by J. M. Smyth
Kells is also a very rare name. In the phone books countrywide there are only a few dozen of them. And how many of those would be called Lucille? Dock’s the same.
It’s not a common name either. Ring up directory inquiries and ask for a Robert Dock – different than asking for a Robert Murphy. To tell you the truth, before I went looking for her, it hit me when I kept seeing all the kids going about with mobiles to their ears. I thought maybe Lucille had come out of that orphanage and settled in the nearest city. So I rang the mobile-phone directory inquiries for Galway. No good. Her name wasn’t registered with them. I told them to try Dublin. Kids have a habit of flocking to the capital. There was one Lucille Kells in Dublin. I had a number. But that’s all I had.
I gave it a go. ‘Lucille Kells?’
‘Yes?’
I fed her some crap that added up to ‘I have a letter which I have been asked to pass on to you from Connemara. Cellphone gave me your number, but not your address.’
‘Number two, Primrose Avenue, Dublin Four.’
‘Thanks.’
The easy ways are often the best. I took a spin round to Primrose Avenue to make sure I had the right girl. There she was. The sweater she was wearing covered that port wine stain on her arm, but it was her, right up to that red blemish in her eye. Oddly enough, I rarely saw that arm of hers again. She always seemed to wear long sleeves. Embarrassed by it, I suppose.
I followed her for a while after that, found out she worked in a café, shared her flat with an unemployed girl, Gemma Small, one of the kids from the orphanage, got to know some day-to-day stuff about them.
All I had to do now was let her know who she was – Anne Donavan’s daughter.
And the only way to do that was by giving her her birth certificate.
The trouble was, I couldn’t just send it to her. It had to look right.
I remembered how some of the kids I grew up with had been treated when they left the home. Sometimes they’d be told who they were, usually by being given letters that had been sent to them over the years by relatives, which had been kept from them. There are so many variations on how kids were treated that I could go on forever telling you about them. The religious, for whatever reason, didn’t treat us all with the same consideration. Some kids were given info about themselves, most weren’t. The thing was, it was plausible to be given it. Lucille would know that. So I went back to the orphanage where I’d left her and asked, in passing, about the sister I’d seen Lucille with. ‘Oh, she’s moved on to such and such a place,’ I was told.
‘Oh, and what about Sister …? I used to love talking to her … What’s this her name was?’
‘Sister Joseph?’
‘Yeah.’ Yeah, m’bollocks.
‘Oh, dear Sister Joseph passed away five months ago.’
I was in. It was only a question of posting the cert to Lucille, saying Jo had asked for it to be passed on. It wasn’t the first time it’d been done. And Jo wasn’t around to call me a liar.
LUCILLE
When I was eighteen I went to Joyce House in Dublin.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello, what can I do for you?’
‘Tell me who I really am please.’
Two years later they’d completed their search. ‘Sorry, nothing exists on you prior to your being left on the orphanage steps as a baby.’
‘OK, bye now.’
‘Bye.’
That pretty much sums it up.
A job in a café paid the bills and because meals were included I was able to put by a little each week while I waited for a place at University College Dublin for a degree in psychology and social studies. I wanted to become a child psychologist. That was how I saw my future and I’d resigned myself to the fact that I would never find my mother.
But then a letter arrived containing my long birth certificate and a note from a Sister Joseph, telling me who I really was: Frances Anne Donavan, daughter of Anne Donavan, Clonkeelin, County Kildare.
The question was how to deal with it. Giving me Anne as a middle name was a good sign of course, but I’d have to remember that Anne Donavan herself hadn’t sent me the letter and what that implied. A mother doesn’t give up her baby without a very strong reason. Whatever her present circumstances, whether she had a husband and children who didn’t know about me, or was unable or unwilling to trace me, I would have to approach her in such a way that she wouldn’t see me as someone who would upset the life she had now made for herself.
It required a good long think.
RED DOCK
I now needed to know how Lucille would react to receiving that birth cert. If she went out to Clonkeelin to see who she thought was her mother, I could follow her. But that wouldn’t tell me what they’d said to one another. And it wasn’t as if I could ask her. I could do the next best thing. I could ask her flatmate, Gemma Small. She’d know. But first I’d have to get to know her and gain her confidence.
By this time, I had pubs and hotels. (Whoever said crime doesn’t pay can’t have been any good at it.) I’d built up a few over the years, all paid for courtesy of outwitting Chilly Winters. Crime seemed to be the only option for me when I came out of that home. I couldn’t think of any other way to get what I really wanted (going to the law wasn’t gonna get me it), and I’m not talking about personal wealth. I found villains refreshingly honest. They knew what they were and didn’t try to paint themselves as saints. I did the odd bit of work for Charlie Swags, but nothing like I used to. The money for the hotels had mostly come from surveillance work. It was an old scam – catch people with money fucking women on camera. The trick was not to let them know I was behind it, amusing myself. I had two hotels. Small-scale. The odd whore brought in the odd celeb and I made sure they got a room next to the one I use for recording embarrassing goings-on. I even had photographs of Chilly himself in bed with a girl. And her name wasn’t Mary. But that’s another story.
Anyway, Gemma Small went to the job centre a lot … interviews … back to the centre. Wanted work but didn’t seem to be having much luck. So I waltzed in behind her one morning, saw her looking at the vacancies and went up to her.
‘Mind if I ask you a question?’
‘No.’
‘I’m looking for bar staff, and I’m in a hurry. If I put the job through here, they’ll take days to find someone.’ I’d actually seen a TV programme about employers doing this; apparently it wasn’t uncommon. ‘What d’you think? It’s hard work and long hours. If you’re not up to it, say.’
‘Where?’
‘The Copper Jug. Usual rates. Nick and you’ll get my boot up your arse.’ A bit of humour goes a long way with kids. ‘Graft and I’ll bung you the odd few quid extra.’
Big smile. When they start palming their locks and blushing, your bullshit’s hitting home. Still, there’s a lot of dodgy characters around – a girl has to be on her guard. The cops were warning girls – particularly small-chested ones, for some reason – about some nut the newspapers had nicknamed ‘Picasso’, who was going around leaving them in serious need of sticking plasters. He’d helped himself to over twenty so far, and now he’d started taking them in pairs.
‘Check with yer woman behind the desk, if you like. She’ll tell you I’m straight up. I’ve employed the odd few from here before. If you tell the taxman about the bung, OK by me, but you’ll go down in my estimation. Am I tempting you?’
The left lock went into her mouth and got on giggling terms with her tongue. Nice little thing – blonde and fuckable.
‘One thing – can you add up?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good. Make sure you get your fair whack of the tips.’
Another little giggle. ‘When do you want me to start?’
‘Right away.’
‘Will I be all right like this?’
‘Why wouldn’t you?’ Nice lemon sweater and jeans. Very presentable. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Gemma Small.’
‘Red Dock. C’
mon.’ I’d the motor outside. Still with the Mercs. ‘I’ll ask you some questions about yourself on the way over. Is that all right? Usual employment stuff for the paperwork.’
‘OK.’
‘That’s not a Dublin accent you’ve got. Where you from?’
‘Galway.’
‘Great pub town. Your people still live there?’ I knew she had none.
‘I was brought up in a home.’
‘Oh, you’re an orphan?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Find out. Go to the health board. Listen to me going on. Sorry. It’s your own business.’
‘The health board are useless.’
‘I know.’
She wondered how I knew.
Thinking on my feet here, improvising to keep the topic going. ‘A mate of mine called Ted Lyle has a couple of girls working for him in your position. One of them went to a support group.’
News to her. ‘A support group?’
‘They have them for everything: booze, dope, kids in trouble and kids like you. I’ll get Ted Lyle’s girls to have a word with you, fill you in.’
‘Thanks.’
So far so good. Red the Revelation. The health boards are a fucking joke. Kids go to them and get told sweet fuck all sometimes.
I left the conversation like that. I’d only wanted to know how she felt about her background so I could use it as a talking point to learn Lucille’s feelings on the subject.
Then I rang Ted Lyle and told him I’d a young girl – ‘Pretty little thing, she is’ – who’d like a word with one of his. The ‘pretty little thing’ would make him take a look. No need to make it any more obvious than that. He’d get around to it. Ted had a room-service angle on the go with hotel porters. Class girls. No tarts in lampshades. Throwing one of them a few quid to get the leg over once a week does me. Fuck all that emotional crap. Sex, then get t’fuck outta there’s as far as I go. ‘So you can send Sally over on Friday night,’ I told Ted. Size ten, hair like a seal’s, that was Sally.
I was in the office at the back of the Copper Jug that Friday night. I usually count the takings on a Friday. Gemma was in the bar serving.
‘Gemma, c’mere a minute and give us a hand.’
Fra – Fra manages the place for me – gave me a bit of a ‘don’t keep her long’ look. The place was crammed. Tina Turner was belting out ‘Steamy Windows’ on the jukebox. Seemed appropriate. The upstairs ones’d be steamy when Sally got her kecks off.
‘Yes, Red?’
I led her into the office. ‘Count that, will you?’ There must’ve been twenty-odd grand on the desk. The sight of it made her eyes ping. The first time anybody’d trusted her, by the look of her.
‘I’m expecting company, Gemma. Send her up when she arrives. Sally her name is. She’s one of the girls I was telling you about who’d fill you in on those support groups. Have a word with her when she’s finished.’
I left her to it. Sally arrived and Gemma sent her up. I fucked Sally then sent her down to tell Gemma to give her two hundred quid. Nice and casual. As if Sally was nothing more than hired help. That’s all she was anyway. Then I had a shower and came down.
‘How you getting on, Gemma?’
She’d figured out what the two hundred was for but didn’t say. Just looked embarrassed. ‘OK.’
‘Good. Give that to Fra when you’re finished. I’m away. See ya.’
That was it. A few Fridays came and went. Nice girls with them. Gemma had to know that she herself, being young and attractive, was not of particular interest to me as far as it came to fucking her – that I paid for girls when I wanted them and wasn’t into making passes. Detached.
I let this situation between me and Gemma build up over the weeks. I say ‘situation’. I won’t use the word ‘relationship’. It’s not a word I feel comfortable with. I haven’t felt anything for anyone since Sean. Gemma was to be used, nothing more. How she felt about me, I neither knew nor cared. Distance. I always keep my distance from people. I didn’t want my emotions getting in the way of what I was about.
The thing was, Gemma went to a couple of Charlie Swags’s nightclubs on weekends and got into Sally’s company. Which meant she got into Ted Lyle’s. All you have to do is look at Ted to know what he’s thinking. When you see him coming all suave – if jewellers displayed their wares on pimps, Ted’d be a walking model for them – Mr ‘No Problem’ – you know he’s making a move. He was looking at Gemma and seeing pound signs. And if he didn’t tell Sally to tell Gemma that she could see them too, if she came and worked for him, he wasn’t the greedy fucker I knew him to be. Oh he’d take it nice and easy. Everything aimed at making Gemma feel comfortable with Sally’s way of earning a living. A lot of girls you can just put it to them straight. Tell them they’ve got the goods and do they want to get the best returns from them? Other girls would take it as an insult of course. But by allowing a girl to gradually get used to the idea that someone like Sally was making plenty, doing all right for herself, being looked after, no violence, all that, if a girl is of a mind, it slowly begins to seep in that it’s just a good way to make money. Five or six punters a night, five or six hundred in their pockets a night. The important thing is not to rush it. I’m telling you stuff you probably already know here. If you don’t, fuck knows where you’ve been living.
The following Friday night, Gemma’s counting the money. She’s expecting, as usual, a girl to turn up for me to fuck. I hadn’t ordered one, but I didn’t tell Gemma that. I didn’t say a word – just let her think I had. I went upstairs, came down a half-hour later.
‘No sign of one of Ted Lyle’s, Gemma?’ Straight face. Always keep a straight face. Gemma had to have the impression I dealt with girls simply on a business level. I paid bar staff for a service; I paid girls for a service.
‘No,’ she said. No red face now. She’d become used to it.
‘Fuck it.’ I sat down at the desk beside her. ‘I hate people screwing up my routine.’
‘I know.’
I read nothing into that. I’d been let down. Nothing serious. No big deal. But Gemma, I was sure, liked the honesty of my situation, the way I acted, the straightforwardness of it all. No hassle. A ‘service’ hadn’t turned up, that’s all. It was important that Gemma felt that although my set-up might be unusual to many, it was normal to me. I could get girls on a phone call. Gemma, therefore, had to see herself as just another girl.
‘I’m gonna ask you a question here, Gemma. Say yes or no. It’s no big deal to me either way. I can easily ring Ted Lyle and tell him to get his finger out.’
She sensed what was coming. Her face went red and a gulp was on the way. ‘What is it?’ came out with a ‘Fuck me, what’s he gonna ask me?’ attached to it.
‘I want to fuck you.’ Unorthodox? Not to me. Depends what you’re used to. She knew it was just business. But there was a risk. I didn’t want to frighten her off.
Timid little thing. I could see the nerves jumping in her. She took her time. I used it against her.
‘No problem,’ I said, with no hint of anything in my voice approaching bad feelings – I’d taken her silence as a no, but fuck it, so what?
‘All right,’ came out. A letter at a time, it sounded like. Maybe she felt something for me; maybe she felt I’d been let down. Kids of her age look up to people who’ve been good to them. Don’t like to feel they’ve let them down.
‘Sure?’
‘Yes.’ It croaked out. She cleared her throat. ‘Yes.’
‘OK. Come on. Here.’ I handed her two hundred. ‘Makes no odds to me who gets this.’
Up we went.
I keep the bedroom nice. I rarely sleep in it. The bar staff know why I use it. No doubt the other waitresses and Gemma had talked about me amongst themselves, how I never hit on staff (and some of them were more than fuckable), how I kept it all on a detached business footing. Maybe Gemma felt a little special. I neither knew nor cared. She’d bunged the money into her back pocket anywa
y.
I peeled off and sat up on the bed. She went to lie next to me.
‘Get the gear off, Gemma.’
Took her aback, that one. Perhaps she thought this would be a necking session to begin with, or a touch of lovemaking foreplay. She might’ve been into lovemaking. I fuck – that’s it. She stood back up, looking nervous. The light was low. I wanted to see the goods. I’d a reason. Not the turn-on one – another one.
Gemma had no tits. She wore thick jumpers trying to hide it. Why? Self-conscious probably. You know what young girls are like, always worrying about how they look. If they’re well stacked, they think they’re top heavy; if they’ve nice tits, they think their arse is too big, or their hair’s … I dunno, something wrong with it anyway. Gemma was built like a kid. Smaller than I usually go for, but she was nice all the same.
I ignored the way the shyness was getting to her.
‘You’ve a nice figure, Gemma,’ I told her, just to make her feel better. Helped get rid of her inadequate look anyway. Fuck knows what she was worried about. Some men go in for kid-like girls.
‘OK – I like a blowjob then a fuck. OK?’
Shoulda seen her face. The gulp came quicker this time.
I was sitting up. She knelt on the bed and gave me a blowjob. Then I fucked her. I won’t describe it. I’m sure you know what a blowjob and a fuck are like. If not, ring Ted Lyle. And if you want to find out what other kinds of sex are like, he’s your man too.
She even cuddled into my chest afterwards. No pro ever did that before. I didn’t fancy the cuddle.
‘OK, Gemma,’ I said. ‘I have to be going.’
‘Did you like it?’ she asked. Jesus, I dunno. Talk about insecure kids.
‘Of course. You’re nice. I have a thing for girls who shave between their legs though, but other than that, fine.’
Her reaction to that would tell me something in the weeks to come.
‘Next Friday night? OK by you?’
She nodded. Went red again too. It was my way of proving I’d meant what I said. That she was worth the money.
Now the following Friday, I got what I’d hoped for. I could tell by the way she’d been acting all week that the fuck was between us. I doubt she’d mentioned it to the others. Maybe she did. But there was something in her shy little smile when she passed me or caught my glance. Kids’ stuff.