Mungo put his arm around Jodie’s shoulder. She hadn’t been eating properly, neither of them had, but Jodie always let him eat most of their deep-fried pizza and Mungo couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her eat a whole plate of her own food.
They waited to cross at the traffic lights that controlled the thick artery of the High Street. Directly across from the infirmary was a triangular island. The waste ground was bordered by a windowless pub and the indiscreet remains of a half-pulled-down tenement that made the island feel like a bombed-out warzone. In the midst of the rubble sat a white caravan. It spilled a sliver of light out into the wet night. Cars streamed by on all three sides.
The snack bar attracted a queue of lorry drivers waiting for their dinners and street cleaners waiting for their breakfasts. Men in short sleeves huddled under the plywood awning. They shivered as they smoked and danced from foot to foot, rain dripping down the necks of their shirts.
There she was, in the halo of yellow light, pushing hunks of meat around on a sizzling griddle. Jodie wanted to turn, to leave now, but Mungo held her fast and they waited patiently for the queue to move along. The woman looked content. She talked to the regulars with an easy familiarity that showed they already knew each other. Now and then she stopped her cooking and took one of their heads in her hands and asked how their sick wives were, or if their weans were behaving themselves. She listened intently as a bin man talked about his union dispute with the corporation. Mungo watched her ask insightful questions that showed how deeply she cared. Jodie turned to him and said quietly, “Please, whatever you do, don’t let me laugh.”
When they reached the front of the queue they stepped out of the darkness into the sickly fluorescent light. “Hiya,” she said, as though they had met casually at a bus stop. “What are youse two doing all the way out here?”
Mungo forgave her in that instant. He was flooded with profound relief. He turned to Jodie, but her jaw was locked tight and her eyes were nothing but knife slits. “Is that all you’re going to say? Hiya? Hi-fuckin’-ya?”
Jodie tried to tug her arm free from Mungo’s grasp, but he would not let go. He was staring up at Mo-Maw, gazing up at her in devotion. Please, he thought. Just let me look at her a little while longer.
“Listen, lady.” Mo-Maw was pointing down at her daughter, the greasy scraper extended like the finger of God. “It’s that exact attitude that has made me no want to visit.”
“Visit? Visit!” Jodie rarely used to get angry. When they were younger, they often joked that Hamish had stolen both of their portions of anger. But now Jodie was angry all the time. Mungo was shaken from his reverence. He watched as Jodie’s head snapped back and her wet hair flew wildly around her. “You don’t fucking visit your own weans. Ya mad auld bitch. You come home every night and make sure they’ve been fed and cleaned and then ye tuck them into bed. You make sure they have done their homework and have had enough to eat for their lunch and then if you are fucking lucky ye get ten minutes peace to yersel afore ye start it all a-fuckin’-gain.” She had been pointing a sharp finger back up at her mother; the griddle scraper and her finger almost connected. Her face started to twist into her nervous laugh. “Haaah-ha.”
Mungo watched Mo-Maw wilt. Several of the taxi drivers were standing slack-mouthed, huge gobbets of half-chewed sausage sitting on their fat tongues. They were unsettled by this screaming ingrate. Then when she laughed, they could not see the joke. There were rivulets of tears on Jodie’s face. “What you do not do – what you absolutely do not do – is leave your children alone while you disappear. You don’t fuck off to get your hole and let them think you’re dead.”
“We just wanted you to know that we missed you.” Mungo felt the sudden need to say it. He had been struck with a rising fear Mo-Maw would latch this trailer to a car and leave them again, standing on this traffic island surrounded by a dozen strange men. Jodie scowled at him like he was a traitor.
Mo-Maw leaned out the serving hatch. She placed a damp kiss on Mungo’s lips. “Darlin’。 Ah came by the flat twice to pick up clean clothes, hairspray and that. Ah’m sorry. Ah left a wee note.”
Mungo’s jaw hung open, he spun and glared at his sister.
“What? Would it hurt less to know that your mother couldn’t even hang around for thirty minutes until you got home from school, eh?”
Mo-Maw closed the top two buttons on her blouse. She spoke over the heads of her children. “How about that, Johnny, eh? Ah gave up my figure for these ingrates. Now you see why ah drink.” She looked down at Mungo. “Away and wait over there, and ah’ll come see you when ah get a minute.”
“But—”
“I’m workin’。 Go and have a seat.”
Mo-Maw couldn’t come out of the snack bar and talk right away, but she handed them two floury rolls with bacon and black pudding and a cup of tea each. Mungo watched his sister hesitate before taking hers. The picnic table was slick with rain but the van deflected the worst of the wind. Mungo wiped a spot dry for Jodie to sit on. They cradled their hot teas and tried to pull warmth through the polystyrene. There was a sliver of pink jumper peeking out from Jodie’s coat sleeve. When she wasn’t looking, Mungo pulled at it, and hooked his fingers into the loose stitches. The late-night traffic flew by. Mungo tried not to make eye contact with the mothers who rubbernecked from warm Saabs.
“Jodie?” There was a tentativeness in his voice. “Try and remember the good bits, eh? She’s not all bad.” Jodie stared at him. Mungo went on and as he did, he counted off their mother’s good qualities on his fingers. “She’s funny, she doesn’t always mean to be, but she is. She doesn’t hold grudges or dwell on bad stuff. She hardly ever nags us. She is, she …” He paused. “What’s that word that begins with R? You know when you get knocked down but you get back up again?”
Jodie didn’t falter. “Rotted, rancid, rarelysober, reallyfuckingselfish?”
When the night-shift breakfast rush was cleared, Mo-Maw hopped down out of the small caravan. Mo-Maw looked nothing like her off-spring. All the Hamilton children’s swarthiness must have come from the Black Irish that ran through their father. Mungo had never seen any pictures of this man. At one time, there was the promise of an undeveloped roll of film lying in a kitchen drawer somewhere, but Mo-Maw could never seem to find it. His mother was shorter than Jodie – only five foot tall in her bare feet – but she heaped her mousy curls on top of her head to give her the illusion of height. She was small-boned and fine-featured with quick green eyes. She was paler than her children, fragile looking, but her brittleness was only skin-deep.
Their mother was wearing a greasy pinny and underneath that she wore a pair of cropped denims and a brand-new pair of white trainers, flashy Nike ones with the swoosh on the side. Mo-Maw noticed them eyeing this luxury. “Well, ma back hurts, standing at that hot griddle all day.” She had a polystyrene cup that was bright with the molten orange colour of Irn-Bru. There was an astringent tang to it that smelled like alcohol, a strong medicinal scent that was noticeable despite the rain. Jodie was already picking at a splinter in the table.