by Jan Carson
At the time, this had pleased Bill immensely, but the threat of Maureen seemed to smoulder on the edge of his marriage like a downpour predicted for the day after tomorrow. It was a war of sorts, with Bill in one corner and Maureen in the other, poor neutral June in the middle dragged this way and that like a Swiss saint. What to do about Christmas? Should their dad go into a nursing home, and if so, which one? Who was to have Mother’s Country Rose? Maureen had strong opinions on every topic. Bill differed vehemently. June could not have cared less either way, so long as everyone kept from yelling.
Bill’s sister-in-law had always reminded him of a cartoon skeleton his kids liked to watch on children’s programmes. The children agreed with him. June said this was unfair and unnecessarily cruel in light of the cancer. June said the cancer had made her sister mean, but the cancer was a relatively new excuse and could not stand against well-documented accounts of Maureen’s meanness stretching right back to 1957. June always defended her sister, even when she forgot the children’s birthdays and mixed them up with her nieces and nephews on the other side.
‘Your Aunty Maureen’s been through a lot.’ June would argue. ‘She’d had the cancer and lost two husbands before her sixtieth. It’s no joke. You should all be nicer to her.’
The children would nod reverently. They loved their mother without qualm or question but had very little regard for her sister. Early on they’d learnt not to expect much from Aunty Maureen. Whilst their other aunts and grandparents distributed £5 notes for birthdays and selection boxes for Christmas, they were lucky to get 20 pence in a card from Maureen and, like as not, to receive a Bible-verse bookmark instead. As soon as they were old enough to lower their expectations, they quit hoping for material gain from Aunty Maureen and began to appreciate her as a never-ending source of comedy material. They were not bad children, but all of them, even the one who ended up in politics, had inherited Bill’s wicked sense of humour.
‘Aye, but admit it, Mum,’ his youngest would always fire back, each time June tried to defend her sister, ‘she does look a bit like Skeletor, doesn’t she?’
June tried to remain stern whilst she grinned into the back of her hand, the corners of her mouth peeking like latitudinal creases from behind her fingers. Bill would be certain in these moments that she was ‘one of them’ now, grafted onto and loyal to their own little tribe. If forced to choose, she would pick him and their children again and again, even on the worst days. This realisation allowed Bill to tolerate Maureen at Christmas and funerals and twice a year, for no particular reason.
Lately however, Bill had found it harder and harder to stomach the idea of Maureen, even in small helpings. The more June irritated him, the less grace he had for her sister. This evening he knew there would be dinner at the table and tea in cups with matching saucers. June would fuss and flap like a nervous pigeon, up and down the stairs, moving ornaments half an inch to the left or right. Later, he’d find himself trapped in his own living room with not one, but two elderly ladies, talking about people he didn’t know. None of this appealed to Bill, even the eating parts.
He lifted his eyes from the farming section. June was working her way across the individual slats of the venetian blinds with a wad of cotton wool. She had her slippers on with her outdoor clothes, and Bill saw her, for a moment, as strangers might see her if she were a character on a television drama. She was not someone he’d wish to meet if they’d not already been married.
‘Uch, quit fussing, June,’ he muttered. ‘Sure, it’s only your sister.’
‘And my sister will notice every wee speck of dust and hold it against me from now till kingdom come. You could eat your dinner off her front doorstep, Bill, and take your tea from her toilet bowl.’
‘And much happiness all that cleaning has done her.’
June didn’t seem to hear, or chose not to hear. She plumped the cushions on the Chesterfield, working around the spot where Bill had sunk his backside into the sofa. She straightened the lampshade and disappeared into the hall. Bill returned to the sports section. There wasn’t much reading in it, for it was a weekday and he wasn’t one for the horses or the snooker. He was just beginning to think about a cup of tea when June called out to him from the kitchen.
‘I might just go out and sweep them up.’
‘Sweep what up, Love?’
‘The leaves, on the front doorstep, and yon dirty great Twix wrapper. It’s disgusting. I don’t want it to be the first thing our Maureen sees when she arrives.’
‘It’s the East we live in, June, not bloody Cherry Valley. The rubbish on our doorstep’ll not be the first disgusting thing your sister sees this afternoon. There’s a whole world of dog shit waiting for her to plough through, not to mention the broken bottles and what them wee hallions wrote across the chip-shop shutters the other night.’
June didn’t answer. He thought she might not have heard, or perhaps he’d gone too far in trying to be the funny man. The East had always sat between them like a Christmas tree left too long into the new year. Bill loved it. He was a Cregagh man born and bred. He drank in a bar with no windows and had, until his retirement, worked the line at Short’s and bought his Friday-night fish supper from the Bethany. The East ran through him like blood or piss, and though he’d always promised June that someday they’d buy a place in Holywood or Ards, as close to Bangor as they could afford, he’d never had any intention of leaving the Cregagh Road. June tolerated the East because she loved him and because the human temperament will eventually grow accustomed to anything short of strangulation. However, he knew the sound of the people grated on her. The dirt of it was beneath her polished upbringing and the little streets, with their houses leaning one against the next like packed bookshelves, made her feel claustrophobic. (They made Bill feel safe, as he had once felt close and safe, tucked between his two older brothers in the ancient bed they’d shared as children.)
June was still in the kitchen, hoaking through the cleaning cupboard for a yard brush. The front of her had disappeared into the clutter of stepladders and mop buckets. All Bill could see was her backside twitching in its tweedy skirt. She was not wearing her ‘going out’ pants and he could see the line where her knickers were cutting into the flesh of her hips. He felt sorry for her and also a little disgusted, which immediately made him feel angry with himself and anxious to make amends.
‘Uch, I’m sorry, pet,’ he said, patting her lightly on the rump.
At his touch June unbent suddenly. Her head, still consumed by the cleaning cupboard made sharp contact with a shelf and there was a peel of metallic nips and clicks as tins and bottles tumbled to the ground.
‘Shit,’ she said.
June was not by nature a religious woman, yet rarely swore. The sound of the word, muffled as it was by mops, dusters and various cleaning rags, was a little desperate, a little like a bird, trapped in a room with no door. Bill hauled his wife out of the cupboard by her belt. She was crying when he turned her round.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
She was still holding the wad of cotton wool in one hand, filthy with the dust from the blinds. Bill thought she might use it to wipe her eyes and so he reached for a tissue from the box on top of the microwave.
‘No, June,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry. I shouldn’t have been winding you up like that. Sure, amn’t I the lucky man to have a wife who keeps the place so nice. Your woman next door lets her fella live in a pigsty and here’s you treating me like the king of East Belfast for the last forty years. I’m an ungrateful sod for not appreciating you more. I should buy you flowers sometimes.’
Bill manoeuvred June onto a seat and filled the kettle. Without thinking, he made her coffee in one of the mugs which had come free with an Easter egg, the sort of mug that only ever came out when the dishwasher was full. He registered her disapproval as he sat it in front of her. She managed not to pass comment. It was rare enough for Bill to make a cuppa, without critiquing his style. He put two
Jammie Dodgers and a Jaffa Cake on a saucer and set it on the table beside her coffee. June didn’t touch them, but she seemed pleased to see him trying.
‘You take ten minutes to yourself, wee love,’ Bill said, ‘I’ll go out and give the doorstep a bit of a lick and a promise. It’s the least I can do.’ He leant over and kissed his wife on the top of her head. She smelt like a brown paper bag.
‘Will you do the pavement in front of the house while you’re at it?’ she asked.
Bill bit his tongue. The pavement outside their house had been an ongoing issue since his retirement. Bill didn’t see why they should take responsibility for a bit of land which belonged to the city council. June neither agreed nor disagreed with her husband. She’d been listening to his argument for months now and scrubbing away regardless, going at the asphalt with a stiff yard brush and a basin of soapy water so the ten square feet in front of their house was now a lighter, brighter shade of black than the rest of the street. She was proud of this and did not seem to realise she was maintaining a blank canvas for every gumdropping youth and shitting Jack Russell in a five-block radius. In the East, it didn’t serve to try too hard at anything, even when it came to keeping your front step clean.
‘Will you give the pavement a wee quick going over?’ she repeated.
‘I will,’ said Bill, ‘just for you. Though dear only knows why we’re paying our rates when the council barely lift a finger round here.’
She shushed him like a baby, raising a finger to her lips, and nodded towards the cupboard where the yard brush lived.
‘Be quick,’ she said, ‘our Maureen’ll be here any second.’
When he turned round she’d tidied his News Letter off the counter and into the recycling bin. Her coffee had not been touched, but one of the Jammie Dodgers was gone.
‘I’ll only be a second, love,’ said Bill.
He wondered if he’d have time to nip down the road for a jumbo Twix. He’d already had one that morning but it was shaping up to be a two-Twix kind of day.
‘Here, Bill,’ she cried out as he went to leave. He paused for a minute in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall, brush clutched in his right hand like an old-fashioned crutch. ‘I meant that I’m sorry about everything. You know, the way it’s changed between me and you,’ she said.
‘We can talk about it later, June, after your sister,’ Bill snapped. It was imperative that he cut her off, before she said something too honest. ‘You’re just tired and wound up about Maureen. It’s not a big deal. Honestly, we’re grand.’
He left June sitting at the table twisting a hankie between her fingers as her coffee skinned and cooled in its creme egg mug. It was a big deal. They were not grand but he didn’t know how to say this without starting a thing which could not be stopped or even slowed down. It was best to skirt around the edges of ugly situations, like that time there hadn’t been a baby for years and they’d just kept trying, every other day without saying, until eventually there had been a baby and it was once again all right to say generous things such as, ‘That’s great news, pet,’ and, ‘Sure, wasn’t it worth the wait.’
Bill closed the door behind him and felt in his pocket. He could tell without looking that he’d enough change for a jumbo Twix and a bottle of Lucozade but the inclination had left him. He paused for a moment on their ‘Welcome’ mat, resting his weight on the broom handle. A pigeon eyed him from the kerb, the black of its eye twitching like a tiny, tiny cue ball. Bill hated pigeons. In general, he was not much of a man for animals which couldn’t be eaten, but he reserved his deepest loathing for birds. He found pigeons particularly provocative and, when presented with the opportunity, liked to kick them or swipe at them with blunt instruments. Bill stepped suddenly forwards now, stabbing his yard brush at the bird so it rose like smoke from a stubbed cigarette. He failed to catch even the fleeting tip of its wing.
‘Damn you,’ he muttered to no one in particular, and the pigeon, but most likely June, who could not hear through the front door and the second internal door separating the hall from their kitchen. The street was empty, and Bill immediately felt foolish for bringing a noise into it. He placed the bristled end of his brush on the pavement and began sweeping. His first thrust caught the Twix wrapper and several blackening leaves. He swept again and found dust, a till receipt from the off-licence, thin diamonds of green and brown glass, also ring pulls. On the third stroke he hit dirt. There was a satisfaction in seeing black asphalt bloom beneath the dust. Bill stood for a moment, admiring the sweep of his clean. It was not a new sensation. He remembered it from the time when he’d owned a car and gone at it with a chamois leather on the weekend, moving the polish up and down till the shine was evenly spread and consistent. Bill swept on and, in a matter of minutes, had formed a peaked pile of dust and litter. The table-sized square in front of their house was clean. This would please June, and this should have pleased Bill. But it didn’t.
He had no idea what to do with the dust. He had not thought to lift a pan and, in the street, there was no such thing as a rug for brushing it under. Using the broom, he nudged the pile across the invisible line marking their world from the world next door. It came to rest like a sacrificial mound, soft and vaguely threatening, outside his neighbours’ door. A stick had come with it and a balled up flier for the SuperValu on the corner. This did not seem fair. The people next door were not the worst by far in a street of trying individuals. So Bill swept on, deferring the mess to the next house down. The next house down was Polish: a young couple with a child and an elderly lady who wore a dress over men’s slacks and might have belonged to either the girl or the fella. It didn’t seem right to leave the dirt on their doorstep. The old lady might read into it some kind of insult or the young couple might feel unwelcome in their own home. It wasn’t right with a child in the house either. Bill swept their pavement for them, collecting dust, more dust and an empty plastic bottle which had once contained Coke Zero. The space where his arms hinged onto his shoulders began to pool with sweat.
He looked up and thought he saw Maureen approaching from the far end of the street. The swing of her arms was particularly distinctive. He’d often thought she carried herself like one of those rural electricity pylons, striding greedily across some poor farmer’s fields. She was carrying a green plastic bag from Marks and Spencer and, as she approached, Bill remembered that Maureen had always seen carrier bags as common. (Maureen’s list of things perceived to be common was long and without reason, extending as it did to pre-packaged cheese slices, vending machines, Channel 4 sitcoms and ladies who wore any colour but demure red on their fingernails.) This was not his sister-in-law, but rather a lady unfortunate enough to resemble Maureen in shape and general demeanour. This was not his sister-in-law, but any minute now Maureen would appear around the corner and Bill would be obliged to open his door to her and tolerate her talking for the rest of the evening.
He leant on the broom handle, wiping the sweat from his brow with the cuff-edge of his sleeve. The job was done. He could go back into the house and finish the farming supplement, maybe even watch a bit of Sky Sports until Maureen arrived. June would be pleased. She’d make him tea in a proper mug and look at him like he’d just come back from the war. The thought of this made Bill’s insides constrict. Once, a year back, he’d humoured June with ballroom dancing. She’d seen it on the television. She thought they could do it together, something new to try now he was retired. On the dance floor, in his funeral trousers and his patent shoes, Bill had felt like the sort of man who did jigsaw puzzles on the dining-room table. ‘I feel like a prize wanker,’ he’d said to June. She’d never mentioned the dancing again and had gone the next week with her friend Lynda from Ballybeen. Bill looked at his own front door and felt like he was swallowing a ballroom all over again. The quiet in there would kill him, and then later there would be Maureen.
‘Sure, I’ve started now,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘I might as well finish the job.’
&nb
sp; There were only five houses to the corner of their street. Bill decided to keep on sweeping. Just on their side of the road of course. He wasn’t martyr enough to do the other side. He would do this for June, he told himself, make the place look nice so she wouldn’t be mortified when her sister arrived. It was good when you wanted to do something for yourself and there was an excuse which fit it exactly, making it seem like the right thing to do.
Sure, amn’t I the good husband, Bill was telling himself as he reached the end of their street. He felt the urge to keep sweeping all the way up the Cregagh and onwards in the direction of Dundonald. He didn’t even try to stop himself. The pile of dirt was bigger than a handbag now. There was a dead bird in it and a used condom. He tried not to look at either item directly. He tried not to think about things coming apart, spilling into each other like bread and gristle mixing in the compost bin.
At five he stopped outside a wee Tesco. It was almost three hours since he’d started sweeping and he was hungry. He leant his yard brush against the window and went in for a jumbo Twix and a bottle of Lucozade. The Lucozade was cool in the bottle and bubbling like fish breath. Bill held it in front of his face. He could see it and also through it. The liquid inside the bottle was almost the same colour as the sky setting over East Belfast. This struck him as beautiful, like on a postcard. He was not normally a romantic man and did not know where to put this thought. It swelled in him like heartburn or the bloating pride he’d come to associate with pipe bands and Van Morrison and the shipyard cranes, striding across the East Belfast skyline like bow-legged bandits from another place.
‘It’s not such a bad wee bit of the world is it?’ he said to the next person he passed. This person did not speak to him or even acknowledge Bill’s presence, for Bill was an elderly man in his shirtsleeves, and it was almost dark and he was still sweeping. A thumbprint of chocolate had smudged itself into the flesh between his chin and his mouth. June would not have tolerated this. June would have gone at it with a damp cloth, but June was not here. Bill tried to picture her in the kitchen with Maureen, wondering when he might come home.