Nobody Loves a Ginger Baby (9 page)

The silent calls from Daphne have stopped. Donnie’s glad she’s stopped calling, apart from the nuisance factor, he’s relieved that she’s through that phase. That stupid girly thing of phoning and not speaking was freaking him out. Maybe he should have spoken, maybe if he had spoken, acknowledged that he knew it was her… But there are too many maybes.

He’s shredding again. And when he thinks of Daphne, silent at the other end of the line, it makes it all the harder. He’s having difficulty shredding one particular photo. It was taken on a holiday in Spain with Daphne; taken without their knowledge or consent in a tourist trap nightclub.

Towards the end of the holiday, with a few bob left in the kitty, they had splurged on an expensive excursion to a nightclub
advertised
as exclusive. It was a chance to dress up and a change from the shorts and T-shirts they had worn every day for the last two weeks. Daphne was desperate for a chance to wear her new dress and Donnie had not humphed his good suit across Europe for nothing.

On the day of the big event, while he had his usual siesta, Daphne spent the afternoon shopping. She woke him to show what she’d bought: a sexy underwear and stocking set and some nail polish. She was so excited because the nail polish was the exact shade of her dress. Daphne was always enthusiastic about such simple things, like an untrained puppy, she was enthusiastic about everything. It was something that he had loved about her. Donnie didn’t do
enthusiasm
, considering it showy and vulgar although he quietly and vicariously enjoyed Daphne’s. But it was a constant balancing act. Unchecked, Daphne would reach intolerable levels of keenness and
he would instinctively close her down. They were both sorry when this happened and both vigilant against extremes of high or low.

They took ages getting ready that night; taking turns in the bathroom, playing Spanish radio and pouring liberal measures of the duty-free Bacardi. Daphne lay on the bed with one foot in the air and wads of toilet roll between her toes applying the polish, giggling when she missed the nail. When she finished her foot she waggled it above her head in her usual indecorous fashion. With only one eye made up she couldn’t wait to get into her new undies. Daphne favoured bright colours, yellow, pink, orange, the outfit was a gaudy but not unsophisticated mix of all three. She leaned into the mirror adjusting her bra straps as Donnie watched her. One side of her face an innocent goofy schoolgirl, the other a painted seductress. He couldn’t resist either.

They had spent the holiday as they spent every holiday:
shagging
. They had shagged so much that two days earlier they had run out of condoms. Donnie refused to enter the
farmacia
with her. She was the one who claimed to speak a bit of Spanish, she could ask. Daphne returned giggling but condomless. Though she had tried, with various unseemly gestures, thank God he hadn’t gone in, either her Spanish wasn’t up to it or the shop girl was taking the piss. Two days without sex, the stockings and the Bacardi combined to make Donnie horny.

But it was a different kind of horny. He didn’t just want to take his pleasure, to empty the tubes; he wanted to adore his beautiful silly Daphne. Sex was slow and tentative; Daphne making her little mewing noises that he found so humbling. This woman knew him, all of him, and still loved him.

When they first had sex without protection Daphne used to constantly remind him not to come inside her. This annoyed him. He wasn’t some teenager who, unable to control himself, would go off like a two bob rocket. Eventually she trusted him and stopped saying it.

That night she didn’t say it and that night, swept away on a romantic notion, Donnie came inside her. She came too, at the same moment, a feat they had not often accomplished.

He apologised profusely, pretending it had been an accident. Daphne hurriedly ran a bath. Although he said nothing, Donnie was vaguely insulted. Why was she so keen to flush him away? But he knew the answer. It lay in his response the last time her period was late. He ranted and sulked and behaved as though it was all her fault.

He followed her into the bathroom and saw her: the goofy schoolgirl hunched crying in the bath, hugging her knees to her chest, scooshing the showerhead inside herself. She looked so alone. This was his fault; he had caused her to feel like this. He tried to do something to help. Daphne allowed him to gently push her back, to open her legs. He filled his mouth with water, took a deep breath and dived. He found her cunt, clamped his mouth to it and blew. Daphne was laughing as the tears dried on her cheeks.

She cheered up before he did. There was nothing more to be done that night. Tomorrow she would get a morning after pill but the
farmacia
would be closed now. It would still be okay to take it tomorrow so long as she got up early. And anyway they had spent all that money on the nightclub excursion. Why not just enjoy themselves tonight and sort it out tomorrow? She was taking this all on herself and letting him off the hook. Daphne referred to it as the accident, not his accident; she apportioned no blame. She had never been so precious to him.

She looked stunning in her dress but his eyes were constantly drawn to her little round tummy wondering what was growing there. Cells dividing and separating, half her, half him. On the coach he put his arm around her, protecting what was his, and kissed her hair and stroked her belly. It was the closest he could come to telling her.

As their bus pulled up they had an appreciation of just how exclusive the place was. The coach park was the size of several football pitches, the club held thousands of fleeced and befuddled tourists. They were rounded up and prodded like prisoners of war towards the entrance and once inside, a bright flash exploded in their faces as their photo was taken.

The next day, hung-over and sunburnt, dehydrated and without protection from the tremendous heat, they walked the streets of
Alcudia looking for a
farmacia
. It was Sunday and most shops were closed. When they final found the one duty pharmacists the man explained in halting English that they needed a prescription. There was a doctor who would give them one but he was on the other side of town and charged 50 euros for a two-sentence note. The doctor, gleeful of their predicament, issued the note and they trudged, too broke to take a taxi, back to the
farmacia
. On the flight home and for the next two days Daphne was sick with the effects of the pill. Her head hurt and she cried all the time reassuring him that it was just the hormones. But in the photo that was taken in the club, there was no sign of that.

In the photo they are looking not at the camera but at each other. Caught unawares, Donnie is smiling. Not his usual lips pulled tight photographic smile. He is relaxed, mellow, handsome in his suit. His face has caught the sun and his eyes are shining. In Daphne there is no hint of the tearful kid hunched in the bath of a few hours ago. Donnie’s hand rests on her tummy and her hand on top of his. In that moment, caught forever by a Spanish tout, they are happy.

As she walks along the corridor Daphne senses an atmosphere of excitement. The students are louder and more boisterous than usual. Her own students are usually hanging around the door
waiting
for her to open but today they are clustered at the opposite end of the corridor, something is going on. Then she sees it on the door handle. She looks back along the corridor but the students have disappeared. Her arms are sore with the weight of the exercise books she has humphed up two flights of stairs and now she has to go all the way down again to get the janitor.

‘Bloody condoms everywhere,’ grumps the Andy the Janny, twanging on his rubber gloves for the fifteenth time that day, ‘
happens
every bloody year.’

The college is hosting its annual Sexual Health Awareness Day to encourage responsible attitudes in the student population, the chief element of which seems to be an unending supply of free condoms that the students blow up like balloons, fill with water and throw at each other, stretch over their heads, or pull over
classroom
door handles. She hasn’t looked too closely at the contents of the condom, just seeing it makes her feel queasy, but it appears to contain organic matter in a semi-liquid form.

With the protection of his rubber gloves it’s easy for Andy to slide the condom off. The handle is slimy with it and a glutinous strand dangles but at least he has unlocked the door and Daphne need not come into contact with it.

‘Yeesh,’ she says, ‘what the hell is that? Ectoplasm?’

‘It’s egg white,’

‘How do you know?’

‘Och, that’s an old trick. We did it to a guy in the TA.’

‘Did what?’

Daphne instantly regrets the question. Andy is always full of ugly macho tales about what they get up to in the TA. He has no shame and relishes telling anyone who is prepared to listen.

‘Big Arthur, he was blind drunk one night. We were away on manoeuvres and he passed out in the tent. Terrified of poofs he was, a total phobia. A couple of the lads had the idea to shove a condom up his arse. Let him think he’d been assaulted.’

‘Let him think? He
was
assaulted!’

‘Oh no, there’s none of that in our company, no poofery on my watch. It was just a bit of fun. He was that drunk we knew he wouldn’t feel a thing. Obviously we had to make it look good. Egg white’s the very dab,’ says Andy, holding the condom up to the light for her inspection. ‘You can’t tell the difference, see?’

Daphne can hear her students whispering and giggling around the corner of the corridor and worries that they can hear Andy.

‘Funny, y’know, he never said a word about it the next day, never a dickie bird. Poor bugger still thinks he was poofed,’ Andy says, shaking his head in wonderment. ‘He gets called Martha now, no to his face right enough, he’s a big guy.’

‘Right, class, c’mon, let’s get in and get started,’ Daphne calls up the corridor to the students. She places herself as a human shield between the innocent young people in her care and the sick weirdo employed as the janitor.

Daphne knows she should attempt to discover the condom culprit but it’ll be the usual accusations and denials and after Andy’s flippant homosexual rape story the door handle prank seems
innocuous
. To the class’s disappointment, the matter is dropped until Omar, the class clown, leaves the room and, on his return, touches the offending handle. Everyone laughs heartily, terror and disgust are all over his face as he frantically tries to find something to wipe the smeg from his hand.

‘Miss, miss! I’ve got it on me, the dirty bastards!

Up until now Daphne thought the likeliest suspect was Omar himself but his distress seems genuine.

‘Omar, calm down, go to the toilet and wash it off.’

‘Miss, could I get Aids from that?’

Omar’s voice is cracking and he’s not playing it for laughs.

‘No. It’s only egg white. Don’t worry, wash it off and on your way back get the leaflets from the Sexual Awareness stall, enough for everybody, that’s what we’ll work on for the rest of the class.’

A communal groan surfaces above the tittering.

‘Okay, the lesson today will be
‘everything you need to know about sexually transmitted diseases but were too busy playing with condoms to find out’.’

‘Miss?’ says Gary.

‘Yes, Gary.’

‘How did you know it was egg white?’

Daphne has found her culprit.

‘Andy the janitor told me, how did
you
know?’

The class whistle and bang their desks at her implied accusation, confirming her suspicions.

‘The janny told me,’ Gary replies.

Daphne doubts if she’ll ever set eyes on the lovely shelves of Asda again. She can’t get to sleep at night and she can’t get out of bed in the morning. It’s like her jammies are made of Velcro. Her life is an exhausting whirl of getting up and going to work, walking straight home, not sleeping, making soup and sneaking out to the deli in the dead of night. Every night she buys increasingly exotic ingredients for the soup. Yesterday she made a pot of spinach and coconut.

Pierce loves the soup. Every night when he comes back he lifts his hoover with his good arm and uses it to bang on the ceiling. This is his signal that he’s ready for his soup. Daphne hates being summoned like this but she heats the soup and pours a huge bowl for him and a smaller plate for herself and takes it down to him on a tray.

The first few days he expressed gratitude but now he just expects it. He even complained when she brought lentil soup for three days running. He demonstrated to her the effect it was having on his bowels by squeezing out long squeaky noises that sounded more like a cat trapped in a washing machine than a proper fart.

For the purposes of nutritional balance, because she suspects that this is the only decent meal Pierce gets all day, she has started to vary the soup and has become increasingly ambitious. He seems to enjoy her experiments, and her company. He tells her about his pathetic pie-in-the-sky
Poyumtree
plans and the women he cops off with and reads her his latest oeuvres. If she’s honest she too looks forward to soup time. After weeks of Daphne not answering the phone or texts or Facebook messages her friends have given up on her and stopped.

Now Pierce is banging up through Daphne’s floor. Usually he bangs twice. Thump, pause, thump. The building is old and it can’t be doing the plasterwork any good but he’s too lazy to walk up one flight of stairs and tell her that he’s home now and would she please bring him down some soup.

But Daphne’s thinks it’s not really laziness, he’s embarrassed to come and ask. She has also suggested that if he must bang then can he not use something lighter than the vacuum cleaner? Lifting it above his head with his one good arm can’t be easy. The pause between the thumps is evidence of this. Daphne has suggested a brush or mop handle but he claims to have neither of these.

Pierce is far from housebound, although he freely roams the pubs and parks of Glasgow; he likes to imagine himself as the writer character in Steven King’s
Misery
.

When Daphne laughs at this he tries to make her feel guilty by saying that with this stookie, this plaster cast up his arm, he’s not allowed in the weights room at the gym. It’s all her fault his training programme has gone to hell, he implies.

Thump, thump, thump, big long pause, thump, thump, thump. These three new thumps mean something different. Could it be an S.O.S? She turns the gas off on the soup and goes downstairs to investigate.

Pierce’s friend Tam answers the door.

‘Hi Daphne.’

‘Hi Tam, where is he?’

‘I’m here!’ shouts Pierce from the living room. ‘Clever girl, I knew you would get it.’ He bursts into song: ‘
Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me,
Didn’t I tell you, Tam?’

‘Three thumps?’

‘Aye, you, Tam and me. Tam’ll take a wee plate of soup if there’s enough in the pot.

Pierce returns to his one-handed joint rolling and an earlier conversation with Tam.

‘Listen,’ Pierce says, ‘I’m not kidding. Every young guy gets a guitar or a drum set and joins a band, we’ve all done it.’

Tam is quiet but he’s nodding his head.

‘And being able to sing, so what? Everybody can sing, we’re born with it, it’s no big deal.’

Pierce breaks off to lick the cigarette paper. He is concentrating so intently on the joint that it is a few seconds before he begins to speak again.

‘And,’ Pierce continues sagely, ‘I’ve no doubt that some of them, many of them in fact, have some talent. But talent’s not enough.’

Although Tam is still in agreement Daphne thinks Pierce is being a bit harsh. Tam is the guitarist and singer with a local band. She’s about to stick up for Tam when Pierce says something quite unexpected.

‘It’s stamina that’s required. Staying power, sticking at it,
believing
in yourself enough to keep going. You
don’t
have to be a pretty boy, you’re wrong if you think that, Tam. Look at some of the ugly fuckers you see on the telly. And anyway, you’re no movie star but you’re not the ugliest.’

Tam begins to protest but Pierce cuts him short.

‘Look, I’m telling you, you’ve got it. Fuck’s sake, I hardly saw you the first year you got the guitar, you practised non-stop. How many other guitarists put in the hours that you do, eh? How many? And how many songs have you written now?

‘Don’t know, more than fifty anyway,’ says Tam.

‘Good songs, some of them. All you need is the break, but it’ll come, Tam, it’ll come. The cream always rises to the top. Once the record companies hear you they’ll want you. They need talent.’

Daphne is surprised to hear this. This is the wrong way round. She had always assumed that Pierce kept Tam as his sidekick to flatter
his
ego. Probably, she thinks, they take turns at bumming each other up. She has stumbled into their cosy little back slapping club. Of course there is always an outside chance that Pierce actually means it.

‘I’m telling you, Tam, I’ve seen more than my fair share of
chancers
, a lot of wannabees. I don’t see many like you,’ says Pierce, handing the joint to Tam, allowing him first dibs.

‘Cheers Pierce,’ says Tam, blushing.

Daphne thinks she’s going to be sick. With arms folded she goes and looks out of the window until the feeling of panic goes away.
With things as they are, people saying nice things about other people make her nervous. She prefers it when Pierce is a smartarse, that she can handle. By the time she rejoins the conversation she is relieved to discover that Pierce has returned to more familiar ground, being the Voice of Authority. He has on his loud patient instructing voice, talking to Tam as though he’s an idiot.

‘Pretty much everything in the house, except the mattress on the bed, I wouldn’t have a used mattress.’

‘Man, that’s amazing! Did you hear that Daphne? See everything in this flat? Pierce got it out of a skip.’

‘
Objets trouvés
I prefer to call them, Tam.’

Daphne, looking round and appraising the furniture is forced to admit, at least to herself if not to Pierce, that he has some lovely furniture.

‘You’d be surprised the difference a tin of varnish or a packet of fabric dye can make. Or even just giving something a good clean. D’you never watch these makeover programmes on the telly? I’ve had some good ideas from them.’

There is a lot of dark polished wood in the bookcases and the roll top writing desk. None of the chairs match and the sofa is
different
again. There are many different identifiable styles and eras but rather than look like a mishmash it looks deliberate; stylish and well thought out. The overall effect is a witty take on the reading room of a gentleman’s club.

‘Yeah but you have to find the stuff in the first place, man,’ says Tam. ‘You’ve been unbelievably lucky finding all this stuff in the street. Typical Pierce, always lands on his feet.’

‘Luck is only a part of it, Tam, it’s having an eye for it, for the potential it might have. See that chest of drawers?’

Both Tam and Daphne twist their necks to see a tall elegant tower of drawers which bow out, like an hourglass, wider at the top and the bottom. It looks like the kind of thing that costs a fortune in the designer shops.

‘That’s just two sides of an old desk stacked one on top of the other. And the lamp? That’s the fitting from a seventies lamp from Oxfam and a fancy box, a sewing box I think it was originally.’

‘I didn’t know you could buy electrical stuff at Oxfam,’ says Daphne.

‘You can’t. That’s the beauty of it. People take stuff into Oxfam, Oxfam have to refuse it, health and safety or something, and then they can’t be bothered to humph it home again. You know the wee lane down the side of the Oxfam shop? I’ve found tons of good electrical stuff down there.’

‘You’d better watch out, Pierce, telling Tam and me all your trade secrets. We might get there before you.’

‘Listen Daphne, this city is replete with good stuff that people throw out, there’s plenty for all of us. If you’re interested I’ll tell you exactly how to go about finding it.’

‘I’m interested,’ says Tam.

‘I’m not,’ says Daphne, but she listens anyway.

‘It’s all about timing,’ Pierce tells them as he receives the spliff from Tam and inhales. ‘Timing your run. Tuesday nights for this area for example, people want rid of their old stuff and phone the council to have it uplifted. They’re told to put it out for a Wednesday morning uplift so mostly they put it out on Tuesday night. Best times are the first Tuesday of any school holidays.’

‘School holidays, why is that?’

‘Think about it. Mum and/or Dad have to take time off work to look after the kiddies. The kids are driving them crazy so, to while away an afternoon, they take them out to Ikea or wherever. More often than not, they come home with a few self-assembly boxes.’

‘Therefore, they have to chuck out their old stuff to make way for the new,’ says Daphne.

‘Spot on, Daphne. More often than not there’s nothing wrong with their old stuff.’

‘Pierce, see the broken chairs you have out in the hall, what are you going to make with them?’

‘Nothing, they’re bait.’

‘Bait?’ asks Daphne.

‘Yeah. Some people would never take the initiative and chuck stuff out by themselves; sometimes they need a little
encouragement
.
I bait the trap with a few bust-up old chairs or whatever, strategically placing them for easy access but low visibility and sit back and wait.’

‘Oh nice one!’ says Tam, slapping his thigh in appreciation.

‘Aye, it’s a laugh to watch them sneak out of their posh houses and dump the stuff. They skulk about like criminals. I’ve had some great stuff that way, good enough to sell on to the dealers, it’s always a bit of pocket money.’

‘Aye, I suppose it beats earning a living,’ mutters Daphne.

‘Oooooow!’ Pierce cries in mock anguish. ‘Anyway, it’ll not be long now till I’m earning a good living, eh Tam?’

‘Too right, Pierce.’

‘Tam’s band have sacked that dickhead manager,’ he says by way of explanation. ‘They’ve got themselves a new one, a real manager, someone that knows what he’s doing, someone that’ll take them the whole road: gigs, record deal, tours, stardom.’

‘And who is that then? Asks Daphne, although, recalling the pep talk Pierce gave Tam, she thinks she knows the answer.

‘Yours truly.’

Daphne smiles. Tam’s band has been going for two years with a different manager every few months. They are yet to play a properly paid gig, but Daphne feels bad about having a go at Pierce. In an attempt to restore the bonhomie between them she exaggerates her disdain and banters, ‘The only thing you can manage is a
left-handed
wank.’

‘Aye well,’ says Pierce laughing, ‘you won’t help me out so what’s a boy to do? A man has needs you know.’

‘Pierce has already got us a gig,’ says Tam, full of indignation. ‘In that new pub Moda, the trendy place, he knows the manager.’

Daphne accepts the reprimand from Pierce’s faithful acolyte and nods solemnly. Pierce knows quite a few pub managers.
Throughout
the years he has invested many hours drinking with them when they were mere bar stewards and chargehands. Now that they have reached the exalted position of pub manager maybe Pierce can call in a few favours. Good for Tam, thinks Daphne, she’s heard demos of Tam’s band and they’re really not that bad.

‘We’re playing next Friday, you should come, we’ve got a whole new set.’

‘Aye, why don’t you, Daff? Get your glad rags on and come with me, I’ll put you on the guest list,’ says big-hearted Pierce.

‘Love to, Tam. But I’m a bit busy.’

‘Busy doing what?’ says Pierce, ‘Making soup?’

‘D’you not want any then? I’ve got it ready upstairs.’

‘Too right I want it and so does Tam. Get your arse up those stairs and get me my soup, woman. And a plate for Tam too. He’s got to keep his strength up, this boy’s going to be a star.’

‘Right you are, Sir.’

‘Don’t go to any bother, Daphne,’ says Tam. ‘Are you sure there’s enough?’

‘Tam, there’s enough,’ says Pierce. ‘She always makes tons. A superfluity of soup.’

Daphne doesn’t know what superfluity means but it annoys her anyway. Pierce is taking advantage of her good nature.

‘Mi casa, su casa,’ says Pierce.

‘Cheers,’ says Tam, ‘Olé.’

But your casa hasn’t got any soup, thinks Daphne. Your casa is a soup-free zone.

‘Daphne is the Soupmeister. If there’s a name for it, Daphne’ll make soup with it.’

Pierce is talking about Daphne as though she wasn’t there, as though she were the hired help. She has half a mind to tell them soup is off today, and she would but she’s quite keen to get feedback on her new recipe. Pierce, although he’s an arrogant git, is very constructive about what he thinks of the soup but it is, after all, only one man’s opinion. It might be interesting to have another perspective.

‘Yeah, Tam,’ she reassures him, ‘there’s enough but I don’t know if you’ll like it.’

‘Aye well, you see, he’s a man of simple tastes. Meat and two veg, that’s Tam. The soup might be a bit rich for your peasant blood. What is the soup du jour, Daphne? Something with pumpkin and rosemary?’

‘Aye, I know why you’re saying Rosemary,’ says Tam, with a sly glance towards Daphne. ‘That’s the bird you were telling me about, isn’t it? The one you got off with on Monday?’

This is a game Tam plays. He tries to dub Pierce in, to tell on him, mentioning other women as a way of trying to spoil Pierce’s chances with Daphne. What Tam doesn’t realise, and what Pierce and Daphne realise very well, is that Pierce has no chance with Daphne. Never has had, never will.