“Spare me your nonsense, Maureen.” It was cold, but without meanness. Mungo looked up at her – Jodie looked worn through. “What’s happened with Jocky?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s happened with Jocky. It’s aw candy floss and winching in the moonlight. Ah just wanted to come see ma boy. My only true love.” She reached across the table and interlaced her fingers amongst Mungo’s. They mooned at each other like they were sweethearts.
“Great. So, this is just a flying visit then? I’m glad you could fit us into your diary.” Jodie’s hair was scraped away from her face; her ponytail hung down her back, thick as a hawser rope. The tautness made her stony-faced. Rummaging through the kitchen drawers, she produced a stack of papers and dropped them in front of Mo-Maw. There was angry red ink everywhere like the letters were shouting at them. “They’re threatening to cut off the electric, the gas, and the phone. The housing association has written to us three times about the fact there doesn’t seem to be an adult in the house. If you don’t show yourself, they will call the Social and your precious boy here will be put into care.”
Mo-Maw roared. “Ah wonder what grassin’ basturt telt them that.” She cast the red letters to the floor. “These fuckin’ tenements! Ye cannae walk the length of the street without every clipe knowing yer business.”
“You need to go in first thing on Monday morning and talk to the council.”
“Aye, I’ll get to it.”
“No, you will go in first thing on Monday morning.”
Mo-Maw put her hand up to cover her lips, she leaned across the table to Mungo as though Jodie was not even there. “See, ah telt ye she was no fuckin’ fun.”
Jodie closed her eyes. Mungo watched her hands go limp at her side. Mo-Maw tipped the cigarette ash out of her spare wine glass. She filled it with whisky and poured sloshes of Irn-Bru in after it. She pushed it towards Jodie. “Here hen, maybe this will help ye loosen up a wee bit.”
Jodie’s eyes flew open. Mungo had never noticed it before, but now he could see the violence of Hamish in her face. Her eyes could fade to the same black and grey of Ayrshire flint, and her jaw locked in the way Hamish’s did when he was going to punch something, hard. She extended her hand and swept the glass off the table and sent it flying into the wall opposite. Molten orange sprayed the white countertop.
“Ya insolent streak of piss.” Mo-Maw did not like to see good drink wasted. “Ye’re not too old to go over my knee, lady.”
“Why did you come back?”
“Why did you come back, why did you come back.” Mo-Maw was parroting her, turning it into a sour whine. “Well if you must know, it was your fault. Everything was going grand between me and Jocky until youse two showed up at the snack bar.”
“Our fault?”
“Aye.” Mo-Maw tipped her nose upwards and turned her body away from them as though she had been dealt a mortal insult. “Ah felt bad after ah saw yeese. Guilty like. So ah telt Jocky ah had weans, and he papped us. He said it was too much trouble. He said he didn’t want a family.”
Jodie rested all her weight on one hip. She squinted like she could smell something rancid. There was a long awful silence before she said, “See, I asked around and it turns out Jocky Dunbar has four weans of his own. Three girls and a wee boy, all of them still in school. Haaah-ha.”
“Well, ah didnae say he didnae.”
“You’ve been living with a strange man and playing house with his weans. Have you been cooking for them?”
“It wisnae like that. Ah wisnae there for them.”
“Were you ironing their school uniforms? Making them sandwiches for their packed lunch?”
“No all the time.”
“Wait, what?” Mungo looked from one woman to the other. “Maw—” she hated when he called her that – “Did you iron clothes for another boy?”
“Naw, Mungo.” Mo-Maw reached out to him across the table but he pulled his hand away. Jodie laid her hand across the back of his neck, it was burning hot.
“I know you are not here because of us,” said Jodie. “I know you’ve been playing pretend with some widower and his shiny weans. I would bet Mungo’s life on the fact that you are here now because he’s chucked you for drinking too much. I bet he got sick of the state of you bouncing around the Trongate and disgracing his name.”
“Ye’ve never loved me.”
“I did once.” Jodie nodded sincerely. She took Mungo by the arm and led him out of the kitchenette. “You can stay until after you’ve spoken to the council and then you need to leave. Ah’ll come to the snack bar every Friday and collect money for the bills. You only need to pay until Mungo has his sixteenth birthday. Then you’re free to destroy yourself however you like. Try and take the fast road.”
* * *
Jodie wished her brother would cry. It was a luxury she never had. It had been different for her, she had no one to cry to – neither Mo-Maw nor Hamish could have offered any comfort. But Mungo had her. As they crouched behind the communal bin shed she wished that he would cry. She only had to think of Hamish and she could see the rage that built when you never let the hurt out. She knew too many knotted-up men. “You know she’s a liar, don’t you?”
Any other time Mungo would have defended their mother. That was his role in the family tragedy, to find the last scraps of good in Mo-Maw and forever be reminding his siblings of it. He knew his line, but he didn’t have the energy to recite it.
“You know she will leave the minute Jocky phones for her.”
Mungo looked thunderstruck, his mouth was hanging open. He didn’t have the energy to argue anymore. “Did she really look after Jocky’s weans?”
“Yes,” said Jodie. “I noticed you’ve been at your mad chewing again. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.”
They idled in the shadow of the midden as long as they could bear. It stank something terrible, but the longer they waited the more likely that Mo-Maw would have collapsed into a fitful sleep. They huddled together out of the wind until they startled Mrs Campbell as she brought plates of fish down for the tenement strays. Mungo had been telling Jodie about the pigeon boy when Mrs Campbell chased them out of the darkness and upstairs to their beds. All the way up the close she berated them. But Mungo saw the pity that sat in the corner of her mouth. “Ye’re a right pair of buggers to frighten an aul’ wummin like that.” She slipped a chunk of bright orange cheese into each of their hands. She had produced it from her pinny pocket, as though it was a very ordinary place to keep your cheese. It was cracked dry at the edges but she made them eat it before she let them go. “Pair of ye look like ye might come down wi’ the rickets any minute.”
“Thank you, Missus Campbell,” said Jodie.
Mrs Campbell took Jodie’s hand. She smoothed the loose hairs away from Jodie’s face. “Listen, hen, if for any reason at all ye cannae sleep up there the night, ye just come back doon the stairs to me, awright? Ah can make up a wee bed for the both of ye, nae questions asked.” Mrs Campbell paused, but she wouldn’t let go of her hand. “Ah cannae be seen to be interfering in another wummin’s business, ye understand that, eh? But youse just say the word, awright?”