Read G03 - Resolution for Free Online

own life without a man who’d threatened his seventy-year-old mother. They wouldn’t go to court — families don’t go to court. “Might not come to it,” said Maureen, squeezing past her.
    “Aye, might not,” said Ella unconvincingly. “Eh, Pat by the river got raided yesterday.”
    Maureen would have heard it from someone else anyway but she knew Ella’s telling her was a friendship gesture.
    “Took all his fags away,” said Ella, “and he still needs to pay Sammy for them.”
    “Nightmare. Thanks, Ella.”
    “No bother,” said Ella, as if she’d done Maureen the favor. “By the way, wee Trish showed me your picture in the paper this morning. Ye look nice.”
    “In the what?”
    “You’re in the paper.”
    Maureen bolted for the mouth of the tunnel and the bright sunshine.
    The newspaper seller was hiding in the shadow of the high tunnel over the road, hollering headlines unintelligibly. The poster on the front of his stall read “Brady Trial Exclusive.” She bought the paper and read the front page. Angus Farrell had been declared fit for trial and had been charged with the murders of his colleague Douglas Brady and a hospital porter. The porter, Martin Donegan, had been twice the man Douglas ever was but his name wasn’t mentioned because his mother wasn’t famous. An old file photograph showed Carol Brady, the ex-MEP and victim’s mother, snarling into the camera. Mrs. Brady was quoted: “I am heartbroken,” claimed Brady. “He must never get out of Sunny fields.” Maureen had had an uncomfortable lunch with Carol Brady a year ago and knew her patterns of speech. Either she’d had a stroke in the interim or the journalist was making it up. A small inset photograph showed Maureen’s building from the outside, the black and gold Mars Bar advert above Mr. Padda’s shop visible in the corner. The close door was propped open in the picture, showing how insecure it was. Inside, on page five, they’d reprinted the photograph of Maureen on holiday in Millport. She was wearing a “Never Mind the Bollocks” T-shirt and shades, grinning as she held on to a rented tricycle. Liam and Leslie had taken her to the seaside for a holiday just after she got out of hospital. She was painfully thin but still recognizable. Any nutter with the price of a paper had her face, her name, a picture of her house and its approximate position in the city. Siobhain might see that headline, and God knew what it would do to her. Maureen felt the fight go out of her. It was too much, the baby and the trial at the same time. She leaned against the wall under the high arch, standing in the dark, pretending to read as she tried to get her nerve together. Angus Farrell was twice as smart as she was. He scared the shit out of her.
    She leaned her bare shoulder against the crumbling cold wall and looked at the guddle of the market. Joe the Hawk was selling car stereos with the wires still hanging out the back. Lenny’s daft wee dog, Elsie Tanner, was sniffing a blanket someone had left in a gutter. Milling crowds gathered around stalls selling tights and biscuits, curling tongs and bits of stereos. Everyone was sunburned in a snapshot trace of their activities the day before: red necks and shoulders from gardening, red forearms with inside elbows cadaverous white where they’d been reading a book or sipping cups of tea. The true religious had full-on red faces and white garrote rings around their necks. Gordon Go-a-Bike waved to her from his perch and she waved back. Gordon sold greetings cards in the lane. He had something wrong with his legs and rather than stand still all day and make his condition worse he sat on an old exercise bike and worked his knees while he shouted at the passersby to get their cards here.
    Maureen looked at the busy crowds of good people, looking for bargains and just the very thing. Not yet. None of it had happened yet. She dropped the paper to the ground. There was time enough for grief, she told