THIRTY-SEVEN. SICK
It was the best sleep she had ever had. Ten and a half hours of solid sleep, unconsciousness, broken only when she woke up and listened for the steady metronome of Mary Ann’s breathing.
Caroline was refusing to go back to John and tonight she was due to move into Mary Ann’s bed. She was sulky and depressed and snored because she smoked.
Mary Ann woke her up with a cup of tea and a warning that her train to London was from Central at eleven so she’d be leaving soon. Paddy sat up in bed, sipping the milky tea and watching as her sister checked through the pale blue cardboard suitcase, making sure she had everything she needed for a month away in France.
She had seven pairs of panties and undershirts, two bras, three tops and skirts, and a dress. The rest of the space in the suitcase was taken up with prayer books and rosaries and a French phrasebook Con had bought her in a secondhand shop.
When Mary Ann clicked the lid shut and set it on the floor her suitcase looked very small.
Paddy carried it down to the station for her. They waited for the train into town in silence. Paddy was afraid to talk in case she cried because she was going to miss her so much, and Mary Ann was afraid she’d cry because she was afraid.
“I’ve never been farther than Largs,” she said, her chin wobbling as she looked down the track.
“You’ll love it,” said Paddy, as if she’d been any farther. “I’m mad jealous.”
The train arrived and Paddy swung the suitcase onto the carriage for her. Mary Ann climbed aboard and stood between the open doors, looking out at her wee sister. Paddy couldn’t hold back anymore. She started to cry.
“Good-bye.”
Silently, Mary Ann grinned and raised a hand and began to cry herself.
“Say hello to God for me,” called Paddy.
The doors slid shut between them but Paddy held Mary Ann’s eye as the train slid off into the future.
She stood on the platform watching the tail of the slow train creeping down the track, hoping Mary Ann would be happy; that she was wrong to be worried; that she wasn’t about to break her poor mother’s heart.
She walked to Rutherglen in the rain to get to the chemists’. Luckily the pharmacist was no one she knew. She took the package over to the public toilets behind the Tower Bar. It was freezing, because the door was always left open, and smelled of carbolic soap and urine.
Ten o’clock mass would be coming out soon. When it did there would be a queue of women with pelvic floors ruined from carrying too many children, running over after the fifty-minute mass, but not yet.
Paddy locked herself in the far cubicle and took the stick out of the packaging, reading the directions and following them to the letter. She didn’t dare watch it during the four minutes but stood with her forehead pressed against the cold wall, begging a favor of a God she hadn’t spoken to since she was seven.
Outside the cubicle she heard approaching voices, familiar women’s voices. Mass was out and everyone she knew would be gathering outside. She’d have to talk to them when she came out, act natural whatever the result. She didn’t know if she would be able to.
Daring herself, she turned and looked at the white stick on the cistern. Two faint blue lines had formed, one in each window.
There was no mistake about it: she was pregnant.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Denise Mina is the author of Deception, the Garnethill trilogy, and Field of Blood, where Paddy Meehan made her first appearance, prompting the Boston Globe to claim: “Every once in a while, an author creates a stunningly original character. Denise Mina has done it in Field of Blood.” She lives in Glasgow, Scotland, with her family.
