Resolution

Chapter 5

Beyond the designer shops and glass cathedral shopping malls of Glasgow city center, across a broad and windy car park, stood the ancient flea market called Paddy's. Anything could be bought there, from secondhand underpants to office furniture. Trapped between the river and a high railway viaduct, it made the shoddiest car-trunk sale look as orchestrated as Disneyland. The market consisted of a ramshackle series of stalls set up in the dark tunnels under the disused railway line. In good weather hawkers would set up in the uneven alleyway outside, some on trestle tables, some spreading their goods over blankets laid out on the cobbles. It was a lawless place and the decency of the hawkers set the standards. Duty-free fags and cheap drink were okay, as was out-of-date mayonnaise and sectarian regalia. Hard-core pornography had to be kept hidden and, whatever they were selling, the junkie dealers were hedged in at the end of the lane by the river, away from everyone else.

Paddy's was named in honor of the last major wave of itinerant immigrants to Glasgow and operated as a cultural port of entry with each new group of incomers coming to buy cheap goods or make a small living. As they became known at the market and introduced their own customs and marketing opportunities, gradually, usually grudgingly, they became integrated.

In times past the market had been much bigger but the railway above was disused now and three of the tunnels had been shut down because of galloping damp. The spare ground in front of the lane, where the poorest hawkers gathered, had been clawed back by the council for an extension to the High Court. The council tax had risen and everyone knew that Paddy's was dying. The council was proposing to lift the cobbles from the lane and sell them to a new development. The flea market was being asset stripped.

Leslie eased the rickety van slowly down the cobbled lane at the back of the market, climbed out and knocked on the big wooden door three times. After a short pause, red-faced Peter, an obese man with a heart condition, swung the door wide, pinning it open. Maureen and Leslie lifted the cardboard boxes of cleaning products from the back of the van and carried them to their stall.

It was just inside the back door, across the tunnel from fat Peter and wee Lenny. Peter sold batteries, crockery and secondhand videotapes. Lenny was a TV repairman who'd been sacked from Radio Rentals on the grounds that he was, indeed, radio rental. He took his smelly dog, Elsie Tanner, everywhere with him. Lenny had found Elsie in Ruchill Park, just behind the Co-op, hungry and homeless. She just ran out of a bush at him and he had no choice but to take her home with him. It didn't trouble Lenny that a hungry dog was unlikely to hang about in a little-used public park when there were bins aplenty fifty feet away. It was obvious to everyone but Lenny that he had stolen someone's dog.

Maureen set up, arranging the bleach, the squeezy and the dusters on the stall. They hardly ever sold any of the cleaning products', they were just a cover for the duty-free fags – the bleach bottles were getting dusty, a sure giveaway. Maureen opened a packet of dusters and gave the bottles a wipe, shielding Leslie from view. Leslie opened the cycle bag, took out the sleeves of cigarettes and placed them carefully in the green council wheelie bin that always sat near the back door. If the police found the cigarettes they could deny all knowledge of them: the worst that would happen was that their stock would be confiscated.

The tunnel seemed particularly damp today, contrasting bitterly with the warmth of the sunny lane outside. Leslie went off to park the van. When she came back in she found Maureen wiping down bottles of Toilet Duck and singing along to the cheeky, staccato beat of "It's a Kind of Magic."

"It's a Home Gran Gotcha." Leslie handed over one of the jerseys they kept in the cab for damp days in the tunnel.

"God," said Maureen, realizing she had been singing. "I don't even know I'm doing it."

Together, they peered accusingly down the tunnel to the tapes stall. The woman standing behind it was a white-haired sixty-year-old with gold sovereign rings on every finger. She dressed in trainers and one of the rustling, baggy Kappa tracksuits all the kids were wearing. Giving her age away, she drew brown, single-line arched eyebrows high on her forehead above the frames of her glasses like Joan Crawford. She sold bootlegged tapes of CD albums on a stall financed by her well-to-do son and played tapes on her ghetto blaster all day long. They were mediocre mainstream ballads and rock anthems, songs the listeners didn't realize they loved until they heard them out of context, without the prejudice of packaging or association. Maureen and Leslie found themselves singing along to Jim Diamond, Queen and the Quo, knowing all the words, feeling uplifted until they realized who it was.

Maureen and Leslie unfolded their little canvas picnic stools and sat, Maureen facing the entrance to the tunnel and Leslie the wheelie bin, watching for robbers. Leslie kept her sad-eye shades on to hide her sad eyes. Maureen gave them a squashed Regal each and took out her chrome oval lighter. The flint jammed and she had to pull the backside off the lighter, unscrew the spring and put the flint back in before she could get a light. The strip-down and rebuild took thirty seconds because she'd done it so often.

Leslie kicked her ankle and made a sad face when she looked up. "Oh," she said pathetically, "I think I'd feel a bit better if I had a fried-egg roll."

Maureen laughed. "You go," she said. "I'm always going."

"But I'm having a trauma."

"So am I."

"What's your trauma?"

"My pal's bossing me around."

"That's not as sad as a relationship failure," said Leslie.

"It could result in a relationship failure," said Maureen seriously.

Leslie looked away wistfully. "If only someone cared."

Maureen stood up. "All right but you're going tomorrow."

She was walking towards the mouth of the tunnel, checking her pocket for change, when a hand shot out and grabbed her roughly by the shoulder, spinning her round. Home Gran was behind her, peering down her bifocals. Maureen had never seen her so close up before. The puff of white hair had a yellow nicotine smudge at the front and the crosshatched wrinkles on her cheeks looked like dueling scars. Today she was modeling a beige tracksuit with black trim. "You," she said and took Maureen's hand. Surprisingly strong, she swung Maureen between the stalls to behind her tape counter, maneuvering her by twisting her wrist like a rudder. "You've got a degree, haven't ye?"

"Yeah," said Maureen, "but it's only in history of art."

"Don't care about that." Home Gran pointed Maureen onto a rickety kitchen stool, gave her a pen and an official-looking form. "I need this filled out." It was a form to start a case in the small-claims court. The agile old woman squatted down to sit on the stall's crossbar, five inches off the ground.

"I haven't got anything to lean on," said Maureen.

Home Gran reached underneath the stall and pulled out a rough scrap of hardboard. She had a bandage on her right hand, wrapped tightly around her wrist and her thumb.

Maureen had never really had a conversation with Home Gran but she knew the other stallholders were wary of her. Peter and Lenny had told Leslie that Home Gran was a retired prostitute. Her son had been a scholarship boy at a posh private school. The Parish Mothers had organized a petition against the place going to her boy because she was a streetwalker but, to the school's credit, they kept him on and he went to university and studied management, no less. Maureen had heard of Home Gran walloping light-fingered shoppers across the head with the lid of her change tray. Sometimes she did it to innocent young guys on suspicion, prompting widespread disapproval: no one would come to the market if they thought they might get battered just for looking. But it was a slow day and Maureen had nothing else to do but go outside and dodge the sunshine. "Okay, then," she said, pulling the lid off the Biro. "What's your name?"

"Ella McGee."

"Address?"

"Fifty-four, flat 12 D, Benny Lynch Court, Gl."

The Gorbals had recently been renamed and rebranded for the third time in a century but the area had yet to lose its heroin-plague and slasher-gang reputation. The high flats were a reminder of a simpler time, when the area was a repository for the most difficult and troubled families in the city. Maureen had heard that the janny's office was fitted with bulletproof glass. Ella muttered, "It's not like ye think."

Maureen moved on swiftly. "And who're ye bringing the case against?"

Maureen waited, pen poised, but Ella didn't answer. She looked up to find Ella with her bandaged hand raised, ready to give a slap.

"One word to anyone," she said, but it sounded as if she was begging.

Maureen shrugged casually. "No odds to me," she said, and pointed at Ella's hand, "but raise your hand to me again and I'm off." She went back to waiting to fill out the form and, out of the corner of her eye, saw Ella's hand drop to her knee.

"Okay. It's my son, Si." She waited for a reaction but Maureen kept a straight face.

"Si McGee," said Maureen. "Is that his full name?"

"No," said Ella.

"Well, we should put his full name down."

"Simon Alan Egbert McGee."

"Egbert, is that a confirmation name?"

"Aye."

Maureen hadn't figured Home Gran for a Pape at all but now she looked at her and saw the heavy gold crucifix at her neck in a slightly less Versace light.

"Egbert." Ella smiled weakly. "Silly bugger, eh?"

"There's dafter names in the canon," said Maureen, letting Ella know that she was Catholic too. Liam's confirmation name, Mortimer, had been chosen out of a hat in collusion with four pals at school. It could have been worse: the other options were Crispin, Ado and Mary. Maureen marveled once again at the idiocy of allowing hysterical children to choose their own confirmation names. She left Egbert out of Si McGee's name and moved on to the address box. She looked up at Ella expectantly, pointing at the page. Ella was watching her face. "Well?" said Maureen. "Where does he stay, then?"

"Twelve Bentynck Street, Bearsden," said Ella.

"That's a swanky address. Is there that much money in tapes?"

"Naw, he's got different businesses." Ella pointed to the tray of tapes above her head. "There's not a lot of money in this. He just set me up to keep me out of the way of the buses."

Maureen turned back to the form, pointing to the amount box. Ella was staring at her face again, trying to read something in it. She seemed determined not to look at the form. Maureen tapped the page with the pen and looked at her expectantly. Ella blinked and raised her drawn-on eyebrows.

"How much does he owe ye?" asked Maureen finally.

"Seven hundred pound."

"How come?"

Crouched down on the crossbar, Ella looked like a withered child, hiding from angry adults. She lowered her voice. "Don't tell?" Maureen shook her head and Ella looked at the floor, resting her chin on her knee as she drew a finger through the dust. "He hasnae been paying me," she said softly.

"For working here?" whispered Maureen.

"Aye, and my cleaning I do for him in his shop."

"Has he got money worries?"

"Nut. The shops are doing well. He's not short, he just thinks there's nothing I can do if he doesn't pay me." Uncomfortably, she gestured an elaborate rolling circle with her finger and stopped. "I'm getting benefit. If they knew I worked…"

Maureen had seen tourists hounded out of the flea market for raising a camera and knew that Ella's position was not unique. " Ye'd hardly get a balloon and a badge for that here, would ye?" she said, wondering why Ella was confiding all of this information in her at all. They didn't know each other. She must have had closer friends in the market. Maureen wrote "loan" in the box, trying to keep her writing tidy. The hardboard she was leaning on was still gritty and she felt the pen crunch through dust, pitting the back of the page. She looked up and Ella was still drawing zigzags on the dusty floor. "What does your son sell in his shops?"

"This and that." Ella waved her hand. "Houses, and wholesale stuff, ye know."

"He's an estate agent?"

"Aye, and other things."

"Well, what business address should I put in here?"

Ella thought about it for a moment, looking at the floor. Her face contracted slowly, her lips tightened, eyes narrowed. "Park Circus Health Club, ninety-three Becci Street, Kelvingrove."

"I didn't know there was a health club there," said Maureen, writing it down.

When she looked up again Ella was suddenly ancient. Maureen imagined her without the tracksuit, without the gold rings and the eyebrows and her glasses, and realized she must be much older than sixty. She was at least seventy. "And that's where you clean, is it?"

"Aye."

It wasn't part of the form but Maureen was keen to know. "Why don't ye just keep back the money from the stall?"

Ella harrumphed. "Wouldn't cover it."

"So you're still handing over the money ye make here?"

"I've kept my side of the bargain."

"Is he just avoiding ye, then?"

"Nut," said Ella, turning her mouth down at the corners. "He's threatened me."

"With violence?"

"What else would he threaten me with – a holiday?"

Maureen dropped the board onto her lap and leaned forward. "Ella, that's appalling," she said seriously. "Did ye have a falling out?"

Ella nodded quietly. "Over a foreign woman. Not even a Scottish woman," she said, as if that made a difference to the fight-worthiness of anyone.

"A girlfriend?"

Ella chewed the inside of her cheek.

"Have ye got any other kids?"

"A daughter."

"Could she not talk to him for ye?"

Ella ignored her and sat up, straightening her back and pointing at Maureen. "Ye know what? Fuck them, I'll go to court if I need to."

Maureen thought back to her time working at the Place of Safety Shelters, remembered how unusual it was for family members to go all the way to court over anything, much less a small debt and a point of pride. "Up to you. Ye just need to sign this." She held out the form but Ella shoved the hardboard back at her.

"You do it."

"Well, it says here you have to sign it." Maureen pointed to the box.

"Oh, Christ," said Ella, getting flustered, "you fucking do it." She stood up and turned away, busying herself with the tapes.

Maureen stood up behind her uncertainly. "You've to sign it, you're bringing the case. I can't sign for you."

Ella McGee looked at her as if she were stupid. "Aye, ye can."

Maureen stood up next to her. "Are ye afraid to sign it, Ella?"

"No," she said emphatically, patting the Phil Collins tapes into a tidy row.

Maureen watched her turn away, looked at the back of her wrinkled neck and realized why Ella had confided in her. Ella couldn't fill in the form herself because Ella couldn't write. It would have been shaming to ask anyone else for help but Maureen was a newcomer to the market and Maureen didn't count.

"Will I sign it, then?" said Maureen.

"Aye, you do that."

Maureen considered signing Ella's name but thought it might be fraudulent. She put down her own name and address. "Um, you'll need to write an envelope and send it to the sheriff's office."

"You can do that, can't ye?"

They looked at each other and Maureen nodded. "Aye, no bother, I'll do it."

She folded the form and went to brush past her, but Home Gran caught her by the flesh on her upper arm. "And you'll come to the court with me, eh?" she said anxiously. "If it comes to that."

Maureen didn't want to. She had more than enough psychos in her own life without a man who'd threatened his seventy-year-old mother. They wouldn't go to court – families don't go to court. "Might not come to it," said Maureen, squeezing past her.

"Aye, might not," said Ella unconvincingly. "Eh, Pat by the river got raided yesterday."

Maureen would have heard it from someone else anyway but she knew Ella's telling her was a friendship gesture.

"Took all his fags away," said Ella, "and he still needs to pay Sammy for them."

"Nightmare. Thanks, Ella."

"No bother," said Ella, as if she'd done Maureen the favor. "By the way, wee Trish showed me your picture in the paper this morning. Ye look nice."

"In the what?"

"You're in the paper."

Maureen bolted for the mouth of the tunnel and the bright sunshine.

The newspaper seller was hiding in the shadow of the high tunnel over the road, hollering headlines unintelligibly. The poster on the front of his stall read "Brady Trial Exclusive." She bought the paper and read the front page. Angus Farrell had been declared fit for trial and had been charged with the murders of his colleague Douglas Brady and a hospital porter. The porter, Martin Donegan, had been twice the man Douglas ever was but his name wasn't mentioned because his mother wasn't famous. An old file photograph showed Carol Brady, the ex-MEP and victim's mother, snarling into the camera. Mrs. Brady was quoted: "I am heartbroken," claimed Brady. "He must never get out of Sunny fields." Maureen had had an uncomfortable lunch with Carol Brady a year ago and knew her patterns of speech. Either she'd had a stroke in the interim or the journalist was making it up. A small inset photograph showed Maureen's building from the outside, the black and gold Mars Bar advert above Mr. Padda's shop visible in the corner. The close door was propped open in the picture, showing how insecure it was. Inside, on page five, they'd reprinted the photograph of Maureen on holiday in Millport. She was wearing a "Never Mind the Bollocks" T-shirt and shades, grinning as she held on to a rented tricycle. Liam and Leslie had taken her to the seaside for a holiday just after she got out of hospital. She was painfully thin but still recognizable. Any nutter with the price of a paper had her face, her name, a picture of her house and its approximate position in the city. Siobhain might see that headline, and God knew what it would do to her. Maureen felt the fight go out of her. It was too much, the baby and the trial at the same time. She leaned against the wall under the high arch, standing in the dark, pretending to read as she tried to get her nerve together. Angus Farrell was twice as smart as she was. He scared the shit out of her.

She leaned her bare shoulder against the crumbling cold wall and looked at the guddle of the market. Joe the Hawk was selling car stereos with the wires still hanging out the back. Lenny's daft wee dog, Elsie Tanner, was sniffing a blanket someone had left in a gutter. Milling crowds gathered around stalls selling tights and biscuits, curling tongs and bits of stereos. Everyone was sunburned in a snapshot trace of their activities the day before: red necks and shoulders from gardening, red forearms with inside elbows cadaverous white where they'd been reading a book or sipping cups of tea. The true religious had full-on red faces and white garrote rings around their necks. Gordon Go-a-Bike waved to her from his perch and she waved back. Gordon sold greetings cards in the lane. He had something wrong with his legs and rather than stand still all day and make his condition worse he sat on an old exercise bike and worked his knees while he shouted at the passersby to get their cards here.

Maureen looked at the busy crowds of good people, looking for bargains and just the very thing. Not yet. None of it had happened yet. She dropped the paper to the ground. There was time enough for grief, she told herself, without rehearsing it for weeks in advance.

She stopped at Gordon Go-a-Bike's stall, bought a packet of big brown envelopes, and he gave her a loan of a stamp. She addressed one, as the form instructed, to the Clerk of the Sheriff Court and nipped out to the street to post it. When she came back with the egg rolls Leslie asked her what Home Gran had been saying.

"She wanted me to fill out a form for her."

"What form was it?"

"Urn, the council tax," said Maureen, because she'd promised not to tell.

"Aye," said Leslie. "It's a bugger, that form."

"Aye," said Maureen. "It's nice and cold in here."

She lowered herself onto the wee stool and they sat complaining about their achy-breaky knees, staring at each other, and smoked the day away in their dark tunnel as another scorcher blazed across the city.