Seventeen 9 страница

Feeling no better, she got up and shuffled around the couch looking for hidden quarter bottles or half-finished cans. She stoated around the empty house, tipping out all the hiding places that might hold a forgotten drink: the laundry basket, behind the vinyl video case covers that were made to look like encyclopaedias. On her knees, she pulled all the empty grocery bags out from underneath the kitchen sink till she knelt waist-deep in a cumulus of blue and white plastic.

The panic set in. From room to room she wandered, making shrieking, sucking noises of frustration through her front teeth. She had to keep stopping to spit gobbets of rising boak into sinks and old tea mugs. She dug out her big black leather bag and rifled around inside for her purse, sprang the metal clasp at the top, and opened it. Saint Jude rolled around at the bottom in a bed of fluff and grit. It was Thursday, and all the Monday and all the Tuesday benefit money was already done in.

On the Monday prior, she had lain awake through the night waiting for the radio clock to turn to eight. In high heels and uneven eyeshadow she had fairly run up the Pit Road to cash what the miners’ wives called the “Monday Book. ” Standing at the back of the benefit queue, her head held high, her hands shaking in her pockets, Agnes had tried to ignore the women in their thin nylon jackets that made dry swishing noises. She stood there separate and aloof, as they rattled with their smoker’s cough, grumbling with sticky phlegm.

Thirty-eight pounds a week was meant to keep and feed them all. It made mothers stand in the little shop and look at pint cartons of milk like they were a luxury.

Agnes cashed the Monday Book with the air of a queen. She walked directly past the milk to the front of the shop, and promptly bought twelve cans of Special Brew. She talked cheerily about the good weather they had been having, but the Indian man said nothing. She was sure the blue elephant thing hanging behind him was giving her the hairy eyeball. She reclasped her purse demurely as he slid the cold metal tins into a plastic bag. The women behind her did sums out loud, their lips moving as they counted, adding bread to oven chips to cigarettes and then, defeated, putting the bread quietly back on the shelf. Agnes slipped back out into the street, and behind the low sandstone shop, she crouched in the broken glass and popped open the first cold can.

On a Tuesday morning she went back to the shop already with a drink in her. She glided up the dual carriageway, her knees dipping elegantly with each step. Agnes cashed in her Tuesday Book of eight pounds fifty in child support. Fortified by the Special Brew she told the shopkeeper that his blue elephant gave her the “heebie-jeebies. ”

But it was Thursday now. She looked down into the purse, empty but for Saint Jude and the oose gathering in the creases. Sad, selfish tears of the poor me’s welled in her eyes. She raked a finger through the dirty ashtray. She needed to think what to do next.

The alcohol leaving her body made it hard to watch the television, so she ran a hot bath. The water would make her feel less cold, less sore. She rinsed the sweat and flatness out of her hair. She took the flannel cloth and began wiping the taste off her teeth and lay back in the scalding water and thought how she could get some money. Across her soft middle ran a deep red welt where, after she had passed out, her black tights had dug in, bruising the flesh. She stuck her finger in the welt. It ran across her spare tyre like a train track and that made her think of the Glasgow train, Paddy’s Market, which lay underneath its arches, and the pawnshop that sat there.

Without drying herself she ran about the house in a wet housecoat looking for something to pawn. In the daylight everything looked cheap and worthless. She turned every Capodimonte ornament in her hands and even tried picking up the black-and-white television, but she would never be able to hump it by foot into the city. In the bedroom she considered her jewellery, all the odd pieces that were lying loose in an old penny-bank bag: the Claddagh rings her mother had given her, her granny’s locket, Catherine’s christening bangle. It took effort, but she reluctantly put the bag back in the drawer.

She did a sly amble past Leek’s heavy toolbox. She nudged it with her toe. It was empty, he had taken all the tools with him to the YTS job site. He had carried it all, even the things he would surely not need. He had learned his lesson the last time she had been itching for pawn. Agnes scratched at her palm. She kicked the empty toolbox and went to Catherine’s wardrobe. She was surprised to find so little inside, it was like Catherine was a lodger who hadn’t committed to a new place. She turned a pair of high suede boots in her hand, but they had long been ruined with rain and mud.

Losing hope, she opened the little linen cupboard that held the good towels. There, folded away in a bin bag, was the old-fashioned mink coat she had bought on Brendan McGowan’s good tick. She took the plastic bag out of the cupboard and pushed her hand inside to the furry pelt. It felt like pure money.

Within the hour she had her hair set, the long mink coat on, and was walking up the main road the long miles to Paddy’s Market. She walked against the traffic, her head high, with a knowing smile on her face. The Pit grit pushed into her open heels as if it were beach sand. She straightened her back to look like she enjoyed letting the rushing traffic blow through her hair and tried to ignore the fine dust that rasped between her toes. Passing cars slowed at the odd sight. Her face burned with the flying grit and the shame, but she tilted her head back and walked on. She felt like she must have looked mental.

Every time she neared a bus stop she lingered like she was waiting for a bus, making a grand gesture of looking up her sleeve at a watch she did not own. Then she waited until the traffic thinned a little and walked on to the next one, her head thumping, her heart burning. Four miles or so from the scheme, a bus slowed and actually stopped for her. Looking the other way she took one hand from her mink pocket and waved it away, like she was too good, as miners’ wives gawped out the window at her.

By the time she reached the outskirts of the city it had started to spit. It was a light sprinkle at first that hung on the tips of the coat and glistened like hairspray. Agnes was exhausted from walking in the high heels, but as she crossed the narrow streets of her first marriage, the fear that she could meet someone she knew made her walk faster. The spit became a downpour and soon the drenched coat slapped off her bare legs like a wet dog tail. She took refuge in a tenement doorway and watched the buses push dirty waves on to the pavement. For a moment, she missed the good Catholic.

Black mascara ran down her cheeks. She had a crumpled wad of toilet paper, and folding the sour boak stains into the back she wiped the lines beneath her eyes. The coat was sodden and matted in places where the water had pooled and sat. She took an ornament out of each pocket and rubbed the glass faces of the ballerinas till they were dry.

Across the road sat a long grey building. On the left hand was a taxi garage of sorts, where parts of broken black hacks and minibuses lay around like dinosaur bones, and somewhere in the back a radio played. Beyond this sat a small office, and through the dirty window Agnes could see that the walls were lined with new fan belts and hubcaps, tins of grease, and bottles of engine oil. It was a heavy service garage, not for the casual motorist. There were no packaged sandwiches, no maps of things to see.

A little bell rang as Agnes went inside. She was making a puddle on the floor as a man in overalls came through at the bell’s command. Red-haired, stocky, and flat-faced, his head joined directly to his body as if a neck were an unnecessary luxury. He looked up from his dirty hands, surprised to see a beautiful lady in a fur coat standing there.

“I’m really very sorry to bother you, ” started Agnes, in her best Milngavie accent. “But I got caught in the rain and I wondered if you had a toilet I may use. You know. To tidy up a little. ” She pointed at the wet coat.

“Well …” He rubbed his stubble. “It’s no really for customers. ”

Agnes pulled at the coat; it shook big globs of water. “Oh, right, ” she said, her eyes falling to the dirty floor.

He studied her for a minute and with a scratch of his thick arm declared, “Well, ye dinnae look like a customer either, so ah suppose that mibbe it wid be alright. ”

He led her through the garage. Taxis lay in states of disrepair, leaking motor oil that made the floor difficult to walk on in heels. She watched the coat drip on to the greasy cement and the water bead and run away like little tears.

“Um, wait there just a minute, ” said the man. He darted nervously inside a thin red door. She heard the rrshhhh noise of canned air freshener, and he appeared a minute later with rolls of magazines and newspapers under his arm. “It’s a bit basic, but ye’ll find all ye need. ” As he held the door, a blonde with big tits peeped out with a saucy wink from under his arm.

Agnes went into the filthy bathroom and closed the door tight. She stood for a long while looking at the melted old hoor in the mirror. In the toilet there was no automatic dryer, so she took a handful of paper towels and started grabbing fistfuls of the wet coat, pressing the towel into it like she had spilt something on a carpet. As much as she could grab and squeeze, the coat kept giving out more and more rainwater.

It took her a long time before she felt composed enough to step back out into the garage. The man was right outside the door, frozen to the spot, with two mismatched mugs. “You looked like ye could use a warm cup of tea. ”

“Do I look that bad? ”

“Oh, naw. ”

She took the mug; it was only slightly oily. “I must look like a drowned rat, ” she said, in the hopes he would disagree.

“Drowned mink, really. ”

As the man looked around for a clean seat, Agnes studied him closely. He had washed his face since she came in. There was a ring of oil round his neck and sideburns where the cloth had missed, and the front of his fair hair was still wet against his pink face. He was handsome, she thought, in a solid, Shetland pony sort of way. He pulled out a bar stool, and she noticed his left hand had only two fingers and a thumb, the other two gone like he had chewed them down when he was nervous.

He met her eyes and moved the hand behind his back. “It’s a long story. ”

Agnes cringed, embarrassed to have been caught staring. “We’ve all got a couple of them. ”

“Missing fingers? ”

“No, ” she laughed. “Long stories. ”

“Like how youse are off to pawn that coat? ”

She laughed again, too sharply this time, and then she stopped. He wasn’t laughing with her now. She brought that Milngavie voice out again, the one that said, I am a woman with a rich man and a big house. “I am not off to pawn this coat. What on earth gives you that idea? ”

Without hesitation the man said, “Oh, ah’ll gie ye one better. Ye’re off to pawn that coat, ye’ve walked here aw the way frae Ballieston or Rutherglen. ” He looked off to the side. “No, wait! There’s a pawnshop in Rutherglen. ” He went quiet for a minute. “You’ve walked here from …” he snapped the fingers of his good hand. “Pithead! ”

Agnes blanched.

“Am ah right? ”

“No. ”

He paused for a minute and looked at her over the top of his cracked mug. “God, ah’m sorry, Missus. Ah mean, how fuckin’ rude of me. Ah thought ye were off to pawn that coat. Ye know, for drink money like. ”

Agnes lowered the mug from her cold lips. Her eyes found his. “Well, you’re wrong. ”

“Aye, well now, is that right? ”

“Yes. ”

“Well, that’s for the best then, int’it? ”

“Why? ” she asked, despite herself.

“Cos the Gallowgate pawnshop is shut for gasworks, that’s why. ” She scowled at him to see his bluff. He only raised an eyebrow. “Look, ah wisnae trying to be rude. Honest Injun. It’s just that it takes one to know one, eh? ” He held up his bad hand in testimony and wiggled his two good fingers.

Agnes sat the mug down with a slosh. “Thank you for letting me use your toilet, but really I’d better go. My husband will be worried sick. ”

“Aye, ye do that. It’s a long walk home in the rain. Still, mibbe ye’ll find that wedding ring ye’ve lost. ”

Agnes had gone right off of him. She lifted her head high and pushed her black curls away from her face. “What do you want with all this? ”

He turned his mouth down in disappointment. “Nothing. Well, not what youse think anyway. Look, Missus, ye just came in here in a right sorry state, and from the look o’ ye, there was a thing or two ah could easy tell. ” He slowed himself slightly. “Ah could tell because ah’d been through it maself, that’s all. Don’t get your knickers in a knot. Finish your tea, won’t ye? Ah used a new teabag for that cup and everything. ”

Agnes took up the tea again, using it to hide her shock, to fill the silence, to stop the bubbling inside her gut.

“So, have ye been to the AA yet? ”

Agnes stared at him blankly.

“Alcoholics Anonymous? ” He started singing, “Wan day at a time, sweet Jee-sus? ” Agnes shook her head.

“Well, are ye at least willing to admit ye have a problem? ” He tilted his head like a tired schoolteacher. “Ye came in here wi’ the level-five shakes. ”

“I … I was wet … and cold. ”

He laughed. “Look, when ye are wet or cold yer knees knock and yer teeth chatter. Ye know, like this. ” He made a cartoon impression of a frozen lunatic. “BUT! When ye are scratching around looking for a bottle of lighter fluid to drink, ye shake like this. ” The man shook like a reanimated corpse.

The shame rose in her again. “What would you know about it? ”

“Ah know that yon mink will only get you about six bottles of vodka and mibbe a hot fish supper. ” He picked at his teeth. “Well, at least my mammy’s did when I robbed it off of her. I also know that six bottles of vodka, a fish supper, and three nights spent sleeping in the gutter will gie ye septicaemia. ” He waggled his half fingers again.

They were quiet for a while after that. He opened a packet of cigarettes, and after taking one from the pack with his teeth, he offered the pack to Agnes. Agnes lit the cigarette and drew on it like she was famished. Her shoulders fell, and catching her breath she gazed around at the black hack graveyard. “Do you know a taxi driver named Shug Bain, by any chance? ”

“Cannae say that ah do, ” said the man, studying her face.

“He’s a short, fat, balding pig. Fancies himself as a Casanova. ”

“That could be any one of them, ” he laughed. “What rank is he wi’? ”

“Northside. ”

“Naw, they put their motors in at yon garage on the Red Road. Probably never met him. ”

“Well, if you ever meet him could you fix his brakes? ”

The man smiled. “For you, beautiful, absolutely. ”

The man finished his cigarette and went on studying Agnes. “He’s no the reason you’re headed down the plughole, is he? ” Agnes didn’t answer. He began to howl meanly: “Ah-ha, ya daft eejit. Doin’ yersel in for a man. ”

Her shoulders pulled up proudly again. “What if I am? ”

“Do ye know what to do, if ye really want to get yer own back? ” He paused.

So like a man, she thought, to have an opinion on everything. “What? ”

“It’s quite easy. Ye should just get the fuck on with it. ” He slapped his hands and threw them open in a wide tah-dah gesture. “Get on wi’ yer fuckin’ life. Have a great life. Ah promise that nothing would piss the pig-faced baldy bastard off more. Guar-rant-teed. ”

Twelve

In the end, Catherine twisted Shuggie’s wrist and dragged him down Renfield Street. The boy had stopped at nearly every corner to silently lodge a protest about how much he didn’t want to go. Without a word he would stand on his laces, and with a sleekit eye on her face he would gently let the knot unravel.

“You are bloody doing that on purpose! ” seethed Catherine, bending to retie the school shoes for the fourth time in ten minutes.

“Am not, ” said Shuggie with a satisfied smile. He took one of his mother’s romance novels out of his anorak pocket, and opening it, he rested it on the top of Catherine’s head as if she were a hallway table. He started to read. Catherine stood up and snatched the book from him, an angry devil boiling inside her, and she lashed the thick book across the back of her brother’s legs. She seized him by the wrist again. “If we miss this bus there won’t be another for ages, and when you start complaining, ‘I’m Hun-gry, I’m Thir-sty, I’m Ti-red …’” She mimicked his whine. “Well, you needn’t think I’m going to take pity. ”

“I don’t sound like that, ” huffed Shuggie, his legs windmilling to keep up with his sister’s stride. He twisted his arm from her grasp. She halted and spun her brother to face her. “Shuggie. I thought we were to be pals. You and me. ” Her face didn’t look very friendly.

He huffed, “I don’t want to be your friend. ”

She cupped his chin and turned his head gently back to face her; his eyes followed reluctantly. She ran her fingers through his neat parting and separated the thick black hair the way Agnes liked. The boy had grown so much over the past two years in Pithead. It was hard to describe, he had grown taller but he had also sunk somehow, like bread dough stretched much too thin. She could see he had slid deeper into himself and become more watchful and guarded. He was nearly eight now, and often he could seem so much older.

“Now when we get there I want you on your best behaviour. ” Catherine smiled a polite hello to an older couple passing in colourful rain cagoules. “Please, do this for me? I’m caught in the middle of a big, big mess, and I’m only asking for a little help. ” She looked at his small face, his lips pursed, he looked like a stubborn old wummin. She let her hands fall defeated to her side. “OK, you win. As always. But I want you to know that if you do tell Mammy where I took you today, she will die. Do you hear me? Die! ”

Under sullen lids, his eyes swung back to meet her face. “How? ”

“Shuggie, if you tell her she will take more and more drink, and she won’t ever be able to stop. ” Catherine stood up and unclipped her coin purse; it was cognac-coloured with a painted camel and had been given to her mother by Wullie once. She counted out enough silver coins for two bus fares. “She will drink so much she will wash all the goodness out of her heart. T’chut. If she does that, I don’t think Leek will ever speak to you again. ” She closed the old leather purse shut with a satisfied click, and her face brightened. “Oh, look! Here comes the bus. ”

They sucked on soor plooms and pressed their noses against the front window of the top deck. The bus swung across the river, and Catherine pointed at the bones of the Clyde, the cranes that were out of work for good. She told him about how Donald Jnr had been let go from the shipbuilders, how he wanted to go to Africa for work.

“Say a prayer for me, Shuggie …” she pleaded.

“I have a long list. I will add you, ” he lisped, his cheek bloated with the sour sweetie.

Catherine could believe her brother had been praying his very hardest for lots of things. She picked the raw skin around her thumb and worried again that she was doing the wrong thing. Since Shug had left her mother, she had told herself that it was not her fault. It rarely worked, but the selfish part of her would not be dissuaded. It wasn’t fair: just because her mother had lost her man, why should she give up hers?

When they got off the bus, they passed rows of identical brown houses, all with fenced-in gardens in the front. None of the houses had any flowers. Catherine walked up a narrow path and through a heavy brown door without knocking. She stepped on to a stranger’s hall carpet and waved at her brother to follow. Shuggie had never seen this house before; he was suddenly scared at how familiar it all was to Catherine.

The house was warm, like there were plenty of coins in the meter, and it smelled rich and sweet with the scent of roasted potatoes and meat gravy. Catherine sat on the carpeted stairs that ran to a second floor. She unzipped his anorak and hung it on the banister. Shuggie could hear televisions roar different channels from different rooms. The Old Firm match was on in the front parlour, and cartoons were honking and tweeting from somewhere upstairs. Catherine fixed his tie and kissed his cold cheek. “Best behaviour, right? ”

She led him through to the back of the house, where a warm dining room was connected by a serving hatch to a thin kitchenette. As they came in, six or seven adults Shuggie didn’t know turned at once and smiled. Catherine dropped her brother’s hand and went to a man who looked like Donny Osmond. She kissed him lightly on the mouth.

“We were wondering where you had gotten to, ” said the man, rubbing the back of his fingers gently over her cold cheeks.

“You should try dragging him through a packed town centre. ” She turned to her brother, who was standing in the doorway. “Shuggie, don’t just stand there, come over here and say hello to your Uncle Rascal. ”

Shuggie stepped into the dining room, the heat and the smell of roast ham made him feel light-headed. He wrapped one arm around Catherine’s legs as she introduced him to the adults who were huddled around a sliding door, smoking cigarettes and making a great show of blowing smoke carefully out into the back garden. He didn’t recall most of their names as soon as they were said. She turned him towards an armchair in the corner. “This is your Uncle Rascal. ” She gave the boy a light push. Shuggie held out a polite hand and shook the man’s paw.

So vague was his memory of his father that for a moment he thought the man could be him. There were the same ruddy flushed cheeks and a thick, manicured half-moon of a moustache. The man looked like a photo Shuggie had seen once, hidden underneath his mother’s underthings in a drawer, but instead this man still had a thick head of hair, which was dyed a gravy brown but real and thick and all his own. Rascal pumped the boy’s arm till it hurt. “Been too long, wee man! Terrible situation that it is. ” The man smiled. There were happy stars in his eyes.

Catherine introduced him to the Donny Osmond who had kissed her. “This is Donald. You remember, don’t you? Well, Donald and I are getting married. ”

The boy glanced up at her. “Will I get cake? ”

The man stepped forward and shook Shuggie’s hand. He looked like he had brushed his brown hair from the underside, so that it curved like the cap on a shiny button mushroom. He was pink and thick and friendly-looking. He pumped the boy’s hand too. “I see it. I can. I can see the resemblance now, ” he roared.

“I’m sorry there are no more big boats for you to hammer, ” said Shuggie earnestly.

“No bother, wee man, ” said Donald. “Will you come visit us when we live in Africa? ”

Catherine scowled at Donald as she lifted her brother and nearly pushed him whole through the serving hatch into the kitchenette. There was a mess of bubbling pots, and a deep-fat fryer full of roast potatoes was crackling in the corner. Catherine introduced him to Donald’s mother, his Auntie Peggy. Everything about her was small and pointed, from the happy corners of her eyes to the pink tips of her ears. Catherine whispered into Shuggie’s ear, and the boy repeated: “Thank you. For. Having me. To dinner. Auntie. Peggy. ”

“So, where is he? ” asked Catherine, lowering her brother. “I’ve lied and lied and dragged this boy through the town for him. Are you to tell me he’s not showed up? ”

Shuggie felt a flick on the back of his bare neck, a thick flat fingernail welt like the ones Gerbil McAvennie gave when Father Barry was not looking. “Oww! ”

“Don’t stand there with your back to me, son. ” The man in the black suit filled the doorway, not in height but in breadth. Shuggie eyed him with caution. There again was the thick moustache and the quick eyes from the photograph. This man was flushed-looking, his head pink and scrubbed clean under long thin strands of brown hair that were combed over the top. His nose was small and delicate, not like the Campbell bone, and his brows were straight and dark and hid the darting of his clear eyes. Shuggie watched him and wanted to touch his own face, to feel it and see whether he had the same rosy round cheeks, the same thick hair on his lip.

Behind the man was a woman, waiting to be introduced, her hands clasped demurely across her front. Shug twisted the ring on his pinkie finger. “Are you not going to give your old man a hug? ”

Shuggie had not seen his father in a long time. Anytime Shug had come to the Pit he had made sure the children were in bed first. Shuggie held on to his sister’s leg. Catherine spoke for her brother. “Shug, he’s shy. And no wonder with you flicking at the wean like that. ”

“It’s the Bain code. Hit them afore they hit you. ” He crouched, and Shuggie could hear the heavy swing and clash of many silver coins in his pocket. “I like your tie, very dashing. Are you breaking hearts yet and taking after your old man? ” There was movement behind him as the woman who had been waiting came through.

“I swear, travelling on an Old Firm day is a bad idea, ” the woman said. She was worn-out looking, the sides of her eyes puckered as she pulled a tight, reluctant smile. She was shorter than his father, which made her very short. Her hair was clipped close to her head, and Shuggie could see the grey untended roots throughout. She wore a simple V-neck jumper with a large Pringle lion on the chest, and under that she wore a pair of women’s trousers. She looked like one of the dinner ladies at school when they smoked by the bins after lunchtime.

Catherine stepped forward without a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Joanie. ” She didn’t look like she meant it. They shook hands, then collided in a clumsy, nervous embrace.

Shuggie’s head nearly snapped on his neck, and his lips must have been hanging open because Catherine pulled her quit it face. His father, still crouched, never took his eyes from his son’s and was smiling like he was enjoying himself. Shuggie pulled on Catherine’s blouse. She leaned over, and he cupped a hand over her ear. “Caff, that’s bad Joanie. You are not supposed to like her. That’s the hoor who stole my daddy. ”

“Say hello to your new mother, ” baited Shug, still grinning. “Go on, give your new mammy a hug. ”

“No. Some of us know what side our bread is buttered on, ” said Shuggie, leaving the safety of the traitor’s leg. He didn’t know where he had heard that before, probably from her, screaming at her phone table.

“Pfft. You’re gonnae need a new mammy, Shuggie. That old one you’ve got is for the knacker’s yard. ” Shug stood up with a click of the knee and a wince. “Or the Eastern Hotel, more like. ”

Joanie waved a small hello to the boy. She held out a paper shopping bag. “You never mind him, son. Sometimes I swear his heart is as empty as a Fenian’s cupboard on a Thursday. ” She came forward with the shopping bag, it looked very heavy. “Listen, you don’t have to call me anything but Joanie. ” She peered into the bag. “Our Stephanie has outgrown these, but they are so new-looking I hadn’t the heart to throw them out. Would you like them? ”

He shook his head no, but his lips said, “What are they? ”

She came closer and set the bag between them like she was feeding a cautious beast. Then Joanie the Hoor took two steps back. “Ye’ll just have to look and see. ”

His father came out of the kitchenette with a tall glass of milk, there was already a rich line of cream on his bristles. He leaned against the wall and watched the boy hug the safety of the corner. Shuggie wanted to step away from the bag, wanted to pretend like he wasn’t interested, but it was calling to him, and he found himself stepping towards it. He tapped the bottom of the bag with his toe and it was heavy. He used a finger to push it open. At the bottom were eight bright yellow wheels. His eyes were wide as saucers as he took out the first roller boot.

“I still don’t know why we couldn’t have given him Andrew’s old bladder fitba, ” said Shug to Joanie.

They were a bumblebee-yellow suede with white stripes and white laces. The laces were fed through a dozen holes, and the boots went up nearly to his knee. He loved them.

“What do you say to Joanie? ” prodded Catherine.

He wanted to pretend he did not care. He wanted to put the boots back in the bag and tell Catherine that they had to leave. He felt like a traitor. He was no better than his sister.

Auntie Peggy’s high voice came out of the kitchen hatch. “Shug. You’ll never believe what the Prodigal has gone and done. ”

Shug smirked at his nephew and then smirked at Catherine in a way that made her want to fold her hands over her chest, over her belly.

Donald Jnr spoke first. “No! It’s no that, Uncle Shug. I’ve got an offer of work, good high-paying work where I get to be lord and master over four dozen men. ”

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