“I know.”
“We’re lower than shite to them.”
“I know.”
“Those lassies. I’d only be doing this for you.”
“Me? I never asked you for anything.”
The boys were staring at each other. James was colouring, digging at the gap in his front teeth. “Can you no see? If I stick around for you then I need to follow his rules. If I’m under his roof I need to try.”
It was a trick, it felt like one of Ha-Ha’s. This is for your own good. Blam. I’m only doing this because you asked for it. Blam. You will thank me later. Blam.
They had slid further apart; all sharp shins and hollow clavicles, nothing but angular bones wrapped in blue-white skin. They drifted on the sea of navy-blue carpet like calved icebergs that were pulling away from each other. Mungo reached for his discarded clothes.
“Where are you going?”
“Away.”
“Naw.”
“Don’t fuckin’ tell me what to do.”
James grabbed his ankle and started dragging Mungo back across the carpet towards him. The carpet burned. His body filled with electricity. Mungo was unsure how to feel, he knew he wanted to kick him in the face, but what he wanted more, infinitely more, was to be tethered to his side.
James wrapped his arms around Mungo until the twitching stopped and the desire to flee abated. They wrestled for a while. He tried to tilt Mungo’s chin to look him in the eyes. But again and again Mungo wriggled free and buried his face in his neck. He didn’t want to be reasoned with. He didn’t want to be all grown-up.
“Don’t be so fuckin’ moody.”
“You can talk,” said Mungo, except his lips were pressed against the muscles of James’s shoulder, so the sound that escaped was unintelligible.
“Whut? Whut?” James tickled him. He only wanted one more smile. Mungo dribbled pools of slaver across his skin. James didn’t wipe the spittle from his shoulder, he didn’t ask Mungo to move, even after their arms had fallen asleep, and their legs began to prickle with pins and needles. They sat wrapped in one another for a long time, long enough for the chill to enter the room. There was the distant jingle of an ice cream van. James kissed him. “Ye have nothing to worry about. Yer ma girl now. Until ye can come away wi’ us. I’ll do what I can.” James pressed his fingers between Mungo’s ribs, played a silent tune, and moved them up and down as though Mungo was an accordion.
* * *
In the end, three more days of happiness became only two and a quarter. Mungo felt short-changed, stopped short, swindled. All day, he had a sense that something promised had been stolen; like when you chose the biggest bag of crisps, opened it, and it was mostly just empty air.
“Are ye sure ye want to come?” asked James. He had asked the same thing four times now. It was already the gloaming and the park was getting dark. Far from the amber glare of the street lights, the evening was a watery type of grey.
“I do,” said Mungo. He knew if he didn’t go, he would hide at home, and the horrors he could imagine would feel one million times worse.
The boys stunk of the same cheap aftershave. Their armpits were caked in aerosol deodorant that they had applied so thickly that it slithered like whipped cream beneath their shirts. James rammed his shoulder into Mungo’s and knocked him from the path. “Listen, don’t torture yourself, awright? I have to go through with it.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Mungo tried to smile and found that he couldn’t. “Mibbe they will do a two-for-one special. Poke one lassie, get one poke free.”
“I dare ye to suggest a loyalty programme.” He laughed, green eyes blazing. “And then run as fast as ye fuckin’ can.”
The park had only just started to come into spring leaf. There was a break in the cold rain, but everything was still dripping wet. A black path wound through the grass like a slick tongue. The fountain girls were huddled along the back of a rotted bench, bobbing and beady-eyed, like the cold pigeons that waited for the pensioners who came with the end of a loaf. Men’s jumpers were pulled down over foreshortened school skirts, and their hair was gelled and scraped away from their faces. Each of them had a fringe, spindly and stiff, that they had rolled and lacquered over a round brush. Now they shot out and curled over their bright faces like awnings on a shopfront.
“What did ye bring us?” asked Nicola, the largest of the three girls.
James emptied the pockets of his anorak and produced a small bottle of MD 20/20, a ten-packet of Embassy Lights, and up his sleeve was a rolled-up copy of NME with a haloed Morrissey on the cover. He laid them on the bench and stepped back.
“That magazine is ancient. Who is that on the cover?” asked Nicola, her mouth a cage of metal braces. It was one of James’s sister’s magazines, almost a decade old by now. Nicola peered at Morrissey with a look of disgust, saying she would have preferred something with Take That, EMF, or The Shamen.
“Bout time you learnt some of the classics.”
“You like the same stuff as my Granny Eileen.” Nicola sniffed. “Anyway, I thought you had chucked us the rubber ear.”
“Aye,” agreed the smallest and prettiest girl. Her skin was clear and pale as moonlight, her fine bones made her look even younger than she was. Her face told that she was still discovering how to use make-up, and she looked like a child, painted and rouged from her mammy’s dresser. But she took a drag on her cigarette and when she spoke she had a voice deep as a man’s. James told Mungo later that Ashley had seven elder brothers at home and that she had a mouth like a publican on Old Firm day. She said, “It’s a pure disgrace the way ye can keep three beautiful lassies waiting. I’ve got half this splintered bench up my hole, all because ah’ve been sat here waiting for the grand Prince Wingnut to arrive.”
Mungo saw James fidget with his wool bunnet. “My doos were sick.”
“Naebody cares about yer stupit pigeons. It’s embarrassin’。” Ashley glanced towards the park gates. Then she yawned. “Ah could have been away wi’ Jimmy Fitzsimmons. His big sister’s got a new sunbed.”
“Don’t say that,” James said. “You know I think ye’re a pure honey.”
Mungo must have flinched. He knew what he was here for – he had begged James to let him come along – but it still hurt to hear his lips make sweet words for someone else. Ashley ran her eyes over him. “An’ who’s this wee bender?”
James introduced him. “He telt me he liked your Angela.” He nodded at the girl who hadn’t spoken.
“Ma name is Angelique.” She pronounced it And-Jahr-Leak-Ee. “Get it right.” She scowled at Mungo. He knew her vaguely from the talk of the streets; she excelled, strangely enough, at German, and could swim further and stay submerged longer than any boy on the scheme. “Are you Ha-Ha’s wee brother? Ah telt him no to chase Sammy-Jo. Everybody knows she only wanted a wean so she could get away from her maw and get a council house of her own.”
“She’ll have a long wait,” said Mungo. “She can’t leave till she’s sixteen and even then her mammy will have to throw her out to show emotional distress or something.”