Exile

Chapter 18

The low winter sun was a blistering horizontal beam slicing through the city's grid system, leaving patches of ragged frost and frozen puddles on the cross. Pedestrians dragged fifteen-foot-long shadows after them and the high Victorian buildings of the city center melted into the earth. Leslie turned the corner, slowing down as she drove towards the light.

Maureen sat tall on the pillion, her coattails brushing the passing cars and her hair snapping at her neck. She took herself back to yesterday, to the deep calm and the vortex of welcoming air at the windowsill. She was still alive and having another day, losing herself in the problems of Jimmy and Ann and feeling all right sometimes. She looked at the people on the street and realized that the world must be busy with people who tried to kill themselves last night, people who woke up this morning, nauseous and disappointed, and had to go to work, living the afterwards. She thought of Pauline, and it struck her that suicide was never the definitive statement; it was an impulse, a comma, not a stop. If she had jumped from the window the comma would have gone on forever, like Pauline, a breathless hush hanging for infinity without the possibility of resolution.

She thought of Winnie's little hand and there it was again. She was crying under her helmet, as sentimental as a recent divorcee at New Year. And then, for one clear, shining moment, she saw how it would be if only she were wrong about everything. Michael would be a prodigal father, all the more welcome for his long absence. Una and Marie would be her patient sisters, waiting for her to be a sister to them. And Winnie, the kind mother, fighting for her disturbed daughter's affection despite a thousand rejections. It was simple from the other side.

The bike stopped at a set of lights on Woodlands Road and Maureen looked up. An abandoned shop had two of their shelter campaign posters plastered to the window. Maureen and Leslie nudged each other, remembering six thirty in the morning, their hands sticky from a night brushing paste, as the dawn wind gathered and the sleepy shift workers waited at the bus stop. The lights changed and Leslie pulled off into the road.

Siobhain's close smelled of cats and bleach and hot food. A squawking television in the flat opposite sounded urgent and foreign. Leslie knocked and stepped back to wait. The door opened on the chain and Siobhain looked out at them through the two-inch crack. She was beautiful. Her skin was lunar white, her lips salmon pink – even the streaks of white through her thick black hair looked like sheen. "I am watching television," she said, her hootie-shush-teuchter accent sounding like an order to slow down.

"Can we come in anyway?" said Maureen. "We've come all the way over to see you."

"But it's Quincy."

Along the hall they could hear the monolithic television twittering as Quincy made a bunch of brand-new close friends, solved all their problems then never had to see them again. Douglas had given Siobhain a wad of cash before he died and she spent it sporadically on big things. The giant television was Siobhain's delight. She talked about it like a new horse, how well it worked, how sleek it was, how she didn't know of anyone else with one as good as that. Occasionally, when they were sitting watching telly, she'd turn to Maureen smiling and say, listen to that sound, look at the color, wasn't it great? She'd joined a video club as well and had taken to watching wet romances and schlock horrors night after night. Running seriously short of things to say on her fortnightly visits, Maureen had mentioned Liam's films. They weren't very good and there was no story but she thought it might be nice for her to see a film and meet the person who'd made it. Siobhain hated them. Liam sat on the beige sofa at the end of his twenty-minute video and Siobhain turned to him and asked him sincerely why he had bothered.

Leslie pushed in front of Maureen. "Look, Siobhain, we're only here to see if you're okay."

Siobhain pursed her pretty mouth. "You should telephone me before you come here," she said. "This is not a tearoom."

"We tried to phone," lied Leslie, "but you've turned your mobile off again."

Like everyone else with a bit of spare cash in Britain that Christmas, Siobhain had felt the need to have a phone in her pocket at all times and had bought a mobile, but she couldn't stand the noise it made. She would forget to recharge it and kept it in a drawer in the kitchen so that if it ever rang out she wouldn't hear it.

"Oh, I suppose I have." Siobhain shut the door, undid the chain and let them into the hall, closing the door carefully after them and sliding the chain back on. She smiled a pleased, secretive smirk, as if she were walking about with no knickers on, and pointed them into the living room.

Siobhain didn't care about her appearance. She generally wore whatever was clean and came to hand. Today she was modeling a red golfing jersey, gathered tight at the waist, and orange nylon tracksuit bottoms that swish-swished when she walked. She had worked hard to put on as much weight as possible after she was discharged from psychiatric hospital. They'd watched her eat breakfast once, half a loaf washed down with full-fat milk. She didn't care much about her surroundings either. Well-meaning social workers had decorated the house, and every room was painted cleanable beige with a beige carpet throughout and predominantly beige furniture. Maureen didn't usually buy into the spiritual significance of home decor but Siobhain's house made her soul wither. The only thing of any interest in the living room was the painting. She had used Douglas's money to have a photograph of her dead brother reproduced as an oil painting and hung it over the gas fire. It looked exactly like a painting of a photograph, the little boy's spontaneous gestures, a pointed finger, a half wink, suddenly invested with elusive meaning. The little boy stood smiling sadly into the camera, his little knees pink under his shorts, his red wellies trimmed with black mud.

She led them into the living room and sat Leslie in the armchair and Maureen on the settee by the door so that Siobhain herself could be nearer the television and wouldn't have to miss anything Quincy said. Leslie crossed her legs, resting her leather biker boot on the arm of the chair. Siobhain pointed at her. "Get your feet off the furniture," she ordered. "Please."

Leslie tutted and moved her leg. They sat silently, listening as Quincy summed up the case to his idiot sidekick. Siobhain leaned down to the side of the sofa and pulled two blue plastic photo albums onto her lap. She sat with them on her knee, patting them occasionally, smirking to herself when Quincy made a joke. The ads started.

"Have you brought something for us to eat together?" she asked Maureen.

"I think I've got some chewing gum." Maureen pulled a battered packet out of her back pocket. Siobhain held out her hand while Maureen squeezed two shiny rectangles of gum out of the tight wrapper and took one for herself. Leslie refused. They sat chewing and watching the ads until Siobhain turned to Maureen, put one album in her lap then stood up slowly, walked over to Leslie and handed her the other. "Have a look," she said, and sat back down.

Maureen opened the first page. Below the sticky cellophane a cacophony of color shrieked across the page. The pictures were cut out of magazines, printed on flimsy paper. They were pictures of babies, of models and members of the public, photographs of toothpaste tubes and ketchup bottles and houses and new cars and competition prizes. Each picture had been cut out very carefully, no detail too insignificant to be missed. They were perfect. Over the page another riot was in progress, and over another and over another. It must have taken her hours. Siobhain was delighted at their surprise. "See?" she said, grinning at them.

"See what?" asked Leslie.

"See my pictures?" said Siobhain.

Maureen knew that Siobhain took her medication religiously and she knew that she was treated for depression but she didn't know what to make of this. "Are they your pictures?" she asked.

"Yes," said Siobhain. "They are by me and for me. Do you like them?"

Maureen smiled uncomfortably. "Yeah, but what are they for?"

"They're about my people," said Siobhain, "about when I was young and the martyrs."

Leslie pointed at a picture of a baby in a bath, wearing a pointy hat of soapy foam. "Is this one about martyrs?"

"It's about my mother bathing children in Sutherland." She stopped.

"Should you be doing this, Siobhain?" said Leslie, turning the page and staring down at a tourist-brochure photograph of Majorca.

"Yes, yes, they're from my books," said Siobhain, nodding over to a mutilated pile of true-life magazines behind the television. "They gave them to me at the day center. I can do what I like with them." She pointed to the picture Leslie was looking at. "Shangri-La."

"How long did it take you to do it all?" asked Maureen.

"All of yesterday evening and this morning," she said solemnly, as if she had achieved a long-held goal. She pointed to Leslie's lap. "Go forward a wee bit – there, there, look at that one."

It was a picture of a car. Maureen watched her. Siobhain didn't seem volatile or changeable but she was quite high and the pictures were bizarre. She might be getting letters from Angus, she might have upped her medication if they bothered her – that might explain how high she was. Siobhain smiled at her, not the sleepy smile Maureen knew her for but a big wide-awake grin. "Do you like them?" she said hopefully.

"I don't understand them, to be honest," Maureen answered.

Siobhain nodded. "No," she said quietly, "I know. They are a story you haven't heard, about my home and my people."

Maureen was stumped. "Are you thinking about going home?" she asked.

"No. My home is gone." She patted the album on Maureen's knee. "It's in here now."

Leslie put her album down on the floor and stood up. "I need the loo," she said, and walked out to the dark hall.

"If you forget where you're from," said Siobhain, when Leslie was out of the room, "if you forget your people, it's a kind of betrayal, isn't it?"

Maureen cleared her throat. "Do you get a lot of post, Siobhain?"

"No," she said, and turned back to the album on Maureen's lap. "How do you like this one?"

"Nice," said Maureen. "So, what else have you been up to? Have you been going to the day center?"

"Yes."

Maureen scratched her arm. "How's Tanya?" she said.

"Fine."

Maureen didn't know how to ask about Angus without frightening her.

"D'you understand now?" asked Siobhain.

"A wee bit. Do you get post?"

"Not much." Siobhain chewed her gum for a moment, looking out into the hallway for Leslie. "What's taking her so long? I hope she's not rummaging in there."

"You haven't had a letter recently?"

Siobhain sighed and looked at Maureen insolently. "No. No post. No," she said spitefully. "Stop going on about it."

"Are you sure?"

"Look," said Siobhain, snide and quiet, like a bullying babysitter having a dig while the parents were out of the room, "I'm not your patient. You cannot come to my house in the middle of the day and ask me questions over and over."

"I'm sorry," said Maureen, feeling tearful again. "I just – I don't understand the pictures."

Siobhain looked into the hall again. "I know you don't understand," she whispered. "It doesn't mean I'm wrong, does it?"

Maureen looked at her. The color had risen in Siobhain's face, her chubby cheeks were flushed. She touched her hair, tucking it behind her ear. She seemed so different, like someone Maureen would know, someone she'd be friends with, like a girl of her own age and time. "Siobhain, I've never seen you like this."

"It's a long time since I felt like this."

"Like what?"

Siobhain patted the album on Maureen's lap and looked her in the eye. "Interested in something."

They heard a flush down the hall and the bathroom door opened, amplifying the noise. Siobhain waited until Leslie sat back down and arranged herself in her chair before telling them it was time they left because her favorite soap was coming on.

A damp sheen coated the close, making the stone stairs slippery.

"Do you think we should phone the doctor?" said Maureen, as they stepped out into the blinding sunshine.

"I don't know, she's pretty strange most of the time."

"She's high, though. Depressives don't get high unless something's going on."

"Did you ask her about the letters?"

"He's not writing to her," said Maureen.

"He's just writing to you, then?"

"Yeah."

"Well, she's got more on him than you have. If it was a real threat he'd be writing to her too."

"But if it's not a threat," said Maureen, "then what is it?"

Duke Street was busy and clogged with cumbersome buses easing their way around the pedestrians. The scathing sunshine beamed directly down the busy street, blinding everyone facing west, catching the drivers heading east in their rearview mirrors. Leslie nipped through the line of traffic, cutting up the taxis and driving along the central line, keeping her head tipped down so that her visor afforded some shade. They crossed a junction and followed the hill to the town, passing the abattoir and the brewery. They stopped at the lights outside the Model Lodging House Hotel, a crumbling homeless shelter built in the shadow of the Necropolis. Behind a protective pedestrian barrier dirty-faced men of indeterminate age squatted on the steps, drinking lager out of cans and smoking rallies, watching up and down the road.

Leslie parked across the street from the office and left Maureen with the bike while she ran in. Katia and Jan were standing in the doorway of the baker's vent, warming their heads against the jet of warm air and having a stilted chat. They hadn't spotted Maureen. She sat down on the bike with her back to them, keeping the helmet on. If it was something in her maybe she was sick. Maybe she'd been wrong to think she didn't need to see a psychiatrist anymore. Maybe her family was right about her, maybe she was mental. She toyed with the idea, enjoying the possibility, running it through her mind like sun-warmed sand through her fingers. There was nothing wrong with her. He had done it and the family was siding with him and the world was a dark and despairing place.

Leslie was at her side, panting with excitement. "The police have phoned a couple of times but haven't been yet, and Senga said we can go and see her tomorrow."