Denise Mina - Garnethill

"You're Liam's wee sister," drawled Paulsa.

"Aye," she said.

"I saw you in the paper. Smart T-shirt ye had on."

Paulsa smiled in slow motion again, his head rolling in a tiny circle. He probably meant to nod. At this rate they might stand in the close all night. She walked toward him and he moved back slowly, letting her into the flat.

The living room was nicely painted in pale green, a terra-cotta three-piece suite looked new, apart from the clusters of cigarette burns on the armrests. A glass coffee table was covered with packets of Rizlas, bits of tinfoil and matches, and ripped, empty fag packets. An incongruously twee onyx table lighter sat in the middle of the mess like a centerpiece. A couple of pizza boxes were lying on the floor next to a very large, very full ashtray.

Paulsa walked in, stepping cautiously on his tiptoes like a Parkinson's victim. He dropped onto the settee and grinned up at Maureen. "I saw you in the paper," he said again. "Your brother's a good guy."

"Yeah," said Maureen, "he is. You stuck your neck out for him, Paulsa. Cheers, man."

"No bother, man."

She didn't know whether to say it but she thought maybe no one else would. "Are you well, Paulsa? You don't look it. You're awful yellow."

Paulsa screwed up his face and giggled infectiously. '"I'm turning Japanese,'" he sang. " 'I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so…'" He held up his hands and waggled his fingers, singing the old Vapors tune and looking angelically at the ceiling. He got confused and slipped into "Echo Beach" by Martha and the Muffins. He sang for too long, way past where it would have been funny, through where it was sad, and stopped abruptly just before it got funny again. He giggled again, covering his mouth with his hand. "Anyway," he said, "what can I do for ye?"

"I want to buy something."

Paulsa weighed it up in his mind. It took a while. "Why didn't you get it off Liam?"

Maureen blushed. "I can't really," she said quietly. "It's for a nefarious purpose."

" A nefarious purpose?" Paulsa echoed, enjoying the unfamiliar word. "What is it you want?" She told him. "What are you going to do with it?" he asked.

She started to answer but he interrupted her after getting the gist of it. "Don't tell me about that any more," he said, looking shaken.

He tiptoed into the kitchen and came back with her order in a plastic money bag. "It might take about an hour to get going."

She gave him three twenty-pound notes from Douglas's money.

"I've no change," said Paulsa, worried that she might want to stay in his company while he got some.

"Don't worry, Paulsa," she said, moving toward the front door. "I'll get it from you again."

Paulsa tiptoed quickly around her and opened the front door, anxious to get her out of the house.

"I'm sorry I freaked you, Paulsa."

"I wish you'd never told me that."

"I'm sorry." She stepped out into the close and Paulsa shut the door quickly behind her. She shouldn't have told him: she had expected him to be less empathetic. She slipped the plastic money bag into her inside pocket and did up the buttons on her coat.

As she walked up to Argyle Street, where the buses stopped for the Drum, she passed a phone box and decided to phone Liz, just to touch down.

Garry answered. "I'll just get her," he said when Maureen said it was herself phoning.

Liz didn't bother to say hello or ask her how she was. "Did you get the letter he sent you?" she asked.

"No."

"Maybe it hasn't got to you yet. Maureen, he's sacking you."

"Oh, fuck."

"Did you send the line in?"

"No," said Maureen, "I've left it somewhere awkward. How are ye anyway, Lizbo?"

"Aye, fine."

Maureen wanted a comforting, normal conversation, but Liz could hear a strange tension in her voice and didn't want to chat about trivia with her. She was going to Tenerife in the morning and still had a lot of packing to do. They arranged to meet for lunch at some undefined date in the future. It was a more diplomatic cheerio than a final good-bye.

She stopped at an off-license and bought a bottle of peach schnapps. It wasn't until she was handing over the money that she remembered she didn't have a job anymore and that there would be no money coming in on Friday. It didn't feel right taking Douglas's money. Fuck it, she thought, I'll worry about that later, and she bought some fags as well.

The image of Douglas's balls made her throat ache as she walked to the bus stop. She stayed outside the shelter, leaning on the damp Perspex, and lit a cigarette, drawing heavily on the filter, shoving the grief downward into her belly, putting it by for later.

Leslie was sitting alone in the living room watching television, she was in an excitable, giggly mood.

"What are you so cheery about?" said Maureen.

"Oh," Leslie grinned, "I've just been with the Queen of Sadness all day. I'd shoot myself in the foot for a laugh right now."

"Yeah," said Maureen. "Where is she?"

"In bed," said Leslie. "We'll have to sleep on the floor again." She tried to rummage in Maureen's bag. "Drink," she said. "Give me drink."

"Wait, wait," said Maureen. She sat Leslie down on the settee and explained that she was going to take Siobhain to Millport in the next couple of days. "Can you come with us?"

"We're not going there for a laugh, are we, Mauri?"

"No," said Maureen. "I'm going to try and flush him out, get him to follow us and take care of it once and for all. Will you come?"

"I said I was in," she said definitely. "I'm in."

Maureen lit a fag. "I've finally been sacked," she said. "There's a letter on its way to my house."

"Because of the sick line?"

"Yeah. I don't mind not working and I can use Douglas's money if things get tight but I can't sit at home with my thoughts all day. I'll go bananas."

"Why don't you come and work voluntary at the shelter for a wee while? We're desperate for extra hands. I mean, you'd need to be passed by a committee and everything but I don't think it'd be a problem."

"That would be brilliant," said Maureen.

"We might not be working the same shifts or anything, and it might only last another couple of months, you know that?"

"Yeah, I meant it would be brilliant to do something that mattered."

Leslie looked at her thoughtfully. "I've been thinking," she said. "The budget committee meets in a couple of weeks. If we could get people to write in and protest it might change their decision."

"Yeah?"

"So?"

"Well, remember what the Guerrilla Girls did in New York?"

Maureen smiled a long, smug smile. "You mean mount a poster campaign?"

Leslie raised an eyebrow. "Might work. What d'you think?"

"I could pay for it out of Douglas's money. I'd like to do that. I don't know what else to do with the money." When Maureen got the bottle of peach schnapps out of her bag Leslie ran away into the kitchen and brought out a two-liter bottle of lemonade and some glasses. They settled down in the living room to watch television and get pissed. The programs weren't very good so Leslie put an old copy of Public Enemy in the video. They watched it, sipping at the sweet schnapps, laughing at Jean Harlow's cardboard hairdo and Cagney's macho posturing. When Cagney punched his mum on the chin Leslie laughed so hard she tumbled off the settee. She crawled to the bathroom on all fours. "Oh, man," she giggled, "I'm so fucking tired."

"Want me to pause it?"

"No, I can't watch any more."

She came back with two sleeping bags.

"I haven't brushed my teeth for two days," reflected Maureen.

"You're a dirty cow," said Leslie, arranging cushions on the floor.

"And I'm not brushing them tonight either."

"That's filthy," said Leslie, and slid into her sleeping bag. Maureen stripped down to her knickers and T-shirt, laid the beeper next to her on the floor and put out the lights. She fell into a drunken, hazy sleep.