Field of Blood

A younger constable had been watching her from the door and stepped across, touching her gently on the shoulder.

“We should get you to the hospital, miss.”

“I’m fine, really.” She tried to look up, but her head ached too much.

“Let me wash some of the blood off and we can see what’s under there.”

Paddy kept her head down and followed him meekly down the busy hall and into the kitchen, where he boiled a kettle on the cooker for some warm water and, bending her over the sink, gently sponged the bloody clots from her hair. He had to wash slowly to get the most from the frugal amount of warm water, scooping it onto the back of her neck and softly shoving it over her scalp, avoiding contact with the open wound just behind her left ear. Her knees were a little wobbly with shock, so he rested his hand on her back to keep her standing steady. She thought it the most intimate moment she had ever experienced with a man.

“There now.” He patted her shoulder, signaling for her to stand, and handed her a towel to dab her hair with. “I’ve done a first-aid course and I know this much: we need to get you to hospital and get that checked out.”

“Okay,” she said, feeling that she wouldn’t mind being arrested if he was there. “Will ye let me go home afterwards?”

“No, the doctors’ll want to keep you in if you lost consciousness,” he said, misunderstanding the question. “Did you pass out?”

“No,” she lied. “Not for a minute.”

The constable stopped someone in the hall to tell them where they were going and asked the fat constable to come with him. He led her through the open front door into the street. Four police cars were lined up outside, one with its headlights still on, the flasher blinking lazily on the roof. The wind chilled her wet hair, contracting her scalp, making it sting, and almost bringing feeling back to the cut behind her ear. Paddy stood upright and breathed in the afternoon air. She could handle it. If they arrested her and ended her career at the News and Sean wouldn’t talk to her, she would manage.

She caught his eye and smiled before she realized it was him. She had been blinded by the flasher, but between red waves she saw Dr. Pete sitting in the back of the police car, looking calmly at her through the window. He was wearing a beige raincoat over his blue pajamas. She waved at him, and he raised his hand balletically, motioning her down the path towards him and miming the fact that he couldn’t get the door open from the inside or wind the window down. The first-aider opened the front door and let her speak to him across the back of the seat.

“I told them that I planted the hair in the van and made the false call.” Pete held on to the headrest with a hand that still had the tube taped to it. The same soft drawl in his voice was more pronounced than before. “The operator said I sounded like a woman when I phoned. Do I sound like a woman to you?”

They looked each other in the eye for a moment, until the policeman took her elbow. “We need to get you checked out,” he said.

“Pete, I’m awed by ye. I don’t know what to say.”

“Buy me a drink sometime.”

The policeman pulled her away. Paddy touched Pete’s yellowed fingertips. They were warm and as dry as dust.

IV

Paddy could feel the atmosphere as she approached on the street. It wasn’t a loudness so much as a manic trill carried on the cold air. Every one of the frosted windows in the Press Bar had a mess of bodies behind it.

Paddy touched the bandage with her fingertips, checking to see if the wound was as sensitive as she’d remembered. The doctor had given her a few stitches on her head, and the nurses had put a gauze over it, taping it onto her ear and hair like a jaunty hat. The young policeman had taken a statement while they waited and, after asking over his car radio, said she could go home if she went straight to Anderston police station in the morning. He offered to drop her home, but she refused. This was where she wanted to be.

She opened the door, sucking a cloud of warm, smoky smog out into the street. It was a bacchanalian scene. There were women in the bar tonight, quite a lot of women, and the mood of the crowd was wildly happy. The sports boys were singing a song so tuneless it might have been a series of different songs. Richards was at the bar, laughing loudly, his head tipped back like a supervillain, making the man next to him very angry indeed. Purple-topped Margaret Mary was standing side on to Farquarson, laughing and banging her tits off his arm. The news desk boys were conducting a relay whisky-drinking competition, and there, in the middle of them, was Dr. Pete, his eyes as bright as morning stars, his skin a deep and resonant yellow under the harsh lights.

She raised her hand to wave, but he didn’t see her. Instead of demanding his attention she went to the bar and bought him a double of the best malt McGrade stocked. She watched McGrade carry the drink over and put it down on the table in front of him, whispering what it was and who it was from. Pete didn’t look up to thank her but sipped the drink reverently instead of throwing it to the back of his throat, and smiled at it as he turned the glass with his thumb and forefinger.

She walked around the entire room looking for Terry and noticed that the men were ignoring her to a pronounced degree. It was a mark of respect. Terry wasn’t among the men playing the whisky-drinking game by the toilets, and he wasn’t propped up anywhere along the length of the bar. Dub was sitting on a bench behind the door with a crowd of printmen, arguing about German bands and whether “O Superman” qualified as music.

“Hiya.” She slid onto the seat next to him, and Dub gri

“That,” he said, pointing at her bandage, “is a new look for you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I thought I’d experiment with some brain-surgery themed outfits.”

“Suits ye. Makes you look like someone with interesting things to say.”

“ ‘Ouch’?”

“Yeah, and ‘argh.’ ”

Paddy gestured at the scene in front of them. “Is it me or is this madder than usual?”

“Settle back,” Dub answered, handing her someone else’s half-pint off the busy table, “and I’ll tell you a story.”

The way Dub told the story, the evening had started off with Dr. Pete arriving at the newsroom door, released on police bail and still wearing his hospital pajamas. He a

Pete burst into McGuigan’s office and shouted a lot of rubbish, pulling him around by a lapel at one point and telling him he had a mouth like an arse. He resigned and said he’d never be back.

Pete’s reckless excitement had spread and multiplied- emotional loaves and fishes- and the atmosphere in the Press Bar felt less like a damp Tuesday in February and more like a lonely sailor’s mille

Paddy laughed at the story, enjoying herself, occasionally touching her hand to her sore head to see if the feeling had come back to the skin. She lifted the drink to sip a couple of times but couldn’t get past the image of a sweaty man slavering over the lip of the glass.

The door opened next to them and Terry Hewitt stepped in, looking around the room. Paddy cringed and leaned over, tugging on the hem of his leather jacket to get his attention. He nodded when he saw it was her, acting as if they had arranged to meet there, and came to sit by her, forcing Dub to slide up the bench even further so that he was jammed uncomfortably into the corner. He stood up, offering to get a round in but failing to ask Terry what he wanted.