Nobody Loves a Ginger Baby (11 page)

‘Come with me to the phone box and we’ll give her a tinkle. I’ll say these are the numbers on my ticket and ask her to check it. She keeps the numbers for me every week now. I’ve been buying these bloody things for months. If you’re there, she’ll believe it, she won’t think her big boy would get up to any jiggery pokery.’

The underlying jealousy in the way Sean says the words
big boy
does not escape Pierce. There is no rancour, but there has always been a rivalry for Bernie’s love between the two men. Pierce doesn’t yet understand the game plan but he understands his role: to add authenticity to the deception and, trusting that Sean’s intentions are good, despite the bad feeling in his gut, he is willing, eager even, to play his part. Anything for Bernie.

‘Agnes? Aye. Can you take the phone through to her? Ah there you are. You’ll never believe who’s standing here with me. How the hell did you guess? You’re a witch, so you are, woman. He’s right here. Just bumped into him. He’s standing here with a stookie up to his shoulder. Aye, broke it, rescuing some damsel, he says. Well I’ll ask him, okay okay, I’ll put him on.’

In the cramped stinking space of the phone kiosk Sean hands Pierce the receiver. With desperate smiley gestures he is miming, trying to convey that he has accidentally run into Pierce but it’s okay, Pierce is up to speed. The cord on the receiver is too short and he has to stand with his head cocked at an awkward angle.

‘How’s my best girl?’

His best girl, in a far away sleepy voice, probably something to do with the pain control drugs, assures him she is fine.

‘Aye, I was here with a bit of business. It’s nothing, Bernie, I’m
fine, a couple of weeks and I’ll have the plaster off.’

She takes a bit of persuading but is eventually satisfied. It is so like Bernie to be more worried about him than her own
precarious
health.

‘I popped in to the Harbour Arms on the off-chance and who should be standing there but your old man. Well I wasn’t
planning
to. Aye, I suppose I could for a few days if Sean will bring me back to the mainland. Sean, can you bring me back over in a few days’ time?’

Sean is smiling, delighted, with his thumbs up signifying how well it’s going but now his demeanour changes and he says in a loud gruff theatrical voice, ‘Well, I suppose so, but I don’t know who’s going to pay for the bloody fuel.’

The moment his line is out of his mouth he clamps his hand over it, scared he’ll laugh down the phone. His wide eyes demonstrate how much he is enjoying the schoolboy naughtiness of it.

Sean lets Pierce chat with Bernie for a few minutes and then makes impatient signs that he wants the receiver back. He is
bursting
to get on with the ruse.

‘Bernie, have you the numbers in front of you? Wait, wait. No, don’t read them to me. The best thing is if I tell you what I’ve got and you can tell me if any of them have come up. Okay? Okay.’

Sean fumbles around in each of his trouser pockets but he can’t find the envelope. It is in the breast pocket of his shirt, Pierce can make out the outline of it through Sean’s threadbare green woollen jumper and is pointing to with his stookie arm it but Sean, with panic building, misunderstands and slaps his hand away.
Realisation
dawns on Sean and he smiles an apology while keeping up a cheery banter with his wife. In the limited space he ties himself in knots trying to extricate it from his shirt. As Sean’s face gets redder Pierce is forced to put his good arm up his uncle’s jumper and grope at his breast. He has turned his head away, he doesn’t want to feel the soft warmth of his uncle’s belly, he doesn’t want to smell the sea and the sweat off him.

‘5, 9, 12, eh? Oh ho! Well that’s us won a tenner at least, fish
suppers
for the tea tonight! 26, 37, you are kidding me on? Last one 44…’

A worried look has come over Sean’s face. The line has gone quiet. Pierce realises instantly how dangerous this is. Bernie’s heart is probably weakened. This could kill her.

‘Bernie? Oh, you’re there.’

Sean screws his face up knowingly at Pierce but they both feel tremendous relief that Bernie has not keeled over with a heart attack.

‘What? Are you sure? All of them?’

Sean nods and grunts into the phone for a good few minutes letting her get used to the idea.

‘Now listen, Bernie. You keep this under your hat until I get it checked out. Don’t tell a soul. I’ll phone up the lottery people just now and find out what we have to do. I’ll maybe have to stay here another night until they can get a cheque to me, can you wait another night to see him? Yes, I’ll bring him first thing tomorrow as soon as I’ve sorted it all out. And I’ll tell you another thing my girl. Me and you are going Stateside! I’m going straight from here to the travel agents to book two seats to the Big Apple.’

At this moment Sean winks again and effortlessly produces two airline tickets from his back pocket and waves them at Pierce.

Everything falls into place. Pierce never doubted Sean but now he sees why he needed the elaborate scam. This is no joke. Sean has somehow or other come by the money to take her to New York, something she has dreamed of for years, something she has talked of every summer for as far back as Pierce can remember. However Sean has come by the money, he is unable to tell her the truth.

Perhaps it’s the drugs but, as unlikely as it seems that a penniless fisherman with a terminally ill wife should twice win a fortune, Bernie readily accepts it. She’s asking her husband what clothes she should pack.

‘No, forget that old thing, and anyway, it’s too big for you now.’

Pierce cringes at this: Bernie’s losing weight, diminishing, fading. He’s frightened to see her, frightened of how she’ll look. He doesn’t know how he’s going to hide his fear, she knows him so well. But he must hide it, the way Sean does, or she’ll spot it before he’s even off the boat.

‘All you need is something comfy to travel in. We’ll buy new stuff when we get there. We’ll go to Macy’s.’

Pierce never ceases to be amazed by Sean. On the outside he seems like a fat old codger in a green woolly jumper. But he is much, much more. The new refrigeration plant demonstrates just what a player he is. The woolly jumper and easy manner are a perfect disguise for his Machiavellian intrigues. By playing one
government
body against another, slowly, deftly, despite funding being repeatedly withdrawn, he secured almost half a million pounds to build the plant. But raising the money for this New York trip would not have been as easy. In the island’s only pub, The Pibroch, there had been talk of a whip-round to send Bernie to America but Sean is not a man to accept charity. He must have got the money some other way. He must have sold the land.

A few times over the years when the fishing was particularly thin Bernie begged him to sell the fields. Sean always refused, he did not consider them his to sell. They were Bernie’s, they came to her from her father when he died. Sean, more than forty years on the island, still an incomer, had no business selling them. He always found a way to keep going, to hold them in trust. The fact that Bernie and Sean had no children held no irony, the land must stay in the family. A few fields on a lonely island are all they have to pass to posterity.

The whole lottery scam, which had at first the feel of one of Sean’s cheeky manoeuvres, is much sadder than that. It’s
desperation
, a selfless act of love.

‘When are you going to New York?’ Pierce asks as soon as Sean comes off the phone.

‘Next week.’

Now Pierce understands why the camera has to be instamatic. Sean and Bernie don’t have enough time for anything else.

Next morning, after a cramped rocky night aboard
The Statue of Liberty,
Sean insists they wait a few hours. Pierce is impatient to
get started; he wants to see Bernie. However ill she might look, he wants to see her face when Sean hands her the airline tickets.

‘First class, all the way,’ Sean shouts proudly above the roar of the engine. ‘None of your rubbishy cockroach hotels this time: New York Hilton, best-of stuff.’

‘How long are you staying?’ Pierce bawls as spray crashes over the port side. After waiting till after lunch to strengthen the illusion of the arrival of the lottery cheque, Sean is now pushing the wee boat as fast as he can back to the island. The throttle screams as the boat rises and falls with the water slapping the sides. Black smoke is belching from the engine with a thick grease that lines Pierce’s nose and throat and masks the comforting old-fish smell of the deck but Sean, usually carefully nursing his old boat, never lets up.

‘The whole week.’

It’s along way to go for such a short time, thinks Pierce, but maybe that’s all Sean can afford, or maybe that’s all Bernie can manage.

‘I’ve a full programme lined up and you can bet your life it doesn’t include bloody hot dogs! That American bread is stale and the sausage tastes of nothing unless you put half a ton of sauce on it. I’m going to book dinner in one of these places where you can see the whole Manhattan skyline. It’s a pity the towers are gone now but that’s your bloody terrorists for you.’

It’s typical of Sean’s island mentality to think that the biggest, potentially the most cataclysmic event in modern history, has spoiled the view for Bernie’s posh Manhattan dinner.

‘And the best Broadway show, I’ll need to get tickets. What is the best show on Broadway just now, Pierce?’

‘Don’t know, what is it?’

‘I don’t know either; I’m asking you. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is I’ll get tickets.’

Pierce can make out the outline of the island on the horizon now. He loves this feeling: the anticipation of stepping on to the quayside, back on the island, back with Sean and Auntie Bernie.

‘Night cruise as well, it’s a bloody rip-off but she’ll want to see the statue. She’s too… she’s not up to the ferry trip just at the moment.’

A look of anguish crosses Sean’s face and Pierce turns away. The wee boat is too confined a space for such big grief. For the next five minutes Pierce busies himself preparing the mooring lines ready for landing.

‘I’m getting a carriage,’ Sean shouts, perky again, calling Pierce to join him at the wheel. ‘One of those horse-drawn carriages to take her round Central Park. I hope there’s going to be moonlight. And I’m keeping the best till last.’

Sean indicates that he wants Pierce to take the wheel and he nips below deck. On land Sean moves at a ponderous pace but aboard
The Statue of Liberty
he is as agile as a monkey. He’s back in a jiffy and hands Pierce a small dark red-padded velvet box. There is a ring inside, gold with a row of tiny diamonds.

‘It’s beautiful, Sean.’

‘She has my mother’s wedding ring but it’s worn away to
nothing
. I gave her scrambled eggs and toast the other night and she when she rubbed her hands to wipe the crumbs it flew right off her hand.’ Sean is laughing. ‘She’s that skinny!’

Pierce would like to laugh but he can’t.

‘It’s an eternity ring, son. When you find a woman like Bernie you want to be sure and keep her.’

Sean pulls back the throttle and the noise is now a gentle thrum. Pierce can see the quayside and watches it get bigger. The sea-swept weather-beaten harbour and the houses that huddle around it look like they always do; quiet, permanent, but the refrigeration plant, too new and alien to have yet been assimilated into Pierce’s mental picture, spoils the view. It’s not the same anymore. He’s looking for Bernie but of course she won’t be there to meet them.

‘Now remember, Pierce, mum’s the word. If she finds out we didn’t win the lottery she’ll skin me alive.’

But Pierce isn’t listening. He’s looking at the quay. Now he can make out a small group waiting at the moorings. He recognises some of Sean’s friends, Bobby and Jim, and though they are still some distance from landing, he can clearly read their expressions. Agnes McConnell is with them. She is looking down at her feet and ringing her hands.

Bertha books the Nile cruise as a lovely surprise for Donnie. If she
has
to have a reason then it’s an anniversary present, wedding or divorce, they both happened around the same time. Now that they are back together it’s the only way she’s going to get a half decent holiday. Donnie freely admits it; he earns peanuts.

Bertha’s sister and her friends who have kids can’t afford
interesting
holidays. They go to camps in Skegness or take cottages in the Highlands. When they pull out pictures of the fruit of their loins, Bertha counters with photos of Machu Picchu or hot geysers in Iceland.

But the banks of the Nile aren’t all that. The mud-brick houses are quite biblical and picturesque, she supposes, but the kids
playing
football spoil the overall effect by wearing Nike. The heat is like a giant hairdryer on full power. Day one, Bertha is overwhelmed by the bad smells; the rotting vegetation and petrol smells of the river, the embarrassingly obvious rank smell within fifteen yards of every toilet on board, the stomach-churning rancid stench from the kitchen area even when they’re not cooking, but worst of all is the smell of the staff. Bertha and Donnie agree, without being racists about it, that Egyptians stink. They have no appetite and can only nibble at pre-packed crisps and biscuits.

Their cabin is not the best. Because she is paying for them both she has economised by taking second class. A frequent business flyer with all the perks, Bertha is unused to compromising quality. For Donnie’s sake she’s slumming it but rather than appreciate her gesture, Donnie is too busy being scared.

He’s scared of everything. Donnie’s fear of flying, with sweats
and swearing and apoplexy at take-off and landing, makes the flight a nightmare but that is to be expected. She thought he might be a bit more relaxed on the coach but as they are finding their seats he yanks her down. She tries to remove his hand, it is a designer top and he is knocking it out of shape but he holds fast, gritting his teeth and staring ahead. Such is his terror that he can only communicate with nods. Bertha thinks this is getting out of hand and is about to remind him that they have left the plane now, they’re only on a bus for God’s sake when, following his manic stare, she glimpses what has so terrified him. Their tour guide, a plump young
Egyptian
woman, is packing a pistol. As she reaches into the overhead luggage rack her holster becomes momentarily visible.

Donnie will only converse in a whisper with his head between his knees. The woman is a suicide bomber. She and the driver plan to drive the bus at full speed into a target. What target? Donnie doesn’t know for sure, some American interest, maybe an oil
company
depot or something. He begs Bertha not to think of any have-a-go-heroics, he weeps silently, tears channelling into the rigidly set folds of his mouth. He says he is crying because he can’t remember the line after ‘hallowed be his name’ in the Lord’s Prayer. Every time the driver changes gear Donnie moans through gritted teeth, ‘This is it.’

Later, once they have found their tiny sweltering cabin, Bertha seriously wonders if she can ever have sex with Donnie again. The flying phobia she can just about handle; lots of men are afraid of flying, but that palaver on the bus, well. Obviously she feels sorry for him, who wouldn’t? The poor guy was in a terrible state, but that was the whole point. He had made her feel sorry for him. How can she fancy someone she pities? She can kid herself only so far. She knew when she took him back that he was a bit mental, he always had been, but that was not insurmountable. The fact that he had shown himself a pitiable coward was selfish and damned inconvenient.

Friday night.

It isn’t true that Daphne doesn’t wash; she does, just not with the same frequency that she used to, that is to say, daily. But though her ablutions have taken on an infrequency that gives her clothes and her armpits a mushroomy honk, the lack of bathing quantity is made up for in quality. Sometimes the only place to be is the bath, a return to the warm watery womb.

She places tea lights in whisky glasses all around the bathroom and pours bubble bath, which leaves the bottle in thick reluctant pulses, under the rushing hot tap. She carries the iPod player out into the hall and drags it as close to the bathroom door as the socket will allow. She puts on gentle piano music – Einaudi.

She no longer listens to the radio, which is just a constant stream of smug gits who are in love or sad gits who have been chucked. When she plays Einaudi she thinks of …nothing. She lies back, up to her chin, not caring if her hair gets wet. The bubbles provide a safe haven, a cosy hiding place where no one, not even Daphne, can see her blubber body. She takes the time to wrap one foot in bubbles, layering bubbles on bubbles in time to the music as they sparkle in the candlelight until the bubble ball slides down her leg, fragrant and slippery.

Clean skin means clean underwear and, what the hell, a clean jumper. One good thing about the sickie is that Daphne has
dramatically
cut down on laundry. With her new more relaxed system, one jumper, even with the odd soup slurp down the front, which nobody sees anyway, can last weeks before it needs washed.

Dressed all in clean clothes Daphne feels a sense of occasion but there is none. She can’t even pop in and visit Pierce. He has unaccountably bolted. No word, no soup cancelling, no nothing. Daphne has had to eat spinach and coconut soup for the last three days to use it up. He’ll be back. He’s probably shacked up with some woman.

Daphne is preparing for the three a.m. deli run, standing in the hallway buttoning her coat. She doesn’t need a coat in this weather but that’s what she’s comfortable with. She has a peek in the full-length mirror. Her face has filled out a bit recently giving
her a softer more girly look and she still has not a bad pair of pins on her, not a bad pair at all, it’s just the bit in between her face and her legs that she’s not so keen on. Now then, she thinks, where’s my stick with which to beat the men off? Where
did
I leave that shitty stick?

Just then a rowdy drunk knocks and bangs her door. Pierce. She knew he’d be back. She keeks through the spyhole but it isn’t Pierce.

‘Tam, are you okay?’

Tam’s face breaks into a wide infectious smile as she opens the door.

‘Daphne!’

Tam throws his arms open wide and pulls her towards him into a clumsy bear hug. Daphne has, in an instinctive protective gesture, brought her arms to her chest and now Tam in his exuberance locks his arms behind her back. She is trapped inside his enthusiastic embrace. His cold outdoor ear is touching her warm indoor one.

‘Oh Daphne, Daphne, lovely lovely Daphne’.

‘Tam, how many Es have you had?’

‘Two.’ Tam pulls away enough to let her see his unrepentant smile and then returns to the ear-on-ear clinch. He rocks from side to side and Daphne has no option but to rock with him. The rocking gains momentum until it has become a heavy swaying dance, a dance that neither of them know the steps to.

‘Is he here?’

‘Who, Pierce? No, I don’t know where he is.’

‘He missed our fucking gig, man.’

Tam nods his head in a sad knowing way. Daphne takes this opportunity to break free. They are standing just inside her hallway and, sensing that this is going to be a long story, Daphne brings Tam into living room.

‘He’s the one who got us the gig and contacted the record
companies
. And then he doesn’t even bother his arse to turn up! I mean, the rest of the band didn’t want Pierce after he gave us the big speech about us all having to be
a hundred and ten per cent
committed
,
all that shite. The rest of them thought he was an arse but I stuck my neck out for him and anyway, we couldn’t find anyone
else who would do it. But still and all, I stuck my neck out for him and he doesn’t even show up on the night.’

‘Aye, he’s a useless git,’ Daphne confirms. ‘You should know better than to rely on him, Tam.’

‘Man, it was a brilliant gig. We were on fire. My wee sister came with a big crowd of her pals from school and they were right into it. The A and R man stayed until half time.’

‘The what man?’

‘A and R: Artistes and Repertoire. From the record company, a talent scout.’

‘A record company scout was there?’

‘Yeah, he came over and asked who wrote the songs.’

‘It’s you, isn’t it?’

‘Too right it’s me, I’m making sure none of those shitheads get the credit, they’re my songs.’

‘What record company was it?’

‘I don’t know, I didn’t like to ask.’

‘Then how do you know he was a scout?’

‘Well, I don’t know for sure, but he looked like one. He had really trendy clothes, looked dead wanky and he had a London accent.’

Daphne and Tam are now in the living room and Daphne, still with her coat on, locates the whisky bottle and two glasses. She plunks herself down on the couch and Tam follows. Daphne pours while Tam describes in detail each song that the band played and his sister’s pals’ fervent appreciation. By the time he has finished Daphne has drunk two large whiskies and is feeling warm and relaxed. She stopped listening about ten minutes ago. She is
wondering
where Pierce is.

‘Wouldn’t it be great if the record company want to sign us?’

Daphne is nodding. Tam says something else and Daphne nods. A look of surprised delight comes over Tam’s face and he takes Daphne’s head in his hands and gently kisses her mouth.

Daphne has always liked snogging; it is her favourite thing, but this snogging is confusing. It’s not that Tam is a bad kisser. In fact he is pretty good, his basic equipment is sound:
above-average
size of orifice, superior lip girth, sturdy teeth, no obvious
presence of halitosis. Whisky on the breath is always a bonus. And his technique cannot be faulted. There is none of the jaw-grinding or teeth-clashing she remembers from her dating days. There is no weirdness like teeth licking or forceful sucking. Kisses remain within acceptable limits for saliva production and exchange. But still she is uncomfortable with it. It’s too much.

Tam is ideal boyfriend material. Isn’t he? He has golden hair on his arms, on his head, in his genes. But he’s a few years too young and a few months too late. Whichever way she looks at it, the arithmetic won’t add up.

The first sign is when she doesn’t open her mouth properly for a kiss. She doesn’t entirely lock her teeth but they are closed enough to be her drawbridge, denying him access to the inner sanctum, and he is forced to slurp from the saliva moat around her lower gums. With an involuntary moan he opens his mouth wider but she has not followed, their lips are out of synch. Now he’s kissing chin instead of lips and it’s a bit embarrassing. It’s a bad sign. His
suspicions
are confirmed when, later that night, after he has pushed the twin beds of their small cabin together, Bertha ignores the signal.

When they were married Donnie slept tucked into Bertha’s chunky back and when they got back together again it came
naturally
, her arse parked on his warm groin, his legs folded inside hers, his instep against the sole of her foot. More often than not Donnie will wiggle his toes tickling the underside of hers. Once or twice a week Bertha’s toes wiggle back, saying hello, pleased to meet y ou. That is the signal, when that happens they wordlessly turn to each other and fuck. If her toes don’t wiggle they don’t fuck. This is not something they have ever talked about.

Bertha’s toes are still. She seems to have curled them in tight. Okay, thinks Donnie. The holiday might have got off to a rocky start but I’m determined to enjoy it, after all, Bertha paid good money for this. It’s our first night, on holiday, not working, sunshine, Egypt,
Cleopatra, the Nile, Pharaohs, what better opportunity for a blow job can a man have? So he wiggles again.

‘It’s too hot!’ Bertha snarls as she throws his arm off.

It is too hot.

The next morning Donnie gets an upgrade to a room with air conditioning. It’s the least he can do. He feels a bit guilty about how much Bertha spent on this holiday. She always was a
spendthrift
, now that they’re together they could have used the money for something practical but, God love her, she was trying to please him. And he’s trying hard to please her but it’s not his fault he doesn’t like it here; she knows he can’t take the hot weather. It’s not as if she doesn’t get to go abroad, Bertha is always jetting off to exotic locations with her job but she says that’s work; it’s not the same without your partner. He didn’t sleep a wink all night in that sweatbox of a cabin. It was like being in that Steve McQueen movie. There’s no way he can spend another night in
the cooler.

‘Oh Donnie, it’s fantastic!’ she says as they both stand beneath the wall-mounted air conditioning unit. She turns to face it, splays her legs and lifts her skirt letting the cooling air waft around her knickers. Yesterday, Bertha made the mistake of packing her sun cream in her big case and it was several hours before she had access to it. He had warned her to cover up and offered her his cream but she scoffed at it. Not surprisingly she ended up burnt. On the way from the airport to the cruiser she has caught the sun on her face and her shoulders giving her the appearance of a ruddy peasant. She has a red stripe of quite severe sunburn down the length of each leg.

‘Hang on, that’s it only at half-power. Wait till you see what this baby can do,’ says Donnie. ‘Hand me the remote control, see? Impressive, eh?’

The machine, which was almost noiseless, moves up a couple of gears and now drones. The steward who demonstrated the controls told Donnie not to turn it beyond this point but he’s paid for it and he’s going to bloody well make full use of it. Within minutes the temperature has noticeably dropped. The cooler air rejuvenates them both, Bertha’s earlier mood of stoically enduring her sunburn
and the heat has lifted and she seems much chirpier. This is more like it, thinks Donnie, he has to try hard to enjoy this cruise, it’s the only way she’s going to enjoy it. Now she is jiggling and dancing around the room. Donnie can’t help but notice that through her blouse, Bertha’s nipples are stiff.