Even Jodie had used his stoicism when it suited her. She would get Mungo to go into Mo-Maw’s secret stash and steal potato scones for the pair of them. They would sit in the quiet of the airing cupboard and gorge themselves on the stodgy triangles. When Mo-Maw would catch them, Jodie would say it was Mungo’s idea, and he would get the leather sandal across his legs. Jodie would hide behind his bedroom door and wait for him to come into the room smarting in pain, but dry-eyed. She would give him a hug and tell him that’s why he could bear the blame, because he never cried, he never gave anyone the satisfaction of his tears.
Gallowgate hissed at Mungo to stop crying. He had his hand on Mungo’s football shorts and was trying to pull them down. Mungo used all the strength in his body to clamp one hand on his waistband and brace the other against Gallowgate’s chest. All the years of defending himself against Ha-Ha had given him a defensive sort of strength: muscular legs that could support another man’s weight, a taut body that could curl shut, and clench tight as a clam. For a second it seemed like he could lift the weight of Gallowgate off him.
The last of the firelight caught Gallowgate’s eyes. By the set of his jaw, Mungo could sense his determination. The man hammered his fist into Mungo’s face, in a way Ha-Ha never had. He dropped his elbow on to his already bruised windpipe and pushed upwards until Mungo’s head tilted all the way back. Then he turned the boy over.
TWELVE
In the weeks following Mo-Maw’s resurrection, she was neither here nor there. Jocky would call and Mo-Maw would sweep her life into her handbag and run back to him. Every five days or so he would return her like an overdue library book, and she would appear so dog-eared, so sodden with drink, that it looked like she had been dropped in the bath. Jodie said she thought Jocky was a bad drinker too because he would call at any hour of the day or night. They could hear him as he told Mo-Maw, over and over, that she was lovely. Mo-Maw wanted to believe it, even though she knew she was not lovely, she told him she was too tired to be lovely now.
The night shift had made her nocturnal. More than once Mungo woke up for school and found the front door wide open and Mo-Maw sitting at the kitchenette table in her heavy coat.
The guts of her brown handbag would be spilled across the floor, out the front door, and dribbled the length of the close as she had stumbled home and searched for her house keys.
Mrs Campbell chapped the door twice in the one week. With her purpled face and yellowed eye socket, she asked Mungo how school was going. Without a word, or a downward glance, she took his hand and folded Mo-Maw’s white bra into it, and still talking about the foul weather, she curled his fingers silently around it, and left without casting an aspersion on Mo-Maw’s name. The next time she brought him a Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie, roasting hot from her own oven. Then, in a plastic bag, she handed him the debris Mo-Maw had dropped the night before: half a dozen panty liners, a bottle of Avon perfume, and a stack of defrosted square sausages.
Mungo closed the front door and carefully returned all of Mo-Maw’s belongings to her bag. His mother had taken her bra off again, but that morning it was on the kitchenette table and she was shelling monkey nuts and dropping the shells into the upturned cup. There was an empty bottle of fortified wine on the table. She looked like she had been sat there smoking and drinking since before the dawn.
“Ah shut early,” she declared, although he did not ask. “Ah jist couldnae be bothered anymore.”
Mungo kissed her warm crown. She had tightened her perm with money they didn’t have. Her scalp smelled like it had been burned with chemicals. He put on the kettle and poured her two strong mugs of black tea, just the way she liked. Her head was drooping on to her chest, it bobbed in bunting waves, like a toddler past bedtime. Mungo watched her fight sleep, he tried to take the ashy cigarette from between her fingers but she pushed him away.
“Stop hoverin’. Sakes. Yer like a wee wummin.” She ashed on to her own leggings, then brushed it on to the floor. He dared not sweep it up.
Across the back green, above the cluster of communal bin sheds, there were already bright lights in the flats opposite. Mungo watched the light come on in James’s house, a single light that he switched off whenever he left the room. Mungo knew he woke early to go to the doocot. He would spend an hour feeding and exercising the birds before there was any danger of another dooman sending a lure into the sky. That was the thing with the East End doomen: they were mostly unemployed, so they didn’t keep standard business hours.
James was silhouetted against the bright light of his kitchenette. He looked out and saw Mungo watching him. They still had not spoken, not even once, but he gave Mungo the thumbs up sign, with a face like it was a question. Mungo returned the salute with a definite thumbs down. James laughed.
“Come away from that window,” said Mo-Maw. “Stop watching wummin get dressed for their work. That’s aw ah need. To have raised a peepin’ Tom.”
Mo-Maw had taken to stealing meat from the caravan, arse ends of black puddings and half-defrosted bricks of sliced bacon. Mungo turned on the electric ring and prepared her a hot breakfast to line her stomach. The eggs rolled across the frying pan in a white greasy liquid of their own, catching bits of bacon fat and scraps of yesterday’s black pudding in their wake. He waited until the centre filmed over before he flipped them gently. The plate made a chalky sound as he slid it across the tabletop towards her. It was exactly as she liked it.
Mo-Maw made a retching sound. “Ah cannae be looking at that.”
“I could make you some porridge.”
“Stop fussin’.” She sounded tired but far from sleep.
“Maybe you want to go and lie down?”
She stubbed her cigarette into the egg roll. Her eyes cleared. The routine of the night shift was in her. “Ah want to go out.”