Playing Out

by Paul Magrs

  I’m not desperate, mind. I stayed around, flirted a bit and had a few offers, but I laughed them off. I pissed off out of there before some old sod took me serious. You have to cover your back.

  I only went to give me ego a boost. Cheer myself up a bit. I looked a million dollars beside the grannies. Even in a room of British Legion men they still danced together and ignored them. I scooted out of that ballroom and into the ladies’ and I cried buckets in one of the stalls. I don’t know why.

  When I went to splash some water on my face I met some young pregnant lass from the antenatal dance-class thing that was on the same night. She looked ever so bonny. Had I been to the ballroom dancing classes, she wanted to know. I think she was just making conversation. Dabbing a bit eye shadow on, close as she could get to the mirror over the basin. I think she must have had triplets on the way, size of her. She said I might enjoy the ballroom dancing more than the less formal Grab a Granny do’s. The thing about ballroom dancing is that you’ll always get a friend. I said I might give it a go. She smiled and went back to her class. Her common-law husband was keeping the mat warm, she said.

  That was the last night I had out by myself. Now I make sure I’m with someone who’ll pull me out of myself when I get maudlin. Which is usually when I’m on the gin, I must admit, and that’s all I can drink anyway, because after a couple it tastes like pop and I’ve never really liked the alcoholic taste.

  I said once to my husband—he’s long gone, the first one—that that made me ladylike, me not liking the taste of alcohol. He said he’d like it more if I did get pissed more often. He liked me flat on me back with me mouth open. Oh, he was a pig and the one after him was no better, although we shouldn’t speak ill of those who met with tragic endings.

  Like I say, I’m a glamorous granny—I’m fifty now—but I’m not a natural one. What I mean is, I don’t have any grandchildren. Most of the women my age I know have got them by now. But I’ve always been young for my age and they know that. I’ve still got jet-black hair. Dyed, of course, but it’s a symbol more than anything.

  So even though I ought to be, I’m not a real granny yet. My bairns show no signs of sorting themselves out in the kiddie department. That’ll all come soon enough. There’s no hurry.

  Round here they hurry up. If you’re not married and settled by the time you’re nineteen, if you haven’t got kids hanging round you all through your twenties, then they reckon something’s wrong with you. That’s not right. People make wrong decisions under that kind of pressure. I’ve warned my two not to get daft. You have to live with all your mistakes. And I think my two are being sensible. They’re twenty-four apiece now.

  Twins—not identical—a lass and a lad. The apples of my eyes. Andrew and Joanne.

  Maybe it was the divorce and me having them on my own for those years, but we’ve made it different to how other families on this town work. I’ve drummed it into the pair of them, mind, but they understand all the same. They don’t have to be like everyone else round here. They don’t have to chuck themselves into something they’ll regret. No one will think any worse of them for lagging. Well, they might, but their mam won’t. And I don't.

  I’m proud of them and will be even if they wait until they’re in their thirties to marry and give me grandchildren to fuss over and spoil and take to the park and stuff.

  The reason you have to take your time is this:

  Once you have the bairns and the council have given you a house and you have a job you think ought to last… then that’s you. You’re sorted out and, even at your luckiest, this will be how your life will stay. Until you’re dead old and you’re in the British Legion or you’re a glamorous granny dancing with another glamorous granny down the Rec.

  What I like to think I’m doing for my two—by telling them to slow down, to play the field, to think hard before doing what everyone else they know has done—is giving them a bit of space.

  I want them to have chances. That’s all I want. That’s all any parent wants, I suppose, though you’d never guess, the way some of them round here shove their bairns straight out on the street, or take them out of school, or get them a job in the same factory as their dad. And that’s if they’re lucky, if they have a dad. That’s no life.

  Anyway, yeah, that Roseanne. She’s had a hard time of it by all accounts. And you can tell. Although she makes you laugh and stuff—eeh, I nearly pissed meself one week, there was summat on, I can’t remember, but it was bloody funny—you can see in her eyes that she’s had a bad time really. It’s always in the eyes. There’s a sincerity in eyes.

  You can never see it in your own eyes. Only other people can see it for you. Only, they aren’t always up to the job of seeing the hurt in other people’s eyes. Yet you have to rely on them. Mind, you don’t want just anyone seeing into you. That’s like broadcasting all your business.

  It’s funny, mind, how when you look in a mirror you can never see your own hurt. You might feel—I don’t know—wounded or whatever, shat upon, but when you look in a mirror your eyes are suddenly bright and glassy and smiling just as mine were when I was being glamorous and young for me years at Grab a Granny night.

  That’s daft, though. As if anyone—especially a woman—can hide stuff from herself.

  On the cover of this stack of TV Times Roseanne’s smiling and advertising her new series. They reckon she’s lost weight and she looks pleased with herself. She’s got a new hairdo but I can see what’s in them eyes and she’s had it up to here, poor cow.

  Sincerity.

  I’m putting on me anorak round the back at the end of my shift. The staff room is tiny and it’s full of all the breakages ready to go back. I tell you Eric’s greedy—he wants his money back off everything dropped on his lino. There’s smashed jars of pickles in the staff room and it reeks of vinegar.

  So I’m zipping up me coat and crunching a pickle when Eric comes in with a full carrier bag. He gives us a smile like he knows summat I don’t. Since he’s the boss that’s usually true, like, and I worry that some day he’s gonna just give us me cards and that’ll be the friggin’ surprise. But the night he just gives us this filled carrier.

  ‘You might as well have these, Judith,’ he says. ‘You’ve most prob’ly read them all already, but they’re left over and I can’t do nowt with them.’

  I look in the bag and there’s all this week’s unsold magazines in there. What’s on TV, Top Santy, Just Seventeen, the bloody lot. Well, I’m not too sure whether he’s taking the piss or what, so I just shove it under me arm, collect me things, say good night and then I go. I know for a fact he can usually get a few pence for leftover magazines, so I decide he must be trying to be nice to me. He gives us a silly little wave from the back door.

  I reckon it must be like that male menopause he’s getting. I read about it and he’s the proper age.

  The proper age! It’s not right that he shouldn’t still be twelve. The age he was at first when I knew him.

  He’s looking tireder just lately. But he’s all right ’cause him and his younger wife are off on a holiday next week anyway. Second honeymoon. They get about. Florida, he reckons. They’ll visit the place with the killer whales and Disneyland. Not that they’ve any bairns to take. His son Alex is looking after the shop next week, that’s why he was telling me all about it. Besides showing off, like. I had to nod and say how lovely it sounded and how I hoped it kept nice for them and all the while I was thinking I’ll have to put up with that kid again. In his little suit.

  It makes no difference, really, though, who’s in charge when I’m behind the till. Alex won’t usually order me around unless his tarty little girlfriend is down to visit. They drive around in this big car of his. The roof comes off like they think they’re in America. Sometimes all I can wonder is whether he’s got owt in his trousers like Eric had back then, and I bet he has. He’s the same sort of good-looking short-arse like his dad.

  But I shouldn’t even be thinking about the boss’s son
’s trousers. The lad’s over four years younger than our Andrew. Doing well for hisel’, mind, whatever you say about him. My Andrew doesn’t drive. He’s had no one to teach him, no one around to do that, no dad. I don’t drive. I think he’d be… not timid, but too careful behind the wheel of a car.

  There’s so many things to watch for. With your gear sticks changing and mirrors and looking at the road ahead and stuff. He’d be letting every other bugger get past first. You have to dig your heels in, push your nose in, get in there. I’ve told him. His mam knows that much. Our Andrew’s not one to push hisel’.

  When I get in the house Andrew’s already there. He knows that when I finish work I need to sit down a while and relax. It’s a full day on your feet and it takes it out of you. I’ve started getting palpitations in the night in me heart. When you push your thumbnail through the skin of an orange to start peeling it—that’s what it feels like sometimes.

  Andrew jumps up straight away when he hears the garden gate rattle and he’s opening the kitchen door, ushering me in like an old woman, and whipping the kettle on, gabbling on.

  He’s a good lad and I can tell by the way he goes on when I come in that he’s pleased to see me. He’s had no one to talk to all day and this stuff comes pouring out as he picks our mugs off the tree, wipes them quick with the tea towel and pops the bags in the teapot. He doesn’t work. I can barely get a word in edgeways.

  I sit at the kitchen table and pull the ashtray towards me, smiling, listening. I can hear the telly’s on in the front room, playing to no one, burning up pounds. The telly’s on all day long in our house. It’s dear but it’s not just for the programmes. It’s for the psychological glow.

  It’s children’s BBC, all thumping music and excitable presenters. Andrew’s turned the sound down before running to open the door to me, I can tell. He doesn’t like me to know he watches the kids’ telly. I can see why, a twenty-four-year-old young man. He’d feel daft, I reckon. But I can’t see why he shouldn’t watch it if that’s what he wants.

  It’s all very sophisticated these days. As far as I can tell, it’s all sex. And kids today learn all they need to about life and the facts of life from Neighbours. They cover every issue and more. Everyone on Neighbours has been married to everyone else, one time or another. That’s why I get confused with it. Miss one episode and you’ve missed all-sorts. You’ll have to struggle to catch up. Sometimes I think it’s very true to life.

  When I used to watch kids’ TV with the twins when they were small, it was all puppets and animals. They wouldn’t have that now. Now it’s virtual reality and what have you.

  Coming in from work, then, I smoke and rest mesel’ and let Andrew make me tea. I can’t smoke at work. Not even in the staff room because we have what Eric calls our delicatessen counter. He means the fridge unit with the cheese and that in.

  Eric wants our place of work to be a healthy environment and that son of his is even more fanatical. Alex is a bit of an albino, he looks like someone’s gone over him with a potato scrubber. Those pink eyelashes. If I’ve had a fag on the way to work and Alex can smell it on me breath, he’s turning his nose up straight away like I’ve farted or summat. Little bastard. I wouldn’t care, but he’s lathered in great big red spots. I wouldn’t buy cheese off him if you paid me to.

  My bairns never had spots while they were teenagers. Haven’t got them now. They’ve the complexions of angels—like their mother always had. Mind, Joanne spoils hers with all that make-up. She errs a little on the orange side, does Joanne, yet she won’t be told.

  ‘Mam, man,’ she’ll shout at us, and she gets dead riled at owt like this. ‘Mam, man, your day is over and gone! Fashions have changed and nothing you can offer me in the way of beauty tips is any use. If I painted meself like you say I’d be laughed out of town! Face it—you’ve got an old woman’s face and I’ve got a young’un. I have to follow young women’s fashions!’

  And that’s how our rows about make-up end. But on my mornings off I watch This Morning. I know how today’s young women get themselves up to go out on the town and that. Not to mention all the magazine articles I’ve flicked through. You can’t tell Joanne, though. She doesn’t realise how much the seventies are back now. Why, I was in my thirties in the seventies. Pale lipsticks and blue eyeshadow—I couldn’t have been trendier then or now.

  What our Joanne doesn’t see is that she’s still in the eighties. What with her frizzy highlights, her tangerine face. And God, but that makes me feel old! My own daughter in a fashion time warp already at the age of twenty-four. She’s peaked her peak and all she can do is wait for the eighties to come back round. Probably when she’s fifty.

  Andrew is winding the pot up, poking a spoon in to mash the teabags. He’s using all his concentration and the hot mist ruffles through that fringe of his. I reckon he’d get a job with a haircut but you can’t say owt. Not because he’d bite my head off like Joanne would, but because he’s too sensitive. I’ve given up criticising Andrew. His face crumples up like a paper bag and he looks at you like you’ve just said the worst thing in the world. Like he can’t believe how cruel you are.

  I think I’ve over-mothered him. I worry he’s not had a proper man’s influence over him. But if he had it would only have been some silly sod making him wear a tracksuit to play football and stuff when he didn’t want to. Who’s going to blame me when I say my heart goes out to sensitive boys? What’s wrong with it if I’ve said it’s all right that he never went out much to play? That he drew pictures or preferred to read? Or that now he watches kids’ TV instead of having a job?

  ‘It’s a grunge thing,’ Joanne said when I said maybe Andrew could get a job with a haircut. She was on her way out one night—dressed like something out of Bananarama, but I kept me trap shut. ‘And that’s why he cuts holes in his jeans.’

  ‘He cuts holes in his jeans? I thought they were natural.’

  ‘Mam, man,’ she said, about to slam the kitchen door. ‘Sometimes you’re so naive.’

  Ay, I reckon I am naive. Because Joanne’s definitely up to something these days. Something that’s not just going out with her mates of a night. She’s up to something with someone I don’t know and I haven’t a clue what it is. But I know there must be something wrong with it. Otherwise she’d say.

  All the power’s with her now and she’s making me wait to find out. Only Joanne can make this storm break. And break it will, I reckon. Me and my family are in for a rough ride again. Joanne has a real tempestuous streak in her. She’s even more of a rebel than I was. She’s got my genes, only worse.

  Well, we’ll see. She’ll tell me in her own sweet time. Or maybe I’ll get it out of Andrew in the meantime. I know the twins share everything and for some things they keep their mam out. That’s only natural. Children need their own spaces.

  He’s poured the tea and he’s holding out my cup, giving me a look. That’s ’cause I’ve lit me second fag and I’m enjoying even more than me first. Andrew doesn’t like me smoking. When he was five he said I should stop because otherwise I’d die. I think he’d seen summat on the telly. Joanne thought that was funny.

  ‘When you die, do you want burying or cremating?’

  She asked me this again and again. I didn’t want to say anything because I thought it was morbid and it would give them nightmares. Eventually, I was ironing, and she asked me once too often.

  ‘Look, Joanne,’ I snapped, ‘when I drop you can bloody well eat me if you like.’

  Her jaw dropped in delight. But behind her, Andrew was horrified. Then he wailed and wailed and we couldn’t get him to stop for hours.

  In those days Andrew would always be standing just behind Joanne. He shuffled round after her like she had him on a string. They were like that till she left school, at fifteen. She went to work, learned how to be a receptionist. She’s been in hotels, motels, the equestrian centre.

  Andrew did O levels and went on to do his As but he finished early and just stayed home. It was
n’t that he couldn’t do them. He’s got the brains. More brains than anyone I know. More than anyone round here. I reckon it was the competition that got to him. It was all competition and he’s not that sort. He’s too good for that. He doesn’t have to compete, Andrew.

  I take me tea and curl me fingers about the mug. It’s warming. April and it’s freezing out; still looking like snow.

  Eric won’t turn the shop’s heating up beyond the legal requirement. Have it too warm, he says, and we’ll have every dosser, every scruffy old bastard in off the streets, keeping warm. He’s probably right but I still curse him when I’m freezin’ me tits off on me pins.

  I blow on the tea and take another drag.

  ‘I wish you’d try again, Mam,’ says Andrew.

  He’s got an almost girlish voice. A soothing sound, chalk drawing on soft stone. I can’t be angry or irritated with him. Not often, anyway. His voice broke early when he still looked like a little boy. One morning he came downstairs and said something and the sound shocked us both. We both thought it was his dad asking for clean socks, although I don’t suppose Andrew even remembers his dad. Since then, he’s changed that booming voice, made hiseP sound softer, on purpose.

  ‘Try again?’ I ask. But I know what he’s on about.

  ‘The patches.’

  ‘Bugger them.’

  ‘You could get used to them.’

  ‘Oh, yeh.’

  ‘They say they work.’

  ‘So do fags. Those bloody things don’t cost any less and when you pull them off they hurt'

  ‘But I don’t want you to die, Mam.’

  ‘I won’t die.’

  ‘Yes, you will.’

  ‘Look, man, Andrew, will you stop interfering? It was all right saying this when you were five, but you’re twenty-bloody-four now, pet! Look, I won't die!’

  He looks at me. We sip our tea for a bit. Then he starts up again, flinching as if he thinks I’m gonna smack him one.