Exile (38 page)

“Listen,” said Maureen, feeling relieved, “what’s Jimmy’s story about the Christmas photos?”

“He’s saying they came through his door, like the ticket. He thought you’d put them through.”

“Senga fucking Brolly.”

“That’s what I thought,” agreed Leslie.

They dragged themselves back to Martha’s expressionist house and spent a horrible evening flicking through the television channels looking for something watchable and listening to Martha carp on about how great she was and how everyone mistook her for a model. They watched a nasty, gossipy program about JFK and Martha talked over the most salacious bits. Alex was away for a couple of days — in fact, Martha and Alex weren’t getting on at all well and Martha wondered if they’d break up. Maureen smoked until her tongue went numb. She wanted to leave and go to Brixton and lose herself in Ann again. Martha had been with Alex for over six years — that was a long time, wasn’t it? Una and Alistair splitting up must have been worse for Liam than it was for Maureen; Una would talk to Liam, rely on him and make him spend time in the house with Michael. Martha wished she had hair like Maureen’s and Liam’s, lovely curly hair. She stood up and walked over to Liam to touch it and comment on the texture. She’d love hair like that. The prospect of a new baby in the family had never seemed real to Maureen, even though Una had been trying for years. The enormity of it began to sink in. Una was having a baby without the good sense and protective presence of Alistair. In all the years they’d been trying for a baby none of them had imagined that Martha was going to get her hair cut, really short —

“Martha!” snapped Maureen. She was up for a fight but Liam glared at her.

“What?” said Martha, smiling for Liam.

“Don’t cut it!” exclaimed Maureen, maintaining a furious face for the sake of continuity. “Keep it long!”

“Really?” Martha was very pleased. She didn’t notice Liam turning away from her and grinning into the ashtray.

“Yes! It’s nice!”

Liam sniggered out a trail of smoke and started coughing.

It was twelve o’clock and the mediocre programming took a downturn. Martha insisted that Maureen sleep on the sofa, because she liked it so much, didn’t she? She brought out a sleeping bag and a pillow and gave Maureen a T-shirt and pajama trousers to wear. She demanded that Liam sleep on the floor in her bedroom. He tried to resist but Martha persisted shamelessly. “Are you frightened of me?” she said, smiling at Maureen for support.

“No, Martha, I’m not frightened of you but I’d rather sleep in here.”

Martha laughed. “But there’s more room in there. Don’t be silly, I’ll set up the camp bed for you,” she said, and skipped lightly out of the room.

Liam sighed and lifted his jacket from the floor. “I’ll see ye in the morning, Mauri.”

Maureen settled onto the sofa, fully dressed, feeling disgusted at Martha and her tawdry flat with its regressive hippie shit décor. She knew she had to make a choice. She could abandon Una’s baby to its fate, stay away from them all and live her own life with her eyes half closed among decent people like Vik. Or she could stand up and face it. She wanted Vik and nights out at the pictures and seaside days and the odd bottle of wine. She wanted normal, decent company. She wanted Vik.

She had been thinking about Michael and Una’s baby for over an hour when she heard creaking from the next room and Liam groaning loudly. She banged on the floor to remind them that she was there but it didn’t make any difference. She tried closing the door to the front room but the sloping floorboards and subsiding frame held it open.

She sat up by the window, as far away from the open door as she could get, watching the lorries and the black cabs stopping at the lights outside while Liam shagged Martha to get her off his back.

She woke up in the sagging armchair, convinced that she was home and Una was breathing baby blood through the window. She’d dropped her fag and it had burned a long chewy black stripe in the rug. She couldn’t face Martha or Liam — she didn’t think she could hide her disgust. She gathered her bag and left a note for Liam, saying she’d meet him at the airport. She tiptoed out of the flat, down the stairs and into the breezy street. She wanted to find Elizabeth.

Following the route in the A-Z, she made her way from Martha’s house to Brixton. The clouds were sparse and ribbons of sunshine filled the street. It was warm. Lynn would be at home in Glasgow, waiting for her Liam to come home. She thought of Liam and tried to remember what she had said to Tonsa. She needed a good sleep. She stopped for more fags and a half-pint carton of milk, drinking it as she walked from the Oval to Brixton. She was struck by a sudden image of Michael holding Una’s baby, cutting its little legs with his razor fingers.

She was standing at the edge of the pavement on the high street, waiting to cross over, when she looked up and saw Frank Toner swaggering along the pavement with a woman on his arm. The woman was tall but frighteningly young, like an elongated child with big breasts. Toner grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him, buckling her ankle as he nuzzled his face into her rich hair. The girl feigned a big smile, opening her mouth and showing all her teeth, but her young eyes were frightened. As Toner lifted his face from her hair he turned and looked straight at Maureen. He stopped and Maureen caught her breath.

He was coming chin first across the road, pulling the girl off the pavement, dragging her by the hand. The cars slowed and the child ran after him on tiptoe, precarious in her stilettos. Toner sped up, swinging his free hand as ballast. The child was slowing him down so he dropped her hand, abandoning her in the middle of the road; she staggered to a stop, her thick hair falling over her eyes as a Volvo screeched to a halt in front of her. Frank Toner was coming.

Maureen stood quite still on the pavement, watching him. She should have run but she was sweating and exhausted and knew she couldn’t run any farther. If she died now she would never go home, never see Ruchill or have to save Una’s child, Liam would be safe and Vik would always be a possibility. She held her breath and he reached out for her, tucking a rigid hand under her armpit, lifting her off her feet and scuffing her toes, pulling her along through the crowded pavement. Behind them the lost girl teetered on her heels and cried, “Frank, Frank!” The air smelled like water, like the breeze back at the window in Garnethill, and Maureen resigned herself.

Toner was dragging her towards the mouth of Coldharbour Lane. He was hurting her, pressing the tendons tightly together, pinching the bones apart, holding tighter than he need have. Pedestrians watched them pass, Toner striding up the road with his jaw foremost and a small, ragged woman in his grip. She didn’t seem alarmed, didn’t seem bothered, just hanging at the side of him like a little doll with a mop of curly hair.

They turned the corner and went up Coldharbour, past the nice boutiques and businessmen’s bars, towards the Coach and Horses. But Leslie needed the Polaroid. Leslie needed it. Maureen began to struggle, scratching at his hand and drawing his attention as they passed the mouth of Electric Avenue. A shadow moved closer and Toner toppled over on the pavement, dropping Maureen and landing on his face. An arm wrapped tightly around Maureen’s waist, lifting her off her feet, turning her sideways and running down the lane, carrying her into the market, blending into the stalls.

Mark Doyle put her down on her feet and grabbed her forearm, scratching her skin with his callused hands. He dragged her into a shallow doorway, through a narrow close open to the sky, through another door and up a set of worn wooden stairs. He pushed her in front of him and she ran as fast as she could, suddenly awake and afraid, suddenly caring. They ran up four flights of stairs until they came to a door. Doyle unlocked three heavy bolts and opened it, shoving her in. It was a tall, shallow room, completely bare, flooded with startling sunlight from a high arched window at the narrow end.

Maureen approached the window carefully, standing on tiptoe to peer out, afraid that Toner would be standing outside. They were three stories above the shops in the high street. She turned and looked around her. At the other end of the narrow room a red sleeping bag lay crumpled on a dirty mattress, an ashtray spilling onto the floor next to it. They were panting with excitement, their faces varnished with sweat and apprehension. She was about to ask him why he had saved her when she turned and saw him rubbing his hands together. “You’re heavier than ye look,” he said.

She was alone with Mark Doyle in a room no one knew about, with one exit and three locks.

“Much heavier.” He smiled and walked towards Maureen, panting alone by the window.

Chapter 39

DEATH

Doyle sat four feet away from her on the bare concrete floor, smoking a cigarette. “Why didn’t ye struggle?”

Maureen reached into her pocket with a trembling hand and took out her cigarettes. She put one in her mouth, and the sight of Vik’s lighter made her want to throw up. “I didn’t know it was you,” she whispered eventually.

He looked at her curiously. “I meant with Toner. Why didn’t you struggle when he grabbed you? I saw ye standing on the road, watching him come across. I thought you were going to pull a gun or something, the way you were looking at him.”

She didn’t answer. She had been prepared to die at Toner’s hands but not this, not Mark Doyle. She didn’t want to be dead Pauline under a tree — she didn’t want to die with spunk on her back. It was bright in the room and his skin was worse than she had realized. Open yellow sores pitted his face, punctuated with patches of red flaking skin. They were sitting on the cold floor under the window with their backs against the dead radiator. Doyle had his feet flat, his elbows resting on his knees, his big red hands hanging limp. Smoke from his cigarette snaked through the shadow, blossoming into lively white clouds in the brilliant sunshine.

“You hurt me the other night,” she said quietly. “My elbow was aching all day.”

He nodded hard, sinking his chin into his chest, but he didn’t apologize. “The photo,” he said. “It would’ve taken two minutes for Toner to find out you had it. You need rid of it.”

She pulled her coat tight around her. “Is that what he was after?”

“Probably,” said Doyle. “He must have thought you were a real hard nut, showing it around the pub then standing on the pavement waiting for him.” And he tittered, laughing like a nervous girl.

Liam had a ticket home for her and she’d never get there. She was waiting for Doyle to sidle closer to her, wriggle along the floor and make the first burning touch. He sat up and looked out of the window behind him. “How well did you know Pauline?” he said.

Maureen held Vik’s lighter in her hand and thought of Hutton torching his rival’s house to obliterate him. She could set fire to him, just lean across and hold Vik’s lighter to his jacket. She looked at his sleeve. It was wool. At best it would leave a bad smell. She started crying, holding her forehead with one hand, scratching her scalp hard. “We were in hospital together,” she said, holding her breath to stop herself sobbing, making her blood pressure rise. Doyle didn’t bother to try to comfort her. He looked away and drew on his fag. If she had to die she wanted it to be quick, not a long slow rape and battery with Doyle coming and going out of the room, leaving her there to visit when he wanted. Of all fucking ends, not this. If she had to die like Pauline she wanted it to be quick. Hot blood rose in her chest. “Pauline told me everything,” she blurted. “About her dad and her brother. At the funeral—”

Doyle was mesmerized, watching her, his jaw hanging open, his eyes half closed.

“We all knew what ye’d done to her. I put acid in your dad’s pint to fuck him up.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise and tittered again, edgy this time, turning back to his fag. Maureen felt herself getting righteous and hot, angry at everyone who had shut up and made it all right for Doyle to be alive and Pauline to be dead. She threw her fag into the corner. “She was lovely.” Her bubbling voice reverberated around the tall room. “She was kind and sweet and thoughtful, and she never fucking told because she wanted to protect your mum, did you know that? Did ye know that’s why she never said? That’s how much she thought of her. She’d rather go back to that, rather go home and die, than hurt her mum.”

Doyle’s mouth turned down in a disgusted frown and he touched his heart with the tip of his thumb. “And me,” he said. “She was protecting me.” He gawked morosely at the floor.

“No, she fucking wasn’t.” Maureen stood up and bent over him, shouting into him, her fists clenched at her side, her voice wet and hysterical. “She wasn’t fucking protecting you. She fucking hated ye. If she hadn’t been so sick and feeble she’d’ve gone to the police and reported ye, ye sick fuck. Then you’d be fucking in prison and kept away from other Paulines, like ye should be.”

Doyle wasn’t reacting: he was sitting calmly, watching her shout at him, watching the tears, letting her taunt him.

“You ruined her life,” she said. “She told me once that she left a trail of filth behind her. Can you begin to imagine how that feels? You took her life and made it squalid. Every fucking thing she did felt dirty to her because of what you did.”

Doyle was watching her rant with detached disinterest, blinking heavily, not getting annoyed like he should. He shut his eyes, squeezing the rims together. Maureen’s anger dissipated suddenly and she found herself back in the soundproof room with the most frightening man she’d ever met. She breathed in unsteadily, her bottom lip flapping against her teeth. Doyle wasn’t righteous or indignant the way he should have been.

He dropped his cigarette onto the floor and stubbed out the burning head with his callused fingertip. “She never telt yees,” he whispered, watching as he scattered red flecks on the concrete floor. His head lolled forward and when he looked back up he wasn’t looking at her. “I can’t believe her. She never telt.”

“What?”

He shook his head slowly. “Wasn’t me,” he said eventually.