"Aye," she said, hoping it wasn't going to be a heavy night, "fine. Nice night. How are ye yourself?"
"Fine." Hugh glanced around, nodding her into step with him. "Let's get some grub."
They took the arcing pedestrian bridge over the motorway and went in search of a great Glasgow curry.
Hugh suggested the Indian Trip restaurant: he said he'd been a number of times with his wife and the food was good. He still wasn't letting on about the purpose of the meeting but Maureen had a feeling she wasn't going to like it. "It's always busy," said Hugh, filling the ponderous conversational space. "We'll be lucky to get a table."
But she didn't want to eat: she just wanted to hear what he had to say and go somewhere and get pissed alone.
The area they were walking through was too near to the town to be residential. Not yet the coveted West End, it was a transient area of cheap hotels peopled by disappointed businessmen and twenty-four-hour shops. Great sweeping Georgian terraces were deserted or chopped up into mean little offices. One block away was Kelvin-grove Park, midnight home to homosexual encounter groups and muggers. Si McGee's business was around here. Maureen imagined the ghost of Home Gran across the road somewhere, mopping up in a gym or hoovering at reception. Maybe that's where she'd got the inspiration to wear tracksuits all the time.
When they got to the restaurant Hugh asked the waiter for a table upstairs. It was a strangely shaped room, an angular rhomboid with dark walls and windows on two sides looking down the length of Sauchiehall Street. Yellow and red car lights traced the line of the long road. A soft breeze whispered through the open window, whipped up by passing lorries and buses.
They ordered and the waiter jotted in his notebook as he backed away from them. Maureen and Hugh both felt uneasy at the intimate surroundings: it felt like the start of a reluctant love affair between desperately unhappy people. Hugh kept his eyes on the road, sitting back in the shadows, out of view of the street. The food came quickly. Maureen looked out of the window as the sun set low over the road and ate a mouthful of bindi bhaji. The aromatic flavor and slow-heat aftertaste were lost on her. She didn't want to eat.
"How's the bindi?" asked Hugh, gnawing his way through tan-doori chicken, getting the red food coloring over his mouth and chin.
She sipped her lager to clear her mouth. "Nice. A man came to my door the other night," she said, "and gave me a citation."
"For Farrell's trial?"
"I don't want to go but he said I have to."
Hugh picked up his shandy. "He's right," he said, sipping and swallowing. "You do have to."
The restaurant was busy, and around them tables of men and women chatted and laughed together, oblivious to the crying girl in Maureen's cupboard.
"Are they going to ask me about the letters?"
"No," said Hugh. "The letters aren't relevant anymore."
He chewed between the parallel bones on a wing. A small yellow lump of fat, tinged red at the edge, fell onto the table. Maureen frowned. The whole point of Angus Farrell sending the letters to her had been to help prove his insanity. "I thought he'd use them to prove he's insane?"
"No," said Hugh certainly. "They had a hearing six months ago and found him insane but he's better now. The drugs have worn off."
Maureen didn't understand. She was sure that was why Angus had sent the letters. "Is he saying he's guilty, then?" she asked.
Hugh put down the pared bone, cleaned his chin with his napkin and leaned across to her. "No." He didn't seem to want to add anything to it.
Maureen wondered why he had asked her here and wished he'd get on with it. She abandoned her dinner and took out a cigarette under the table so that Hugh wouldn't see the duty-free packet. She used Vik's disposable lighter and inhaled deeply. "The citation guy, he said I'd go to jail if I don't turn up."
"He's right," said Hugh.
"That's not very fair," she said. "You can't jail people for being frightened."
Hugh held up his hand. "Wait a minute," he said slowly, "it's not the police who do that. Anyway, if no one had to give evidence no one would ever go to jail. There'd be a lot more frightened people around."
Maureen drew on her fag and pushed strands of bindi around her plate, glancing up at Hugh, who had gone back to eating his chicken.
"This is nice," he said. "D'you want to try a bit?"
"What if I go but refuse to answer certain questions?"
"They'll put you in jail to consider your position," said Hugh, looking up at her through his red eyebrows, warning her not to disappear.
"Is there nothing I can do about it?"
Hugh picked a lump of clear gristle out of his mouth and laid it on the side of his plate. "Just go and tell the truth, Maureen. That's the smart thing to do."
Maureen laughed bitterly. "The smart thing?"
"Maureen, the legal system has been coercing reluctant witnesses for over a thousand years. You're not going to think up anything they haven't come across before."
Maureen drew on her cigarette again and reminded herself that none of it had happened yet. It was all in the future. She kicked him gently under the table. "How are you, anyway? Why weren't you at the survivors' meeting on Thursday?"
"Work. How was it?"
"Aw, ye fairly missed yourself." She flicked her ash onto the floor. "Colin was very sad, Alex was very angry, and I was very confused."
Hugh smiled sadly. "That sounds… uplifting. Sheila told me you went back to her house for a cup of tea." He was building up to ask her about Michael.
"So, how's your head this week?" she asked, heading him off at the pass.
"Fine. D'you not want to talk about it with me, Maureen?"
She thought of Vik lying on her bed, his burnished skin, and the sheet slipping off the dip on his hip. "Not just now, no."
Hugh looked out of the window. The eggshell skin beneath his eyes flushed blue to match his watery eyes. "Well, what do you want to talk about?" He sounded annoyed, as if she were cutting him out, as if she'd invited him here on false pretenses. A table behind them was getting out of hand, overexcited and noisy.
Maureen looked out of the window with Hugh, trying to make it the two of them together again. "Where's the gym around here?"
"There's no gym around here," he snapped.
She blinked long and hard. "I'm entitled not to talk about this."
"I know, I know," he nodded. "I'm just tired, I'm worried."
"Sheila shouldn't have repeated what I said to her, you know."
"And I shouldn't be here with you," said Hugh, under his breath, watching the road in case he was seen. "I shouldn't be here with a witness in an upcoming trial but I'm worried. Don't do anything to your dad, Maureen. You've got to keep your nose clean." He looked up at her. "Please, don't do anything. I can contact the Social Work for you. I'll pick your dad up, me and the guys'll give him a kicking in the back of a van and warn him, but please, don't do anything."
The image of Hugh kicking Michael in the back of a van pleased her. Hugh, holding the crescent moon aloft, lifting his leg sadly but justly, and a withered, vanquished Michael on the floor at his feet. "Why do I have to keep my nose clean?"
"Look, Joe McEwan thinks Farrell's getting off because of you. He fucking hates you – he's hell-bent on getting you for something."
She sat back. "Joe thinks he'll get off?"
"There is a chance. Because of the acid and other stuff. There isn't that much evidence, really. We'll be lucky to get a conviction on Douglas Brady. It really depends on Martin Donegan's case being proved successfully."
"Fuck," said Maureen simply.
Hugh furrowed his eyebrows. "Fuck's an understatement."
"And I'm getting the blame?"
"I'm afraid so."
The color had drained from Hugh's face and she noticed for the first time that the whites of his eyes looked dry and yellow. "Are you well, Hugh?"
Leaning his elbow on the table, Hugh rubbed his face. "No," he said quietly, "I'm not. I'm tired and this heat makes me feel sick."