by John Mayer
Ignoring passers-by who had their own worries about relatives lying in this old grey stone hospital, McLane and Big Joe marched across the wide frontage and went straight to the Reception Desk. Presenting his House of Lords Pass to the girl behind the desk, McLane was making no bones about the fact that he wanted answers and he wanted them immediately:
‘Hello. I’m Baron McLane of Calton and this is Mr Mularkey. We’re here to see Mrs Isabella McLane and Mrs Jean Mularkey. Where are they?’
Holding McLane’s Pass with the tips of her fingers, the girl looked genuinely impressed. She was young, but she was quite resolute:
‘Oh, I’m sorry but there’s no way you can go to their bedsides. You see, …’
Pressing both hands flat on her desk, McLane leaned over until he got to a few inches from her face:
‘Don’t give me any of your ‘Visiting hours are from …’
Taking a step back, the girl kept her cool: ‘Please! You should know better. I’m not telling you anything about visiting hours. I was about to say that because of the high numbers and the close proximity of each patient’s house to each other, they’ve been isolated on the top floor. The …’
McLane and Big Joe looked at each other, equally bemused: ‘Excuse me, I don’t follow. Did you say they were isolated but with other people?’
‘Yes. We’re up to nineteen patients and I’m told there may well be more. All are from the Calton and most quite elderly.’
‘Nineteen? What the hell’s going on? Why are there nineteen …? Can we go up there? Is there anyone who can explain why there are suddenly nineteen people from the Calton in this hospital? I’m sorry. Can we go up?’
Pointing to a lift with a red cross above it, the Receptionist was getting used to saying the spiel she’d never said before in all her two years behind this desk: ‘Go up in that lift over there. It only goes to the top. Follow the red line around two corners and you’ll see the room where you need to check in.’
After only a half-step away, both men turned back; but only McLane spoke: ‘I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. We’re just very worried.’
With the kindly smile that had so impressed her interviewers, the girl clasped her hands together: ‘That’s quite alright. You’ll be given your masks once you’ve been swabbed and signed in.’
Both men looked askance. This time it was Big Joe who spoke: ‘Did you just say - Swabbed and given masks? Why would we need masks to visit a couple of old ladies?’
The girl opened her hands as much as to say ‘Don’t ask me. I just direct you there’.
All the way up in the slow old lift, their minds were locked together, tied and bound with the same memories. For Joe it was his mother again. For McLane, this time it was his aunt Bella, whom he loved and thought of as a mother. What would they see? Would the women be able to explain what happened? All of the same questions came flooding back. But this time, McLane had one more question which for now he was keeping to himself: ‘Could this … whatever it is … be caused by human hands?’
Stepping out of the lift, they bumped straight into wee Mrs Kiernan who was in floods of tears. Howling and wailing, she was a woman possessed with grief. Big Joe caught her just before she fell into his arms:
‘Jesus Christ Winnie. What the hell’s the matter? Why are you coming out? Should you not be …?’
Gripping the jacket lapels of this man she’d known since her early school days, Winnie Kiernan looked Big Joe in the eyes: ‘Oh Joe. For God’s sake, hold me. Will ye?’
Holding her tight to his chest, Big Joe looked over her head at McLane. Desperate to see Bella and Jean, they nonetheless couldn’t abandon wee Winnie just like that. After kissing the top of her head, patting her gently on the back and inching her out, Big Joe leaned down and kissed her on the cheek:
‘There. There. Is that a wee bit better, Winnie? Now, tell me what’s happened. Tell us both.’
Biting her bottom lip and through the flood of tears running down her red cheeks, Winnie Kiernan stuttered out: ‘It’s my mother. She’s … She’s … Oh Joe, she’s … died. I only saw her yesterday. She had a cough, right enough. So I told her not to scrub the tenement stairs and to go to her bed. But you know what the old ones are like. She said she would, but when old Mr Bogan came up to my door, he said she’d dropped her water bucket on the stairs. She was coughing and wheezing so badly he thought I should phone an ambulance. Oh Joe. Oh Brogan. They won’t let me see her. They won’t even let Young Father Flaherty in to see her. Oh Brogan. What am I gonni’ do?’
The clatter of the criss-cross iron lift gate was Winnie’s two daughters and her son coming flying out. Leaving the grief stricken group with their heartfelt condolences, McLane and Big Joe marched round a corner to be confronted with a scene more akin to a battle ground field hospital than a ward in Glasgow. Three stages of thick opaque overlapping plastic doors led to a long wide room where the extraction pipes bolted to the ceiling looked like something NASA might employ. Two people in white one-piece zipped up nylon suits and breathing apparatus wanted their names, relationship to the patient and to know if, in the recent past, they or the patient had been to Africa or Malaysia.
The vast room was divided by one-way plexi-glass so that only the visitors could see the patients. Lying side by side under tinfoil blankets, Bella and Jean had tubes coming out of their mouths going down into concertina breathing equipment. Neither McLane nor Big Joe said a word, but both remembered exactly the same scene from over thirty years before. Standing helpless and wringing their hands, every few seconds both men looked at the other; their eyes asking ‘Who? How? We don’t have to ask ‘Why?’
A screeching beep drew everyone’s attention to the far end of the room. Out of a sterile black plastic turnstile-protected room, a space-suited man emerged holding a print-out. Tracing his reading with his finger, when he got half way down, he raised his eyes as though to Heaven above. Before McLane had a chance to approach him with a dozen questions, he heard a familiar voice which he hadn’t heard for a few years, saying:
‘Well. Goodness me. When I heard these patients were all coming from the Calton in Glasgow, I wondered if I might see you here. How are you Brogan? Or should I say Baron McLane now?
This viral storm had blown up in just a few hours, flinging everyone around like corks in an angry sea. At the sight of this well-dressed, elegant woman holding out her hand, McLane reached out and grabbed this lifeline:
‘Professor Suilleman! Thank God. I’m so glad to see you.’
Gripping her hand, McLane looked deep into her jet black eyes. Glad as he was that she’d arrived, the presence of Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer was a sure sign that whatever this was, it was a matter of national importance; and if not contained, probably international importance.
‘Are you here in your capacity as National Security Commissioner?’
‘Erm, no. I mean, not yet. My aunt Bella is a patient. She’s fourth from the left. Please, let me introduce my … my brother. Joseph Mularkey. His mother is the woman lying next to Bella. They live opposite each other. Tell me. Why are you here and what’s all this about Africa?’
Nadia Suilleman slipped her coat off her shoulders, letting a well-practised assistant behind her take it over her arm. Beside her stood a tall, elegantly dressed man wearing a scarlet waistcoat and silk bow tie. His snow white hair was so dishevelled it might have contained a birds’ nest. He put out his hand:
‘Baron McLane. Congratulations on your elevation. I was delighted to hear about it.’
Shaking hands, McLane nodded towards Nadia Suilleman: ‘Well, it seems to be congratulations all round. Nadia is now the Chief Medical Officer and I think you’re now Professor of Epidemiology in the University of Oxford. Is that right?’
Professor Sir Isaac Neuberger merely bowed from the neck: ‘Yes. Nadia and I were at the same conference in Edinburgh when all this blew up. She’s asked me to stay in Scotland. There may be some small contribution I can make. One never kn
ows, with these things.’
Approaching the group, the space-suited man nodded towards his boss and handed over the print-out. Introducing him, Nadia Suilleman presented the man with a wave of her hand so delicate, McLane thought it must have been an Arabic gesture:
‘This is Professor MacIntosh. Graeme MacIntosh. This is his Ward. Graeme. You already know Sir Isaac and my assistant Dr. Wendy McCormack. Allow me to present Baron McLane of Calton, the National Security Commissioner.’
When everyone was as much at their ease as the occasion allowed, Nadia Suilleman begged a few minutes alone with her medical colleagues. McLane and Big Joe each took to filling out a Questionnaire which had over sixty questions to be answered with as full information as possible. Beside them, relatives and friends of every patient had now arrived and McLane counted twenty four. Mostly they were elderly, but worryingly, there were two infants among them. When he got a nod from Nadia Suilleman, McLane strode over:
‘I’ve been trying to count the groups of relatives and I got to only twenty four patients. Please, pardon me for asking, but if this disease … or whatever it is … is contained to a couple of dozen people, can that really be called an epidemic?
Deferring to Sir Isaac, Nadia Suilleman’s face kept to a well-practised neutral look:
‘Ah! My dear McLane. No-one’s told you. There are more than twenty four. In fact, rather a lot more. We’ve sent thirty one to Edinburgh. Another fifteen to Aberdeen and at the last count, about six to Stirling. Moreover, I’m sorry to say, we’re getting reports of the police finding people dead at home. This is a real epidemic, I can assure you; and one which I fear could decimate the population.
Just then, a young space-suited woman holding a Questionnaire approached the group and whispered something to Professor MacIntosh. Grabbing Big Joe by the arm, the open-mouthed professor got out only ‘You! Do you reali …’ before Big Joe instinctively grabbed him by the neck. Frightened and aghast at this scene, Nadia Suilleman demanded:
‘Stop it! Stop! What in God’s name are you doing? Why is Mr Mul … sorry, what’s your name?’
Pulling Big Joe off the professor, McLane stood at the centre of the group and thought he had the answer:
‘Sorry. Sorry professor. Everybody calm down. OK? Joe used to sail down to Africa quite a lot … selling EU sub-standard BioMass. But he hasn’t been there for some months. To be precise, the question on the form asked if we’d been there in the last three months and I answered in the negative. But I wrote a note under that answer saying that Mr Mularkey had been there within four months.’
~~~o~~~
Chapter 34
Whether it was the smell of the stuff they’d put in the third shower or the dry dusting down with the grey powder, Big Joe didn’t care. It was disgusting. He’d signed the form, swallowed a tablespoonful of that horrible tasting brown liquid, had three injections and agreed that all his clothes and shoes should be incinerated. Molly could live in the club penthouse until the house was fumigated, but that was going to take a week; so the party for their first grandson’s birthday was bound to be postponed. However, that all seemed like routine compared with sitting on this going-nowhere two-way toilet surrounded by plexi-glass. Knowing that unknown eyes were watching him was the most embarrassing part.
Never. Never in his life, had Big Joe felt so ill at ease. Now sweating profusely, the gurgling and churning in his guts, the spluttering and pressing into the bowl was all happening as though someone or something else was in control of his body. Never before, not in Glasgow after drinking in the Calton Bar for a whole twenty four hours, not that time in Africa where the Russians had challenged him to a vodka session, nor even when he’d drunk a whole bottle of Glenfarclas whisky and eaten two chicken Madras curries, could he remember anything like this happening to him.
Over the speaker in the ceiling, a young woman’s voice said calmly:
‘OK Mr Mularkey. Thank you. We have what we need, so you’re all done. Just the last shower and dust dry and you’ll be able to lie down on the bed which is through the door to your right. Please drink as much water as you can and someone will come and see you when we’re ready. There’s a hospital gown hanging on the back of the door. Thank you so much. You’ve been a great help.’
The cold distilled water did come as welcome refreshment, as though irrigating a parched landscape. Lying down certainly helped with the light-headedness. After a few minutes, every fibre of Big Joe’s body felt utterly exhausted; as though sleep was coming like falling off a cliff. Feeling as weak as a kitten, he couldn’t tell if the images behind his eyes were memories or dreams.
Unable to fight the combination of tiredness and the drugs, he closed his eyes but could still see the white walls, white ceiling and the black and white chequered floor. Trying to assure himself that he was safe, Big Joe Mularkey, truly one of Glasgow’s hardest men, slipped into sleep without checking that his loved ones were safe, that the doors and windows were bolted and locked and that Mr Smith and Mr Wesson from No38 were lying under his pillow; locked and loaded.
Big Joe guessed it was only about a thousand yards away down a tunnel and started running towards the gravestone. Beside him, Brogan didn’t have any trouble keeping abreast. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat and his legs didn’t seem to be going very quickly. Of course, he was reading some book as they ran. Big Joe didn’t get it. Wasn’t he keen to see his mother’s grave? The icy snow on the slippy pathway beneath their feet made it harder and harder to run until, their legs spinning like those of a cartoon character, they were spinning on the spot only a few yards from the grave. But they were close enough. Beaming a wide-eyed smile and heaving a deep sigh of relief, he was certain: around Agnes McLane’s headstone there was only grass. Well maintained and dark emerald green, that grass smelled like Ireland, lush and kissed by the morning dew. They hadn’t come, as he feared they had. No-one had yet laid her next to her life-long pal without telling him. His mother was still alive and, if he knew his mother, Jean Mularkey would outlive them all.
Standing in the empty cemetery with McLane by his side, although no more than eighteen years old, Big Joe Mularkey didn’t need to see the shadow behind them; he could sense it. Spinning and taking Billy Ramsay by surprise, with every ounce of his massive strength, Big Joe expertly threw the Bowie knife he kept as sharp as any razor. With perfect balance and power, the knife sliced through Jamie Ramsay’s big brother’s throat pinning him to a young white birch tree. But then, only two years later, over the hill came those two English guys who wanted to take all the gambling in the Calton for themselves and their casino-backed Chinese pals. Ha! No chance! With Arab waiting in a tenement entrance to the side, when the charging English got to within six feet of a smiling Big Joe waiting with his arms outstretched, Arab fired. When one fell at his feet, Big Joe spun on the ball of his right foot, tripped the other guy, caught him and broke his neck before he hit the ground.
But there was one fight he didn’t win and could never win: because he wasn’t there. Brogan had been there and both Joe and his mother gave thanks to God every day in life that he had been. In a damp back room in a run-down concrete block of flats in the East End of Glasgow, five men were gathered round a card table; their dealer, a teenage boy. Young but trusted. Smart and kept his mouth shut. With a lot more money than usual on the table, the atmosphere began to tighten. Davie Hume was winning with Ricky Anson losing to him. And, as the money piled up, all eyes narrowed. Dealing more slowly, the boy called each falling card and its prospects. Then, when Anson was sure that he’d lost another hand, that inevitable moment arrived; when every breath was held. Ricky Anson drew an old gun from his suit jacket, but before he could aim it straight at anybody, Big Jake Devine did the business. Flash! Ricky Anson’s free hand was staked to the table; the blade entering so cleanly that the cards were undisturbed. As his blood soaked through the green baize, not a word was said. It was Jake’s house, so it was Jake’s rules. With a look of defeat in his eyes, Anson put
the gun away. Jake pulled out his knife and Davie dragged his winnings towards his upturned hat. Game over.
But down in Anson’s chest, his grinding humiliation was very far from being over. Well-connected in Bridgeton and Ibrox, a month later he made sure he was at the next big game. Again, Brogan was dealing. Around the table were quite a few strangers that no-one had time to check out. It was a mistake for which Big Jake Devine never forgave himself and one where Brogan had only just saved the day. When the local bookworm, quiet spoken Sean Mularkey had asked Brogan if he could sit in, Brogan thought that a really bad idea. This was a game for sharks. He couldn’t be reminded of what every card meant as they went along: that was strictly against house rules. But Sean had been working on the big church library project and had the stake money: so he could sit down if he wanted. Brogan had emphasised that only Big Jake Devine could stop him from sitting in; but as far as he as Dealer was concerned, he wasn’t recommending it.
It truly had been beginners’ luck but that’s not how Ricky Anson saw it. When he started to lose heavily, he’d become jittery and started making rookie mistakes with simple odds. It was no-one’s fault but his own; but that’s not how he saw things. Poor Sean! He should never have laughed as he scooped that second big pot with both hands. Anson had come tooled up and with one fast slash, the game was over in the blink of an eye.
