"Do you miss him?" he asked.

"Don't counsel me," said Maureen, without intonation.

They looked at the building again for a while.

"Let's go out and get pissed together one night," she said.

"I'd like that," he said. "I'm in the Variety most Mondays."

"I might have some lovely news about our mutual friend when I see you," she said quietly, raising her eyes and looking innocently at the glass-brick turret.

Shan turned his head and examined her face for a moment.

"I'd like some lovely news about that cunt," he said gently.

Chapter 32

Shan dropped her two blocks from Winnie's house. It was still early. She found a functioning phone box outside a green Republican pub on the Pollokshaws Road. The long, broad road led straight to the center of Glasgow and was a major route for cars and buses. She could hardly hear the dialing tone above the noisy traffic. She called Leslie's.

"We're fine," said Leslie, shouting so Maureen could hear her. "We've been watching television all day and we had our dinner on the veranda."

"Is she eating?" Maureen shouted back.

"Fuck, aye. Everything I put in front of her. How did it go at Levanglen?"

"I don't know, to be honest. I'll know tomorrow. Can Siobhain talk yet?" The beeps started and she put another ten pence in.

"No, she hasn't said anything," shouted Leslie. "Where are you, anyway?"

"I'm on the South Side. This phone box is eating money." She noticed a blue Ford parked quite far up on the opposite side of the road, it was the only car parked on the busy street. The lights were off but two men were sitting in it looking straight ahead. It was the car she had been sitting in the morning before, with Joe McEwan.

"Why are you on the South Side?" asked Leslie.

"I'm going to see my mum. Will you be all right for a while?"

"Should be. Why are you going to see Winnie?"

"I'm going to tell her what I think of her."

"Wow, good for you! Are you going to tell her everything?"

"Yeah, fucking everything."

"You even going to say about the hospital?"

" 'Specially about the hospital."

One of the men in the stationary car looked over and caught her eye. She stared back at him. The man got flustered and looked away, he said something to his pal.

"Should you do it tonight, though, Mauri?"

"I want to do it tonight," she said, writing her name on the dirty glass with her finger. "I feel fucking ferocious tonight."

Una's big fancy car was parked outside, incongruous in front of the small council house. The lights in the front room were on and the curtains were open. George'd be in there on his own – Winnie never left the curtains open, day or night, when she was sitting in the room, she said the neighbors were nosy. The upstairs windows were dark. They must be sitting around the table in the kitchen at the back of the house.

Maureen had brought a bottle of whisky for Winnie as a sweetener. She clutched it with both hands and tramped across the thin strip of lawn and up to the door. She rang the bell and drew herself up two inches. George opened it. He seemed surprised to see her and waved her straight down the corridor to the kitchen. He looked a bit green and Maureen figured that he couldn't have developed a compound hangover unless Winnie had one too. She would be relatively cowed and Maureen was glad.

The door was propped open with an old pig-nosed bed warmer and she could see into the kitchen. Marie was sitting at the table with Una and Winnie, her hands clutched in front of her on the table. Winnie turned away her head to ask Una a question and Marie glanced anxiously at Winnie's cup. She saw Maureen and stood up, her frightened eyes belying her smile.

"I thought you were coming tomorrow," said Una.

"I couldn't wait to see Marie," said Maureen.

Marie stepped forward and hugged Maureen stiffly. Her expensive clothes were getting shabby through excess wear. Maureen hadn't thought about it before but Marie must dress up for her family as though she were coming for a difficult interview. Through force of habit Maureen asked how the flight was. Marie blushed. "I took the bus," she said, and sat down. From the nervous, guilty glances passing between them Maureen could tell they had been talking about her.

"How are you, Mum?" she said.

"I've got flu again," said Winnie, her eyes heavy and red.

Maureen leaned over to kiss her and smelled the vinegar edge from a heavy bout of drinking. She sat down at the table, hoping to mask her mood until she had said what she needed to. "I brought you a present," she said, and held out the bottle of whisky to Winnie.

Una's face fell when she saw it. The children had always moved carefully to curtail Winnie's drinking with small tricks and ways of working. Now here was Maureen feeding her bottles of whisky. Winnie was delighted. She brought four wineglasses out from the cupboard and poured a large-large whisky into each.

"Mum," said Una miserably, "I can't drink that."

"Why?" said Winnie, seeming surprised, but the girls knew her of old.

"I'm driving," said Una.

"Auch, well," said Winnie. "It's out now."

She put the glasses on the table, setting the extra one nearest to hers, and sat down, smiling at Maureen, whom she wrongly supposed to be her new friend. She downed a glass with a deft hand and smiled at Marie, holding her eye so that she wouldn't look down. "It's very nice whisky," she said, letting her hand fall to rest next to the orphan glass. "Try it, Marie."

"Doesn't Marie look well, Maureen?" said Una, eager to get the conversation off to a friendly start.

"Listen," said Maureen, "I came here because I wanted to talk to all of you together." She lit a cigarette and sipped her whisky.

"Is it about Douglas?" asked Winnie sweetly.

"Not really, Mum, no." Her voice was steady and she felt that nothing could break her resolve. For the first time in a long while she knew she was right. "I want to tell you that I know what you're all thinking about me. You think I'm mental and I don't remember properly and that I made all that stuff up about Dad." She tapped her fag on the blue-glass ashtray and drank the rest of her whisky. No one spoke. "I want to say that my memory's just as good as any of yours. You can do this revisionist shit as much as you want but it still happened. He still did it to me and nothing can change that. I wish it could but it can't. I didn't touch Douglas. It wasn't me. And you can't use the fact that you've changed your story about Dad to accuse me of something like that."

Una, who had a terror of confrontation, was shaking and changing color rapidly.

Winnie used the diversion to lift the spare whisky and drink it.

"What are you talking about?" muttered Marie. "We didn't say you killed Douglas."

Maureen could feel herself getting angry. "You fucking did, you shitty bitch," she hissed.

Marie shook her head stupidly. "I didn't."

"I know you did, so stop lying."

"But I didn't…" Marie's voice trailed away and she sat back, hiding herself behind Una.

"Yeah," said Maureen. "I might not have killed Douglas but I made up all that stuff about Dad for a laugh, so who knows what else I'll do, right? Who fucking knows what I'm capable of? You know, the only reason I'm not in fucking prison right now is because Mum was psychotic with drink when they took her in for questioning."

Una took Maureen's hand in both of hers and squeezed it. "We don't think you're mad, Maureen," she said. "We know you're not mad." Her frightened eyes raced over Maureen's face, looking for a telltale sign that she was. "We love you," she said, "you know that."