Other boys had not been so lucky. There was a crowd gathered around a twelve-year-old who had liked to skateboard and always helped his granny wash the outside of her windows. Mungo had seen him out on the high ledge as his granny clung to his waist. On the other side, some Billies had caught a flame-haired Catholic boy, and in a circular ceilidh, they were taking turns to dance on him. He would be lucky to live.
Mungo held his hands to his ringing head as he stumbled across the battlefield. He was having trouble breathing. He feared that his ribs might be broken as he inhaled the damp night air in little lopsided sips. His eye had scabbed shut already and there was dirt trapped under the swelling; he could feel it scrape against his eyeball. It caused a blinding pain to put weight on his left foot, but because the pain shot up from his ankle through his hip bone, he couldn’t tell which parts of him were calling for attention. He wanted to sob, to cry for the waste of it all.
Ha-Ha would see tonight as a defeat. Those who could still fight would be shamed into returning next week to save face. It should be over, but Mungo knew better. It was more of a beginning than an ending.
Mungo stumbled on and swallowed his hurt just like he had been taught. His tears caught in the back of his throat where they mingled with his own blood. He gulped until he had choked on too much, and then he hauched black spittle into the grass. He was glad that he could not see the redness under the dim lights.
Young men hurried in all directions. All the dauntless warriors were limping home, bragging of their glories, screaming threats of retaliation. But by how they tucked their tailbones Mungo could see that they were shaken. They were gulping, chewing on their hurt until they could be across their front doors. They kept their chests puffed out until they could be safe in their mammies’ arms again; where they could coorie into her side as she watched television and she would ask, “What is all this, eh, what’s with all these cuddles?” and they would say nothing, desperate to just be boys again, wrapped up safe in her softness.
The first of the polis sirens echoed off the tenements. The young men who could still run started running. Mungo came to the cluster of dens. The little settlement was destroyed; the shanty town pushed flat and broken to bits. The gutted porn magazines lay upon the grass, and the open-mouthed women, their faces twisted in agony or pleasure, lay scattered about like dead villagers.
When he reached his street, he felt an anger for the happy glow coming from the different flats. Families would be tucked in together, eating fish suppers and watching the Saturday night variety shows. When he came to his close, he struggled to climb the stairs. Inside the Hamilton flat it was dark and quiet. Jodie was home from the café and already in her bedroom; Mungo pressed on it gently, almost pleadingly, but her door was snibbed tight.
The living room was empty. It hung with a low cloud of stale smoke, flat ale, and sweat. Under the fug was a memory of Mo-Maw’s vanilla perfume – the one they had chipped in for and bought her for Christmas – and he was sad to not find her on the couch, snoring off the drink.
Mungo flicked on the electric fire and struggled out of his wet clothes. It took an age to undress; every ordinary movement caused an extraordinary pain and he had to stop often to catch his breath and summon the courage to continue. It was hardest to take off his cagoule – he found he couldn’t lift his arm over his head – and by the time he was in his boxer shorts, there were tears of rage and hurt streaming down his face. He downed a mouthful of leftover lager from Mo-Maw’s glass. It stung the tear in his cheek, but the drink tasted sad and flat and the smell of it made him long for her, made him want to lie next to his mother.
Out in the hallway he listened at her bedroom door. He could hear Mo-Maw’s rolling snore coming from inside. Mungo knew he was too old for these feelings, he knew that Jodie would disapprove, but as he reached for the handle all he could think about was how much he wanted to climb into bed beside his mother and feel safe in her arms. He cracked the door slowly, the room was dark but for the faint orange glow coming in through the undrawn curtains.
“Maw?” he whispered.
Mungo inched along the wall until he bumped into her bedside table. There was a tinkle of tea mugs and perfume bottles. In the faint street light he could see his mother’s pale face above the sheets. Her head was turned to the side, and she was asleep. Mungo watched her for a moment. Her make-up had smeared on the pillow and there was tension in her face, a puckering in her eyelids, as though she was caught in the purgatory between the drink and its sugars. “Mo-Maw?” His bottom lip began to tremble with self-pity. Mungo peeled the candlewick away from his mother; he turned to slip in beside her but as his one good eye adjusted to the dark, he realized that her tiny frame made too large of a hummock in the bedspread.
Mungo lifted the sheets slowly.
The street light washed across the strange bodies. The old widower from upstairs was nestled beside his mother. He was burrowed below her armpit, his mouth was clamped to her breast, his long arms wrapped around her waist. He was like an undernourished tick suckling at her side and it took a moment for Mungo to make sense of the tangle of limbs, for his mind to arrange the horror into something that made sense.
It was as though they had been in the middle of some dance when they had both fallen asleep, or had simply given up.
Perhaps it was the sudden cold air. Perhaps it was the faint light. Mr Donnelly opened his little black eyes. As he lifted his mouth from Mo-Maw’s skin, there was a long slaver of spittle. He unfurled his body like some rodent in a nest. His thin hair was sweated across his face and as he blinked and looked up at the boy, his eyes were like two puddles in the darkness.