Behind him, the fellowship welcomed all the new members. They listened patiently to those who felt brave enough to share their journeys, until Mo-Maw cut into the end of one man’s speech, when she stood to share her story. Mungo had heard it all before.
Skrriit, skriiit, skrriiit, skrit, skrriiiitt, skrit.
“Hallo, ma name’s Monday-Thursday Maureen and ah’m an alkahawlick.”
“Hallo, Maureen.”
“Ah’ve been struggling with drink, on and off likes, for about twelve years. Ah know, ah know.” She let out a well-practised giggle. Wait for it, he thought. “Ah don’t look nearly old enough but it’s true. Anyhows, where was I? Aye, well, ah’m a single mother.” Slight pause for sympathy. “My man’s been dead nearly sixteen year and it’s been hard raising ma weans on ma lonesome. It would be hard enough with one, but ah’ve been blessed with three and I tell you, they’re all so challenging you would barely believe it. Ye never get a minute’s peace. Ye turn yer back to help one and the other is up to his neck in some bother. Boys are the hardest, int they?” There was a faint murmur of agreement. Mo-Maw seemed underwhelmed by the lukewarm response. Her voice went up an octave, there was the quiver of poor-me’s at its edges. “It’s hard to raise a boy without a man around, you try your hardest but sometimes they don’t turn out quite right.”
Skrriit, skriiit, skrriiit, skrit, skrriiiitt, skrit.
Mungo pressed his nail a little harder. It was the fourth cup that failed first, a torrent of scalding black tea shot out of the hole. The spray hit him in the thigh and poured down his right leg. Mungo gritted his teeth. He moved his thumbnail to start on the fifth cup.
Someone wrapped a hand around his wrist. Every-Other-Wednesday Nora had popped to the ladies and found him making a nuisance of himself.
“Weh-ll, look at the mess ye’ve made, ya silly article. Away. Out of it.” She was already mopping up the mess as she shoved him roughly out of the hallway.
Mo-Maw didn’t break her affirmation monologue, but she heard the commotion and threw her son dirty looks over the heads of the crowd. They glided like spears over a battlefield. “That!” She raised the back of her hand to him. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason ah take a guid drink.” Forty heads turned as one to see this poor woman’s burden for themselves. Mungo waved. He had so little to fear now.
* * *
The Hamiltons had gathered like a council of feuding union bosses, each of them gesticulating furiously and trying to talk over the top of the others. Hamish told his mother and sister what had happened as Mungo hung his head, his fingers still stinking of petrol. It was to be Hamish’s narration of events: the older Fenian boy molesting his naive little brother. The room fell silent. They looked at Mungo with alternating faces of pity and shame as though he was a china plate that had a bad chip and they were deciding if they would keep it or not; such a lovely thing to be so ruined.
Mungo watched, cold as the Clyde, as the three of them started roaring at each other again: assigning blame, listing their failings, casting up the selfish natures of others. When Mo-Maw and Hamish finally ganged up on Jodie for “not raising him right,” Jodie swept her hand along the mantelpiece and broke every picture frame in the house.
Mo-Maw said, “Ah’m tired of you thinking ye are the main attraction around here.”
As they were gathering up the glass, Mungo saw his chance. He slipped out the door.
The mud had already dried on his knees as he ran back to the doocot. The back of his head sang where Hamish had dragged him through the streets and now faces loomed down at him from the tenement windows; children crowded around their mammies, everyone had a seat, keen to see what the next embarrassment in the Hamilton pantomime would be.
Mungo was winded by the time he reached the patchy grass. The door to the doocot was slamming in the wind and at first it raised his spirits; James was here, he was hurt, but he would be alive.
There was too much blood on the grass for Mungo to ignore. It was flattened where he had lain, and there were splintered shards of his front teeth, luminous in the mud. Mungo picked them up and put them carefully in the pocket of his cagoule.
But James was in the doocot, it would be all right.
Mungo held the swinging door firm and peered into the darkness. He was looking for the pool of bronze light; the golden hair that refracted the shaft of sunlight into every corner of the dark loft. But James was not there. All the doocot cages were open, some of the doors were hanging loose, the hinges he had carefully maintained were ripped from their bearing screws. There was a solitary doo flapping in the corner, unable to gain any flight. His left wing was extended, it was broken.
Mungo stepped back out into the daylight. There were some pigeons sitting on the new slate roof, but in the grass beyond the doocot were the rest of James’s prize pouters, dead and flung about. A few looked like they’d had their necks wrung. There was a cluster of three, the bleached doo, the ashy hen, and a new bird that Mungo had never seen. There were golf tees next to their bodies, and these bodies had no heads. Someone had held them still, for a great laugh, while someone else took a swing with a putter. The sun was not yet fully overhead in the sky, and everything beautiful was all already ruined.
Mungo stepped back inside the doocot. The injured bird was still flapping in panic. He just wanted to hold it like James would, run his fingers along its throat and settle it down. He cooed to it and bobbed gently like he had seen James do. It rested for a moment and he snatched it up and held Little Mungo in his hands. Its heart was thumping against its breast. It was in so much pain.
Whroup, whroooup, whrooup. He chirped into its matted nape till it calmed itself. Whroup, whroooup, whrooup. He wept as he wrung its poor neck.
* * *