Room Little Darker

by June Caldwell

  Is this what she’d been doing too, sending him off on ‘little jobs’ as she called them? All over the grid while she got herself nice and slinky and reeking of Beyoncé Heat upstairs. Cut-price curtains in Debenhams. A parasol in Woodies. Under-the-bed shoe boxes from a boutique in Louth when they have them in Clearwater for a tenner … while yer man was messing with her plumbing controls at home? Playing with her faucets, bursting her storm drain. Her in some lace corset or other he hadn’t seen or noticed from years ago. He wondered if any of the neighbours noticed him sidling up the driveway or if he had the smarts to park around the corner and stroll around casually. Grabbing Gina’s tits in the hall. Shoving his hand up her skirt and calling her a dirty slut. He imagined himself around the back on the decking looking through the kitchen window down into the hall. Grabbing a baseball bat from the shed. Tearing through the door, zapping the fucker with one huge belt so his head split like a melon. Her screaming, leg still cocked, about to take him deep up the fandora. He liked the idea of making her clean his blood afterwards. Making sure she took her knickers off first. He’d sniff the crotch while he watched her swipe with the J-cloth, not even near spongy enough to soak up the clots. Crying like a zany bag at a pope’s funeral. ‘Wait until you see what I’m going to do with you next.’

  ‘Are you dealing skank and using me as a muppet to drive you around?’ he barked at Natterbean, who was, once again, slapping the shit out of his mobile phone.

  ‘No way, no way, I’m no scummer, not like that, no way.’

  He could see him now in the mirror pulling at a sausage shape in his crotch. He’d heard about heroin making them extra fertile and methadone making ye mad horny. Endless cycle of new drugs and new bellies full of babies. To think that him and Gina planned their kid right from when her ovaries were steaming. Up to the Camengo Lollipops & Animals wallpaper he’d ordered from France as a surprise after she’d done the big heave-ho. Didn’t even wet the baby’s head so he’d be there, bolder soldier by her side. Waited till the stitches healed to let her home in his taxi laced with cerise balloons chasing all three of them through the cobbles of Dublin. ‘I’ll suck the snot out of her hooter if I have to,’ he promised Gina. ‘When she gets on a bit I’ll collect her in the work limo from school so she’ll feel like a rap princess at her first gig down the O2.’

  Natterbean pulled out a wad of notes, spilling a bundle over his feet. At least a couple of grand. A mate of his, Breezer, a real good spud, a dad, a brother, a footballer an’ all before he kicked into the smack, was gonna get it in the head tonight from a knackbag worse than the Nidge. Wasn’t even an IOU involved in this one, no. Refused to put lead in the head of another junkie who rode one of the dealer’s pole tarts. Like he was an innocent fucker this bloke. Only got into the skank when his Ma died of tit cancer leaving him to look after six youngfellas, cooked his head big time. That’s where they were heading now. He’d done a dip around to get him on the boat to Britland. ‘I’ll give ye a hundred to collect him at Ringsend and bring him safe to the boat in East Wall. We gorra deal bud?’

  He wasn’t expecting anything like this from the likes of that. ‘What age is his nipper? Look, it’s no problem, no harm to help a bloke out in a proper jam. This town is gone rough as a nun’s moustache.’

  ‘Son is eight, lives out of his ankles, you never see them apart, follows him around the town like a bleeding shadow, he’s gutted so he is, poor cunt.’

  Gina’s bloke probably had a little bollox the same age. When he took his regular beached whale politician who smelt of egg mayonnaise from the Dáil up to the Blackrock Clinic to get the jab in her swollen gam, he’d squat outside with the engine off thinking of where the brat might go to school. Shifting up to the bushes near the gates. ‘Here d’ye want these Pringles, I’m stuffed stupid, g’wan there’s more than half left.’ The greedy twit would stroll straight over, a thick fuck like his Da, trusting as the days goes by. He’d grab his small head, ramming the window closed on his snotter, hearing his high-pitched scream. Pulling the fucker’s ears, giving him a few hard smacks. ‘Tell your dirty aulfella that’s what he gets for porking my wife.’ Watching him in the mirror as he drove off, spinning on the path, an upside-down beetle.

  Eyes wide open when they reached the docks. It wasn’t that long since Nulty had his licence swiped and car impounded by Special Branch for helping Cocaine Crispin drop off a load set for the UK jog into Europe. Matters piggery shite if the cops know you’re just a cog. More likely to go after the deputies than the mofos who can afford water wheels and brass dragons outside big dirty gaffs in Meath and Kildare. Nulty’s missus shut the door and kept on power walking when he could no longer pay the mortgage. Never got over it, though he got back on track as a security guard after. ‘That’s it for me,’ he told the lads in the Come On Inn. ‘No more fish in the fryer when ye marry your first and pray she’ll be the last. I wouldn’t know what to do with a new bitch’s wet bits. I’d fucking brown meself.’

  The docks had a sheeny buzz since they’d done them all up on Fine Fáil chips. No more rust bunks sitting on giant metal plinths. Through civil wars and world wars and the IRA’s gun-running gobshites on the run from themselves, they’d all hid down here, heads low. First batches of heroin were holed up in derelict warehouses full of pigeons. Prozzies from Eastern Europe were brought in through the sea gates. Young lives spent sucking on office peckers dreaming of getting out in a footballer’s convertible before being shot in the head as a favour to a crack baron in Cabra for a write-off of a few quid or other. He could imagine the scrawny famine families dressed in linen sacks carrying malnourished mites onto ships here. Mooching back through history to see Gina and yer man up on deck staring down with grotto faces hoping for a fresh start in New York. Knowing they’d never be back again but being sure they’d starve to death on the way. He’d like to throw her back to the roaring famine and shove a pile of typhus down her gullet for good measure. Not in a million fucking years did he think she’d put out for anyone other than him. That had been the Majorca promise. Nothing but the egg smell of seaweed had stayed the same since those rotten times. There was even an apartment block now in the shape of a cruise liner for those twats that worked in Google and the likes. At night you could see the neon fish swimming up their walls as far out as Howth.

  ‘There’s the cunt there!’ Natterbean said, pointing to a bloke in a grey duffel coat. Slumped up against a wet wall with black anchor chains, arguing with a seagull. ‘Breezer, over here, c’mere, ye fucking queer!’ He froghopped before the car had properly stopped. They wobbled towards each other. Slap slap, mind yerself, where’s me gym bag, take care, no you take care, I’ll take care, but will you take care, let us know. Stay under wraps until he heard of them getting de chop. All of them ones ended up sucking fat worms before they were thirty.

  The way Breezer hugged yer man as if he was a warm marshmallow. Never seen anything like it. Sad bastard would be on the ferry in an hour thinking of his nipper he’d never fudge eyes on again. ‘I need a hundred now before we go further,’ he told Natterbean when he slumped back in. ‘The clock’s been off over an hour.’ He drove slowly, snakily, ignoring the fact that he was crying. Junkies don’t cry, he thought. They wouldn’t know what it meant. He’d looked at the two bozos clouting about in the wind and felt in his guts they’d end up on the shite side of fate no matter how much they scrambled to look after themselves. Him and Gina hadn’t done too bad all been told. They were on top of the bills, even with the insurance hikes on the motor in the last year. They always managed a big sloppy carvery on a Sunday. Got out for at least a few riproars in the month. Always made sure they had a right laugh. Sure hadn’t he done a few slappers when they didn’t have the dosh, instead of taking them to the Guards for the proper fare. Banged them over the leopard-fur front seats without giving Gina a thought. He tried not to think of that too much. Men had different needs to birds but it didn’t have to mean anythin
g sinister. Gave her at least two holidays a year, taking Cindy to Disneyland Paris for her sixth birthday, Gina begged him for months. She wanted for nothing and he said fuck all when she got the paint slopper in every Christmas to magic the walls cacky green.

  No matter what she’d be moaning the toss when he got back. Ye forgot this, ye didn’t pick up that. Didn’t he get a right laugh out of her nagging him with her eyes going all big and hyper and mad? ‘Where’s me poxy lentils? Didn’t I say no matter what bring me back the green lentils.’ He’d be in no mood for a long ear-lashing with the night shift a few stinking hours away. ‘Ah here, would ye ever give me a bitta space.’ He’d give her the mucky glare alright. Always got a trouser twitch after driving for hours. She’d be wearing her vampire slag purple lippo. There wasn’t a woman in Ireland who looked as scorchingly horny with it lathered all over her big gob, the dirty minx. ‘Love, I’m natterbean out all day grafting, the least you can do is shut that sinkhole and put the kettle on.’ Then he’d smile like a donut and tell her she’d a nice ripe arse.

  BoyBot™

  To be allowed out in the steaming sunshine again as it lashes a thick spew all over Capel Street turning restaurant windows murky. Head bent he notices the splat of faded road markings and mismatched paving stones on the way ahead. Huge build-up of rubbish since he was last here. Torn bags bulging with seeping smelly cartons. Discharge of rotten restaurant waste. Arcs of thin rainbow plastic blowing south-easterly, twisting and catching in the railings of the old Dutch Billy houses. John’s phantom face. John’s beautiful chiselled face. John’s betrayer’s face. Conjuring him up in the condensation-smooched windows of Hanoi Hanoi as he passes, sucking hard on banh mi and fat crab claws. Deliciously rich satay sauce dripping onto the collar of his chartreuse silk shirt that cost €280 from Indigo & Cloth. The day they milled out onto the street after a December lunch special when the Big Snow tumbled down turning streets to soft collapsible meringue. In the doorway of McNeills John had stuffed his stiff freezing fingers in under his coat and up his lambswool jumper, pulling at the chest hair. ‘I’ll turn your organs blue boy, then I’ll warm them up again.’ Spent the rest of the day mopping up melodies of bluegrass dobro; hot whiskeys turning their faces to deep purple beets; kisses of gasping fishes.

  DENIAL

  Dear John,

  Would you like to know what happened my arsehole in prison? Or is that a boringly obvious one! I’m typing away here in the ramshackle internet café above the barbers and yes, it’s still overwhelmed with plastic plants and nod dolls. How about my left cheekbone snapping against the iron bed frame? The technical term for it – I know you’re a total sucker for minutiae – is zygomatic fracture. And the orbital variety corresponds to the eye of course, now terminally out of shape like a mouldable monster from that abominable opera we gorged in Berlin. It’s wild but I can no longer close my teeth together. The blubbermass of a prison officer from Mullingar stood choking on his burnt bacon roll. Stood there laughing. A really sick kind of chortling like he’d swallowed an antique television full of static. ‘You got clean lucky there Gilligan,’ he was kind enough to tell me. ‘That pole-faced motherfucker is in for multiple murder. Did away with two other mutton heads just for the craic.’ Have you any notion how sickening tomato sauce smells when you’ve been unable to swallow for a week? Erupted from his gob sliding down his shittily shaven chin. That’s when he threw it in for afters, my mother on the chemo pump up at St James’s. She wanted me to know. She wanted me to know she wouldn’t be able to visit and that as they say is a big fat that. She wanted me to know in all probability I’d never see her again and you do recall how close we were John, don’t you? But look, these are the small fry. Let’s get on to the coal-and-ice, the meat-and-potatoes. I was the only one in there who hadn’t indulged for real, yeah? You of all smartasses should get the difference between sampling the meat and browsing? The classic types and the window shoppers? Even back in the seminary for that short time it was only one in fifty. Those fuckers repulsed us. And no John, I haven’t told any holier-than-thous inside or out about your boy on the couch, you sycophant you! Your élan vital is very much your own business. I also need you to understand that this isn’t a threatening correspondence in any way. I wish you absolutely no lingering harm. Rather I’m doing what Marion the Therapist with the shoulder pads suggested. Contacting to let you know where I’m at with treatment which research has proven is 80 per cent effective if followed to the letter. Empathetic tones and so forth. The drug therapy has also reduced my testosterone levels to such midget lows that all interest there has scarpered. I would not, for instance, be able to randomly show up at the glitzy new themed bar you go to with Brian 2.9km away on Google Maps (Nordic Bar?) throwing villainous Gloria Gaynor shapes. It’s very hard to know who to trust in this polar climate. My radius limit is 1.8km. Taking into account necessities like food shopping, trips to the dentist (currently helping to rearrange my mouth), clinic meets, and so on. We’re actively discouraged from going into pubs, social clubs, any small gatherings, even outdoor concerts would you believe, without set limits, clear lines regarding minors. I’m not a fan of interpersonal violence John. Marion suggested I write and say something along the lines of I understand as an ultra-left liberal Green Party residents association type you did what you thought you had to in the heat of the moment at 3 a.m. No, I just wanted to contact you to let you know that the solicitor has begun foreclosing on the apartment and I’m looking down now along a strange zipwire. No need to grab a copy of the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology to understand the likes of me! I’m a lot less complicated, soul on shirt sleeve. If I’m going to be grossly honest here, I’ll admit it’s bloody tempting to dial your new 087 number and share some of the other exciting life-enhancing developments that have happened this week. Especially when it comes to the tech specifications of my new BoyBot. How could I not think of you and the work you do? John, it’s unreal what the little chap is capable of. We’re not just talking the nauseatingly obvious like his H-reach. He can, yes, grab and grip, or the bipedal locomotion; that allows him to dutifully fall to his knees. Or the V-reach; switch him into house clean mode and he grows stilt legs to give the top of the fridge a right old feather dusting. But *seriously* he’s actually capable of real conversation. Philip K. Dick would be proud as an interstellar peacock. Tapestry of wires connected to my laptop, to my email, to anything I write and dictate into the culprit cam that I’m tasked to do twice a day, allows the little bugger to analyse via speech recognition software, to get to know me and respond accordingly. Integrates new words soaked up online and in real time. He may not get everything bang to rights. Yes, he can say the wrong thing. Sometimes he might not know what to say, but every day we’re together is progress. He even has the ingenuity to cross-reference my online shopping and inform me of new delectables I might’ve missed. ‘Michael M&S are now stocking Butternut & Amaretti Ravioli as of 4th February if it is of interest to you?’ Pretty remarkable, huh? John, stay warm and snug. Know that I am thinking of you. Never stop thinking of you.

  Michael X

  ANGER

  Marion had hair, lots of it, all spume and spin in deepest hazelnut brown. She wore clothes drenched in clashing colours. Fleck of chakra cogs on a tatty second-hand schoolbag: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Black was purposefully missing. She was the type of slaphappy therapist who saw the good in flesh-cutting murderers, park flashers and men who beat their wives to mush and left them to wash away in stiffness on worn decking until even stray cats would no longer sniff at them. She sat frumped in the front window with her knockers spilled onto the chrome café table, already cramming cake into her Paris Peach lipstick mouth. Assigned to him on release, she tried very hard to understand his convoluted multiplicity by nodding violently and using an array of fantastic buzz words like ‘hebephilic’ and ‘hypersexual hoarding’ picked up while training at the p
restigious Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic in Baltimore in the great old progressive US of meaningful A.

  ‘Michael, please, take a pew. I’m having the white chocolate and orange donut. Totally unreal! It’s gushing out the sides here. Oh, crips, forgive me. You’re looking great now, really, rested, I have to say. Can I recommend the passionfruit curd in dripping raspberry chocolate icing if you want something totally modish. How are you doing? How are you feeling? How are you coping with the day-to-day? Hmmm God Almighty, this is so good, you have to excuse me!’

  He sat opposite glaring out at a seagull raping a Bruscar bin with its ravenous beak. ‘I’m doing fine,’ he said. ‘Can I ask why we’re not meeting in the apartment from now on?’ The waitress was doing a very annoying barefoot improvisational dance, spinning the floor with a cake tier camouflaged in icky pastels and bulky marshmallows. The droplights buzzed like a circle of certifiable bluebottles. The have a great fun shiny day spread of sickly Teddy Bear Picnic décor was giving him a crackling sensation in the ears, mucus filling fauces, all batty gross organism stuff.

  ‘You know why, we discussed this in our sessions. It’s to get you out again, around people again, it’s the best way forward now.’

  He had lived on this street peacefully for eighteen years, well used to the hominid traffic flying about taking care of their comforts. Far from a trendy dive back then; partially derelict and used mainly as a drive-thru to the office blocks and government buildings on the quays and beyond. Lived in a tiny bedsit above an antique shop stuffed with random brass knickknacks before buying with John eight years in. He stood up, unbuttoned his trench coat, ordered a spiced pumpkin latte and tried not to notice Marion scanning the room to see what clientele he might swoon over as unintentional aphrodisiac. No angel faces in sight.