Maureen lifted the beeper and brushed past him.
The sparkle in Siobhain's eyes was gone and she was trembling. She was walking slowly, shuffling tiny geisha steps. Maureen got her as far as the main road and hailed a cab. She walked Siobhain to the door and opened it but Siobhain just stood, staring at the pavement in front of her feet. Maureen asked her if she wanted to get the cab home but she didn't answer. The driver leaned over and slid the window down. "Come on," he said impatiently. "You hailed me."
Maureen walked Siobhain forward two steps and got her to hold on to the leather strap inside the cab. She tapped the right leg and, holding her ankle, stood it on the taxi floor. She tapped the left leg and shoved Siobhain's bum with her shoulder as she placed the left foot next to the other. Siobhain was frozen in a crouch in the cab door. Maureen pushed Siobhain's hip gently, working her around to the seat, and climbed back out. The red patent-leather handbag was sitting on the pavement. She rummaged under the roll of twenty-quid notes and found an envelope with Siobhain's address on it. "Fifty-three Apsley Street, please, driver."
But the driver refused to take Siobhain alone. "No way," he said. "She's jellied."
Maureen climbed into the cab beside her.
A blue Ford followed the cab at a less than discreet distance.
The address on the envelope was the second floor of an old tenement in Dennistoun, just two blocks from the day center. The close was dark and miserable, littered with free newspapers and flyers for takeaway dinner shops. An acrid blend of piss and cat spray loitered by the back door. They climbed the stairs to the second floor slowly. Maureen found the door key in Siobhain's pocket, a lone Yale on a chipped Shakin' Stevens key ring.
When she shoved the door open, a wall of heavy heather scent wafted out at her. A large jar of it was sitting on the hall table. The sweet smell crept all through the house, hinting at a landscape, broad and brutal, a hundred miles away from the poky flat with low ceilings and cheap fabrics. The furnishings were goodnik castoffs; the walls in all the rooms were painted mushroom. The only personal item in the living room was sitting on top of the television, a small framed watercolor of purple and yellow irises. Tucked into the corner of the frame, obscuring the picture, was a photograph of a small boy. He was wearing shiny red plastic Wellingtons, long gray shorts and a sky blue jersey. He was standing on a windy green hillside, self-conscious in front of the camera, smiling sadly a long time ago.
Maureen sat Siobhain in an armchair and lit the gas fire. She made two cups of tea in the galley kitchen and took them through, turned an armchair round and sat down opposite her. Siobhain wasn't moving.
"Siobhain," said Maureen. "Siobhain, can you speak?"
Still she didn't move. Maureen touched her hair. Getting no response, she waved her hand in front of her face and Siobhain blinked. "Siobhain, I'm so sorry, I didn't know they'd ask you about the hospital. I'm so sorry."
Siobhain sighed the deepest sigh Maureen had ever heard, like all the Mothers of Ireland breathing out at the one time. Maureen's resolve snapped. She couldn't find a telephone in the house so she took the Shakin' Stevens key ring and went to look for a phone box.
"Leslie," she said, when Leslie answered. "Leslie, I've done a terrible thing."
Leslie tried to introduce herself but she couldn't get a response either. Maureen pointed her through to the kitchen. "Why are you here with her?" whispered Leslie urgently. "She should be in hospital."
"No, Leslie, I can't take her to a hospital, that's her worst nightmare."
"Why didn't the police deal with it?"
"If I'd left her in the station they'd have sent her to hospital for sure."
They stood in the kitchen and Maureen explained what had happened.
"Let me call her a doctor," said Leslie. "She might need some medication."
Maureen wasn't sure but Leslie swore on her mother's life that she wouldn't let them take Siobhain to a hospital.
Maureen searched the bathroom and Leslie looked through the drawers in the kitchen but they couldn't find anything with a doctor's name on it.
"Try the bedroom," suggested Leslie.
They opened the door and, past the bed, saw an old-fashioned lady's dressing table with three angled mirrors. In front of them, on the surface where the cosmetics should have been, sat an army of pill jars arranged into squads of five. The three mirrors reflected them, swelling their numbers. The same doctor's name was printed on all of the labels.
Leslie went down to the phone box. She came back up and said that Dr. Pastawali didn't want to come out. He had told her that Siobhain had these turns sometimes and she'd be fine in the morning. Maureen took the number and went down to the phone box herself.
She had been so short with him on the phone that she expected Dr. Pastawali to be annoyed with her but he was sweet and courteous. "Good evening to you, ladies," he said when they opened the door to him. "Where is Miss McCloud, please?"
He was a tall Asian man in his fifties, with dark sad eyes. He crouched down next to the armchair and took Siobhain's pulse and blood pressure. He muttered to Siobhain all the time he did it, explaining what he was doing and why, asking her little questions about her health, moving on to another query when she didn't answer. Eventually, he managed to get her to look at him.
Maureen hung about in the doorway as he got Siobhain to move her hands and wiggle her toes. He held her hand and muttered something unintelligible.
"I'm very tired," murmured Siobhain.
He took Maureen into the kitchen.
"You're not going to send her to hospital, are you?"
"No," said the doctor. "I'm sending her to bed."
Siobhain wouldn't help Maureen undress her. After half an hour of asking and cajoling and finally trying to wrestle her out of her trousers Maureen gave up and put her to bed fully clothed. She turned off the light, shut the door quietly and crept back into the living room.
Leslie had turned on the television to the evening news. Douglas and Elsbeth's wedding photograph flashed onto the screen. The picture had been treated so that the vicar and Elsbeth were in a dark shadow and Douglas's face was highlighted. The supercilious expression on his face made him look smug and unkind. "Bad picture," said Leslie, as Maureen sat down next to her on the settee.
Carol Brady was being interviewed outside the front door of a house. She was chalk white and quivering with fury. She complained about the Strathclyde police force's incompetent handling of the investigation, saying they should concentrate on bringing charges against the person who had killed her son. They knew who had done it and so did she. She read out a prepared speech about the disastrous consequences of Care in the Community and the danger of it, not only to the public but to those people released into the community and unable to cope. Anyone familiar with the case would appreciate the implication that Maureen had done it.
Leslie leaned over and turned it off.
"Nae luck, Mauri," she said.
"Do you mind if we stay here tonight?" asked Maureen. "I just want to be here in the morning in case she's the same."
"No," said Leslie. "I don't mind."
They took the cushions off the settee and armchairs and made beds on the floor. Leslie turned out the light and they settled down to sleep in the drafty living room. Maureen put the police buzzer on the floor next to her, touching it when she lay down to make sure it was within easy reach.
Leslie had her leathers on but Maureen only had her overcoat for cover. She took the place nearest the gas fire and left it on but it just accentuated the damp cold creeping over any part of her body not directly in the path of the heat. A streetlight just outside the drizzle-splattered window suffused the room with a warm orange glow. Maureen lay on her back, watching the light dance on the ceiling as the steady rain fell. "If I hadn't been to see Martin he'd never have been killed and if I hadn't told them about Siobhain they'd never have questioned her. I'm fucking up people's lives."