"Shan said you were in a mental hospital."
He looked at her and his face hadn't moved, his eyes hadn't changed and he didn't seem uncomfortable. He handed her the spliff again, minding his manners and sharing the joy.
"Yeah, I had a bit of a breakdown. Now, I'm not going to tell you any more," she said quickly, "because I hate telling that story." She took another draw and held it in, inadvertently catching his eye as she exhaled.
Under the duvet his free hand found hers and he caressed the inside of her wrist with his fingertips. "Have a laugh with me, Maureen," he said quietly.
"I've been a bit low," she said, in a small voice.
"I know," said Vik. "I can tell." And his fingertips hardly touched her skin as he soothed her.
Vik slid across the bed towards her and gathered her, still paralyzed and limp with sleep, pressing her face into his warm hairy chest. It was morning and she had slept right through. It took her a couple of minutes even to remember Michael. She wriggled out of his grip, threw the duvet back and sat up.
"Why are you getting up?" he asked grumpily.
"I need to get going."
"You always need to get up in the morning. Why can't we just lie around for a bit?"
She pulled on her dressing gown and went to the bathroom, filled the sink and thought of the weeping sore on Mark Doyle's cheek and the Clansman pub. She threw cold water on her face and leaned heavily on the basin, her hands straddling the bowl, letting her face drip into the water. Michael was behind her, fifteen feet tall, and his hand was raised to hit her. She froze for a moment and plunged her face forward into the cold water, covering her ears. She came back up for air and he was gone. Michael would drink in the machine-gun nest pub in Ruchill. He'd drink in there and know Mark Doyle and they'd meet Ann and hurt her and Pauline dead under a tree in the warm summer with spunk drying on her back. She didn't know Vik was behind her until his hand cupped her buttock.
"Fuck off!" She swung around, her elbow jabbing him hard in the stomach.
Vik toppled backwards, grabbing the side of the basin to stop himself falling. He sat on the bath rim, holding his side, groaning at the pain. "You total fucking cow," he said, and hobbled out of the bathroom and down the hall, holding on to the wall to steady himself.
Maureen sat down on the toilet lid. She couldn't go and explain. It would take four fucking days to explain. She wanted a cigarette. She held out for as long as she could. When she finally went out to the hall she found Vik fully dressed and ready to leave.
"Vikram-"
"Just fuck off."
He stomped into the living room and found his leather jacket at the side of the settee. Maureen leaned against the door frame and found that, for the first time, she desperately didn't want him to leave her. "I'm really sorry."
Vik looked at her as he slipped on his jacket and pocketed his battered packet of fags. "I've never taken shit like this from anyone," he said, shaking his head, making his black hair fall over his eyes. "You can't treat people like that."
"I got a fright-" she said.
"Forgot a fright?"
"I didn't realize it was you-"
"Maureen, if you're such a cripple that you don't know who's in the house with ye, then you don't want to go out with me. Are ye that much of a cripple?"
Behind his head she saw the fever tower shift on the horizon and she hesitated. Vik glared at her. "This isn't what I want for myself," he said. "Either we're nice to each other and we have a laugh or it's over. Your choice."
"That's what I want too," she said weakly.
He rubbed his side. "You don't act as if that's what you want. The world's full of men happy to take that sort of shit from women. Go out with them, leave me alone."
"It's not as simple as that."
"Yes, it is, you chose. But I'm not settling for less than I give out. I want more for myself." He tried to pass her to the front door but she stepped out to block him.
"Move," he said.
She didn't. Vik slipped behind her, opened the front door and left without a backward glance.
Chapter 22
They were deep in the east end, in a sprawling grid system of gray concrete semidetached houses. Each house held four small flats and had a long, bare front garden. Built in the sixties to house the slum clearances, the houses were bordered every few blocks by broad roads, designed to make it easy for the workers to drive into town. The few cars didn't look as if they'd make it the eight miles.
There were no cars parked outside Senga Brolly's house. The spindly metal railings along the foot of the garden were pitted with rust and the steep garden steps were eroded and crumbling.
Senga's nose was flattened and her teeth were framed with black decay like stained-glass windows. Her hairdo was twenty years too young for her face: midnight black with a stern fringe, pulled back into a ponytail around the crown with the bulk of it hanging down, hair-sprayed firmly at the sides to hang like a heavy curtain over her chewed-up ears. She was so quiet she was almost a voluntary mute. She signaled rather than spoke, and stared resolutely at the floor whatever they asked her. She was pals with Ann, wasn't she? Nod.
Did they talk a lot? Nod. Did she know where Ann went when she left the shelter? Shrug. Did Ann show her an envelope? Shrug. They showed her the Polaroid: did she know this man? Shrug. A couple of times Maureen thought she saw the beginnings of a sly smile but Senga caught herself.
Leslie asked the questions, leaving Maureen alone, haunted with thoughts of Vik. She wanted a nice boyfriend; she wanted kindness and respect and decency. She didn't want to spend her life with people she was suited to, she wanted to be with people like him. A spark of honor told her she should let him go if she genuinely cared about his happiness, but she didn't want to. Senga was nodding again but even that response seemed to be fading away. But she did talk to Ann, didn't she? Nod. Did Ann talk about her kids a lot? Shrug. Any kid in particular? Shrug. Maureen excused herself and Senga managed to direct her to the loo without saying more than two words. "Right," she murmured, gesturing with her hands. "Left."
The bathroom was furnished in burgundy plastic with indelible toothpaste stains on the bowl and bleach burns inside the loo. Maureen washed her hands and dried them on a crunchy gray hand towel. When she got back to the living room Leslie and Senga were on their feet. Leslie pulled her in for a hug and Senga stood awkward and rigid, letting Leslie be affectionate on her. "We're off, then," said Leslie, letting go. "Thanks, wee hen."
Senga smiled shyly at the floor and saw them to the door. The garden steps were so crumbly that they had to walk down them sideways.
"She never shuts up," said Maureen, when they reached the pavement. "Did ye get anything out of her?"
"Yeah," said Leslie. "She's quite talkative on a one to one."
Maureen looked skeptical. "Really?" She glanced back up the steep path to the gray house. Senga was standing half behind the curtain, peeking out of the shadows, looking like a skull in a wig. She lifted her hand. Maureen waved back.
"Yeah. She says they were close," said Leslie, "but Ann fell out with her and left a few days later. She said they didn't have an argument. They were just looking at the paper one day and Ann recognized a picture of a guy, said she knew him. Senga said she knew the woman with him – she'd been at school with her – and Ann went funny with her after that. I asked her about the card and she said anyone could have sent it. She says everyone knows where the shelter houses are."
Maureen pulled on her helmet. "That's shite."
"I know," said Leslie, looking back up to the house and waving. "I don't know why she'd say that."
"Who were the couple in the paper?"
"Neil Hutton and his girlfriend. She says he was up for dealing," said Leslie, doing up the strap on her helmet, "and she was with him at the court."