Poking Seaweed with a Stick and Running Away from the Smell

by Alison Whitelock

  Then one Monday morning as I sat at my desk waiting for Mrs Berry to explain the difference between single bonds and double bonds somebody came and sat beside me. She took her books out of her bag and turned to me and smiled and said hello and I couldn’t believe it and so I smiled and said hello back. She told me her name was Leanne and she offered me one of her sweeties and I told her you weren’t allowed to eat sweeties in the class and that’s when she said ‘Who gives a fuck?’ and so I smiled and took a sweetie from her and I hid it under my tongue and the two of us smiled some more.

  26

  A fine Johnny

  Leanne was a brilliant new best pal. She had long golden hair and legs like two sticks of dry spaghetti that poked out of short pink skirts and the boys buzzed around Leanne just like they’d buzzed around Maggie, like flies ’round shite, at least that’s what Mum used to say. And just like before, the boys never buzzed around me, and when they started to gather around Leanne I’d walk away to leave them alone together and nobody even noticed I wasn’t there.

  When four o’clock came I’d take a short cut home from school across the grass you weren’t meant to walk on and I’d squeeze myself through the railings of the fence that lead onto Camper Street. Brian Stewart’s da’s pet shop was just across from the railings on Camper Street and as I passed I’d look in the window at the black fan-tailed fish with the googly eyes. Mr Stewart would be standing behind his counter and he’d smile through the window and mouth a big ‘hello!’ to me and I’d smile back and mouth a big ‘hello!’ to him, and we did that every afternoon at four o’clock.

  I’d wanted to go into the pet shop that day and tell Mr Stewart about the article I’d read in Fish Weekly about what to do when your fantail’s under the weather and how you should feed it a frozen pea, defrosted, when out of nowhere this good-looking boy appeared and asked if he could carry my bag. I didn’t know where to look, so I stared at my shoes and said, ‘Aye, if you like.’ He said he did like and gently took my bag and slung it over his shoulder on top of his own. He told me his name was Johnny, and what a fine Johnny he was too, and I let him carry my bag all the way to my street, though not to my house, for who wants to be caught by their da standing in the street with a boy in broad daylight. I took my bag from him and thanked him very much and all the while my face was purple with the embarrassment of it all like the beetroots Mum got at the markets and sometimes boiled whole. He asked me if he could carry my bag again the next day at four o’clock and I said, Aye all right, if you like, and he said he did like and I felt so happy I thought my heart would explode.

  The phone was ringing when I walked into the house and I raced to answer it. It was Laughlin from the building site my da was working on. I put my hand over the mouthpiece and I shouted to Mum that Laughlin was on the phone and he needed to speak to her.

  ‘Hello, Laughlin, it’s Betty here,’ Mum said, bending down and holding the phone away from her ear so’s I could listen in.

  ‘Aye, hello, Betty,’ Laughlin said, ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, hen, but it’s about your man, big Joe.’

  ‘Aye, go on,’ Mum said.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid it’s bad news, Betty. There’s been a ­terrible accident.’

  ‘What do you mean, terrible accident? How terrible are we talking here?’ Mum asked and I watched her eyes widen and a smile appear on the corners of her lips.

  ‘Well, I don’t want you to go worrying yourself half to death, but it’s terrible enough.’

  ‘Go on,’ Mum said.

  ‘Well, hen, big Gavyn, the crane driver, was working the crane, moving railway sleepers from one pile to another. Anyway, he only went and took his eyes off the job for a split second to unwrap his corned-beef sandwiches when he accidentally knocked the button that released the brake and the railway sleeper went hurtlin’ through the air and landed slap bang on big Joe’s leg!’

  ‘You don’t say! So what kind of state’s Joe in? Will he live?’

  ‘Och aye, hen. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was a close call, but it’s just his thigh bone that’s broken and believe it if you like, the thigh bone’s the strongest bone in the body, so the ambulance man was saying. They call it the femur.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ Mum said, somewhat disinterested in this detail.

  ‘Yes indeed, hen, you’ll be glad to know that apart from that he’s absolutely fine.’

  ‘So just to recap then,’ Mum said, ‘what you’re sayin’ is, he’s going to live?’

  ‘Aye, hen, that’s right.’

  ‘So you’re sure it’s not fatal?’

  ‘Come come, there’s no need for that, hen, don’t you worry yourself one wee bit with silly thoughts like that. It would take a lot more than a railway sleeper to get rid of a man like big Joe. He’s as strong as an ox that man!’

  Laughlin gave Mum the details of the hospital and Mum thanked him for his trouble and hung up the phone and her disappointment was visible for all the world to see.

  Somewhat deflated myself, I picked up my bag from the couch and dragged it behind me on my way to my room. Once I was there, thoughts of my fine Johnny crept into my mind again and it wasn’t long before I’d forgotten the disappointment of my da’s narrow escape with death. I touched my bag, the same bag my fine Johnny had touched that very afternoon, and I closed my eyes and could see us there together in our very own French chateau at Fontainebleau, if you don’t mind, and I’m wearing my wedding gown of antique lace a hundred seamstresses have stitched by hand and just for me, and the crystal buttons are glinting in the afternoon sun and the scent of French lavender fills the air and I never want this moment to end.

  Mum made us a mince and onion curry for our tea that night—well it’s not every day your da narrowly escapes death and gets kept in the hospital. And my how we laughed. We told jokes all night long and had the singsongs we could never have when he was there. We put on his Neil Diamond LPs and Andrew sang into the hairbrush and we rustled bags of crisps and crunched out loud and no one told us to ‘make less fuckin’ noise!’

  I went to bed happy that night, but I couldn’t sleep. Not even thoughts of my da agonising in his hospital bed with his femur mashed to a pulp could distract me from the pangs of love that Cupid’s arrow had been firing at my heart since four o’clock that afternoon. I tossed and turned for hours on end until finally, in the wee small hours, I drifted into a velvety slumber on a bed of soft, red, rose petals, my fine Johnny by my side.

  I did my hair the next morning using Mum’s curling tongs and added a dab of rouge to my cheeks from her make-up box. When I got to school Leanne noticed all right and told me I looked pretty and what was I looking so pretty for? And my face went bright purple again like those beetroots and Leanne guessed straightaway it must have been about a boy.

  The bell rang at five to four. I ran to the toilet and checked how I looked. I don’t know who I expected to see but all I got was myself and I looked like I always looked, like shite, and there was nothing I could do. I ran away from the mirror and out into the playground and across the grass you’re not supposed to walk on and I squeezed myself through the hole in the railings onto Camper Street and I waited and waited, then I looked up and down the street and I waited some more. Then the darkness came and I knew it was five o’clock ’cause Mr Stewart came out to the front of his shop to close the shutters and turn the key in the door and when he saw me standing at the railings he smiled and called out ‘hello!’ from across the street and I raised my hand and called ‘hello!’ back but I didn’t feel much like smiling. I looked up and down the street one last time and then I picked up my bag and headed for home.

  27

  Joan Crawford’s lips

  Mum used to keep her make-up in a huge box in the bathroom and she used to put her make-up on every day before she did anything else, ’cause Mum said once she had her make-up on, she could face Goliath. When I asked who Goliath was she told me if I’d gone to the Sunday school instead of watching Randall and
Hopkirk (Deceased), then I’d know fine well who he was. Mum had every colour of eyeshadow you could care to imagine in that box and she had lipsticks too, as far as the eye could see, and sometimes me and Izzy would spend hours looking through that box and trying on the different colours. Once I tried on Mum’s blue eyeshadow and I looked like Giovanni’s wife at the chip shop on the corner and another time Izzy tried on the emerald green and she looked like Mrs Berry the chemistry teacher.

  One day when I came home from school Mum wasn’t there so I did my homework and when I was finished, I went to the bathroom, took out her make-up box and raked through it, wondering what colours might suit me that day. That’s when I found the lipstick called Hollywood Red and it looked just like the lipstick Joan Crawford wore in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Mum’s favourite movie. I took it out of the box, twisted off the lid and marvelled at the redness, and I ran that creamy lipstick up the inside of my forearm and the redness stood out against my white skin like fresh blood on snow. I held it to my lips to see if it might suit me, then ran it around my lips all the while hoping it might make me look like Joan Crawford. When I was finished I stepped back from the mirror and tilted my head to the side like Mum always did when she finished putting her lipstick on and I stared at my reflection. My Joan Crawford lips looked so good, so glamorous, that I couldn’t help but smile and for the first time in my life, I dared think myself beautiful. Then I started to dream about Joan Crawford and I closed my eyes and made a wish that some day I’d be rich and famous too, and that people would queue up at The Roxy to see me on the big screen on a Saturday night with my Hollywood Red lips. And after my movie premieres hundreds of fans would line up and beg me for my autograph and I’d have to say to them, I don’t have time just at the minute to be signing photographs, ’cause I’ve Peter Cushing to meet for a Babycham in the lobby bar.

  I had left the door to the bathroom half open and next thing I knew my da was storming in through the front door of the house and when he saw me in the bathroom staring at myself in the mirror wearing my Joan Crawford lips, he pushed the door wide open and told me I was nothing but a filthy fucking whore and to get that muck washed off my fucking face right there and then. Then he stormed out of the bathroom slamming the door behind him. I raced to the door to lock it, then leaned back against it and cried with shame ’cause maybe he was right, maybe I was a filthy whore standing there admiring myself in the mirror thinking I’m Joan Crawford sipping Babychams with Peter Cushing of all people in lobby bars.

  I stood up from the bathroom floor and took a piece of toilet paper and I tried to rub that Hollywood Red lipstick off, but the colour was so red and so creamy it stuck to my lips like glue and instead of coming off I smudged it all over my mouth and my chin and all the while I cried more tears of shame. That’s when Mum arrived home and when she heard my cries she came running. She knocked on the bathroom door and I was too ashamed to come out in case she saw me and thought me a filthy whore too, so I shouted out to her from inside the bathroom that I was okay and waited quietly until I heard her go away. Then I stood in front of the mirror and I scrubbed and scrubbed at my lips until they bled and I tilted my head to the side and stared at my reflection again and the blood-stained lips stared back at me and I vowed I’d never dare think myself beautiful again.

  28

  The Bonnie Prince Charlie

  My da’s pal Harry had a big concrete shed for sale and he offered it dirt cheap to my da who took it straight away and had it put up on our land. Once it was finished a man appeared from the council carrying a clipboard and he asked my da if he had permission to put the shed up and my da told him to fuck right off, else he’d set the dogs on him. The man from the council never came back and so my da used the shed to go into business with his pal Franky, selling wholesale fruit and vegetables to fruit and vegetable shops far and wide.

  Franky had been our family friend for years and what a great laugh he was. Whenever he came to our house he’d have us all in stitches with the stories he’d tell, and he was the kind of guy you could talk to about anything and he always made you feel good. Franky was more like family than a friend. That’s how great he was.

  And then matters started to go wrong in the business. One day my da found out that Franky was stealing money from the bank account and so that night he spoke with Franky on the phone and confronted him about the money and Franky said he wouldn’t discuss it on the phone but that my da should meet him in the car park at The Bonnie Prince Charlie pub and that he should come alone.

  So my da had a whisky or maybe it was two and when he was finished he put on his jacket and he headed to the car. I ran after him ’cause I was worried, and told him I was coming too. As we walked past the shed my da picked up a garden spade and a pair of scissors and that’s when I got scared and I asked my da what he was planning to do with a garden spade and a pair of scissors, but he didn’t say anything and I wondered what was going to happen that night in that car park at The Bonnie Prince Charlie. We got into the car, me and my da, and just as we were about to turn out of our driveway my da opened the door and threw the garden spade and the scissors behind the gate and said, ‘You’re right enough, there’s no need for that.’ And when I heard my da say that I felt relieved and I knew that everything was going to be okay.

  It only took us five minutes to drive there and when we arrived I was surprised to see Franky’s brother Jack was there too and in a way I was glad, ’cause that meant I could have a right good laugh with Jack while Franky and my da sorted out their differences. And as me and my da got out of the car Franky and Jack got out of their car too and I smiled and waved at them, I mean why wouldn’t I, Franky and Jack were our friends, in fact they were more like family than friends. That’s how great they were.

  Franky motioned for my da to follow him to the opposite side of the car park and so I made my way towards Jack so I could have that right good laugh and as I approached I said to Jack, ‘I wonder what this is all about, eh?’ And Jack might have said something back to me but to be honest, I don’t know. I got distracted by a sound, you see, and I turned around to see where the sound was coming from and that’s when I started to shut down and I wished I wasn’t there.

  The sound I’d heard was my da trying to struggle from Franky’s grip and I watched Franky as he took my da by the throat and pushed him down on to the gravel. I wanted to scream but nothing came out, like how it happens in dreams sometimes when you’re being chased by monsters and you’re running as fast as you can, but you’re getting nowhere. Time slowed down. I wanted it to move on but time doesn’t work like that when bad things are happening, it moves slowly in a defiant way that makes your heart ache for love and safety. I stood still, motionless like the clock on the wall I couldn’t see, and next I knew I saw Franky kneel on top of my da and hold him down in the gravel with his left hand as his right hand ever so precisely reached behind his back and into the waistband of his trousers where he’d concealed the hammer. I watched Franky as he held the hammer high above his head before bringing it crashing down onto my da’s skull and that’s when I started to run and my legs were heavy like lead just like in those dreams with the monsters again. I struggled against the lead and I managed to run and I reached Franky and my da just in time for Franky to lay the second blow to my da’s already bleeding skull. My da didn’t let out a sound and I knew he was trying to be brave for me and then Franky lifted the hammer again and crashed it down a third time onto my da’s skull and this time my da did let out a scream and I mean that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Sure, other people’s daddies get scared sometimes too.

  And I didn’t know what to do. Sometimes, when I think about it now, I know there were other things I could have done. I mean there was the gravel, I could have picked some up and thrown it in Franky’s eyes. I could have picked up one of the big huge rocks that lined the car park and smashed it down on Franky’s skull. I could have run to the pub across the road to get help. But then four of the pat
rons were already standing at the door of the pub watching the horror as it unfolded, sipping on their pints and chatting amongst themselves and none of them came to help me or my da.

  In the end, all I could think of was to try to pull Franky off and Franky was a big man, nearly 25 stone Mum said once, and so I stood behind him as he kneeled on my da with his hammer in his hand and I dug my fingers into his temples and I felt his thin white skin come away in my ­fingernails and that’s when Franky turned towards me and held his hammer high above his head and tried to bring it crashing down on my skull and so I stepped back out of the hammer’s way. And then he came at me again with that hammer of his and I backed away a little more trying to avoid the hammer, thinking about myself as usual instead of my da who needed me beside him. From my safe distance I watched my da as he lay there, his body recoiled in pain, with the white gravel turning red beneath his head and his mouth wide open, as if screaming in pain. But I didn’t hear a sound.

  All of a sudden Jack appeared beside Franky, and when I saw Jack’s familiar face, the face of our friend who was nearly like family, I knew he had come to help me. But Jack hadn’t come to help and I watched him as he took a baseball bat from behind his back and join his brother as they carried on in their mission. I knew that Jack was ashamed ’cause he couldn’t look me in the eye and once he and Franky had dealt enough blows to my da’s skull and knee caps, it was Jack who called off the assault, screaming to his brother that that was enough now. Then the two of them took off, running to their white Ford Escort, and they left me with my da bleeding into the gravel in the car park at The Bonnie Prince Charlie.

  It’s all a little hazy and distant now, the memory is fading back into its box for another wee while, and the fear and horror are retreating to that place where they live, lying in wait, and there’s a lot of stuff I’ll never understand about that night. However, this I do know. I know that I stayed and I watched this happen and although I did the best I could, there’s a wee voice inside my head that tells me what I did just wasn’t enough. That awful voice reminds me that just as the hammer came towards me I stepped to the side, away from my da, to avoid its blow. And from now until the end of time I’ll wish I’d taken that blow to the head, ’cause it would have been one less blow my da would have had to take.