When the blow came it wasn’t to the stomach as he had expected. Hamish reached out and wrenched his brother’s nose. It was a dirty manoeuvre left over from their boyhood and Mungo, who was always prone to nosebleeds, began to gush. Bright tears filled his eyes but he wouldn’t cry. He had learned not to give his brother the satisfaction. Hamish liked tears; if you showed any to him, he went out hunting for more. Mungo pulled the hem of his jumper up and balled it over his nose. The acrylic acted more like a leach than a plug.
“Stop greetin’. It’s no broke.” Hamish knuckled his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. He smiled, and in that instant, Mungo could tell he wanted to be friends again. Hamish was mercurial like that. It was what made him so dangerous. “Listen, I was watching you the other day. I wisnae impressed.”
Mungo could picture him glowering on the roof, not missing a moment through his corrective lenses. “I shouldn’t have even been there.”
“That’s the point. You should’ve. You’re ma wee brother and it’s an embarrassment to see ye carry on lit that.”
“Like what?”
“Lit you were too good for it. Floating around like a wee fuckin’ poofter.” Hamish paused to see if the blow had landed.
Mungo was glad half his face was covered by the school jumper. He could feel the electricity start in his right eye. He pinched his bleeding nose.
“What do you think Da would’ve said? If the big Ha-Ha was still around he would have leathered ye for yer nonsense. You didnae steal anything, you didnae fuck anything, you couldnae even run frae the polis on yer own.” Hamish picked a piece of tobacco from his lips. “Too busy trying tae cuddle wee Bobby Barr.”
“That’s no true.”
“I feel like I’m failing you, Mungo. Like I’ve no been showing ye how to be a man.” He looked genuinely disappointed at that. There was a soft, round defeat in his sharp shoulders that he would never have carried out on to the street. “I feel like I’ve no been raising ye right.”
Mungo knew it weighed heavily on his brother but it was foolish to think that Hamish could have raised him. They were too close in age. If you dropped a stone in a puddle, it was as though the ripple in front was expected to raise the one right behind it. Mungo was not very bright, but even he knew that would be impossible. A ripple could do nothing more than let the next ripple follow in its wake, no sense of where it was headed itself.
Mo-Maw didn’t like her children to call her Mammy, nor Mother, and never just Maw. She said she was too young for that shite. She had just turned fifteen when she came down with Hamish and was only nineteen when Mungo was born. They all came out so close together, they might have been arm-in-arm. Mungo was the only one who hadn’t burst forth singing. The other two came out raging, fists clenched and faces blue, but Mungo had just looked up at her in a sad way, she had said, like he was already expecting her to be a great disappointment.
Mo-Maw could pass for Jodie’s elder sister – she reminded her children of that daily. Mungo could remember the time the four of them shared one single Irn-Bru while waiting in line for The Jungle Book. Mungo had set Mo-Maw’s nerves on edge by asking for a hot dog from the corner cart.
“I do like mustard,” he had protested. He was only five.
“Ye dinnae, Mungo,” Mo-Maw had threatened him, but her youngest was not a big eater. She hadn’t seen him eat anything of real substance in three whole days. He was a distracted little boy, more given to worrying and wandering and fidgeting than sitting at a kitchen table.
Mungo had turned away from the sweating hot dog cart. He floated over to the illuminated posters and she knew she was losing her chance to put something solid in his stomach. Mo-Maw had knotted her mouth, paid for the expensive hot dog, and smeared it with luminous yellow mustard. Mungo had taken one bite before his face flared a deep puce. Born stubborn, he held it in and tried to chew. Jodie said she would eat it for him, but Mo-Maw was a fizzy kind of angry and she’d thrown the whole thing in the bin.
Her hackles were up by the time the ticket girl asked what they wanted. “Four children’s tickets,” Mo-Maw had said, trying to pass for a child herself.
Hamish had been dazzled by the bright lights. Mungo could see his eyes were headed westward and skyward, but his mouth was tilted towards Mo-Maw. “Mammy.” He knew better than to call her that, and now he said it clear as a bell. “Mammy, do you think we could have popcorn when we get inside?”
The ticket seller had sniffed and smiled a wry grin. She had a satisfied look on her face that said she was looking forward to passing this story around the usherettes during their tea break. Mo-Maw had taken a hold of Hamish’s upper arm before he could even swivel his eyes away from the bright posters. As she spun him around there was both wonder and terror on his face. Mo-Maw was only a few inches taller than her eldest child even then, but she’d strung him up like a butcher’s chicken. She held him on tiptoes, and then she leathered the back of his legs. One, two, three, Jodie counted. Mo-Maw’s face was scarlet as she raised her hand again, full-swing, like a professional golfer. Mungo had stepped forward and stood in front of his brother. Mo-Maw’s hand came down too fast and caught him in the soft of his belly. The sausage blew out of him. If he had bothered to swallow the hot dog it would have come up in the great pile of lurid sick.
“So, I’ve been thinking.” Hamish’s hand was already on the door handle. “I need to spend more time with you. I need to sort you out.”
“I’m fine as I am.” Mungo was still talking through the bloody school jumper. He sucked down a clot from his nose.
Hamish came uncomfortably close and stood on Mungo’s toes. He readied his fist in a high arc and swung it towards Mungo’s face. The boy flinched as Hamish stopped a half-centimetre from connecting with his tender nose. “Lesson one,” he spat. “Don’t fuckin’ talk to me like that ever again.”
* * *