As he slams the car door, he savours the pleasure of manipulating Watt into doing something else, of being in control of another person. He slams it loud, hoping the neighbours will look out and see him getting out of a car. He walks along the fence to the gate and jumps it with one hand on the post. Around the back his mother has already hung out a smalls wash.
The front door is unlocked. He steps into the hall and finds her in the kitchen. She is standing facing the door, waiting for him. Stern, hands clasped in front of her, the thin gold crucifix around her neck catching the light from the door. She looks as if she knows where he has been.
‘Mum.’ He sees her soften. She loves him. She is glad he is back. He goes into the kitchen. ‘Say, where’s the cups?’
She glides across the kitchen to the cupboard and takes out two cups, puts them on the table and pours well-brewed tea from the pot. As she is adding a sugar to each she asks who the man in the car is.
‘Just a guy, Mum.’
He has said Mum twice, which means he has done something. He sees her face twitch.
‘Does the “guy” have a name?’
She adds the milk. Manuel is tempted to tell her the name, to shock her. His mother is horrified by William Watt, a man who would kill his own family. She’s talked about it a lot.
‘John Patterson.’
A Protestant name. She doesn’t approve but understands now why the man was not invited in.
‘What happened to your face, son?’
Manuel steps over to the small mirror hanging over the sink. It’s not as bad as he thought. He was worried his eye might swell up but it is just a cut on his lip and bruises on his jaw and forehead. He looks at his mother.
‘Scrapping,’ he explains, as if he was a naughty boy.
Brigit’s mouth tightens but her eyes twinkle. She so wants to love him, for him not to be lost. Peter can feel the heat of her longing. But it isn’t a choice. He hasn’t chosen to be lost.
‘There’s your tea, son.’
Manuel takes the cups. He wants to thank her but thinks it will make her more suspicious. He goes back out to the car.
Watt takes the small brown cup from Manuel and slams the door as if he longs to be alone with the tea. As Manuel walks around to the passenger door he can see Watt drinking as if it is whisky, glug-glugging it.
By the time he gets in the car Watt has finished. He looks at Manuel’s cup avariciously. Manuel laughs. He doesn’t even want the tea that much but he drinks it, holding Watt’s eye over the rim of the cup. As he drinks they both start smiling, Manuel with his eyes, Watt wide-mouthed, hoping still that he will get more tea. But Manuel drinks it all down.
He pulls the empty cup from his face and Ha! laughs.
Watt pretends he doesn’t care. He opens the glovebox in the middle of the dashboard and takes out a hip flask, keeping it out of grabbing distance. Ha! he retorts and unscrews the lid, keeping his eyes on Peter.
This is a leather hip flask, not an overpriced bottle bought from behind a bar. This is good stuff. The smell of peat fills the car.
Watt drinks from the flask, smiling, then not smiling, remembering what Manuel has done for him, taken for him, what happened at the Gordon. He stops drinking. He swallows. He looks away as he hands the flask to Manuel. It is a peace pipe.
Manuel sucks a tut between his teeth and snatches the flask, drinking it all for spite.
It wasn’t piss-whisky in the hip flask, it was an old blend, unexpectedly strong. The vapours are rolling around the back of his nose. Now Manuel feels sick but he can’t complain of nausea because hard men don’t feel a wee bit sick. He lights another cigarette and hopes he won’t spew.
‘Peter?’
Manuel looks at Watt’s saying-sorry-eyes. He tuts and looks away.
‘It wasn’t my decision,’ pleads Watt, ‘I didn’t even know you then.’
Manuel cannot talk about this any more.
He gets out of the car, chucking his burning cigarette away and swaggering around the back of the car. He’s sure he’s going to be sick. As he passes he slaps the flat of his hand down on the roof and the loud bang makes Watt jump in his seat. Manuel can’t bring himself to smile. It would make him sick. He can’t jump the fence either, it would come flying out of him if he did that. He opens the gate like a housewife and shuffles through. It takes so many tippy-tappy wee steps to get through, he hates that. Hates to be seen to do that. He doesn’t look up for a last sighting of Watt but steps in through the front door with one stride, knowing Watt is watching him.
He stands in the dark hallway of his house, his back to the cool plaster wall. He hears his mother at work in the kitchen. He hears creaks from upstairs as his brother swings his feet over the edge of the bed, as his sister steps across the room upstairs and he’s glad he didn’t let Watt come in here, to his family.
17
Monday 26 May 1958
PETER MANUEL HAS CALLED his mother as a witness. Brigit Manuel is a small woman with salt-and-pepper hair pulled back and tied at the nape of her neck. She wears a two-piece suit and a plain blouse. She has tucked her crucifix inside her blouse because she knows most of the people here are Protestants. She doesn’t want to offend anyone.
She looks tired. She is. She has been awake all night praying for the strength to do the right thing. She stands now in the cavernous courtroom and says a final thy will be done as the Bible comes towards her hand. When she swears by Almighty God to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, she means every word. She means it unconditionally.
Laurence Dowdall is in among the lawyers watching on the lower gallery. She can’t see him but she knows he is there. He said he would be. It gives her strength. Mr Dowdall is a good Catholic gentleman. He represented her husband: when the police came for Peter they also arrested her husband, Samuel, for having a pair of gloves in his dresser that had been stolen from one of the houses. Peter gave them to his father as a Christmas present. Samuel said he didn’t know where they came from, maybe a cousin in America? They arrested him. Mr Dowdall said they were just trying to put pressure on Peter. They know how attached he is to his family. Brigit cherishes that statement.
Mr Dowdall refused to take Peter on as a client but he did take Samuel on. He explained that he couldn’t take Peter and his reasons were legal. Brigit doesn’t understand why. She would have liked a Catholic lawyer for her son.
By and by, she and Mr Dowdall have become friends. They have been saying a novena to St Anthony together. St Anthony, patron saint of lost people.