“Was it McConnachie?”
“No.”
“Neely?”
“No.”
“Nicholson?”
“No-ooo.”
“Rattray?”
“Nein!”
“Ahhh, come on now. Don’t lie to me, girl. I bet it was Rattray. I’ve seen you all giggling and scratching his name on the inside of your desks.”
“God sakes. No way.” It was not the bold Rattray.
“Buchanan?” he asked. “Was it wee Buchanan then?”
“Wait, what? Buchanan doesn’t come after Rattray,” she’d sneered at him. “You’re slipping.”
Mr Gillespie had rattled the steering wheel. “Murchison?”
“No!” Jodie had let out a long sigh. “I have slept with nobody but you.” His face blanched like over-boiled cabbage. “Sir, it’s your baby.”
Usually he liked it when she called him Sir. He asked her to call him that when he was on top of her. But not now. He would not believe that the foetus was his. “That’s what lassies like you do, ye roam the streets like dugs in heat. Ah knew it. Ah knew ye were just like every one of those slags from the scheme.” He was muttering over and over to himself, reprimanding himself for his stupidity. “Ye’ll never get to university now.”
She couldn’t tell him that she hated lying underneath him – she had enjoyed it so little that it would be an age before she ever let another boy put himself inside her.
He didn’t bring her back to the East End that day. He left her near his home, in the Cowgate out by Kirkintilloch. When she asked where she was – she knew nothing about this part of the world – he said “Cow-Gate” and slammed the door. She would have expected more maturity from any of the boys on his register.
Now Mr Gillespie was gone and they were on the bus to Largs, looking to connect to the next one to West Kilbride and then the caravan park. It had been Mungo’s idea – it was a stupid idea – but she had none better.
Jodie slid across the aisle and sat next to her brother. She pressed against him until he was squashed up against the window and forced to acknowledge her. She expected him to look disappointed or angry; but when he looked at her it was with profound sadness and she found she didn’t like the mirror of his gaze and wanted him to turn away again. Mungo uncurled his fingers. He had a handful of Jelly Babies and he had separated the red ones just for her.
* * *
Mungo had never seen the sea in the daylight. When they changed buses in Largs, he pulled her towards it and Jodie felt lousy that she couldn’t let him linger. The next bus dropped them at the mouth of the caravan park. They walked the tarmac cul-de-sacs until they found the row of caravans that she knew best. Although it was still cold, Glasgow retirees were preparing for the short summer: replanting beds of dwarf geraniums in old whisky barrels, reconnecting frozen water lines. The retirees watched the children suspiciously and Jodie regretted that they hadn’t changed out of their school uniforms.
It was a stupid idea to look for him here, but a part of her had half-expected him to be at the caravan, because she could not picture him anywhere else. She had few images of Mr Gillespie, except him standing in front of a pull-down map of South Africa or lying on top of her on the pull-down table. She had never seen him walking along a street. Did he whistle “Billy Boy” like Mr Campbell, or weasel and strut like Hamish? She had no real idea of him outside what he taught her in school and then what he did to her afterwards; what he gave to her mind and what he took back from her body.
The caravan was a beige tin can that was cold to the touch. They peered through the proud net curtains into the empty interior. Mungo started tugging on the door.
“What are you doing?” She knew a dozen eyes were watching their every move; this schemie scum didn’t belong amongst their manicured flower beds.
“He might have left a note inside,” said Mungo, “or mibbe there’s something with his real address on it. Some way we can find him and make him help you.”
Jodie hadn’t thought this far ahead. She hadn’t imagined what she wanted from him. It was foolish, but she just needed to make sure he had understood, that it hadn’t been a misunderstanding after all. It was a burden to have a trusting soul. Sometimes she just couldn’t believe the worst in people. All these years with Mo-Maw should have learned her better.
Mungo tried pulling on the galvanized handle again. The door was thin and Hamish could have kicked it in easily, he would have known just where to aim his Samba. Mungo searched in the kangaroo pocket of his cagoule. He drew out the small knife Hamish had given him. He had no idea how to force a lock, but this was barely a lock. He jammed the knife behind the bolt and the door burst open.
It was clean and cold inside. The Gillespies had left just enough furnishings to sell it on to the next Glaswegians. With none of Mrs Gillespie’s fussy knick-knacks it looked foreign to Jodie. She had to check again to make sure she had not mistaken the sameness of all the caravans. No, this was the one. She ran her hand along the underside of the collapsible kitchen table and felt the sharp pitted mounds of dried mucus. Mr Gillespie had liked to pick his nose after they fucked and wipe it on the underside of the veneer. This was the place.
“It’s like a magician’s hat in here.” Mungo marvelled at the empty space. The Gillespies had two spoiled children; they had splurged on the deluxe upgrade.
Mungo found the chemical toilet and was pissing noisily into it. It sounded like a cheap plastic bucket. “Aw man!” he cried, lifting his feet high. “I don’t think this is plumbed in.” Pools of sugary yellow piss were leaking out around the base of the commode. Instinctively, Jodie found herself looking for a tea towel to clean up the mess.
“What are you doing?” asked Mungo, tucking himself away. Before Jodie could answer he took his hand and swept the last remaining photo off the wall. A twee thing, a black-and-white photo of Inveraray that had been tinted with watercolours. It smashed on the floor. He smiled.
Jodie filled with blood. She ripped at the sheets of the double bed; the bed that belonged to his wife, the same bed he wouldn’t let her lie down in. Giro-Jodie had to make do with the folding table or the tweed banquette and its uncomfortable bouclé fabric, or if he was in a real rush, she would brace herself against the tin sink and listen to the jangle of cutlery while he hiked her school skirt up above her haunches.
Jodie ran her hand over his pillow. It was freshly laundered but so deeply slept on that it held the traces of his sweat and his hair pomade. She could smell him on it. She ripped the covers from the pillows and tore the goose feathers from their guts. She had disembowelled two whole pillows and was screaming, red in the face, before she finally ran out of breath. Her brother stood in the narrow doorway and watched her shoulders heave with the exertion of it, every breath rounding them a little more as the anger bled out of her. “Wait. You can get pillows full of feathers?” Mungo’s eyes were wide with wonder. “Fuck him!” He picked up a pillow and bloofed Jodie with it. She fell against the rosewood wall and her shoulder burst through the veneer. He hit her again and the air filled with fresh goose snow. Jodie found her own weapon and they made a great game of climbing around the caravan, bouncing from bed to banquette and walloping each other without mercy. It was a far-roaming, rolling war and they destroyed everything in their path. The caravan squeaked and tilted on its tyres.