway’s checkouts.”

Shan smiled, slow and easy, at Kilty. “It’ll just get me ready for my dinner.”

“Your mum’s great,” said Vik quietly, so Winnie wouldn’t hear.

“Aye,” Maureen said cagily. “She’s great sometimes.”

“How d’ye feel about seeing Angus again?” said Shan.

“I’m too tired to feel anything. What about you?”

“I wanted to kill him,” said Shan, a red flush rising up his neck, settling on his cheeks.

Back at the flat Maureen lay in a hot bath, watching her skin turn red under the waterline and bits of tissue disintegrate on her skin. The cuts were deep and red blood had settled into scarlet blackheads in the cellulite on her thighs. She heard Leslie out in the living room, watching a quiz show on the telly. They were going to have Leslie’s baby together and it changed everything. They’d have to get jobs and stop being pissed all the time. They’d have to grow up. She sipped her whiskey and knew she’d be asleep in ten minutes. When she thought about Gartnavel, thought past the shock and horror, she knew she’d done a good thing and providence would bless her for it. If only she hadn’t put Liam in the middle of it.

PAULSA was agitated. He seemed not to have had his medicine that morning and was pacing the stuffy room, watching the door. Spontaneous droplets of sweat popped onto his forehead and top lip. He was licking them away, a habit Shirley found disgusting. Maureen could see her across the room, watching him, grimacing when he did it. Maureen wanted to tell him what Liam had told her, that they were defense witnesses, they’d be the last to give evidence, but the more upset he was the better it was for her.

Leslie had bought bandages for Maureen’s arms and put them on her this morning, securing the ends with little elastic clasps. Some of the wounds were open, itching and festering. Leslie had washed them gently in salt water before vomiting in the sink.

Maureen went back to reading a newspaper she had picked up when she was buying cigarettes. It was a local newspaper and she hadn’t noticed that it was a special sports edition. The back page crept towards the front, buffeting the central pages, and there was little for her to read in it. In the “News in Brief” column she saw a headline that caught her eye. A body had been found up at Gartnavel Royal and police were treating the death as suspicious. The paragraph underneath gave scant detail, adding nothing to the headline but times and the fact that Stewart Street were conducting the investigation. Joe McEwan and Liam had definitely seen each other.

Maureen guessed that she wouldn’t be called today. She began reading, dragging her eyes over a long article about football funding, and before she had digested half of it, they were called for lunch.

Kilty and Leslie were waiting in the lobby again with Winnie and George, Liam and Vik. Shan had had to go to work, apparently, but he’d be back in the afternoon. They went down to the canteen and ate sandwiches together. Maureen looked around the table and felt very lucky, having them all here, chatting to one another and getting on well. She saw Liam was looking tired and drawn and wanted to comfort him, but couldn’t until he told her.

They were smoking on the stairs outside, Kilty and Vik having a good-natured argument about Kosovo with Leslie interjecting supporting arguments for each side, when Liam took her aside. “The night before last,” he said casually, “what did you do?”

Maureen pretended to try to remember. “I fell asleep and woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep,” she said.

“So, you didn’t go out?”

“No. Leslie was there with me. And Kilty. We all slept in the living room. Why are you asking?”

Liam looked down his nose at her. “Just asking.”

She should push it: he’d be suspicious if she wasn’t suspicious. “It’s a strange thing to just ask. Where were you?”

“At Siobhain’s house,” he said, “watching a video.”

They sat smoking and looking out at the sunny green.

“I really love her, Mauri.”

Mauri looked at him, at his curly black hair and straight nose, at the prematurely aging skin beneath his eyes. “I’m glad, then,” she said. “I hope ye stay together for the longest time and are really happy.”

Liam smiled up at her. “Really?” he said, touched and pleased.

“Yup.”

Liam grinned and stretched out a leg in front of him, looking away down the road and then back at her. “I’m thinking about asking her to marry me.”

“Oh, fuck off,” snapped Maureen.

“Hey, you said you were pleased,” said Liam, raising his voice.

“You’ve known each other all of two minutes,” shouted Maureen.

Everyone on the steps was looking at them.

“We’d have a long engagement,” said Liam earnestly.

She found herself laughing. “A long engagement?” she repeated.

Liam thought about it and laughed too. “Yeah,” he grinned, “a long engagement.”

“Who are you, the Duchess of Argyll?”

“You. Hello.”

Maureen turned and found Suicide Tanya staring down at her. She was wearing a grotesquely feminine Laura Ashley dress with a rosebud pattern on it, tottering in a pair of battered court shoes with a worn-down heel. Maureen suspected that Laura might have meant her to wear a bra with the dress: the cloth belt around the waist strained under the weight of her breasts. Next to her stood a pencil-thin myopic man wearing women’s glasses, a dirty gray T-shirt and a Confederate soldier’s hat. “Suicide, how are ye?”

“Aye,” shouted Tanya. “This is Reb. He’s my partner.”

Maureen nodded at him. “How’re ye?”

Reb didn’t nod back. His glasses were so thick Maureen doubted he knew where he was. “This is my brother,” she said and, turning to introduce him, saw that Liam was at once enchanted and repulsed by Tanya and her beau.

“Hiya,” shouted Tanya. “I’ve seen Angus.”

“Very good,” said Maureen. “Were ye in the court, then?”

Everyone on the stairs was watching Tanya now. She was hard not to watch. As she turned to tug the elasticized sleeve from the groove in the fat of her arm, Maureen saw that the dress wasn’t even done up properly. A couple of token buttons had been fastened but the waves of fat on her back tugged the material this way and that, leaving gaping holes of stretched red skin. Maureen realized she was witnessing the sexual awakening of Suicide Tanya. At the bottom of the stairs two young men in suits were sniggering at her, one covering his face with a fat hand, and Maureen suddenly felt precious about her. “You look lovely, Tanya,” she said, inadvertently prompting a grin from Liam and some journalists standing nearby. “Have ye been going out together for long?”

Tanya blanked the pathetic attempt to patronize her. “Angus Farrell’s a murderer and murdered Douglas,” she shouted.

“I know, Tanya.”

“It was in the paper. Reb telt me. Are you going to the court to look at him?”

“Dunno,” said Maureen. “Are you going back in?”

“Yes. Later,” said Tanya, shoved her hand into Reb’s and reeled away down the stairs towards the road.

“Who or what was that?” asked Liam quietly.

Maureen explained that Suicide Tanya had been at the Rainbow Clinic and had introduced her to Siobhain. She kept trying to kill herself and was something of a celebrity among the emergency services. The last time Maureen had heard of her, Suicide was being hoisted off a shed roof in Shettleston by the fire brigade.

“Reb seemed like a nice guy,” he said facetiously.

“I like Tanya,” said Maureen, raising her voice so everyone else on the stairs could hear her. “She knows people are laughing at her — it hurts her. They put her on this medication to stop her killing herself and she can’t control her voice and it makes her a bit thick.”

“Sorry,” said Liam. “She certainly cuts a dash, though.”

Maureen relaxed a bit and watched Tanya leave. “I’ve seen her wearing a backless gold halter-neck,” she whispered, and Liam winced. Maureen watched her undulating back disappear through the gate and reflected that even Suicide Tanya was sustaining a relationship with a man.

When Shirley, Paulsa and Maureen had gathered in the room again after lunch the police officer came through and asked them to come with him. He led them through the lobby, past the door of the court Angus was appearing in, and along a corridor to a small door with the number “1” on it. “Where are we going?” asked Shirley.