Lonie22

Lonie tossed and turned in bed, his sheet wrapping around him like a shroud. He woke with a jolt, started coughing to clear his lungs and reached for his fags. He’d been dreaming about some childish subterranean dark shapes, which disappeared with the scratch of a lit match and the first inhalation of life-giving smoke. He tried to work out what time it was by cocking his head and listening to the house and the traffic. It was still early. He slapped the pillow behind his back and sat up. His bum was pushed against the headboard and his feet tucked into the warmth of the covers. By the light of the fag end he could see no more than his fingers and the familiar shadows of the sink and bookcase. Sleep fell away from him as he swung out of bed and tried the arch of his foot against the linoleum. His body was prepared for the shock of the cold and, now he was up, started coughing and spluttering, coughing and spluttering as he made a mad dash towards the larger of the two sinks to hawk up green mucous from the back of his throat. His rheumy eyes watered as he looked out into empty backcourts and swept grey rooftops and the darkness of the sky with a gibbous moon hanging like a bent cutlass on a blackout curtain. He scratched his balls and sniffed his fingers, Audrey’s words haunting him like no dream could. He knew he’d have to go to the public baths in Partick or Clydebank, where the attendant would run a bath for him and let him soak and provide a fresh towel for less than the price of a few single fags. Maybe even a swim and a hot shower, but as he coughed spat out more sputum and ran it away with the cold-water tap the idea lost its youthful lustre. The best he could do now was to have a good wash in the sink and shave. He stuck the kettle on the gas ring and started whistling. He sniffed his pants to make sure they were clean enough and then put them on inside out to get another day out of them. A few splashes of Old Spice around his clean shaven face and surreptitiously dapped under his armpits and he was a new man.

With nothing better to do than gossip like a woman, Davy Brown hovered round about Lonie’s desk at work smoking Silk Cut. There were the usual minor stories of blood on the streets and sectarian violence to write about. One of the Rangers’ players, Alec McDonald, was crocked for the next Old Firm game, which had edged its way towards the front page as the week went on, but neither Lonie nor Davy were particularly interested in football.

Lonie smoked fag after fag and couldn’t concentrate. He’d already checked twice with Bresslen that Audrey would be working with him on the Goldenwell case. Lonie watched the swing of her hips as she passed his desk and went to sit at her own desk in little Siberia. She was tough as a prickly pear, he had to concede and he wasn’t sure how to handle her. He did what he usually did, when he’d a problem, and met it head on. She was parking her bag at the side of the desk as he approached. ‘Ah’ve got something Ah’ve got to say to you,’ he said.

Audrey’s chin tilted as she looked up at him and her mouth dropped slightly open and she shook her head at him. She didn’t want to know.

‘Ah’m sorry.’ Lonie sounded contrite.

The sound of Audrey wheeling her chair in towards her desk and straightening her typewriter to begin starting work didn’t deter him.

‘Bresslen says you’re to work with me on the Goldenwell case.’

Audrey’s two hands paused over the keys of the Olivetti and drew backward. ‘Wild horses wouldn’t make me work with you.’ Her left hand’s long fingers drummed loose key strokes on the chipboard of her desk as she waited for him to go away.

‘Let’s not bring animals into it.’ Lonie looked longingly back towards his own desk where he’d left his fags. ‘Bresslen’s askin’ you. Ah’m askin’ you.’ He noticed a softening around her eyes. ‘Let’s be professional about it?’

Audrey let out a long sigh, her hands falling into her lap as she turned to face him.

‘Ah hope we can patch things up so we can make each other miserable again.’ He watched a slight smile creep into her lips. When she chuckled he knew they would be working together. He allowed himself to smile too and his eyes to drop from her face to her breasts and take in the fresh clean-cut smell of her.

‘Some ground rules.’ Audrey held her hand up.

Lonie’s groaned and started coughing. ‘Excuse me,’ he croaked out and dashed across to his own desk, picked up the bin and hawked mucous into the scraps of paper lining its base. Grabbing up his fags and matches from his desk he sauntered back across to where Audrey was waiting.

‘You’re disgusting.’ Audrey shook her head in disbelief.

‘Whit?’ Lonie reached for his fags, his mouth and lips puckered in perplexity.

‘You just spat into a bin.’ Audrey sounded furious.

‘So? You want me to choke to death?’

‘Yes. If you’re going to be that disgusting.’ Audrey adopted a more neutral tone. ‘Somebody’s got to clean that up.’

‘Well, it’s no’ you, is it?’ The match Lonie was trying to light his fag with broke off, the burnt end flared briefly against his polyester trouser making him jump back and he savagely stamped it out.

‘Look,’ his finger stabbed out towards Audrey, ‘last night Ah was worried about you. Ah nearly phoned everybody Ah knew in Clarkston.’

‘How many people do you know in Clarkston?’ Audrey sounded more forgiving.

‘None. That’s whit stopped me.’

‘But I don’t live in Clarkston.’ Audrey smiled at him mischievously.

‘Where dae you live?’

‘Giffnock,’ Audrey said quickly.

Lonie puffed on a fag, deliberating. ‘That sounds worse than Clarkston.’

‘It may well be,’ conceded Audrey. ‘It may well be.’

‘You’ll need to gi'e me your phone number then?’ Lonie raised his eyebrows and his heart quickend.

‘Ground rules. Ground rules.’ Audrey slapped her thigh. Her voice sounded just as firm.

‘No talkin’ in class,’ grumbled Lonie and taking another look at her face, his head dropped and he took a sneaky look at her tits, ‘and no hanky-panky!’

‘Definitely, no hanky-panky.’ Her legs swished as she crossed her legs. ‘Talking in class is optional.’ She smiled at her own joke, but then grew more serious. ‘What I mean by ground rules is quite simple. No secrets. We keep each other informed of any developments. We get equal billing for the story. And we watch each other’s back.’

‘Deal.’ Lonie put his hand out. Audrey gave him a cursory handshake, but he couldn’t help adding ‘I’ll watch your back anytime,’ and licking his lips melodramatically, ‘and your front and side.’

‘Hey,’ said Audrey. ‘None of that. From now on I’m just one of the boys.’

Lonie snorted, fag smoke coming out the wrong way as he coughed,‘but I don’t like boys and Ah like you.’

‘I don’t know about that. Isn’t that Old Spice I can smell?’ Audrey bent down to pick up her bag. She flung the brown leather strap over her shoulder; picked up her coat and put it on. ‘Coming?’ Her one brown and one light-green eyes were almost level with his.

‘Sure.’ Lonie dropped his fag and stubbed it out on the floor.

‘Hi,’ she shook her head in irritation. ‘Don’t you learn anything?’

‘Whit. Whit ‘av’ Ah done now?’

Lonie was on his best behaviour. He didn’t even try and inveigle Audrey into letting him smoke. He just sat in the passenger’s seat of the Hillman Imp looking out the windows and shouting out ‘Turn Right, Turn Left, Go Straight On’ even though she practically knew the way.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ The car had stalled and she’d crunched the gears at a traffic light just off Hyndland Road, but he hadn’t reacted.

‘Av got a bit of a sore belly.’ Lonie's white hands made a blanket over his stomach and sweat ran down his forehead. He wound down the car window and let the slipstream of air keep him cool.

They were made to show their Press Credentials at every check-in point, but it was only when Audrey rang the bell at the door inside the walls of the main block of the secure unit that he slowed and stood crouched over with his hand up against the masonry, as if he was going to be sick. Audrey placed her hand gently on his shoulder.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘The smell,’ he said, ‘it brings back unhappy memories.’

Audrey’s neck twisted one way. Then the other. Her head turned towards two metallic towers that were belching out smoke or steam, but she couldn’t see anything else in faraway Gartnavel Hospital. ‘What smell? I can’t smell anything.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ He tapped a fag out of his packet and straightened up. A few ravens stretched their wings and took flight from the ramparts of the roof. ‘These places always make me feel a bit claustrophobic.’

‘It’s creepy.’ The caw-caw of the birds made her shiver. ‘All those locked- in windows looking at you.’

‘C’mon.’ Lonie straightened up and became more confident. ‘Let’s get in quick so we can get back out again.’ He pressed on and pushed the buzzer that alerted the guard that there was somebody at the main entrance.

‘Name?’ the guard demanded.

‘Peter Lonnigan. Ah was here yesterday to see Father Campbell. Ah phoned earlier. He’s expecting me.’

The same dark eyes looked through the mesh at him. The guard’s finger ran down the list in front of him. His face remained impassive, but his crew-cut moved a fraction as he nodded. ‘Right then.’ He passed the standard consent form through the bottom of the window.

Lonie smoothed it out on the brown hardwood counter and reached for the pen he kept in his top pocket. ‘You sign, here and here.’ He finger tapped the two places on the form Audrey had to sign. He gave her his pen. The guard was, however, shaking his head in a way that was familiar to Lonie.

‘Name, Madam?’ the guard interjected.

‘Audrey Crowood.’

The guard checked his list. ‘Sorry Madam. You’re not on here.’

‘What does he mean?’ Audrey asked Lonie.

Lonie stuck his hands in his coat pockets. He looked through the wire and met the guard’s eyes. ‘It means he’s no’ goin’ to let you in.’

‘But he’ll let you in?’ Audrey’s voice went up in stages.

‘Can Ah use your phone?’ Lonie asked the guard.

The guard placed his elbow on the counter so he could impart information through the spaces in the mesh better. ‘There’s a public phone box in the main concourse of the hospital.’

Lonie leaned on the counter, with one white hand on top of the other and his black coated arms spread out like chicken wings. He spoke hesitatingly to Audrey as he peered through the mesh at the guard. ‘Nah, he’ll definitely no’ let you in.’ His hand slammed down on the counter. ‘It’s more than my job’s worth.’ His fingers tapped against the mesh. ‘Is that the way it work’s pal?’ He leaned forward pressing his face against the window. ‘What about that old favourite of ours, Ah’m just daeing my job? Is that it pal? Is that it?’

The guard’s head almost smacked against the light bulb above his head as he jumped off his stool. He leaned against the wire on the other side to Lonie and shot a block of wood into the gap through which documents where passed in and out of his cage. ‘You forgot one. If you don’t like it,’ his face screwed up to deliver a growl, ‘you know where to put your complaints.’

‘Yes. We certainly do.’ Audrey’s voice jolted the two men into taking a step backwards. ‘Can you give me your name though? You don’t seem to be wearing any form of identification. And for a high security hospital I find that quite disturbing.’ She pulled a notepad out of her bag and put it on the counter with a polished Staedtler silver pen.

‘Mark Maxwell,’ said the guard his eyes downcast.

‘That’s fine.’ Audrey wrote his name down. The guard buzzed the outside door open. She turned towards Lonie. ‘Coming?’

Lonie hesitated. ‘You could wait in the car.’ He didn’t look at her, but looked more sympathetically at the guard on the other side of the wire.

‘You seriously think I’ll wait for you in the car outside?’ Her tone suggested she wasn’t just going to take Lonie's name.

‘No. No. Course not.’ He laughed it off as a joke, brushing past her on the way out