Mungo was winded by the time he reached the patchy grass. The door to the doocot was slamming in the wind and at first it raised his spirits; James was here, he was hurt, but he would be alive.
There was too much blood on the grass for Mungo to ignore. It was flattened where he had lain, and there were splintered shards of his front teeth, luminous in the mud. Mungo picked them up and put them carefully in the pocket of his cagoule.
But James was in the doocot, it would be all right.
Mungo held the swinging door firm and peered into the darkness. He was looking for the pool of bronze light; the golden hair that refracted the shaft of sunlight into every corner of the dark loft. But James was not there. All the doocot cages were open, some of the doors were hanging loose, the hinges he had carefully maintained were ripped from their bearing screws. There was a solitary doo flapping in the corner, unable to gain any flight. His left wing was extended, it was broken.
Mungo stepped back out into the daylight. There were some pigeons sitting on the new slate roof, but in the grass beyond the doocot were the rest of James’s prize pouters, dead and flung about. A few looked like they’d had their necks wrung. There was a cluster of three, the bleached doo, the ashy hen, and a new bird that Mungo had never seen. There were golf tees next to their bodies, and these bodies had no heads. Someone had held them still, for a great laugh, while someone else took a swing with a putter. The sun was not yet fully overhead in the sky, and everything beautiful was all already ruined.
Mungo stepped back inside the doocot. The injured bird was still flapping in panic. He just wanted to hold it like James would, run his fingers along its throat and settle it down. He cooed to it and bobbed gently like he had seen James do. It rested for a moment and he snatched it up and held Little Mungo in his hands. Its heart was thumping against its breast. It was in so much pain.
Whroup, whroooup, whrooup. He chirped into its matted nape till it calmed itself. Whroup, whroooup, whrooup. He wept as he wrung its poor neck.
* * *
He went to the Jamieson flat, but peering through the letter box, he could tell that no one was home. When he came back home, he was told that Hamish had gone out searching for him again. Jodie had hidden her brother in the warm airing cupboard. She was holding his T-shirt over his head and turning him to look at his bruises. “What Hamish said, is that what really happened? Was that Catholic boy doing dirty things to you?”
“Naw.”
Jodie stopped rubbing Germolene into his bruises. She brought her lips close to his ear. “Were you doing bad things to each other?”
“Aye.”
She kept rubbing the pink ointment between his ribs but all the colour had left her face. The immersion boiler clicked on and filled the cupboard with a suffocating heat. He used to enjoy that.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“You could get the jail for what you were doing.” She was handling him too roughly, scrubbing the lotion into his bruise like it was a stain she could lift with a good brush. “They used to lock men up for that. Haaah-ha.”
“I can’t help it.”
Jodie brought her face so close to his he could count the freckles on her nose. “Do you want to catch AIDS? Is that what you want? Because you will catch it. They’re aw getting it. That Fenian boy could have it and give it to you, simple as that.” She snapped her oily fingers.
“James wouldn’t do that.”
“Wouldn’t he? What on earth would you know about the ways of men, eh?” Jodie scoffed and he could see the little hard bits of Mo-Maw in her now, sure as knots in a fine wood. She was hurting him as she rubbed the lotion into his skin, and he could tell that she meant to. “You’re a daft wee boy. A tender-hearted eejit.” She spun him and slathered ointment across his kidneys. “We’re aw knocking our bloody pans in, trying to make something of you, trying to make a man of out you. And what are you doing, eh? Carrying on like a daft lovesick lassie. It’s time you toughened up.”
He repeated himself. “I can’t help it.”
Jodie spun him to face her. She shook him hard. “God sake! You have to help it. You can’t be like that and expect to be happy about it.”
* * *
Mungo went to the rear of the meeting room and slid down the tall iron radiator. The hot fins felt good against the bruising. The welts had not started to shrink yet, but they had stopped blooming their terrible purple flowers, and Jodie had said that was a good sign.
The warmth of the radiator spread through him, it made a deep clanging sound and a constant hissing that lulled him into a state of sleepwalking. From the floor he could see under the tideline of the plastic seats. He watched the members’ legs fidget anxiously with boredom or fresh shakes. Some of the alcoholics were eager for the meeting to be over, others were worried about what would happen when it was. Faces turned to one another as they said the final benediction. The meeting adjourned, and the fellowship gathered around the urn and passed around plates of gammon sandwiches.
They congregated in groups of four or five and shared their news. Mungo couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he appreciated the way they laid hands on each other’s arms, and when they spoke, he liked how everyone listened and seemed to feel it deeply in their own bones. It was a funny thing to observe; near strangers who had shared some of their deepest shames, their most vulnerable moments, were now gathering to make small talk about the weather or if Cranhill-Cathy would make it to the regionals in the ladies curling tournament. They had told the most heartbreaking truths, and now in the space of twenty minutes, they were laughing about Hyacinth Bucket.
Mo-Maw was near the front stage. She chatted with Mount Ellen-Ellen, a woman more mean-mouthed than herself, and occasionally they looked over to Mungo and shook their heads. The circles half-rotated as though dancing a lazy ceilidh and two new members joined the pair of women. They were shaking hands and making small talk about nothing in particular: different sides of the city, how meetings in other schemes compared to this one, how the top table here did a great job in making everyone feel like family. Family, Mungo thought, whose real names Mo-Maw would never know.
He watched Mo-Maw pick the flatness out of her perm, running her eyes appraisingly up and down the new men, ladling them both equal amounts of charm, until she knew which one liked her soup best.
Mungo had never seen the men before, but he had seen the likes of them. The older man seemed to like Mo-Maw. He kept leaning closer to her and smoothing his thin hair across his waxen head. The younger man was more out of place. He seemed only a few years older than Hamish, and by the way he took pride in his appearance Mungo could see the drink had not yet brought him so low. His trainers were a painful white, and his hair was gelled forward and cut in a short Caesar cut.
Every-Other-Wednesday joined the circle. She shook hands with the new members and was swatting at the younger man in a girlish fashion. He was not returning her flirtations. Mungo watched her put her hand on Mo-Maw’s arm and say something about the hot tea that made Mo-Maw shake her head. As one, the alcoholics all turned and looked in Mungo’s direction.
Just as swiftly they closed their backs to him in a wall. He knew Mo-Maw was pumping them for sympathy, sharing his supposed shame at the hands of the Catholic boy, explaining how he was not turning out right, and as a single parent, a woman, she did not know what to do about it. The men nodded a well-timed poor you, and it travelled along the wall like a Mexican wave. The younger man, the one with the Caesar haircut, mimed a long fishing rod that he flicked out over the linoleum tiles. Mo-Maw scratched at her perm again. Then she nodded once. Okay, she was agreeing, if it would be no bother.