I’d take some of that, she says
far too loudly
and I snort into my hand.
The guy, no more than thirty,
turns and holds up an
electronic gadget.
Right, all done. I’ll get out of your hair.
He hooks both thumbs into his pockets
and looks down at Marla’s bare feet,
the toenails painted blue
by me
last night
after I’d done my own
and she demanded I do hers too.
I didn’t want to, of course –
get so close to an old lady’s gnarly feet.
But I did it anyway.
They were bony, feather-light –
like holding a bird.
No rush now at all, Marla says.
I’ll fix you a drink.
Unless you’d like to take me out and buy one.
I like a fruity cocktail.
What about you?
Shall we go for a quick one?
A drink, I mean!
The meter reader rubs one thick eyebrow.
Not sure my missus would like that.
Marla creeps towards him –
takes his hands.
Well, I won’t tell her if you don’t.
Pneumatic
The meter reader’s name is Martin.
He’s twenty-six,
lives with his wife and their new baby.
So he stops with us
for an hour rather than going home to
all that crying –
and that’s just the wife. He laughs
but it is thin.
Marla slices lemons.
I find tumblers.
We have gin on the patio in our coats,
listening to a far-off pneumatic drill
working very hard to split something in two.
You promise not to tell anyone?
Martin asks.
I won’t say a word, I promise.
And me neither, Marla says,
eying Martin
in a way that tells me she’s already
completely forgotten who he is.
Can I Owe You?
Lucy hands me another pile of homework.
She seems miles away.
Everything OK? I ask.
She looks over one shoulder,
then the other,
bends down
to pet the dog.
Yeah, fine. Just busy, you know?
I watch while she counts out what she owes me
from the last set of work.
I have five fifty. Can I owe you the rest?
I’m good for it.
It’s OK. You gave me the phone.
What was that worth?
Oh yeah. The phone.
I guess we’re quits then.
You might even owe me.
She grins and pockets the money.
I planned on ordering pizza tonight
with loads of ham for Marla,
maybe Ben & Jerry’s for dessert.
Exactly, I say casually,
thinking of her white house,
en-suite bathroom,
the suppers.
Do you wanna take a cliff walk? I ask.
We keep meaning to do it,
joke a lot about jumping.
Not today.
Tomorrow maybe.
She nods to the pile of work.
You’re so clever.
Not cool or funny or anything.
But really clever.
Fairy Cakes
Marla’s made fairy cakes with white icing,
all laid out on a wire rack,
ready for a pot of tea
and some company.
They smell lush, I tell her,
and she beams like I’ve given her
a sticker.
But when we sit down to eat
and Marla bites into the first cake,
her face clouds.
I try one too.
And no.
They are salty when they should be sweet,
though I swallow down my mouthful
instead of spitting it on to the plate.
I am useless, she says.
Feckin’ useless. Useless.
I can’t even bake a bun.
Seven-year-olds can bake buns.
She hits her own arm.
Her shoulder.
Her face.
I sit very still,
wondering when her hand will reach me.
Not daring to speak,
an eye on the back door.
I could be out in five seconds.
Stupid, she says.
Stupid,
stupid,
stupid.
And she is right.
I was stupid to
start feeling safe here.
She’s not with it.
She could strike out at any moment.
You missed out the sugar, that’s all, I say.
Yes, I missed the sugar.
I’m not a total gobshite.
I know what I did.
She grinds her teeth,
squints at me for a second.
Have I made this happen?
Have I made her feel this way?
She bangs the table,
hits her arm again.
Stupid, Marla.
Stupid buns.
How did I get so old?
Look at the state of me.
I exhale.
She is angry with herself,
with her brain,
the strain of her disease.
Marla isn’t mad with me at all.
On the countertop are the other ingredients
along with a dusting of flour.
She’s left the oven on.
I search for the sugar.
Could you teach me to make them?
She turns away. Don’t get on my nerves.
A cack-handed blind hedgehog could make them.
I find a tea towel,
turn it into a blindfold.
Let’s test that theory.
You’re not a right thing.
You’re really not a right thing.
I stretch out my arms towards her like a zombie.
I hear her giggle.
Come here and let me tie that thing tighter.
And so we bake.
Me in a blindfold,
Marla in charge.
And the buns come out OK.
In the end.
Chats Over Tea and Fairy Cakes
I haven’t heard from Rob Clancy in ages,
Marla says.
Did he knock the door there at all
cos I’m sure I heard the door?
Did he knock the door there
when I was in the toilet?
God, I have an awful stomach on me today.
Have I had prawns?
I shake my head.
No Rob Clancy’s come knocking.
We had a Martin recently.
Gin on the patio?
He’s probably gallivanting with
that brother of his. Layabouts, both of them.
You’d think they’d get proper jobs instead of
living at home with their mother, who’s got enough
to be doing without feeding their blathering face-holes.
Did the brother try to ride you?
Rob Clancy’s tried to ride me loads
and I’ve always said, ‘Take a hike, Robert Clancy.
I’m not interested in someone with less
ambition than a potato.’
I’m not lying.
Rob Clancy wouldn’t get out of bed if his house
was on fire.
If his bed was on fire, more like.
If his arse, even.
I’d like to test it by setting his sheets alight.
He had a paper round. Maybe he still does.
They
gave him a block of flats
but he wouldn’t climb the stairs and didn’t he
dump the deliveries in the hall, the useless slug.
You’d think he doesn’t have a good pair of legs on him.
But he does.
A great pair of pins.
Nice backside too. Peachy.
Is he nineteen now? He must be.
Old enough not to be a messer.
If he does come knocking, you’re having the brother.
He isn’t as gorgeous
but he’d pedal a bike for you.
Rob’s as lazy as a dog in the summer.
If there was work in his bed
he’d sleep on the floor.
What’s the brother called?
Roger.
No, not Roger. That’s someone else.
It’s Richard.
Rich and Rob.
That’s it.
Rich and Rob Clancy.
Messers.
Rob’s the peachy one.
Rich is missing part of his thumb.
He worked for a butcher and
sliced it off along with some corned beef.
God, I never liked corned beef.
Who’d eat it?
Makes me think of the war.
Makes me think of Mammy.
Is Mammy not home yet?
Where’s she at, at all?
Did she say you could stay over?
I never asked her. I should ask her.
But you’re taking the brother.
Deal? Put your hand out there and shake on it.
I’m not taking the brother,
I say.
I’m taking no one.
Marla startles.
You’ve already got someone.
Is he lovely? I bet he is. Is he lovely?
Mary’s lovely.
Donal’s a scut.
Tell me.
Have you got a boyfriend?
Sure, you could make anyone love you.
Some people are like that.
You Could Make Anyone Love You
Some people
are like
that.
Valentine’s Day
Kelly-Anne and I made a cake from scratch,
Victoria sponge smothered in pink icing
and red sprinkles.
Dad didn’t know how to behave
when he got in from work,
when we both kissed him and
gave him home-made cards.
He ate the cake quietly,
unable to look up.
Thank you, he finally muttered.
But I feel bad cos I didn’t
do anything special.
You don’t believe in Valentine’s Day, Dad,
that’s OK, I said.
Kelly-Anne nodded, stroked the back of his hand.
He stood up from the table roughly.
And what does that say about me?
Tell me what it says about a person
when he can’t even buy a box of Milk Tray
for Valentine’s Day.
He cried then.
The first time I’d ever seen it happen,
and Kelly-Anne hugged him until he stopped.
Finally, we knew, he loved us.
Romeo and Juliet
In Year 7 Mrs Rufus took the class to see
an amateur performance of Romeo and Juliet.
We had studied it. Performed scenes
using swords and headdresses.
The seats were red velvet.
I was on the end of a row next to Jason Clean.
Weirdly, he smelt of disinfectant,
carried hand sanitiser on a key ring.
Everyone called him Spring Clean,
which wasn’t as mean as it could get.
One girl in the class was called Ugly –
simple as that, Ugly, no explanation
needed.
Jason held my hand after the interval.
I didn’t snatch it away
even though his fingers were sweaty
and I was trying to eat a bag of sweets.
He whispered, Want to have a kiss on the coach?
I said, Sure, yeah, OK, fine.
But I was worried.
I’d already promised to sit
with Sophie on the way home
and listen to music, an earphone each.
I had to pass her a note along the row
to explain I’d agreed to kiss Spring Clean
and would have to disappoint her,
disappoint myself.
It was a shame.
I rarely got a chance to listen to music on a phone
and Spring Clean didn’t even kiss me in the end.
He was too busy puking into a paper bag
and saying, sorry-sorry-sorry.
But that was love,
I guessed.
Love was sacrifice:
rarely simple,
rarely even what we wanted.
What I Wanted
Kelly-Anne was the first person who made me
believe love could be easy.
But in the end it was hard
even with her.
Because she left
and I let her.
Before Bed
Would you call me a blonde?
Marla fingers the frizzy ends
of her grey hair.
I’ll call you anything you like.
Just don’t call me too early in the morning!
She giggles,
and though I’ve heard this joke
ten times already from her,
I laugh too,
then stand behind her chair
and begin to give her a French plait,
pulling the short ends in,
smoothing them into place.
You always have gorgeous hair, she says.
She can’t mean me,
my stringy strands
hiding my face.
She must be thinking of Toffee,
tresses to her hip,
held back
from her forehead with a wide hairband.
I haven’t gorgeous anything, I whisper.
Marla turns angrily,
ruining the plait I’m forced to release.
Do you know your trouble?
You don’t half talk a load of old shite.
Behind the Butcher’s
The bins stink of old meat.
The ground is covered in blood and sawdust.
Lucy and Jan are rolling a joint
and talking fast.
And he’s, like, ‘Whatever.’
He said ‘Whatever’, like, just like that?
Yeah, I know.
You’ve gotta blank him.
Nah, not worth it.
I don’t ask what they’re talking about.
I take a drag on the joint
when it comes to me.
Can anyone smell maggots? I ask,
in case neither of them
has noticed.
Lucy jumps away from the bins.
Eww. You’re right.
Let’s go to yours instead.
Jan says, I’ve got swimming practice, yeah.
I say, Yeah, better not.
Lucy elbows me hard.
Ugh. You’re such work.
It doesn’t feel sore.
It doesn’t feel good.
But at least I know I’m alive.
At least when Lucy is around
I know for sure I am not a figment
of someone else’s imagination.
I am real.
Darkness
Some people are afraid of the dark.
I am not.
In the daytime I am too scared
to tell a truth of any shape
in case someone looks at me while I am speaking,
notices something crappy,
something they’d rather not see.
But at nig
ht,
in the shadows,
without the distractions of the day,
the blinding light,
everything is so much easier.
Usually.
Betrayal
Lucy grins
like an absurd bandit,
a flat, empty rucksack over one shoulder,
which I hadn’t noticed earlier.
The springs of Marla’s bed creak
through the ceiling.
We can take booze to the shed, I suggest.
Lucy shrugs. I pour ample measures from
the decanter into tumblers
and
glug
glug
glug
to prove I am fun,
someone to invest in.
And in the shed,
as the world wheels around us
I giggle for no good reason,
and sing songs I’ve heard on the radio
but don’t know the words to,
until Lucy opens her rucksack and
I spot Marla’s clock from the mantelpiece –
a heavy heirloom she fondles most mornings.
As Lucy gets drunker,
laughter climbing
into the roof of the night,
I feel entirely empty
of everything.
Space
Marla stares at the space
on the mantelpiece but says
nothing.
Pointless
Lucy took the clock for no good reason
other than to have it
and Marla not have it
and to take it from a home
she thinks is mine
Toffee Page 10
