Mungo watched as Mrs Campbell stared at and then through Jodie. Nobody ever looked at Jodie as if she was stupid, as if she was a know-nothing, and it surprised Mungo to see it now.
“When our Graham would come home, when we would sit down at dinnertime, ah would ask him how his day was, and all he would say wis ‘Aye, fine. Aye, no bad. Aye, it was awright.’ So ah would just start wittering on about so-and-so and her new fancy man, or how Mary McClure didnae like the new minister.” Mrs Campbell shuddered as she sighed. “Imagine all that fear and disappointment clogged up in there, and nobody stopped to ask him about it, to ask if he was happy in his life, if he was coping. None of the men could tell ye how they really felt, because if they did, they would weep, and this fuckin’ city is damp enough.”
Mrs Campbell pressed her hanky to her cut. She lifted it away and considered the blood clotting upon it. “And whut did they get for aw their troubles, eh? They got laid off by some suit-wearing snobs in Westminster who couldnae find Glasgow on a map, who didnae give a flyin’ fuck if the men had families to feed. They get telt that they’re the problem wi’ this country, that they’re haudin’ back progress because they’re no afraid of hard work. Then some uppity ginger bitch decides that’s the end of them with a stroke of her fountain pen. Done, finito, kaput.”
Mrs Campbell had entirely transformed before them. All the earlier frailty was gone, and now she peered down at them with a fizzing anger. “So naw, Jodie Hamilton, it’s no about the fitba. It’s no about if he likes a wee drink, or doesnae like ma cookin’. Ye’re nothin’ but a pair of daft weans. Youse have no idea what it’s all about. No idea at all.”
Jodie clasped her hands. “Please! You’re kidding yourself on. You’re letting him get away with it.”
Mrs Campbell started back down the stairs. Jodie reached out to her but the woman shrugged her off. When she was back on her landing, she turned and looked up at the Hamilton siblings. “Ah’ve known you since ye were in nappies, and ah’ve known that selfish mother of yours even longer. If anybody should understand making excuses for the person they love, then it’s you two. Can ye no forgive me that?”
ELEVEN
St Christopher came to Mungo’s tent in a sulk. The men had argued in the other shelter; the torpid, slurred fight of two soaks. It was a whiny, piteous argument, full of the poor-me’s. He could hear them cast up slights from the distant past, dents to their tarnished pride, tallying their ledger of loyalties. They both sounded hurt. Mungo could only catch snippets of it through the downpour, but it sounded like St Christopher was sobbing – maybe they both were – then they were laughing together or laughing at each other, he couldn’t tell. The boy rolled in and out of a stupor.
Now it was the saint in the damp suit who lay next to Mungo. This tent was too small for the both of them, but still the man had slithered in anyway. He had gone to the formality of donning his soaked blazer, but he wore no trousers, no socks, and his bloodied feet were swimming in his pair of good church brogues. St Christopher was watching him, not saying a word. Mungo blinked, he was confused at the apparition. His gut roiled with whisky. He wanted to retch in the hopes it would draw out the poison.
Mungo pressed his back against the side of the tent and pulled his knees up to his chest. He could fell the tapping sensation of rain falling on his skin, but he was strangely dry. In several places the rain pooled, and he had to press the tarpaulin to release it, to stop it collapsing on him entirely. St Christopher was staring at him in the gloaming, his eyes stagnant as puddle water.
Mungo wanted to fill the dusk. He started to tell the long lullaby about Hamish teaching him how to ride a bike. But St Christopher didn’t want to hear his stories.
“Stop your talkin’.” He drummed Mungo on the kneecap. At first it was a tap and then he balled his knuckles and rapped them hard against the bone. The old scab gave a dull throb. “Ah cannae sleep if ye are gonnae lie there wi’ your sharp bones sticking into me.”
“Why aren’t you in the big tent?”
“He’s a fuckin’ louse. Always cheatin’ us. That’s how.”
Mungo straightened his legs and the saint made himself comfortable. He thought at first to lie on his back again, but it was a hell to have the man’s foul breath on his face, rushing up inside his nostrils. Besides, the tent was too narrow for them to lie shoulder to shoulder. St Christopher huffed and pestered the boy till he rolled over, his face against the cold wall of nylon. The rain kept falling. The ground was disintegrating below them as an arm crept across him, just like it had the night before, but this time Mungo could tell the man was far from sleep.
Something tapped the back of Mungo’s leg. It felt not unlike two fingers, searching him, and trying to push between his bare thighs. It was warm, sticky with its own tackiness, and for a second they stuck together, like when two skins of different temperature connect, one slippery and damp, one powdery dry. It stuck to him for a second and then it slipped in between his thighs. The man gasped.
At first St Christopher seemed content with that. Then the man started to saw back and forth. His foul breath tousled the boy’s hair.
“Stoppit!” Mungo clamped his thighs tight, locked his ankles one over the other. “What the fuck are you playin’ at?” He twisted away from the man and St Christopher mewled in pain. Mungo was pressed against the tent wall. There was nowhere to retreat to.
All weekend St Christopher had seemed as hollow as balsa wood, famished and empty of any nutrition, any goodness. Now he seemed even hungrier than he looked, like he would not be starved any longer. The man wrapped his hand around the boy’s throat; every finger felt like a vice. He dug his ragged nails into the larynx and tugged like he would separate the windpipe from the spine. Then he threw a bare leg over the boy and Mungo felt the stitching of the Goodyear brogue scratch his calf. “Don’t be stupid, son. The mair you struggle, the longer it’ll take.”