Angel 79 (hard decision)

Angel opened her mouth and closed it again, her tongue stuck to the palate like a spoon. Tears, hard gems, too painful to cry in a lifeless body.  If she hadn’t been clutching Adam she was sure she’d have fallen over, like one of those women in nineteen-century novels she’d  read that had to be revived with a healthy dose of smelling salts.

The heavily pregnant woman muttered to herself as she trailed through to the living room, back into the hall and checked the toilet, opening and shutting the door with a clatter and in at her back to the kitchen, with the double bed in it.

The floor creaked as she approached, top-heavy, cheap perfume a calling card.  Angel turned to meet her gaze, Adam her shield.

‘It’s fucking freezing,’ She slapped her hands against folded arms, sizing Angel up. ‘You no’ shut the fucking door?’

‘I was just leaving,’ said Angel.

In that way found her feet and a plan or sorts. Stepping through the hall into the living room. She crouched down, looking through the contents of the holdall with a critical eye, pulling out a woolly hat and jacket for Adam before zipping it shut, she pulled out her purse and put it on the arm of the chair, bedside her coat. When she put her coat on, she put her purse in her pocket.

The pregnant woman was watching her from the door. Mouth as wide as the Clyde   ‘Who ur you again?’

Angel put Adam’s hat and jacket on and squeezed past her jutting belly on the way out. ‘I’m nobody,’ she said. She cradled the back of Adam’s head. ‘We’re nobody.’

‘Right,’ I’ll tell Graham you were here,’ rang out at her sloping back, as the pregnant woman took ownership of what had been her dream.

Coming home, where Angel thought she’d be spending the night, and imagined even living here with Adam, a lifetime ago when she’d been in The Mother and Baby Unit and the future seemed something she could reach out and touch.  

When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she spoke a prayer, ‘God help me,’ and stumbled on, left it hanging in the cold wind outside.

She hurried down the street towards Dumbarton Road, not sure whether to turn left or right. Keeping a wary eye out for Pizza Face.  She ran in a stop-start sprint across the road, careful of cars overtaking a double-decker bus, bringing a redness to her cheeks. A man wearing a bunnet was watching her, leaning on the metal railing, smoking a fag, the soot-stained façade of The Hayburn Vaults glooming over him, claiming ownership.  He smiled as they passed as if his lips were memorising something he’d lost and his deep-set eyes were too sad to say.

Partick Train station was just behind The Vaults. She used one of the phone boxes on the low level and phoned her mum. Adam was heavy in her arms and girny, pulling one way then the other, wanting to be put down and to play.  She clutched the change in her hand, the receiver tucked into her shoulder with her chin. The phone rang and rang. She put down the receiver and dialled again. It rang out.

Adam sneezed, the mucous hitting the side of her face and ear. She used the lapel of her blouse to wipe it away. He sneezed again and she felt like smothering him.

She dialled Tony and he answered right away.

‘Alright, where are you?’

‘Partick,’ she looked about her, the tannoy echoing her words, ‘train station’.

‘Whit you daeing there?’

‘Dunno,’ she felt tears coming. She sucked in her breath and held the back of her hand to her mouth before she could speak again. ‘I need your help. I need your help, badly.’

‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I’ll dae anything fer you…But where’s Pizza Face?’

She shifted the weight in her hip and stuck in another fifty-pence. ‘Listen, never mind Pizza Face, I’m gonnae hold you to that. I cannae dae it anymere. I cannae dae it.’ She held the receiver away from her mouth while she sobbed and gathered herself together, her voice jagged, ‘I need you to take Adam’.  

His wee face and snotty nose looked up at her and she had to let go of the phone. Bawling and crying she wailed on the concourse, stamping her feet. A conductor with British Rail peeked hat, looked over, his eyes lifeless as the slit in a post-box. She picked up the receiver, ‘You still there?’

‘Aye,’ Tony said, ‘But I’m gonnae put…’

Then she heard Bruno’s voice. ‘Hi, Sweetie, I know you’re havin’ a hard time…I’m no’ sure whit to say here.’

‘I need you to take Adam.’

‘It’s no’ as simple as that,’ he quickly added. ‘You’re no’ gonnae dae anything stupid, are yeh?’

‘Stupid!’ she sobbed into the phone. ‘My whole life, I’ve done nothin’ but stupid. Why would I change that noo?’

‘Here’s whit I want you to dae, Sweetie. Have you got a pen? I’m gonnae gie you my address.’

She swallowed tears. ‘I’ve no’ got a pen…Will you take Adam or no’?’

He talked over the top of her, his voice calm. ‘I’m gonnae give you my address, I want you to repeat it back to me: 966 Paisley Road West, Flat 2/1’.

She repeated the address.

‘Right, whit I want you to dae is go outside and get a taxi. Gie them that address – and we’ll pay at the other end….You got that?’

She kissed the top of her son’s head, but he pulled away from her. ‘Yeh, but you need to take Adam.’

‘We’ll help dae whatever’s necessary to help you and Adam,’ Bruno said, diplomatically. ‘Remember we love yeh.’

‘Aye, I know that. That’s why I know I can depend on yeh. But, to be honest, it’d probably be best if I wisnae here…Money’s running oot.’

She hung up the phone, hugging Adam and picked up the bag. A Pepsi can rattled, dragged along by wind as it blew rain into the station entrance.