MAUREEN HAD MEANT IT TO BE A KIND OF LOVING goodbye scene—like the one between Anne and Diana when Anne leaves to go to college in Anne of Green Gables—because, despite the fact that Kathleen drove Maureen right around the bend, Maureen knew that she did love Kathleen.
But she also knew that she did not want her right up on top of her all the time.
“Gosh, Kathleen, two pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time. It’s a basic law of physics or something,” Maureen said as she pushed Kathleen off her lap. Kathleen looked crestfallen as she fell, but she had a determined look on her face at the same time and started inching her way back toward Maureen’s lap right away.
“Where’s Dad?” Maureen asked her mother.
“No boats in today, so he’s down to the Ritz Tavern. Where is he ever at if he’s not down to the wharf? Make yourself useful and go down with Raymond and haul him home out of it,” the Sarge said.
“Jesus. No way, Mom,” Raymond said. “Let him rot down there if he wants to.”
“Aw, come on, Raymond,” said Maureen. “We’ll go down and get the old man.” Maureen was longing to do something, anything really except just sit there, sweating bullets, worrying about the cops and trying to find a way to say goodbye.
“I got better things to be at with my time,” Raymond shot back as he went out the door.
“Yea, better things like B and E’s and breaking into the Humpty Dumpty warehouse and stealing bags of chips. You big bastard, if you’re going to be breaking in somewhere, get something worth robbing, you big stupid gom,” said the Sarge.
Raymond sailed through the door and didn’t give her a second look.
“Mom, don’t be encouraging him.”
“Oh, shut up your foolishness, Maureen. What in the fuck do you know about it? We haven’t seen hide nor hair of you this six months, and now suddenly you knows all to do about everything around here. Don’t make me laugh, my dear. He’s in with a bad crowd, Sylvie Farrell and them—big, dangerous and stupid. And if that’s the way he’s going, if he’s getting ready for the pen, he better get in with a smarter crowd . . . What are you doing here today?”
“Actually, I just stopped in for a minute. I got to go down to the cop shop in the morning.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what are you going down there for?”
“They’re questioning me about Bo’s murder.”
“You?” The Sarge fell back, staggered but not knocked down, and she was immediately on the offensive. “Murder? Murder? . . . What in the name of God have you done now? Murder?”
“Mom, I never murdered him.”
“Well, the police have got to have something on ya, Maureen. They don’t go around accusing people of murder out of the blue.”
“They never accused me of murder, Mom. They just said I was of interest and I had to come down to the police station to be questioned.”
“See, I said that, see, as soon as ever I clapped eyes on that bastard . . . Oh, he’s up at the university, you said, his father got his own business, Miss All-the-time-trying-to-be-what-you’re-not. Now, fuckmentions, now look where that’s after landing ya. You got to stick with your own kind, Maureen. Going around putting on airs. Oh, ‘I’m the film-strip librarian for the Department of Education.’” Edna minced around the kitchen and screwed up her face in a cruel mockery of Maureen.
“I quit that,” said Maureen.
“What?” the Sarge snapped. “Have you got another job?”
“No.”
“Jesus. You were lucky to get that job. You can’t just go quitting jobs before you got another one to go to. You haven’t got a fucking dust of sense. Kathleen got more sense than you do.”
“Well, if . . . you know . . . the police do charge me, then what odds?”
“Well, foolish arse, that is the most foolish thing that ever came out of that foolish mouth of yours ever. And that’s saying something. ’Cause you have made a vocation of spitting out foolishness.”
“Mom, get off my case, will ya?”
Kathleen had worked her way back into Maureen’s lap. She said, “Get off Maureen’s case, Mom, get off her case, ’cause Maureen never comes over here, and here she is over here, so we got to all not get up on her case.” She looked back at Maureen and smiled. “Get off Maureen’s case, get off her case—”
The Sarge turned like a savage. “You keep your mouth shut. Now, what did I tell you about having your big mouth goin’? None of your business. I’ll put you up over those stairs and into bed for a week.”
“I’m twenty-eight. I’m not going to bed. I’m not a baby. I’m not going. I’m not going to bed. I’m not a baby, I’m a big girl, big girls don’t go to bed in the afternoon.”
The Sarge came barrelling at Kathleen, hauled her up off Maureen’s lap and started manhandling her up over the stairs. Kathleen was desperately holding on to the banister and fighting every step of the way. Maureen didn’t know what to do and she didn’t know where to go. Bringing her troubles to Princess Street had proved to be no help to anyone. She was on the street before she realized that she hadn’t even managed to say goodbye to Kathleen, the whole reason she’d gone down there in the first place.