Leslie kicked her ankle and made a sad face when she looked up. "Oh," she said pathetically, "I think I'd feel a bit better if I had a fried-egg roll."
Maureen laughed. "You go," she said. "I'm always going."
"But I'm having a trauma."
"So am I."
"What's your trauma?"
"My pal's bossing me around."
"That's not as sad as a relationship failure," said Leslie.
"It could result in a relationship failure," said Maureen seriously.
Leslie looked away wistfully. "If only someone cared."
Maureen stood up. "All right but you're going tomorrow."
She was walking towards the mouth of the tunnel, checking her pocket for change, when a hand shot out and grabbed her roughly by the shoulder, spinning her round. Home Gran was behind her, peering down her bifocals. Maureen had never seen her so close up before. The puff of white hair had a yellow nicotine smudge at the front and the crosshatched wrinkles on her cheeks looked like dueling scars. Today she was modeling a beige tracksuit with black trim. "You," she said and took Maureen's hand. Surprisingly strong, she swung Maureen between the stalls to behind her tape counter, maneuvering her by twisting her wrist like a rudder. "You've got a degree, haven't ye?"
"Yeah," said Maureen, "but it's only in history of art."
"Don't care about that." Home Gran pointed Maureen onto a rickety kitchen stool, gave her a pen and an official-looking form. "I need this filled out." It was a form to start a case in the small-claims court. The agile old woman squatted down to sit on the stall's crossbar, five inches off the ground.
"I haven't got anything to lean on," said Maureen.
Home Gran reached underneath the stall and pulled out a rough scrap of hardboard. She had a bandage on her right hand, wrapped tightly around her wrist and her thumb.
Maureen had never really had a conversation with Home Gran but she knew the other stallholders were wary of her. Peter and Lenny had told Leslie that Home Gran was a retired prostitute. Her son had been a scholarship boy at a posh private school. The Parish Mothers had organized a petition against the place going to her boy because she was a streetwalker but, to the school's credit, they kept him on and he went to university and studied management, no less. Maureen had heard of Home Gran walloping light-fingered shoppers across the head with the lid of her change tray. Sometimes she did it to innocent young guys on suspicion, prompting widespread disapprovaclass="underline" no one would come to the market if they thought they might get battered just for looking. But it was a slow day and Maureen had nothing else to do but go outside and dodge the sunshine. "Okay, then," she said, pulling the lid off the Biro. "What's your name?"
"Ella McGee."
"Address?"
"Fifty-four, flat 12 D, Benny Lynch Court, Gl."
The Gorbals had recently been renamed and rebranded for the third time in a century but the area had yet to lose its heroin-plague and slasher-gang reputation. The high flats were a reminder of a simpler time, when the area was a repository for the most difficult and troubled families in the city. Maureen had heard that the janny's office was fitted with bulletproof glass. Ella muttered, "It's not like ye think."
Maureen moved on swiftly. "And who're ye bringing the case against?"
Maureen waited, pen poised, but Ella didn't answer. She looked up to find Ella with her bandaged hand raised, ready to give a slap.
"One word to anyone," she said, but it sounded as if she was begging.
Maureen shrugged casually. "No odds to me," she said, and pointed at Ella's hand, "but raise your hand to me again and I'm off." She went back to waiting to fill out the form and, out of the corner of her eye, saw Ella's hand drop to her knee.
"Okay. It's my son, Si." She waited for a reaction but Maureen kept a straight face.
"Si McGee," said Maureen. "Is that his full name?"
"No," said Ella.
"Well, we should put his full name down."
"Simon Alan Egbert McGee."
"Egbert, is that a confirmation name?"
"Aye."
Maureen hadn't figured Home Gran for a Pape at all but now she looked at her and saw the heavy gold crucifix at her neck in a slightly less Versace light.
"Egbert." Ella smiled weakly. "Silly bugger, eh?"
"There's dafter names in the canon," said Maureen, letting Ella know that she was Catholic too. Liam's confirmation name, Mortimer, had been chosen out of a hat in collusion with four pals at school. It could have been worse: the other options were Crispin, Ado and Mary. Maureen marveled once again at the idiocy of allowing hysterical children to choose their own confirmation names. She left Egbert out of Si McGee's name and moved on to the address box. She looked up at Ella expectantly, pointing at the page. Ella was watching her face. "Well?" said Maureen. "Where does he stay, then?"
"Twelve Bentynck Street, Bearsden," said Ella.
"That's a swanky address. Is there that much money in tapes?"
"Naw, he's got different businesses." Ella pointed to the tray of tapes above her head. "There's not a lot of money in this. He just set me up to keep me out of the way of the buses."
Maureen turned back to the form, pointing to the amount box. Ella was staring at her face again, trying to read something in it. She seemed determined not to look at the form. Maureen tapped the page with the pen and looked at her expectantly. Ella blinked and raised her drawn-on eyebrows.
"How much does he owe ye?" asked Maureen finally.
"Seven hundred pound."
"How come?"
Crouched down on the crossbar, Ella looked like a withered child, hiding from angry adults. She lowered her voice. "Don't tell?" Maureen shook her head and Ella looked at the floor, resting her chin on her knee as she drew a finger through the dust. "He hasnae been paying me," she said softly.
"For working here?" whispered Maureen.
"Aye, and my cleaning I do for him in his shop."
"Has he got money worries?"
"Nut. The shops are doing well. He's not short, he just thinks there's nothing I can do if he doesn't pay me." Uncomfortably, she gestured an elaborate rolling circle with her finger and stopped. "I'm getting benefit. If they knew I worked…"
Maureen had seen tourists hounded out of the flea market for raising a camera and knew that Ella's position was not unique. " Ye'd hardly get a balloon and a badge for that here, would ye?" she said, wondering why Ella was confiding all of this information in her at all. They didn't know each other. She must have had closer friends in the market. Maureen wrote "loan" in the box, trying to keep her writing tidy. The hardboard she was leaning on was still gritty and she felt the pen crunch through dust, pitting the back of the page. She looked up and Ella was still drawing zigzags on the dusty floor. "What does your son sell in his shops?"
"This and that." Ella waved her hand. "Houses, and wholesale stuff, ye know."
"He's an estate agent?"
"Aye, and other things."
"Well, what business address should I put in here?"
Ella thought about it for a moment, looking at the floor. Her face contracted slowly, her lips tightened, eyes narrowed. "Park Circus Health Club, ninety-three Becci Street, Kelvingrove."
"I didn't know there was a health club there," said Maureen, writing it down.
When she looked up again Ella was suddenly ancient. Maureen imagined her without the tracksuit, without the gold rings and the eyebrows and her glasses, and realized she must be much older than sixty. She was at least seventy. "And that's where you clean, is it?"
"Aye."
It wasn't part of the form but Maureen was keen to know. "Why don't ye just keep back the money from the stall?"
Ella harrumphed. "Wouldn't cover it."
"So you're still handing over the money ye make here?"
"I've kept my side of the bargain."
"Is he just avoiding ye, then?"
"Nut," said Ella, turning her mouth down at the corners. "He's threatened me."