Hasibah’s Reviews > Young Mungo > Status Update

“James raised his broken hand in a half-greeting. It was discreet, tentative, like they were only strangers. But it was only for Mungo. It was for no one else.
Mungo smiled something small and timid. James returned it, and they let their grins widen slowly, slowly, until Mungo knew what he was going to do, where he was going to go. The only place he would ever want to be.”

“He was watching, and he was waiting, and he was leaving all at the same time.
They stood and regarded each other over the four lanes of traffic. It felt like an eternity. Every time a white van would block his view, Mungo's stomach lurched and he held his breath until it moved again and he was sure the boy was still there, with his packed bags,still watching and waiting. There he was, James-Guid-and-True. ”

“"Cheer up. I love you, Mungo Hamilton." "Don't." Something in him could not stand to be loved. "How no? I can love you if I want."”

“Mungo's capacity for love frustrated her. His loving wasn’t selflessness; he simply couldn't help it. Mo-Maw needed so little and he produced too much, so that it all seemed a horrible waste. It was a harvest no one had seeded, and it blossomed from a vine no one had tended. It should have withered years ago … Yet … it lay about him like ripened fruit and nobody bothered to gather it up.”

“Mungo looked both up and down the hill, and then hekissed James quickly on the lips. It was like hot buttered toast when you were starving. It was that good.”

“A fissure Mungo hadn't known about cracked open in his chest; beneath it was a hollow feeling that had never bothered him before. It was an agony not to raise his own hand and touch the hairs James's fingers had licked. It burned. He wanted nothing more than to feel the warmth left by his touch.”

“Mrs Campbell shuddered as she sighed. "Imagine all that fear and disappointment clogged up in there, and nobody stopped to ask him about it, to ask if he was happy in his life, if he was coping. None of the men could tell ye how they really felt, because if they did, they would weep, and this fuckin' city is damp enough."”