Nobody Loves a Ginger Baby

by Laura Marney

  ‘There’s no rush. You’re forgetting that now we have the big fridge we have time to wait for the mainlanders to arrive. I’ll take her up there myself after the wake. Let’s do this properly, not rush at it like we used to have to do.’

  Every one agrees. This is an unexpected use for the refrigeration plant, one that no one had thought of until now. Sean claps and shoos and sends them all about their business. Only now will he let Pierce come next door and see Bernie.

  ‘She looks fine,’ Sean tells him by way of encouragement when Pierce lingers at the bedroom door. And he is right. She’s thin and her skin is a funny colour but she looks fine. Pierce almost laughs to see how groomed her hair is. Agnes or maybe Sean has brushed it and it lies thick and smooth, neat beside her on the pillow, regal, like an Egyptian queen.

  Pierce remembers how when he was a child she used to clamp him between her knees and, as best she could, with a lot of squealing and grunting from both sides, haphazardly drag the brush across his wriggling head. But she had to catch him first. The mad chase around the house was worth the pain. The child Pierce complained bitterly that she hurt him with her knee clamps and threatened to tell his mother but Auntie Bernie was never intimidated.

  ‘Well sit still then and I won’t have to.’

  ‘Brush your own hair!’ he shouted at her. ‘It looks like a bird’s nest!’

  Bernie laughed. Despite her brutal manhandling – she brushed so hard Pierce swears she left permanent grooves in his scalp – Bernie accepted his cheeky retort as fair play. She couldn’t argue; her hair did look like a bird’s nest piled on top of her head with ineffectual hair clips and bits of ribbon or elastic. It was dark and curly and wild, and always falling in front of her face. Her bottom lip had a little line under it from years of puffing upwards, blowing stray strands out of her face when she was cooking or ironing or trying to brush his hair.

  Pierce would like to see it like that now. He’d like to gently mess it up, break up the tidy waves into ringlets and place wisps across her cheeks and have her hand rise up to slap him off. But it doesn’t seem right, Sean might not understand. Would it be a violation to touch her like that?

  His room is made up for him; Agnes did it last night after they phoned. Pierce empties his rucksack and sits at the desk by the window. He tries to adopt the same businesslike manner that Sean has taken and sets to work with his notepad and pen. No opening line jumps into his head so he comes at it from another direction. He makes a list of all the things he loved about Bernie. He is trying to be as honest as possible. Sean will not appreciate mawkish sentimentalism.

  Bernie was not exceptionally beautiful or talented. She was a competent housekeeper, a reasonable cook, a loyal family member, a good wife. But the list, when Pierce has finished it, could describe any woman, all women, all the girls he’s loved before. They are all kind, loving, loyal, funny, sensitive, brave, etc., to one degree or another. There is nothing here that marks Bernie out from the ordinary.

  Her relationship with her husband was not perfect; it had its ups and downs. They fought and sulked and chatted and laughed like any other couple. Pierce knows that Sean had an on-and-off thing with a woman on the mainland over several summers. He thinks Bernie might have known, too. But they stayed together. It wasn’t until Bernie got ill that Sean really began to appreciate her. A few years ago he refused to let her buy a new outfit for a wedding and they argued bitterly for weeks about it. Now Sean has an expensive diamond eternity ring in his pocket he was two hours short of delivering.

  There is of course a rich seam of material for the poem in the romance and tragedy of the too-late trip to New York but Pierce senses that this should remain a secret. Maybe he should focus on Bernie’s ordinariness, or the ordinariness of their marriage. Surely there is poetry in that. It strikes him that there is nothing more eternal, and nothing more comforting, than the ordinary. He will write a poem about how lucky Bernie and Sean have been, despite the unexceptional quality of their life, to have had each other, for Sean to have had such a wife, such a plain, ordinary, good wife.

  *

  Sean laughs loud when he greets people at the door. It will be a miserable affair if he doesn’t. By his laughter he sets the tone, giving permission for the fun to commence. But he does seem genuinely pleased to see them. He hasn’t seen some of them since the last good wake. And this will be a good one. It has all the hallmarks of a long and memorable evening.

  The Seaward Hotel has pulled out all the stops with the catering. It is a measure of the affection and respect that Bernie and Sean are held in that Harry, the owner, charges at cost price and throws in a crate of lager and the sausage rolls for free. There is plenty of good eating: salmon, venison, lamb. Someone has got hold of cherry tomatoes, a rare treat. Agnes halves them to spin them out a bit but this does not diminish their glamour. A cello has arrived by dinghy from the other side of the island and is stacked until later beside the black hard-bodied coffins of accordions and fiddles. Drink is plentiful and of top quality.

  As people arrive they bring in the fresh evening air, they take off their coats and shunt along the overflowing couch, politely budging up to accommodate new arrivals. They ask Pierce about his broken arm and he repeatedly explains it away as quickly as he can. At first they talk in hushed voices but as the room fills the volume rises. The women catch up with each other’s gossip: most of their grown-up children have left for university or jobs and they discuss with relish what the young folk are up to on the mainland. The men huddle round the sideboard laden with bottles of good single malts but although Sean is pouring large ones, everyone is taking it easy, pacing themselves.

  As the food is cleared away and before the dancing begins, Pierce is called upon to recite his elegy. He raises his voice against the hubbub of clattering dishes in the kitchen. As he reads he is picking up reaction from the four corners of the room, in the form of sharp intakes of breath, and this excites him. The kitchen noise subsides and he is given the assembled company’s full attention. People are leaning forward and listening hard. This is what poetry is all about, thinks Pierce, and when he stops there is silence.

  The islanders stare at Pierce, waiting for more, waiting for revelation. Then they look at each other, a consensus of confusion gathering, building towards outrage. Agnes McConnell screams and lifts the first thing that comes to hand, a heavy model of the Statue of Liberty, and throws it at Pierce. It misses him by a two-inch margin and takes a lump out of the plaster on the wall behind his head. With a mad banshee glint in her eye Agnes rushes at him but three men tackle her and she is bundled, still kicking and screaming, out into the hall.

  Even here, on the island, he is misunderstood. They have completely missed the point, missed the beauty of it. They’ve focussed only on words and not on what the poem is actually saying. They’ve latched on to words like: passable, adequate, average and humdrum and totally misinterpreted his meaning. Perhaps he should have gone with the mawkish sentimentality.

  *

  Next morning Pierce has trouble working out where he is. He still has his clothes on but this in itself is not that unusual and offers no clues. The room is familiar but what is foxing him is the quality of light. Then he remembers; he’s on the island. He cringes and hides beneath the duvet. What was he thinking with that fucking stupid poem?

  Until he read out that poem he had always held the privileged position of being Bernie’s big boy. Last night, until he read the poem, he was Bernie’s orphaned son. Now he’s nobody, Bernie’s friends won’t give him the time of day, the steam off their piss. After the poem they were polite, but in a distant way, the way they are with the summer tourists. He has offended the whole island, he has insulted the memory of the best auntie he ever had and he has hurt his uncle with such a sharp deep cut that the wound might never heal.

  A thick haar lies across the bay; it will be a lovely day if the sun gets strong enough to burn it off. He hears the diesel engine and metallic clunk of a van being pa
rked outside. Pierce is too hungover to face Sean just now. He wanted to keep the vigil last night with him, he was desperate to, but Sean avoided him all night. Pierce spent most of the night down on the boat alone, rolling single-skinned joints, spinning out his hash to make it last.

  Pierce opens the window and sticks his head out but if Sean has heard him he is not acknowledging him. Pierce wants to call out hello or good morning or something but everything he can think of to say sounds wrong. Sean opens the back doors of the van and enters the house. Pierce can hear him moving about downstairs, opening drawers in the kitchen, it sounds like he’s looking for something. Pierce sees the bald patch on Sean’s head re-emerging from the house and watches while he tosses his toolbox into the front seat and puts his big Maglite torch on the floor beside it. His heavy working boots clump up the stairs and within seconds back down again. Sean is spreading the quilt from his bed on to the floor of the van. Again Pierce hears the boots thud on the stairs and this time the door to his room is thrown open.

  ‘Get up,’ Sean says and walks out.

  Pierce complies immediately. He feels guilty, caught kneeling on the bed with his head out the window as if he were spying on his uncle. Now Sean is in the bathroom throwing things into a plastic bag. Pierce, unsure of what to do, does nothing. Sean strides back into the room and Pierce straightens up, standing to attention by his bed. Sean pulls back the quilt from the bed, but it’s the sheets he’s after. The bottom one is giving him some trouble, the sheet is fitted and is tightly hooked over one corner of the mattress. Pierce moves to help but Sean growls, ‘Leave it!’ He obediently takes a few steps back and leaves it. With surly glances Sean examines the pale green sheets, apparently looking for something. Pierce is mortified; this inspection is making him feel like a wet-dreaming teenager. Thankfully the sheets apparently pass muster; Sean bundles them under his arm and thuds out. He’s surely lost his mind, thinks Pierce.

  Sean is downstairs again but now his movements are slower and quieter. He goes back out to the van and after a moment’s hesitation Pierce chances a quick peak out the window. Sean has Bernie in his arms. With tiny sideways steps he is moving carefully round the door of the van so as not to bang her head against it. He bends his knees and his back to place her gently on the quilt. He takes time to smooth out her hair, breathing hard with the effort of carrying her. There is such tenderness and intimacy in the gesture that Pierce wants to go back to standing by his bed but any movement might alert Sean that he is watching. Please, please don’t cry, thinks Pierce. He will not be able to bear it if Sean cries. But Sean doesn’t cry. He wraps the quilt round Bernie, leaving her face exposed, and tucks her in. He stretches bungee cords across her body, attaching them to the sides of the van to keep her firmly in place, warm and cosy. Then he closes the doors and drives off.

  Pierce doesn’t know what to make of it. What is Sean up to? Does this mean he should leave? Pulling the sheets off someone’s bed, especially when they are virtually still in it, is not exactly welcoming. He’ll leave when Sean goes to collect the family from the mainland, if Sean still wants him to. Surely he’ll let him stay for the funeral. For the meanwhile he’ll just have to keep a low profile.

  To stay out of Sean’s way Pierce takes a long walk. Walking around the village is no fun; he’s met at every turn with angry stares from people who were at the wake. He’d like to take a look at the new refrigeration plant but as he approaches he sees Sean’s van parked outside. On a whim he walks all the way to the other side of the island, if he meets anyone, he’ll tell them the sad news. It’s almost dark as he makes his way back, without having met a soul all day. He’s starving and can’t stop thinking about soup.

  He’s going to have to start being nice to Daphne; you never know when you’re going to lose people. When Sean phoned he dropped everything and forgot to tell her he was going away. Pierce groans when he thinks of Daphne and the lovely soup he could be eating right now. And the band, their big gig on Friday night and he’s missed it. Tam will never forgive him.

  As Pierce passes the refrigeration plant for the second time the lights are on inside and Sean’s van is still parked there. He must be keeping her company, spending time alone with her until he has to say his final goodbyes at the funeral. It must be bloody cold in there.

  As his thoughts turn to Bernie he remembers that he doesn’t have any decent clothes with him, he’ll need a good suit for the funeral. He’d borrow something from Sean but Sean will be lucky if he has a decent suit for himself and anyway Sean’s clothes will be far too big for him. He’ll phone his mother from the hotel and ask her to bring his suit with her. That way he can find out if he’s welcome enough in the hotel to stay and have a pint and a plate of soup. It won’t be as good as Daphne’s though.

  The public bar is warm and the smell from the kitchen is mouth-watering. Pierce asks Harry the barman for change for the phone and is treated civilly. No one actually spits on him but there is certainly an atmosphere. Pierce’s face reddens with shame and anger. Okay, he wants to announce to the pub, the poem was misjudged but that doesn’t mean I’m not hurting just as much as any of you. If anyone speaks to him he’ll tell them that, but no one does and they avoid eye contact.

  ‘Hello, Mum?’

  ‘Hi son, listen, me and your dad are just at our tea now, I’ve made him his favourite for a wee treat: mince and doughballs,’ she laughs, ‘can you phone back in twenty minutes?’

  Pierce is speechless with fury at his mother’s ebullience.

  ‘Pierce? Hello, are you still there?’

  In the background he can hear his father telling her to sit down and eat her dinner. He bangs the receiver down hard and then looks around guiltily to see if anyone has spotted him. Not only has he insulted his dead auntie; he’s a phone vandal too. Pierce has to get his suit. There’s nothing for it but to wait the twenty minutes and phone her back. He won’t be speechless this time.

  ‘Any chance of a plate of soup, Harry?’

  Harry writes a chit and passes it through the hatch to the kitchen without a word.

  ‘Smells brilliant,’ Pierce says with a desperate smile. ‘And a pint of lager too, please.’

  The lager comes first, dumped gracelessly in front of him and Pierce knocks half of it back in a oner. It’s quickly finished and he is three-quarters through his next one before the soup comes. Despite the fact that no one is speaking to him it’s damn good soup. It’s potato and leek, straightforward, with none of the fancy ingredients and embellishments that Daphne has and therefore none of the subtle nuances or delicate undertastes, but damn good soup none the less. His cheeks flush rosy from exercise and the lager as he carefully spoons the hot fluid past his lips. He takes his time with the last few spoonfuls, spinning out his time in the warmth and comfort of the bar.

  ‘Hello, Mum?’

  ‘Aye, hello son, what can I do you for?’

  Her tone is too jovial by far for Pierce’s liking.

  ‘I need you to bring me my suit,’ Pierce tells her curtly.

  ‘Your suit? Bring it where? What d’you need a suit for? You’re not in the jail, are you?’

  ‘For the funeral! For Christ’s sake, Mum!’

  ‘Don’t you swear at me! I’ll get your father to you. And what are you talking about, what funeral?’

  Now Pierce understands the jovial tone.

  ‘Has Sean not phoned you?’

  ‘Oh my God! Bernie.’

  There is no ebullience now, no joviality, she breaks down and cries hard into the phone. He has to move the receiver away from his ear, her crying is too close and too painful, embarrassing in a weird way. Pierce hears her handing the phone to his father. He can tell by their breathing that his parents are standing close together. Mum’s crying is muffled now, probably by Dad’s shirt-front. Pierce wishes he could join their embrace.

  ‘When?’ says his dad.

  ‘Two days ago. In her sleep. Tell mum it was peaceful.’

  ‘Is Sean oka
y?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Sean’s good. He said he would phone you to let you know.’

  ‘Well he hasn’t phoned here and he hasn’t phoned your Uncle Pat either. Pat would have phoned us.’

  ‘He said he would.’

  ‘When is the funeral, son?’

  ‘Eh, I’m not sure. Sean hasn’t told us.’

  ‘Will you ask him to phone us? We’ll need to make arrangements.’

  ‘Of course I will. Can you ask Mum to bring me my suit and get me a black tie?’

  Pierce is finishing his pint when Roddie and Bill come into the bar. They nod briefly in Pierce’s general direction, which is encouraging and so he decides to approach them. He approaches slowly, carefully, ready to be rebuffed.

  ‘Roddie. Bill.’

  ‘Aye,’ says Roddie noncommittally.

  ‘Has Sean mentioned when the funeral is? It’s just that the family, they need to know so they can make plans to come.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t said,’ says Bill.

  ‘Well, the undertaker, when is he coming?’

  ‘He isn’t,’ says Bill. ‘Sean hasn’t spoken to him yet. The wife was on the phone to his wife this morning and they knew nothing about it.’

  Pierce is perturbed. Sean seemed so organised the other day when he was delegating tasks to everyone.

  ‘He took Bernie up to the plant this morning and when I passed tonight his van was still there. Do you think he’s okay? He said he’d phone the family and he hasn’t and he hasn’t done anything about the undertaker. I’m a bit worried about him.’

  Both Bill and Roddie stare at him.

  Their silence implies that Pierce has no right to cast aspersions about Sean’s organisational abilities. He’s done it again. You can’t win with these people, he thinks as he downs the last of his pint and leaves.

  Pierce goes directly to the tiny harbour but The Statue of Liberty is moored and empty. He goes aboard anyway and sits below deck wondering what to do now. There is no sign of the van outside and the cottage is in darkness when he goes in, but Sean might be in bed. He wanders through each room looking for signs that Sean has been back but he can find none. Pretending to go to the bathroom, he peeks in as he passes his auntie and uncle’s bedroom, listening for Sean’s familiar fisherman’s wheeze. He’s not there either. The door is wide open the way Sean left it this morning. Maybe he’s gone to visit friends who didn’t make it to the wake, to tell them personally, or maybe he’s having a pint now in the pub with his loyal mates, Bill and Roddie. Sean can’t have gone to the pub, Pierce would have heard the van pass, and, although he’s been alert for the sound of the diesel engine, no traffic has passed. For the first time ever on the island, he feels lonely.