Garnethill

Chapter 14

Leslie shook Maureen out of a heavy sleep at nine. Her shift at the shelter started at ten and Maureen would need to get up now if she wanted a lift back into town.

They pulled into a lane next to the shelter. The reserve funding was running out rapidly now and the house looked shoddy in comparison with its neighbors. It stood out in the elegant street of terraced houses like a meatball in caviar. Leslie let Maureen in and pointed her to the pay phone in the front hall.

She dialed the number for the Dennistoun day center and asked the receptionist if Tanya was there. Without replying to her question the receptionist lowered the phone and spoke to someone. "Hello?" said Maureen, conscious that her money was running out and she didn't have any more change. "Hello?"

"Yeah?" said the bored receptionist.

"I asked if Tanya was there."

"She's here."

The pips went and Maureen put down the phone without bothering to thank her.

The walk only took twenty minutes but it felt like an hour. One week ago none of this had happened and Douglas was still alive, smooching about the city, lying to his wife, listening kindly to his patients and making silly jokes.

She thought about the two of them tumbling over each other in bed. Douglas had a smell about him, the smell of many women past. At first she didn't notice particularly, but gradually she began to see the unfocused look in his eyes when he spoke about his feelings for her, like an invisible shutter coming down. His lines were empty and over rehearsed. Latterly, when they had sex, she longed for the ghosts of the other women to come and keep her company because Douglas was so far away.

She remembered an evening a month ago: she had asked him calmly why he didn't want her to touch him anymore. He wouldn't answer. She got more and more angry and ended up shouting at him to fuck off back to Elsbeth. He left the house and came back four hours later, as drunk as she had ever seen him, declaring his love for her with slurred hyperbole. If he had left it for a little longer her annoyance might have subsided but it hadn't. All she could think was what an arse he was, how he was looking for comfort and not for her. As he stroked her face softly with his big hands, paying attention to every line, every detail, as though mesmerized, she noticed that his fingers smelled of fags and piss. She plied him with drink until he fell asleep. She watched him as he lay snorting and twitching in her bed and realized that she'd be disappointed if she spent much more of her life with him.

After that night they no longer argued and Maureen avoided mentioning Elsbeth. Douglas misread it as a good sign: he thought it meant they were getting on better, but Maureen was storing her grievances for a time when she was ready to be without him.

The Dennistoun day center was in a small converted kirk built before the Second World War in a narrow space between two tenements. The front was a squat rectangle with a triptych of arched windows. An acute triangular roof sat on top like a party hat. The proportions and shape of the facade were echoed in the little doorway, sitting on the side like an afterthought. Inside, the floor and ceiling had been covered in yellow pine, and the sloping roof had been inset with windows, making it bright and cheerful. Behind the high reception desk sat a miserable young woman.

Maureen walked up to her. She didn't move. Maureen drummed her fingers on the desk. The girl inhaled a "tut." "Yeah?" she said.

"Oh dear," said Maureen sympathetically. "You're not having a very good day, are you?"

The girl tutted again. "I don't even know what you're talking about," she said obnoxiously.

"Please yourself," said Maureen, tutting back. "Tanya about?"

"Tanya who?" said the girl, pulling a form out of a half-open drawer and picking up a pencil.

Forms mean time and Maureen couldn't be arsed. She rubbed her nose. "Toilets?" she said.

The girl lifted her hand slowly and pointed to the signboards hanging overhead.

"Thank you very much," said Maureen warmly. "But for you I might have got lost in this labyrinth." She followed the signs into the dayroom. A middle-aged Down's syndrome man with dark panda circles around his eyes was standing in a doorway smoking a fag. He was listening to a football match on a red plastic tranny pressed tightly against his ear. She asked for Suicide Tanya. He turned round quickly, nearly scratching her face with the retractable aerial, and pointed to the television room.

The chairs were plastic in case of incontinence, and a thick, greasy cloud of smoke sat an inch above the residents' heads, blocking out the natural light from the skylights. The chairs radiated around a loud television against the back wall. A small bare kitchenette had been built just inside the door.

Suicide Tanya spotted her from across the room. She stood up and screamed her hellos. No one paid any attention. She beckoned Maureen over. "You sit with me and we can watch the telly. This is Siobhain."

Siobhain was beautiful. For a fleeting moment Maureen wondered if Douglas had been having an affair with her too but when Siobhain smiled her eyes were so sad that Maureen knew she was depressed and had been for a long time. Douglas didn't go for that sort of thing. Siobhain's eyes were pale blue, framed in dark lashes, and she had high soft cheekbones. Her nose was arrow-shaped, pointing downward to her rounded pink lips and perfect white teeth. Her dark hair was speckled with swatches of frizzy gray and was matted at the back. She was overweight but looked as if that was a recent development: her body was still adjusting before the extra flesh settled and became watery; the fat sat in pockets on her frame, her skin taut over it.

Someone very busy had dressed Siobhain. Her red nylon trousers and brown jumper were ill-fitting and didn't match. Every so often she would reach up slowly and pull at the elasticized waistband of the trousers or the neck of the jumper, but mostly Siobhain just sat and watched the television with the dignity of a pieta, her quiet hands sitting in her lap, palms upward like dead birds.

Tanya told Maureen that she had seen her the day before and her name was Helen. Maureen agreed that this was the case.

"You gave me a dog."

"I did, Tanya."

Tanya talked about the dog for a while, then stopped suddenly and announced that she was going. She left without saying goodbye. Maureen slipped into the empty seat next to Siobhain. She waited for a moment before she spoke. "Are you very sad, Siobhain?"

Siobhain turned her head slowly and looked at her without surprise. "I am," she said. She spoke slowly, in a soft Highland accent, with the perfect diction of someone using their second language.

Without a flicker in her expression Siobhain's eyes overflowed and Maureen wept with her. They sat watching the television and crying for a while.

"Would you like me to brush your hair?" asked Maureen.

"I would."

Maureen took the metal stabbing comb out of her handbag and gently eased the tangles from Siobhain's hair, starting from the ends and working her way slowly up to the crown so as not to tug and hurt her. By the time she had finished they had both stopped crying.

"Why are you sad?" asked Siobhain.

"Oh, I dunno. A lot of reasons. Someone died. My family, you know."

"A friend of mine died too," said Siobhain.

"Was that Douglas?"

"No," said Siobhain. "He died, I heard that. I met him but he wasn't my friend. My friend died a long time ago and life was spoiled for me."

"Who was it?"

"My brother." She paused. "Who was your friend?"

"Douglas."

"I am sorry for your grief," said Siobhain, as if repeating an ancient consolation in translation.

Maureen thanked her.

"I saw your Douglas. He came to see me the day he was killed. That's why you have come to see me here, isn't it?"

Maureen nodded. "What time did he leave here?"

"About the end of the old cartoons. About half past three."

It was later than lunchtime, the time the police were particularly interested in.

"How did you know Douglas? Was he your doctor?"

"Oh, no," said Siobhain. "I didn't know him."

"Why did he come to see you, then?"

"Because my name was on the list." She pointed to the television. "This man is getting everyone else into trouble. He's telling lies about the other characters." She was watching a banal Australian soap. "Do you watch this program?"

"No, not really. Shall I give ye peace until it's finished?"

"No," said Siobhain, keeping her eyes on the screen. "They put the same one on again in the evening. I watch it both times."

"What list was your name on?"

"Your Douglas had a list of us."

"Of who?"

"Of the women. He said there were others, I thought I was the only one. He knew about the hospital. I don't know how. I have never told. He gave me this."

She reached down by the side of her chair and pulled a handbag onto her lap. It was an old-lady-style handbag, red patent leather with hoop handles and a gold clasp. She snapped it open and showed Maureen the inside. It was empty except for a brown envelope and a bundle of new twenty-pound notes rolled up with an elastic band. Maureen couldn't calculate how much was there: she had never seen so many. The roll was as thick as a man's fist. Siobhain shut the bag and dropped it carelessly onto the floor.

"What was the money for?" asked Maureen.

"He thought giving me the money would make him feel better."

Maureen was confused. "Had he harmed you in some way?"

"No, he didn't harm me. He was upset about the hospital. I can't tell you. I never told."

"Can you tell me where and when you were in hospital?"

"Yes, I can tell you that."

Maureen wrote as Siobhain told her that she had been in the Northern for three years, between 1991 and 1994. "I was in the Northern," said Maureen, "nineteen ninety-six. George III ward. I hated it."

Siobhain looked miserable. "It was finished by then," she whispered.

"What do you mean?"

Siobhain's face flushed with panic and her breathing became sharp and shallow.

"That's fine," said Maureen, patting her hand. "Don't tell me. Don't think about it."

The blood drained slowly from Siobhain's face and she began to breathe regularly again. If the police came to see Siobhain they'd ask about the hospital and the money and they wouldn't stop just because she lost her breath. "Have the police been to see you yet, Siobhain?"

"No. Will they come?"

"I don't know. I expect they will. I'd like you to avoid talking to them."

Siobhain lifted her hand slowly and stroked the back of her hair three times. She laid her hand in her lap again and looked at Maureen. "Then I will," she said. "They say I'm sick but I'm not. My heart is broken."

Maureen smiled warmly. "You're living in the wrong time, Siobhain," she said. "Broken hearts are a bit too poetic for doctors to understand."

"That's it," said Siobhain. "It's the poetry they can't understand."

They bent their heads close and looked one another in the eye, as intimate as lovers.

"Can I come and visit you again?" said Maureen.

"I would like that."

"We could go to the shops," said Maureen, as she stood up, "and you could buy some nice clothes with the money in your bag."

"I don't want nice clothes," Siobhain said flatly, and turned back to the television. "I got that money because I wore nice clothes."

The receptionist had evidently decided she was all right. She took the trouble to lift her head and say cheerio as Maureen passed on her way out.