Denise Mina - Exile

"It'll be fine," said Maureen, taking half an hour to find the right change in her hand and pay the taxi. "Come on."

"It will be many things," slurred Kilty somberly, "but it won't be fine."

The Coach and Horses was eerily quiet. There was no pretense at socializing, no crowds of chatting acquaintances, little effort made to disguise the business of drinking. The barman who had dubbed her up to Parlain wasn't working. Maureen was feeling slightly sick. She took a deep breath and led Kilty into the serious-drinking room on the left. They stepped up to the bar and Maureen ordered a triple whiskey with lime and ice.

"I'll try that as well," said Kilty.

The barman poured the drinks without asking if they were sure they wanted triples and Maureen knew that she was drinking in a pub that suited her. The customers were nearly all men and, strangely for the area, predominantly white. They heard accents from home, east and west coast, some broad, some mild. The few women had a sad, junkie look about them, wearing clothes they had happened upon, standing vacantly, glancing round as if they were waiting for someone to come and get them. Ann belonged here among these lost people.

"Jesus," muttered Kilty, "it's a fucking hole."

Maureen saw a man and a woman sitting at a table across the room. She recognized them and the man was watching her. He was nursing a pint. The table kept disappearing behind a smog of drinkers and appearing again. She was trying to remember where she knew them from when the door to the ladies' toilet opened. A woman paused there, swaying gently and wiping her hands on her stonewashed jeans. It was the woman who had come out of Tarn Parlain's close; she still had her Vegas sweatshirt on. Moving slowly, she made her way across the floor towards Maureen and Kilty and sat on a stool, concentrating hard on the tricky business of sagging over the bar, her head hanging limp on her skinny neck. Keeping her eyes shut, she lifted her leg to her hand and roughly tugged the leg of her jeans up over one calf, scratching at a spot behind her knee, running her broken fingernails over a deep open sore. It was a baby ulcer, a septic track mark.

"Fuck me," muttered Kilty into Maureen's hair. "I'm sorry. I can't stand it here. Come on."

"No," said Maureen, "I wanna see some'dy."

"Just come. Crash at mine."

"No."

Kilty ceremonially handed over the packet of fags she had bought for herself. "Give that back to me tomorrow." She patted Maureen on the tit by accident and swerved her little froggy body away from the bar and out of the door. Two minutes later she came back with her phone number written on a bit of paper and put it in Maureen's coat pocket. "Tomorrow," she said, and left again.

It was later and busier and warmer. Maureen rolled limy whiskey around her mouth. She felt superior to the other people in the bar and wondered how they could stand it. She was from a shitty background, she'd had a crap life, but standing here in the Coach and Horses she felt like Lisa Marie Fucking Presley. She went to the loo and found the source of the sharp lemon smell. A broken mirror was bolted to the stained wall, its shattered guts missing. She left the first cubicle because menstrual blood had been smeared on the wall spelling out a T. The seat was broken in the second loo and there was no paper.

She was very drunk now, leaning on the bar, reckless of her good coat on the sticky surface. A tinny tune began behind her and played and played until it played itself out. She saw the man and woman sitting at the far table again and was trying to concentrate hard enough to work it out when she turned and saw Frank Toner coming in from the street. The crowd parted for him. He was shorter and stockier than he had seemed in the Polaroid and moved like a retired boxer. Behind him was the staggering Vegas woman who had been leaning over the bar earlier. Maureen hadn't seen her leave. She seemed much brighter now, happier and lighter, ready to laugh and give and receive. The couple came to the bar and Maureen moved nearer, nodding to the woman. The woman recognized Maureen from somewhere and nodded back.

"How are you now?" said Maureen. "Feeling a bit better?"

"Oh, yeah," she said, pretending she remembered. "Much better now. Nice now."

She was well spoken. She might have been a beauty once. Her face was as slender as a Modigliani; her thick brown hair had a natural sheen of auburn through it. She moved with grace, stepping from one foot to the other, letting her hips lead the sway. She might have been young – the deep wrinkles in her forehead and under her eyes looked premature; the rest of her skin was soft and fresh. Frank Toner looked at Maureen and Maureen nodded at him. "Good," she smiled, "let me get you both a drink."

"What would I want to take a fucking drink off you for?" he said, speaking with a harsh south London accent.

It suddenly occurred to Maureen that she was far too drunk to deal with this. She backed off. "Forget it." She turned to the bar. "Doesn't matter," as if ending the conversation were her choice.

Toner announced to the gathered crowd that the day he took a drink from a bit of Scottish cunt was the day he'd fucking retire. He ordered his round and told the barman to give Maureen one as well, adding a wee joke, that he didn't mean fuck her. He guffawed like a bitter child and the moat of sycophants around him laughed too.

"Don't want your drink," said Maureen quietly, feeling like a defiant cowpoke. Everyone ignored her. The barman put the drink down by her hand. "I don't want it," she said.

He gave her a manic look and pushed the glass towards her. "Just fuckin' take it," he said. "Save us all the trouble."

Maureen wasn't going to drink it but in the end she did because it was there and she couldn't get served quickly enough. She was playing with Vik's lighter and wanted to turn suddenly and set fire to the back of Toner's coat.

The skinny woman sidled up to her. "Are you all right?" she said, smiling, mellow now, like a different woman again. Maureen had been insulted, and this woman was trying to mend the damage with the tenderness of a woman who had known humiliation herself and wanted to soften the pain for other people.

"I'm Maureen."

"I'm Elizabeth."

A rattle of laughter emanated from a table in the corner. Maureen nodded to Frank. " 'S that your boyfriend?"

Elizabeth glanced round to see who Maureen was looking at. "Oh… no… I haven't seen you in here before."

"I'm looking for my pal. Did you know Ann who used to drink in here?"

Elizabeth smiled hard at her. "Ann. She didn't really drink in here."

"No?"

"No." Elizabeth stood casually on one leg, looking at her puffy hands. The thick skin was hopelessly scarred, red and shiny on the knuckles, on the joints, around the slippery forked vein on the back of her hand. "Ann drank in different places, mostly."

"Do you drink in here all the time?"

"Yeah." Elizabeth relaxed a little, now that they were off the subject of Ann. "Yeah, it's nice in here."

"Is it?" asked Maureen, testing to see if she had a sense of humor.

Elizabeth smiled, getting the joke. "It looks really grotty," she said, "but they're a good crowd in here." She nodded around the room at the drunks and the bums. "These are good people. We all look after each other, you know?"

Elizabeth wasn't lying. She honestly believed that staggering about in the Coach and Horses was a lifestyle choice.

"How do you look after each other?" asked Maureen, curious about the way her justifications operated and wanting her to elaborate.

"Oh," said Elizabeth, getting stuck, "lots of things…" She couldn't think of any. "Lots of little things."

Maureen guessed that Elizabeth probably did lots of little things and got fuck-all back.