Lonie17

Lonie walked to work on Monday morning. It was still early 4am, when he started out from his house, but his body had grown used to it. He liked that time in the morning, when the world was fresh and sleeping, and the worst thing he had to contend with was plastic bags drifting in the wind like Glasgow’s answer to tumbleweed, down the middle of empty roads, and stepping round puddles and blocked off drains. The Glasownian building was where the world began to wake up. The shutters were up, and the throb and roar of lorries coming in and out with their headlights on created their own ersatz daylight. Lonie went straight up the stairs, flung his Crombie over his seat and, as he checked his desk for any messages, or notes, lit a fag to get his breath back. There were none, so he headed into the kitchen area to make a cup of tea and to see what he could scrounge.

Lonie flicked the switch to put the kettle on. There was a pile of empty cups in the sink. He ran one under the hot water tap and checked the shelf above for coffee or teabags. There was only an unopened Nescafe jar, with a yellow Post- it sticker attached covering the label on both sides with the same message: ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ and in smaller writing ‘this is private property!!!’ The only thing missing Lonie thought was skull and crossbones. He slid a spoon from the drawer under the unit and gave himself two spoonful’s; glad that the coffee smelt fresh. As he waited for the kettle to boil he searched through the small fridge in the corner. He sniffed at the milk. It seemed a bit iffy, but would probably be okay. There were six eggs in a cardboard carton, but it was too early for the hassle of cooking. His fingers found a set of sandwiches, wrapped in tinfoil. The same message as the coffee jar was attached to them, but since Stick-it notes didn’t stick to tinfoil, there was an elaborate arrangement of red and blue elastic bands used instead. It was Mother’s Pride white bread, but with the crusts cut off. Lonie took a bite or two out of one slice, but spat it into the bucket, he didn’t really like cold egg and it tasted like cheap margarine. He carefully wrapped what remained and shoved the packet back into the fridge, which was also, as far as he knew, private property.

Davy Brown found Lonie, first thing in the morning, where he usually found him. ‘I’m sorry about what happened the other night with that asshole Tilby.’

Lonie shrugged. His bum was making a chair of the window sill, the frosted reinforced glass and metal bars of the window behind him acting as a back rest. He’d a fag in his hand and one burning in the ashtray, and a cup of coffee sitting on the worktop nearby. He reached for his coffee cup, swirled the last of its contents around to get the flavour of the purloined four sugars, and took a final swallow. ‘Nowt you can do about it. Nowt you can do with the likes of him.’ He put his fag packet and plastic lighter in the back pocket of his trousers to show Davy that he was fit and ready to start work. ‘What have you left on my desk.’

‘Gang fight and stabbing in Maryhill. Nothing much.’ Davy delicately took a Silk Cut out of his packet and lit up. ‘Phone Gartnavel and see if anybody’s died. That way we’ve got a story. Otherwise just crack on and tackle it in the usual way…gangs…knives…blight on our communities and somebody could be killed. It could be your son.’

Lonie stubbed his fag out in the sink and left the smeared blackend dout in the plughole. ‘Am on it boss.’ He mock saluted.

‘Fuck off,’ said Davie.

Back at his desk Lonie two-fingered typed the dupe, ‘gang,’ on the upper right hand corner of the page. The story almost wrote itself. He was unaware of the other reporters drifting into the building. He was unaware of the rising hubbub of noise. He was unaware of the dewy-faced sales girls drifting by in the corridors near his desk. But the beauty of it was that the world turned and each story was a fragile different thing and that was why he thought he’d the best job in the world. He became aware of the acrid smell of someone smoking some kind of fancy-dan foreign cigarette.

‘Can you give me a minute?’ Bresslen was standing near Lonie’s desk, his hand cupped up around the lit end of a fag and the usual mournful look on his face.

‘Sure.’ Lonie stopped typing, but words were still swirling around in his head and he looked back to the typed page with regret.

‘The thing is Tibly’s called in sick.’ Bresslen took a long puff of his fag.

Lonie waited, his face showing neither surprise nor any other emotion. If there was a long way of saying something and a short route, he knew from experience, Bresslen would take the former.

‘Another just phoned in sick too.’ Bresslen shook his head in a long drawn out sigh. ‘The thing is, that’s us, two reporters down.’ He took a long drag from his fag, as he let Lonie work out the implications of this.

Lonie reached for his fags and made encouraging noises to hurry Bresslen on.

‘We’ve still got to get through the same amount of work.’ Bresslen stiffened and his lips pressed together, ‘with two staff left.’

‘Ahu.’ Lonie had lit up.

‘You know what I think of staff taking time off?’

‘Ahu.’ Lonie had smoked about half a fag.

Bresslen shrugged and took another deep drag, stubbing his fag on Lonie’s desk and letting it fall into the bin beside him. ‘I’m no’ a doctor. And if they’re genuinely sick, they’re sick.’

Lonie stubbed out his fag on the ashtray on his desk, nailing the certainty Bresslen would finish their conversation some time that day.

‘The thing is,’ and Bresslen let his shoulders drop, ‘the fatman wants you on that Goldenwell piece.’

Lonie sat up straighter in his chair and looked up directly at Bresslen - if the fatman was giving out bad news he usually did it himself. ‘Yes, he did want me on the Goldenwell case. He promised it to me.’ He checked Bresslen’s face for a reaction, but that was like studying the moon.

‘I was just thinking that we don’t really need two reporters on the one piece.’ Bresslen sighed. ‘And Goldenwell’s not that far.’ He sighed again. ‘It’s just down the road. You could get a bus? So you don’t really need a lift. Do you?’

Lonie looked over the typed pages of the copy he was writing and sneaked a glance over at Audrey typing away efficiently in her female gulag in the corner of the office. ‘Have you told her?’

‘Not yet.’ A few lines were added to Bresslen’s forehead and his face crumbled a little. ‘I was kinda hoping you’d tell her.’

‘Not on your fuckin’ nelly,’ said Lonie. ‘That’s your job.’
***

The bus groaned up the steep winding road running from Gartnavel Hospital to Goldenwell Hospital. It was situated at the top of a hill in the estate of the ancient Farquahar house, but it was more like the sandstone shell of a castle with turrets and high walls. Lonie groaned too. He hated being locked in. A small pale man with glasses, sitting next to him, looked up from his leather-bound copy of the Bible, before looking out the window at the barbed-wired walls surrounding the secure unit, and looking into the middle distance of modern new hospital buildings clipped neatly together with concrete walkways and glass windows. Lonie figured him for being one of the order of brothers that helped to run the place. He could smell them. Knew the way his thin nose would crinkle up at raucous pop music, would get goose-bumps at the sight of scantily clad girls and would believe that hot dogs were a sex act, or somewhere in America. He also knew that the way he’d walk and act, as if he were a statue with his penis fallen off. The same type of brother that Mary had told him had raped her in clothes's cupboards, underneath stairwells and toilets without locks, their feet pegged against the door to stop anybody getting in. The small man sniffed as he went back to his earnest study of the Holy Bible. The type of man that made good use of the confessional box, to confess the same old sins, every day before taking the holy sacraments. Lonie knew the smell of those brothers’ well, the touch of them, and the way they thought female company a snare for the gravest sin. Lonie’s knee jerked away from that of the other man's in the seat next to him, but in a way he thought there might be some truth in it. He only had to think about Audrey sitting typing in the office to get an adolescent hard on. But he just wanted the bus to get him through the gates so he could breathe in some fresh clean air. He reached for his fags.

‘Do you mind?’ The older man kept a finger on the page he was reading. ‘You’re blowing smoke on my face.’ He searched for another seat, but most were taken by other workers on the two-to-ten shift and the bus was almost there.

‘Ah don’t mind at all.’ Lonie’s head rested against the window as he looked out and the bus slowed. The set of double gates locked behind them. He felt the ominous and dim thrill of an unknown danger pass through his body.

The old man got out of his seat and joined the other passengers working their way up the aisle and off the bus. Lonie waited, letting the babble of voices and familiar smells pass him.

The driver checked his rear view mirror, shuffled round in his seat and looked round at Lonie. ‘Get aff if you’re getting aff,’ he said.

Lonie finished his fag and stepped off the bus, crushing it with his heel into the tarmac. Up above in the bruised battlements of the secure city walls, and walkways, sounded out the harsh croak of corvines. His fellow bus passengers were queuing up ahead of him, with plastic bags and last- fag- before- we- go- in looks, waiting for the turnkey nurse to open the outer door of the secure unit. The familiar ringing of a bell could be heard somewhere inside the buildings.

Lonie felt his legs grow into the familiar institutional shuffle as he moved forward. The guard did not look like a priest or brother. He sat behind a wire mesh, underneath a single naked light bulb, with a gap at the bottom to pass documents through. He looked like a central defender with huge shoulders and a white shirt that took the strain of more muscles than a man should have. His peaked cap sat on the desk in front of him and his hair was short and trained to stand up stiff as a brush. His dark eyes studied Lonie.

‘Name,’ the guard demanded.

‘Peter Lonnigan’

‘Purpose of visit?’

‘Ah'm here to see Father Campbell.’

The guard’s finger scrolled down a long typed list. He turned it over and checked the other side. ‘I’m sorry sir. Your name is not on the guest list.’ His square jaw became even straighter.

‘Can you check again?’

The guard’s finger scrolled down again and flipped over the paper. ‘You’re not here sir.’ His dark eyes looked at Lonie evenly.

‘Cardinal Robbin’s made the appointment for me.’ Lonie knew how to play this particular game.

‘Yes sir. I’ll need to phone Father Campbell’s office to check.’

‘You do that.’ Lonnie tapped the counter in front of him impatiently. ‘Is there somewhere I can go while you do that?’ Lonnie reached for his fags.

‘Yes sir. You can wait here.’ The guard pressed a button and a buzzer sounded and the outer door behind him sprang open. ‘Or you can wait outside in the yard.’

Lonie had a fag whilst the guard made the necessary calls. Everything seemed to check out.

‘Would you like to sign this sir?’ The guard passed a piece of paper through the window. It seemed to be some kind of legal notice. His long blunted index finger tapped at the bottom of the page. ‘Sign here in block capitals.’ He moved down to the line below. ‘Sign here and date it.’

‘Thank you sir,’ said the guard, but made it seem like a curse. He pressed another button and a door into the secure unit sprung open.

A brother with an ankle length cassock was there to meet him. They were locked in a high ceilinged room that functioned as some kind of lobby, with lockers running down one wall. ‘Mr Lonnigan,’ he said, ‘I’m Brother Connelly, Prefect of Discipline.’ He stuck his hand out for Lonnie to shake.

Lonnie’s hand was crushed by the firm handshake and he wondered if they had a secret breeding site on the grounds for those sort of six- foot-seven monsters.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Brother Connelly, ‘but I’ll need to search you.’ His black horn-rimmed glasses glinted. ‘Is that alright?’

‘Sure,’ said Lonnie.

A statue of Saint Joseph stood on a pedestal at one end of the room watching him being frisked and, over the door a large crucifix hung as a meditation on suffering.

‘Follow me.’ Brother Connelly hurried ahead of Lonie, up three flights of stone steps, passing through cages and checkpoints, the thick crepe-rubber of his black shoes squelching as he walked. ‘This is the secure unit.’He stopped at modern looking door with an intercom built into the thick stone of the wall.

‘Looks secure enough to me,’ said Lonie.

‘I don’t have a key for this,’ Brother Connelly apologised. ‘Like everybody else I need to be let out and in. And like anyone else, if anything happens in there and I’m hurt or taken hostage there is no…’ but he didn’t get to finish. Another Brother, dressed in the same way, looked through the slit of a window and the door pushed open.