Nobody Loves a Ginger Baby

by Laura Marney

  ‘Stick it under the tap, Daphne, that’s the best thing.’

  Tam turns on the tap and Daphne tentatively puts her thumb under the flow. That hurts too and she pulls away but Tam takes her arm and guides her hand back under the tap. A blister is developing, Tam is tutting as he examines it but Daphne’s attention is taken with the hair on Tam’s arm. It is golden, each strawberry blonde strand brushed in a sideways sweep. Like Donnie’s. Tam has the same red hair and skin colouring of Donnie. She stares at his arm. She doesn’t look up, she doesn’t want Tam to see how sad she feels but also she wants to pretend, just for a few moments that the arm that is holding hers is Donnie’s.

  ‘Hey!’ says Tam with a soft laugh in his voice.

  Daphne’s face has crumpled to an unflattering girn. She’s angry with Tam and with Pierce for placing Tam here in her kitchen, she’s angry with Donnie for having golden arms, angry with herself for crying.

  ‘C’mere.’

  Tam pulls her towards him and Daphne lets him. The embrace is awkward, Tam has kept her hand under the flow of water, his other arm he uses to encircle her head.

  ‘It’s only a wee blister. We’ll get a plaster on that and you’ll be fine.’

  Daphne tries to lift her head, she is being pathetic, but she is caught in the lasso of his arm and she rests her nose on it, sniffling amidst the gold.

  The throb of pain in Daphne’s thumb feels right. It is a focus for her nagging free-floating hurt. This is something she can pinpoint, a good reason to cry. And there is justice in it. Any woman who puts up with a nutcase boyfriend for years, too stupid to see his weakness, her own weakness, should expect all she gets. A woman vacuous enough to be an Asdaphile, shallow enough to become Asdaphobic, a woman, who despite getting her fingers burnt, still yearns for the heat of the fire.

  ‘Sorry Tam, I just got a fright. I don’t need a plaster.’

  Tam’s ginger arm hairs are tickling her nose, his skin smells of cigarette smoke and sweat; manly, familiar and strange. Her thumb pounds in time with her heart, hurting, burning; the righteous agony of an ecstatic flagellant. This is best time she’s had in ages.

  Tam releases her, she would like to stay there but feeling good is unmerited and confusing for Daphne and anyway, the soup will get cold.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s nothing. Better get the soup downstairs before he starts chapping up again. Can you carry the tray?’

  ‘Nae bother, hen.’

  Daphne smiles. She can see that Tam is chuffed with himself for taking charge of the situation, for being a shoulder for her to cry on. He is ten years younger than Daphne, a good twelve years younger than Pierce, but he’s old-fashioned in his manners and seems as pleased as a pensioner to have served a useful role.

  It occurs to Daphne that she has always found Tam attractive. With him being a friend of Pierce’s, she has never even imagined fancying him but now she understands what the attraction is. He looks a bit like Donnie; not only do they share the same Celtic hair and skin tones, he has the same shape of nose, the same curve to his chin. They could be related, maybe distant cousins, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility, but Daphne won’t ask.

  ‘I thought you two had eloped,’ says Pierce in a childish whine when they go back downstairs.

  ‘Daphne burnt her thumb on the soup.’

  Pierce is not mollified.

  ‘Ace beats a king; gammy arm beats a burnt thumb, no contest. I trust the thumb is no impediment to your soup duties, Daff?’

  A few weeks ago Daphne would have told Pierce that there are no soup duties, that she brings it from the goodness of her heart and that he better be damned grateful or he’ll find himself soupless and hungry. But the fight has gone out of her. She accepts her fate as his lackey, in a way she likes it, Pierce is Daphne’s hair shirt.

  ‘What is it today then, loganberry and turnip? Aardvark and liquorice? With maybe a few crispy croutons of armadillo?’

  ‘Have you been thinking them up while we were upstairs? Is that the best you can do? We were away a good ten minutes, Pierce.’

  ‘Shut it, wife, and serve.’

  Tam is visibly surprised and alarmed at the way Pierce talks to her but it’s water off a duck’s back to Daphne.

  ‘Carrot and orange,’ Daphne says in a flat world-weary voice. ‘No croutons. But there’s nice bread.’

  ‘You know, Daphne, you want to lay off that bread. You’re piling it on, hen. I was planning on sending you out to sell your body and bring me back the money but nobody’ll want you if you keep getting walloped into the bread like that.’

  This is nothing Daphne has not heard before so there is no shock value for her, unlike for Tam, who is open-mouthed with the scale of Pierce’s affront. But when Pierce mentions her increasing waistline Daphne instinctively tugs at her baggy jumper pulling it out to disguise the curve of her belly.

  ‘And the amount of butter you put on it, it’s not ladylike.’

  ‘But prostituting myself with you as my pimp is?’

  ‘Look Daphne, I’ve told you before; you’re not a bad looking lassie even if you are a bit lardy. You could earn in a night, say, twenty-four quid?’

  ‘Twenty-four is a lot of tricks, I’d be knackered.’

  Tam is the only one who laughs. ‘Aye, some men like a fat burd,’ he says, warming to the subject, ‘something to bounce on.’

  Pierce has not yet tasted the soup. His spoon is halfway to his mouth but he stops to rebuke his foolish friend.

  ‘Ho! Bit of respect, Tam. Daphne isn’t fat, she knows I’m only kidding her on.’

  ‘Oh sorry Daphne, no offence.’

  Daphne smiles in sympathy for poor confused Tam.

  ‘None taken, Tam. Try the soup.’

  ‘Cheers Daphne. It looks brilliant.’

  ‘Carrot and orange, eh?’

  Pierce has cued a soup-appreciation moment and they all look down at their plates. Steam rises from the old-fashioned blue-patterned plates as the savoury smell perfumes the room. The bright orange colour seems solid but close up consists of pulp held in a thick glue. Daphne has already tasted it from her thumb and knows it’s good, one of her best, though it could do with a bit more salt. Pierce gives a slow majestic nod; he closes his eyes and begins an incantation.

  ‘Let us give thanks for this humble meal, that heart and soul and art and poetry, that spirit may be sustained and the muse, and our bowels, may move through Daphne’s super-duper soup.’

  Grace having been said, they take up their spoons.

  ‘It’s not the worst I’ve tasted,’ Pierce pronounces.

  This is of little help to Daphne. It probably means he doesn’t like it but doesn’t want to say in front of Tam. He’s sparing her feelings, presenting a united front, overcompensating for Tam’s earlier rudeness.

  ‘Hey Tam, was Daphne telling you that her house got robbed last night?’

  ‘No way! Really?’

  Tam looks to Daphne for confirmation but her head is down in her plate.

  ‘Aye well, she was a bit embarrassed about it, weren’t you, Daphne?’

  Daphne nods, there is little point in doing otherwise.

  ‘The swines that broke in trashed the place, turned it upside down. Took her all night to clean up.’

  ‘Well you’ve done a good job, Daphne, your house looked fine to me.’

  ‘And when they couldn’t find anything, God love her, she hasn’t got anything worth blagging, they helped themselves to soup.’

  Tam raises his voice, indignant on Daphne’s behalf. ‘Junkie bastards, these people have no respect!’

  ‘So, not content with tearing up the house and eating the soup they actually shit in the pot.’

  ‘In the pot of soup?’

  ‘Aye. A big toaly floating about in it, wasn’t there Daphne?’

  ‘Aw man, that’s disgusting.’

  ‘She had to throw half of it out.’

  Tam’s lips are approaching his spoon
and he stops to take in the significance of what Pierce has said.

  ‘Mmmm,’ says Pierce, ‘I don’t know, I think it gives it a certain piquancy.’

  Daphne and Pierce share a smirk as Tam returns his spoon to his plate.

  *

  On her way into the consulting room Daphne catches sight of herself in the big gilt mirror in the passageway. She is white-faced and puffy-eyed and embarrassingly conscious that she probably smells. She’s only met Dr Wilson once before but Dr Wilson doesn’t seem aware of this and greets her like an old friend. Daphne hasn’t quite made up her mind what she is going to say or what ailment she will come up with but as soon as the door closes, she starts to cry. This is a surprise to her but not to Dr Wilson. The doctor produces a large box of hankies from her desk, compliments of the manufacturers of Prozac, and hands them to Daphne. Without Daphne saying anything, Dr Wilson begins to question her.

  ‘What seems to be the trouble?’

  Daphne doesn’t know what to say.

  ‘Any pain or physical symptoms?’

  Daphne can’t think of any except for the constant sensation of having a big hole in the middle of her chest but it sounds such a stupid thing to say.

  ‘How have you been sleeping?’

  She knows the answer to this one.

  ‘Okay, but I wake up early and can’t get back to sleep.’

  Dr Wilson nods.

  ‘Tired all the time?’

  Daphne nods.

  ‘I can’t think straight.’

  ‘Eating?’

  Daphne shrugs.

  ‘Feelings of sadness, anxiety, hopelessness?’

  Spot on. Daphne nods emphatically. She knows Dr Wilson is going through a checklist of the signs and symptoms of depression. It is another surprise that she can answer honestly to most of them.

  ‘How long have you been feeling like this?’

  ‘I’m not sure, months maybe.’

  ‘Any particular reason? Anything significant happen recently?’

  Daphne shakes her head; emphatically denies.

  Daphne leaves Dr Wilson’s surgery with a sick note for a month and a prescription for antidepressants. She can’t believe how easy it was. She’s heard of people throwing sickies when there was nothing wrong with them but she is amazed that she got away with it so easily. A free month-long holiday from work. Daphne is bona fide now, she’s off her head and has a doctor’s note to prove it.

  She has brought an envelope addressed to the college and stops at the postbox, reading what the doctor has written and then sealing it in the envelope. Dr Wilson has said that she is suffering from free-floating anxiety. Daphne laughs. She tears the prescription into confetti-sized pieces and pushes them into the postbox.

  Chapter 16

  Pierce gets a phone call.

  ‘Hello Pierce, is it yourself?’

  ‘Aye, hello Sean, that’s weird. I was just thinking about you. How’re you and Bernie doing?’

  ‘I’m fine, fine. Still working away up at the new refrigeration plant.’

  ‘And Bernie? How is she?’

  ‘Ah well, she’s not too great just at the moment.’

  ‘What have they said?’

  ‘Och, you know, just the usual. They’ve given her one of these fancy things for the pain, a driver they call it. It’s not a driver to drive a car, like,’ Sean says with a chortle, ‘it’s a wee button she presses when it gets sore.’

  Pierce responds to his uncle’s wee laugh with one of his own but it’s strangling his throat. He is as uncomfortable hearing this as Sean is having to tell him. Pierce thinks if you could hear pain down the phone, the wires would be screaming. Sean always underplays his wife’s illness and Pierce, to help him out, keeps up the pretence.

  ‘What are you up to at the minute, Pierce, are you awful busy?’

  ‘No, no, not at all. Is there something…’

  ‘I’m over on the mainland and I just thought if you fancied a wee jaunt over to see us…’

  ‘Aye, sure Sean, I can come right away.’

  ‘Now there’s no great hurry, son. I’m here with a bit of business tomorrow and maybe the day after.’

  ‘Is there someone with Bernie?’

  ‘Don’t you worry. Agnes McConnell will look in on her, she’s only through the wall. I didn’t want to leave her but, as I say: a bit of business, it couldn’t be helped.’

  ‘Oh no, I understand, Sean.’

  Pierce feels bad; he hadn’t meant to imply criticism.

  ‘Aye, sure. I’ll come and meet you, Sean. Have you brought the boat?’

  ‘How else would I get here? I’m getting a bit old for the swimming,’ says Sean, laughing his hearty nothing-gets-me-down laugh.

  You’re getting a bit old to be bringing a forty-five foot boat alone, thinks Pierce, but he would never say it. Instead he laughs.

  *

  Pierce meets Sean at their usual rendezvous, The Harbour Arms.

  He has been coming here to meet him twenty-odd years. It was his mother who first brought him and left him standing outside with his poly bag. His parents felt it pretentious for a child to have personal luggage and anyway, the family only had one jumbo-sized suitcase. The poly bag, packed for all eventualities: shorts and T-shirts, plastic sandals, warm jumper, denims, anorak and wellies, was light enough for him to carry although he was only a little lad. Pierce used to lean against the wall of the pub close to the flue from where the sickly-sweet grown-up smell of beer and cigarette smoke came. Always, eventually, Sean came out. His mother was still inside, still enjoying her drink but Sean came out to make his ritual welcome. He whacked young Pierce over the head with a rolled-up newspaper, rubbed his rough whiskers in the child’s face and brought him a packet of cheese and onion crisps.

  As the years went by Pierce’s poly bag became an adolescent’s sports bag then a teenager’s rucksack. It was still a rucksack, but he no longer waited outside.

  ‘All right Sean? Same again?’

  The conversation always began the same. Although they had not seen each other from one year to the next, Sean and Pierce, on their first encounter, both behaved as though he had only popped out momentarily.

  ‘Aye, same again will do me fine, son. What happened to you?’ says Sean, pointing at Pierce’s plastered arm.

  ‘Och, it’s nothing, I broke it,’ he says rather obviously. ‘Rescuing a damsel in distress.’

  Pierce would like to tell his uncle the whole story, it’s a good one but Sean’s mind is apparently on other things.

  ‘D’you know anything about cameras, Pierce? I’m in the market for a good one.’

  ‘It depends on what you want, Sean. How much are you looking to spend?’

  ‘As much as it takes.’

  ‘Oh, splashing it around then? It’s not like you.’

  ‘I want one of those that you take the picture and then you peel the back off and you have it right there.’

  ‘An instamatic? They’re ancient technology, digital’s the thing.’

  ‘But I want the photos right away.’

  ‘You can do that with digital. You just have to download it and print it off…’

  As soon as he hears the word ‘download’ Sean’s hand goes up.

  ‘I’ll get an instamatic.’

  While they are in the photographic shop, after Sean has chosen the most expensive instamatic model and the shop assistant is wrapping it, Pierce asks Sean quietly what the camera is for. Sean winks. The exaggerated comedy of the wink is as eloquent as whale song. It tells Pierce that this is something to do with Bernie. It tells him that this is one of Sean’s daring schemes, his cheeky manoeuvres and one that Bernie does not know about.

  Back in the Harbour Arms Sean asks the barman to turn the telly over to the BBC. He takes a pencil out of his pocket and careful begins to take down the winning lottery numbers on the back of an envelope.

  ‘Now that’s a turn up for the books, you doing the lottery, Sean. Don’t they say that
lighting doesn’t strike the same place twice?’

  Sean smiles at Pierce, ‘Ah, but I know a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning.’

  ‘And her name Mother of Exiles,’ Pierce responds automatically, nodding, as if to a priest during Mass.

  They are quoting from ‘The New Colossus,’ written for the Statue of Liberty. It is a poem they both have good reason to be familiar with.

  ‘Indeed you do, Sean.’

  Sean is the only man Pierce knows who has ever won a big money prize. The reversal of fortune was not entirely a positive experience. It brought Sean to disaster but it also brought him to life.

  *

  Forty-odd years ago, Sean had won the pools. He was a nineteen-year-old recently qualified joiner, a grown man though he lived with his parents and was yet to have a steady girlfriend. He worked for Glasgow City Corporation, a feather in the cap of his unskilled Irish Catholic family. His work was in building the new houses in the schemes on the outskirts of Glasgow to house the overspill from the crumbling city slums. Sean was not handsome or any good at football and he was shy with girls but he had friends and it was a good life: working, drinking, gambling. Along with his father he filled in his pools coupon every Friday night, but he never really expected to win.

  He had eight no-score draws but so did a lot of other people so there was no outright jackpot winner. For a nineteen-year-old lad, his share of the pot was plenty. His father and everyone around him counselled him to set up his own business; there was money to be made. The city was being rebuilt and a man with a trade and a bit of money behind him could make a comfortable life. His parents were keen that he should buy a house; lifelong council tenants, no one in the family had ever owned a home. But Sean had other ideas. He wanted a yacht.

  At school Sean had been given a project on sailing. From the limited resources of the school library, the local library and the city library, he studied latitude, longitude, compass deviation, tide tables, tidal streams, tide curves, spring and neap curves. He retuned the family radio to BBC Radio Four and listened to the shipping forecasts. He cut pictures from magazines. He practised complicated knots with a piece of washing line. He learned the names and shapes and lengths of all sailing crafts, past and present, falling in love with the strange-sounding words for the techniques and equipment used in sailing.