They spent the evening in the glow of the electric fire watching a Royal Command Performance on television. They lay on the blue rug and crammed an endless procession of buttery shortbread into their mouths. English comedians were notoriously unfunny. English comedians performing in front of the Queen were unfunny and slick with a strange kind of slithery smarminess. On top of this, the man now performing had gone all limp in the wrist and something about him made the boys uncomfortable. It was a loathsome sight, people were roaring at him, and the louder they laughed the more he swished and lisped.
“When you leave,” asked Mungo, “where would you go?”
James turned away from the comedian. He lowered his cheek to the floor. “I told ye already. Anywhere but here. I want to live somewhere where people aren’t always leaving. I don’t mind being alone. It’s the fact they keep fucking off, again and again.” James looked at him. “Would you be awright if I left?”
He shrugged. “Do what you like.”
James lay between Mungo and the television. He was searching Mungo’s face in the flickering glow. “You are a bad liar, Mungo Hamilton.” He tried to lay a thick finger on Mungo’s cheekbone, right where the twitch had started.
Mungo slapped him away. “Why does every fucker want to touch my face?”
James propped himself up on one elbow.
Mungo was squinting, peering like he had an eye test. He started to laugh.
James looked behind himself at the bright television. He turned and looked at Mungo. “Who are you laughin’ at?”
“I can see different colours through your big ears. They’re pure glowing.”
James flattened them against his head.
Mungo toed his hands away and the large ears sprung back to life. “You’re like Dumbo.”
James lunged and caught Mungo’s ankle sharply, twisting it. It cracked his knee and Mungo contorted to release the painful pressure of it. “Call me that again,” he growled. “I fuckin’ dare you.”
“Dumb—”
But before he could finish James was on top of him. His knee was in Mungo’s side and his left hand held his face against the floor. The thick carpet skinned his raw cheekbone. James twisted his arm behind his back. “I cannae hear ye? Speak up.”
Most days, Hamish easily bested Mungo. Mungo learned quickly to offer no resistance because that would only prolong the beating. Roll into a ball. Tuck your elbows to your knees and cradle your face between your forearms. It stole the heat from Hamish. It was no fun to whale on a sack of lifeless meat.
“Submit,” James commanded.
“Ah-yah! No way.”
James wrenched his arm again. “Sub-mit.”
“Awright.”
He released him and Mungo scuttled away. He sat with his back to him, cradling his sore wrist. James had gone too far, he was no better than Hamish. The victor’s smile slid from his lips. He reached out a hand to apologize. But as Mungo turned, he glowered at James from under his fringe and a grin broke over his face. “Dumbo. Dumbo. Dumh-boh. Ya big-eared basturt. Can you fly with them flappers?”
He could endure more than James could ever dole out. James would learn.
They roughhoused until the street lights flickered on. Mungo had stayed away as long as he could. He lifted his T-shirt and rubbed at his swollen belly, feeling sick on sugary shortbread. “I need to get back. Mo-Maw will be worried.” It was the kind of thing Americans said on television. He liked the sound of it, though he knew she wouldn’t be.
A tightness spread across James’s face. He opened his mouth to say something but Mungo watched the words catch on his teeth as though he thought better of it. “Whroup, whrooup, whrooooup.” He bobbed and cooed in reply.
“I’ll come to the doocot after school the morra.” Mungo tried to sound as casual as he could. He pretended he was looking in his cagoule pocket. “You go to the Catholic school, don’t you?”
“Aye,” said James. “I told you your Ha-Ha used to try and murder me.”
Mungo looked up. He had misunderstood. “I thought you meant that in a general way. You know, like a touch of casual murdering.”
James sat up and pulled his knees to his chest. “Naw. Every day at four o’clock I had to bolt from him and the other Billies. For a speccy wee dwarf, your Ha-Ha can really fuckin’ run.”
“Aye, he’s a man of wasted talents.”
James was picking at his big toe. It seemed like he wanted to say something more, but several times he lowered his head and his hair fell over his eyes. When eventually he spoke, it was directed towards a tasselled table lamp. “Can I ask you a favour, Mungo? I don’t mean anything funny by it. But would you stay, just a wee while longer? Maybe, if you like, stay here the night?” Mungo could see he was struggling. “I have a Christmas selection box, ye can have first pick.”
“I can’t. My maw.” Mungo thumbed over his shoulder.
“Go on. Please.”
Mungo exhaled. He knew what it was to feel this heavy.
The boys went one flight down and asked to use Mrs Daly’s telephone. The woman seemed to have been expecting them and left them alone in her tidy hallway. The phone rang twice before Jodie answered. She sounded the same deflated way she often did after a long shift at the café. Mungo told her where he was, told her where he would stay, and said he would collect his uniform in the morning.
“Wait, do you actually have a pal?” She sounded both surprised and relieved.
“Is that awright?”
“Fine.”
“Can I stay here then?”
“Aye. If I need you, I’ll wave across the back middens. Look out for the smoke signals.”
“Will you tell Mo-Maw for me?”
“I will,” she said, then she rattled her lips together in an exasperated breath. “When I see her.”
“What do you mean?”
Jodie was running a flat brush through her hair. He could hear the static crackle down the telephone line. “Mungo, did you actually think she was going to stick around this time?”
“Oh.” Mrs Daly had so many cats that Mungo couldn’t keep count.
“Never mind. She wrote a lovely note.”
* * *
James’s bedroom was a mess. The walls were thick with posters pinned layer upon layer. Clothes, clean and dirty, lay in heaps on the floor. In the corner of the room was a pile of old canary cages, modified to transport pigeons. Above these was a twitcher’s map of Scotland, lochs and hillsides in glorious detail, each glen filled in with the type of bird an enthusiast could expect to find there. James had circled some far-flung places to disappear to.
The boys lay together, with James facing upwards and Mungo with his head at James’s feet, head to toe in the single bed. They took great pains to not touch. If one moved his leg too close, the other shifted and hung off the side of the narrow mattress.
“What’s your maw like?” asked James in the darkness.
It was hard to describe such a thing. You only got one mother, it didn’t bear a comparison and she didn’t come with a list of features like a new oven. “I dunno. She’s just my maw.” Mungo had never considered it before.