Exile Read Free

her wrist out and slapped Maureen’s arm. “At least phone—”
    “Don’t fucking slap me, Mum!” shouted Maureen. “I’m an adult. It’s not appropriate.”
    Winnie began to sob, making Maureen into the sort of person who would shout unkind things at her crying mother. She had promised herself peace from this but here she was, falling into the old traps, playing the bad guy again, coming to hate herself on a whole new level.
    “We don’t see him anymore”—Winnie struggled to speak through convulsive sobs—”and Una’s angry and George won’t speak to me … I miss you, Maureen. I don’t want you to not see me.”
    Maureen wondered at Winnie’s resilience. If Winnie had set her mind to world domination she could have done it. Unhampered by the twin evils of manners or empathy, Winnie could railroad an acre of salesmen into charity work if she set her mind to it.
    “Mum,” she said softly, “I don’t want to see you for a while and that continues to be true, whether or not you’re all having a nice time together.”
    Winnie clocked the condition. She looked up when Maureen said it would only be for a while and looked away again. She blew her nose and narrowed her eyes at Maureen. “Don’t you tell me what to do,” she said, hope twitching at the corners of her mouth. “You’re still a cheeky wee besom. And I’ll slap ye if I want to. I could take you in a fight any day.” She looked at the spilled meat, scattered and trampled by passing feet. “Are ye sure ye won’t have a slice?”
    Maureen started to smile but her eyes began to water and she had to breathe in deeply and blink hard to stop herself crying. It was good news: they weren’t getting on, he had nothing to keep him here, no reason to stay. Winnie took off one of her mittens and played with her hankie, pulling at the corners, looking for a dry patch. The wedding band George had given her was loose on her finger. Winnie was losing weight; her skin looked thin and a watery gray liver spot was developing on a knuckle. Maureen reached out suddenly and held her mum’s hand, cupping it in her own, trying to hold the warm in. The wind blew freezing tears across her face like racing insects. “Mum,” she breathed. “My mum.”
    They stood close, looking at Winnie’s hand, chins trembling for love of each other, crying for the pointless sadness of it all.
    “I can’t stand this,” whispered Maureen.
    “Me neither,” said Winnie.
    But she meant the moment and Maureen meant her life. Winnie reached up to Maureen’s face, dabbing at her wet ear like a drunken St. Veronica, letting her fingers linger on her cheek.
    Maureen sniffed hard, dragging the cold air up to her eyes, waking herself up. “Is he going back to London, then?”
    “Don’t think so,” said Winnie.
    “Who’s keeping him here?”
    Winnie tutted at her. “No one’s keeping him here,” she said. “He’s got a flat, a council flat, in Ruchill.” She pointed over Maureen’s shoulder to the horizon, to the jagged red-brick tower of the old Ruchill hospital.
    Maureen could see it from her bedroom window. She dropped Winnie’s hand. “What the fuck did you tell me that for?”
    Winnie shrugged carelessly. “It’s where he is.”
    “I don’t want to know anything about him and you come here and tell me he lives near me?”
    Winnie knew she was in the wrong. She tugged her mitten back on and pressed her face up to Maureen’s. “Did it ever occur to you,” she said, “that the rest of us know him as well?”
    “What?”
    “It’s not all about you,” shouted Winnie. “He’s their father too. Don’t you think they wonder about him? Don’t you think I wonder?”
    “Wonder?” shouted Maureen. “You stupid cow! D’ye think I was committed to a psychiatric hospital suffering from pathological wonder?”
    “Don’t you cast that up to me.” Winnie held up her hand. “Your breakdown wasn’t just about him. You were always a strange wee girl. You were