Resolution

by Denise Mina

  ‘Nothing,’ said Liam, savouring the last of the sun.

  ‘You beat Tonsa up, didn’t ye?’ she said suddenly. Instantly defensive he turned to her, sucking his teeth in a hiss. He saw her eyes and dropped the stance.

  ‘Ye cut her wrist, she could have bled to death.’

  ‘I didn’t cut her,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You did beat her up, though, didn’t ye?’ Liam nodded faintly. ‘Mauri, things happen sometimes—’

  ‘Did you hit her in the face?’

  He wrinkled his brow as he watched Siobhain and Leslie. ‘Things got out of control. I’m not proud of it. I got into a situation . . .’ He squirmed in his chair, avoiding her eye. ‘I can see in hindsight . . . I got into a situation and there was nothing else I could do. I wish it had gone another way. I wish I was a better person and had never been in that position. But I’m not, I was there and there was a situation . . .’

  ‘Did ye cut her?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he half smiled, ‘I never cut her. There’s a lot you don’t know about Tonsa, a lot ye don’t want to know about her. Tonsa’s got a bad knife habit. She cuts herself and other people when she can get away with it. ’Member she was in the paper with her boyfriend when he got slashed? “Stop These Evil Men” headline? Well, it was Tonsa. Tonsa cut him.’

  He looked at her, expecting relief or some sort of reaction, but she was staring at the ground in front of her, neck limp, thinking. She could see it all clearly now, proud Ella the Flash and Tonsa playing a knife over her hand, switching her skin, muttering threats not to tell, while Si sat and watched. She could have said something to the mortician at the time if she’d known, but Liam had lied about Tonsa. He’d been lying to her about Tonsa for over a year.

  ‘I met Benny on Friday,’ she said to hurt him. ‘I had a cup of tea with him.’

  Liam stared at her but she didn’t look at him. She was waiting for him to shout at her that Benny was a bastard, but he didn’t. ‘How is he?’

  ‘He’s sorry.’

  ‘Is that enough for you, that he’s sorry?’ Liam asked.

  ‘Even though he helped Farrell fuck you over, after all he did?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s not nearly enough. But I’m glad he’s sorry. He asked after ye.’

  ‘Did he?’ Liam twisted his mouth, suppressing a smile, and turned back to the garden.

  It was a long shot, she knew, but it was worth a try, just in case. ‘You’ve lied to me about the baby, haven’t ye?’

  Liam drank the end of his tea. He put the cup down so carefully she hardly dared to look at him. ‘Haven’t ye?’

  He sat very still for a while, one hand clutching his hair, the elbow resting on his knee. She touched his sunburnt back and he flinched. ‘What is it?’ she said, watching her searing white hand-print fade on his red skin.

  Liam looked away from her. ‘She’s called her Maureen,’ he said.

  Maureen O’Donnell sat very still as the iron entered her soul.

  40

  From Hell

  It was getting dark, a depth of darkness they hadn’t seen for weeks. Clouds were gathering overhead and the heat was intensifying. The city was headed for a storm. Leslie shook her head. ‘Not there.’

  Maureen knew she was right. They were crouched behind the hedge at the back of the house and could see Una sitting in an armchair in the kitchen. The baby was asleep in the white plastic carry-chair, sitting on the table. Her little arms and legs stretched and flexed in her sleep, as if in dreamy remembrance of a watery time before now. Una had been watching the television from her chair but her head was slumped forward now. They had been in the dark lane for forty minutes, crouched behind the hedge. The vomit spill Maureen had left there a few nights ago had dried hard. ‘God, my fucking knees are gonnae snap,’ said Leslie. Maureen stood up and gestured to her to follow her out to the road. They walked round the corner to the bike, lighting badly needed cigarettes.

  ‘Could he just be at home on his own?’ said Leslie.

  ‘Liam says he’s not to be alone.’

  ‘At Winnie’s, maybe?’

  The last time Maureen had spoken to her, Winnie said they didn’t like him and hadn’t seen him for a while, but she hadn’t spoken to Winnie for a long time and didn’t know what the state of play was. ‘Mibbi,’ she said. ‘Come on,’ said Leslie. ‘We’ll check out his house first.’

  *

  Ruchill was a wasteland between two rough areas. Damp housing thrown up in the fifties had recently been ripped down, leaving a Hiroshima landscape of roads crisscrossing empty rectangles of grass and rubble and a line of occupied tenements skirting the main road, like a Wild West film set. The devastation ended with a sharp dip down a hill to a deep burn. At the other side of the road the burnt-out tower of the old fever hospital, blackened and brooding, watched the road.

  The entrance to Michael’s flat was round the back through a narrow, open-cast 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 clothes-line 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 flat land. 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 first 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 was 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 first-floor flat overlooking t
he 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 work tops. 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 on to the floor.

  The jarring sound of a metal dust bin 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 on to 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 on to 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 was 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, humourless 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 pork-pie 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 school bag 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 home-made, 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 was 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 any more. 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 behaviour 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 cosily 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 pretence 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 h
er mouth and chewed it. ‘He was taken into hospital today. Una says he turned up at hers in a mini-cab 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.