Nobody Loves a Ginger Baby (6 page)

‘Whoa tiger! You’re going a bit fast for me. What do I want with a wife? Who needs a car when there’s plenty of taxis?’

‘C’mon Pierce, you know what I mean.’

Bernie’s tone has changed to serious. She still likes a joke, she can take a joke better than anyone else Pierce knows but these days she quickly tires of banter.

‘I’m not saying you shouldn’t sow your wild oats. It’s only
natural
, you’re a fine looking big fella.’

‘Thanks very much, you’re not too bad yourself.’

With this Pierce hopes that she’ll follow him back into the more comfortable repartee zone but she doesn’t.

‘It’s none of my business I know, son, but we’d just like to see you settled, that’s all. Would you not like that, Pierce?’

Oh, illegal manoeuvre, thinks Pierce, unfair: she can bat away enquiries and make jokes about her illness but she demands of him deep and meaningful answers to impossible questions. She’s teased him for years about his love life, even taken vicarious pride in her stud muffin nephew but she’s never said anything like this before.

His resentment is momentary, she’s not well, that’s why she’s talking like this. Given the difficulty of the situation Pierce feels justified in doing what he does best. He improvises.

‘Actually, I
am
seeing a nice girl at the minute.’

Daphne wonders if there is special rehab for people like her; if there is, she doesn’t want it. Daphne loves Asda, can’t get enough of it. It began a few years ago when she popped in on her way to work. There for the shop opening, the first and only customer, when Radio Asda started up and the familiar theme tune kicked in:

She enjoys the whole Asda experience. She enjoys the Greeters and recognises all of them in the stores within a twenty-mile radius around the city. The chirpy old guys on the front door who refuse to retire and are paid simply to engage in petty gossip with anyone who stops: usually other not-so-chirpy oldsters who wish they had a job.

She likes the bag-packers, the local Scout company who are stationed, smart in their uniforms and kilts, at each checkout, packing bags for a small donation. Meanies who won’t donate find that the next time their bag is packed tins are slammed on to eggs and peaches and they carry home a bag of mush.

Daphne is so familiar with Asda she has picked up the lexicon. The vocabulary is tactile and respectful. People who work there are not
staff
but
colleagues
. Colleagues do not have a
meeting
they have a
huddle
. Money-off stickers are marked
whoops!
And even more money off is a
smile voucher
.

A visit to Asda is, for Daphne, a sensual delight. She loves the soapy perfumes of the toiletries, the rich backlit colours of the bubble bath: shelf after shelf of bright rubies, emeralds and
sapphires
. She loves the feel of the fruit, the rubbery texture of green bananas, the scrape of the yeast on the grapes and the satisfyingly taut skin. Colleagues not only approve, they encourage sampling, and Daphne swallows a juicy grape or slither of ham or sip of cocktail and smiles:
mmmm
.

The smell from the bakery is irresistible. Daphne has read in the paper that all supermarkets pump the smell of fresh bread into their shops but Daphne sees it not as a cynical marketing ploy but as another complementary service. The smell of fresh bread and doughnuts and cheese scones is a pleasure that cannot, and should not, be denied.

Daphne spends an hour or more in garden furniture, checking and comparing prices and she doesn’t even have a garden. She can lose herself for hours in Asda; it is her hobby, an escape from the college canteen and Carol’s boasting, from her demanding students, from the problem of Donnie.

It is the middle of the day; Donnie and Bertha will be at work. There is absolutely no danger that she’ll bump into them; this Asda is on the other side of town. Yet she is terrified.

Daphne never makes a shopping list. She despises people who charge purposefully round the shop crossing off items on their list. Daphne prefers to patrol each and every aisle in order, letting her memory be jogged and her imagination be fired by the goods on display.

She is halfway round the shop and has put nothing in her trolley. She can’t think what she wants; she doesn’t want anything. The light is all wrong. It’s too bright and false. There are no windows, it was overcast when she came into the shop but maybe the weather has changed, maybe it’s sunny or raining now. She doesn’t know; she’s not in control. She’s in the queue at the cold meat counter but the man behind her is standing too close, she can’t move or she’ll lose her place but now she can’t remember what she wanted at this counter anyway.

There is a gridlock of trolleys in the personal hygiene aisle and usually when this happens she waits and lets people pass or reverses if she can, but there is a woman behind her who won’t back up. Daphne is taking big breaths, trying to slow down her breathing. Her back feels damp and she can feel sweat making rings round the leg holes of her pants. She leans over her trolley, frightened that her legs will buckle again and she’ll fall. The
trolley
is still empty when she parks it in the biscuit aisle and walks out of the shop.

Some days later, very early in the morning, when Daphne’s supplies have all but run out and she’s down to half a jar of gluey sweetcorn chutney and a parsnip, she realises she’ll have to shop elsewhere. No more Asda but there’s an all-night deli just across the park. At quarter past four on a Saturday morning Daphne is enjoying having the park to herself. It’s big and wide and densely wooded, a forest in the middle of the city, even more so at this time when there is not the usual background drone of traffic, just the wind whooshing high in the trees. A good place to get lost.

Daphne is the only customer in the all-night deli. The only member of staff is a skater boy who correctly identifies her as a low shoplifting risk. He nods as she comes in then disappears down into the basement. Every so often he climbs the stairs carrying boxes and fills the shelves.

The shelves are made of dark expensive-looking wood. These right-on, new-age places sicken Daphne. They charge a fortune for save-the-planet, wholegrain, organic, recyclable crap and then use hardwoods for their shelving.

The shop sells white asparagus, artichoke hearts, dried ham, queen-size olives and buffalo mozzarella. It doesn’t do practical stuff like Heinz beans or Tetley tea bags. But at least she won’t bump into Donnie. And the bread looks really nice.

Daphne has no appetite for anything other than bread and butter. She has spent the day snoozing and dreaming of thick slabs of crusty bread with butter so thick that a dentist could render a perfect set of dentures from the impression she leaves. Asda bread is fantastic and their butter reasonably priced but it’s become for her a no-fly zone and she quietly accepts that if she wants to eat she’ll have to settle for this mahogany emporium of pretentiousness.

‘Daphne, is it okay if ah keep my phone on today? Ah’m waitin fur a call fae ma lawyer,’ says Mark.

‘Och Daphne, he’s at it!’ Thomas remonstrates. ‘He tried that wan in George Simpson’s class as well.’

Daphne isn’t sure what to make of this. This class, her adult returners, are very strict about phones in the classroom. With her other classes Daphne makes her standard mobile phone speech at the start of each lesson. They listen politely, nod and pretend to switch their phones off. Daphne knows they’re on silent. Students take calls from behind and under the desks, even sometimes texting each other while sitting five yards apart. But not this class.

This class are self-policing. She doesn’t bother with the speech with them, they’ve already turned them off. The odd time a phone rings, the disapproving whistles and tuts are enough to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

‘Daphne, ah’m sorry aboot this. If it’s a problem, ah understand,’ Mark says. She can see how uncomfortable he is with this. ‘I’ll leave noo if ye waant but ah need to speak tae him when he phones.’

‘Oooooow! ah need tae speak tae him!’ echoes Billy, followed by various cynical quips.

‘He thinks he’s the President of the fucking United States!’

‘Aw Mark, geez a shout when we go to Def Con One, will yae?’

‘Aye me tae, I’ll need to get hame. Ah’ve left a waashin oot.’

They run a tight ship, thinks Daphne.

‘Oh come on, give the guy a break! Mark, we’ll make an
exception
today because of your circumstances. You can leave your phone on
discreet
and take the call outside when your lawyer calls, how’s that?’

‘Brilliant. Thanks Daphne.’

He is obviously relieved, today is another assessment and nobody wants to miss it.

‘Right: assessment,’ says Daphne, smiling gleefully as though an exam were something to be relished. ‘Great to see you’ve all turned up and after today that’s another one under your belt. Remember: bit by bit. We’ll do it together.

‘Since you started you’ve all sat and successfully passed four assessments. We’re definitely getting there; we’re halfway there already. And you’re going to pass this next one. Some of you might not pass the first time and get remediation, so, big deal, you’ll pass the next time or the time after that. The important thing to remember is to not panic; we can do it, a wee bit at a time. You’re going to leave this course with your qualification; all you have to do is keep going, keep the faith.’

Daphne always gives them a pep talk before any assessment but they really need it today. Assessment five is public speaking. They each have to prepare and deliver a five-minute speech. The topic was supposed to be
My Hobby
but nobody has a hobby so Daphne
has changed it to
The Person I Most Admire.
Daphne arranges herself at the back of the class with her stopwatch and evaluation sheets before the talks commence.

June is highly organised with flash cards and props and she opens well.

‘She wis a Land Girl in the war and as yae can see fae the photaes she wis a crackin looking wummin in her day.’

June’s talk is well paced and interesting with many facts and quirky details about the Land Girl. The photos take a few minutes to reach Daphne and it is not until she sees them that she realises the woman June is talking about is her grandmother.

‘She’s ninety-two and she’s still a brilliant laugh. She loves it when I bring her in a magazine,
Cosmopolitan
or something. She’s gettin a wee bit incontinent noo but it’s only a matter ay changing the cushion oan hur cher, they’re machine-waashable.’

Several other of the students talk about their grandmother as the person they most admire. It is so prevalent that Daphne begins to understand that this is not due to having come from a
tightly-knit
extended family. They are paying tribute to the woman who brought them up. Usually single-handed.

Dan’s talk is about dogs, Rottweilers.

‘The Rottweiler breed comes from Germany.’

Dan seems to have done his homework but Daphne is not sure which topic he has chosen because as he begins to talk about his pet Rottweiler, Perla, it sounds like the person he most admires.

‘The guy that hud the pups owed ma brother a favour, a big favour, know what I’m sayin? I got Perla when she wis only a week auld. Ah could hod her in ma two hons she was that wee, ah hud to feed her milk through a sock.’

‘Did yae waash it first?’ shouts Billy to some laughter.

‘Naw, ah didnae, actually,’ counters Mark, ‘she prefers the cheesier flavour.’

The girls cry ‘euww!’ The lads snigger.

‘The first night she gret the whole night. ah hud to take her in beside me. You waant to see her noo: fourteen stone ay solid muscle and she still sleeps in beside me. She could rip yer throat
oot in a minute. It’s in her nature, it’s no’ the dug’s fault, it’s been bred intae her and she’ll never lose the killer instinct.’

Dan could talk for hours on the subject but after eight and a half minutes, and several ‘time’s up’ gestures, Daphne is forced to stop him.

Next up is Michael who has composed a rap to his mother.

Michael uses his mobile phone as though it were a mic. He
postures
; crouching and squatting, moving around the class gesturing with outstretched arms and fingers in what Daphne recognises as a gangsta stylee.

It’s unconventional but it fulfils the requirements for the assessment so Daphne ticks all the boxes. She just hopes the external examiner never asks for a demonstration.

Michael finishes to tumultuous applause.

‘Fantastic Michael,’ says Daphne, taking her time, letting the atmosphere, which is close to revivalist meeting fervour, settle down again. This will be a hard act to follow.

‘Let’s see, it’s you, Jamie. You’re the last. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our last speaker of the day: Jamie.’

Jamie slowly stands and moves to the front of the class, tilting his head to see over his almost opaque glasses, resting his clasped hands gently on his soft round paunch in a relaxed professorial manner. He is a big man, red-faced but quietly spoken, a placid, self-contained man.