"Who was that?" asked Liam.
"The old lady's son," shouted Maureen, above the noisy engine. "What a creep. Has Una been in touch with you?"
"Not in the half hour since ye last asked me, no," Liam shouted back. "Don't worry, she'll be late. First babies are often late."
Liam spotted the red light up ahead and cursed it. He slowed the car, trying not to reach it before it changed back, but the lights didn't budge and the engine petered to a coughing stop. He whipped off his shades and looked accusingly at Maureen.
"Fuck all to do with me," she said.
"Well, you're sitting there," he muttered, and began the long ritual of the choke.
The lights changed and impatient cars behind them began to hoot. Eventually the Triumph spluttered to life, taking off just as the lights changed again, trapping the other cars behind it. Liam grinned as they honked. Maureen wished that she'd had the chance to speak to Ella alone. She looked pretty shocked.
Liam coughed next to her and she looked at him. He might not tell her when the child was born. He didn't know what the birth meant to her: he didn't know what she was planning for Michael. The only people who knew were Doyle, because she'd told him, and Sheila, because she'd guessed. Liam might decide not to tell her because it would upset her. She hoped she could read it in his face if he was lying. They were gathering speed on the broad road to Dennistoun and he smiled to her and raised himself up in the seat a little, enjoying the warm wind chewing his hair. Maureen smiled back. She'd know if he was lying. She felt sure she would.
Siobhain McCloud opened the door to Liam's familiar knock. She had sunglasses on, exactly the same model of Ray-Bans as Liam. She didn't wait to see who it was or even welcome them but walked away wordlessly down the dark hall and back to her beloved outsize television.
"Hiya," called Liam, stepping into the hall. "I've brought Mauri with me."
Siobhain didn't reply. Liam shut the door behind Maureen, nodding for her to go into the living room ahead of him.
Siobhain was sitting on the beige settee watching a Gaelic film about North Uist. She seemed to have taken to wearing her shades indoors a lot because the TV brightness was set so high that both Maureen and Liam had to put on their sunglasses to make sense of the picture. The program showed a group photograph of islanders from the sixties, a lineup of thick-legged girls in miniskirts with indistinct knees and innocent grins. She turned over suddenly to Montel. A woman in a flowery dress was crying and Montel took her hand.
"What's happening?" asked Liam, sitting down next to her on the settee.
"She's crying," said Siobhain, "and Montel is holding her hand."
Maureen sat down in the armchair. Siobhain's house was depressing. The settee was beige, the walls were beige, the carpet was beige, everything inoffensive and inexpensive. The only ornamentation in the living room was a small watercolor of irises and a big oil painting of her younger brother, done from a small snapshot photograph, a little boy standing on a hillside many years ago, squinting into the camera.
As part of a university project, Liam had made a film of Siobhain. She talked to the camera about her people and the Highlands, showing irrelevant pictures cut out of ladies' magazines. She told the story of her childhood with the travelers, how her brother drowned in a burn and her mother left the land and came to the city to die. It was a peculiar film. It should just have been annoying but it was strangely touching, fat Siobhain barking in her Highland accent at the camera, her stilted delivery seeming affected and mistimed. Liam had written an end-of-term paper on his film, a vague and pretentious piece about the rare beauty of reality. He failed and was having to do a resit exam over the summer.
Maureen would never have thought of them as friends, much less close friends, but since the film Liam had been over at Siobhain's all the time, watching television, showing her films and asking her what she thought.
Siobhain had been very fat when Maureen met her but it hadn't disguised how beautiful she was. Her nose was a straight arrow, her plump mouth a tidy rosebud and her cheekbones high and proud. Her black hair had started to gray prematurely but in most lights the silver strands looked like a glossy sheen. Angus Farrell had almost broken her. As a senior psychologist at the Northern Psychiatric Hospital he had had unlimited access to the ward where Siobhain was being treated for depression. Farrell had tethered the women with rope, around the ankles, around the wrists. Of the other two victims Maureen knew about for sure, Lona McKinnon had hung herself and Yvonne Urquhart had had a stroke that left her severely brain damaged.
It might have been the shock of seeing herself on film, or just that she had pals, but Siobhain had changed dramatically in the past six months. She went on a crazy diet of steak and citrus fruit, which caused her to exude a sharp, rotting smell. It also made her fart soundlessly every fifteen seconds although she steadfastly denied it every time Leslie challenged her. She had lost half her body weight. Because the weight loss had been so rapid her skin was just catching up with her, contracting around the new shapes and forms. She had had a chicken neck for a month but it had settled back now to show a strong jaw and slim neck. She still moved as if she were obese: swinging her legs around each other clumsily, holding her arms out stiffly to the sides. When she sat down she cleared space for her phantom belly, sitting with her legs wide open as if she still had forty-inch thighs.
She needed new clothes and trawled the charity shops with Maureen and Leslie, choosing a peculiar mixture of old-lady flowery dresses, a big yellow anorak, tennis shoes and bright jerseys in blues and oranges. It was the first time she had ever chosen her own adult clothes. She dressed like no one else they had met. Today she was sporting white tennis shoes with red soles, a red skirt and a green shirt with button-down breast pockets.
Maureen could tell she was enjoying her new self and the shades were part of that. She had taken to brushing her hair and making sure her collars weren't tucked in.
"Siobhain," said Liam, handing her the newspaper, "we want you to look at this."
Siobhain moved her face in the direction of the newspaper. It took them a minute to realize that under her shades she was keeping her eyes on the crying woman and Montel.
"Siobhain, read it," said Liam impatiently, cracking the paper with a flick of his finger. "This shit's on all the time."
Maureen had never seen anyone swear in front of Siobhain without getting pulled up about it. She looked at Liam curiously. He was sitting forward, watching Siobhain as she looked at the paper, his hands clasped between his knees.
Siobhain finished reading and looked up at Liam, her face blank, her mouth hanging open.
"He can't hurt you," said Liam quickly, taking his own specs off. "He can't get anywhere near you. We won't let him." He looked to Maureen for confirmation and she nodded.
"He's still in prison," said Maureen, shedding her cheap glasses. "They're just trying the case."
Siobhain raised a hand to her face and took her own glasses off, dropping them onto the settee, her hand hanging limply on her lap. "Will they let him go?" she said quietly.
"No," said Liam quickly.
Siobhain looked at him suspiciously. They didn't really know what would happen. As far as they knew, Angus Farrell was just as likely to be sent to a chip shop for life, without the possibility of vinegar. Tm not stupid, Liam," she said softly.
"We don't know what'll happen," said Maureen, "but we do know that the trial'll go on for a while and he'll be in all the papers and we wanted to warn you about it."