G03 - Resolution (7 page)

“I haven’t decided to do anything yet,” she said quietly.

Sheila watched calmly as Maureen pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one, sucking down the sense of wild panic. The fag scratched her throat as she inhaled. She liked it and inhaled again, making herself light-headed.

“My grandfather,” — Sheila waved her hand to the past—”he got my mum as well. No one talked about such things then. She had an eating problem, drink and drugs. Dead at thirty-eight. I wanted to kill him for her because she never had a chance.”

“But you didn’t,” said Maureen, knowing full well that the old man had died in a nursing home at the ripe old age of eighty-eight, surrounded by family and friends. His funeral had been well attended, his obituary had been in all the local papers and one national paper because of his position on the board of a charity for blind people.

Sheila ignored her. “It’s a fairly typical gut response, you know, but you have to unpack it, look at what’s in there, look at your real motives for doing it. You mentioned your sister’s pregnant?”

Maureen nodded.

“Baby’s important,” said Sheila, “but probably not as important as it seems. It might be an excuse, you know, to do what you want to do anyway. If you don’t value yourself enough to make a stand but you’re still angry, you might be channeling it into saving someone else. It’s easy to confuse what’s good for Baby and what you want. People do that all the time. Have you phoned Social Services about Baby?”

“If I do they’ll tell the police,” said Maureen, uncomfortable with Sheila’s reference to the child as if it were Lord High Muck-a-Muck.

“Is that out of the question? Filing a report doesn’t mean you go to court.”

“I’ve had trouble with the police,” said Maureen.

Sheila looked at the tip of her cigarette and Maureen could tell she was wondering whether to say it.

“I know Hugh’s a policeman,” said Maureen. “I’ve been interviewed by the police and it was fucking horrible. You know how hard it is to talk about it. The very last thing I ever want to do is to try and explain it all to them.”

Sheila nodded. “Maureen,” she said, “think about this. You’re more than the sum of his actions, much more. Look, you haven’t been in the group that long but we do make progress. We can recover. He’s already stolen your childhood, don’t give him your adulthood as well.”

Maureen was dismayed that Sheila didn’t understand. “Sheila, he’s got my adulthood. I see him everywhere, I feel him everywhere. I can’t have a relationship with a man because of it, I can’t hold down a job. I don’t know why my friends stay with me, I can’t even look at myself in a normal mirror. D’ye understand? I have to use a magnifying mirror because I can’t stand looking at more than a wee fragment of my face at a time.”

Sheila waited for her to calm down. “You know,” she said softly, “people who haven’t been abused have trouble with those things too. They’re bloody hard, probably the hardest things there are in life.”

She smiled and Maureen smiled back. Sheila’s eyes were creamy brown and her voice was kind. “Think of the life you could have if you used all this energy to get over it. But if you do this thing, you’ll be making him the most important event in your life, ever. Whether you go to jail or not, he’ll define every aspect of your life. Every time you look in the mirror you’ll see him.”

Spitefully, Maureen thought about pointing out the irony of an anorexic with a fridge full of low-cal jelly giving motivational speeches. She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. “Sometimes it’s right to put yourself aside,” she said. “It’s not always about a lack of self-esteem or destructive patterns of behavior. Someone needs to be responsible.”

Sheila sat back in her chair and looked at her. “Yes, but it doesn’t need to be you, Maureen. It doesn’t always need to be you.”

Maureen got Sheila to drop her around the corner from her house. Her flat was at the top of Garnethill, the highest hill in the city. The views were spectacular but the possibility of subsidence kept the property prices low and the steep hill meant that few outsiders wandered into it. It was an island state in the heart of the city. She waved back to Sheila as she walked up Rose Street, heading for Mr. Padda’s licensed grocery around the corner. She heard the dread clatter of metal shutters being pulled down and ran faster. Mr. Padda saw her sprinting towards him and smiled.

Inside the shop Mr. Padda Junior was playing behind the counter, stroking the kittenish bum-fluff on his cheeks and chin. He had recently graduated from watching telly in the cupboard at the back of the shop to working behind the counter but he found it dull. As Maureen approached he spun round, narrowly stopping himself from falling over by catching the counter, one shoulder up, the other hand raised in surprise as if he were in a Bollywood musical.

“Very good,” Maureen said.

“The usual?” he asked, pointing at her and pulling the trigger.

Maureen nodded. Padda Junior did a demi-spin, singing under his breath, caught a bottle of cheap whiskey off the shelf, spun back into place and stabbed at the till buttons like Liberace on a camp day. Delighted with the overall effect, he grinned to himself. “You fairly knock it back, don’t ye?”

She made a mental note to use another offy in the future.

As she climbed the stairs to her front door she promised herself that if there was no message on her machine about the baby she wasn’t going to think about it or Sheila or Michael tonight. She’d have a long, calm evening alone. She should savor the time while she had it.

“Well, buongiorno, Maureen.”

Her creepy neighbor, Jim Maliano, was standing on the landing above her, a large red suitcase on the landing in front of him, his tan deep and flush. He was a small man with a little round belly that he accentuated by tucking his jumpers into his jeans. He did something odd with his hair so that it changed texture and quality over his crown. It was as if he were trying to hide a bald patch but Maureen had seen his crown and it wasn’t bald. It looked like a tiny yarmulke-toupee.

“Jim.” Maureen climbed the last few stairs. “You’re back.”

“Aye.” Jim was dressed like an Italian spiv in a cream and salmon striped shirt, gray slip-on loafers and beige slacks held up with a white plastic belt. He went to see his extended family every year for a month and every year he came back more Italian, less able to articulate in English, more hand-wavy, more punchable. He was always pleased to see her and Maureen didn’t know why. She was never very nice to him. “I had a marvelous time, as usual.” He took a step towards her. “It really is so beautiful over there. You should go. The heat makes you relax and the food is fabulous—”

“And how’s the family?” interrupted Maureen, sliding her key into the lock and opening the door.

“Aye, the family’s all well,” he said, smiling and nodding as if she knew them and cared. “I brought you some amaretti biscuits.”

“Ah, great, I’ll get them from ye later. Welcome home,” she said, and shut the door on his hopeful face.

There were no messages on the machine. The baby might come tomorrow and tonight would be her final happy night. It was to be a night of drunkenness and a long look over the city.

She lit a cigarette and looked at the chrome lighter. It was Vik’s lighter, Vik the almost-boyfriend. It was a birthday gift from the guys in his band with “Let’s Get the Rock out of Here” inscribed on it in sentimental italics. He had left it in her house the last time he came to see her, when they’d had the big fight. For months afterwards she told herself that he had left it deliberately, that he meant to come back and get it. He never had. He had left her because she wasn’t very nice to him; she didn’t know how to be. She wondered if Sheila was right, if it could be her petulance and selfishness that made the relationship seem impossible. She’d always assumed it was the abuse. And then she thought about what Sheila had said about her motives and Michael and the baby. She stopped herself. Not tonight. Tonight she was alone and none of it had happened yet. Flicking back to the previous thought but one, she remembered Vik. She remembered his shoulders, the musty smell of his chest and his dark eyelashes. The memory made her skin bristle for him, but she did what she had been doing for three months and turned it round. She was glad she’d known him. He was a nice man.

Someone knocked on the door, not a polite knock but a slow, aggressive rapping. Knowing it would be Jim Maliano, angry and holding a packet of unwelcome broken biscuits, Maureen tiptoed out to the hall. She leaned into the spy hole from the side, so that if he pushed the packet of biscuits through the postbox he wouldn’t be looking at her feet.

It wasn’t Jim. It was an unfamiliar woman with cropped blond hair and a waistcoat over a T-shirt. She looked tired and utterly pissed off. She sighed and reeled round to the stairs, walking down them heavily, speeding up as she got farther away from the door as if she was glad no one had been in. The corner of a business card was sticking in the hinged postbox. Maureen waited until she heard the close door slam shut and pulled the card out. Her name was Aggie Grey and she was a journalist for a sleazy Sunday tabloid. She’d written “call me re ŁŁs” on the back of the card. Maureen threw it on the floor.

The ringing phone cut urgently through the still morning. Maureen prized open her puffy eyes and felt her heart quicken. She threw back the duvet, fell onto her feet and staggered out to the hall. “Hello, Liam.”

“What?” said Leslie.

“Leslie?”

“Aye, it’s me.”

“I thought you were Liam.”

“No.”

Maureen rubbed her eyes open. Liam would phone her himself, she was sure — he wouldn’t get Leslie to call her. “Why are you phoning me?”

“I’m going to be late today,” said Leslie.

A wave of relief washed over Maureen. “Aw, Leslie,” she said fondly, “don’t worry about that.” She stopped, realizing from the flattened tone of Leslie’s voice that she was lying down. “Wait a minute, are you in your bed?”

“Aye,” said Leslie. “I’m gonnae be late.”

“Have you just phoned me,” she said indignantly, “and got me out my bed to tell me you’re having a lie-in?”

“I suppose I did.” Leslie sounded miserable. “I’ve had a shit night.”

“Fuck’s sake.” Maureen tutted and was about to hang up when she lifted the receiver to her mouth again. “When are ye coming, then?”

” ‘Bout half nine.”

“Fuck’s sake,” said Maureen, and hung up. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. “Fuck’s sake.”

She tramped down the hall to the bathroom, filling the sink with warm water as she sat on the loo, splashing her face and wetting her hair to wake herself up. She was angry until it occurred to her that it was good: the baby wasn’t born.

Cammy was refusing to go quietly and Leslie was distraught. He’d been crying all night, telling Leslie that he couldn’t go on without her, that he’d get a job, make friends with her friends, do anything to make it all right again. She’d said it was over and he’d said he loved her, as if that were an answer, as if that would change her mind. She put him out. She never wanted to see him again but he’d come back to the house at four in the morning, crying and banging on the door.

They arrived at the market and Leslie pulled the van over to the side, slumping over the wheel, staring at the cobbles ahead and looking desperate. Maureen hugged her, rubbing her back, giving her an emotional winding. Beyond the dirty windscreen a figure approached, a middle-aged man with his hands in his pockets, swinging his shoulders, his gray head down. He looked up and for a searing moment Maureen saw Michael’s face. She blinked. The man’s features melted, resolving themselves into another face, utterly unfamiliar. He glanced into the cab as he walked past. Leslie peeled herself away and looked at her hands. “Mauri, are you going through the change or something?” She sniffed. “You’re covered in sweat.”

“Fine, I’m fine.”

When Peter opened the door to the tunnel they saw four regular punters already waiting for them. Leslie served them, attracting an even larger crowd of customers who had been hanging about at the doors, getting the sun while they waited. Any one of them might be Michael. Maureen felt herself start to sweat again. She did as Angus had taught her, brushing away the intrusive thoughts by bringing herself back to the present. She took the money, getting into the swing of the day. They had sold a quarter of their stock before they had even set up the stall. Leslie cocked her head. “No tunes,” she said.

Maureen looked down to Ella’s stall. It was empty and an old cardboard box had been abandoned on it, suggesting that it hadn’t been set up at all today.

“Peter?” said Maureen. “Where’s the lady that sells the tapes today?”

“She’s in hospital,” said Peter.

“How come?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Wee Trish told me.”

“I’ll not be long,” said Maureen, and left before Leslie answered.

Wee Trish had a holy stall selling nylon first-communion dresses, fake mother-of-pearl prayer books, plastic rosaries and twenty sizes and styles of crucifixes. Trish herself looked like a cairn terrier. Her hair was streaked blond and wiry, cut so short that it stood up whatever she put on it. Her sharp features and leathery skin were accentuated by a short chin and a top lip that curled upwards when in repose, showing her teeth, so that she looked as if she was growling.

“Trish, where’s Ella?”

Trish looked wary. “D’you even know Ella?” she asked.

“Aye,” said Maureen. “Peter said she was in hospital.”

“Aye,” said Trish, still unsure of her. “She got taken in last night.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

Trish thought about it. Obviously no one else had bothered to ask for details. “Dunno. The ambulance came and took her from the house. I heard she fell and hurt her face.”

“She fell?” said Maureen incredulously.

“She’s old,” Wee Trish said defensively.

Maureen wanted to say that a woman able to crouch on a crossbar for twenty minutes was unlikely to topple over spontaneously in her living room. “D’ye know what hospital she’s in?” she asked.