G03 - Resolution (37 page)

The entrance to Michael’s flat was round the back through a narrow, opencast staircase cut between the extended backs of shops on the ground floor, leading up to the raised back court.

Leslie turned off the engine and they sat and stared at the stairs. They didn’t know which house was his and would have to climb up to the trap of the back court to find out. They got off the bike and stood looking around aimlessly. Above them, beyond the sharp railings, a clothesline swung in the scorching wind. Leslie cleared her throat. “You wait here and I’ll go up,” she said. “Stay with the bike.”

“No, I’ll go,” said Maureen, insisting out of obligation.

“I’ll go,” said Leslie. “Ye can’t leave a bike unattended in an area like this.”

But there was no one around to protect the bike from. As Leslie walked away Maureen noticed that she kept her helmet with her so that she could get away quickly. She watched Leslie engulfed by shadow then emerging at the top of the stairs. Leslie waved like an elated climber, then disappeared again.

Maureen looked around. Five hundred yards away a small estate of new buildings had lights on and windows open, the sound of Monday-night television wafting faintly across the flatland. The wind was coming from the east, bringing blistering heat with it, stinging her eyes. She looked above the tenement and saw the charred hospital tower. She could see it from her window. She remembered the winter past and how the tower had haunted her after Winnie told her Michael was staying up here. She had come up on her own and set fire to it, promised herself that she wouldn’t let him take her down. She took a deep breath, remembering the cold snow on her face and the heat from the fire. Three days ago she couldn’t think of Una’s house without feeling sick, and now here she was outside Michael’s. She thought of Una’s baby flexing in the little chair and wanted to run back to the kitchen window to check that she was still there.

Leslie seemed to have been gone for a while. Maureen looked up just in time to see a head being swallowed in the darkness of the stairs. She didn’t know who it was, didn’t know who was coming towards her, and found herself moving behind the bike, holding on to the helmet by the mouth strut, ready to use it if she needed to.

It was Leslie and she was smiling. “He lives on the second floor but he’s not in. Why don’t ye go up?”

“Naw, it’s all right,” said Maureen casually. “We should find him.”

Leslie put her hand on the handlebar as if she were touching base. “Go,” she said. “Go and have a look.”

Reluctantly, Maureen moved towards the stairs. The steps were steeper than they looked and the chill walls enfolded her, blocking the hot wind. She looked back to the bike from the dark. Leslie was resting her bum on it, ankles crossed casually in front of her.

The smell of rancid milk hit Maureen as soon as she reached the raised back court. Bags of rubbish were piled up by the back door, nipped and ripped open by nameless small animals. She approached the door and looked at the names.

Michael lived in the second-floor flat overlooking the court. Rusting bars covered his dark window. The kitchen window was broken at the top by what looked like a flying stone, a single rounded incision with radiating spider legs. The living-room window was broken as well. Maureen felt elated to be so close to the site of Michael and not feel sick. She peered into the kitchen. Empty lager cans were gathering dust on the newly refurbished worktops. Soggy plastic bags were piled in the corners. The smell coming from the broken window was almost as putrid as the back court. How hard would it be, she thought, to take rubbish from in there to out here? He could almost have thrown it out of the window.

The living room was pathetic, the sort of room a corpse would sit in for months without being discovered. A single armchair stared at a wall. Sitting next to it was an old coffee table that she recognized as Una’s, free local newspapers spilling off it onto the floor.

The jarring sound of a metal dustbin lid being smashed off the ground was so loud that Maureen started and jumped four feet back. Unsure whether the simultaneous flash of light was in front of or behind her eyes, she stood, her helmet raised above her head, ready to club whoever was there with it until they stopped moving. It felt like the tip of a whip on the back of her neck and she spun on her heels, then another on her arm, and on her shoulder and legs. A thousand cold licks hit her at once, switching the dust from her tired skin, pinching her awake.

Leslie looked up at the stairs just as Maureen emerged through the curtain of battering rain, walking slowly towards her across the street. She was grinning.

It seemed beneath them to hide now. They sat on the bike outside the pebble-dashed council house and Leslie suggested knocking on the door and asking. If Michael was there they’d leave; if not, they’d both go in. She looked at Maureen for a while, watching the watery veil slide down her helmet, dripping off the ledge onto her shoulders and her sodden T-shirt. Leslie stood up when the small nod came. She locked the bike, patted Maureen’s knee and turned to face the wrath of Winnie.

It was a small cul-de-sac of houses and flats. The O’Donnells had moved in just a year after George and Winnie married, long after the fights started. They had grown up there, all of them. As Maureen watched Leslie walk away, stepping onto the concrete path, she saw herself and Liam coming home from school, Una and Marie through the window, watching telly, home ten minutes after the bell because their school was within walking distance. They could always tell by Marie’s face what was going on in the house, whether Winnie was angry-or sleepy-drunk, whether George was making peace or had left for the evening. Leslie rang the bell.

After a while the door opened. An inviting spill of orange light caught the rain as it fell, making it look as if everywhere were dry but outside Winnie and George’s door. Leslie turned back to the bike and gestured for Maureen to come.

Maureen walked nervously up the path. Winnie might be drunk. Worse, she might be sober, an alien, humorless stranger in Winnie’s body with unpredictable rules and no common memory. Despite her apprehension Maureen’s heart soared because, for the first time in seven months, she was going to see her mum.

George was wearing a porkpie hat and carrying a copy of the National Enquirer, grinning so widely that the void of teeth at the back of his mouth showed, like an old horse. Behind him, standing on the stairs, tucking one edge of her dressing gown into the other, was Winnie. She had just woken up and her face was shiny with night cream. When she saw Maureen the surprise made her foot slip and she sat down heavily, showing off her blue-veined legs, exhaling Maureen’s name as if in prayer. Overcome, George dropped his magazine and opened his arms. Maureen threw herself at his chest, wrapping her arms around him, feeling his soft belly convulse as he cried through a grin. Wrapped in his arms she remembered standing on his feet to dance, remembered George slipping a fake Valentine card into her schoolbag and putting chocolate bars in her pockets when things were bad at home. She remembered late nights when he’d come home from pubs bringing wee vests and matching pant sets for her when she was far, far too old to wear them. They hung on to each other, crying and digging into each other, banging their heads together until George managed to push her away by the shoulder. He tried to speak but his face crumpled and he glanced at Leslie, mortified. He ran off into the front room, shutting the door after himself.

Winnie stood up, righting her dressing gown, smiling and perplexed. “Would ye like a cup of tea?”

She was a stranger. No longer the louche mother of yesteryear, Winnie scuttled around the familiar kitchen, putting the tea on the table and asking questions, quite coherent, politely pretending to remember Leslie being at Una’s housewarming party when Winnie had been famously drunk and woke up the next day certain she hadn’t gone.

“Ye probably don’t remember,” said Leslie. “It was a while ago now.”

“Oh,” said Winnie uncertainly. “No, I’m sure I do remember ye being there. I remember ye from when Maureen was in hospital.”

Maureen waited for the conversation to turn sour: mention of her stay in hospital was usually a cue for recriminations and drama.

“What’s that mark on your head?” said Winnie, kindly brushing over it.

“A bruise,” said Maureen, raising her hand to touch it. “I’ve had it before and I don’t know where it’s coming from.”

“Will ye have some Dundee cake?” said Winnie.

Leslie nodded eagerly. Winnie set the tin on the table and proudly lifted out the cake. It was homemade, dark and heavy. Winnie smiled at Maureen. “I made that,” she said, tapping it with a big knife.

Maureen smiled back. “You’re dead clever, you.”

Winnie nodded, shoved the knife in and watched the side crumble away, revealing dry clumps of unmixed flour, oily patches and hardened candied fruits.

“Oh dear,” she said, “I’ve made a royal cunt of it.”

“Is it all right if I smoke?” said Leslie politely.

Winnie and Maureen laughed hysterically. Leslie joined in but didn’t understand. She watched Maureen banging the table, Winnie crossing her legs and twisting away as if she were bursting for the toilet. When they finally calmed down, Winnie explained. “The sights this kitchen has seen,” she said. “Ye can do anything but sacrifice a goat on the table.”

Leslie took out her cigarettes and offered them round but Winnie refused, saying she’d never got the hang of it. She picked up the packet and looked at the French health warning. “Liam give ye these, did he?”

Leslie didn’t want to get him into trouble so she shrugged. Winnie had been told during his dealing days that he managed bands, and Maureen didn’t suppose Liam would confide in her now. Winnie rolled her eyes. “At least he’s not selling those drugs anymore. That was a nightmare.” She looked at Maureen’s open mouth. “Yes,” she said, “your old mum’s not completely stupid. And I know he wasn’t just selling mara-ha-joanna for pain control either, so don’t try it.”

Maureen was astonished. During her drinking the one consistent feature of Winnie’s behavior was going for the jugular on any given day but she’d never mentioned Liam’s dealing.

“Did ye always know?” asked Maureen.

Winnie smiled wisely. “He told me last week,” she said, and got another laugh.

THEY WERE SITTING QUITE cozily together now, Winnie and Leslie and Maureen. George came in and out of the room on various pretexts, smiling and giving Maureen the thumbs-up whenever he caught her eye. Maureen knew this might be the last time she saw George and Winnie, the last time they were ever really together, and she was trying to enjoy them. Winnie had given up the attempted pretense of being Homemaker of the Month and had settled for opening a packet of Jammie Dodgers.

“He’s very ill, you know,” she said seriously, dunking a biscuit in her tea.

“Everyone says that,” said Maureen, “but no one says what’s wrong with him.”

Winnie put the sodden biscuit into her mouth and chewed it. “He was taken into hospital today. Una says he turned up at hers in a minicab and his eyes were flickering about. She thinks he’s had a fall and bumped his head. He falls over a lot.”

“He’s a bit young for taking tumbles, is he not?” said Leslie.

“Oh, aye, he’s my age,” said Winnie, adding, “twenty-one,” as a weak joke. “He’s in some state.” She looked guilty.

“Is it the drink?” asked Maureen.

“I don’t know what it is. Maybe he was always a bit missing. He might always have been like that—sure, what would I know? I was pissed the whole time I knew him. They’ve got him up in Gartnavel Royal for observation.”

“Are you still drinking?” said Leslie. It was a redundant question. If Winnie had been drinking they would have known all about it.

Maureen and Winnie looked at each other. “I’ve no choice. They tell me my liver’s gonnae explode if I drink again.” She reached across the table and took Maureen’s hand, squeezing tight. “You’ve made my year coming here like this,” she said.

“Mum, I missed ye,” said Maureen.

Winnie looked up and Maureen saw the angry questions in her eyes, asking why didn’t ye phone me back if you missed me, why hurt me like that when I’m such a soul and the world’s too much for me as it stands. But Winnie didn’t say anything, just squeezed her hand again and made the best of it.

“Liam told me what they called the baby,” said Maureen, and Winnie blanched.

“What did they call it?” asked Leslie.

Winnie and Maureen looked at each other and Winnie turned to Leslie. “Una called her after Maureen,” she said diplomatically.

“That’s pish,” said Maureen. “She didn’t name her after me, she gave her my name.”

They sat in their makeshift beds in the dark living room, looking out over the city again, more peaceful than they had been the night before. Maureen thought about Michael’s house, about facing it, and she knew she could do it. She felt a spark of sick excitement in her gut.

“She’s very funny,” said Leslie solemnly, assuming that Maureen was thinking about the same thing as her.

Maureen smiled, feeling not a little proud of her mum. “Yeah. I told ye.”

“I know. Ye told me loads of times but I never met her sober and at the hospital she was always, frankly, a complete arsehole. It’s amazing that drink can change someone that much, when ye think about it.”

“The dark side of Winnie is a dark place indeed,” said Maureen, settling down into her bed. “You seem calmer about Cammy.”

“I never, ever want to see him again,” said Leslie. “In a way I’m glad it happened. I was worried that I hadn’t given him enough of a chance. You should see Kate Mclntyre — honestly, she’s dead hard looking, ye know? Wears tops open to her navel.”

Maureen put her hands under her head, and knew that she’d phone Mark Doyle in the morning. She had decided she was going to do it and nothing she did anymore had repercussions. “Leslie,” she said, sitting up suddenly, “I’ve never told ye this because I didn’t want to break your heart but I’m going to say it now. Cammy’s a very, very unattractive man.”

“Is he?” said Leslie curiously. “I thought he was good looking.”