No Wonder I Take a Drink

by Laura Marney

  So it was a two-way street, if she could read my newspaper, I could read her magazines. She didn’t mind. She’d come in from Narnia and catch me reading Chat or Take a Break and ask me if I’d read the one about the woman who killed her kids. If I hadn’t she’d open it for me and make me read it while she packed my bag. Then we could have a good old gab about it. We’d always have a laugh at the headlines: My Lover Ran Off With My Son! I Lived On A Jaffa Cake A Day For Nine Years! Arthur Sawed My Leg Off And I Took Him Back!

  As I looked for something juicy to read I noticed that most of the mags were already a bit dog-eared, but then again most of them had photos of Anthony Ramos on the front. I made a point of not looking at those.

  Two women visitors came in while I was reading the gardening section. They were Dutch by the sound of them, one a teenager and the other ages with myself, probably mother and daughter. I explained that the shop assistant would be through in a moment, and went back to my magazine. They seemed to understand and we nodded and smiled at each other. It was important to be polite to visitors, the village depended upon them. I might have broken my rule and given Jenny a shout but I wanted her to come in and find me here, and anyway, I hadn’t finished reading, I Stabbed My Husband And Walked Free! I could have gone behind the counter and served them I supposed, but I thought, No. In the current political atmosphere I would be overstepping the mark and I’d get no thanks for helping out.

  I was aware of music from behind the curtain when I’d first come in. Jenny was a great fan of Andy Robertson on Inverfaughie FM but the same music had been playing too long for it to be the radio. It was some kind of New Age bagpipe music. Now that my attention was caught I moved over towards the curtain, getting as close to it as I could from this side of the counter. I couldn’t see a thing through the fringes but at least I could make out the music better from here. It was New Age. Ah hah! So I was right all along, Jenny was an old hippy after all! I sniffed the air trying to smell incense, sandalwood or, even better, hashish. After the superior looks she bestowed on me for a couple of bottles of wine!

  But something wasn’t right. I couldn’t believe it of her, and even if she had ever smoked the weed, which I doubted, Jenny was too business-minded to skin up during shop hours.

  The Dutch women were getting restless. When they first came in they’d chatted away to each other but after a while they fell silent. Their eyes darted to the window when any traffic passed on the road and then back to the plastic curtain. I guessed their coach had stopped for a comfort break and they had taken the chance to nip into the shop. They seemed nervous that the bus would leave without them. When I moved across the shop towards the curtain the women took this as a signal that something was about to happen. They followed me, forming an orderly queue behind me. And in fact, something did happen.

  I could still hear the strange music but over the top of that, I could hear a new sound.

  ‘Ohhh, uhhhh, nuhh, mmhh.’

  The women heard it too. They looked to me for explanation but I could only shrug. Then I recognised the music. The International Brigade theme, I was sure of it, I’d seen the trailer in the pictures and heard it on the radio.

  ‘Mmmhhh, uhhh, nuhh.’

  Mother and Daughter burst into Dutch again. I couldn’t understand the words but their tone was urgent. What the bloody hell was that noise? It almost sounded like someone having sex.

  Of course, I realised, someone was.

  Jenny was having sex. With herself. She must have been so carried away she didn’t hear us come in. Through the curtain, only a few yards away from us, Jenny was entertaining herself. Now there was a steady rhythm to the noises she was making but her pitch was getting higher.

  ‘Oh, ooh, ooh, ooh.’

  She was approaching the tickly bit. The women exchanged more rapid fire Dutch and then, on the command of Mother, Daughter jumped onto the counter.

  I only had a few seconds to think. Obviously there was a misunderstanding here. One of us was getting it wrong. They seemed to be interpreting the noises Jenny was making as distress rather than passion. Mother was sending Daughter in to investigate.

  I supposed there was a chance that Jenny actually was in distress, she might have fallen off her wee three-step ladder. At her age there was always a danger that she’d fall and break a hip. She could be lying horribly twisted with her feet facing one way and her chest the other. Maybe I was the one making the mistake; maybe it wasn’t ecstasy I was hearing but delirious moans of agony. If Jenny was in pain we needed to get to her fast. Daughter had swung her legs up and over, her feet were about to reach the floor. On the other hand, if she wasn’t…

  I could see that Jenny might not appreciate someone bursting in on her, at any time, never mind at such a private moment. I would though, I’d appreciate someone bursting in on her. For one thing I’d finally get to see what her house was like. For another I’d get to see her covered in embarrassment. There’d be no more head tilting at my alcohol consumption after that.

  I had to make a decision, Daughter had reached the curtain now, she pulled aside the fronds and took a step inside the back shop.

  ‘Shop!’ I shouted at the top of my voice, ‘Jenny, you’ve got customers!’

  Amazed at me suddenly finding my voice, the girl stopped in her tracks.

  ‘Shop!’

  As if by magic, Jenny appeared. Daughter got the fright of her life and swiftly retreated to the customer side of the counter. Jenny, apparently unruffled by this intrusion, took the time to smooth her overall until the women were organised on their own, proper, side of the counter.

  ‘Yes, what can I get you, ladies?’

  They wanted sanitary towels. Jenny directed them to the darkest corner of the shop where such things were hidden away. In any other shop the signage would read, ‘Feminine Hygiene,’ in Jenny’s it read, ‘Lady’s Emergencies.’

  Up until now Jenny’s phrase had struck me as a quaint euphemism but now I could see the truth of it. The women had hung around for ages and risked their coach leaving without them. They had been prepared to storm the private quarters of the proprietor. It really was a Lady’s Emergency.

  As they scuttled out of the shop I took a good look at Jenny. She was perfectly composed, her cheeks were rosier than usual and her eyes were brighter but she wasn’t flustered in any way. And why should she be? I had to admire her nerve. Who would have thought it of her? Jenny was sixty, a Highlander and the postmistress to boot. Forbye all that she was an unashamed gusset typist.

  I wouldn’t say she was sugary-sweet because she wasn’t. Obviously she was grateful that I’d saved her blushes, but never in a million years would she say so. She didn’t try to sook in with me, she never even mentioned her special offers. She was all chit-chat about how Walter was doing in hospital and was Bouncer keeping all right, all the while with the gigantic International Brigade poster looming over us. I took the opportunity to stock up, I’d run out of nearly everything.

  She helped me pack my bag but she didn’t over do it and she never batted an eye, nor even lift her head, never mind tilt it, when I bought half a case of Shiraz, two bottles of vodka, one of whisky and four six-packs of Grolsch. I thought I’d better get bottles with replaceable tops just in case at some point I ended up having to do the Inverness home-brew run. I was about to leave the shop when she called me back.

  ‘Trixie.’

  She said my name in a kind of no nonsense way. I could tell she was embarrassed, I was a bit embarrassed myself.

  ‘International Brigade is available for hire tonight if you want it.’

  I didn’t know what to say. Jenny was bumping me up the waiting list. This was an illegal manoeuvre and flew in the face of everything the I.R.V.C stood for.

  ‘Thank you Jenny,’ I said.

  I tried to be as gracious as I could.

  ‘Now, put your purse away,’ Jenny says, putting her hand up to stop me the way I’d stopped her the other day. ‘This one’s on the house.�
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  Chapter 16

  What a movie! Even Bouncer enjoyed it and he can never sit at peace when there’s a good film on. He’s either up and down like a yo-yo at the window every time a car goes by, or whining to get out, or crashed out in front of the fire leaving me to watch it on my own. As a special dispensation, because the film was so good, I let him sit up on the couch with me. We watched it three times, the first two times back to back. The third time, to make it more like the pictures, I made microwave popcorn and turned off the lights and shut the curtains. There was none of the jiggery-pokery that Jenny had got up to, not with a impressionable young dog in the house, but oh it was brilliant! I was nearly greeting when I had to hand it back.

  I took it back to Jenny in the plain brown envelope she had given me it in and slipped it to her when the shop was quiet. We were back to being friends again, thank God, I was dying to talk about the film and I knew she was. As soon as the lunch time rush died down Jenny disappeared into the back shop. Not to interfere with herself but to make us a mug of tea. I left the exact money on the counter and cracked open a packet of Tunnocks Caramel Logs. When Jenny came back I had already made myself comfortable in the care-with-a-chair. At first we discussed the artistic merits of the film and argued the case for its Oscar awards.

  ‘The period detail was perfect and I thought the director’s vision of socialist Catalonia was perfectly rendered,’ I said.

  I was quite impressed by how highbrow this sounded. I’d read it in a review, but if Jenny had read it she never let on.

  ‘Oh yes!’

  Jenny agreed with everything I said, she was enthusiastic about all of it, especially the men.

  ‘And the bad guy, Franco’s evil priest, he was quite tasty as well, wasn’t he?’

  I had to agree, he was quite tasty.

  *

  At last Steven came. I cleaned the house from top to bottom and stocked up on crisps and juice. The cupboard was groaning with ingredients for my curry recipes. I had already baked and stockpiled batches of cupcakes, snowballs, brownies and a tray bake of almond slices. I was getting quite good at the traybakes.

  I picked up the boys from the train at Inverness. Steven shied away from any kind of emotional reunion, probably because he had Gerry with him. I was a bit disappointed not to get a hug at least. Steven and Gerry instantly took to Bouncer, clapping and petting him as he bounced around the platform. A smiling nod and, ‘All right Mum?’ was as much as I got.

  Gerry was very well-mannered. We weren’t out of the station and he was thanking me profusely for the invite. I’d harboured uncharitable thoughts about Gerry intruding on our holiday so now his gratitude annoyed me and made me feel guilty. It was so over the top that he could have been taking the piss.

  On the way back they both sat in the back. I tried to keep up a conversation with Steven asking him about school and Nettie’s but it was difficult. I felt like a taxi driver. Steven asked if they could play a CD. What could I say? They were on holiday. I’d tried to have this debate with Steven when he was first getting in to this kind of music.

  When I was growing up the most uncool music in the world was metal. It was so old, so American, even when it wasn’t. I’d chucked a boy because he kept playing his big brother’s Motorhead CD. Steven would argue that this was death metal, thrash metal, nu metal, but it was basically the same shite, different decade. And it still wasn’t cool. No right thinking person could do other than despise it. Even with the windows up, Cradle of Filth could be heard screaming as we came through the village with the two boys headbanging along.

  Within days a routine was established. Steven and Gerry would lie in their beds till lunchtime, then get up and slob around watching TV and raiding the cake tins. Every day I asked them what they wanted for tea and every day they would say chicken curry. At first I was flattered but after a week I was sick of it. I called it quits after one night, getting undressed for bed, I sniffed my oxters and discovered I was exuding vindaloo. They took the dog out in the afternoon, point blank refusing to put his tartan coat on him, and after tea, they’d go down to the Calley.

  The first night they arrived they walked down into the village and straight into the Calley bar. They were chancing their arm but were delighted to discover that Ali did not require ID. The boys behaved calmly, resisting the urge to try the more exotic drinks. (Steven had once been thrown out of a pub for attempting to order two Beziques.) With quiet satisfaction Steven and Gerry would while away their evenings in the Calley bar, supping their pints manfully. I asked them what the Calley bar was like, never having been in it myself. Steven said it was quiet, depressing really, with a few old men and losers propping up the bar. I suspected he was just saying that to prevent me from ever popping in.

  I offered to pick them up but Steven went mental, accusing me of deliberately trying to ruin the one good part of his holiday. The one good part? On my insistence Gerry got his mother on the phone and asked if he could go to the pub. She spoke to me saying indulgently, as if she was doing me a huge favour, that Gerald could go to the pub within reason.

  It was the same every night. After dinner Steven would push his plate away and casually say to Gerry,

  ‘Fancy a pint?’

  Gerry always yawned and stretched and pretended to think about it.

  ‘Aye, if you like.’

  Then began the grooming rituals. Steven and Gerry would spend an hour a piece in the bathroom. I didn’t want go near the bathroom for a few hours until the steamy sickly intermingled smell of aftershave and jobby subsided. There had to be women in the Calley bar. The lads washed and dried their hair, flicking it around like girls. They ironed their jeans and stood in front of the mirror adjusting their hair partings and fine-tuning the casual arrangement of their clothes. Never once did they invite me.

  I didn’t mind, I liked having the house to myself for a few hours. I was used to living on my own now. I’d been looking forward to the company but the boys were useless. Most of the time they deliberately excluded me by talking in a made-up code they called ‘egg language.’

  At first I was baffled, I considered phoning Bletchley Park for a loan of their Enigma machine, but the name ‘egg language’ turned out to be a dead giveaway. They were simply putting ‘egg’ in front of the first vowel sound. Right in front of me they would discuss such delicate subjects as neggookie beggadges and bleggow jeggobs. They were good at it, their young minds racing ahead, simultaneously translating as they spoke. I was usually a few sentences behind but I could catch the sense of it. They may have been suspicious, I heard Steven say, ‘Leggets meggurder meggum’, but it was just a test. I had to be careful to remain impassive. I didn’t want to spoil their top secret schoolboy fun and anyway, this way I got to hear everything.

  While they were out I got the chance to catch up with the housework. Steven, never the tidiest person, showed off in front of Gerry by draping his cast-off clothes over furniture from one end of the house to the other. Gerry, obviously comfortable with this, followed suit. With Gerry in the house I didn’t have the freedom to bawl at Steven the way I usually did. It was easier just to accepted the fact that I’d have to be a full-time skivvy for the duration.

  Neither Steven nor Gerry had worked out the difficult technical task of putting a new toilet roll in the holder. One of my daily janitorial tasks was to replenish the loo paper. We were going through it like nobody’s business and I cursed myself for not buying more of Jenny’s special offer.

  Since chucking the fags I’d rediscovered my sense of smell. This had been, until now, a blessing. Every night a delicious pot pourri of Steven and Gerry’s socks, dog farts and curried armpits would put me off my dinner. But it wasn’t all bad. At least now I had someone to blame whenever I couldn’t find things.

  And the boys were popular with the wee girls next door. Steven thought it was hilarious hearing them call me ‘Trixie’. Rebecca, who became a constant visitor during those two weeks, was in love with Steven and fol
lowed him around the house, giggling at everything he said. Rebecca and Michaela would come in some mornings even although they knew the boys wouldn’t be up for hours. It was the only time they volunteered to help me in the garden. Once when the girls were round Steven got out of his scratcher unaccountably early. He stumbled into the kitchen, still sleepy and tousle haired. The girls had brought Smidgy in to show him. Steven sat stroking the rabbit on his knee before taking him out the room. Used like a ventriloquist’s dummy, poor trembling Smidgy’s head poked round the door. All we could see was an apparently four-foot-tall rabbit.

  ‘Can you see me?’ Steven said in a Smidgy Rabbit voice. ‘Can you see me now? What about now?’

  With every question Smidgy got taller and the more the girls giggled, the taller he got. Then he disappeared and who should bound into the kitchen but Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.

  ‘Look, I’m Skippy! And here’s me little Joey!’ Steven said in an Australian accent. Steven had turned his hooded sweatshirt back to front. Now Smidgy’s head was peaking out of Steven’s pouched belly. He, or I should say Skippy, was hopping around the kitchen tutting, terrifying poor Smidgy. Bouncer and the girls wanted in on the act and the kitchen floor vibrated with the bouncing of two wee girls, a dog, a big daft boy and a frightened rabbit.

  ‘What’s that you say Skip?’ My Australian accent veered more towards Irish but the kids got the idea, ‘Gerry’s hung-over and you caaan’t wake him up?’

  Skippy tutted and nodded furiously.

  ‘Quick kids, that Gerry feller needs help, this could be serious!’

  They all bounced up the stairs to Gerry’s room, Bouncer doing his best to get a sniff of the rabbit. Not in a predatory way, more a nosey youthful exuberant kind of way. Steven was tutting and laughing and bouncing while protecting Smidgy from the dog. This was a glimpse of the real Steven. When he was like this, free, uninhibited, he reminded me of his dad, the best of Bob, the side of Bob I hadn’t seen for a long time.