501

  Lena says to Maggie, ‘It must be awful for you.’

  I forget sometimes that there’s a side to Lena that’s not all boobs and bum. Still, it always surprises me.

  Scottie Dog reckons all the drink is affecting her waterworks and, because it’s contagious, Lena, Irish and I join her in the loos.

  I touch up my lipstick, check my eyeshadow (can’t think why) while Irish, door wide open, carries on a conversation with us as she sits on the bog.

  ‘Wait for me,’ she says as Scottie Dog heads for the door. She jumps up and goes straight to the sink and Lena says, ‘You didn’t pull them up?’

  ‘Pull them up?’

  ‘Your knickers.’

  ‘I’m not wearing any.’ She lifts up her skirt and, sure enough, she isn’t.

  I say, ‘You’ll catch a chill, Irish.’

  Lena says, ‘For god’s sake don’t trip over on the way out.’

  Scottie Dog says, ‘You’ll frighten the horses, Irish.’

  Irish reckons she could do with a good stallion. ‘Better than the little Gobshite I’ve got at home.’

  You know how a song can take you back years? Well, when we sit ourselves down again the jukebox has been fed and there’s a tune on from twenty years ago. And I look around this pub where nothing much has changed in all that time. Those words, ‘I will always love you’, and that gentle insistent tune, used to drift out the back door of the George, as I sat, fifteen years old, on the wooden bench in the warmth of a summer evening. Then I was desperately wishing, craving to be older, to join in the freedom of age. (That one worked out all right, didn’t it?)

  Jerry would sneak me out a drink, a vodka drowned in Coke so it didn’t look suspicious, and he’d bring out his pint. Every window of the pub would be open and the jukebox would track my crush on this laughing boy with his thick mop of dark hair. He was handsome then, Jerry was. He didn’t have a paunch and I was as thin as a rake. Those long summer evening were spent sitting out the back of the George, sharing cigarettes and talking, always talking. About anything. About nothing.

  Jerry had a car – bit of a wreck, mind, and sometimes not taxed – but in that car we’d drive miles. Some Sunday mornings he’d pick me up from home and we’d just drive to anywhere that took our fancy.

  And we were happy. So happy.

  The day I was sixteen I walked out of school for good, got a job in the packing factory and told Mum that Jerry and I were looking for a flat.

  Mum says sadly, ‘Don’t you want more than that, Katy?’

  But all I want is to hold Jerry every night, wake up beside him in the mornings, and live my life with him.

  Mum says, ‘You can do all that later, you’ve got all the time in the world.’

  God, I know now how right she was and suddenly I’m in one of those ‘If only I could turn the clock back’ moods.

  Maggie says, ‘Penny for them, Katy.’

  I say, ‘They’re worth nothing.’ and the bitterness in my voice surprises even me.

  Irish says, ‘The mood of her. You’d be after thinking we’d just lost the bloody game.’

  Maggie says, ‘C’mon, Katy, buck up a bit.’

  I try because I know that Jerry will be here in a minute, and if he sees my long face it’ll give him something else to go on about.

  So what I do is take my last twenty pound note, the one I’d been saving for midweek shopping, and buy yet another round of drinks. (Afterwards, when everything came to a head, I reckon that this is what did it: that drink.)

  I take a huge gulp of my vodka and Coke and then, even more fuzzy-headed, go for a smoke.

  There’s no one else out here and I sit on the damp bench under a dripping plastic cover and wonder if I’ll be sitting here in five, ten, twenty years’ time. I might even die out here, some old crone puffing on her last fag, while the world carries on beside her. I’ve started to feel really sorry for myself and all because of that bloody song. Even now I can’t get it out of my head.

  ‘I will always love you.’

  Well, I fucking won’t. And I fucking didn’t. And then, believe it or not, I start to cry.

  I put my head in my hands and I cry for a life that’s being wasted, for a young girl with all her hopes and dreams standing before her. I cry for a me that was.

  That’s what Johnny James must have seen: me crying. Perhaps he even stood over me for a minute before… before he sat down beside me, put his arm around my shoulders, drew me gently towards him.

  ‘Katy, whatever’s the matter?’

  Well, I’m not going to answer that, am I?

  So what happens? What do you think happens?

  I kiss him, that’s what I do. I put my arms around his neck and I kiss him long and hard.

  ‘Jesus, Katy,’ he says, and then he kisses me back.

  ‘You’re all woman, Katy.’ Now he’s kissing my neck. He’s gentle and warm and his hands are caressing everywhere – and I mean everywhere.

  Then he puts his mouth to mine again and it feels like heaven to be wanted so badly. But I need to take a breath, to draw air.

  ‘Johnny,’ I say, ‘give me a breather.’

  I’m saying this and over his shoulder I can see a pinprick of red light and it seems to be flickering, pulsing, and… and it’s a bloody camera. It’s Danny’s security camera beaming me into the public bar.

  I freeze and I’ve got this image in my head of me, of us, captured in this black-and-white scene of deceit. And what if Jerry’s at the bar, leaning over and saying, ‘A pint please, Danny’?

  And what if, while Danny’s pouring up, Jerry scans the CCTV screens and, forever the voyeur, thinks, ‘That couple having a snog and more. They’re going for it. Hang on. Wait a minute.’ He squints at the picture. ‘That looks like...’

  And soft porn suddenly becomes reality as I look into the camera.

  I say to Johnny, ‘The camera. The fucking camera.’

  He goes, ‘Shite, Katy. Do you think anyone…?’

  Later Irish says to me, ‘He stood at the bar as still as a statue and Danny was saying, ‘That’ll be two pound eighty.’ He says it twice and Jerry doesn’t move, just stares at that screen, Katy. Then Danny turns around to see what’s got Jerry’s attention and says “Jesus Christ, isn’t that..?”’

  Irish says, ‘And then Jerry walks out, like he’s a zombie. He leaves his beer on the counter and, quiet as a mouse, he walks out.’ She sighs like she’s disappointed. ‘He just walks out.’

  I say, ‘Who knows? Who else saw?’

  ‘Just me and Danny. And he’s not a one for the talking.’

  We’ve stayed behind, me and Irish, and the bar’s empty and the jukebox is on automatic and every fucking song that’s playing sounds like a requiem for an act of folly.

  I’m drunk. I know that and I’m saying, ‘It was only a kiss, Irish. Only a kiss. That’s all.’

  But inside me I know what it was. It was a little bit of excitement in this dull, boring world where all I’ve got to do is play darts and get pissed and look after an ungrateful husband and an even more ungrateful daughter.

  Danny, washing glasses behind the bar, calls over to me. ‘Your taxi’ll be here in a minute.’

  Irish asks, ‘Can you drop me off, Katy?’

  When I get home, the house is in darkness and I let myself quietly into the front room where the embers of the fire are still glowing. Jerry’s voice comes out the shadows, making me jump.

  ‘Don’t turn the light on, Katy.’ He’s sitting in his usual chair and his words sound muffled.

  ‘Jerry, it wasn’t like it looked.’

  I want to tell him how I felt, how I wanted things to be, but I don’t have the words and I don’t…

  Jerry’s talking quietly and slowly and the meaning is lagging behind his words. I’m thinking about them, digesting them slowly.

  ‘In the morning,’ he’s saying, ‘I want you gone.’

  ‘Gone? Gone? What do you mean, gone? What about Laura?’


  He says, ‘Me and Laura’ll be all right.’

  I’m angry now and I’m drunk and I’m not talking in the dark to someone who doesn’t understand what I want, what I need.

  I flick on the light and I can see his eyes are red and his cheeks are wet. He’s been crying and for the first time this night I wonder, ‘My God, what have I done?’

  Then through the drink, through my self-justifying argument, I see me from his side. And I don’t like what I see.

  Jerry gets up from his chair, wipes his sleeve across his face. ‘I’m going up to bed. Your case is in the hall.’

  I don’t sleep. I shovel a bit of coal on the fire, wrap myself in a blanket, light a fag and sit out the night. I wait until dawn sneaks in the window and then, not sure if I’m devastated or not, I go to Mum’s.

  (I didn’t know it at the time, but I suppose I was in some sort of shock. But I was thinking that it’d all blow over, because I hadn’t really done anything. Not really.)

  Mum’s kitchen light is on and I can see her through the lace curtains of the window. She’s filling the kettle and I know that bread will be toasting under the grill. And suddenly I want, I desperately crave, her warmth, her comfort. I’m a child again and I want my Mum.

  I can hardly knock on the door; my hand is trembling.

  ‘Katy?’ Mum says. ‘What are you doing here so early?’

  Then her eyes drop to my case and she ushers me in before the neighbours can see.

  We sit in Mum’s lovely warm kitchen and I drink her sweet tea and eat her hot buttered toast.

  And I tell her all that’s happened. I tell her what’s wrong with my life. I tell her why I kissed Johnny James. I tell her everything that I couldn’t tell Jerry.

  And then I cry. I cry properly. I sob my heart out at her kitchen table in her one-bedroomed house while she strokes my hair and tells me not to worry.

  A little later she says, ‘What about Laura?’

  I’m bitter then. ‘She’s a Daddy’s girl.’

  Mum just says, ‘Oh, Katy, she’s yours as well.’

  I tell her I don’t want anyone to know about me leaving, not yet, but she says that Ellie will be coming round later this week. ‘So she’ll wonder what you’re doing here.’

  Ellie’s my younger sister. Ellie who is everything I’m not: small, slim, pretty, blonde. Six years younger than me. She looks like a china doll, but she’s anything but fragile. She’ll see me here, and that superior look will drift over her face. She won’t actually say these words but it’ll be plain.

  ‘Messed up again, Katy.’

  This first day I don’t set foot outside. I sit and smoke in the front room with the window open and Mum spoiling me. I phone work and pretend I’ve caught flu.

  My manager says, ‘Take a few days, Katy; I don’t want the whole line going down with it.’

  I imagine the girls in assembly, clicking parts together to make a whole. There’ll be talk about last night’s soaps and jokes. And gossip. Gossip about me.

  ‘Did you know she’s been carrying on with that Johnny James? Been going on for months, you know.’

  ‘Such a nice bloke, her husband.’

  ‘Quiet ones are the worst.’

  ‘Well, she was hardly quiet.’

  ‘Caught on the job, round the back of the pub.’

  ‘Having a knee trembler.’

  There’s a round of dirty laughter.

  But I’m hoping that this is my imagination and that the secret – my secret – is kept by Irish, by Danny, by Jerry, by Mum, by my sister, by my daughter.

  Christ, it’s hardly a secret anymore.

  The second day I go back to my house that isn’t really my house and let myself in the back door. The house is empty of sound and I tiptoe around like I’m a burglar. I don’t even light up a fag. On the kitchen table is Laura’s school work, and her English exercise book is open. Across a half-finished essay she has scrawled in angry scored words, ‘I hate Mum.’

  If I had any tears left, I think I’d cry again.

  I make myself a cup of tea and have to drink it black because there’s no milk in the fridge; there’s no bread in the cupboard, no veg in the tray. This gives me a feeling of satisfaction.

  ‘Now they’ll see what I did.’

  So why do I make the beds, hoover the floor, put the dirty washing in the laundry basket? And why do I take Jerry’s porn DVDs and dump them in the trash-can?

  And why do I write in soft gentle words, under Laura’s condemnation of me, ‘I love you?’

  This evening me and Mum sit and watch the soaps. We drink tea and nibble on sweet biscuits while the world carries on outside. Just me and Mum. Like it used to be. Like I can remember before she married and had Ellie.

  Mum says, ‘You were only four, Katy.’

  But I do remember and now I’m thirty-five and I’m in this limbo of not knowing what to do.

  ‘You’ve got to do what’s right.’

  It’s okay for Mum to say that but I don’t know what is right anymore. So I say to her, ‘Then why did you marry Jim?’

  ‘Cos if ever there was a mistake that was it.’

  You know, when we left I never called him Dad again, even when he used to pick up Ellie on a Sunday. She would come back clutching the latest CD and talk of Big Macs and Mr. Whippy and toffee popcorn and rides in the theme park.

  But he never took me, and I never called him Dad again.

  ‘Why did you marry him?’

  Mum’s gone very quiet. ‘Because it seemed the right thing… the only thing to do.’ Then she adds, so quietly that I almost don’t hear it, ‘At the time.’ And after that there’s no more chat about Dad stroke Jim this night.

  About eleven o’clock, just as I’m tucking myself into Mum’s sofa bed, my phone rings. It’s a number I don’t know and, when I answer, I’m ready to give someone a bollocking for calling this late. But the voice says, ‘Katy, it’s me. I’m outside.’

  And the voice belongs to Johnny James.

  And when I look out of the window I can see the glow of his cigarette as he loiters with intent in the dark at Mum’s gate.

  Thursday night darts’ practice.

  Katy.

  Thursday nights is darts’ practice at the George and I’ve half a mind not to go, but because I’m captain I feel obliged to show.

  When I get there the girls are already throwing at the board and Irish has me a vodka and Coke on the table.

  ‘I knew it would take more than that to keep you away,’ she says.

  I suppose there’re a few curious looks towards me but I’m only today’s news – a little excitement to stir boring lives. What surprises me is that I don’t really care what anyone thinks.

  Now there’s the six of us here and usually we just have a couple of drinks and go home early. But tonight my girls sit me down and keep the vodka flowing. Of course they want to know what’s going on and I say, catching Irish’s eye, ‘Bit of a row with Jerry. Need to cool off at Mum’s for a couple of days. You know what it’s like.’

  They all nod in understanding, even Pegs who can’t have a clue what I mean.

  I say to her, ‘Stay away from men. They only bring trouble.’

  Irish says, ‘Get yerself a friendly rabbit, Pegs,’ and laughs until she nearly chokes.

  But Pegs’ eyes are flitting to the bar where Big Dave Trinder, all of twenty-one years old, is hunching his shoulders in his leather jacket and trying to look cool. He’s nursing a pint and casually flicks his gaze around the bar-room.

  Only when it falls on Pegs it lingers.

  ‘You’ve got an admirer,’ Maggie tells her, and that word reminds me of the other night when my trouble started.

  Scottie Dog, scratching her boob, adds, ‘I wouldn’t mind getting into his van on a dark night.’

  Pegs blushes. ‘It’s nothing like that.’ She picks up her darts and throws at the board. Irish says to her back, ‘Nothing like what, Pegs?’ and she doesn’t answer.
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  But later, when she goes up to buy the drinks, they have a chat – her and Big Dave Trinder. I’m watching her like a mother – I mean, an older sister – and there’s an easiness to their talk as though the ice has been broken, as though they already know each other quite well. Seems like Pegs is a bit of a dark horse, and perhaps she’s already been in the passenger seat.

  What am I doing? I’ve enough problems of my own without brewing up a romance that’s none of my business. I feel guilty then because I should be worrying about Laura; I should be sorting things out with Jerry.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I tell myself. ‘I’ll phone then.’

  Tomorrow seems a long time away and meanwhile I’ll be practising darts as normal. I’ll be drinking vodka and Coke as usual. I’ll be going out for a fag as usual.

  But Johnny James won’t be there as usual.

  I sit in the designated smoking area – that’s what Danny calls it – and smoke two fags in quick succession. Then I give a Vs up to that bloody camera and go in to my girls.

  About half ten, when Paddy starts to sing, we begin to drift off to our homes: the girls to their old ones and me to my new one. We leave Danny saying, ‘Jesus Christ, Paddy, why’d you do that; there’s still a half hour to go.’

  Mum’s waiting when I get back and she makes me a mug of cocoa. We sit by the gas fire and I give her the other gossip: the stuff that’s not about me. We’re friends, me and Mum, and it’s just the two of us. No ghost of Jim issuing his orders. No spoilt sister monopolising attentions. We sit and talk and I tell her about next Monday’s league game, about Pegs, about Big Dave Trinder. Mum says that it wouldn’t work because Pegs is a traveller and they live differently – she whispers it – ‘than us’.

  And that reminds me of Jim and his rants on everything under the sun – foreigners, Mrs Thatcher, his boss, but most of all gypsies.

  ‘That lot,’ he’d say over and over. ‘Hitler had the right idea; stick ‘em all in the gas-chamber.’

  He even signed the petition to move them on from Stanford Station yard. He and Mum had a row about that.

  ‘They’ve been there for ages, coming and going. Don’t do no harm to anyone.’

  ‘You would say that.’