16
IT’S LIKE THE fortieth time he’s shouted. I wish he’d shut the fuck up.
‘Anais, you have court in forty minutes. Can you get ready, please?’ Angus calls.
He’s on the landing and has been trying to get me up for half an hour. I turn over. My duvet is warm. I snuggle back down inside it — I just want to sleep all day.
‘Why’s Mullet taking me tae see my ma?’ John asks Angus. I can hear them, they’re outside my door now. I wish they’d fuck off.
‘I’m really sorry, John, but I cannae take you. I have tae get Miss Sleeps-a-lot tae court on time. Hurry up, Anais!’
‘Is she in court for the policewoman, like?’
‘I cannae discuss that with you, John.’
‘How — is the policewoman dead, like?’
‘No, she’s not.’
‘She’s gonnae go down.’
I hear John saying the last bit to someone else, and I haul the duvet right off me. I’m fucking pissed off now.
‘Is she getting done for it?’ Isla asks Angus.
Jesus, there’s a whole fucking powwow going on, on the landing. Rub my face. I feel like I slept in a grave.
‘No,’ he hisses at them, ‘she is getting done for half a dozen other bloody things, if that is okay with you lot? Can you hurry up, John, and dinnae wind Ed up again, and dinnae steal his car!’
Isla pokes her head around my door.
‘Good luck later,’ she says.
‘Ta, Isla.’
‘John?’ I shout.
He sticks his head around.
‘I hope it’s alright seeing your mum.’
‘Fucking whatever,’ he says and disappears.
Get up. Drag on a pair of jeans, T-shirt, sneakers. Head to the bathroom and brush my teeth. Isla walks past with her school bag slung over her shoulder, Tash behind her.
‘Alright?’
‘Morning.’
‘Have you got court the day?’ Tash asks me.
‘Uh-huh.’
I drink some water out of the tap. It’s cold and tastes like metal, but clean.
‘D’ye think they’ll do you?’
‘No doubt.’
‘Well, I hope they dinnae,’ Tash says and they disappear down the corridor.
Joan appears in the bathroom doorway. ‘Have you seen Brian?’
I shake my head.
‘Okay, you’ll be having a review when you get back today, Anais. Last night was unacceptable. You cannot still just disappear when you want and think there will be no consequences. Helen’s coming in to discuss this.’
‘I thought Helen’d left.’
‘She has, but you still have your end-of-care review, and she’s taking you tae Warrender Institute, remember?’
‘Joan, see how Helen left? Like she just quit — it was after she’d spoken tae the police about me?’
‘Helen had plans to take some time out from the social-work department for a while, I’m sure. It won’t have been anything tae do with you, okay?’
Joan catches sight of someone at the end of the corridor and marches off.
‘I’ll discuss this with you later, Anais.’
Trudge downstairs feeling rough as shit. Before I was a teenager I didnae get come-downs, not really, I could get as mashed as I wanted then. I’ve even started tae get hangovers recently — getting old is pish fun. Brian’s sat in the living area reading a book. Angus is waiting for me with the front door open.
‘Come on, let’s get moving, lady, we’re late,’ he says.
Joan emerges from the left turret and Brian’s face falls.
‘We need tae talk, now!’ she says to him, and he traipses behind her into the interview rooms.
On the top landing the black doors are all closed, like usual. I feel uneasy, like I never really looked at them before. I haven’t been back in there to see the snow wolf or the snow bear, and I have this horrible feeling they are gone.
Crunch out to Angus’s car. He opens the passenger door and I get in; it smells of wet dog and faintly of good-quality grass. The air’s stale and stuffy from the morning sun. It’s giving me the boak.
‘So, did you have a good time at the cinema?’
‘Aye.’ I wind down the window.
‘I didnae know they did films until four a.m.?’
‘They dinnae.’
‘So what were you doing?’
‘I was getting laid.’
He turns the engine on and just looks at me.
‘You cannae say things like that tae your support worker, Anais.’
‘I just did.’
‘Fuck’s sake, just pick a bloody CD,’ he says.
Angus drives with one hand, slides his roll-up tin out his pocket and lights one. He inhales and gestures for me tae take one as well. Bonus.
‘Have you not got an iPod?’
‘I am what you would call old-school, young lady. I would have stuck with tape cassettes if they still made them.’
‘Prehistoric.’
‘So, what exactly are we in court for this morning?’
I shrug.
‘I need more than that, Anais. I didnae get a chance to see the rest of your files, so I couldn’t check what all the charges were. I’m a wee bit unprepared, so help me out here.’
‘It’s nothing too big. They caught me with Valium, or something.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Aye, probably just minor possession.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘I stabbed a lassie at the back of the chippy on Old Town Road.’
‘Tell me that’s not what we’re gonnae go tae court for, Anais?’
His voice is all high, he’s flapping. It’s funny. I dunno why he’s flapping, though. I think he’s wasted.
‘Is that why we’re going?’
‘It’s nothing major, Old-School! Take a chill pill, there’s nae stabbings, I promise!’ I smile nice and he shakes his head.
Flick through his CDs.
‘Your music taste is pish, Angus.’
‘Dinnae be judgemental. You’ve probably never even heard half of them.’
My stomach rumbles. I should have had something for breakfast.
‘You’re different from the other kids, Anais, d’ye know that? And despite what the police, or Helen, seem tae think, I reckon you’ve got a very astute, intelligent head on your shoulders.’
‘Fucking hardly! How come you’re doing this job anyway?’
‘Well, job satisfaction, and tae meet inspiring people like yourself. Why do you ask?’
We turn right, but Angus wasnae indicating and a car behind beeps us. He gives the driver a wee wave.
‘It doesnae seem like your bag.’
‘Maybe I’m not that different from you,’ he says.
‘I fucking doubt it.’
‘This is a shortcut, dinnae tell Joan.’
He accelerates the wrong way down a one-way street and gets us through to the other end without anyone noticing. I slap on an Arlo Guthrie CD and turn it right up. My feet are tapping away on the dash.
‘D’ye like music?’
‘Only soulless people dinnae like music. I love music, Angus.’
‘I used tae play in bands.’
‘Aye? I bet they were shite!’
‘Total shite!’ He grins.
The children’s-panel building is grim. They’re always grim. Like police stations. Ugly buildings in concrete, all square, nothing nice about them. The only stations that aren’t like that are really old ones in wee villages. They can be quite nice sometimes. I’m staying outside as long as I can, under the doorway, so the rain doesnae make my hair go frizzy.
Smoke a roll-up and watch an old man at the lights. The lights change but he just stands there. They change back to red again and he moves forward. A car beeps at him and he staggers back onto the pavement.
Angus seems quite decent. Normally it’s all No Smoking here, and boundary issues with clients there. He could almost be classed as a human being. Maybe. I mean he’s not Joan and he’s not a Mullet. He sticks his head out the door.