Authors: Karen Campbell
‘Oh Duncan says, is it? Ah, now I get it. You do know he’s selling Cardrummond?’
‘What?’
‘Have you no heard? Aye, Sentinel are buying it off him.’
When your guts whip and drop, too quick to even feel sick. That is being gutted. She feels it as a sore blast of wind, a creeping shock. All day yesterday, and he never said a word. She feels empty. Yet Mhairi knows?
‘Why?’
‘You’ll need tae ask him. It’s all very sudden. I think the bank’s called in the loan. He’s away to Oban the now. You just missed him actually.’
When you look properly at Mhairi – face her up, and not be embarrassed for her, or a wee bit scared – her pudding features change. What is creamy curds are cheeks, a chin. What are puffy pads are sills for bright, clever eyes. ‘You still want to stay?’
Justine’s thoughts are falling. Water over rock, lit water.
Mhairi folds her cloth, pats the dampness of it flat and neat. ‘Look. See when Hannah’s mum gets here, you can stay at mine. Not theirs. OK?’
‘OK.’
‘You know where my house is? The one on its own, by Nether Meikle. I’ll see you there this evening? You can leave your bag here the now.’
‘Thank you, Mhairi. That’s really—’
‘Och, piss off, you. Away and do whit you need to do. I think I’m gonny close up early. Take Hannah a wee bite to eat. ’
Cold studs press fast to the pads of his hand. Charlie Boy wrings the collar like he is owning somebody’s neck, feels the actual, lingering hairs of his dog, the rough tufts of bristling fur that he . . .
That he.
Cunt. Fucking cunt. The fucking, fucking cunts. He wishes there was another cunting fucking mother-fucking cunting word that was stronger, sharper. But if there are, he doesn’t know them.
Some fucking cunt has put a crossbow through his dog’s head. Fucking bolt, straight through the skull of a dog that couldny even run. The body lies, chained still, in the yard. He canny look at it, has got two of the boys to . . . Christ. He disny know.
Just take it away
,
he was shouting.
Fucking take it away
, screeching it so he wouldny greet. His dog, his Askit, that they’re taking to the dump, the incinerator, fuckknows because that’s his dog that was, and now it’s soiled goods. It’s nothing.
But it doesn’t feel like nothing. He is walking, walking, with the collar wrapped round his hand; folk’ll think he’s a loony, taking a collar for a walk, so he hams it up, spread tight across his knuckles, and now it’s a chib.
You fucking lookin’ at?
But no one asks him. No one speaks to this scary, snottery man who is muttering to hisself, who is a shambling prick that has lost the respect of his men, his community.
For who would do a thing like that? Who would dare do
that to Charlie Boy?
It’s just a dog. It’s nothing.
Feels like war. There’s a million cunts could of done it.
Fucking Justine. She started this. Once you lose your woman, you’re fucked. You’re cracked open to the fucking sky.
Weak
. Fair game.
Charlie Boy despises weakness. He grinds on as the rain begins to fall, past Queen’s Park and the infirmary, past Shawlands and the posh fucking school where that arse from the Mearns sent his kids. The rain falls in sheets, laying over him and under him. Feels the wet inside his trainers, the damp curl of his hair which he fucking hates; you canny have curly hair; that’s bent so it is, and he plasters it down with his hand and the fucking stuff springs up again and he batters and slaps it down; then there’s blood, he can taste blood running; he knows its difference from the rain, knows the salty thickness of it on his skin. Fucking studs on the collar’ve cut him, the collar in his hand, and he chucks the thing away. Just chucks it, like they’ll be chucking Askit’s body, and he throws back his face and lets the rain pour in.
Durring
next to his heart.
Durrr
and
durr
and
durr
; there’s the throbbing as his phone rings. He does not want to answer it, it’ll be one of the boys, or worse, some other bastard, someone like Gerry Kiernan going:
Heard about your
dug
, pal. Do yous need some extra muscle?
with that, with that sleekit dip in his voice that just rips you.
The smell in the air changes as he strides on, it’s higher, damper. More fousty. Christ. He’s walked as far as the river so he has. He’s in the town; it’s afternoon, he’s a guy with money in his pocket and an afternoon free; so how about he goes for a fucking drink? Him, Charlie Boy, in a pub he does not own or rent or have a stake in. He can be a sodden, nameless sadsack, greetin’ in his beer and so fuck, so fuck if some cunt tries to take the pish because then he will rise, and he will take his glass and he will smash it deep, chew the skin straight across in that open Glasgow grin that stays for ever and he’ll taste their blood, he’ll fucking lick it off his fingers. Like a dog.
So fuck. He will.
Pubs on the Clydeside are old men’s pubs, tramps and jakies, and he hates jakies. Clatty bastards. He heads up George’s Square. Used to be loads of flower beds there. Flowers and grass among long-columned statues of men he doesny know. And all the doos. They’ve cut down loads of the trees, so where do the doos roost? The Counting House is by the square, it’s a big barn of a pub with no music. That would suit him fine, so it would, but there’s some bloody rally on across from the Cenotaph; he can hear loudhailers as he gets closer. Fuck. His phone judders, ringing again, and he goes to chib it, fucking chib it in the bin so’s no cunt can nip his ear. But he disny. Just stands and waits till it goes silent, and moves on.
Square’s hoaching with people, despite the rain. A big white trailer is set along the west side,
The Referendum Roadshow
plastered all over,
and each time the words appear there’s a Saltire and a Union Jack painted either side. Front of the trailer’s open, there’s a whole bunch of people up there, like they’re on a stage, and this dude in a suit and tie’s poncing round with a megaphone, going: ‘OK, folks. So. You wake up the day after the referendum. Just imagine how you feel? Will you be elated, relieved? Distraught? People, your destiny’s in your hands.’
Charlie Boy doesn’t believe in destiny. You fight for what you want, you take it. Survival of the fittest, and this shitty wee country isny very fit. It’s a fucking joke. He cuts across St Vincent Street on the diagonal, carries on up the long low hill at the side of the railway station, past John Lewis car park, there’s a nice wee howf near Cowcaddens, aye that would do, he needs a fucking drink, and it’s pishing down, so he’ll cut through the bus station and the place is jumping, fucking jumping, and there’s tourists and lassies up the toon and boys heading to the football. The Tic’s playing later. G’aun the bhoys; there’s a nun collecting money and fat bastards eating Big Macs with their fat bastarding weans, chomp-and-belch-and-dropping-chips and there’s a man with his dog, and a dosser on a bench, fucking sleeping in the day, so he is, with his big red head and his toe hinging out his shoe. Manky, lazy fuck.
Neat diagonal again, cutting through the concourse to the door at the top. He can almost smell his pint. Passes level with the dosser. Frightwig of a ginger,
ging
, as in
singer
, not juh. No, jin-juhr is too soft for this raggedy cunt whose face is sublimely peaceful. As Charlie Boy sheers by, he reaches into his pocket. Does not stop, does not slow but maintains his onward bounce as he leans in and sparks his lighter. Cunt’s 40% proof anyroad. Hears the gentle
whoosh
as his hair ignites, as Charlie Boy drives onwards, out the door, out the fucking cunting door, hears a muffled scream, hears shouts, there is a split-shimmer of what you might call happiness, then a spike of ice. He feels it stab his breast, his cunting, cunting phone goes again.
‘What the fuck do you want?’ He roars at the phone, at the open, wet sky.
People do that Glasgow thing where they flinch and keep their eyes fixed low on the street. Away from the crazy with the moby and the soaking, curly hair. There’s a whimpered, ‘Sorry’, then: ‘Are you the man?’
Charlie’s sponge-brain is whirring, all the names of all the folk that might want to gloat and humiliate him and this sounds like a wean and he canny think straight. The blue light of an ambulance flashes by, up on Cowcaddens.
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Johnny.’
‘Who the fuck is Johnny?’
‘Me. I live in Kilmacarra. She’s here. Are you the man? Justine’s here. Now.’
Charlie Boy sees the ground rise. He slumps against a wall. Swallows.
‘She’s a total bloody bitch. Are you the man that wants her? Cause I
hate
her.’
Charlie Boy steadies his voice. ‘Is that right, bud? You’n’ me both.’
‘
Coffee?’ It comes out: ‘Caw-ee?’
Hannah wrinkles her nose.
‘Tea?’ Much easier to say.
‘No, ta.’
‘Eeght?’
‘Bring me back a sandwich?’
‘Plah-ic chee aw plah-ic haa?’
‘What? Ah,
plastic
. Very funny. Oh, go on. Surprise me.’
Euan smiles, and it’s like gold pouring. Even in his wheelchair, he seems taller than her, it’s a sudden lurch skywards, as quick and inevitable as the roughness of his chin. He holds out his hand for her purse, then propels himself off. It’s only one floor, the lifts are wide, but she will hold her breath till he returns. She’s not remotely hungry.
Hannah takes Michael’s hand. There’s only one hand she can have, the right, because the left is bound and has a cannula in it; a thick needle which drives up his vein almost to the crook of his elbow. She kisses where it joins his skin. Her husband rests lightly between life and death. She and her boy wait with him. Last night, they had taped his copper eyes shut, but this morning, the nurse slowly peeled the tape off. She senses a gathering, an imminence; it’s why she flinches whenever anyone comes in or out. There seems to be an optimum time for him to wake, though no one’s spelled this out. It’s vital she stay vigilant. White wings flap, you see them like huddled buzzards, with their pained expressions and their nodding heads.
—
Mrs Anderson?
—
Can we have a word?
They’ve done their work, their best. Keep telling her how lucky Michael is. If it wasn’t for him battering his head on a gravestone – and what was he doing out there, what was he
doing
? Did he fall? Did he mean it? – the tumour would never have been spotted. Would have continued to grow. The doctor who operated spoke kindly to her.
That nice young man who held Michael’s brain in his hands; the mass of fine-webbed jelly she always wanted to possess, which is his hopes, his movement, language. His whole life.
Gently, the doctor explained how the head injury had caused a bulging bleed. How the damaged vein must be blocked off. How it’s like a forest fire in the brain: acres of swirling fronds, scorched clean as the damage spreads. Or a spider scuttling, casting a blood-web. How he must open a cleft between two of the brain lobes, find and isolate the artery, bypass the damaged vein. How, when he did, he found a cluster. Cells gone wrong, got big.
Not cancer. But a tumour nonetheless, in amongst the jewel-bright blood.
Now they need to wait. No matter how hard she sighs out, there’s no respite from the pain in her breast. Hannah fingers her wedding ring. It’s got loose. Michael’s not a dull, worthy man. And he does not have boundless reserves. Other people might – do – love him, and do it better than she. Her husband’s not a bad person. Not like Hannah. Michael is a man of such sensitivity that she’s driven him to madness. Justine told her he sees a ghost: a man who changes shape. How do you respond to that? And then she thinks: it was the tumour, and then she thinks: no, it was you, and then she thinks: is it much different anyway, to putting on a frock, mounting a set of stairs and telling folk to talk to the sky? He must have been so lonely.
No change! the nurses say, with reassuring smiles. Hannah, china-brittle terrified. Temporal. Benign. These are soft, kind words compared to the ones on his chart.
Does not open eyes.
Incomprehensible sounds (occasional, sporadic. No obvious stimuli).
Occasional motor extension to painful stimuli.
They press on the beds of his fingernails, then. She hates it. If he twitches, though, her heart bursts. She doesn’t look at the intercranial pressure readings, the cerebral perfusion readings, because these are not visible proofs and she does not want to know what volumes of fluid crash and crush inside her husband’s skull. All Hannah will believe is what she can see.
She can see a plastic tube at Michael’s neck. They plan to cut his pale flesh in a tracheotomy, just there, if he’s not able to breathe on his own. For the moment, the tube snakes on into tape, plastic, his mouth. It’s linked to the ventilator. Another thin tube is in his nose, going all the way to his stomach to drain it. She sees his skull shorn and missing, where a section of the bone has been flapped to reveal the brain beneath, and the tumour tucked in its folds. This tender place makes her think of her children’s fontanelles when they were born. She sees the monitor for his heart rate, his breathing rate, his blood pressure. She sees the lines into his blood vessels: a central line in his neck to deliver drugs and nourishment and an arterial line in his wrist, to monitor blood pressure, take blood tests. If she lifts the covers she’ll see the catheter in his penis, draining urine, checking his kidney function.