Maddie had short brown hair, cut in a functional style, and was dressed with great reserve: a long-sleeved nylon blouse with a modest vest underneath, an A-line black skirt that came below the knee and moccasins with flesh-colored soles. She looked like a foreigner who had been misinformed about the dress code.
She looked up as they approached her, hopeful at first. She had large brown eyes with slashed wrinkles under them like tidemarks. In her ears she wore small gold hoops, sitting loosely in long drooping holes used to far heavier earrings.
The guitarist stopped tuning up and watched Maureen and Leslie approach. Maddie stood up as if she were in trouble. Maureen introduced herself and asked if they could have a word. Maddie bristled, making it clear that people had been having words with her for a long time and it was never to tell her she had been voted Queen of the May. She shuffled to the side, moving away from the guitarist. "What's it about?" Her voice was low and quiet.
"A lassie called Alison told us about you," said Maureen. "She wears bunches?"
"We're not the police," said Leslie.
"Who are ye, well?"
"It's a long story. Look, can we talk to you?"
Maddie wasn't sure.
"I know you're not doing that now," said Maureen, "but we're trying to find out about something and you're the only person who might know about it."
"What is it?"
"It's about a lady called Ella the Flash. She worked the Gorbals for years and years."
It was as nonthreatening a story as Maureen could think of and Maddie nodded. "How d'you know Ella?" she asked.
"We work in Paddy's, her stall's near us."
Maddie nodded again. Behind her the service was starting. The expected deluge of sinners and converts hadn't come and the seven members took their places, only three in the audience, most of them on stage. No one seemed to have spoken to the black woman.
"If ye stay for the service we could talk afterwards?" Maddie smiled. Leslie and Maureen agreed reluctantly and followed her into the front row of seats.
Jack Gibb led the singing from the photocopied sheets, accompanied by the inappropriate electric guitar. Although there were plenty to go round, Maddie offered to share her hymn sheet with Leslie and Maureen and leaned in so that they couldn't avoid singing along. It was a poor rendition of whatever the song was. The black woman behind them sang with gusto but the Scots, unused to singing without libation, muttered and stumbled along to the tune. Jack Gibb shut his eyes and sang loudly but not well. The song petered out and they all put down their sheets as Gibb raised a hand on either side of his head, swayed from side to side, and started telling them in a strange, strangled voice that Jesus was a good guy.
The Jesus-is-a-good-guy stuff went on for some time and Maureen, not quite recovered from the night before, dearly wanted to sit down. She was feeling distinctly faint when Maddie broke away from her side and clambered up on the stage, a glassy look in her eye, and took the microphone from Jack. She gave a speech in the same strangled voice as Jack, rocking back and forth, egged on by the rest of them shouting intermittent encouragement. Maddie's speech went on for a good five minutes and Jack had to ask her to give someone else a chance but the gist of it was that Maddie used to be unhappy and selfish but now she wasn't and it was great. Thank you, Jesus. She didn't mention a life of sin or shame or guilt but Maureen supposed that those were Catholic conventions anyway. Some other people said they had been wee shites as well, but that they weren't anymore, and then they all prayed that hundreds of people would come to their service. Amen. Another song, badly mauled, ended the service and Maureen was never so glad to be a heathen as when the doors opened at the back of the room and let in the air. How anyone could do this every Sunday morning was beyond her.
Maddie was making the refreshments and they had to wait around while everyone sipped tea and ate chewy scones someone had made, chatting about how great the service had been and how nice the scones were. The middle-aged black woman left as soon as the service was over, leaving a grand total of seven worshippers and two people who wanted to talk to Maddie.
"Why do you put so many chairs out?" asked Maureen, to be sociable.
"Faith," said Jack, and they all smiled as if they were in on the secret.
"You should try it," said a woman with rolls of fat where her neck should have been. "It works wonders."
They all smiled again. Maureen tried to eat a scone to kill the time but couldn't work through the parched starch. Squeaky bicarbonate clung to the back of her teeth.
Finally Maddie was ready to leave and waved off her holy pals with a promise to meet them at a prayer meeting later in the week. The neckless woman made a great show of hugging her warmly and told her to live in Jesus in the meantime.
"I thought she lived in Springburn," muttered Leslie as they crossed the gravel to the street, and it seemed like the funniest crack in history because everything else was so alien and dreary. Hands on her belly, Maureen bent back and guffawed at a clear blue sky. Maddie spun round and glared at her distrustfully.
Maddie never really got back into pliable Jesus-loving mode again. She didn't want to take them to her house and there wasn't a cafe open so they bought cans of juice and stood in the freezer-center car park next to three bell-shaped bottle banks. It was midday and the tar was soft beneath their feet. Shimmering heat rose from the ground, melting the high-rise flats and wetting Maddie's vest. They lit cigarettes and offered one to Maddie. She took it guiltily and enjoyed it.
"Can't afford these anymore," she said, and giggled, a little excited. "No harm in a wee treat."
Leslie stood back, rolling her cold can on her forehead, and let Maureen do the talking.
"Maddie," said Maureen, wishing they were somewhere more private, "I respect your new life and what you're doing for yourself-"
"Aye, get on with it," said Maddie. Her skin was hard and tough: she looked less as if she was aging than desiccating.
"We knew Ella," said Maureen. "She's dead now-"
"Ella's dead?"
"Aye."
Maddie took a sip of her fizzy orange and a trickle of sweat rolled down the side of her face, dripping from her sharp chin. She must have been boiling in her vest. "D'ye know her son, then?" she said.
"That's what I want to talk to you about." Maureen decided not to mince her words. "I think Ella tried to warn me about him, tell me what he was up to, about the health club at Kelvingrove, but she died before she told me straight and I think he killed her."
Maddie nodded.
"I liked Ella," said Maureen.
"That's 'cause ye didn't know her." Maddie took a long drink and finished her can. "She was an evil cow. God forgive me, but she was. Cruel."
"How was she cruel?"
Maddie put the can down on the Tarmac. She shut her eyes and Maureen could see her lips moving in prayer. Her hair was wet around the nape of her neck. Maureen let her finish and Maddie looked up again.
"Are there Polish women in there?" asked Maureen.
Maddie coughed, agitated and angry.
"Look, Leslie and I both used to work at the Place of Safety Shelters," said Maureen quickly. "We're concerned about that place. No one knows that Si McGee's involved in it, apart from folk like you, folk who've been there-"
"I don't know nothing about him," said Maddie, her voice high, her eyes wide.
"Maddie," Maureen said, "I sat outside and watched that place and someone came out and told me to move on. That's not normal, even for a sauna. Ella told me that he was involved there-"
"She told ye?"
"She got me to submit a small-claims form to the Sheriff Court with the health club as his place of work."
Maddie snorted and looked away to the high flats, then back at Maureen, her mouth open, tongue moving, glistening as she thought of things to say but stopped herself. She opened her eyes wider. "Did ye send the forms in?" she said.