"This place is like a weirdos' convention," said Leslie adamantly, once they were safely in the lift.
"He was just being helpful," said Maureen.
"Did ye get the number?"
"Aye. It's the only Akitza in the book. I checked the north as well, just to be sure, but there was only one and it was in Middlesex somewhere."
Maureen looked up. Leslie had turned to her and was standing formally on both feet. She seemed to be trembling. "I'm sorry I tried to fight ye, Mauri," she said and looked like she might cry.
"I'm sorry for being a wee shite," said Maureen. "About Cammy, Leslie, I'm pleased for you."
Leslie looked away and her breathing returned to normal. She paused for a moment and looked at her feet. "Do you mind doing this for Ann?" she asked.
"No," said Maureen, but they both knew why she was doing it, and they both knew she wasn't doing it for Ann.
Chapter 18
The low winter sun was a blistering horizontal beam slicing through the city's grid system, leaving patches of ragged frost and frozen puddles on the cross. Pedestrians dragged fifteen-foot-long shadows after them and the high Victorian buildings of the city center melted into the earth. Leslie turned the corner, slowing down as she drove towards the light.
Maureen sat tall on the pillion, her coattails brushing the passing cars and her hair snapping at her neck. She took herself back to yesterday, to the deep calm and the vortex of welcoming air at the windowsill. She was still alive and having another day, losing herself in the problems of Jimmy and Ann and feeling all right sometimes. She looked at the people on the street and realized that the world must be busy with people who tried to kill themselves last night, people who woke up this morning, nauseous and disappointed, and had to go to work, living the afterwards. She thought of Pauline, and it struck her that suicide was never the definitive statement; it was an impulse, a comma, not a stop. If she had jumped from the window the comma would have gone on forever, like Pauline, a breathless hush hanging for infinity without the possibility of resolution.
She thought of Winnie's little hand and there it was again. She was crying under her helmet, as sentimental as a recent divorcee at New Year. And then, for one clear, shining moment, she saw how it would be if only she were wrong about everything. Michael would be a prodigal father, all the more welcome for his long absence. Una and Marie would be her patient sisters, waiting for her to be a sister to them. And Winnie, the kind mother, fighting for her disturbed daughter's affection despite a thousand rejections. It was simple from the other side.
The bike stopped at a set of lights on Woodlands Road and Maureen looked up. An abandoned shop had two of their shelter campaign posters plastered to the window. Maureen and Leslie nudged each other, remembering six thirty in the morning, their hands sticky from a night brushing paste, as the dawn wind gathered and the sleepy shift workers waited at the bus stop. The lights changed and Leslie pulled off into the road.
Siobhain's close smelled of cats and bleach and hot food. A squawking television in the flat opposite sounded urgent and foreign. Leslie knocked and stepped back to wait. The door opened on the chain and Siobhain looked out at them through the two-inch crack. She was beautiful. Her skin was lunar white, her lips salmon pink – even the streaks of white through her thick black hair looked like sheen. "I am watching television," she said, her hootie-shush-teuchter accent sounding like an order to slow down.
"Can we come in anyway?" said Maureen. "We've come all the way over to see you."
"But it's Quincy."
Along the hall they could hear the monolithic television twittering as Quincy made a bunch of brand-new close friends, solved all their problems then never had to see them again. Douglas had given Siobhain a wad of cash before he died and she spent it sporadically on big things. The giant television was Siobhain's delight. She talked about it like a new horse, how well it worked, how sleek it was, how she didn't know of anyone else with one as good as that. Occasionally, when they were sitting watching telly, she'd turn to Maureen smiling and say, listen to that sound, look at the color, wasn't it great? She'd joined a video club as well and had taken to watching wet romances and schlock horrors night after night. Running seriously short of things to say on her fortnightly visits, Maureen had mentioned Liam's films. They weren't very good and there was no story but she thought it might be nice for her to see a film and meet the person who'd made it. Siobhain hated them. Liam sat on the beige sofa at the end of his twenty-minute video and Siobhain turned to him and asked him sincerely why he had bothered.
Leslie pushed in front of Maureen. "Look, Siobhain, we're only here to see if you're okay."
Siobhain pursed her pretty mouth. "You should telephone me before you come here," she said. "This is not a tearoom."
"We tried to phone," lied Leslie, "but you've turned your mobile off again."
Like everyone else with a bit of spare cash in Britain that Christmas, Siobhain had felt the need to have a phone in her pocket at all times and had bought a mobile, but she couldn't stand the noise it made. She would forget to recharge it and kept it in a drawer in the kitchen so that if it ever rang out she wouldn't hear it.
"Oh, I suppose I have." Siobhain shut the door, undid the chain and let them into the hall, closing the door carefully after them and sliding the chain back on. She smiled a pleased, secretive smirk, as if she were walking about with no knickers on, and pointed them into the living room.
Siobhain didn't care about her appearance. She generally wore whatever was clean and came to hand. Today she was modeling a red golfing jersey, gathered tight at the waist, and orange nylon tracksuit bottoms that swish-swished when she walked. She had worked hard to put on as much weight as possible after she was discharged from psychiatric hospital. They'd watched her eat breakfast once, half a loaf washed down with full-fat milk. She didn't care much about her surroundings either. Well-meaning social workers had decorated the house, and every room was painted cleanable beige with a beige carpet throughout and predominantly beige furniture. Maureen didn't usually buy into the spiritual significance of home decor but Siobhain's house made her soul wither. The only thing of any interest in the living room was the painting. She had used Douglas's money to have a photograph of her dead brother reproduced as an oil painting and hung it over the gas fire. It looked exactly like a painting of a photograph, the little boy's spontaneous gestures, a pointed finger, a half wink, suddenly invested with elusive meaning. The little boy stood smiling sadly into the camera, his little knees pink under his shorts, his red wellies trimmed with black mud.
She led them into the living room and sat Leslie in the armchair and Maureen on the settee by the door so that Siobhain herself could be nearer the television and wouldn't have to miss anything Quincy said. Leslie crossed her legs, resting her leather biker boot on the arm of the chair. Siobhain pointed at her. "Get your feet off the furniture," she ordered. "Please."
Leslie tutted and moved her leg. They sat silently, listening as Quincy summed up the case to his idiot sidekick. Siobhain leaned down to the side of the sofa and pulled two blue plastic photo albums onto her lap. She sat with them on her knee, patting them occasionally, smirking to herself when Quincy made a joke. The ads started.
"Have you brought something for us to eat together?" she asked Maureen.
"I think I've got some chewing gum." Maureen pulled a battered packet out of her back pocket. Siobhain held out her hand while Maureen squeezed two shiny rectangles of gum out of the tight wrapper and took one for herself. Leslie refused. They sat chewing and watching the ads until Siobhain turned to Maureen, put one album in her lap then stood up slowly, walked over to Leslie and handed her the other. "Have a look," she said, and sat back down.