Poor-Wee-Chickie lived on the ground floor left. It was a door the children all rushed past. A plain brown door like Mungo’s own, that had a sad, degraded look from all the times it had been scrubbed clean of foul graffiti. Someone – a Proddy pal of Ha-Ha’s – had found a half-dead can of spray paint in one of the middens. The wit had spray-painted Child Mahlestur in tall letters on Poor-Wee-Chickie’s door. Jodie had tried her best to wash it away before Mr Calhoun saw it. She must have been scrubbing the paintwork raw because it was the sanding noise that finally brought him to the door. He found her there, her school uniform lousy with bleach and paint flakes.
“Ah, the poor beasts. They cannae spell for toffee. Personally, I prefer kiddie fiddler myself. It sounds somehow more genteel, more musical. Don’t ye think?”
Jodie liked Poor-Wee-Chickie. She had endless patience for the lonely. But Mungo was wary of him; even though he knew better, he still believed the untrue things they said about the bachelor.
Mungo got dressed. He pulled on his cagoule. Perhaps the best idea would be to see James, and simply pretend none of the nonsense, none of the crying, had ever happened. As he went down the stairs, Poor-Wee-Chickie opened his door at the sound of his footsteps. “Ah, Mungo son. Thank God it’s you. Can ye help me?” He was clutching Natalie in his arms, the fawn-coloured whippet he spent most of his disability allowance on. “I’ve had a wee spot of bother.” He nodded out to the daylight and said no more. “Do you think you could let Natalie out for me? She must be bursting.”
Mungo took the dog outside and walked her beside a line of parked cars. He tried to avoid the attention of the Proddy boys, now looking for their next target, but he could hear them moan, quietly enough that they could disavow it if he challenged them – he would never challenge them. “Mongo, Mungo.”
The small whippet did not care for the smirr. She grimaced, did her business quickly, and dragged him back inside.
“Did she diddle?” asked Poor-Wee-Chickie.
“Aye, she diddled.”
“Diddled and doddled?”
“Aye. Diddled and doddled.”
He swept the dog up in his arms. “Guid girl. It’s hard for a lady to doddle in front of a strange man.”
“Really? You should see our Jodie. Sometimes she doesnae bother to shut the toilet door.”
“Och, ye’re a terror!” Poor-Wee-Chickie fluttered his hand like it was a fine hanky. “Can I bother ye for five more minutes? I jist need somebody to hold her still while I clip her wee claws. Every time I get near her wi’ yon clippers, she bolts for the other side of the flat. Ma sister usually helps me, but she’s taken up wi’ a Pakistani widower, and she’s never oot the hoose noo.” He looked wistful for a moment. “Mind you. She does have lovely curtains.”
Mungo must have nodded, because Poor-Wee-Chickie stepped to the side and let the boy into his flat. As he crossed the threshold Mungo tried not to stare at the ghostly words that still tainted the door.
The flat was smaller than the ones upstairs, much of it was carved away for the stairwell and entrance foyer, so it felt like an old-fashioned room and kitchen instead of a proper family flat. Poor-Wee-Chickie was wearing a camel-coloured Lyle & Scott jumper. He had a strange habit of wearing all his clothes tucked inside his trousers, regardless of how thick the fabric was. Over the volume of his pleated trousers it gave him the old-fashioned look of having a well-defined waist. He always wore freshly polished shoes, inside or out, and a thin belt with a shiny metal buckle. Poor-Wee-Chickie handed the forlorn whippet to Mungo. She folded into his arms easily, nothing but bones and ligaments, and he held her like she was a pile of jumbled kindling. She was the least cuddly dog Mungo had ever touched.
Mungo had never seen the man walk the whippet in daylight. Just last week, Mo-Maw had mentioned that she saw the pair of them wandering the scheme, alone on empty streets, both before and after her night shift. Mo-Maw didn’t trust that about him, and said that he was “sneaking around like a grave robber.” But Poor-Wee-Chickie preferred to go unnoticed. It was safer somehow, dipping in and out of shadows.
“This is a great help, son. I cannae be chasing her all around the place, no at my age.” He took one of Natalie’s paws in his hand and with a pair of loppers he clipped each nail in turn. “She’s a daft bitch. Once a month for eight years we’ve been at this, and ye think she’d be used to it by now. Just goes to show ye …” He chuckled. “Even beasts never lose hope for a different outcome. I’m gonnae get her one of these days, and instead of cutting her nails, I’m gonnae paint them hoor’s red. That’ll show her.” He kissed between her ears. “What would ye say to that, eh? Ya silly besom.”
Mungo surveyed the room over the top of Poor-Wee-Chickie’s head. The house was immaculate, everything economical and painfully arranged, not a speck of dust. Mo-Maw had said Mr Calhoun was a housewife, but a housewife only to himself.
“He’s a bachelor,” she’d said, as her children lined up at the kitchenette window and watched him peg out his sheets and socks on the washing line.
Jodie sniffed. “What harm is he doing?”
“Bet he wanks that much he needs to wash they sheets every day,” offered Hamish with a sneer. “Rotten auld bachelor.”
The only thing they had all agreed on was that Mungo should not linger outside the bachelor’s door. If he had to play inside the close, he should play upstairs, between the Campbell and the Hamilton landings.
The nail clipping was swift. Mungo lowered Natalie to the floor. She ducked her head under her carriage and sniffed her own vagina. Poor-Wee-Chickie laughed. “It’s a funny habit. She’s checking ye’ve no stole it.” Satisfied it was still there, the dog moped off to the settee and curled up in the corner. “Tek a wee glass of ginger, son. Just to say thanks.”
Mungo started to refuse, but Poor-Wee-Chickie was already in the narrow scullery. The boy followed him through. There was a VHS player and a large colour telly next to the bread bin. He couldn’t help himself. “Wow! Do you have two televisions?”
“Aye. I like to watch old episodes of Sportscene when I cook.” He poured a tall glass of fizzy ginger. “Do you like the football?”
Mungo shook his head and looked at his trainers. It was a source of shame for him not to be good with a ball. He wanted to change the subject then, to pick at a different scab, one that was not his own. “So does Missus Calhoun do all the cooking?”
The man barely drew breath; he had a quicksilver mind. “Now, son, do ye mean my sister or my mother? Because I know ye don’t mean my wife.”
There was something about the way the smile slipped from his lips that told Mungo he had taken a step too far. Maybe he had wanted to see more clearly what they all squinted at from behind the net curtains. “Sorry, Mister Calhoun.” Then he added, “It’s jist I’ve lived above ye my whole life and I suppose I don’t know ye.”
“Don’t ye?” He handed him the glass with a chuckle. “Well. At least yer the first to admit that. Usually people think they know everything about me.”