Garnethill

Chapter 6

Liz was reveling in the drama of it all. The mustachioed policeman had been to the office and questioned her, asking her to sign a statement to the effect that Maureen had not left the office for any longer than five minutes during the previous day. The walk to the house took ten. Maureen had been in the toilet for fifteen minutes but Audrey had spoken to her. Liz said wasn't it lucky Audrey was a chain-smoker.

Maureen looked up a couple of times during the day and caught Liz staring at her with undisguised awe. She asked three times about going to the police station. Maureen didn't want to talk about it. She had woken up on Benny's settee with trembling hands, a throbbing headache and a terrible sense that the worst of it wasn't over. It felt like her night terrors. She wanted to be at work, pretending it was a normal day, but Liz was desperate to be part of the show. "I think friends should trust each other," she said, over lunch.

"I need a piss," said Maureen, excusing herself as only a lady could.

Mr. Scobie seemed more traumatized about it than either of them.

When Maureen went off to hide in the toilet during the morning she saw him walking toward her down the corridor. He looked panic-stricken and ducked into a cloakroom to avoid running into her. She thought about going after him, just for badness' sake, but decided against it.

In the afternoon he shuffled nervously into the ticket office, keeping his back close to the wall, and handed them their wages. Maureen had a tax rebate in hers and the brown envelope held £150 in tens and twenties. "I'm sorry to hear about your trouble, dear," said Mr. Scobie.

"Thank you, Mr. Scobie."

"Will you be taking any more days off?" His voice cracked mid-sentence. "Or can I leave the shifts as they are?"

"You can leave them as they are." fine.

He scuttled back out. Liz sniggered when she was sure he was out of earshot.

Winnie phoned late in the afternoon. "Please come and see me," she said. "Please do. Just to make me feel better because I'm worried about you."

Maureen agreed to come over after work.

"Now, promise me, you won't get a bus or anything, just get into a taxi and come here and I'll pay it at the other end."

"You don't need to do that. I can pay it."

"I insist," said Winnie. She sounded stone-cold sober.

Maureen didn't want to go. Sober Winnie was almost as much work as Very Drunk Winnie and Very Drunk Winnie was a lot of work. She was angry and vindictive, shouting carefully personalized abuse at whoever happened to be in front of her, casting up any failure or humiliation, however petty, always going straight for the jugular. It was her special talent, she could find anyone's tender spot within minutes. Sober Winnie was an emotional leech, demanding affection and reassurance, bullying them with her limitless neediness, crying piteously when she didn't get her own way. She shit-stirred between the children, rumor mongering and passing on distorted comments. When anyone tried to stand up to her she cast herself as the victim and rallied the other children to her support, causing schisms. Liam said she had a rota written up somewhere and victimized the children in turn. It had worked better when they were younger: Maureen and Liam only pretended to buy into it all now, faking shock at Una's unkind comments about Maggie, pretending to care when Marie said Maureen would never recover from the hospital. But Una still played along fully and if Maureen didn't go and see Winnie today then, as sure as a fight at a wedding, she'd get a worried phone call from Una tomorrow, asking her why she was avoiding Mum, what had Mum done, couldn't Maureen see she was upsetting her.

There was a time when Very Drunk Winnie was the best of a bad choice for Maureen: it was a straight fight and she could take it because Winnie didn't know anything about her. She had been careful never to discuss the things that mattered to her in front of the family, Liam excepted. She told her friends that she didn't have a phone and wouldn't let boyfriends come to the house. She lied about where she was going at night, she even lied about her 0 grade subjects. So when Winnie went for Maureen's jugular she was slagging her about fictitious habits, friends and events. What happened between them in hospital had changed all that. Now Winnie had more to cast up to Maureen than the rest of them.

Winnie behaved strangely during the hospital visits. She brought an endless succession of inappropriate presents like earrings and makeup and fashion magazines. She monologued about the neighborhood gossip, who had died, what was on telly last night. She wouldn't acknowledge the fact that they were in a psychiatric hospital or talk to the staff. But Maureen was bananas at the time and lots of things seemed strange. Leslie had read up on familial reactions to abuse disclosure and said that it was normal for the non-abusing parent to feel incredibly guilty, maybe that's what was wrong with Winnie.

Maureen didn't have a lot of time to think about it: the memories of the forgotten years were coming back thick and fast, through dreams, in flashbacks, over cups of tea with other patients. She became a compulsive confider. Looking at the fading bouquets of flowers on the wallpaper above the bedstead, counting and counting and counting until it was finished.

Standing in the bath waiting to get out and Michael, her father, leaning over with the towel and looking her in the eye. The door was shut behind him.

Him sitting on the bed afterward, crying, Maureen patting his hand to comfort him as the pee stung her legs. His hand was as big as her face.

At the caravan in St. Andrews, the sea lapping over her black gutties. The rest of them were on the beach, out of sight, behind the rock, and Michael was coming after her. She scrabbled over the rocks on all fours, trying to get away, trying to look as if she wasn't running, scratching her knees on the jagged granite.

The panic when he saw the blood dribbling down her skinny legs. He'd slapped her on the side of the head and, lifting her by her upper arm, put her into the cupboard, locking it and taking the key with him. She could smell the blood as she sat in the dark cupboard and she knew what it was. She hoped she would die before he came back. It was his fingernail that had cut her, it was his nail.

Winnie crowbarring the cupboard door open and pulling Maureen out by her ankle. Marie standing behind her, twelve years old and already crying without making a noise, silent because she knew no one was listening.

She tried to piece it all together but some elements of the story were confusing: she couldn't remember when Michael left them or why certain smells prompted panic attacks or whether any of the other children had showed signs of abuse. Dr. Paton suggested asking Winnie but Maureen didn't feel comfortable about it. Dr. Paton said they might ask her under controlled conditions, perhaps they could organize a joint session with her.

Winnie came to it sober and apparently quite willing. The three of them gathered in the cozy office in the Portakabin in the hospital grounds, sitting in big armchairs and sipping tea. Dr. Paton said Maureen had something to ask her mother, there were some problematic details about the facts surrounding the abuse and would Winnie be willing to help?

Winnie smiled and listened to Maureen's first question: she remembered Winnie getting her out of the cupboard and she remembered Marie being there but was Michael in the house at the time? Winnie said she didn't know, she couldn't help there. Maureen asked about Michael, when did he leave? Winnie didn't know about that either. Dr. Paton asked her why she didn't know and Winnie started crying and saying that she'd done her best. Maureen rubbed her back and told her it was all right, they all knew she had done her best. She was a good mum.

Winnie got up and stormed off to the toilet and came back with the greasy-nothing smell of vodka on her breath. She told them that Maureen had been misinformed by her sister; Una remembered properly now and would come and talk to them if they wanted. Winnie said it had never happened and then she lost the script, shouting at Maureen and the doctor when they tried to speak, interrupting them with irrelevant details and crying when nothing else worked. Maureen had always been strange, she always made up stories. Mickey had never touched Maureen, he didn't even like her. He was a very passionate man and he had been devoted to Winnie. She cried again and said that she still loved Maureen and what had she done to make Maureen stop loving her?

Maureen was numb. "I love you, Mum," she said vacantly, and rubbed Winnie's back, "I do love you."

The effect on Maureen was marked. An iota of doubt grew into a possible truth. The memories seemed so tangible and the emotions attached to them were so intense, overwhelming, like a searing physical pain. If Maureen was misremembering, she was as mad as a fucking dog.

She felt more ashamed of herself than she ever had before. She would have killed herself but for the effect it might have on Leslie and Pauline, her pal from the OT classes. She had put everyone to all this trouble over a bullshit story.

She couldn't talk about it. Her meetings with Dr. Paton dissolved into hour-long sessions of staring at the floor, hot fat tears rolling down her immobile face. The doctor tried to get her to talk but couldn't. They both knew it was because of Winnie. The doctor sat next to Maureen and held her hand, dabbing her face dry with a tissue. She began to lose weight again. Her release time was revised and moved back a month.

Leslie knew something was very wrong. She kept asking about it but Maureen couldn't say it out loud. Finally, after two weeks of needling her with questions, Leslie got Maureen to tell her what had happened. She was furious. She roared up to Winnie's house on her bike and parked it on George's lovely lawn. She stomped into the kitchen, where Winnie was eating lunch with Una, and told her that if she denied the abuse again, even in her prayers, Leslie would personally kick her cunting teeth in. Winnie went off Leslie after that.

Leslie made Maureen draw up a list of facts corroborating the abuse and brought her books with firsthand accounts by other survivors, telling how their families had reacted when they told. It seemed that physical damage, DNA tests, even a criminal conviction, could be ignored if the family didn't want to believe, and Winnie did not want to believe.

On the day Maureen finally left the hospital Dr. Paton took her to one side. "I want you to know that there is no doubt in my mind that it happened," she said. "And, on a strictly nonprofessional level, I think that your mother is a self-serving bastard."

Maureen and Winnie never talked about it again, but because of Leslie's visit Winnie knew where Maureen's Achilles' heel was and there was always the possibility that she would bring it up when she was viciously drunk.

Maureen cheerioed Liz and left work with a knot in her stomach and a drag in her step. She would have given anything to be on her way out to get drunk with Leslie instead of going to do battle with Winnie.

The family had moved to the house when George and Winnie first got married. It was on a small council scheme with modest two-story concrete box houses. In front of the house was a tiny token lawn, meticulously cared for by George, and in front of that a broad pavement leading down the quiet street where the small children played together until their tea was ready. It was a nice scheme, peopled by good-living poor families who were ambitious for their children. The neighbors knew Winnie was a drunk and the O'Donnell kids were pitied for it.

She hadn't intended to let Winnie pay – she meant to pay herself and let the taxi go before going into the house – but Winnie was watching at the window and ran out of the house when she saw the taxi pull up. She shoved a tenner in the driver's window. "Take it off that," she said.

"Hiya," said Maureen, trying to sound cheerful.

Winnie looked terribly hung over. She put her hand to Maureen's face. "Hello, honey," she said, looking as if she might cry.

Maureen followed her into the house. Winnie and George were of a generation who believed in the value and longevity of man-made fabrics. The house was furnished with brown and yellow carpets, and curtains and furnishings that had survived from the seventies.

George was asleep on the settee in the dark living room; the silent television flickered in the corner. George drank as much and as often as Winnie but he was a dear, melancholic drunk whose greatest handicaps were falling asleep at odd moments and a propensity to recite sentimental poetry about Ireland.

Maureen could feel the heat from the cooker before she got through the kitchen door. "I've been baking all day," said Winnie. With a great flourish she opened the oven and pulled out a loaf tin. She cut a thick slice of hot gingerbread, buttered it and gave it to Maureen along with a cup of coffee.

The gingerbread tasted exactly the same as McCall's, a famous bakery in Rutherglen – they always overdid the cinnamon. But it was a kind lie, designed to make Maureen feel cared for. "Thanks, Mum," she said. "It's lovely."

Winnie sat next to her, clutching an opaque mug with a dark glaze on the inside. Maureen tried surreptitiously sniffing the air to work out what Winnie was drinking. It wasn't coffee, anyway. Winnie wasn't exhaling after each sip so it wasn't a spirit. It might be wine. Her tongue wasn't red. White wine. She had drunk just enough to get morose but not enough to be aggressive. About two cups. Maureen guessed that she had at least half an hour before Winnie started to get difficult.

Winnie sat next to her at the table and offered Maureen her old room back. "You could stay for as long as you want," she said.

When Maureen said she'd be fine at Benny's house, Winnie asked her if he was in the phone book. "Yeah," she said, before she had time to think about it. She was cursing her own stupidity as Winnie tried to give her some money. "I'm fine, Mum, really, I don't need anything."

"I've got some cheese in the fridge, I got it from the wholesalers, it's from the Orkneys."

"I don't want any cheese, Mum, thanks."

"I'll cut you a block to take home." She stood up and opened the fridge door, heaving the six-pound block of orange Cheddar onto the work top.

"I don't want any cheese, Mum, thanks."

Winnie ignored her, opened the cutlery drawer, pulled out a long bread knife, and began slicing a one-pound lump from the block. She paused, slumping over the cheese.

"Are you all right, Mum?"

"I worry about you," said Winnie, turning back to Maureen. She was on the verge of tears. "I worry about you so much."

"But you shouldn't, Mum."

"But you're a… I never know… if only you couldn't…" She abandoned the giant brick of cheese and sat back down at the table, lifting her cup and drinking out of it. "I think I've got flu," she whispered, crying thin tears.

"You should go to the doctor's, then."

Winnie looked helpless. "I'm a bit depressed," she said pointedly.

Maureen sighed. "Mum," she said, "I can't comfort you just now."

"I don't want you to comfort me," Winnie said, crying fluently "I just want to make sure you're all right."

"I am all right."

"I worry so much," she whimpered.

"You shouldn't."

She sat bolt upright, suddenly in control. "Maureen, I'm your mother."

"I know who you are," said Maureen, trying to cheer herself up. The wine must be kicking in: her moods were changing rapidly. Maybe more than two cups, maybe three.

"I just want to know," Winnie said softly. "Did you do it?"

"Did I do what, Mother?"

Winnie bowed her head. "Did you kill that man?" she muttered, and bit her lip.

Maureen pulled away, exasperated by Winnie's capacity for melodrama. "Oh, Mum, for God's sake, you know fine well I didn't."

Winnie was offended. "I don't know fine well…" She turned away as if she'd been slapped.

"Yes, you do," said Maureen. "You know I didn't kill him. You're so camp, I swear, you're like a bad female impersonator."

"I don't know you didn't do it," said Winnie solemnly. "You've often done things I didn't think you were capable of." She stood up and walked over to the sink, taking her cup with her, standing with her back to Maureen as she rearranged the glasses on the draining board.

"Like what?"

"You know…" And she whispered something under her breath, something that ended with "Mickey." Maureen hadn't heard her say the name since the hospital. She could feel herself shrinking in the chair.

"Don't worry," Winnie said, lifting her mug. "I'll stand by you, whatever you've done." She finished off her wine.

It was a low blow, hinting at the abuse. It was the meanest thing she could have brought up. "You drink too much, Mum," said Maureen, returning the compliment. "You wouldn't be on the verge of hysteria all the time if you drank less."

Winnie turned and looked at her, furious at the mention of her drinking. "How dare you?" she said, tight-lipped. "I paid for your taxi."

"I didn't want you to."

"But you let me."

Maureen pulled ten quid out of her wage packet and slapped it on the table. "There's a tenner, Mammy. That's us even."

Winnie screamed at her, "I don't want money!"

Maureen rolled her eyes just as George appeared at the kitchen door. "Oh," he said quietly, "I didn't hear you come in."

"Hello, George," said Maureen.

"Hello, pal," said George, and frowned. "Heard about yesterday. Nae luck."

He didn't talk about it much but Maureen suspected that George's early life hadn't been a bundle of laughs either. He had a charming talent for minimizing grief and, living with Winnie, he often had cause to use it.

"Aye," said Maureen, suddenly tired. "It wasn't good."

He patted the back of her head gently and turned to Winnie. "Any bread, doll? The seagulls are at the window again."

Winnie gave him some from the tin and he wandered off, ripping up the slices into uneven lumps, leaving a trail of crumbs through the hall. She came back to the table and shoved the tenner at Maureen. "Take the money back," she said. "I was just feeling a bit uptight. I'm sorry for shouting at you."

"Well, you shouldn't try to pay for things if you don't really want to."

Winnie sat down at the table. "I know. I just… I get nervous… and now this."

"Don't worry, Mum, the police'll find them soon."

She looked at Maureen and brightened. "Do you think so?"

Maureen nodded. "I know they will."

Winnie sat up and looked at the huge block of cheese sitting on the work top. "What the hell am I going to do with that much cheese?"

Maureen looked over at it and giggled. "Mum, why in God's name did ye buy that?"

Winnie shrugged, confused by her own behavior. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. We were using it as a garden ornament until we ate enough off it to get it through the door."

They sat together and laughed at the industrial lump of cheese. Maureen looked at her mum. Winnie was happy to laugh at herself, neither sad nor angry, demanding nothing: this was old Winnie, Winnie from before the drinking got really bad. And then she stopped laughing and looked at her empty cup and old Winnie was gone. She lifted her hand and brushed back Maureen's hair, but she was pressing too firmly against Maureen's head and some caught on her engagement ring. She tugged it hard. Maureen tried hard not to react in case Winnie thought she was rebuffing the kindly gesture.

"How are you coping?"

Maureen rubbed her bruised scalp. "Okay."

"If it all gets too much for you," said Winnie, "I want you to promise me that you'll go back to hospital."

"Mum, for God's sake, I'm not the maddest person in the world, they don't keep a vacant bed just for me."

"I know, but I'm sure they'll take you if you say you were in before."

Maureen shrank farther into the chair.

When she got outside she walked a couple of blocks and stopped at a bench in front of a Baptist church. It was dark and spitting rain. A man on the other side of the road was walking a tired old dog. He talked to it, whispering encouragement, calling it by name. The dog stopped, panting for breath, its legs almost buckling under the weight of its body. The man tapped its back and the old dog moved off.

She smoked a couple of fags, imagining herself at home, in her cozy wee flat, before any of this had happened. She took a bath in her blue and white bathroom and sat butt naked on her settee, watching the telly and eating biscuits and letting the answerphone catch the calls.

She took a cup of tea in to Benny in the bedroom. He was sitting on the side of the bed, a shallow table in front of him with textbooks open on it. He had been sharpening his pencils into the muddy dregs in a coffee cup. He must be frantic about his exams. He put down his book and asked earnestly if she wanted to talk about yesterday.

"No, not just now. I can't even think about it yet."

"Okay," he said, looking solemn and nervous.

"Are you all right about it, Benny?"

His expression melted with relief. "God, it's a bit freaky, isn't it? You don't think of these things happening to people like us, do you?"

"I guess not." She gestured to the books. "You got an exam tomorrow?"

"No," he said. "It's next week but I haven't done nearly enough."

"You always say that and you always pass. Try and put Douglas to the back of your mind just now and concentrate on your exams." She lifted the dirty cup with the sharpenings in it. "I'll take this filthy item away."

Out in the hall she could hear someone scratching quietly on the door. She looked out of the spy hole. Leslie was standing in the close holding her crash helmet and slowly brushing her hair off her face with the other hand. She had dark circles under her eyes and looked knackered. Maureen threw the door open. "Leslie." She grinned broadly.

Leslie stepped into the hall, reached out to Maureen and squeezed her arm. "All right, hen?" she said. Her voice sounded as if she had been smoking heavily and/or had just woken up. "How ye doing?"

"Yeah," said Maureen. "I take it Liam phoned and told ye?"

"Naw, the police came to see me."

Maureen pointed into the bedroom and Leslie kicked the door open a little and stuck her head in. "Right, Benny, man?"

Maureen heard Benny "aye" from the other side of the door. Leslie pulled the door shut and pointed at it. "Working," she said. "Why the fuck didn't you call me, Mauri?"

"Auch," Maureen shrugged uncomfortably, "you've got enough on."

"For fucksake, I'm not running the world, Maureen."

"I know, I just… I'll be all right."

"You're pathologically independent."

"Anyway," said Maureen, heading for the kitchen, "d'ye want a cup of tea?"

"Coffee"-Leslie put her helmet on the settee – "I need a strong coffee." She went to sit down and caught herself. "Let me get it," she said, almost staggering into the kitchen.

Maureen went after her. "Fucksake, Leslie, go and sit down."

"No," said Leslie, shaking her head adamantly, "I should get it."

"It wasn't me that was killed, Leslie. Go and sit down."

Leslie looked dismal. "I'm so fucking sorry, Maureen. I didn't like him but I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, well."

They stood close to each other, looking over one another's shoulders for a moment. Maureen said, "I feel as if we should hug each other or something."

"D'ye want to?"

"No," said Maureen. "Not really."

"I wish ye'd have phoned me," said Leslie quietly.

"If I need ye I'll phone ye."

"Don't leave it until you need me. I'm your pal, not the fire brigade." Leslie exhaled loudly and opened her eyes wide with surprise. "This is a mental thing to have happened."

"Jesus fuck," said Maureen, "I know."

Leslie said that the police had questioned her about Maureen's relationship with Douglas. They seemed more interested in that than in finding out the times of the dinner at the Pizza Pie Palace. And then she asked Maureen to tell her what had happened. The knot in Maureen's stomach tightened. She couldn't talk about it tonight: it would make it seem real.

"Ye want to hang on to the shock for a bit longer?" asked Leslie, sympathetically.

"Yeah," said Maureen. "Yeah, shock's good."

Leslie said that she was exhausted because she had been working on the appeal submissions, they had to be completed for Tuesday morning and she was having trouble understanding the law books. She asked Maureen not to tell Benny – he'd insist on giving her a hand and he had his exams to study for. Maureen told her she was pathologically independent.

They smoked a cigarette together, Leslie ripped the filter off hers to make it stronger, trying to wake herself up. Her lips and teeth were covered in bits of tobacco after every draw. Maureen laughed at her and leaned over the table. "Go home, ya daft bastard."

Leslie gave up and squashed the fag out in the ashtray. "Mauri, hen, I can't just leave you."

"Leslie, I'll see you on Tuesday afternoon. My life'll still be crap on Tuesday afternoon."

Maureen showed her out, warning her to drive carefully on the way home.

"Look, phone me if you want to talk about Douglas before then."

"Go away now," said Maureen, shooing her down the close.

Feeling strangely cheerful, she turned the television on in the living room and went into the kitchen to make herself a sandwich. The midevening news came on. Carol Brady, MEP for Strathclyde, was coming back from an ecology conference in Brazil after hearing the tragic news about her son, Douglas Brady. Maureen stepped into the doorway and watched the footage. Carol Brady was walking very fast through a large crowd of baying newsmen at the airport, walking with great purpose, and Maureen had a definite feeling that she was coming to get her.

The statement from her press office said that the family were very upset about Douglas's death and would appreciate the consideration of the press at this difficult time. They had every faith that the police would find the person responsible very soon.

A senior police officer was shown at a press conference saying that everything was under control and could anyone who had seen anything please phone and tell them about it. They gave out a special number.