“Fuck you.”
Mungo sulked in the dark kitchenette. He ran his finger around the field-flower wallpaper and enjoyed the way the pattern was padded to give it a three-dimensional feeling. He stared at the back of James’s tenement. They still hadn’t spoken since James had cried. He wished for a friend now.
The middle cabinet was full of pint glasses that Mo-Maw had stolen from the old men’s pubs on Duke Street. He took one and into it he emptied all the liquids and condiments in his mother’s kitchen: brown sauce, red sauce, yellow sauce, and sour separated milk. He added a raw egg, Askit painkiller powder, and half a shaker of black pepper. To the top of the sundae he added a long squirt of dish soap and a dash of toilet bleach. He topped it with a wad of his phlegm.
“Here, drink this.” He handed the potion to Jodie.
She was sitting on the windowsill looking out at the narrow street. She had been crying again. Then she laughed. But then she got herself stuck somewhere between tears and laughter. He stepped away from her, offended. “You asked for my help. Drink it.”
Jodie wrapped her arms around his shoulders, she tousled the hair at the back of his neck. It felt good. “You silly eejit. Mungo, they are not connected. The uterus and the stomach. I’ll likely shite myself, aye, but the blob won’t shift.” She put the foul glass on the windowsill. They could still smell it from across the room. “Punch me, or you can kick me, if you prefer. Just the once. I promise.”
Mungo was ashen. He shook his head.
His reluctance confused Jodie. There had been wet summers where they had amused themselves by slamming the door in each other’s faces, waiting till the exact moment their sibling was crossing the threshold and then wham. You got double points if they were carrying a mug of tea.
“All the hours,” she began quietly, “all the afternoons I’ve sat in that airing cupboard and nursed your hurts. And you won’t even do this one thing for me?” Jodie wiped her tears. “I thought you loved me. Haaah-ha.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t. You only love what I do for you. You’re as bad as the rest of them.”
He pressed his thumb knuckle to his twitching eyelid. “Just once?”
She nodded. “Aye. Just once.”
“Now, you said. Just. Once.” He needed to reiterate it, to have it notarized.
Jodie pushed his hair from his eyes. She let him know it was okay. “Just once.”
He spent a long time working up to it, never quite touching her, hoping she would change her mind. Jodie yelled at him. Eventually her brother drew his fist back and with a pained scream he struck her in the stomach. He had pulled it short. The blow didn’t even dislodge the air inside her. But now Jodie had the momentum she needed. “Good. Again Mungo. Harder.”
“But you said just the once.”
“Aye, but you need to hit properly.”
He hit her again, harder this time, but he let his wrist roll over the fist.
“Harder.”
He hit her again. The gasping was all his, not hers.
“Harder.”
He hit her again. She barely moved.
She gritted her teeth. “Please, Mungo. For goodness’ sake. For once. Be a man.”
He drew his fist back. All was white and red. He swung it into her, and he followed the curve of his fist with all the power in his narrow shoulder. It connected and the wind blew out of her. He hadn’t expected what he felt; his hard fist against the tender pillowy-ness of Jodie. Her flesh had easily absorbed it and not resisted. As she bent double, he found himself marvelling at her; a woman’s superior design, able to take the blows and reward them with a feeling of warmth and protection. It wasn’t like when you punched a man. On the rare occasion he dared to retaliate against Hamish, Hamish’s very fibre reached back out with bone and gristle and muscle to return the pain up Mungo’s arm. When you hurt a man, he hurt you back.
He had a picture of Mrs Campbell then and he hated himself.
When she regained her breathing Jodie composed herself. She took Mungo in her arms. All the colour had drained from his face; even the tic, starved of blood, lay motionless. It was her with the bruised gut, yet she was comforting him again. As in everything in life, he couldn’t be there for her. They both thought it but neither said it. Useless.
“Thank you, Mungo.” She coddled him. “Shall I heat some of Mrs Campbell’s broth and we can have a wee cuddle? Scooby-Doo will be on in a minute.”
In the end it didn’t work, but Jodie didn’t tell Mungo that. It was better they didn’t talk about it again. She had asked for violence out of a gentle soul and it made her feel like she had trampled a patch of fresh snow.
It didn’t work, her belly continued to swell. Poor-Wee-Chickie – always watchful behind his net curtains – noticed the happy girl no longer smiled as she came along the street. He told Mrs Campbell and Mrs Campbell brought Jodie a steak and kidney pie. The following week she did what girls in her day had done, and she took Jodie to see a Romany woman down in the Calton. The never-was baby was gone, and Mungo thought it was all his fault.
FOURTEEN