The curtain on the far side of the bed swept back suddenly, and a neat nurse looked at them accusingly.
“What are you doing here?” She addressed Paddy, pulling her lips back in a smile that wouldn’t have fooled anyone. Her eyes were set wide and prominent.
“Visiting,” said Paddy.
The nurse’s mouth spasmed wide, and she busied herself tidying the folds in the curtain. “Family are allowed to visit outside visiting hours, but I’m afraid everyone else has to come between three and eight.” She turned to face Paddy square on. “You’ll have to leave.”
Confused and embarrassed, Paddy reached for her bag.
“Iona, Iona.” Pete pushed himself up on the pillow, coming alive at the possibility of a fight. “Get your thumb out of your arse. She’s my daughter.”
Nurse Iona glanced at his ring finger.
“That’s right, she’s a bastard. A love child. I wouldn’t marry her pregnant mother because she was ugly and below marriageable age.” He lifted his bandaged hand. “In Texas. Give me more?”
The nurse was staring unkindly at Paddy, taking in her cheap black sweater. It was bobbled under the arms and stretched at the bottom from being self-consciously tugged down to hide her body whenever she stood up off the bench.
“It’s not time for more, Mr. McIltchie, as well you know.” She looked from Paddy to Pete but couldn’t find any echo of his face in hers. “If she is your daughter, why isn’t she down as your next of kin?”
“She’s untrustworthy. A dipsomaniac.” Pete’s face was bright with innocent enjoyment. “When I die she’ll be in here pulling rings from my fingers before you can say ‘cock and balls.’ ”
Iona thanked him not to use that language and pissed about a bit, taking his pulse and looking at her watch, before leaving them alone again. Pete sighed contentedly and stroked the sheet.
“There, you have to come back and visit me now.”
“She’s a bit scary.”
Pete pulled himself up and leaned across the bed confidentially. His breath smelled foul. “She’s a fucking cow. I watch her going around this room bullying them all. I try to frighten her back. She scratches when she washes me. Every time.” He leaned back against the pillow and looked at the door. “I don’t want to die in here. Have to keep fighting.” He frowned briefly at the sheet, banishing whatever thought was interfering with his medication. “Sad.” He shook his head. “As if we’re not scared enough in here. I’d hate to recant at this stage.”
Paddy didn’t know what to say, so she apologized again. He didn’t notice. “I’m dying,” he told the sheet, sounding surprised to hear it himself. “And I don’t believe in God. I hope I don’t get scared at the last minute.”
“I’ve got to go, Pete.”
“Where?”
“I need to get the bus to Anderston and tell that wee bastard Patterson what I’ve done. There’s nothing else for it.” She half hoped he’d think of something.
“Right enough.”
She saw into her future, and the best she could hope for was a job in a shop or a factory. She wouldn’t marry; she knew that she’d only marry someone if she panicked now and didn’t have a career. The disappointment was so bitter it made her bones ache.
“I’ll never be a journalist now.”
“That’s right.”
She looked at him. He was staring up at John Knox. She wasn’t at all sure he was really listening. He had other things on his mind, she supposed.
“It would be a shame to recant at this stage,” she said quietly.
He became animated suddenly. “Wouldn’t it? Fear. ’S fear. There are ministers and lay preachers and hairy beasts patrolling the corridors of this hospital, waiting. They can smell moments of weakness. I don’t want to weaken. I’d die sad. This, here”- he pointed at the cannula on the back of his hand-“this is my last defense against them. I’d like to go out on a big burst of that.”
It took her the rest of the visit to work out that he was talking about his four-hourly doses of morphine.
THIRTY-FIVE . A LEAVING DO
I
Paddy stood with the other passengers in a neat row, all watching down the road for the bus, their faces pinched against the biting, dusty wind. The bus stop was a shelterless pole on the edge of a Hiroshima desert landscape. The area around the hospital had been razed of its tenements and not yet redeveloped. Ghost blocks were linked by a network of pointless sidewalks and crazed roads leading nowhere. The air smelled dry and dead. Here and there developers had erected fences around their own precious plot, but the wind still had a good, clear run across the land. Tiny dunes of gray dust gathered at the curb.
Paddy promised herself a binge reward. After she had been to the police station and spoken to Patterson she would eat two Marathon bars one after the other. It didn’t matter how fat she got now, because Sean was lost and she would never face the harsh light of the newsroom again. She wasn’t going back. She bowed her head and felt the loss of her future as a drop of pressure. She’d have to work in a shop or something, wear a uniform and take shit from a manageress. She’d probably panic and marry someone unsuitable, just because they asked her, and end up living next to her ma, wondering what the hell happened for the rest of her life.
The passenger at the front of the queue stepped forward, a reflex response to the sight of the bus turning a faraway corner, and the others followed, reaching into pockets and bags for bus passes and loose change for the fare.
Two Marathons and a cheese-and-onion pastry from Greggs the baker’s. And a fudge doughnut. As the bus pulled up alongside, she was planning how she would get all the food up to her room and manage to be alone.
The conductor was all nose. He stood thoughtlessly scratching his balls through his pocket lining as Paddy stepped onto the open platform and asked, “D’ye go past Anderston?”
“Other way. You want the 164. They’re every twenty minutes.”
She stepped off backwards onto the pavement and backed away, digging her hands deep into her pockets, watching the tail of the bus pull away from the curb. She became aware that the sharpness of the wind had changed on the back of her neck.
“Right?” He swung around in front of her, his eyes a brilliant, burnished green. He was wearing a black woolly hat. The stud in his left earlobe glinted brightly against the gray landscape.
“You’re not Heather Allen.”
His pink tongue left a wet trail as it slid across his bottom lip. When Paddy looked into his eyes, her delusions about being able to defend herself evaporated. Cold fear seized her joints, making her stand stiff in front of him while her legs told her to run. She had been able to bully Heather and Terry, but she knew it would be pointless with Garry Naismith. He would go further faster, and it wasn’t because he had more to lose. He wanted to. He liked it.
“I need to see you.”
Her family thought she was at work. She wouldn’t be missed for hours, and the police had their man; they weren’t looking for anyone else. She ducked behind him in panic and saw the back of the bus retreat down the dusty road. His hand was on her elbow, a polite request for her time.
“You know my old man.”
“I need to go,” she said, but stayed where she was. “I need to get somewhere.”
It was a subtle shift of position: his hand dropped an inch, his thumb and forefinger coming together around the tendon on her elbow. Her stomach heaved at the pain, flooding her mouth with saliva, and she arched backwards, trying to release his grip. Garry Naismith loomed, smiling gently at her lips, leaning over as if he might kiss her.
“I see women like you all the time.” He squeezed again. “But ye won’t refuse me this time.”
His free hand rose at his side. Beyond the veil of pain radiating from her elbow, she was aware of his fingers curved comfortably around a dull, matte egg. She didn’t realize it was a rock until the cold stone weight of it hit the back of her head and the night came down.