by Laura Marney
‘Pierce, I feel really awful about this. That was a wonderful thing you tried to do, even if you did get the wrong end of the stick. I’m so sorry you’re hurt and I really, really, appreciate you trying to help.’
Pierce nods, accepting her thanks graciously. She really does have a lovely pair.
‘But they’re not going to send an ambulance, not for a broken shoulder. That’s classed as a non-emergency.’
‘I’ve broken my shoulder! I’m in pain here!’
‘I know you are Pierce and I’m really sorry.’
‘This is an emergency, I need pain relief and I need it now.’
‘The hospital won’t see it like that. Look, I’ll phone a taxi, I’ll pay for it. I’m very grateful for what you tried to do. You can’t take anything, not even an aspirin, they might have to operate if the fracture is complicated. They have to see you first. And…
‘And? And what?’
Pierce gives an involuntary shiver.
‘I think you should brush you teeth.’
‘Eh?’
‘If they smell the drink off you they’ll assume the worst and leave you waiting. I know, I’ve heard this story a hundred times from my students, trust me.’
Pierce has gone quiet. Really he would like to cry. They might have to operate. And they’re going to make him wait just because he’s had a few pints. They’ll treat him like he’s a jakey and have no respect and do a shoddy job or let students practise on him. They might put metal pins in him. If things go wrong anything could happen. He can’t move it now, what if he loses the use of it? He’ll be left with a useless withered thing. Disability might raise his poetry profile but for fuck’s sake! Really he would like to cry.
‘Will you come with me, Daphne?’
*
Daphne is at the window every time she hears a car pull up. Pierce has been gone four hours. She feels guilty about not going with him but she wasn’t dressed. Dressed or not, it was the least she could have done for the poor guy. In between running to the window she makes a pot of camomile tea. Normally this relaxes her but with every sip a wave of self-loathing breaks over her and makes her back sticky with sweat.
The leaf is too far out of reach anyway. But even if she could reach it, what would she do with it? Take it to Donnie? And that would make everything alright? She should have gone with Pierce to the hospital; she owes him. Pierce, stupid and irritating as he is, rescued her in Asda and broke his shoulder thinking he was saving her from suicide.
On the windowsill she had thought about suicide. But only for a moment, less than a moment, a fraction of a millisecond. From a sitting position it would be easy just to slide forward a bit, lift her bum, until her weight carried her off the ledge and down, flying through the air. It would be a short flight. Three seconds max, she reckoned, before impact.
It would be a messy business, her body burst like a melon. She wouldn’t make a pretty corpse but this appealed to Daphne’s sense of the dramatic: all the more sickening for Donnie to look upon. She wouldn’t oblige as a beautiful Ophelia, she’d make for him an ugly distorted thing, a pile of slimy cartilaginous muck, no longer recognisably human.
With such extensive damage putrefaction would be all the quicker, but this wasn’t a bad thing. Apart from a bit of theatre at the funeral Daphne didn’t want to hang around in earthly form. Compared with her constant exhausting state of anxiety the Big Sleep was an attractive option.
But then there was no guarantee that he would show up at the funeral. And if he did, would he bring the wife? Surely not, that would be the final insult. Apart from in Asda she had never even met the woman, never been introduced. And anyway, even if he didn’t bring her she’d certainly comfort him when he came home. It might bring them closer together. She’d kiss him and reassure him that he mustn’t blame himself. Once he’d shed a few tears and she’d made him a nice cup of tea they’d realise that perhaps it was for the best. Poor Daphne was obviously crazy.
And Mum would have to come back from Australia. She couldn’t afford that kind of expense, she’d only just gone. And Albee, he’d probably come with her, he’d want to support Mum. She’d be gutted; she’d blame herself. Mum would think that because she went to live in Australia with Albee’s young family that Daphne’s suicide was her fault. And the death of a child, an only daughter, especially by suicide, would be a terrible thing to live with.
Daphne might not have anything to live for but she had something to live with. Something keeping her wrath warm. She just had to wait. If it meant she had to be alone and miserable, then she could do it; Daphne was tough. Some of her students, members of Alcoholics Anonymous, had a saying for when things weren’t going well: this too shall pass. This was going to pass; nature would have to run its course. And then anything could happen, life was full of opportunities. That’s why when Daphne heard Pierce banging and demanding to be let in she got off the windowsill and opened the door.
*
Daphne can’t believe how chirpy he is. When he got out of the taxi he looked up and waved, gave her the thumbs up with his good arm. The other one was in plaster. He really had broken his shoulder.
She stood at her front door and called to him and, happy as a sandboy, he passed his own door and came up to meet her.
‘Right, get the kettle on, Daffers, wounded man in need of a cuppa. Not unless you’ve any of that quality whisky left?’
‘I think you’re better off with tea, Pierce. You were an awful long time, what happened?’
‘Well as you can see, I’m up to my neck in plaster.’
‘Is it sore?’
‘What d’you think? Fractured humerus, nasty.’
‘What did you tell them? I hope you didn’t say you were rescuing me from suicide.’
‘Well I had to tell them something. I wasn’t going to be treated like a jakey. Don’t worry, I didn’t mention your name.’
‘Cheers.’
‘Actually the nurses were really nice, and dead chuffed that I managed to talk you down. I’m a hero. No wonder they call them angels, they couldn’t do enough for me. There’s something about a handsome man in plaster that seems to bring out the mother in them.’
Pierce gingerly eases himself into a chair and puts his feet on the coffee table. Daphne says nothing but goes to the kitchen and makes tea. By the time she comes back he has worked out the remote control for the telly and is watching a re-run of The Sweeney.
‘Be a love and stick two sugars in that for me, would you?’
Daphne is putting the sugars in while Pierce leans over awkwardly to reach the biscuits. She gave him a twenty for the taxi, the only money she had in her purse. There and back would have cost him eight quid tops but he hasn’t mentioned giving her change.
‘Unfit for work, I’m afraid. All I can do is rest it.’
‘Well, that’ll be a wee change for you.’
‘Now Daphne, no need for sarcasm. I’m quite looking forward to seeing that git’s face at the Restart interview tomorrow.’
‘How long will you be in plaster?’
‘Who knows? Months anyway. I’ve to go back in three weeks and they’ll look at it.’
Daphne has the sinking feeling that she is going to be lumbered with him, that he’ll milk this for as long as he possibly can.
‘Totally starving, man. Being a hero gives a man an appetite. Any scran in the house?’
‘By scran I take it you mean food?’
‘You’ve got it Daphne, food, sustenance. A wee steak or maybe a chop, my body needs protein and calcium and stuff to repair, I need fed.’
‘All I’ve got is soup.’
‘Homemade or tinned?’
‘Homemade.’
‘Mmmm, lovely. Haven’t had real soup for ages, bring it on, Daffers. Oh but, see before you do, I’ve got to pee, I don’t know how I’ll manage, you wouldn’t mind…’
Pierce levers himself out of the chair and stands in front of her, his crotch at Daphne’s eye level. He see
ms to be waiting for her to unfasten his zip.
‘What’s wrong with your other hand?’
‘It’s just that it’s a bit awkward.’
‘Take a flying fuck to yourself, Pierce. I’ll give you soup but there’s no way I’m touching your fly.’
Pierce shrugs and turns towards the toilet. ‘Worth a try.’
Chapter 13
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.
Chapter 14
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 student
s 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.
