Garnethill

Chapter 36

Maureen let the phone ring itself out and went back to sleep. Minutes later someone was banging on the door. She pulled on her dressing gown and staggered into the hall. Her eyes were so puffy she could barely negotiate the spy hole. Liam was standing in the close, holding bits of shopping. She opened the door.

"Have you just woken up, Mauri? It's one in the afternoon." He stepped into the hall and held out a bag of fresh croissants and a carton of orange juice. "I've been phoning you loads."

When she came back from the toilet Liam had put the croissants in the oven to warm, made a pot of tasteless instant coffee and set the table for a formal breakfast, with cups and cutlery and everything. He had tiny bloody cuts on his knuckles and a long black bruise on the side of his neck. It started as an inch-wide mark under his ear, spreading into a broad triangle as it descended to his shoulder; the edges of the bruise were yellowing. He handed her a cold glass of orange juice.

It was sunny outside. Maureen leaned against the window frame and looked out at her favorite view. "I got sacked," she said.

"Auch, well, you'll find another job soon enough," said Liam. "I expect you'll miss the cut and thrust of ticket selling, though, eh?"

"Yeah, I'll miss sitting behind that drafty wee window like a Dutch whore day after day. What's happening with you, then, Liam?"

"Well," he said, "I went to Glasgow Uni the other day. They said I could start a course this year if I wanted, as long as I can guarantee the fees."

She smiled at him. "God, that's brilliant, but will you have to pay for it yourself?"

"The first grand, yeah. I phoned the SED and they'll pay the rest but it might take a while to come through."

"What's the course?"

"Film and Media."

"Not law?"

"Nah," he said, "I'm tired of chasing money."

"I didn't even know you were interested in filmmaking."

"Neither did I."

The croissants were hot. She cut them in half and spread butter and jam on them, watching the butter liquefy into warm yellow puddles in the pastry. They ate a calm, quiet breakfast.

"What's the state of play between you and the women?" she asked.

"Uh, Maggie left home and came to stay with me. I dunno. She keeps making me dinner and that." He looked dismal.

"What's wrong with that?"

"Dunno," he said, shaking his head pensively, his chin shiny with greasy melted butter.

"Don't you want her to stay with you?"

He chewed and thought about it. "No," he said. "I want Lynn."

"Why not finish it with Maggie and ask Lynn out again, then?"

"I asked Lynn, she won't have me."

"Oh dear." She sipped her coffee and looked up at him.

He was watching her, wondering. "Did you see Lynn?"

"No," she said. "Why?"

"Nothing. She said something about your hair." He drank some orange juice and looked out into the hallway. "What are you going to do with this flat, then?"

"I'd like to stay for a while. I like it here."

"I can pay the mortgage for a while, if you like."

"No need. Douglas left me some money."

Benny was being treated in the Albert. Liam drove her through the busy town, along Cathedral Street and up to the main door. "Aren't you coming up for a nice wee visit?" she said.

"I don't ever want to see that prick again," muttered Liam, picking at one of the scabs on the back of his hand. He was in a serious mood, and Maureen didn't think it was just to do with the cuts and bruises on his hands, but she couldn't be arsed holding more than one thought in her head today and her one thought at the moment was Benny.

"I'll see you in a minute, then," she said, and got out of the car.

She had only ever been through the small entrance for Louisa's office at the side of the building. This was the main entrance. It was two stories high, and more like a small airport than a hospital. A balcony with open-plan offices ran three-quarters of the way around it, a busy newsagent's-cum-florist's was open just inside the door and a Bank of Scotland cash machine was set into the wall next to it. Beyond the security desk were six lifts with stainless-steel doors, three on each side of the lobby, leading up to the wards. She read the display board hanging overhead. Ward 4B was on the fourth floor.

Maureen looked in through the double doors. It was an old-fashioned ward with sixteen beds, eight on each side of the room.

Tall meshed windows lined the walls. At the end of the enormous room stood a TV surrounded by low plastic armchairs. It was a crisis ward for accident victims. The first three beds on the left had support poles with traction ropes hanging from them like cat's cradles. The other patients had casts and dressings covering varying degrees of their body surface. She couldn't see Benny.

Three nurses were sitting in a side office eating cocktail-sized sausage rolls and drinking lemonade out of paper cups. The youngest nurse was holding an open greetings card. They were watching Maureen standing aimlessly by the doors.

"Oh, hello, I'm looking for Brendan Gardner."

The sister stood up. She was slim and glamorous, and had a bigger hat than the others. "Are you a relative?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm his cousin." The sister pointed her down the ward to the last bed on the left.

Maureen wouldn't have known him. His eyes were swollen shut like two sets of purple lips, his lumpy swollen face was covered in blue and yellow bruises and his right arm was in a plaster cast. "Hello, Benny."

He tried instinctively to sit up when he heard her voice but fell back on the bed, lying tense and panicked, and defenseless.

"You look terrible," she said.

He nodded a fraction.

"Can't you talk?"

His lips were trembling as he pulled them back. He tried and failed, and then tried again. She could just see the thin wires holding his shattered jaw in place.

"Broke your jaw?"

He moved his good hand slightly to the left, unfolding his fist slowly and pointing a finger. A pencil and pad were sitting on top of the bedside cabinet. She sat the pad by his left hand and gave him the pencil, working it between his stiff fingers.

"So sorry," he wrote. His writing was a nervous, childish scrawl. He couldn't see the pad and was writing with his unaccustomed hand. He turned the page. "So so sorry."

She had meant to shout at him and say mean things, tell him that she'd do him a bad turn if she ever got the chance, but she sat and looked at him and knew she couldn't censor all he had been to her. Her eyes brimmed over with stinging, reluctant tears. She felt as if she were watching him die.

"Why, though?" she whispered.

He turned the page on the pad. "Bad ma uuera hurrel."

Maureen read it several times. "Bad ma uuera hurrel?"

He turned the page. "HAD ME OVER A BARREL."

"You dubbed me up for your career? He was going to kill me, Benny."

"I BEEN CHARGED."

"What with?"

"BREAKING."

"So your career's fucked anyway, eh?"

Benny lay still, his hand resting on the pad. She took the Anti Dynamos T-shirt out of her bag and put it on the bed. "I brought your T-shirt back," she said.

He turned the page. "PLEASE KEEP IT."

"Don't want it," she said, standing up and bending over the bed as if to kiss him. She forked her fingers, gave the blood-swollen flesh on his eyelids a vicious poke and walked out.

A small bald man was waiting for the lift. He wore blue overalls with "Albert" printed in white across his shoulders. Maureen was breathing in unevenly to stop herself crying. The porter flashed her a consolatory smile. "Are you all right, pet?"

"Not really." She tried to smile back but failed, disabled by her trembling chin.

The lift arrived and he stepped back, letting her get in first.

"Ground floor?" She nodded. "Is it your boyfriend?" he asked, pointing up to the ward.

"No." She sniffed. "Just a friend."

"Don't worry, pet," he said. "I'm sure your friend'll be okay. We see miracles every day in here."

The lift bounced to a gentle standstill at the ground floor. The doors opened onto a crowd of waiting nurses. The porter waved her off in front of him. "Thank you," she whispered as she got out.

She stood next to the car and blew her nose before opening the door and getting in. "Right, Liam," she said. "What's on your mind? If you've got anything to tell me do it now."

Liam took a deep breath and looked at his knees. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. Tell me now."

"They didn't say you killed Douglas."

"I gathered that much."

"Yeah, well, I had a good reason for lying."

He stopped and touched the bruise on his neck, patting it twice with the pads of his fingers. He let his hand drop into his lap and looked out of the window, squinting at the cathedral.

"Tell me."

"They do think there's something wrong with your memory."

"That's not all it's about, though, is it?"

He picked at the rotting leatherette cover on the steering wheel. "They said you've got false memory."

"Tell me the whole story, Liam."

Liam cleared his throat. "I didn't want to tell you the truth because I knew it'd do your head in."

She turned suddenly and shouted at him, "Why did you let me go there and make such a prick of myself, Liam? If they thought I was mental before, they'd-"

"I told you to stay away from them," he said morosely. "I told you, Mauri. I said stay away."

"Well, for fucksake."

"I said stay away."

Maureen looked out of the window. "Why did you lie to me?" she said.

"I didn't want you to know."

"You didn't want me to know what?"

Liam turned away, shaking his head.

"Tell me."

"Dad's back," he said flatly. "That's why Marie's here. Dad's back."