You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here

by Frances Macken

  ‘What sort of an attitude is that. You’re surely interested in something.’

  ‘Not really. I’d say I’ll just stay local.’

  ‘You actually want to stay in Glenbruff. Like, for the rest of your life.’ Everyone else will be going on to college or have something lined up. Maeve’s the only one with no plan.

  ‘I’ll be grand as I am.’

  ‘You will not. You’ll be making a big mistake, stuck down here scratching your hole while we’re off gallivanting,’ warns Evelyn. ‘You’d better go in to Pearl Powers on Monday and have a talk with her.’ Pearl Powers is the school guidance counsellor, head of the girls’ choir and enforcer of the school corridor transit policy.

  Maeve twirls a stem of grass between her fingers as a slow wasp veers around her. ‘I was already in talking to Pearl. She said she’d phone them up in Amperloc with a recommendation if I want.’

  ‘You’ll be counting tablets and putting them into brown glass bottles. Is that what you want?’

  ‘They’ve machines to count the tablets,’ I interject, and Evelyn rolls her eyes.

  ‘Obviously I know they’ve machines for counting tablets.’ I bet she didn’t know about the machines for counting tablets.

  Maeve blows on the pile of grass stems, sending them askew. Maeve is good at maths, especially accountancy, and chemistry too. Maeve is capable of going to college and doing alright. I can’t help but feel some relief at her disclosure, however, because it means that myself and Evelyn won’t have to mollycoddle her wherever we end up. Say if we were chatting to fellas in a nightclub and Maeve was standing there looking gormless, we’d lose our allure entirely. I’ll be glad to leave Maeve behind in Glenbruff. It’ll be great to have her out of the way.

  ‘If you could choose to be anyone else alive, who would it be?’ she says in a faraway voice.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘If you could choose to be someone else. Anyone at all. Who would it be?’

  ‘God almighty. Why in the world would I want to be someone else,’ Evelyn snorts.

  In recent times, Mammy’s become friendly with Maureen Cooney. She invites her up to the house, and Pamela along with her. ‘Why don’t yourself and Pamela go out to the good room with the dancing tape,’ Mammy suggests. ‘We’ll come in and watch ye in a while.’

  We don’t light the fire in the good room unless there’s visitors coming or it’s Christmas. The room even smells like Christmas, like pine and spice and oranges. I roll up the rug and push back the furniture to make enough room for the dancing. There’s cold moisture in the air, and Pamela briskly rubs the tops of her arms.

  The videotape is wrapped up in a plastic bag. It’s called Urban Beatz IV, and the cardboard sleeve is decorated with fluorescent triangles and squiggles. I turn on the television and the screen goes whoomp and rustles with static. The tape is sucked into the video player and it clicks and whirrs and a lady comes on the screen in a lime-green bodysuit. ‘Welcome to Urban Beatz. Get ready to bounce.’ Half of my brain is trying to keep up with the dance routine and the other half is taken up with the presence of Pamela Cooney. It’s like being in the room with someone famous. She has that sort of charisma about her.

  When the dance is over, we pause the video and seat ourselves down on the couch. ‘Where’d you get the tape?’

  ‘Desmond Duignan got it for me. He got it in America.’ America’s the most glamorous place in the world. America’s paradise.

  ‘Have you been there?’ I enquire. I’d love to go to America, but I can’t see it happening.

  ‘A few times,’ she says, like it’s no big deal. ‘Who would you say is better-looking, Peadar Morley or Aidan Morley?’

  ‘Oh. They’re both nice-looking. One of them fair and one of them dark.’

  ‘Peadar was phoning me nonstop for a fortnight,’ she says proudly. ‘He’s mad after me.’

  ‘Is he really.’

  ‘And Aidan must be gay. I’ve been to all the matches and still nothing. Who do you like? You must like someone.’

  I shake my head. ‘There’s no one.’ I haven’t kissed anyone and I’ve no one to be talking about. ‘How d’you like living down the country?’

  ‘It’s only alright.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Like, you have to make your own fun around here. You’ve to find ways of keeping yourself occupied.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘I’m bored a lot of the time. Desmond Duignan offered to bring me down to Galway to the dance school but Mam said no.’ There’s a pause, and then she says, ‘I’m looking for someone to do the dancing with and enter competitions. Would you be interested?’ Myself and Pamela could be backing dancers for a pop band. We could have a wind machine, and a make-up artist and hairdresser going around with us on a tour bus. ‘Why don’t you keep the tape for a while and have a think about it.’

  ‘Alright. Thanks, Pamela. I’ll try it out.’

  Pamela lies herself up on the good couch with her shoes still on her. We’re not allowed put our shoes on the couch but I don’t say it.

  ‘You’re friends with Evelyn Cassidy,’ she murmurs, smiling out of one side of her mouth.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ How do you answer a question like that. ‘I’ve always been friends with her. We’ve always been friends.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’d have more friends if you weren’t?’ she says, laughing and waggling her shoes, but the thing is that myself and Evelyn were born friends and that’s just the way it is.

  The pitch in Glenbruff is lopsided, higher on one side than the other, and the players from Saint Malachy’s Parish poke fun at it, and poke fun at Glenbruff. ‘Have they never heard of a spirit level round here, lads. This is some backwards spot.’

  Myself and Evelyn and Maeve are huddled in the concrete shell, our nerves already jangled. The old men have fold-out stools and they’re sitting as close as they can to the pitch. The clubhouse is an old shipping container painted white on the outside with lights strung on wires on the inside and old school benches to sit upon. I can see Pamela Cooney tucked in with the supporters from Saint Malachy’s Parish, wearing a pale pink coat with a furry hood. The Glenbruff boys stream out onto the pitch, their breath coming in plumes of fogged air.

  Aidan’s the team captain. He’s shouting across the pitch, pointing at and directing the other players, a fierce determination on his face. There’s a sharp whistle and the roars rise up. Aidan is pelting up and down the pitch, and we can sense the force of the kicks, the acceleration of the ball hurtling through the air and up, up, up between the high bars. His shoulders gyrate in his jersey. His legs have a nice and even covering of honey-coloured hair and the skin beneath is tanned and supple.

  The day after the match, appreciative talk of Aidan’s legs reverberates around Saint Dymphna’s Girls’ Secondary School. ‘Those thighs could crack walnuts…’ Almost overnight, Aidan has become the most eligible seventeen-year-old boy in the locality, surpassing even Dylan Hartigan, who’s been up to Dublin to do modelling shots for a clothes catalogue. Geraldine Dobson takes a funny turn with all the excitement. ‘He has the sexiest pair of legs in Roscommon,’ she says, her eyelids heavy with lust. ‘They’re rock solid and they’ve veins like wires running across them.’

  ‘You’re some horndog,’ says Evelyn, in precarious humour after certain goings-on at the match. Peadar had been roving around in the crowd, asking girls for their phone numbers and getting the shift from Stacey Nugent behind the clubhouse.

  There’s a celebratory disco in the community centre. Geraldine Dobson is doused in glitter, wearing shoes like stilts that she can’t rightly walk in. She’s holding on to the backs of chairs like a first-time ice skater, afraid to let go for fear her legs will give way. Meanwhile, up to twelve girls are leaning against the wall by the entrance to the gents’ toilet, awaiting Aidan to happen in their direction. ‘Imagine trying to catch a fella’s eye when he’s
heading for a shite,’ says Evelyn, shaking her head. I’m seeing Aidan in a new light. It’s not only the legs, but the firm jawline, the ever so slightly oversized white teeth and the way he furrows his eyebrows when he’s deep in concentration. If I myself was to get a kiss from Aidan, or even a slow dance, I’d be made up, but the competition is fierce.

  Maeve has to borrow clothes from Evelyn to wear on nights out, and she looks all wrong in fingerless gloves and velvet tops with draped sleeves. The black lipstick makes her teeth appear yellow and unscrubbed. ‘What in God’s name is Maeve Lynch wearing. It looks like she fell into the bargain basket in a charity shop,’ says Jennifer Graham, who’s touching up her mascara in the girls’ toilet.

  ‘Yeah. She looks like Courtney Love threw up on her,’ chimes Stacey Nugent.

  A toilet flushes and Maeve emerges from a cubicle, her face animated with microscopic twitches. She’s moving towards me, her eyes blinking rapidly as Jennifer and Stacey scurry out the swing door. ‘You didn’t stand up for me,’ she says. ‘You let them trash me.’

  ‘I didn’t have time to think. It happened so fast.’

  Maeve hunches over the sink. The water coming out of the tap is very hot and there’s steam rising off it, but Maeve allows it to run all over her hands. As she soaps and rinses, soaps and rinses, I worry that she’s going to tell Evelyn, and Evelyn will think badly of me, but it works out that I get to tell Evelyn my side of the story first.

  ‘It’s not our fault if Maeve looks like a tool on nights out,’ Evelyn says.

  Pamela is standing alone by the dance floor. She turns all the lads down. ‘I’m too shy,’ she says, giggling, when Peadar tries to catch hold of her hand and when the other lads attempt to pull her elbow to bring her for a dance or out the back into the dark. And then Aidan approaches her, and we can see the whole thing happening in slow motion. There’s a collective wave of upset. The girls stop dancing and begin whispering furiously behind cupped hands. They text their parents to come and collect them from the community centre without delay.

  You have to put like with like, and the likes of Pamela Cooney will always end up with the likes of Aidan Morley. I revert my attentions to Dylan Hartigan, a fella with an irresistible high-fashion sneer and poor eye contact. I’ve never seen his legs but they’re surely better than average.

  Aidan and Pamela are oblivious to myself and Evelyn and Peadar and Maeve all gaping out of Angelo’s window at them, Aidan delicately brushing a strand of hair out of Pamela’s face, and Pamela touching the soft skin on the back of his neck with her fingertips, her mouth stained with the pop of pomegranate lip gloss. They’re like a pair of ancient statues intertwined.

  ‘Would you look at the two virgins,’ Peadar sneers. I had thought we were all virgins.

  ‘Everyone knows girls from Dublin are only sluts,’ Evelyn says, and Peadar snorts with amusement. I don’t think Evelyn once met a girl from Dublin before Pamela came along, and what makes her the authority on girls from Dublin, I’m wondering.

  ‘Are they?’ enquires Maeve. ‘Every one of them sluts?’ Maeve has taken a notion and sewn a fur trim onto the hood of her own coat.

  ‘Any I’ve met in a personal capacity,’ Peadar says knowledgeably. ‘The thing is that Pamela was after me first. She’d her eye on me first. We’d a few chats at the matches and a good long conversation on the house phone there not so long ago. Herself that rang. We were planning to meet up.’ Evelyn pushes the chip carton away from herself across the table. ‘I never thought a woman could break the bond between brothers,’ Peadar adds. ‘But there you are.’

  Evelyn curls her hands. ‘Can we not talk about something else,’ she says in a hard voice. ‘I’m bored of talking about her. She isn’t the least bit interesting. She’s nothing to say for herself. She’s the most boring person I’ve ever known. Who is she anyway? She’s no one.’

  ‘Aidan’s on the phone from the minute he’s in the door from school. I was waitin’ for a call from a girl over in Shrule the last night and he wouldn’t get off the fuckin’ line so I fuckin’ cut it. He’d to go down to the phone box and phone her from there.’

  ‘What can they be talking about every evening?’ asks Maeve. ‘What would they have to be saying to one another?’

  ‘Nothing. Shite talk. I wouldn’t mind but I’ve business to be dealing with. Women waitin’ on me, like.’

  ‘I wonder why he doesn’t call over to the house to see her instead,’ muses Maeve.

  ‘Would ye shut up talking about her,’ Evelyn cries shrilly. ‘I’m going the fuck home if ye don’t shut up talking about her.’

  ‘She’s not allowed out during the school week. And the brothers are two knacker thugs. If Aidan takes a wrong step with her, they’ll kill him stone dead.’

  ‘Maybe we should give her a chance,’ says Maeve, craning her neck for a better look. ‘Get to know her. She could be nice. She looks nice.’

  ‘She’s not as good-looking as I thought she was,’ Peadar says. ‘Not when you’re up close. She’s plain-looking up close.’

  In a flash, Evelyn tips her carton of chips over Peadar’s head, and he grabs her wrist in the air and shakes it roughly. ‘The fuck is wrong with you,’ he snarls. Evelyn bursts into tears. She yanks her wrist free and flees from Angelo’s as Peadar shakes the salt out of the front of his hair and onto the table before him. ‘Let her fuck off home for herself. Contrary bitch.’

  Maeve is laughing away, having a great evening’s entertainment. It’s all happening with Pamela Cooney in town. ‘Life is very exciting at the minute,’ she gushes. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’ she says to me.

  I’d better go after Evelyn. I need to find her and comfort her. That’s the expectation. I have to leave Angelo’s unattended and pelt up the street, and she’s at the church by the time I catch up to her.

  ‘I hate everybody. Nobody in the world loves me.’

  ‘Would you stop that talk. Your mother loves you. Your father loves you. Myself and Maeve.’

  ‘My mother doesn’t love me. She slapped me across the face. She slapped me so hard my father slapped her after so she’d never do it again. And now she only pretends to love me.’ Jesus. She never told me that. She turns her face to the wall and sobs into her palms. ‘It’s Peadar I love but he doesn’t love me back.’

  ‘Oh.’ It’s Peadar she loves. How could I have missed it. ‘Maybe he does love you but he doesn’t realise it. He might go on to realise in a few years’ time.’

  ‘Will he ever come around?’ she says, her voice wrenched with anguish.

  ‘I’d say he will. And if he doesn’t you’ll meet someone better. Think of all the places we’re going to go and the people we’re likely to meet.’

  She turns her tear-streaked face and hiccups. ‘Will you go back and make an excuse for me?’

  ‘I will. I’ll tell him your favourite actor died in a car crash and you’re in bits over it.’

  ‘Thanks, Katie,’ she says appreciatively, and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘That’s a good one.’

  The guilt is rising up within me. I’m as well off to own up to everything. ‘Mammy invited Pamela up to the house. She brought the dancing tape up with her. She asked me if I wanted to get matching tracksuits and do performances.’

  Evelyn’s subdued for a moment, and then she says, ‘People would only be laughing at ye.’ Laughing at us. I hadn’t envisioned people laughing at us. ‘You don’t want to associate with the likes of her, Katie. Haven’t I warned you before about girls from Dublin.’ She narrows her eyes. ‘I heard the father is in prison. I heard he’s a contract killer. It mightn’t even be safe for you going around with her. You could be shot dead in the night.’

  ‘Shot dead.’ What would I be shot dead for? It doesn’t make sense.

  ‘I’d say she’ll try and get between us. You won’t let that happen, will you? You wouldn’t choose Pamela over me, would you?’ she says, and now I wish I hadn’t gone after her to see that she was alright. I
could have learned a thing or two from Pamela. She could have shown me how to get a fella, since she has so many of them interested in her. And I could have looked phenomenal in a lime-green bodysuit, but now I’ll never know. ‘I wouldn’t like that, Katie. I’d hate that. I couldn’t be friends with you after that.’

  Myself and Evelyn were born friends. I’d do anything to keep her feeling friendly towards me. I won’t dance along to the tape any more, pretending I’m an American.

  Pamela’s spending the Tuesday night. Our mothers have arranged it. I’ve never before had anyone spend the night. Evelyn won’t sleep anywhere but in her own bed.

  I’ve a freshly laundered bedspread and I’ve hidden away anything that Pamela might consider to be childish. The room is looking fairly sparse afterwards. I’ve to go around the house and collect up things to make it appear more sophisticated. A decorative bowl of potpourri and a lampshade with feathers on it.

  She has a purple rucksack crammed full with clothes. ‘Where are you going with all the gear?’ I ask her.

  ‘I’m going out for a while but I’ll come back,’ she says. ‘I’m meeting someone.’ She drops the rucksack and takes position in front of the full-length mirror, cross-legged and perched upon her tailbone, her copper hair cascading behind her.

  ‘Oh. Aidan, is it?’ She is plain-looking when you look at her up close. ‘How are ye getting on?’

  ‘I can get nothing done with all the phone calls. It’s too much.’ She pulls opens the drawstrings of the rucksack and yanks out the tops and jeans and shoes. ‘I don’t know what to be talking to him about. It’s painful.’

  ‘Is that so.’

  ‘We went up to the cinema in Adragule the other night. Did you know they’ve fleas in there. I was scratching all week after it. Anyway, I’m not sure if I chose the right one, Katie. He isn’t my type. He’s boring.’

  ‘You’re hardly meeting Peadar this evening, are you?’

  ‘I’m keeping it private for the moment. If you don’t mind.’ I do mind. It isn’t fair of her withholding Aidan from the rest of us if she isn’t keen on him. And she has some audacity interfering in Evelyn’s pursuit of Peadar, not that Evelyn owns Peadar outright or anything. ‘Would you put on the radio there while I’m getting ready.’