Part One: Sticky Trails and a Blood Red Eye.
“Are you awake?”
“Mmmm?” She knows it won't work, but she tries to sound more asleep than awake.
It doesn't work. The bed rocks.
“Are you awake, Ruth?”
She can smell his breath. She can feel the focus of his attention prodding her in the back.
“Ruth...you awake?... I'm all of a throb.”
He pulls higher her nightdress and draws sticky trails across her rump. It makes her think back to childhood games: She and her younger sister would scratch messages into each other's backs; soft fingernails pushed through holes in knitted cardigan. The messages were inspired by quotes lifted from Love Hearts and the softest of cuss words. Their giggling would soften their parents' almost perpetual unhappiness.
“Ruth...Ruth...come on, wake up.”
He delivers a poke and a rummage in the general direction of what he enjoys calling the gusset area. Ruth gives out a squeal, she's a bit curled-up and hidden away.
“You won't get anywhere like that.”
But Shane doesn't want to hear. He doesn't do smooth any more than he does reality. Ruth tries to help by wiggling a bit, but it's no good, the relevant part of her is more asleep than awake.
Shane gives up and tries a new approach. With his spade-like hands he flips her onto her front and positions himself across the backs of her thighs.
He leans forward, his open palms leaning heavily onto her shoulder blades.
“Have you got your thingy in?”
“What?” she muffles. She can hear the humour in his voice, recognises the change in his pitch.
“Have you got your thingy in? Is your diaphragm thingy up there?”
“What bloody decade are you in? You still asleep and dreaming of your skinhead days? Life on Mars has got a lot to answer for.”
“Come on, pay attention, arch your back a bit…it's just the thought of Terry Wogan that puts me off.”
“What...what the hell are you trying to do with this oh-so-romantic moment? Why're you waffling ‘bout Terry bloody Wogan?...he left ages ago.”
“It's Radio 2. I fixate on your dia-thingy. It's all those wires and coils. Local taxicabs I can deal with, none of them speak English anyway. But the thought of Terry Wogan and his cheeky little grin put me off. There's one thing talking like a cunt, but talking out of one?”
“And if you're going to talk about another man at such a time, at least you could help by choosing someone a bit cuter, a bit younger. That Simon Mayo's quite nice.”
“And you could try shutting up and making things a bit easier for me. This won't take long.”
“Hey, tell me something I don't know.”
Silence.
This is a mistake. He can't be the butt of the joke. Ever.
She's crossed the line and doesn't need telling; she can feel the message. He stops his thrusting and there's venom in the downward pressure as he withdraws; he leaves imprints of his hands on her shoulder blades.
She hates herself, her cowardice. For a fleeting moment she resumes the earlier charade: Again she feigns sleep, like it was some sleep-talking alter ego who dared jest in such a way.
But Shane is having none of that bullshit. He recognises a slight when it's stapled to his forehead. She's fucked him off when all he wanted was a bit of fun before 12 hours at the gasket factory. For God's sake, most of his mates wouldn't even bother to wake her up! A penny's worth of spit…in and out a few times…then wipe their dick on the duvet.
She knows he's angry. Getting angrier as he stews.
He'll prove his point by refusing to budge. It's up to her to turn over and struggle away — and it won't be easy — his bulk is his power. Even his tattoos have snarling faces. These are terrible moments as she wriggles like a log-jammed potholer.
When finally she manages to turn over onto her back, there it is. Face to face. Winking at her like a giant maggot with a weeping sore.
She's so close she can see some cotton fluff stuck to his bell-end. She can't help but give out a little laugh. It's a nervous laugh — the situation is ridiculous — the damn thing is beginning to dribble.
The little laugh escapes from between her lips. If his mind wasn't so filled with the heat of hatred, he'd have noticed her breath against his dampness.
Shane drops a fist into her ribcage.
The little laugh escapes from her lips. Followed swiftly by the contents of her lungs. Followed like a tube train by the contents of her stomach. Her arms flap like a drowning child, scrambling for air, reaching for privacy. But he's coarse and addicted to power. He'll happily watch her hack-up like he's watching television.
When she's finished with the first rush, she has to spit noisily through fear of choking on her own vomit.
He laughs: “Never a swallower, eh?”
And yet he notices the burst blood vessel in her left eye.
“Your eye's bleeding.”
She cups her eye like her palm is a concave mirror. He watches her regurgitated food spider-webbing her hair and feels the cold as the alarm clock rattles the beginning of a new day.
Part Two: Recommended Daily Allowance.
Brigit pauses at the top of the stairs. The house is solid but the moisture creeps, slowly destroying all that's cosmetic.
Brigit can smell the damp. She can smell the burnt fat. And at the back of her nose clings the acid tones of cat. She can hear the immersion heater rumbling through the lime scale. The air is cold in pulses of draught.
Brigit presses an upturned corner of the wallpaper as she listens for sounds from the third bedroom. As only a mother can, she filters all else, focusing on her sleeping child: she stretches a heavy-faced smile as she makes out the soft gurgling of her daughter's troublesome tubes.
Brigit sits down at the top of the stairs.
Like a tramp's collar the carpet is worn and greasy on the working edge; it's horrid to the touch and makes her crunch up.
Brigit can hear her aunty downstairs preparing breakfast. She's encouraged Brigit with boozy enthusiasm to treat the place like home. But Brigit knows only too well the impact of a toddler from out of the blue.
Brigit and her daughter have run away. Brigit is grateful but feels out of place and out of sorts. It's difficult to accept another's generosity when you've ruled your own roost.
Above the smell of the frying hovers the sweetness of her aunt's cigarette. She's dressed like some 1960s black-and-white caricature of a landlady. She's chasing a sausage around the frying pan like it's something from the Benny Hill Show. The cigarette smoke is curling into her squinted eye. If she could play the piano she'd be Les Dawson in drag.
Above the sound of the frying is the radio. No fancy digital reception here, the off-centred rattle of AM reception serves well enough.
Bridget creeps down. She pauses outside the kitchen door like a nervous X-factor auditionee waiting for the call. A deep breath, a firm hand on the door handle…and still without conviction she bursts through. Her aunty speaks first, through a grin of all mouth and no eyes.
“Morning, Brigit, you sleep well? Or you still got the cold in yer...it's your big day, sit yourself down. Is the baby sound?”
Brigit will grow accustomed to her aunt's early morning staccato. For so many years alone, she spews her attention like a bulimic.
Aunty returns her attention to the preparation of breakfast. But not before shoving the cigarette between her lips. She shouts unnecessarily above the sound of cooking.
“Did you sleep better, Bee? Feeling better?”
Aunty looks over her own shoulder and lets drop from the spatula an egg between the frying pans. Her dancing days are long gone; balance and co-ordination a distant memory. Back in the old country she could kiss her own knees without taking her shoes off. These days she holds on with both hands when stepping into carpet slippers.
She curses a saint when the yolk breaks during rescue. She cauterises the wound with a swift return to the hot fat but it's never going to be less than solid. Aunty opens another one for her guest; immediately rounding-up the albumen to protect the yolk from overcooking, determined to maintain at least one sunny-side upper.
Without prompting, Brigit's aunt passes over the half-finished fag. Even the waxy lipstick and the spent lard can't detract from Brigit's first hit.
“Did you sleep well, honey?”
“Oh, a bit nervous, you know.”
“Oh, you'll be fine…I'll get you a brew while your brekkie finishes.”
“You're kind, very kind.”
“Oh, think nothing. Back in the old days, your mother and me, we were like sisters.”
It takes a second or two, but Brigit gets the joke as she lugs back on the fag-end. Her laugh is top heavy with phlegm and escaping tension.
“Aunty, you'll kill me.”
“Here, sup on this and light one of your own.”
Her aunty slops the tea then chucks the cigarette pack from the sink. Brigit swallows back the tea and flares up as her aunt plates the food.
The women finish smoking as the food cools.
It's the first time since Brigit and her baby daughter arrived when a relaxed silence has settled. Brigit plays absentmindedly with the mini-boxes of cereal. They've been stacked like executive stress toys. By the look of the packets they're well out of date. The normally boisterous colour of the curvy K has been partially bleached. And the other fonts are noticeably wrong, outdated. Her aunty has fallen into hostess mode and raided the back of the cupboard.
Brigit doesn't fancy the sausage. It's enormous with a tremendous girth. There's something unforgiving, something menacing about it. She thinks it's probably been cooked too fast. One end has erupted. It looks like Karl Malden's nose during surgery. Brigit decides she'll only eat the crispy ends, doesn't want to run the risk of pink pork. Her mother had a repertoire of two anecdotes. One involved a ‘darky sailor' out on the lash in Dublin. The other, uncooked pork. Both incidents ended in disaster and a nasty mess on the floor.
“Aunty, I don't remember much about Ma. Seems like such a long time ago.”
“She was special. Always saw the best. It was a tragedy.”
“Thanks for the food. It looks lovely.”
“Let's get eating before it's cold. You'll need your strength for your big day.”
Brigit bursts the egg with her fork.
“Tell me something about her. Something for my little one. Something I don't know.”
Her aunty chews down on some bacon, carefully avoiding the loose crown, the one with the developing abscess. She smiles…
“It was wonderful — and embarrassing; so hard was I trying to impress some soldiers. They seemed to us like ‘kings of the world' yet your ma could never spin a lie; never pretend to be something she wasn't.
“They took us to some old flea pit. We called them blue movies in them days. Pretty tame by today's fare, but back then? B'jesus, it was painful. The town was the size of a postal order. We were terrified!
“Anyway, there we were all four of us in the back row. The soldier-boys flush with dollars and imported rubbers, me and your ma completely out of our depth. I was counting the sins we'd already committed when all of a sudden your ma leans across: ‘Hey,' she whispers, in that full-faced way of hers, ‘d'yer think that nice fella with the bushy moustache will marry the pretty blonde one?'”
Brigit's aunty laughs so loud she has to rush to the sink where she spits into a square of tissue.
“That's a great story, but I don't reckon I can tell my daughter that her gran spent her confused teenage years watching porno with horny GIs.”
“No, I guess not. But she was like that. Always saw the sweetness. It would take many a hard year for your ma to get an edge. I guess she was meant for a gentler age. That's why everyone loved her and only the heartless wanted anything but to protect her.”
“I guess I take after me pa, then?”
“He wasn't so bad. Take no heed for what's said. It was difficult times for us all. Difficult times and harder choices. We all get it wrong sometimes. We're none of us without blame. Boys will be boys and that includes married men. It's what they do.”
“D'you mind if I leave this? I can't face any food.”
Brigit pushes away the cooked breakfast. Her aunty spears the sausage with precision.
“D'you not think it best to have something inside of yer? It'll promise to be a long day.”
“No, you're fine thanks, Aunty. I'll just read the back of this cereal packet; it'll give me all the vitamins I can handle.”
“You've got a brain on you, m'girl. They don't know how lucky they are to be getting someone like you on the cheap.”
“Beggars, Aunt. Beggars.”
Brigit breaks into the cigarette packet without asking. This pleases immeasurably her aunty, even more than the thought of spending time with the little one.
“Aunty?”
“Yes, Brigit, love?”
Aunty looks at Brigit. The younger woman looks old and weary. Her bottom lip squares off just like her mother's used to.
“Yes, Brigit?”
The lips lose their corners as Brigit changes her mind and forces a weedy smile.
“What's riboflavin when it's at home?”
Part Three: Brown Shirts and Furry-Front Bottoms.
“The trouble with you, Mark, is that your BMI is too high and your DBI is way too low. You'll never attract women of any decent degradation.”
“Excuse me? My what's too high? And my what else is way too low...and why, exactly?”
“Dirty women. You've developed a very gay attitude towards women. If you get my drift.”
“No, I don't actually. I'm completely confused.”
“You know? Dirty women, bitches that'll do anything for a bottle of industrial cider.”
“Shane, try as I may, and I'd prefer to work it out all by myself, but I'm getting nowhere.”
“That, my old fruit, is your trouble in a nutshell: You are a human being rather than a human doing. You think way too much…don't you ever just do? Just say fuck it and go for it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes? Bollocks! You can't even go shopping without a fuckin' list.”
“Actually, you'll find that's quite normal.”
“That's never normal unless you're housebound and sharing a day-help with the old boy next door.”
“Shane, have you had a bad day or something? I'm getting a kicking here for what feels like no reason.”
“You're just a bit gayer than me, that's all.”
“What?”
“We were talking about it last night.”
“What? You and Ruth?”
“No, me and the boys.”
“You were at one of your NF meetings, weren't you?”
“EDL, actually. Keep up.”
“I might have known. They always get you riled up like some frustrated teenager on Viagra. Run off to the little boys' room and have a joddle. Get rid of that dirty water ‘fore you piss off the entire factory. There'll be a mass walk-out before lunchtime.”
“You're talking shite again. And look at your wrists, all cocked over like a rent boy on the pull.”
“Shane, please...slowly. Let's go back a bit… Why exactly am I gayer than you? And what was all that other rubbish about my weight?”
“You're too fat and too clean to get a proper lay. Your BMI is podgy and your DBI is saintly. Even a whore short of crack would turn you down. You come across like a Sunday school teacher. Proper birds want a bloke who smells of cave.”
“What's DBI, Shane? The rest I think I understand.”
“Strewth! Dirt Bag Index.” It's your number of tattoos multiplied by the number of missing teeth. The higher the number the more manly you are. It proves you get yourself ‘inked' and that you ain't afraid to get stuck in when the bottles are flying. A low DBI suggests a more sheltered, a more wussy attitude to life. A life of regret and guilt. A poof's life, quite frankly.”
“So what about Lawrence of Arabia then?”
“And when was the last time you charged a camel across the desert shooting rag-heads, eh?”
“I can't win, can I?”
“Nope.”
Shane smirks.
Silence.
“I know I can't win, I know it's hopeless, but go on, what else you got? Give it yer best shot. We've got a 12-hour shift to fill. We might as well spend the time giving me a hard time.”
“UBI's a good ‘un.”
“UBI?”
“Yeah. Unexplained Beer Injury. I've got loads of ‘em.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It proves you can handle the unexpected.”
“You said ‘unexplained'.”
“And that's exactly why people don't like you, why people like you aren't welcome to our meetings. Being a smart-arse pisses people off when you can't back it up.”
“I'm pretty much lost again.”
“Concentrate for fuck's sake. It's very simple…listen…you don't enjoy getting pissed faceless. You can't fight and you worry like a pussy about everything. I bet you've even got a pension?”
“P'raps.”
“That'll be a yes, then. I've got Pamela Anderson's face on my y-fronts, you've probably got a copy of the Health and Safety rules…tosspot! This all means you're more likely to carry queer genes than me ‘cos you exhibit more gayness, less proper manliness. You're loose-in-your-loafers, as your Aunty Sybil would say, if you ever had the guts to come out.”
“And this is what you talk about at your meetings?”
“Naw…don't be an arse, it's serious stuff we deal with, this stuff is just me and the chosen few in the pub afterwards.”
“The ‘chosen few'? You are seriously scary.”
“Fear is German for four where I come from.”
“Actually Shane, that's quite good. I like that.”
“Yeah, see. We ain't thick. Most of us speak some German.”
“Impressive, and to think….”
“Be quiet for a minute, you pathetic old beaver-leaver, you're boring me now. Just shut the fuck up and cast your eyes starboard. There's a fanny-on-legs heading this way with nips to take your eyes out!”
“What?”
“The crumpet at 10 o'clock for feck's sake. Crumpet at 10 o'clock and closing fast…scramble! Scramble!... Trouser alert. Trouser alert!”
“Hey, she's not bad at all.”
“Stay away, she's not your type. Look at the way she walks. She's like a girly assassin out for revenge. I tell yer, I'm getting gruesome in my underpants. And if she improves close up, I'll gruesome more.”
From the bus stop across the car park walks Brigit. She swaggers like a gunfighter; she swivels above an erotic triangle of daylight. Her nipples are heroic in their effort to get noticed.
Mark knows that Shane is correct. This woman would scare the devil out of him. You walk into a pub with someone like Brigit and you're certain to get challenged if you don't have sharks' teeth and a prisoner's tattoo.
“Alright, Mark, I know I shouldn't have to explain again but I will ‘cos you're a complete tosspot: shut the fuck up when she comes into the gatehouse. In fact, shut the fuck up whenever there's a fanny-on-a-stick in the same room as me.”
“Shut up, you say?”
“Bingo! Say nothing unless I speak to you directly, and even then just grin and nod ‘yes'…understand... Do you understand?”
“I'm nodding for heaven's sake… I'm practising my nod…can't you see my nod? It's what happens when my head rocks up and down…Jeez.”
“In the good old days we'd call an idiot like you a spastic. D'you remember the little boy in the leg callipers? Now shut up, here she comes…leave this to me…
”Good morning, madam and what can I do you for?”
“Morning, fellas. It's my first day here, am I heading in the right direction?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Oh, yes what?”
“Oh, yes, oh yes.”
Brigit looks to Mark: “You seem a little more normal. Is your friend always such an eejit?”
“His normal is pretty bad, but this is a special kind of bad, especially for you I should imagine?”
“Special, lady, just for you.”
“Seriously, fellas, what am I supposed to do? I don't want to be late on my first day, first impressions and all?”
“Sign here,” says Mark, “I'll give you a temporary pass...you'll get given something more permanent from HR by the end of the day…what's your name, please?”
“Brigit…Brigit O'Brien.”
“Brigit the Midget, the Queen of the Blues.”
“Take no notice of him here, take this pass, it'll get you through the turnstile, then keep going straight ‘til you come to another office. They'll take you from there.”
Shane stands in her way. Arms folded, legs astride like a cartoon genie. He towers above her: “You're just in time.”
“No, that's my cousin, Justin Thyme, I told you, I'm Brigit.”
“Ooooh…smart as well as pocket sized.”
“Anyway, big man, just in time for what?”
Shane visibly lengthens. To be called a big man by a confident, sexy woman like Brigit is holistic aphrodisiac.
“The Works' shindig.”
“Whoa, slow down…today's my first day…wouldn't it be taking liberties?”
“Oh no, we're a friendly bunch here. What d'you think, Mark?”
“Oh yeah, that's right. We're one great big happy family. Indescribably happy.”
“But we're not THAT close a family, if you know what I mean? We wouldn't want to break any biblical rules, go upsetting a good little Catholic such as yourself.”
“What makes you think I'm a Catholic?”
“I'm a professional; it's my job to spot irregularities.”
“I bet you don't take the piss out of Muslims you've only just met?”
“Guilty as charged. I wouldn't fancy some crazy with a beard hacking at my throat ‘cos of a joke. Shaver's rash has always been a problem for me. I've got a delicate skin, see?”
Shane juts his jaw forward like a 1950s advert for a Styptic pencil. He invites her to feel for herself.
“Yes, indeed, you've been blessed with a lovely complexion as well as looking lovely in a uniform.”
“Yeah, it's all in my genes with a ‘g' as well as my jeans with a ‘j'.”
“You've got an answer for everything. Heaven only knows how many sins I'm committing simply talking to the likes of you.”
“So one more won't matter. You're condemned to Hell whatever happens. Seems to me you might as well accept our invitation and come out with us tonight?”
“I don't know? I'd feel a bit awkward…. Is it formal?”
Shane laughs: “It's usually formal until the 8th beer then all hell breaks loose and we spend the rest of the year apologising.”
Mark chips in without enthusiasm: “Yep, it's like a badly worn cliché the way we behave.”
“It sounds great. Are there any tasty fellas working here? I like ‘em with attitude.”
Shane pulls a sequence of shapes like a geriatric break-dancer.
“And did I mention I like a man in a uniform? It's been the same since I saw The Full Monty.”
“Oh, my gawd,” groans Mark, “she's encouraging him.”
“And I like woman.”
“And you like woman what?”
“Just that. I like woman. My first, second and third choice is vagina. Furry-front-bottom as they say in polite society. And, gratefully, most women in my experience seem to have one.”
“Ooooh, a man of the world and I can't fault your botany.”
“Oh my gawd,” repeats Mark.
“Pay no attention to my colleague, he gets nervous ‘round adults. His Dirt Bag Index is less than his shoe size, doesn't have a clue.”
“He looks quite sweet, though.”
They stand close. Side-by-side. Heads tilted inwards.
“Yeah, true enough. Sweet and fluffy. Sweet and fluffy yet lacking substance. Shove a stick up his arse and he'd be mistaken for a giant candy floss.”
Shane and Brigit stand side-by-side laughing.
“But come along, Miss Brigit, you've got work to get to. There's a recession to stave off.”
Mark notices the way Shane holds lightly onto Brigit's elbow as he guides her out of the Gatehouse. Outwardly it's an act of gentle politeness. But Shane can't help himself: he mimes a grope of her bottom certain that Mark is watching.
Mark is watching. And yes, her arse is perfectly designed to advertise tight-fitting denim.
Shane bursts back into the gatehouse, his face grotesque with bloated smugness:
“Mark, got any change for the Jonnie machine?”
“No, why don't you ask Ruth when she gets to work?”
“Prick.”
Part Four: Bad Penny and the Big Cold.
When Brigit gets home she hears her aunty in the kitchen singing along to something from the charts. Brigit's long since given up on the top twenty. The vernacular remains part of her vocabulary, but there's no desire to follow the countdown. Her older cousin talked of C90 cassettes and illegally recorded songs plundered from the radio. No one cared about hiss, crackle or even over-talking DJs in those days. Friends exchanged home-made compilations with all sorts of mistakes on twisted tapes: Bizarre amalgams of Jimmy Osmond and Wizard would unravel themselves through tinny speakers.
But that was then and this is now.
Brigit drops her shoulder bag into her room before creeping across the corridor to check on her daughter. Mary is fast asleep. It's early, even for a toddler, but she's been ill, poorly since the boat across. Brigit's aunty bought Calpol for the fever. It seemed to be doing the trick but had the side-effect of making the child sleep more than usual. Brigit frets. When her daughter is awake and grizzling she feels safe…her best friend's baby was found silent, silent and dead for no apparent reason.
In the kitchen and the music is loud and distorted. Yet the sounds of cooking still manage to spit out the smell of comfort and good cheer.
“That smells good, Aunty.”
Aunty looks over her shoulder and smiles a blown kiss without the hand gesture.
Brigit sits down to the table and helps herself to a smoke.
“The little one has the cold?”
“But she's sleeping well?”
“She's no trouble.”
“It'll pass. All shall pass.”
“Your pa's favourite saying, that was.”
“I know.”
“Do you remember him saying it?”
“No. No, I don't.”
Brigit smokes deeply like someone deciding never to give up. She smiles: Her aunty, if she was black, would be a dead ringer for the housemaid in the early Tom and Jerry cartoons. What wouldn't she give for a mouse to suddenly appear, to watch her aunty chase the rodent with a carpet beater.
The last time Brigit spent time alone with either of her parents was a trip to the cinema with her mother. They enjoyed an afternoon screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. After the film they shared a ‘knickerbockers' Glory'.
A couple of super-long stainless steel spoons clear the bulk of the treat. Then, with a pair of pink and white straws, they slurp with vigour, hoovering the last drops with a non-stop suction. It's enough to make their eyes pop.
As the sweet liquid disappears their foreheads touch, before finally, their noses kiss.
Brigit cries every time the memory is revisited. She can lick her finger and rub gently the tip of her nose, scrunch tightly her eyes, and there she is, back in the old town so close to her mother's gaze her own eyesight is crossed.
Two days after Snow White, Brigit's mother died of her heart. She was very young and supposedly tough. Brigit determined to be luckier than her mother. To live long enough to share more than a single sundae moment with a daughter of her own. Brigit longed for another adult love without the burden of sex. She wanted to share a history. A gentle history built layer upon layer. Something geological. Something to last longer than a boozy weekend.
“That smells good, Aunty.”
“Won't be long…. Won't be long now. How was your day?”
“Great, absolutely fantastic, I've gotta eat and run, eat and
run. I'm on a deadline.”
“Are you off out then?”
“If you don't mind, that is?”
Her aunty flips the fish fingers, scrapes the burnt corners with the spatula's leading edge; uses the same to stir the peas boiling to a pale green.
Brigit's mother died the very week her sister paid for an abortion. Their richer, luckier friends (the ones who'd taken a chance with the better fellas), they took the boat to the mainland and had the job done better. But Brigit's aunty had to uncover a local Vera Drake.
It was a job done with no questions asked. It wasn't pleasant but who could she complain to? Who would argue on her behalf? Who'd support a killer of the unborn? A godless harlot?
Brigit's aunty still buckles at the knees, still feels the guilt for the two-faced tears she spilt when told of her sister's death. She sat in front of the coal fire and screamed, she sobbed and howled; she rocked herself into an ever-tightening ball. The pain, the internal burning of the dismantled baby struggling to miscarry itself could be expressed without restraint — the extended family clung to each other in darkened corners and admired the sisterly love — but there was never a single, not one undiluted tear solely for her sister. It felt like another killing chained to her neck.
This guilt was why she never went on to have children. She was warned of the consequences of her abortion, that conceiving could prove more difficult. But she never tried. A life without children was her punishment. And a life without children meant a life without marriage. No companionship. She made a silent prayer, an oath to her sister's departing spirit that she'd do what she could for her sister's little one. And now the little one has a baby of her own. It's time to truly make good the promise.
“Mind? I'd eat her up if I could.”
“You're a star, Aunty, a diamond. It's going to be one helluva do. You wouldn't believe it! My very first day. The very first person I meet!”
“Is it a fella?”
“Oh, Aunty, you'll bring about a blush.”
“Oh but you take after your grandma…on your father's side, of course.”
“He's gorgeous, well turned out. Even his work shoes are well-polished!”
“We admired that much in your pa. He was highly polished… just a pity ‘bout the slippery spine.”
“Aunty, he's a tall fella alright, and full of life. The type to look you in the face and tell you what for; he had me in stitches.”
“Tread carefully, Bee, you being from such a fertile family.”
“Oh, Aunty, please. All this blushing.”
“You only need sneeze near a damp towel without sensible knickers and you'll be in the family way.”
“Aunty, stop it…”
“It runs in the family. Your grandma was the same. Her priest kept a book of baby names in the confessional.”
“He never did?”
“Would your mammy's sister commit such a sin as to lie to her favourite niece? Listen, your granny was pregnant more often than not. She'd go a—courtin', sit on the grass, release a little lady fart and get pregnant on the back draught!”
Brigit's Aunty laughs so much she has to cross her legs as she lifts the frying pan from the heat. When she can recover her breath, she lights up a cigarette.
Silence.
Silence.
“Aunty? What was my father really like? Was he really so slippery?”
“He was of his time. What you'd call a man's man. What became known as a chauvinist pig.”
“But was he so dreadful? All of the time?”
“It's true he had a temper. I really thought your ma had settled him down in the early days. We all did. But it's the age-old story. A man in love thinks the gal he's wed will never change. And for her part, the woman is certain she'll change her fella.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It sounds wonderful alright. But who keeps a 19-inch waist, sparkling eyes and kissable feet? And what man develops gentle manners with a memory for important dates?”
Aunty takes a deep tug on the cigarette and returns to the sink to drain the vegetables through the metal colander.
“He had a good side to him though. He could be funny and tough in the right way. He wasn't all boot, fist and Guinness.”
“Tell me.”
Brigit's aunt leaves the washed-out peas in the steaming saucepan. She wipes the grease from her hands to her apron.
Brigit doesn't notice, and her aunt doesn't care, but as the older woman pulls out the chair to sit down, she belches a slow release of lunchtime booze. Her elbow nearly misses the edge of the table.
“I'll tell you about the end, the very end. Suddenly, out of the blue, he turns up like a bad penny. It was quite a shock, the talk of the town.”
“It wasn't much of a town.”
“He'd aged, lost that tousled hair charm, that roguish bounce that always earned him another chance.
It turned out he was ill, advanced diabetes with complications too numerous to understand.
It felt so sudden, and he was still so young, that even them with a grudge felt sympathy.
Of course, what he really wanted was for your ma to still be with us. He knew that he'd made dreadful mistakes, that it was too late to make his peace with her. So the next best thing was to face them that loved her. It was brave in his own way, very brave for a man more at home with his sleeves rolled up with a bottle in his hand.”
“Did he last long? Did he hang on?”
“Oh no. Once he was in hospital he never got out. It was awful towards the end. Every time I visited him there was less to see. With every visit the bedclothes were less and less disturbed.”
“What...d'you mean?” (She mimes a sawing motion across her thighs.)
“That's right. He was rotting from the insides. Gangrene had
set in; heaven only knows how long he'd ignored the signs.”
Cowardice perhaps?”
“High pain threshold?”
“They chopped off as much as we buried.”
“Awful.”
“The second to last visit was awkward. He could see I was embarrassed to look away from his face. His legs had gone and I could imagine those weeping stumps beneath the sheets. I couldn't bear to look away from his face in case I saw them. I shudder at the thought after all these years.”
“Horrible, horrible.”
“He didn't seem to care, he laughed through his tubes. For just a moment his face flashed a decent colour: you should be careful what you wish for, he cackled, “I always wanted a todger that reached the ground!”
“Did he really say that?”
“Yes, yes he did! Bold as he ever was. Bold as brass.”
Silence.
“But the next visit, the final visit, and he was swimming in morphine. He never said a word.”
“Nothing?”
“Despite everything that had passed between us, I'm so pleased his final words had been so...so him.”
“That's nice.”
“He never spoke another word but I found a notebook. It was half-filled with his scrawl, the final jottings almost unreadable.”
“Have you got it? I'd love to read it.”
“I'd never known him read anything other than racing form. Yet there was all this brainy stuff. I can still remember one of the final quotes: A man with no future returns to his past.
“Perhaps those years away meant more than getting ill? I sincerely believe he was desperate to get out of that hospital bed and make his peace with you. Absolutely desperate. It does you no good to leave matters unresolved. It's a type of cancer.”
Silence.
“In those days we use to call cancer The Big Cold.”
Part Five: Tomcats, Owls and a Trace of Pussy.
The car park is already full at the bosses' end. It's not far to walk from the workers' car park but it's the principle that counts. There's an unwritten code relaxing parking restrictions when there's an official work's party. Even the executive bays (the ones with the matching registrations painted on the wall above), are freely violated by shift workers' jalopies. It's like the early part of Animal Farm when everything's going well.
Shane is annoyed. Ruth slowed their departure. The Jock (the company's second-in-command), was Shane's target. He knows that Ruth's car has an oil leak. He would have gunned the engine and sprayed the executive box like a sexually aggressive tomcat.
“We're too fuckin' late,” he sneers above his breath, “some other turd has got there first.”
Ruth knows to keep quiet when he's arguing with his own demons. Yet she can't see why they're so late. Judging by the number of parked cars the party has barely got going.
Shane flings her car like a hoodie on doughnuts.
The final reverse into position gives Ruth a homeopathic dose of whiplash on top of a bubbling nausea. Worse still is the peculiar smell. There's something mechanical amiss; exaggerated by Shane's driving.
“Can you smell that?”
“For fuck's sake, not that again. Have you ever considered that your nose is too close to your arse?”
“Oh, thanks.”
“P'raps it's all that perfume shit you wear, it's bolloxed yer nose.”
“Are you suggesting I'm confusing Madame Rochas with the smell of burning rubber?”
“You look old enough to have suffered a stroke. Apparently, taste and smell are the first things to go.”
“How kind.”
“You can take it…look at that prat over there, parking like he's some kind of ballerina. I've never seen that plate before. Is he from the factory?”
“I think it's Bart. Bart from Research and Development. He's some kind of scientist.”
“RU 486? What does that mean? I hate smart arses.”
Bart climbs out of his car. He's tall and slim and his car is low. A natural elegance combined with a hard-worked athleticism means he can unfurl himself like a well-oiled sunroof. He looks like David Ginola when the ex-footballer could command top dollar for hair product endorsement.
“Yes. That's Bart. All spruced up. And that's not his usual car. He normally drives an old banger. It's rather nice, isn't it?”
“For fuck's sake. There's a wheel at each corner.”
As Shane struggles to determine a clumsy neutral, Ruth licks her lips and kerfuffles her hair before scrambling out of the passenger side:
“Hello, Bart. That's a nice car.”
“Bon soir, Ruthie.”
“Are you a frog?”
“Ah, the man from security. How observant you are.”
Shane looks at Ruth: “I don't like frogs. Never have done. Never will.”
Bart holds out his hand — a gesture ignored by Shane.
“Bartholin Gland. I'm pleased to meet you.”
“What's the number plate mean?”
“It's a joke.”
“Frogs don't have a sense of humour. You're just like the Krauts ‘cept you're crap at fighting.”
Ruth steps in quickly: “Bartholin? I'd never realised that was your full name? I always thought that ‘Bart' was a joke. Something from the Simpsons? I thought your file said something normal like Michael?”
(The Frenchman laughs): “Oh, Ruthie, it's a complicated business.”
“What type of joke is RU 486?” snaps Shane.
“What?”
“Your number plate. What type of joke is RU 486?
“Oh, it's very complicated.”
Ruth releases a nervous laugh. She scans Shane for those tell-tale signs.
“Fuckin' try me, Frenchie. You can't be that smart or you'd have a job in your own fuckin' country.”
Bart laughs, he attempts to defuse the situation in case it goes beyond the mental challenge. He knows Shane's type. He also knows that Shane will know where the CCTVs scan…where it's safe to take advantage and throw the first punch.
“Monsieur, in front of your woman I'd feel embarrassed.
Please Google the number when next time you're online.”
Shane is instantly appeased, he appreciates the mystery. Bart senses the thaw.
“Would you like me to write it down for you?”
This reverses the thawing, the temporary rapprochement is shattered.
“Look, Frenchie, I've got 56 ‘phone numbers in my head. Pin numbers dating back a decade and enough mathematical formulae to fill a textbook. I can go 25 places to Pi and calculate accumulated odds to a treble. I knew before the critics that The Da Vinci Code was crap. I'll remember your poncy number plate all right. Don't fret for a minute about my memory.”
“I'm certain. Sorry.”
Shane steps in closer. Bart has to force himself not to react to the halitosis…. Shane's breath smells like stale tobacco and rotten tinned fish
“I'm not about to forget you either.”
“No. As I said, you are observant.”
“I don't miss a thing. Not a fuckin' thing.”
Shane turns away and lurches towards the sounds of the party. He so automatically expects Ruth to follow that he doesn't even turn to check.
Bart turns to Ruth. As swiftly as a magician's trailing hand he brushes his lips across hers. He smiles with satisfaction as she buckles slightly.
“Ruth, you must also Google. But Goggle me, ‘Bartholin Gland'. Then text me, please.” As she struggles to catch up with Shane, Ruth curses her memory; already she's forgotten what Bart said. And she's certain that Bart's secret code would repay her richly.
Shane is already inside the reception area when Ruth pulls alongside. She's out of breath, flushed and uncomfortable in her shoes.
Shane's standing in front of a makeshift desk. In fact, he's towering above the desk, glowering. It's like he's trying to convince a fallen opponent to get up from the canvas to take another beating. One of the cleaning supervisors is manning the admittance policy. He's a thick set man with a square head and a voice like an unnamed character in a Guy Richie movie.
“Shane, mate, it's a rule. If you want to come in, you've got to have your hand stamped.”
“So, how much is it for me to get in, then?”
“Nothing, Shane. It's free for workers.”
“In which case stop being such a cunt and let me in. Why should I be branded like a Jew to prove I don't have to pay if you're gonna let me in anyway…‘cos you know I work here. Why?”
“Shane, mate. It's policy. A rule laid down from above.”
“And it's my policy that no one stamps me. The difference being, my policy is based on commonsense and logic. You're following orders made up by tits with nothing to do but think in straight lines to justify their swivel chairs and dedicated ‘phone lines. You're all cunts.”
“Shane, keep your voice down. It's just a bloody owl. Look…” He stamps the image of an owl onto the formica desk. Then stamps it again when the first attempt smudges a dirty pink.
“Okay. Let's call that my stamp. If any other Nazi wants to know if I can prove I haven't paid, I can tell them to come here and check that little beauty.”
“Shane, you've got to have a stamp on your person.”
“On your person? You're panicking, son, you're talking bollox.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No I don't, it's illogical — listen carefully — I'm gonna take a deep breath and imagine I'm teaching a remedial class…
…Are you ready? Let's take it slow:
There's no charge to come in if you're a worker. Great news, I'm a worker!
And more to the point, you know that I'm a worker.”
The hapless Steve nods.
“So, therefore, I don't need to prove why I'm not going to pay for what I'm not expected to buy? Simple? Yes?”
Steve shrugs.
“It's people like you dragging this country into the crap. Does it ever occur to you to think for yourself? Have you ever wondered why you hate your life? It's ‘cos you're a prick who poses like a bulldog but whimpers like a fuckin' battery hen.”
“Stamp me twice, Steve, I like owls.”
“Thanks, Ruth. Have a nice evening, Shane.”
“Fuck off. Keep your good wishes and your apologies for your next union meeting.”
“I ain't apologising. ‘Specially not to you.”
“Naw, you're covering up your embarrassment. If I was sitting there, d'you think you'd have got past me without a stamp? No fuckin' way, you'd be covered in little owls like some freaky outbreak of bird ‘flu. You're downtrodden, you ain't got the balls, the courage of your convictions.”
“For fuck's sake, Shane, just get inside and get rat-arsed, will yer?”
“Ah! Now you're talking from the heart. THAT had conviction. You're not totally dead. Yet.”
“Ta, mate, you're a diamond.”
“Hey, check it out, here comes that French twat. Make sure you stamp him good and proper.”
“Fuck it, more hassle. Why did I volunteer for this arse-wipe of a job? I hope he ain't as bolshie as you.''
“Naw, he'll surrender without a shot and learn to hoot in German. It's in his genes to roll over like a prison bitch.” Steve laughs wholeheartedly, grateful to be one of the boys again.
“Just stamp ‘im…right?”
Steve nods seriously.
Shane and Ruth walk away from the table — Ruth whispers in that typically carrying tone:
“Shane, have you ever noticed how square his head is? It's totally flat at the back.”
“I'll tell you fuckin' why. With his dipstick mentality someone's twatted him from behind with a lump of 4-by-2. I'm fuckin' tempted to go back and finish the job… (Shane looks back at the table)…and look at the big shite giving the frog a hard time ‘cos he didn't have the bottle to face me. That's exactly why the so-called workers will never win. When it comes to a battle, the underclass will trounce his lot without drawing sweat. We've bred ourselves weak, headlong into dinosaur territory. I'm fuckin' ashamed.”
“Shane, you'll give yourself a heart attack. Stop hating so much.”
“I've got a house brick on a rusty chain. What exactly is going to attack?”
“I'm serious.”
The gentle nudge he delivers is the closest moment to tenderness they've shared in 18 months of living together.
Ruth's glow barely has time to reach luminescence when Shane's already onto something new: Beyond two doors of frosted glass is the silhouette of Brigit. He pulls himself upright like he's lifting his balls from the pain of icy water. The same sense of chill brushes Ruth to one side. Shane barges through like a bow-legged cartoon cowboy proud to be wearing the sheriff's badge. He's looking for action and expecting to win the prize.
END.