The boy was watching them. "Son, come 'ere. The lady asked me to give you this." She handed him a pound.
"I made him stop," he said, looking guilty.
Leslie kissed the top of his head. "I know you did, wee man," she said. "I know you did."
She strapped the helmet onto Siobhain's head and helped her get her leg over the seat. Her big body was rigid with fright. It would be like riding the bike with a fridge on the back.
Chapter 30
Maureen phoned Leslie's house in case she had moved Siobhain there. Leslie answered the phone almost as soon as it rang out. She said that Siobhain's lock had been fiddled with, that he didn't get in and the wee boy said he'd scared the man away.
"Christ," said Maureen, "I thought she was having a flashback."
"Naw, he was there, all right, unless that wee boy's a clever con man."
"Did the lock look fiddled with?"
"Yeah," said Leslie. "Judging from the state Siobhain's in he'd definitely been there. She can't talk and I don't know if she can see. I'd come and get you, but I'm afraid to leave her alone."
"Don't worry. I'll be there in a couple of hours."
"Yeah, and bring drink."
"What kind?"
"The cheap, strong kind."
On the way to Paulsa's house Maureen stopped at a cash machine and fed in her card. She requested two hundred quid of Douglas's money and put it in her back pocket, keeping it separate. It didn't feel like her money at all. She still didn't know why he had given it to her.
Paulsa lived in the Saltmarket. The close was next door to a Unionist pub with a Union Jack flag painted on one of the windows. Maureen had never been to Paulsa's before, she'd never been to any dealer's house before apart from Liam's and she didn't know what to expect. But people come in and out of these houses all the time, she told herself, and they don't all get killed or raped on the doorstep. And, anyway, she was Liam's wee sister and Paulsa was looking for allies.
The close had a buzzer entrance system. She guessed the dirtiest button would be Paulsa's and pressed it. The speaker crackled and a distant voice muttered a quizzing "Yeah?"
"Is Paulsa there?" said Maureen, lowering her voice and trying to sound a bit hard anyway.
"Paulsa? Who's Paulsa?"
"I'm Liam O'Donnell's wee sister," she said.
The lock on the door buzzed excitedly. Maureen pushed it open and walked up to the second floor. As she stood on the landing one of the doors opened slowly. Paulsa looked her over. His skin was a shallow yellow color – even the whites of his eyes had a yellow tinge to them. He was wearing navy blue jeans and the newest Nike trainers. A dribble of brown food had dried on the front of his orange Adidas T-shirt. He looked like the last man on earth with a need for sportswear: he didn't look as if he was going to be here for very long. A slow smile hovered across his face, his jaw hanging open so she could see all of his teeth, which were very bad indeed: specks of black rot dotted them at regular intervals. Maureen felt like a well-meaning woman of the parish come to minister to the poor.
"You're Liam's wee sister," drawled Paulsa.
"Aye," she said.
"I saw you in the paper. Smart T-shirt ye had on."
Paulsa smiled in slow motion again, his head rolling in a tiny circle. He probably meant to nod. At this rate they might stand in the close all night. She walked toward him and he moved back slowly, letting her into the flat.
The living room was nicely painted in pale green, a terra-cotta three-piece suite looked new, apart from the clusters of cigarette burns on the armrests. A glass coffee table was covered with packets of Rizlas, bits of tinfoil and matches, and ripped, empty fag packets. An incongruously twee onyx table lighter sat in the middle of the mess like a centerpiece. A couple of pizza boxes were lying on the floor next to a very large, very full ashtray.
Paulsa walked in, stepping cautiously on his tiptoes like a Parkinson's victim. He dropped onto the settee and grinned up at Maureen. "I saw you in the paper," he said again. "Your brother's a good guy."
"Yeah," said Maureen, "he is. You stuck your neck out for him, Paulsa. Cheers, man."
"No bother, man."
She didn't know whether to say it but she thought maybe no one else would. "Are you well, Paulsa? You don't look it. You're awful yellow."
Paulsa screwed up his face and giggled infectiously. '"I'm turning Japanese,'" he sang. " 'I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so…'" He held up his hands and waggled his fingers, singing the old Vapors tune and looking angelically at the ceiling. He got confused and slipped into "Echo Beach" by Martha and the Muffins. He sang for too long, way past where it would have been funny, through where it was sad, and stopped abruptly just before it got funny again. He giggled again, covering his mouth with his hand. "Anyway," he said, "what can I do for ye?"
"I want to buy something."
Paulsa weighed it up in his mind. It took a while. "Why didn't you get it off Liam?"
Maureen blushed. "I can't really," she said quietly. "It's for a nefarious purpose."
"A nefarious purpose?" Paulsa echoed, enjoying the unfamiliar word. "What is it you want?" She told him. "What are you going to do with it?" he asked.
She started to answer but he interrupted her after getting the gist of it. "Don't tell me about that any more," he said, looking shaken.
He tiptoed into the kitchen and came back with her order in a plastic money bag. "It might take about an hour to get going."
She gave him three twenty-pound notes from Douglas's money.
"I've no change," said Paulsa, worried that she might want to stay in his company while he got some.
"Don't worry, Paulsa," she said, moving toward the front door. "I'll get it from you again."
Paulsa tiptoed quickly around her and opened the front door, anxious to get her out of the house.
"I'm sorry I freaked you, Paulsa."
"I wish you'd never told me that."
"I'm sorry." She stepped out into the close and Paulsa shut the door quickly behind her. She shouldn't have told him: she had expected him to be less empathetic. She slipped the plastic money bag into her inside pocket and did up the buttons on her coat.
As she walked up to Argyle Street, where the buses stopped for the Drum, she passed a phone box and decided to phone Liz, just to touch down.
Garry answered. "I'll just get her," he said when Maureen said it was herself phoning.
Liz didn't bother to say hello or ask her how she was. "Did you get the letter he sent you?" she asked.
"No."
"Maybe it hasn't got to you yet. Maureen, he's sacking you."
"Oh, fuck."
"Did you send the line in?"
"No," said Maureen, "I've left it somewhere awkward. How are ye anyway, Lizbo?"
"Aye, fine."
Maureen wanted a comforting, normal conversation, but Liz could hear a strange tension in her voice and didn't want to chat about trivia with her. She was going to Tenerife in the morning and still had a lot of packing to do. They arranged to meet for lunch at some undefined date in the future. It was a more diplomatic cheerio than a final good-bye.
She stopped at an off-license and bought a bottle of peach schnapps. It wasn't until she was handing over the money that she remembered she didn't have a job anymore and that there would be no money coming in on Friday. It didn't feel right taking Douglas's money. Fuck it, she thought, I'll worry about that later, and she bought some fags as well.
The image of Douglas's balls made her throat ache as she walked to the bus stop. She stayed outside the shelter, leaning on the damp Perspex, and lit a cigarette, drawing heavily on the filter, shoving the grief downward into her belly, putting it by for later.
Leslie was sitting alone in the living room watching television, she was in an excitable, giggly mood.
"What are you so cheery about?" said Maureen.