On the soundless television, an English woman was dipping a vase into liquid and showing the audience how to crackle glaze the surface of it. Each one of the young men was staring slack-jawed at the screen. On the low table in front of them sat a bundle of folded nappies amongst a pile of stolen car radios, half-drunk bottles of MD 20/20, and one very large tomahawk.
The tomahawk was homemade. Someone had taken the handle from a ball-peen hammer and screwed it to a slice of sharpened metal. Mungo knew that one of the boy’s uncles still worked in shipbuilding and would bring him offcuts of steel when he could. The axe looked like a medieval weapon that could cleave the arm off a man. The boy had polished it lovingly and then, using electrical tape, had wrapped the handle in blue, white, and red stripes. He had sharpened the blade to a shining point, it made a screeching noise just to look at it. Mungo couldn’t stop staring.
Sammy-Jo McConnachie was sitting on the armchair. She was drowned by one of Hamish’s jumpers. She had their pink baby stuffed up underneath it, and was trying to get her to latch on. Mungo glimpsed the side of her breast. The swelling looked painful; there were angry veins bruising the underside of each tit, and it looked like two giant gooseberries had been stitched to a child’s ribcage. The girl looked tired and seemed on the verge of tears. The baby was fussing and colicky sounding. Its five measly hairs were gathered together and bound with a jolly bow.
The woman stopped glazing her vase and held it out for the cameras to see the intricate swirls. The young men looked from one to another in amazement; white pearls of acne flushed across their foreheads. “That’s pure beautiful,” said the ginger-headed boy. They all nodded in agreement.
Sammy-Jo started buzzing around the room, trying to wipe the table before her mother came in from work. Mungo could remember her from school. She had been the year below him, boyish and slender in a way that hadn’t hardened into a look of mannish starvation yet. She always smelled of fresh apple shampoo and was considered to be the prettiest girl in the whole scheme. Mungo had watched the boys from all the surrounding years try to get next to her, but of course it had been Hamish who had turned her head. Hamish was a challenge for girls; he could be so embittered, so antagonistic, that when they coaxed some small sweetness from him, they felt chuffed with their own allure. Hamish had told Sammy-Jo that he felt like a bigger man when she was around, that she, and she alone, made him want to get his life together. Mungo saw how she carried herself differently after that, she swanned around like a saviour in a B-cup. How could she resist him?
“Ha-Ha!” she shrieked. Hamish’s handle always sounded strange to Mungo, like a bad actor forcing out a fake laugh. “Ha-Ha! Tell them to take their feet off ma mammy’s good table.”
Mungo could tell Hamish didn’t want to leave the house. He didn’t want to take the battalion of boys out to wander the smirred streets. It was too early for mayhem.
She was trying to tidy the pile of car radios, but the wires were roughly cut and they kept unspooling in a messy pile. The baby was huffing underneath her thick jumper. Sammy-Jo had been clever, Mungo remembered, she was one of those children who was so fluent in mathematical hieroglyphics that it seemed as if it were her native tongue. She began shaking the bottles of formula to see which still held the most. “Have ye goat any money?”
“I was gonnae ask you the same thing.” His eyes were glued to the telly.
Sammy-Jo looked on the verge of hot tears. One of the boys had stopped watching the television and was openly staring at the underside of her swollen breast. “Ha-Ha!”
Hamish tore his eyes away from the television. He was angry about missing the crackle glazing. “Whit? Did yer granny no give ye something for the baby?”
“That’s to get her ears pierced.”
“Listen, I just need a couple of poun’ for bus fare. I need to sign on up at Jamaica Street.” He nodded towards the table. “I could even take they radios down Paddy’s market and sell them afore teatime. Then we would have my dole money and whatever I got for these.”
“Naw.”
“Ye would have enough money to pierce her ears four times over.”
It was unpleasant to watch Hamish have to barter and reason with someone. Mungo was used to him just taking what he wanted and he had seen him menace Mo-Maw and Jodie if they offered some resistance. Mungo wondered how long it would be until he hit Sammy-Jo.
A singer started screaming, “You make me feel so real,” over the techno beat. Mungo had been waiting in the doorway. It had been clear that he hadn’t been given permission to talk yet. “I could give you money, Hamish,” he said. “If you want?”
The boys all swivelled to look at him. No one ever called the big man “Hamish.”
“Okay. I’ll gie ye it back.” Hamish scowled at Sammy-Jo. He never said please or thanks.
Mungo rooted around in his cagoule pocket. Jodie had given him money for school supplies and he hadn’t spent all of it. Hamish jostled him out into the hallway, and they went through into the narrow kitchenette, where Hamish clouted him around the back of his head. “Don’t ever call me that in front of them again. It’s Ha-Ha. Four fuckin’ letters, even you are no daft enough to get that wrong.”
The kitchenette was narrow, smaller than even Mo-Maw’s. Mungo knew Hamish had tried to put their names on a council list for a flat of their own. The female council officer had been horrified by him: fifteen-year-old girls should not be living with eighteen-year-old men.
Mungo poured the coins into his hand. “I have things you could sell, you know. If it would help the baby.”
“Lit what?”
“Like a remote-controlled car and one of those Space Invaders games.”
“Naw. I’ve selt them already.” Hamish quickly changed the subject. “Listen, I have something for ye.” He reached into the back pocket of his denims. He thrust something small at his brother, and with a snip, a three-inch blade shot out. Mungo fell backwards over the bin. He was holding on to the melamine counter and staring down at the short blade. Hamish was jabbing it towards his stomach and smiling with a demented pleasure. “After that fuckin’ palaver in the builder’s yard ye need a blade to protect yersel.”
It wasn’t much of a blade, small and silver with a fake onyx handle. It looked like it would keenly slice an apple or cut through a length of old washing rope. As if Hamish had read Mungo’s thoughts, he stabbed the blade into a bag of white sugar. Once, twice, three times. The sugar poured out of the bag and glistened on the counter.
Mungo put his hands in his pockets. He locked his elbows to his side. “No way. I don’t fuckin’ want it.”
“It’s no a question.” Hamish thrust the knife towards his brother.
“But what if the polis stop me? What if the polis find me with a blade on us?”
Hamish snorted. “Fuck sake, Mungo, look at ye. What would the polis stop you for? Ye’re that soft I’m surprised you have enough bones to stand upright.”
“I don’t want a knife.”
Hamish sheathed the blade back in its handle. He loosened the Velcro fastening on Mungo’s cagoule pocket and dropped the knife into the kangaroo pouch. “Listen baw-jaws, the more involved I get with the Billies, the more the Fenians are gonnae want to hurt a Hamilton. Even if ye don’t want it for yersel, haud on to it for our Jodie. You never know when ye might need to chib a cunt.” He carefully sealed the Velcro. He was done discussing it. Hamish licked his finger and was dabbing the white sugar, it made a crunching sound between his front teeth. “One more thing, I’m gonnae need yer help on Friday.”