Field of Blood

I

As Paddy walked to the train station she felt all her future hopes fade. She was too naive to make it as a journalist. She should have known Heather would use the story. Any good journalist would have, anyone who wasn’t destined to spend the rest of their career writing obituaries or fashion tips about hemlines and tweed. She’d never make it. She’d have to marry Sean and raise a hundred pyromaniac kids like Mrs. Breslin.

The platform for the low-level train was crammed with people. Paddy joined the end of the crowd of commuters gathered on the stairs. Standing in the dull subterranean light, resting her hip against the damp railing, she tried not to speculate about her mother’s or Sean’s reaction to her when she got home. All around her on the stairs people were reading papers with headlines about the Baby Brian Boys. It would be particularly hard, she thought, to be a child in trouble with no one to defend you but Callum Ogilvy’s mother.

Paddy couldn’t recall her name but she remembered her well. After the funeral mass for Callum’s father the mourners had gone back to the Ogilvy house. It was dark and dank and poor. Wallpaper had been pulled off in the hall and living room and left on the floor.

By way of a drink, Sean’s Auntie Maggie had dished out whisky from a bottle she had brought herself. There weren’t any glasses in the house; they had to use chipped mugs and pastel plastic children’s beakers. Paddy’s beaker hadn’t been washed out properly, and a crescent of dried milk floated to the surface, clouding the whisky.

Callum’s mother had long, straggly hair that hung from a center parting over her face, slicing away cheekbones and jaw, leaving her as nothing but a pair of dead, wet eyes and bloodless lips. Sometimes her face would slacken, her mouth would fall open, and she would weep, exhausted. She helped herself to other people’s cups from the table, getting drunk quickly, disgracing herself. Sean said that she’d been like that before the father died, she’d been like that for a long time, and everybody already knew about it. The mourners had stayed on just as long as was polite and all left at the same time, lifting from the dirty Barnhill house as suddenly as a startled flock of birds.

Paddy had a grudging respect for irresponsible mothers. It wasn’t much of a job. Every mother she knew was anxious and fretful and never any fun at all. She tried hard to be respectful of Trisha, tried to appreciate and thank her for all she did, but couldn’t stop herself sniggering along when Marty and Gerald made fun of her. All the mothers she knew worked unlauded all their lives, aging before anyone else in the family, until the only thing that differentiated them from old, old men was a perm and a set of earrings.

The train arrived and the commuters pressed forward, carrying Paddy along on the flow of bodies. She wished she could turn back and run up to Albion Street and hide in the office. She was one of the last people to squeeze through the carriage doors before they shut.

As the train pulled away from the platform she imagined herself, wearing smart clothes and a miraculous half-foot taller, swaggering into glamorous rooms with a pan-scope stretched body, asking pertinent questions and writing important articles. All the fantasies felt hollow this evening. She had an ominous sense that a shadow had marked her, that everything was fated to go wrong from here on in. Luck could curdle, she knew. The train pulled out of the dark station, dragging her homeward, delivering her to her people.

II

It was raining hard by the time the train reached Rutherglen, washing away the pretty remains of the snow. Paddy followed the crowd up the steep stairs to the covered bridge.

A crowd of drunks were gathered outside the Tower Bar, a backstreet pub with an entrance next to the public toilets. A recent patron of possibly both establishments was trying to zip up his bomber jacket, attempting again and again to dock the pin in the eye, swaying with the effort of concentration. Another man, the father of a boy she had been at Trinity with, was carefully watching the action, hugging a carryout of two beer cans. Paddy was glad she had her duffel coat hood up- he might have recognized her and tried to speak to her. Eventually the man carrying the party tins lost patience, cut across the straggling crowd coming from the train, and headed up the narrow alley to the Main Street, hurriedly followed by the drunk dresser, yanking his jacket straight.

Rutherglen Main Street’s pavements were broad, a reminder of the market past of the town, when its royal charter set it up as a rival to the nearby village of Glasgow. Little of the original town remained. The long winding tail of West Main Street, lined with drovers’ cottages and pubs built when Mary of Guise was on the throne, had been knocked down and tarmac’d to make a large new road to other parts of the Southside. In the course of one development, Rutherglen had gone from an ancient market town to an intersection.

Men and women from Castlemilk, the new housing scheme just up the road, would come down to find Republican and Unionist pubs, or pubs that sold drink in the big quarter-gill measures instead of the English eighth. Rolling down the hill to Rutherglen was always less problematic than rolling back up again; after lunchtime and evening closing the Main Street was littered with drunks sleeping on benches, collapsed on pavements, or wide awake and causing grief in shops.

Paddy passed bus stops where waiting workers spilled out onto the road, peering up the street through the rain, watching anxiously for the right number. She passed Granny Annie’s dark house and headed up to Gallowflat Street.

Sean lived in a ground-floor tenement flat. Like Paddy, he was the youngest of a large family, but all his siblings had married and left home, and he was the last one left. His mother was a widow and had swapped her council house for the three-bedroom flat she found easier to keep. When she wasn’t at home fussing around her precious Sean, she poured all her extra energy into fund-raising for the White Fathers’ African missions and other charities. Natural disasters were her favorites.

Through the living room window, Paddy could hear the Nationwide theme coming from the Ogilvys’ television. The kitchen window was steamed opaque and propped open with a can of beans; the smell of cabbage and pissy boiled washing powder seeped through the narrow opening. Paddy stopped outside the close, resting one foot on the stair, and took a breath. This was best, coming here first. Sean might even come home with her and show her mum that the Ogilvys weren’t angry. She thought of Sean’s face and felt a great burst of love. She’d never wanted to see him more. She walked up the close and took a breath before pressing the bell.

Mimi Ogilvy opened the door and let out a muted eek when she saw Paddy. She had always pretended to like her prospective daughter-in-law because she was a Meehan, but she had confided in Sean that she didn’t approve of Paddy having a job with career prospects. It made her seem fast.

“Oh, hiya, Mrs. Ogilvy,” said Paddy, wishing that this was going a bit better. “No need to scream, ha. It’s just me.”

Mrs. Ogilvy fell back into the hall, lifting her pinny in front of her mouth. She called to Sean, keeping her eyes on Paddy. He didn’t come immediately, and the two women were left staring at each other, Paddy sporting a nervous smile, Mrs. Ogilvy’s shock coagulating into malevolence.

Sean ambled out of the kitchen, chewing a slice of white bread folded in half. He stiffened when he saw it was her.

Paddy waved at him. “Hiya,” she said feebly.

He stepped in front of his mother and pulled the door half shut, filling the space with his body. Mrs. Ogilvy sniffed a demand for attention behind him. “Get back inside, Ma,” he said.

Mimi whispered something that Paddy couldn’t hear and backed off. A door slammed behind him.

“Not the Ogilvys’ favorite girl, then?”

“Go home, Paddy.” He had never spoken so coldly to her before, and it threw her.

“I didn’t do it, Sean.” She spoke quickly, afraid he would slam the door in her face. “I confided in a girl at work when I saw the picture of Callum, and she sold the story. I only told her because I was upset.”

Sean looked past her.

She felt a rising sense of fright. “I swear, Seanie, I promise that’s what happened-”

“My ma’s gutted. I read it at my work. I was eating my lunch and somebody showed it to me. It wasn’t nice.”

“You read the paper?” She was surprised, because he never admitted to reading the Daily News. It was a point of pride with him, because it was more of a broadsheet than a tabloid.

“Someone else bought it,” he explained.

“Sean, would I do that? Would I, Sean?” She was using his name too much, her voice high and wavering. She knew her face was contracted against her will, her mouth stretching wide with fear.

“I don’t know what you’d do anymore. I see the article in the paper, it’s your paper, what am I supposed to think?”

“But if I’d written it, would I say we were Catholic? Would I mention that?”

He almost smiled. “What’re ye saying? You’d betray me and my family but ye wouldn’t say a bad word about the church?”

Paddy found she couldn’t keep up the supplicant’s role anymore. “Well, piss off, then, if you don’t believe me.”

She heard Mrs. Ogilvy tutting at the swear word behind him. The sneaky old bitch hadn’t left the hall at all. Sean stepped back and shut the front door in her face.

Paddy didn’t move. She waited for three minutes. Finally he opened again.

“Go away,” he said quietly, and shut it again.

III

Paddy walked the two miles home in the rain, more dejected by the step, certain it would be bad in the house. She thought of Meehan’s seven-year protest in solitary confinement, of the keening men and women in the political prisons of Moscow and East Berlin, of Griffiths’s wasted life and lonely last moments, and knew that other people faced worse than her, but it was cold comfort tonight. She was sure they wouldn’t believe she was innocent. They’d have to punish her, and they’d need to let other people know they’d done it. Her parents rarely needed to discipline their children. They only did it when they were forced to, usually by the intractable opinions of their friends, but when they did it had a vicious, nasty edge to it that hinted at aspects of their personalities she didn’t want to think about.

She took a deep breath as she fitted her key in the lock. The sound of the door scraping along the carpet protector was the only noise in the house, and the throbbing silence buzzed in her ears. She wanted to call a hello but was worried that it might sound nonchalant. When she hung up her coat in the hall cupboard she noticed that a lot of coats were missing. She took off her shoes and put on her slippers, all the time hoping for a call or a greeting of any kind.

It was eight o’clock but the living room was eerily tidy, no empty cups of tea or folded newspapers on the arms of the chairs. Paddy stopped in the kitchen doorway. Trisha was busy attending to something in the sink and kept her back to the room. Paddy saw Trisha’s face reflected in the window, noticed the tension on her neck and the tightness of her jaw. She didn’t look up.

“Hello, Mum.” She could see herself, nervous, reflected over Trisha’s left shoulder.

Trisha stood up straight, keeping her gaze down. She moved over to the cooker, lifted a warmed bowl out of the oven, and carelessly ladled carrot soup into it from a pot. She slammed it onto the kitchen table, flicking her finger at Paddy before turning back to the cooker. Paddy sat down and started to eat.

“That’s lovely soup,” she said, as she had been saying every teatime since she was twelve.

Without a word, Trisha bent down and opened the oven, took out a plate from a stack of five, and filled it with boiled potatoes from a pot, a portion of wet peas, and lamb stew. She dropped the plate to the table. The potatoes had been boiled too long and were dry and cracked, yellow inside and powdery white on the outside.

Paddy put her spoon down carefully in the soup. “I didn’t do it, Mum.”

Trisha took a glass from the draining board and ran the cold tap, touching the water to test the temperature.

Paddy started to cry. “Please don’t, Mum, don’t shun me, please?”

Trisha filled the glass and tipped a drop of orange squash into it, just enough to cloud the water. She put the glass onto the table.

“Mum, I saw the picture of Callum Ogilvy at work and told a girl, and she said I should write the story and I said no.” Paddy’s nose was blocked and oily tears dripped into the thick orange soup, taking a minute to sit on the surface before dispersing. She struggled to catch her breath. “Then this morning I was on the way to work and I saw the story in the paper. It wasn’t me, Mum, I swear it wasn’t me.”

Trisha stood and looked at the floor, so angry she almost broke the habit of a lifetime and asked why. She turned and left the room. Paddy heard her out in the hall, opening the coat cupboard, tinkling metal hangers. Trisha shucked off her slippers one at a time, stamped on some outdoor ones, and then she was gone, the front door slamming shut behind her.

Paddy ate her soup. Marty had been shunned once when he split up with Martine Holland, a very holy girlfriend. Paddy came home one day and found the girl crying in the living room with Trisha listening and Con running back and forth with cups of tea and wee bits of toast. She never found out exactly what Marty had done, but the family had conferences about him when he was out of the house. He had done a terrible, venal thing to the girl. It was up to them as a family to teach him the difference between right and wrong, to guide him with love and patience onto the right path. They would ignore him, behave as if he weren’t there, and they would do it for a full three days. Paddy remembered sitting at the table in the kitchen when Marty came in that evening. They all fell silent. He started to make himself a sandwich, dropped the knife, and walked out of the kitchen, leaving the bread half buttered on the plate. When Trisha gave them permission to start talking to him again, Paddy saw him tearful with relief. He didn’t get back with Martine, and it was a year before he went out with a girl. He never brought them home now and had never recovered his place in the family. What Paddy remembered most about the shunning was the cozy sanctimosity of being on the inside.

Paddy ate her stew and the powdery potatoes. Then she had some ice cream, and then went back for some more even though she was very full. She sat in front of the television for a while, until Gerald came in at half nine. He called hello through the house but dropped his voice when he saw the back of Paddy’s head in the good armchair. He took off his coat in silence. She turned on him as he came through the living room heading for the kitchen.

“You shit, Gerald,” she said. “You don’t even know what happened.”

He kept his eyes down and nodded at her sorrowfully, implying that she had brought this on herself.

“Are you not speaking to me? It wasn’t even me.”

Gerald shrugged again, averting his eyes.

“You fucking arsehole,” she said, standing up.

“I’m gonnae tell Mum you said that.”

“I’m gonnae tell Mum you spoke to me,” she said, storming off upstairs.

IV

Paddy had been lying in bed for three hours, listening as each member of the family came home, found she was in bed, and relaxed. She heard the television go on, listened to the formless sound of chat in the kitchen, heard them moving into the living room when they realized she wasn’t coming down. Marty spoke especially loudly, laughing heartily a couple of times, and she couldn’t but feel he was getting his own back. Her dad, she noticed, said hardly a word. He would be terribly hurt. She wondered if Trisha would whisper to him when they went to bed, as they heard her do sometimes, and tell him that Paddy had said it wasn’t her. Con had never been the same with Marty after his shunning. He contradicted him in everything and never joked with him anymore.

Someone shut the living room door and the noises downstairs became muted and indistinguishable. They were having a conference about her behavior and the article. She could only imagine how bad it sounded.

She comforted herself by following Sean around his bedtime routine: setting out his clothes for the morning on a chair, brushing his teeth, getting into bed, pushing the pillows onto the floor so that he could lie flat on his stomach. She smelled his hair and touched the mole on his high cheekbone. He wrapped his arms around her and told her it would be okay and not to worry. A week on Saturday was Valentine’s Day. They always went to the pictures together on Valentine’s and shared a chicken supper on the way home. She ran through their past three Valentine’s dates: the rainy one; the one when she was on an herb diet and could only smell the deep-fried meat and lick a chip; and the last one, when he proposed for the first time and she said no.

Her dark room was cold, and the wind outside shook the lone tree far away at the bottom of the garden. She heard the radiator tick, tick as the heating was turned off and the metal contracted.

She waited until she was bursting for a pee so that she wouldn’t have to go twice before she fell asleep. At the head of the stairs she turned on the light, pausing outside the bathroom door, giving the silverfish a head start. Downstairs, the lonely voice of a news reader murmured. The family was listening to her move.

Paddy used the loo and washed her hands and face. She was drying them on the hand towel when she heard the living room door open and a soft footfall on the stairs. She froze, watching him through the mottled glass. Marty stopped outside, running a hand through his curly black hair, head dipped as if he was going to whisper to her through the door. She listened carefully. He didn’t speak, but his cheeks bunched as if he was smiling. He straightened his arm, reached out to the door frame, and snapped off the light.

She watched him from the dark, his splintered shape dropping down the stairs and disappearing, leaving her with imaginary silverfish swarming over her feet.

One by one her family came up to bed, taking turns in the bathroom, whispering good nights on the landing as they passed each other, pretending that they thought she was asleep, when they all knew she was hiding.

Mary Ann sidled into the room on tiptoes and picked up her wash bag from her chest of drawers and her nightie from under her pillow, leaving the door open so that the bright light from the hall lit her way. When she came back she shut the door carefully behind her, clambered under the covers, and rolled over onto her side, turning her back on Paddy.

Paddy had been brave and angry all night, but she couldn’t keep it up anymore. She tried to disguise her breathing by biting the blankets. She knew Marty deserved his shunning but never thought they would do it to her. Everyone at work thought she was a fat joke, and everyone at home hated her. She found herself descending to that level of self-pity God had reserved for teenagers when she felt a slap on her shoulder. She rolled over a little.

Mary Ann’s eyes looked like little currants in the dark. She was hanging off her own bed, slapping Paddy on the arm, silently laughing a desperate request for a smile. Paddy couldn’t. She shook her head and pulled the covers up to her mouth, trying not to cry.

“I didn’t do it,” said Paddy, her voice less than a murmur.

Mary Ann reached across and pulled Paddy’s wet hand away from her face, squeezing it tight. She held it until her wee sister fell asleep, and then she got out of bed and tucked Paddy’s chubby arm under the covers. She sat on the side of Paddy’s bed, smiling until her teeth dried and her lips stuck to them, until her feet went numb with the cold.