Nobody Loves a Ginger Baby

by Laura Marney

  This is the point where he should be pouring his heart out about a problem, with his health, or work, or with his family. Or even, surely not, thinks Daphne, some real or imagined problem between them. For instance, something along the lines of: he’s just discovered he’s impotent and can never give her children. Or, he has a wasting disease that will leave him in a wheelchair within five years, dead within ten. He won’t let her witness his decline so, as painful as it will be, he’s setting her free to find someone else, someone who isn’t crippled. But if it is any of these, he’s not saying.

  ‘I told you. We can’t be together.’

  There is a long silence.

  ‘I don’t understand. What’s going on? Are we splitting up?’

  He replies immediately, no hesitation.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes? But why?’

  ‘I can’t have a relationship, not with you, not with anyone. I have to be on my own.’

  ‘It’s the pills. You’re crashing off them, it’s too quick.’

  ‘It’s not the pills.’

  ‘But Donnie, I love you. There’s no need for this. We can sort something out.’

  ‘And I love you. We can’t stay together.’

  Daphne can’t quite believe this, can’t quite take it seriously, she feels like she’s taking part in a rather ridiculous melodrama.

  ‘But why not? Won’t you miss me?’

  ‘Miss you?’

  The stage direction for the melodrama must read, Donnie gives a harsh sardonic laugh, because this is exactly what he does.

  ‘Believe me, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. This is harder for me than it will be for you, you’re the strong one, but we’ll have to bear it.’

  Cheesy as this sounds, it makes Daphne cry. Donnie hates it when Daphne cries. Now he tries to cheer her up.

  ‘We’ve had a good innings, eh? A lot of good memories. You’ve been good to me, there’s no doubt about it. We don’t want to fall out, do we? Don’t want to end up hating each other. Let’s just leave it at that, D, shall we?’

  Daphne sniffles, Donnie rams his fists deep into his anorak pockets and stares hard at the carpet. She doesn’t believe it, and because she doesn’t believe it, Daphne wants to be noble.

  ‘If you love someone, set them free, that’s what they say, isn’t it?’

  She has never actually heard anyone say this, she remembers it from a pop song, but it fits the situation perfectly. Donnie can only nod. He keeps pressing his lips hard together as if he’s stifling an emotional outburst.

  ‘Can I give you one last kiss?’ he asks tenderly.

  Daphne has a problem with this.

  ‘Yes. No. Yes, but my breath stinks of garlic. I’ve just had my tea, I made soup and put in tons of garlic, I didn’t know you were coming round.’

  Despite her protestations Donnie sweeps her into his arms and gives her a long hard passionate snog. It is the first time ever in their relationship that he has disregarded Garlic Breath. In fact he appears to savour the fierce oniony tang of Daphne’s mouth. After the kiss, he rests his head on her breast and listlessly runs his hand up and down her arm, fondly fondling her fleecy jumper.

  *

  Of course this is not the end of it.

  The next day, in a daze, Daphne has to go to college and carry on as normal. The college where Daphne works is no ivory tower of stringent academic excellence. In the canteen there are laminated, wipe clean, place cards on the tables. They don’t read, ‘this table reserved’ or, ‘thank you for not smoking’ they read, ‘keep your feet off the table.’ Not even please keep your feet off the table. This is the kind of place Daphne works.

  Being the newest member of staff she doesn’t get to choose which classes she will teach. She gets the classes no one else wants. Most of her students come from a background of drink or drugs, of crime or abuse. They are people of all ages who missed or messed up school, whose experience hasn’t killed them yet and are starting over again. They are the most rewarding students Daphne has ever had.

  They pester Daphne for essay results when she hasn’t marked them yet, they complain if she takes too long a tea break and, except where they have a court appearance or visitation rights with their kids, they never miss a class. They learn fast and lap it up hungrily but the biggest challenge she faces is overcoming their illogical inverted snobbery.

  God help the naive student who gets ideas above their station and uses a polysyllabic word. They are ridiculed, roasted, damned by the accusation of having swalleyed a dictionary. Last week she spent a long time trying to convince them of the power of a good vocabulary.

  ‘In a few years when you need to have a lung removed because of all the fags you’ve smoked…’

  A chorus of ‘ooow’ from the class interrupted her.

  ‘Well, let’s face it, every one of you smoke and you all know the consequences.’

  Though she knew she shouldn’t, as an ex-smoker herself Daphne couldn’t help evangelising.

  ‘You need to have confidence in the surgeon, to be sure that he knows what he’s doing, don’t you?’

  ‘Too right, man,’ Dan said, ‘when ma brother got his leg aff he wis worried sick in case the guy took the wrang wan.’

  ‘Heh Dan, tell him I’ll buy his slippers aff him,’ quipped Billy.

  ‘Daphne, how d’yae know the surgeon’s gonnae be a guy?’ said Thomas, the shyest yet most astute member of the class.

  ‘Oh, hands up to that one!’ said Daphne, caught out. ‘No reason why it couldn’t be a woman.’

  ‘Naw, but it wis a guy.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘The guy that took ma brother’s leg aff. He telt him it hud tae come aff, it was poisoned, aff a durty needle. It wis aw green and purple; pure stank man.’

  Even without an extensive vocabulary Dan could paint a vivid picture.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Daphne trying to pull it back. She was beginning to lose the thread of what she’d been saying in the first place. ‘So there you are, lying in hospital, coughing your guts up, spitting out bits of lung. They’re getting you ready for theatre and the surgeon comes to discuss your treatment with you, to put you at your ease about the operation.’

  At this point Daphne’s shoulders sagged inwards, her hands were all chopping gestures and her voice became a nasal whine.

  ‘Awright wee man? Waant me tae howk yir lung oot an ‘at? Nae bother!’

  The class laughed and seemed to take her point. While she had them on side Daphne asked, just as a matter of interest, if anyone maybe had a dictionary lying around at home. No one did. As far as they were concerned owning a dictionary was a pretentious affectation akin to holding your pinkie finger out whilst drinking tea.

  ‘Y’know, you can get a dictionary out of these bargain bookshops for a couple of quid,’ she told them.

  ‘A couple of quid’s a lot of money when you’re on benefits,’ said Jamie.

  The nods and grunts from the rest of the class implied he represented a popular view.

  ‘Och, your arse!’ Daphne countered. This class appreciated plain speaking. ‘How much do you pay for a packet of fags then, Jamie?’

  ‘Eight pound.’

  ‘Eight pounds? You’ll get a not bad dictionary for eight pounds.’

  ‘Aye, but you cannae smoke a dictionary.’

  This is what Daphne’s up against.

  But today she is preoccupied with having been chucked and doesn’t at first notice that the students are all present and correct, ready to begin the lesson, books and folders open, fully engrossed in studying their dictionaries.

  Every one of her students has somehow managed to procure a dictionary. This makes her want to cry. Most of them have cheap pocket dictionaries but two lads have matching £12.99 ones. She doesn’t enquire too closely about where these came from.

  She introduces a game where everyone chooses three words from the dictionary and challenges the rest of the class to guess the meaning. The pers
on nearest the dictionary definition wins the point. If no one successfully guesses it, the challenger gets the point but it has to be words they have a chance of getting. The atmosphere is tense with rivalry, and it’s Daphne’s job to guard against cheating: anyone surreptitiously looking up the word under their desk will be outed.

  ‘Bumptious,’ says Thomas.

  ‘Bumptious. Good one,’ says Daphne.

  No one gets it.

  ‘Never heard ay it,’ says June, somewhat discouraged; she has been leading three points ahead up until now.

  ‘Okay, fair enough, nobody wins that point then,’ says Daphne, not wanting them to lose heart.

  ‘But what does it mean?’ everyone clamours.

  Thomas, strictly adhering to the rules of the game, refuses to tell them.

  ‘Eh, bumptious,’ says Daphne. ‘Well, it just means big-headed. Really it just describes a person who fancies themselves. Someone who’s an arse.’

  The class is going great. The students are getting their money’s worth out of their dictionaries. After a few rounds everyone is skilfully wielding them to achieve maximum points. For a lovely half hour Daphne almost forgets that she has been chucked; that she no longer has a boyfriend; that she is not going to spend the rest of her life with Donnie, that she may never set eyes on him again. It is the mention of the word ‘arse’ that has reminded her. This can’t be right, she thinks, not just like that, out of the blue for no good reason. She resolves to go round to his flat after work and sort it out with him. She must not dwell on it, now she has to get on with the class.

  ‘If you’re bumptious then you’re arrogant, full of yourself,’ she continues.

  ‘Full of shit,’ says Dan helpfully.

  ‘Yes, something like that.’

  ‘Hey Dan,’ says Thomas, ‘shut it, ya bumptious bastard.’

  *

  At afternoon tea break Daphne stays behind in class rather than face her colleagues. She gets a piece of A4 and draws a line down the middle: pros and cons. She can’t think of a positive reason why she and Donnie should split up. Yeah, he’s a bigot and an anorak and an old woman and a pain in the arse, but not all the time. The rest of the time he’s interested in what she has to say, he always laughs at her jokes. Daphne never appears to bore him and he, except for his occasional bigoted rants, never bores her. He makes her laugh. He is the funniest man she has ever met, bar none. His conversation is fascinating and the main reason Daphne loves him.

  She loves the way his brain is wired, his contagious crazy zeal for words and concepts, the way his thinking takes unprecedented routes and unpredictable jumps. In his eyes, shined and polished by his enthusiasm, she sees cerebral lightning crackling along unexplored pathways. She sees the lights clash and explode, the fireworks in his head. She knows he pays a price for this with his nerves and depressions and his borderline mental illness but this only makes the entertainment he offers her all the more valuable.

  Daphne always feels sorry for the tired couples she sees in the pub with nothing to say to each other, both of them embarrassed, staring off or with hands mechanically scooping in and out of crisp packets, keeping their mouths busy. Daphne and Donnie talk about everything, constantly interrupting each other, finishing each other’s sentences, gossiping, bickering, joking, laughing, even when they’re arguing they laugh. They are best friends.

  Donnie can be an extremely harsh critic, he says bluntly what he thinks but he is also very free with his compliments. Every day, several times a day, he will say something to show how much he appreciates her. He compliments her cooking, how clever she is, how fit she is. ‘You’re the best bird I’ve ever had,’ he says. He calls her ‘curvy girl’ when she moans about the size of her bum. ‘You really know how to fill a bra,’ he says admiringly, staring at her breasts.

  She knows he means it, he has an irrepressible sex drive that perfectly matches her own and he is always gentlemanly enough, after an impromptu fumble in her bra while she is cooking or watching TV, to do up her buttons for her.

  Some nights Daphne wakes up and is frightened to touch his white moonlit shoulder. She knows that this kind of happiness can’t last forever and she dreads the night she might find his shoulder cold and lifeless. She cries when she explains this to him and to cheer her up he says, ‘don’t worry about it, D, you’ll die before I do.’ Daphne can’t imagine not touching his shoulder again and it is for this reason that she can’t countenance this splitting up nonsense.

  In the morning, after the night horrors have passed, she likes to watch him get dressed. She watches him put on shirt and tie and the boring anorak, disguising himself as a wee ordinary joe: unexceptional, unattractive to other women. As he bends to kiss her goodbye Daphne smears her juice on his face, marking him as her exclusive territory. Despite his metrosexual face lotions and hair gel and aftershave, he lets her do this. He enjoys her doing this.

  The class come back all together in a noisy smoke-smelling crowd. They are keen to get on with the game and flick through their dictionaries, hooting when they find a particularly good word.

  ‘Oh ya dancer! Nane ay yeez’ll get this wan!’

  ‘Aw man, ah’v fun a total beazer!’

  Daphne crumples the sheet of paper and throws it in the bin.

  *

  She phones before she goes round. For the first time ever she can’t just pop round. Already their relationship has changed, but, she has to remind herself, it hasn’t changed, it has potentially ended.

  He’s a bit cagey on the phone.

  ‘What for, Daphne?’

  ‘Just to talk.’

  She forces herself to ignore the reluctance in his voice and after a few minutes he says she can come round. As soon as she walks into the room she understands his reluctance. This is not the time to talk.

  ‘Oh sorry Donnie, I didn’t realise Rangers were playing tonight. We can do this another time.

  ‘No no,’ he says, and he crosses to the telly. But he doesn’t turn it off or even put in a tape to video it, he merely turns the sound down.

  ‘Cup Winners’ Cup,’ he says.

  ‘What, finals?’

  ‘Well, no. Qualifying round…’

  ‘Yeah yeah,’ Daphne says quickly, not wanting to see him squirm.

  ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘Cheers.’

  He turns the volume up again, louder so he can hear it from the kitchen, and twice while making the tea, he rushes through when it seems like Rangers will score. They don’t and this vaguely satisfies Daphne. He gives her a giant mug, her hands are shaking and she’s scared she’ll spill it. Donnie brings from the fridge a bar of fruit and nut chocolate the size of an A4 envelope. Daphne jumps when he smashes it off the table to break it up. She lifts a piece but it is cold and sharp edged and she can’t eat it. She hasn’t eaten a thing all day.

  ‘I haven’t eaten a thing all day,’ says Donnie, popping a piece of chocolate in his mouth. He turns the TV volume down again and sits opposite her, smiling. He is waiting for her to say something.

  ‘Donnie, I don’t understand what this is about. We’re happy together, aren’t we? We have good times, good laughs, there’s no problem with sex or anything, is there?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes and no.’

  Hearing the word ‘no’ panics her and it is a second before she realises that this is actually the right answer, the answer she was looking for.

  ‘Well what is it then?’

  ‘Daphne I thought I explained all this to you last night.’

  ‘You haven’t explained anything! What the hell is going on, Donnie, is there someone else, is that it?’

  ‘Calm down. Please don’t shout at me.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Donnie is taking deep breaths, a sure sign that he’s stressed. He lowers his head and breathes deeply before he begins to speak.

  ‘You’re right.’

  Daphne quickly puts down the massive cup before she drops it. Her hands don’t feel strong enough to h
old it. She leans forward, desperate, terrified, to hear what he has to say.

  ‘It is the antidepressant. Coming off it has made me realise I’m not able to hold down a relationship. You deserve better and I have to be alone. There’s no one else, it’s not about that. My nerves are shattered, my blood pressure’s through the roof, I’m a mess.’

  ‘I know, baby, I’m sorry.’

  His face is red, almost as red as his hair and he looks as if he might explode. Daphne wants to sit beside him, to hold him but it’s probably better just to let him get it all out.

  ‘I’ve come to a point where I realise that for my own health, my sanity, I have to be on my own. I have to save myself. Believe it or not I think I’m worth saving.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to you? I’m frightened of what you might do.’

  ‘Well, que sera. What’s for you won’t go by you, I’m a great believer in that. I’m fine, I’ll be fine if I’m left to myself.’

  A wave of impotence overwhelms Daphne. Her spine is sagging trying to shore up the dead weight of her body. Her hands are limp, her arms dangle uselessly at her side, even the muscles that hold up her head are struggling. This must be what it feels like to have a stroke, she thinks. At least she still has the power of speech. And her tear ducts maintain normal function.

  ‘Donnie, you are the biggest and best part of my life. I don’t know what I’ll do without you. You’re my ginger baby, remember? I can’t be without you.’

  Donnie makes no reply. Daphne forces her head into an upright position. The new Rangers striker, their most expensive player ever, is about to take a penalty and Donnie’s eyes are glued to the screen. He shoots, he misses, and Daphne is glad.

  ‘This is no use, you’re not even listening.’

  Daphne gathers her bag.

  ‘I am listening, I heard what you said.’

  She zips up her fleece and leans forward, about to stand.

  ‘I’m the biggest and best part of your life. I’m your ginger baby, of course I remember. You can’t be without me. But Daphne, you have to be. It’s for the best.’

  ‘Who’s best?’

  ‘Your best. I’m no good for you, you can do a lot better than me.’