501

by Robert Field

  Anyway, tonight’s a bit quiet and by midnight Bert the Bouncer has made tracks and Diva’s sitting with a couple of stay-ons. Dad and I are at the bar having a drink and he’s had a few already. He pours me a whisky and halves it with water and

  I see Diva’s head flick around like she’s got a radar so I raise the glass like I’m toasting her, and Dad, not missing a trick, says, ‘Don’t aggravate her, Marie.’

  ‘Can’t help it, Dad.’

  ‘It doesn’t help when we’re all living together.’

  I dare to say it then, say what I’ve been dreaming about for weeks. ‘We don’t have to.’

  ‘Don’t have to?’

  ‘All live together. We could leave her.’

  ‘I couldn’t, Marie.’

  ‘But, Dad, we could go away. We could...’

  ‘No, Marie. No, I couldn’t.’

  ‘But no one would know who we were.’

  Dad’s looking hard at me now. ‘Marie,’ he says, ‘everything I’ve got is tied up here.’

  He says it as though he wants it to be the final word and I button up my mouth.

  For now.

  The next morning Diva’s gone off early to do the shopping and Dad brings me up a cup of tea. He sits on my bed, strokes my hair and tells me not to worry.

  And when he slips in beside me, holds me, loves me, I don’t worry.

  But I do worry when a month after Christmas I’m sitting in the doctor’s, feeling sick as a dog with a sample of pee clutched in my hot little hand.

  Well, that’s made you prick up your ears, Robert the Bruce, and I’m still only halfway through my story, halfway through this night. Tomorrow evening the girls’ll be down the George – well, except for Irish – and I should be in Glasgow. And I suppose I should be feeling guilty about letting them down, leaving without a word, but this part, retracing the beginning of Aubrey, tears open my heart.

  And I can see the bewildered girl I was then, desperately trying to keep a secret that could never be kept. I tried to hide it away, shut it away, pretend it wasn’t happening. And all those times I dragged myself to work when all I wanted was to do was leave my head on my pillow; all those times I really needed Dad, needed his warmth. But all those times when I wouldn’t let Dad near me because he might notice my swelling belly, my fuller breasts.

  There’s all this going around in my head and there’s young unsure me remembering that once, when he was holding so tightly, so closely, it was Mam’s name that whispered from his mouth.

  But this limbo world ends when Diva, ever watchful, corners me in the loo of the club.

  ‘You’ve put on weight, Marie.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘You have, you know.’

  This isn’t a friendly nose, it’s got an edge of inquisition.

  I say, ‘I don’t think I have, Diva.’

  She stands in front of me, slim and dark. ‘It only seems to be here.’ Her hand is on my stomach before I can flinch back.

  She says, ‘You are, aren’t you?’

  Her fingers have felt my firmness and triumph is smeared across her face, because she thinks I’ve really fucked up this time.

  I say, ‘At least I’m not a barren cow like you.’

  She smiles her smug smile. ‘Wait till your dad finds out, it’ll be the shock of his life.’

  I very nearly say, ‘More of a shock than you’ll ever know,’ but I hold my tongue, swallow those words that could condemn him, condemn us.

  ‘So, whose is it?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘I bet it’s that dirty little toe-rag who left his Johnny on my carpet.’

  ‘Can’t say for sure.’ I pause. ‘Might even be Bert the Bouncer’s.’

  Diva can’t take this winding up; she’s no sense of humour. Well, at least where I’m concerned.

  ‘We’ll have you put you in a home,’ she spits at me.

  ‘Not Dad,’ I say, and she knows I’m right but she still says, ‘We’ll see,’ before she leaves me in the Ladies.

  I stay for a while, look at myself in the mirror: the bulge under my dress, the bags under my eyes. So much for the bloom of pregnancy. I light a cigarette, blow smoke at myself and think I should be telling Dad before she does; there can’t be any more putting it off, as much as I dread it.

  Dad’s in his usual place, elbows on the bar, watching the couples smooching on the floor to the tinkle of a lone pianist. Diva, as usual, is acting Mine Host, flitting between tables and drinkers.

  At the bar in this lull of punters needing drink, I catch him.

  ‘Dad.’

  He says, ‘Marie, where’ve you been?’

  I just say, ‘I need to talk to you, now.’

  You know, I’m literally trembling and my words stutter out.

  Dad says gently, with such concern in his voice, ‘Marie, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Not here, Dad. Not here.’

  I’m frightened I’m going to break down, freeze to the spot, but then Dad is by me, his arm supporting me. Diva, missing nothing, guessing everything, doesn’t need to be beckoned over.

  ‘Are you all right, Marie?’

  She looks at me like she cares – talk about crocodile tears – and then she says, ‘I’ll mind the bar, Canny; you mind Marie.’

  Dad takes me outside into the shadows of the winter alley. There’s no Bert the Bouncer tonight and, because it’s so late, there’s no one else about.

  ‘Marie,’ Dad says, and I slip into his arms. ‘Marie, what is it?’

  We’re close like we haven’t been in months, not since I knew, and I just want to feel him around me again.

  ‘Marie,’ he says again, and then I take his hand, hold it onto my belly.

  ‘It’s there,’ I say. ‘It’s there.’

  ‘What’s there?’

  In the cold shadows of this winter alley I show him child and grandchild.

  All in one.

  So there’s me gaining weight through this cold, snowy winter, living and loving in this strange close world of me, Dad and Diva.

  Me, young skin stretching as Aubrey grows.

  Dad, nervous and edgy, snapping at Diva, snapping at me.

  And Diva desperately wanting to see the back of me, wanting her life – their life – returned to her.

  That’s how it was for that winter, but sometimes Dad and I would sit by the fire on a dim afternoon and, sometimes, he’d talk about Mam.

  ‘Och, she was a beauty.’ He puts his hand to my face, turns me to him. ‘Just like you,’ he says, and kisses me sweetly, softly, gently on my mouth. Then he kisses me again and…

  and I can’t bear this part of the remembering. I’m crying into my hands and Robert the Bruce, thinking he’s a help, is purring around my legs.

  But now I’ve got to put this away for a little while, because after all these years it can still scorch me. So I’m going to take a breather; it’s the middle of the night and my eyes keep slipping shut.

  But when I wake it’s getting light and there’s hardly time to grab my case, visit the toilet (don’t look back, you know what’s in there) and put a trusting Robert the Bruce into a cardboard box, leave him outside the Cat’s Home and catch the eight o’clock train to the north.

  Katy – Monday night’s darts.

  Still in February.

  The George versus the Bell Ringers.

  I’m at the bar and it’s nearly time for the game and there’s still no sign of Scottie Dog. All I get on her mobile is the bloody answerphone with its daft ‘Will ye no leave a message, yer Sassenach bastard’. Christ knows what’s happened to her.

  But this thought makes me feel a bit guilty because something may have happened and she is getting on a bit. Danny says he hasn’t seen her since last Thursday and she was a bit odd then.

  ‘That was nothing out the ordinary, mind,’ he says.

  ‘Danny,’ I say, ‘where am I going to find another player now?’

  There’s a few in to
night and I’m looking round the bar for a sub.

  ‘Pikey Pete’s mum used to be a tidy player,’ Danny says.

  He nods towards the Motley Crew, where Ada Pikey is sitting with a half of bitter and laughing like a scruffy old crow. I’m thinking that there must be someone else. Anyone else.

  But of course there’s not, so it’s, ‘Fancy a game of darts tonight, Ada? We’re a player down.’

  She looks surprised, this plump woman with gold in her ears and a cardigan that’s seen better days, and hair in desperate need of a good brush-through.

  ‘You must be short, my dear, asking me.’

  Pikey Pete says, ‘Go on, Mum, you’ll enjoy it.’

  So Ada joins our team for Scottie Dog, and Big Nellie, sitting in the corner like the pub chucker-out, is in for Irish and it makes me wonder where this’ll all end, these changes to the team, to my life.

  It also makes me wonder what we’ll be nicknamed by the other teams, what with two didikais in the team; probably the George Gipos.

  But then I realize it’s not just two gypsies in the team because I forgot to count myself in.

  And I’m in because I gained a father I didn’t know I had.

  Anyway the Bell Ringers arrive at the bar and Danny cracks his usual corn.

  ‘It should be a ding-dong of a game tonight,’ he says loudly and The Bell Ringers groan like a choir.

  They’re a funny lot, this team; they’re from the Bellamy estate in town, all on the social, and mouthy, bare-armed, tattooed and bovine. Like Pegs’ dad would say, ‘A herd of heifers.’

  Like my dad would say.

  So we have a few practice throws, make the draw and start the game.

  I’m right about the piss-taking because it starts straightaway from the Thomson sisters in the team game. Rita Thomson just misses out on the double and Ada Pikey, taking a keen interest in the proceedings, says, ‘That’s bad luck, my dear.’

  Carol Thomson says, ‘We came here for a darts match, not to have our fortunes told.’

  Well, they didn’t come here to win because Lena shoots out on twenty-two and Ada smirks to Carol Thomson in payback, ‘I knew that was going to happen.’

  Then, getting bad lose, Rita Thomson says that Danny should rename the pub Dale Farm Arms because it’s full of tinkers.

  But Danny’s listening from the bar and he bawls, ‘Any more of that and you’re out the door.’

  Carol Thomson says that Danny should be more careful who he lets in. Danny says he usually is but it seems he made a mistake with her.

  That shuts her up, and pretty well everyone else as well, for five minutes at least. So Pegs – who’s looking a bit pissed off – plays to the music of the jukebox for that five minutes. And it’s long enough for a tight-lipped Pegs to cruise in the points.

  Then Big Nellie, who I don’t think has said a word all night, steps up to the oche and grunts, ‘You chalking this one, Katy?’

  Now she’d been all right in practice but on this night she’s a whirlwind. Her darts, between swigs from her pintpot of ale, hit the board like bullets and the Bell Ringers, mooing their support for their captain, watch another one go down.

  Then Lena, swollen belly and just reaching the waddling stage, scrapes through by the skin of her teeth. And hers has been a low-scoring, boring, lengthy contest and because of that I’m almost sure...

  I can hear Irish say:

  ‘If this game goes on for much longer she’ll be having the fucking baby on the oche.’

  But, anyway that’s as far as we go tonight because me, Maggie and Ada Pikey (‘Didn’t see that one coming Ada, did you?’ says Rita Thomson) drop in quick succession and it’s only the team game that’s seen us through.

  They’re not happy, this team the Bell Ringers. Or the Old Mingers as Scottie Dog usually calls them.

  And that reminds me when I go outside for a smoke to try Scottie Dog. But yet again I get that dozy answerphone, so I sit on a damp bench, at a damp table, under a dripping umbrella, smoking a soggy fag, and promise myself that Johnny James and I will call around her place tomorrow. Then I blow a kiss to the ct camera and go back inside for last orders.

  But later this night, after Johnny James has loved me, after the soft burr of his snoring lets me know he’s in the land of Nod, I wonder if Jerry and Laura are sleeping just as soundly in the darkened house of my past.

  And then I’m back to yesterday afternoon and I’ve gone to that house to try and make peace with Laura.

  Johnny James says, ‘You sure you want to do this, Katy?’

  We’re sitting in his Beamer outside my old home and we’re sharing a cigarette. There’s a gentle rain falling and he flicks the wipers on.

  ‘Last try, Johnny,’ I say.

  He says, ‘I’ll wait, Katy,’ and he leans across, looks at me with those eyes, and kisses me properly.

  But then he always kisses me properly.

  This doesn’t seem like my house anymore. The front path’s swept clean of leaves and there’s no dog-ends on the step and the curtains are neatly drawn. Anyway, I’m going to the back door but from around the corner there’s a drift of smoke, a tang of wood and plastic.

  And Jerry is poking a fire to death in the back garden, and he’s not just burning up rubbish.

  He says, ‘I’m having a clear-out, Katy.’

  ‘In the rain?’

  His hair, what there is of it, is curled on his head and his damp clothes are hanging on his frame. But that haunted look is off his face and he laughs to me and says, ‘I’m getting rid of my girlfriends.’

  He’s watching the flames as his Luscious Linda, Daring Debbie, and Randy Rhoda DVDs curl up in the heat, their beautiful bodies changing to melting plastic and charring paper. Then he turns to me and says very quietly, very gently, ‘I probably shouldn’t say this but I’ll always love you, Katy.’ He pauses, pokes the fire again and Sex-starved Sarah bursts into flames. He looks at my face, my give-away expression. ‘Please let me say this, Katy.’

  Then he tells me in a slow clear voice, like he’s rehearsed it a hundred times, ‘I know it’s done. I know you’ll never come back. I’ve thought about this night after night and all I’ve been doing is making it worse.’ He pauses again and a spatter of rain hisses in the bonfire. ‘So this is it for me; goodbye to Katy.’

  We stand in silence in the rain for a minute.

  ‘Might have to get myself a couple of Thai girls now, Katy.’ He gives me a mock shy, a mock guilty smile. ‘You know, to help with the housework, or maybe to play ping-pong.’

  I laugh then because he’s turning this situation into his show and the old Jerry, the Jerry from a long time ago, is coming back. I feel a sense of relief, like I’m not being blamed anymore.

  ‘Jerry,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry. Sorry for it all.’

  I put my hand in his and squeeze. He squeezes back.

  ‘It’s all right, Katy. I should have seen it coming; I needed a good kick up the arse; pity it had to be this way.’

  I say, ‘Laura, Jerry? What about Laura? She hates me.’

  Jerry says quietly, ‘When she knew you were coming, she wouldn’t stay in. I’m sorry, Katy.’ He pauses. ‘Sorry again’

  And so am I.

  So I walk away down that familiar unfamiliar path out to Johnny James in his posh car and I don’t realise I’m crying until he says, ‘You all right, Katy?’

  And I don’t know if I am or not.

  Now it’s two o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep, so I slide out of Johnny James’s warm bed, wrap a coat around me, and go out for a fag. It’s still spitting with rain but between the clouds the moon’s to trying poke its head out.

  It’s funny how I always seem to end up in a dark garden in the middle of the night, but I don’t mind with a cigarette, or two, for company – even if it’s a bit chilly out here and I’ve got nothing on under my coat. (Johnny James always likes the thought of that.) So I’m shuffling along the path over the lawn, puffing on my fag, thi
nking that I’m no nearer to touching Laura, no nearer to reclaiming my daughter. Mum says that Laura’ll come round.

  ‘Give her time; look at all the trouble I had with you, Katy.’

  I don’t say it but I think that I had more trouble with her: her and poxy Jim.

  And the thought of dads leads me back to Henry Smith and – I take a deep drag on my cigarette – my secret sister Pegs. It’s strange with her because although we talk together, play darts together, work together, there this thing between us. It’s like we’re nearly close, only inches away. Sometimes I catch her looking at me, really looking. Like she knows.

  So I’ve been through them all, sitting here in the night, stoking up the fags, trying to make a sense to these twists and turns of my life.

  But I haven’t been through them all, have I? Because there’s still my other sister Ellie, Jim and Mum’s daughter. I wonder what the stuck-up cow will think when she finds out there’s Dids in the family; that’ll be one in her snotty eye.

  That’s if it ever comes out.

  Anyway, it’s getting cold out here and the kitchen light’s gone on, so Johnny James must have missed me. He’s getting a drink of water when I open the door, then open my coat and show him what I’ve got.

  ‘You bloody tart,’ he laughs but he still has a good butcher’s and it puts him in the mood again; I’ll be knackered in the morning.

  I’m not only knackered, I’m late, and everyone’s in their white overalls and hairnets. Pegs is back in the fold and we have a quick chat about last night’s game.

  ‘Miserable lot, the Bell Ringers,’ I say.

  ‘Bunch of dinolows,’ she says. (I think that’s what she said – least that was what it sounded like.)

  But she’s been doing that a lot lately, sort of popping in the odd gypsy word to me. Some of them stick in my mind – I suppose they would – but I can never follow the conversations she has with Ada or Pikey Pete in the pub.

  Danny’ll ask, nodding towards them, ‘What do you think that lot’s on about?’

  I pretend to listen and then say, ‘They reckon your beer’s shite and you’re tight as a duck’s woskit.’

  ‘Very funny, Katy,’ he says, ‘and there’s me thinking they were discussing hedgehog recipes.’