Mungo was out beyond his depth by the time he regained a normal breath. He was way beyond St Christopher’s body and he couldn’t feel the bottom. There was a sucking current and several times he was pulled under the surface. He could imagine the sightless saint reaching up from the depths and wrapping his long fingers around his ankles. It took the last of his energy to tread the water. Everything felt like it would be better if he just sank. If he just gave in.
As he was struggling up and down, he caught brief glimpses of Gallowgate. The man stumbled from the loch. He was clutching his side and his good Italian denims were ruined with a black inky liquid. Gallowgate made it to knee-depth before he sat down in the water. He plonked down on his backside like a toddler. He searched his pockets for cigarettes, and finding them ruined, he tossed them into the loch. Then he tipped over.
It could be another trick.
Mungo treaded water as long as he could and then he doggy-paddled to the shallows. He gave Gallowgate a wide berth as he struggled to reach the shore. It took him some time to come near. He was circling and dripping and shivering, inching closer and closer by degrees.
The tide was a pretty pink colour. The man’s face was half-in, half-out of the water. Gallowgate’s green eyes were open and his right hand gripped a boulder, like he could rise up at any moment. It took a long time, but eventually Mungo summoned enough courage to come close enough to read the ink on his knuckles. Evan. He wondered if that was Gallowgate’s real name. He prodded the man with his toe. Then he stepped back and waited.
Gallowgate was still bleeding into the water. His blood was unfurling in scarlet swirls. It looked like the man was being consumed by medieval flames. Mungo picked at his cheek and watched him burn for a while.
In his search for cigarettes, Gallowgate’s wallet must have fallen out of his pocket. Mungo fished it out of the shallows. It was almost empty of money – there were no bank cards or credit cards – but in the plastic identification sleeve was a monthly bus pass. Mungo studied the scowling picture. He read the name out loud: “Angus Bell.”
Tucked into the billfold was a single postcard. It was a photo of Angus Bell in ill-fitting prison gear standing before an artificial Christmas tree. In the bottom right corner it was decorated with holly and bells, and stamped in a Victorian script: “Thinking of you at Christmastime.” Mungo turned it over. There was a second-class stamp attached, but no address, no festive message.
TWENTY-SIX
May evenings were bright enough that they did away with the need for the flickering fluorescent lighting. The natural light gave an unnatural glow of health to the fellowship. The top table called the meeting to order, and as the alcoholics took to their chairs and began with their announcements and affirmations, Mo-Maw sat in the very front and centre, stiff and upright and earnest, a teacher’s pet. She was trying hard to show Mungo that anybody could change.
Mungo stood in his usual place by the hot tea urn, only half-listening as the top table ran through the Twelve Steps with unusual gusto. They were cheered by the turn in the weather and encouraged by the half-dozen new faces and the high amount of returning fellowship. Their good mood was not contagious. Mungo filled six polystyrene cups to the brim with scalding black tea. He organized the cups, balanced them precariously along the edge of the folding table.
Skrriit, skriiit, skrriiit, skrit, skrriiiitt, skrit.
He ran his thumbnail along the polystyrene about a centimetre from the bottom of each cup. Slicing his nail into one, he moved to the next and when he had sliced along all six cups, he started again into the groove he had made in the first. The anticipation distracted him, gave him something to look forward to; waiting to see which cup would fail first and burn his legs with hot liquid.
Behind him, the fellowship welcomed all the new members. They listened patiently to those who felt brave enough to share their journeys, until Mo-Maw cut into the end of one man’s speech, when she stood to share her story. Mungo had heard it all before.
Skrriit, skriiit, skrriiit, skrit, skrriiiitt, skrit.
“Hallo, ma name’s Monday-Thursday Maureen and ah’m an alkahawlick.”
“Hallo, Maureen.”
“Ah’ve been struggling with drink, on and off likes, for about twelve years. Ah know, ah know.” She let out a well-practised giggle. Wait for it, he thought. “Ah don’t look nearly old enough but it’s true. Anyhows, where was I? Aye, well, ah’m a single mother.” Slight pause for sympathy. “My man’s been dead nearly sixteen year and it’s been hard raising ma weans on ma lonesome. It would be hard enough with one, but ah’ve been blessed with three and I tell you, they’re all so challenging you would barely believe it. Ye never get a minute’s peace. Ye turn yer back to help one and the other is up to his neck in some bother. Boys are the hardest, int they?” There was a faint murmur of agreement. Mo-Maw seemed underwhelmed by the lukewarm response. Her voice went up an octave, there was the quiver of poor-me’s at its edges. “It’s hard to raise a boy without a man around, you try your hardest but sometimes they don’t turn out quite right.”
Skrriit, skriiit, skrriiit, skrit, skrriiiitt, skrit.
Mungo pressed his nail a little harder. It was the fourth cup that failed first, a torrent of scalding black tea shot out of the hole. The spray hit him in the thigh and poured down his right leg. Mungo gritted his teeth. He moved his thumbnail to start on the fifth cup.
Someone wrapped a hand around his wrist. Every-Other-Wednesday Nora had popped to the ladies and found him making a nuisance of himself.
“Weh-ll, look at the mess ye’ve made, ya silly article. Away. Out of it.” She was already mopping up the mess as she shoved him roughly out of the hallway.
Mo-Maw didn’t break her affirmation monologue, but she heard the commotion and threw her son dirty looks over the heads of the crowd. They glided like spears over a battlefield. “That!” She raised the back of her hand to him. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason ah take a guid drink.” Forty heads turned as one to see this poor woman’s burden for themselves. Mungo waved. He had so little to fear now.
* * *
The Hamiltons had gathered like a council of feuding union bosses, each of them gesticulating furiously and trying to talk over the top of the others. Hamish told his mother and sister what had happened as Mungo hung his head, his fingers still stinking of petrol. It was to be Hamish’s narration of events: the older Fenian boy molesting his naive little brother. The room fell silent. They looked at Mungo with alternating faces of pity and shame as though he was a china plate that had a bad chip and they were deciding if they would keep it or not; such a lovely thing to be so ruined.
Mungo watched, cold as the Clyde, as the three of them started roaring at each other again: assigning blame, listing their failings, casting up the selfish natures of others. When Mo-Maw and Hamish finally ganged up on Jodie for “not raising him right,” Jodie swept her hand along the mantelpiece and broke every picture frame in the house.
Mo-Maw said, “Ah’m tired of you thinking ye are the main attraction around here.”
As they were gathering up the glass, Mungo saw his chance. He slipped out the door.
The mud had already dried on his knees as he ran back to the doocot. The back of his head sang where Hamish had dragged him through the streets and now faces loomed down at him from the tenement windows; children crowded around their mammies, everyone had a seat, keen to see what the next embarrassment in the Hamilton pantomime would be.