Garnethill

Chapter 18

Liam didn't want to talk about what had happened at the police station. All he would tell her was that Paulsa, the guy he had been to see at Tonsa's on the afternoon Douglas was murdered, had confirmed his alibi. Liam said he definitely wouldn't be allowed to see Maggie again. McEwan had phoned her parents and made them confirm his alibi for the evening. "They asked you about the evening, then?" she said.

"Yeah."

"Me too. It was good of Paulsa to come forward."

"Paulsa needs a lot of mates right now. He's just lost a lot of money."

"How?"

"Bought a job lot of bad acid, sank all his money into it without trying it first."

"Why's it bad?"

"Unsellable. A totally sick trip and everyone knows about it."

Liam parked outside Benny's close but didn't move to get out of the car. The street was quiet, bathed in the warm orange streetlight, like a film set.

Maureen brushed his hair off his face. "You look sad."

"I'm not sad," he said, chewing his lip. "I'm scared."

She had never heard him admit to it and hearing it now frightened her. "Oh, Liam," she whimpered pathetically, "I don't want you to be."

He looked out of the window. "If we get through this in one piece I'm going to sell the house and go to university."

"That's good," she said softly. "And what if we don't get through it in one piece?"

"Then I'll need to see what bits are left over and what can be done with them. I'm never going through that again."

"I'm sorry to have brought this on you," she said, thinking she sounded like Siobhain.

Liam said he didn't want to talk about it and he knew Benny would insist. "Just tell him we've been at Mum's, okay?"

A white Volkswagen was parked on the Maryhill Road opposite the bollards to Scaramouch Street. The two officers watched Maureen and Liam get out of the Triumph and go up the number twelve close. The driver picked up the radio and called in.

The heating was on and the flat was comfortably warm.

"I've been waiting hours for you two," said Benny. He had splashed out and bought three venison steaks for dinner. He banished both of them from the kitchen.

They sat on the settee watching television until Benny brought the dinner in. The meat was sweet and tender and he gave them cream-and-butter mashed potato with caramelized onions through it and steamed leek on the side. When the dinner had gone down a little, helped along by strong coffee, Maureen went down to the Ambassador to buy some ice cream.

The Ambassador coffee bar on the Maryhill Road was famous for its homemade ice cream. Its other claim to fame was the Aquarium Wall: an amoeba-shaped window had been cut into the plywood partition wall and an outsized fish tank had been placed behind it. The tank was empty now; a layer of pebbles sat on the floor of the dry aquarium, covered in a green carpet of algae stain.

No one ever seemed to eat in the cafe: the tables were always empty. It stayed open late at night, selling cigarettes and chocolate to locals. Behind the counter dark wood shelves reached right up to the high ceiling; a small ladder on rollers was fitted to the top one and they all strained under the weight of multicolored sweetie jars.

The man behind the counter was something of a local celebrity: apart from organizing the under twelves' football league he had the most obvious toupee in Maryhill, possibly the whole west coast. His hairpiece sat so high on his head it looked as if he kept his sandwiches under it. He was part of a local rite of passage: boys used to tell the wee kids that his name was Mr. Wig and get them to go in and call him by name.

Trying not to look at his hair, Maureen ordered a large tub of their homemade ice cream and a bottle of Irn Bru. Mr. Wig bent down to scoop the ice cream out of the freezer and she found herself face-to-face with his matted rug. Below the thick hairs on the toupee the weaving was dirty. She deflected her gaze by staring at the jars of sweeties. When they were very small Winnie would take them to sweet shops on Sundays after mass. Each child was allowed to choose one quarter. Maureen couldn't remember her favorite, it changed all the time, but Liam chose the rhubarb rock every time, without fail. She ordered a quarter. Mr. Wig weighed it out and scooped it into a paper bag, flipping it over as he twirled the corners to close it.

Back at the flat she gave the bag of sweeties to Liam. He opened it immediately and handed them round. "Man," he said, "I haven't had these for years."

In the kitchen she made floaters, pouring the fizzy Irn Bru into long glasses and spooning the ice cream into it. They mixed together, frothing all the way up the glass, settling down slowly while she added more ginger. The kitchen smelled like sweet-tooth heaven. They ate them as floaters should be eaten, greedy and graceless, with spoons and slurps and licks.

Benny had gone to the video shop, looking for Reflecting Skin, but it was out. He got L'Atalante instead, a French movie made in the thirties about a barge captain and his new wife.

They spent the evening wrapped in the cozy comfort of old friends, talking hardly at all and attending to nothing but their comfort. They would remember it as their last happy evening together, as a gentle pause in a troubled time.