Field of Blood

“No,” she said, thinking he was sweet. “I’m working.”

“What d’ye work at?”

“Journalist. For the Daily News.”

“Ye a journalist?”

“Aye.”

Impressed, he looked her up and down, his eyes lingering on her monkey boots and gelled hair. “Don’t they pay ye?”

“Listen, these are Gloria Vanderbilt monkey boots.”

He smiled at that and looked at her with renewed interest. He held his hand out. “Kevin McCo

It could be a Catholic name, she wasn’t sure.

“Heather Allen.”

His hand enveloped hers, the skin powder soft. As he stepped forwards the light caught a gold stud in his ear. Paddy had only ever seen male pop stars with earrings, and Glasgow was not a city that calmly accepted blurred gender boundaries: she’d once heard of a guy being beaten up for using an umbrella. Looking at him with renewed admiration, she noticed that his eyes were small and neat and his lips were glistening.

“You need to be careful coming up here, visiting people in a scheme ye don’t know.”

“I was only here for a minute.” She started strolling slowly down the road, hoping he’d follow.

“A minute’s long enough,” he said, falling into step. “There’s gangs up here, ye have to be careful.”

“Are you in a gang?”

“Nut. Are you writing about the gangs? Is that what you’re doing up here?”

He veered towards her slightly, keeping the space between them narrow, as if he could feel the frisson between them too. “I’ll see ye out safely, then.”

She kept him talking, asking if he was working (he wasn’t), where he went dancing (he didn’t), and what sort of music he liked. The Floyd, Joe Jackson, and the Exploited sometimes, but only sometimes. Ye have to be in the right mood, eh? Paddy knew what he meant: she never happened to be in the right mood for the Exploited.

By the time they reached Cathedral Street she was reluctant to leave his company. He was a big, handsome man, like Sean, but not a

As Paddy walked down through the town to the train station it occurred to her that maybe the world was full of men she might choose; that maybe Sean was just one of the nice men instead of the one nice man.

Reluctant to go home to her family, she took her time wandering down through the town. The closer she got to the station the smaller she felt. She wasn’t Heather Allen. She wasn’t a journalist at all. She was just a fat lassie playing a stupid game because she was too afraid to go home.

IV

Trisha was alone in the house when Paddy got in, and the atmosphere was worse. She dished up a bowl of broth and a plate of mince with peas and spuds and left Paddy alone to eat it, going off to sit in the living room to watch the news. Paddy could see her through the serving hatch, sitting in the armchair, her neat brown hair shot through with wild gray. She was pretending to listen to a news report about the Maze Prison hunger strikers, as if the world outside Rutherglen Main Street didn’t terrify her.

Paddy would have gone to the movies, but she didn’t have any money. She considered using her Transcard and taking the two-hour circular route around the city on the 89 just to worry Trisha but knew it would be a petty revenge. And the bus might be cold.

She finished eating and got up, putting her plates in the sink, meaning to wash them later as a penance, but her mother got out of the chair and silently came into the kitchen, slipping between Paddy and the sink, ru

She couldn’t be bothered watching the news. She twisted the cha

Sean would be eating his tea right now. His mum would be smiling and chatting away to him, telling him the news of the day and who had died in the parish and whose grandchild had said a clever thing. Paddy could phone and tell him she missed him. She could try to say sorry again.

She waited until her mum had walked through the living room and climbed the stairs to the toilet, then nipped out and dialed Sean’s number.

Mimi Ogilvy could hardly speak when she asked for him.

“Please, Mrs. Ogilvy, I’ve got something important to tell him.”

She hadn’t finished the sentence before Mimi hung up.

V

Mary A

She turned off the light by the door, but instead of getting into bed she climbed over her own bed and sat on Paddy’s, pulling out a pack of cards from behind her back and a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps. She tugged Paddy out of bed and over to the window, made her sit down, and pulled the curtain over their heads. Lit by moonlight, Mary A

They played for almost an hour, laughing silently when the crisps made a crunchy noise in their mouths, keeping score in Paddy’s notepad. Mary A

They stayed there long after their eyes had begun to sting with sleep, playing together, their faces next to the windowpane, damp and cold, their overheated feet in the bedroom, smothering comradely giggles. The silent games would become a ritual, a nightly statement of loyalty that bound them to each other for decades ahead.

SEVENTEEN . THE CALLOUS CARS

I

The features writer was struggling to whip up a credible moral panic piece about Joe Dolce’s novelty single signaling the final demise of the English language when the phone rang, giving him an excuse to turn away from the page.

“Nope,” he said, ru

The man on the phone seemed surprised. He had met her yesterday, he said, in Townhead, and she told him she worked at the Daily News.

“Yeah, well, she’s left now, pal.”

“Would you have another number I can reach her on?” His voice was gruff but his accent careful and affected.

“Nope.”

The man sighed into the phone, sending a ruffle of wind into the journalist’s ear. “It’s just… it’s really important.”

The features writer’s attention span was broken anyway, and the guy sounded genuinely desperate. “Well, I know she works at the polytechnic newspaper. Ye could phone them.”

“Thank you,” said the man. “That’s brilliant.”