Redemption Road

by Lisa Ballantyne

  She looked around for objects that might smash the glass and found a weighted plastic ice scraper down the inside of the driver’s door. She used all her strength and succeeded in making a crack in the window.

  All she could smell was petrol and her own sweat – her own fear. The car alarms had ceased but had been replaced by the flatline of car horns. She realised that many more cars must have crashed. The flatlining horns would be drivers slumped against their steering wheels. Through the small triangle of cleared window she could see the shape of the fire moving.

  ‘No,’ she screamed, pounding her fists and her head and her shoulders at the window. ‘NO.’ She knew the insulating snow meant that no one would hear her. She twisted round and stamped at the glass, pounding with the soles of her flimsy shoes. It hurt but the window held fast.

  She didn’t want it to end here. So much was unfinished. There was so much she still needed to know, understand, do.

  Suddenly there was a man by her door, whom she assumed was a fireman. She could see only his dark body. He was pulling on the door handle, putting his weight behind it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she mouthed through the glass, hot tears washing her cheeks. ‘Thank you.’

  The door wouldn’t budge. The man picked up something from the road – a piece of metal – and began to pound her window with it.

  ‘Cover your face,’ she heard him say through the glass.

  Margaret did as he asked – holding her bag in front of her face – but still watched him, waiting for her chance.

  The man tried to wedge the metal into the door mechanism but that did not work, so he returned to the cracked driver’s window.

  ‘I can’t open it,’ she heard him say.

  She gazed upwards to see him through one of the larger cracks. He was dressed in a dark sweater, not a fireman.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she heard him say, his voice thickened. ‘I can’t. We don’t have much time.’

  She bit her lip and once again placed her palm on the cracked pane. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, loud enough for him to hear. ‘Thank you for trying. Go. It’s all right.’

  The man placed his own palm on the other side of the glass and Margaret was sure she felt its warmth. When he took his palm away, she bowed her head and cried, feeling young, almost infantile, reduced to herself and nothing more.

  Shafts of light entered the cramped car space when he took away his hand. Her throat tightened as she wondered how long it would be and if she would suffer. She hoped for an explosion. The thought of burning alive terrified her so much that she picked up the ice scraper again and bashed it against the window.

  ‘Get back!’

  It was the man – his pale face pressed against the glass.

  ‘I’m gonna try and break it, so sit well back.’

  She turned towards the passenger seat and covered her face.

  There was a dull sound and when Margaret raised her head, the man’s bloody fist was inside the car. He had punched the glass in, taking the skin from his hand.

  The cold air reached inside and the stench of petrol became stronger. The man was pulling the broken glass from the window with his bare hands.

  ‘I’ll pull you through,’ he said to her.

  ‘I won’t fit.’

  ‘Give me your hands!’ As he spoke this time, desperate, authoritative, the scarf he was wearing fell away from his face.

  The sight of him was enough to cause her to draw breath, but she did not pull away. It was as if a squid had landed on his face: tentacles grew over his cheeks, forehead and skull and right down his neck. One of the man’s eyes was pulled out of shape, to make way for the tentacle’s path. His skin shone in the oily fiery light, pale and poreless.

  Margaret placed her hands in his. He pulled her through fast, although her hips got caught and she landed on top of him.

  She lay breathing on the man’s chest, feeling the chill of the snow on her cheeks and scalp and grateful for it. Margaret lifted her face up and saw the gnarled skin of his neck.

  He strained to get up, and she could see that he was in pain. He helped her to her feet.

  ‘Hurry, we need to —’

  When they were nearly at the embankment, the car blew up. The explosion reverberated through Margaret, expelling all the air from her lungs. Her mind was bright with the horror of it, but the man pulled her into him and back down on to the road, rolling her over and over as debris fell around them. Margaret felt the great weight of his body above her, and then nothing, then the weight again, pinning her down and rolling her forward, a gravitational momentum. She felt safe there, grateful.

  Half of Margaret’s face was in the snow. The stranger raised himself from her and brushed the snow from his body. He was bleeding badly from his forehead. He knelt, watching the blaze, holding his bloody hand in the other. Margaret rolled over and stood up. Her shoes were gone and the icy snow wet the soles of her feet. She could see paramedics in green rushing towards them. She could hear nothing but her own heartbeats and the roar of the fire.

  Her car was engulfed in flames and she saw now that the whole of the M11 was a carnage of crashed cars. The motorway was like a scrapyard: upended vehicles and the stench of burning rubber. The blue lights were so far away because even the emergency services couldn’t get close.

  Relief flooded into her, warm as a shower. Margaret looked down to the man who had saved her.

  ‘Were you in the crash too?’ she asked him. ‘You’re hurt. Your hand must be broken and your head…’

  ‘Fine’ was all he said, turning his eyes from her, trying to pull his scarf over his face with his bloodied hand.

  ‘Its all right,’ Margaret said, putting a hand on his neck. ‘Thank you. I would have died. Now we must get you some help.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said again, then staggered to his feet and walked away from her, down the lane of concertinaed cars, into the smoke and fire and snow.

  ‘Wait,’ Margaret called to him, ‘please?’

  Paramedics swarmed over the scene. She was wrapped in a space blanket, her pulse was taken and then she was given a tag and instructed where to wait; that she was going to be OK. She gave her details and was told that Ben would be informed.

  Margaret shivered on the side of the motorway clutching the foil blanket around her, looking for the burned man who had saved her. She asked the paramedic who tended to her, but he shook his head. ‘I’m not sure I’ve seen him. There’s too many injured. You need to rest now. Just take a break and let us look after you.’

  She remembered the heat of the stranger’s palm against hers, and the sheer size of him crouched in the snow, holding his damaged hand to his chest. He had been hurt, she knew he had; she wanted to find him to make sure he got help.

  2

  Big George

  Friday 27 September, 1985

  Big George got up on the table, pint in hand, and began a rendition of ‘Sweet Caroline’. He was six foot three with black hair, bright blue eyes, and longer eyelashes than his only sister, Patricia. He was the best looking of all the McLaughlins and had got away with murder for years because of it. He had been his mother’s favourite and he could carry a song like her, although it had been years since she had had anything to sing about.

  George was on his fourth pint and there was a sheen of glee in his eyes. The whole bar turned to him, clapping in time. The McLaughlins demanded attention, but usually that was enforced with the threat of great violence. Georgie Boy was different. Most people in the East End of Glasgow knew him and were wary of him because of his family, but those who knew him well said that George was a gentle giant. George’s father, Brendan, had called him soft, but then they didn’t come much harder than Brendan McLaughlin.

  George leaned on Tam Driscoll’s shoulder as he climbed down from his impromptu stage. An older man leaving the bar patted George’s back: ‘Look out, Neil Diamond.’

  ‘Away!’ said George over his shoulder, his eyes smiling at the compliment.r />
  ‘You ready for another, big man?’ said Tam.

  George nodded, wiping the sweat from his brow with his forearm, and put his empty pint glass on the bar. By the time Tam was served, a table had become available at the periphery of the bar and, tired after his performance, George sat down and ran his hands through his hair.

  Tam had recently started working with George in the garage the McLaughlins ran, along the Shettleston Road. The garage was semi-legitimate, although cars were ‘cleaned’ there. It was as close to the family business as George could bear to be. Tam was a mechanic and a good one, but had only taken the job because he had been out of work for nearly a year.

  ‘I don’t want to get involved,’ he would whisper to George, his face and hands dark with engine grease, when George’s elder brother, Peter visited, clasping and unclasping his gloved hands. Peter had taken over, years ago, after their father had disappeared, presumed dead.

  ‘Me neither,’ George had reassured him.

  In the few weeks they had known each other George had been in the habit of sharing stories with Tam, as a mark of friendship and trust, but Tam had yet to share anything other than his time and his beer money with George.

  George understood Tam’s fear, and had decided to be patient. His father had made his name as a heavy for the top loan shark in Glasgow. Even now, in this bar, there would be at least two or three people who had been injured by the McLaughlins. One of the people clapping along to George’s song had been Giovanni DeLuca, who owned the chip shop on the corner. Just the sight of DeLuca in the crowd had made George forget a line, although his audience thought it was the beer. He had watched Giovanni’s pale, skeletal hand clapping against his other, strong brown one. At fourteen years old George had watched his father force Giovanni’s hand into the deep fat fryer.

  Tam walked slowly to their table, careful not to spill the beer. He was a full head shorter than George and fifteen years older, thin and wiry with grey hair cut short. He had taught George how to bleed an engine and how to change an exhaust. George, who had never been any good at school, found he loved learning about cars, and picked up quickly what Tam taught him. He had few friends and he had liked Tam instantly. It was as if Tam was a replacement father figure: benevolent, where Brendan, God rest his soul, had been a bastard.

  ‘You just can’t help yourself, can you, big yin?’

  ‘Nothing like a wee song to raise the spirits.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  George took another long drink of beer. ‘No, no, not this time,’ he said, drunk and patting Tam on the chest. ‘Not if I say so. I want…’ George swallowed a hiccup, ‘to hear what you have to say for once. You’re the man. The man that can. You’re my teacher, my maestro.’

  ‘Och away. You’re just haverin’ now.’

  ‘I’m serious, by the way. I have serious respect for you. Serious respect. But you never talk about yourself. Tell me about you – YOU – give me your craick.’

  ‘There’s not much to say, really,’ said Tam.

  Even through the blur of beer, George could tell that his friend was worried. George was big like his father had been, but he had his mother’s heart. His brothers, and his sister to a large extent, had been inured to the violence. George and his mother had empathy, which they had polished in each other, a pearl in the mud and dirt of their lives. She had died just last year, cruelly, unfairly, dying of a simple infection after surviving a lifetime of violence.

  ‘You have a family,’ persisted George. ‘You never talk about them.’

  ‘There’s not much to say.’

  Only Tam’s eyes moved on his face.

  ‘You have a daughter. How old is she?’

  ‘Fifteen,’ said Tam, his voice faint, as if at confession.

  ‘I’m only asking,’ said George, squeezing the older man’s arm. ‘I just want to know who you are, for Chrissake. If you consider it personal, then just tell me to piss off. I’m not your priest.’

  Tam nodded. Once again, George read something in his eyes.

  ‘You’re not a Catholic, are you?’

  ‘My mother was a Catholic. I have nothing against —’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what you believe in. For Christ’s sake, believing in anything at all is hard enough, is it not? You’re my man and if you’re a Proddy then that’s good with me.’

  Tam said nothing, nodding. There was a sheen of sweat on his face. George took another sip of beer and decided to return to his old tactics of sharing his own life and hoping that Tam would feel comfortable enough to reciprocate.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ George said, sitting back and folding his arms. They were side by side on the red pleather bench. George surveyed the oval island of the bar as he spoke, deliberately trying to relax his friend. ‘I envy you, having a daughter. Having a daughter changes a man. I mean, it didn’t change my father, but he was a special case. It changed me.’

  George took a deep breath. Just the word daughter took him out of himself. It was like a breach in his drunkenness, a portal to another state of consciousness.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a daughter,’ said Tam, quietly.

  George turned to him again, smiling broadly. ‘Have a gander at this,’ he said, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it back to show Tam his chest. There, above his heart, tattooed in red ink, was the name Moll.

  ‘Moll was your daughter?’ said Tam, taking another sip.

  ‘She is my daughter. She’s not dead. She’s alive.’

  Tam licked his lips. George could tell he was interested but afraid to ask more. George took another drink of beer and then told Tam the whole story.

  ‘You won’t know Kathleen Jamieson, but I started seeing her soon as I left school, and I told you already that I was chucked out when I was fourteen, so it was early on. She was my first love… my only love, I suppose. Five, six years we were together, on the sly most of the time, because her family didn’t like her hanging around with me. She was a nice girl, you understand. Anyway, we weren’t careful and she got pregnant. I was happy when she told me, because I’m not like other guys. I always wanted to be married and have children. I wanted to start my own family since I was six or seven years old…’ George stopped for a long, hearty laugh. ‘Probably because my own was such a fucking nightmare, wouldn’t you say?’

  Tam conceded a smile. He smiled on one side of his face, while the other half remained guarded, almost sad.

  ‘Her family were really devout – you know the types: a Hail Mary every time you fart. Pregnant and unmarried was bad enough, but pregnant to the likes of me… Well, they of course said she would have to have the baby. I was straight round there with the diamond ring and everything, but they were having none of it. They told me she’d had a miscarriage and had gone to visit her aunt to recover. I was sure they’d packed her off to a convent, like they did in the sixties. My mother said as much. She was the only one in my family I told… about the baby.’

  George put a cigarette between his lips and patted his pockets for his matches until Tam gave him a light. He took a long drag, wincing as he inhaled.

  ‘What happened?’ said Tam.

  George was encouraged.

  ‘Well, it was just after Christmas and I was thinking of Kathleen and popped round to the Jamiesons’ one morning after mass, just to ask for news of her. I thought they’d tell me to piss off, but when I arrived, Kathleen was there and in labour. Her father was out, and I think had all but washed his hands of her by that point, and so did I not end up giving her, her mother and her sister a lift to the hospital.