Jodie slapped him in the centre of his chest. He blinked in shock. “Listen, I will cuddle you anytime you want, Mungo. Even if we are eighty-five you can sit on my knee till you break my hips, awright? Just please don’t get tangled up with Hamish.”
Mungo nodded slowly. She could tell it pained him to lie to her.
She dropped the subject of education, hoping that if she left the books where they lay he would start to sniff around them for himself. They sat curled up together and watched the end of EastEnders. And then Jodie ate the rest of her slice of bread cake just to please him. She went to bed and was unable to sleep, shivery with sugar, and feeling guilty about her brother.
* * *
“Where the fuck have you been?” Hamish had a wild-eyed look to him as he let Mungo into the McConnachie flat. It was the middle of the day and he wore a pair of boxer shorts that hung off his wiry frame and flapped about his lean, muscular legs. He slumped on the edge of the settee and resumed watching his television programme; children’s nonsense about squeaking puppets on a moon made of cheese.
Adrianna was in her bouncing chair gazing up at her father. The baby was gurgling to herself, her fat fist in her mouth, her chin slick with spit. With his bare foot Hamish pressed on the bouncing chair. He pumped it like he was a machinist who had been told there was no overtime pay. He was distracted by the television and was bouncing it too hard. On the table was a decent amount of speed that he had been dividing into clear baggies. Mungo wondered how long he had been hunched like this, chronic with adrenaline.
Hamish asked him again. “Where have ye been?”
“Nowhere.”
“I telt Jodie four days ago I needed yer help.”
Mungo mimicked the cooing noises he had heard Mrs Campbell make at her grandchildren. He plucked the baby from the chair before Hamish did it a harm. He stepped quickly to the side, fearful of blocking the television and the squeaking mice. The baby was damp, slick with sweat. He undressed it, better surely to be out in the dry, cold air than damp and warm in its onesie.
The mice blasted off in a rocket. Hamish made a deep inhalation, like he had forgotten to breathe and suddenly discovered the magic of it again. He looked down at the amphetamine piles on the table and then up at his brother and daughter. Mungo did not speak until he was spoken to.
“So, where have ye been?” Hamish had been chewing his bottom lip.
“Just around.” Mungo doused the little girl in some talcum powder, the baby blinked in surprise. He rolled her in it, like he was breading chicken.
Hamish threw his arm around the speed. “Watch it wi’ that, you.” Then he thought again and snatched the talcum from Mungo. He loosened the top and added a handful to the amphetamine and stirred it through. He dabbed at it and licked his finger to see if it was too much. He winced.
“It’s perfumed.”
“I see that now. What do ye mean, just around?”
Mungo wrapped the baby in a towel and sat her on his knee, glad to have the talisman of her between Hamish and himself. “I dunno, I’ve been here, where else would I be?” He tried to divert the questioning. “Did you need something?”
“Did I need something?” Hamish pulled a sour face. “Naw. I’m out here trying to build a family business and look after a greetin’ wean. All the while I’ve got to creep around cos I smashed a polis just because you were wanting to play doctors and nurses wi’ a ginger glue huffer. Naw. Ah’m fine, Mungo. Thanks for asking but I can manage.”
On the television two stuffed bears were reading a book to each other while a gormless blond man pretended not to be surprised. Hamish watched it a while and ran his tongue around his mouth. He seemed to be unable to stop biting at his own lips. “So, is it a girl?”
“Is what a girl?”
“Whoever the fuck you have been just around with.”
“No.”
Hamish blinked once behind his thick lenses. Then he laughed, a false, deep, threatening laugh. “I see you are feelin’ gallus the day. I admire that. However, I will still slap ye across this room, even if ye are holding my daughter. So, do us both a favour. Cut the shite.”
“I’ve just been around, Hamish. I’ve made a pal.”
“Aw I see. Here I am getting ready to do battle and yer playing like a wean. Did ye enjoy making mud pies? Or are ye more of a fly-my-kite-across-Glasgow-Green kind of rascal?” Hamish was not expecting a laugh. “Who is he?”
“Nobody you know.” Mungo tried to sound easy.
“Try me.”
Mungo could feel that he was running out of road. “His name is James.”
Hamish sucked on his front teeth. “Wee Jimmy Gilchrist? Gimpy Jimmy? Rabbie’s twin, Jamesy-Samesy? Don’t make me guess. Jimmy who?”
“James Jamieson.”
When they were smaller, there was a puggy machine at Mo-Maw’s favourite bingo. Mo-Maw called it “the babysitter” and for twenty minutes’ peace she gave them each a handful of coins. When you dropped a coin in it, you listened to it bounce off a series of pegs and rattle into the machine’s belly. The drop took an eternity before the machine lit up and blinded you with its party lights. Sometimes the coin bounced its long route only to miss the trigger and fall out of the machine again. Hamish hated that, the anticipation and then the disappointment, he huffed on his coins and polished them until they gleamed, thinking this would make a difference. Now Mungo tensed up and watched and waited for Hamish’s proverbial penny to drop. He hoped it would slide past him, not trigger him, and then Mungo could pretend to drop it and James’s name would roll under the settee.
“James Jamieson?” Hamish shook his head. Then his glasses shifted upwards slightly as he wrinkled his nose in recollection and then disgust. “You don’t mean that wee papist?” All his lights were ablaze now, and as he sprung to his feet, he drew his arm back.
Mungo recoiled in the chair, he pulled his knees to his chest and held the baby between them. Hamish tried to reach around the laughing girl but Mungo moved her quickly like a human shield. “We’re just pals. We just hang around the gether.” He was almost screaming. Hamish stepped back, he loosened his fists and the blood returned to his knuckles. He started pacing the front room. Mungo knew not to speak unless he was spoken to. He dared not lower the laughing shield.
When Hamish finally spoke again, he was sitting on the edge of the coffee table, knee to knee with his brother and eye level with his child. There was a mess of clean baby clothes on the arm of the chair. Hamish started folding them carefully and talking sweetly to his daughter as though Mungo was not even in the room.
“You will stop hanging around with him.”
“Hamish, c’mon.”
“Listen. You will stop hanging around with him.”
“You can’t tell me what to do anymore.”
Hamish nodded once, Mungo watched the muscles in his shoulders tighten and then relax. He whispered sweet nothings to the dribbling baby. You’re a lovely wee thing aren’t ye? And then he added in a low voice, “You will stop hanging around with him and on Saturday night ye’ll be next to me when the Billies kick the fuck of out the Bhoyston.”