Maureen pretended to try to remember. "I fell asleep and woke up and couldn't get back to sleep," she said.
"So, you didn't go out?"
"No. Leslie was there with me. And Kilty. We all slept in the living room. Why are you asking?"
Liam looked down his nose at her. "Just asking."
She should push it: he'd be suspicious if she wasn't suspicious. "It's a strange thing to just ask. Where were you?"
"At Siobhain's house," he said, "watching a video."
They sat smoking and looking out at the sunny green.
"I really love her, Mauri."
Mauri looked at him, at his curly black hair and straight nose, at the prematurely aging skin beneath his eyes. "I'm glad, then," she said. "I hope ye stay together for the longest time and are really happy."
Liam smiled up at her. "Really?" he said, touched and pleased.
"Yup."
Liam grinned and stretched out a leg in front of him, looking away down the road and then back at her. "I'm thinking about asking her to marry me."
"Oh, fuck off," snapped Maureen.
"Hey, you said you were pleased," said Liam, raising his voice.
"You've known each other all of two minutes," shouted Maureen.
Everyone on the steps was looking at them.
"We'd have a long engagement," said Liam earnestly.
She found herself laughing. "A long engagement?" she repeated.
Liam thought about it and laughed too. "Yeah," he grinned, "a long engagement."
"Who are you, the Duchess of Argyll?"
"You. Hello."
Maureen turned and found Suicide Tanya staring down at her. She was wearing a grotesquely feminine Laura Ashley dress with a rosebud pattern on it, tottering in a pair of battered court shoes with a worn-down heel. Maureen suspected that Laura might have meant her to wear a bra with the dress: the cloth belt around the waist strained under the weight of her breasts. Next to her stood a pencil-thin myopic man wearing women's glasses, a dirty gray T-shirt and a Confederate soldier's hat. "Suicide, how are ye?"
"Aye," shouted Tanya. "This is Reb. He's my partner."
Maureen nodded at him. "How're ye?"
Reb didn't nod back. His glasses were so thick Maureen doubted he knew where he was. "This is my brother," she said and, turning to introduce him, saw that Liam was at once enchanted and repulsed by Tanya and her beau.
"Hiya," shouted Tanya. "I've seen Angus."
"Very good," said Maureen. "Were ye in the court, then?"
Everyone on the stairs was watching Tanya now. She was hard not to watch. As she turned to tug the elasticized sleeve from the groove in the fat of her arm, Maureen saw that the dress wasn't even done up properly. A couple of token buttons had been fastened but the waves of fat on her back tugged the material this way and that, leaving gaping holes of stretched red skin. Maureen realized she was witnessing the sexual awakening of Suicide Tanya. At the bottom of the stairs two young men in suits were sniggering at her, one covering his face with a fat hand, and Maureen suddenly felt precious about her. "You look lovely, Tanya," she said, inadvertently prompting a grin from Liam and some journalists standing nearby. "Have ye been going out together for long?"
Tanya blanked the pathetic attempt to patronize her. "Angus Farrell's a murderer and murdered Douglas," she shouted.
"I know, Tanya."
"It was in the paper. Reb telt me. Are you going to the court to look at him?"
"Dunno," said Maureen. "Are you going back in?"
"Yes. Later," said Tanya, shoved her hand into Reb's and reeled away down the stairs towards the road.
"Who or what was that?" asked Liam quietly.
Maureen explained that Suicide Tanya had been at the Rainbow Clinic and had introduced her to Siobhain. She kept trying to kill herself and was something of a celebrity among the emergency services. The last time Maureen had heard of her, Suicide was being hoisted off a shed roof in Shettleston by the fire brigade.
"Reb seemed like a nice guy," he said facetiously.
"I like Tanya," said Maureen, raising her voice so everyone else on the stairs could hear her. "She knows people are laughing at her – it hurts her. They put her on this medication to stop her killing herself and she can't control her voice and it makes her a bit thick."
"Sorry," said Liam. "She certainly cuts a dash, though."
Maureen relaxed a bit and watched Tanya leave. "I've seen her wearing a backless gold halter-neck," she whispered, and Liam winced. Maureen watched her undulating back disappear through the gate and reflected that even Suicide Tanya was sustaining a relationship with a man.
When Shirley, Paulsa and Maureen had gathered in the room again after lunch the police officer came through and asked them to come with him. He led them through the lobby, past the door of the court Angus was appearing in, and along a corridor to a small door with the number "1" on it. "Where are we going?" asked Shirley.
"This is the prosecution waiting room," said the officer, as if that meant anything to any of them. Maureen and Paulsa nodded to each other, trying to show they weren't completely out of their depth. Shirley, who wasn't out of her depth, didn't bother trying to convince anyone of it.
It was a larger, windowless room with seats bolted to every wall. Overhead lights were muffled by a dropped panel. On each of the four walls hung an indistinct impressionist print in a thin gold frame. A smaller door at the back of the room had a stern notice on it, prohibiting unauthorized entry.
One hour into the afternoon Shirley was called to give evidence, leaving Maureen alone in the small room with fraught Paulsa. This, she suspected, was exactly what he had feared. As the door shut behind her Paulsa sniggered like a teenager on a frightening first date. Maureen pretended not to notice and went back to making up words that would fit into the spaces of the crossword. He sniggered again. "Are you trying to get my attention?" she said, without looking up.
"Nut," he said petulantly.
"What are they going to make you say out there?"
"In the court?"
"Yeah, in the court."
Paulsa lifted his bony shoulders past his ears.
"Won't be good for me, though," she said, "whatever it is."
"Doesn't matter," Paulsa said, in a high voice. "You're not on trial, are ye?"
"No," she said, "I'm not. Are you going to tell them Liam gave me the acid?"
"God, shit, no." Paulsa moved across the room, sitting one chair away from her, leaning over confidentially "They're going to ask me about the acid you bought from me."
Maureen lowered her paper. "You're not mentioning Liam in your evidence?"
"No. Just about the acid you bought from us. They've got me on another charge. I haven't got a choice."
She smiled at him, relieved. "I understand that, Paulsa, I won't hold it against ye."
"Liam will but."
"Paulsa, Liam's retired."
"But you're his sister. He'll fucking kill me."
They were let go at half four and Maureen watched Paulsa slope off out of the building. Liam was in the clear, they weren't even going to mention him.
Minutes ago Angus had been no farther away than through that door. Maureen remembered him listening to her describe the incidents with Michael, giving her cigarettes and tissues, telling her how not to die five times a day, handing her a future. He was a pragmatist, wasn't interested in connecting or empathizing, just focused on practicalities and problem solving. He was through the door and it meant nothing to her. She went outside for a cigarette.
As the door opened to the green, Maureen smelled the sweet grass and saw the yellow sun dancing across the roofs of passing cars. The soft breeze caressed her face, brushing her hair back like a kind mother; the sun warmed her itchy arms and loosened her tired neck. Here she was, she thought, content and enjoying whatever she could, living her dream.
A man walked along the dark road at the top of the hill and turned into the park, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched around his ears. Ten yards past the gates he disappeared into a thicket of bushes. A big moon hung over the blue city and Kilty, Leslie and Maureen were sitting very still, heavy hearts beating quickly, wishing they could smoke or drink or leave.