"Are you all right, Mum?"
"I worry about you," said Winnie, turning back to Maureen. She was on the verge of tears. "I worry about you so much."
"But you shouldn't, Mum."
"But you're a… I never know… if only you couldn't…" She abandoned the giant brick of cheese and sat back down at the table, lifting her cup and drinking out of it. "I think I've got flu," she whispered, crying thin tears.
"You should go to the doctor's, then."
Winnie looked helpless. "I'm a bit depressed," she said pointedly.
Maureen sighed. "Mum," she said, "I can't comfort you just now."
"I don't want you to comfort me," Winnie said, crying fluently "I just want to make sure you're all right."
"I am all right."
"I worry so much," she whimpered.
"You shouldn't."
She sat bolt upright, suddenly in control. "Maureen, I'm your mother."
"I know who you are," said Maureen, trying to cheer herself up. The wine must be kicking in: her moods were changing rapidly. Maybe more than two cups, maybe three.
"I just want to know," Winnie said softly. "Did you do it?"
"Did I do what, Mother?"
Winnie bowed her head. "Did you kill that man?" she muttered, and bit her lip.
Maureen pulled away, exasperated by Winnie's capacity for melodrama. "Oh, Mum, for God's sake, you know fine well I didn't."
Winnie was offended. "I don't know fine well…" She turned away as if she'd been slapped.
"Yes, you do," said Maureen. "You know I didn't kill him. You're so camp, I swear, you're like a bad female impersonator."
"I don't know you didn't do it," said Winnie solemnly. "You've often done things I didn't think you were capable of." She stood up and walked over to the sink, taking her cup with her, standing with her back to Maureen as she rearranged the glasses on the draining board.
"Like what?"
"You know…" And she whispered something under her breath, something that ended with "Mickey." Maureen hadn't heard her say the name since the hospital. She could feel herself shrinking in the chair.
"Don't worry," Winnie said, lifting her mug. "I'll stand by you, whatever you've done." She finished off her wine.
It was a low blow, hinting at the abuse. It was the meanest thing she could have brought up. "You drink too much, Mum," said Maureen, returning the compliment. "You wouldn't be on the verge of hysteria all the time if you drank less."
Winnie turned and looked at her, furious at the mention of her drinking. "How dare you?" she said, tight-lipped. "I paid for your taxi."
"I didn't want you to."
"But you let me."
Maureen pulled ten quid out of her wage packet and slapped it on the table. "There's a tenner, Mammy. That's us even."
Winnie screamed at her, "I don't want money!"
Maureen rolled her eyes just as George appeared at the kitchen door. "Oh," he said quietly, "I didn't hear you come in."
"Hello, George," said Maureen.
"Hello, pal," said George, and frowned. "Heard about yesterday. Nae luck."
He didn't talk about it much but Maureen suspected that George's early life hadn't been a bundle of laughs either. He had a charming talent for minimizing grief and, living with Winnie, he often had cause to use it.
"Aye," said Maureen, suddenly tired. "It wasn't good."
He patted the back of her head gently and turned to Winnie. "Any bread, doll? The seagulls are at the window again."
Winnie gave him some from the tin and he wandered off, ripping up the slices into uneven lumps, leaving a trail of crumbs through the hall. She came back to the table and shoved the tenner at Maureen. "Take the money back," she said. "I was just feeling a bit uptight. I'm sorry for shouting at you."
"Well, you shouldn't try to pay for things if you don't really want to."
Winnie sat down at the table. "I know. I just… I get nervous… and now this."
"Don't worry, Mum, the police'll find them soon."
She looked at Maureen and brightened. "Do you think so?"
Maureen nodded. "I know they will."
Winnie sat up and looked at the huge block of cheese sitting on the work top. "What the hell am I going to do with that much cheese?"
Maureen looked over at it and giggled. "Mum, why in God's name did ye buy that?"
Winnie shrugged, confused by her own behavior. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. We were using it as a garden ornament until we ate enough off it to get it through the door."
They sat together and laughed at the industrial lump of cheese. Maureen looked at her mum. Winnie was happy to laugh at herself, neither sad nor angry, demanding nothing: this was old Winnie, Winnie from before the drinking got really bad. And then she stopped laughing and looked at her empty cup and old Winnie was gone. She lifted her hand and brushed back Maureen's hair, but she was pressing too firmly against Maureen's head and some caught on her engagement ring. She tugged it hard. Maureen tried hard not to react in case Winnie thought she was rebuffing the kindly gesture.
"How are you coping?"
Maureen rubbed her bruised scalp. "Okay."
"If it all gets too much for you," said Winnie, "I want you to promise me that you'll go back to hospital."
"Mum, for God's sake, I'm not the maddest person in the world, they don't keep a vacant bed just for me."
"I know, but I'm sure they'll take you if you say you were in before."
Maureen shrank farther into the chair.
When she got outside she walked a couple of blocks and stopped at a bench in front of a Baptist church. It was dark and spitting rain. A man on the other side of the road was walking a tired old dog. He talked to it, whispering encouragement, calling it by name. The dog stopped, panting for breath, its legs almost buckling under the weight of its body. The man tapped its back and the old dog moved off.
She smoked a couple of fags, imagining herself at home, in her cozy wee flat, before any of this had happened. She took a bath in her blue and white bathroom and sat butt naked on her settee, watching the telly and eating biscuits and letting the answerphone catch the calls.
She took a cup of tea in to Benny in the bedroom. He was sitting on the side of the bed, a shallow table in front of him with textbooks open on it. He had been sharpening his pencils into the muddy dregs in a coffee cup. He must be frantic about his exams. He put down his book and asked earnestly if she wanted to talk about yesterday.
"No, not just now. I can't even think about it yet."
"Okay," he said, looking solemn and nervous.
"Are you all right about it, Benny?"
His expression melted with relief. "God, it's a bit freaky, isn't it? You don't think of these things happening to people like us, do you?"
"I guess not." She gestured to the books. "You got an exam tomorrow?"
"No," he said. "It's next week but I haven't done nearly enough."
"You always say that and you always pass. Try and put Douglas to the back of your mind just now and concentrate on your exams." She lifted the dirty cup with the sharpenings in it. "I'll take this filthy item away."
Out in the hall she could hear someone scratching quietly on the door. She looked out of the spy hole. Leslie was standing in the close holding her crash helmet and slowly brushing her hair off her face with the other hand. She had dark circles under her eyes and looked knackered. Maureen threw the door open. "Leslie." She grinned broadly.
Leslie stepped into the hall, reached out to Maureen and squeezed her arm. "All right, hen?" she said. Her voice sounded as if she had been smoking heavily and/or had just woken up. "How ye doing?"
"Yeah," said Maureen. "I take it Liam phoned and told ye?"
"Naw, the police came to see me."
Maureen pointed into the bedroom and Leslie kicked the door open a little and stuck her head in. "Right, Benny, man?"
Maureen heard Benny "aye" from the other side of the door. Leslie pulled the door shut and pointed at it. "Working," she said. "Why the fuck didn't you call me, Mauri?"