by Anita Notaro
For afters we had brown mugs of strong tea and a packet of jam tarts in colours that didn’t even vaguely resemble homemade preserve but tasted delicious nonetheless. I was touched that he’d gone to so much trouble for me. Eventually, we got round to discussing Bartholomew, who by now was curled up on his master’s chair snoring.
‘Sit over here by the fire and warm yourself,’ Dinny insisted as he whooshed the dog down. I had another reason to be glad I no longer wore black suits – the mustard velour chair housed more hair than my shower plughole.
‘Well, the dog seems content.’ I envied him, carelessly stretched out on the hearth, as close to the mound of burning turf as he could get without scorching.
‘Aye, he’s OK today, but last night he growled at me when I wanted to sit in me own chair. And this morning he ignored me for ages, wouldn’t come out of his bed.’
‘Could he be ill?’ I wondered out loud. It seemed too obvious. ‘You had him checked by your vet before you came to me, though?’ I remembered.
Denis nodded confirmation. ‘Not a thing wrong with him – sure, look at the way he tore out to meet you.’ He had a point there.
‘How old is he?’
‘No idea. I found him in the field one day about six years ago, no collar and skinny as a rake. I asked around and the postmistress put up a notice, but no one claimed him and, to be honest, I was glad in the end. He sort of grew on me, he’s a bit of a chancer.’ He winked. ‘Like meself.’
‘Well, he’s a chancer who got lucky then.’ Bartholomew had rolled over and was now lying on his back, paws in the air, gazing up at his master. I found myself thinking of Gnasher, something I was doing often these days.
‘Tell me this,’ Denis asked after a slight pause. ‘Is there such a thing as the male menopause for dogs?’
‘Pardon?’ The television was now showing us how to wax our legs, complete with models in swimsuits. The girls were sprawled provocatively across the pink velvet couch, and I was terrified the demonstrator was about to move on to the bikini line. Daytime TV had changed a lot since I’d last seen it – Derek and Thelma and a group of old folks with Sonny Knowles and Anne O’Dwyer on piano, all singing along to ‘I’ll Take Care of Your Cares’. I mentally shook myself. ‘Sorry, Dinny, you were saying?’
‘You know, the same sort of thing that women get, mood swings and all the rest. I asked Mary Grimes in the grocer’s and she said it happened to everyone, humans and animals.’
‘Eh, I don’t think so, but you never know. Hormones and all that, most of us have them. Tell you what, why don’t I talk to your vet, Jim Harding, about his general health?’
‘Ah no, don’t go near him.’ Denis went red in the face. ‘He laughed at me when I asked him about it. Women are more sympathetic to that kind of stuff – must be the babies.’ He’d lost me there, but I was desperately trying not to make him feel stupid. ‘Is there anything I could give him? Mary Grimes mentioned some sort of oil – daffodil or primroses or something – but I hadn’t a clue what that was and I didn’t like to ask.’ He looked like the world was changing too fast for him. ‘Us men are supposed to know these things nowadays. Sure there’s a Herb shop now in Wicklow. Imagine, a huge space that sells only dried weeds and twigs, things like parsley and thyme, I suppose, stuff we only ever used to stick up the turkey’s arse at Christmas.’ He coughed. ‘Pardon me Miss, I’m not used to female company much.’
‘Denis, the world’s gone mad, and it’s no different for me, either.’ He was so sweet, a bachelor who’d been left behind in spanking-new Ireland. ‘Tell you what, why don’t we keep our eye on his, eh, mood swings, the two of us, and see if we can’t figure it out between us? And meanwhile, I’ll do some research on the internet and see if I can find out something about . . . dogs and their hormones.’
He brightened up immediately. ‘Would they have that sort of thing on a computer?’ He sounded amazed. ‘Is that what this internet yoke is, even – a computer?’
I nodded, wondering how many more bemused elderly people like him existed in our cash-rich, time-poor nation. ‘That’s all it is, Denis. A box. Think of it as a giant encyclopaedia.’
‘Well, holy God, what’s the world coming to? Sure, soon you won’t need to go outside your front door. I have a niece in Wexford, she never rings unless she wants something. Last week she told me she was doing all her Christmas shopping “online”. I hadn’t a clue. When I asked her about it she didn’t have time to explain.’
‘Well, next time you’re in my office, I’ll show you how it works if you like?’ I stood up, mainly because daytime TV was now doing an item on celebrities eating worms in the jungle. The latest tasty morsel was a crocodile’s penis, or ‘croc shaft’, as they kept referring to it. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take, never mind Denis.
8
I DECIDED IT WAS TIME TO GET LAID AS SOON AS I AWOKE NEXT morning.
I’d never had a one-night stand – not that anyone knew. Frankly, it wasn’t something to be proud of, not among my generation, that’s for sure. You see, deep down, I was an all-or-nothing girl. I wanted the fairytale – not that I had any right to expect it. Princes didn’t suss out girls like me: there were too many of us, for a start. They wanted bubbly or sexy or funny or blonde hair and big tits. Take Maddy, for instance. She wasn’t a stunner, but men actively sought her out in pubs and clubs. Maddy was vivacious, had great one-liners and legs up to her ears. But it was her here-I-am, if-you-like-me-great, if-you-don’t-tough attitude that kept them coming. Me, I always tried too hard. Maddy had been shagged more times than I’d been shopping, and always on her terms. After thinking about it over three mugs of tea, I decided there was no option but to enlist her help. It was my only hope.
Stretching out, I revelled in my surroundings. Quiet was something I’d never really gotten used to. And here in my mobile home at the end of a seldom-used lane, even the barely happening bustle of Bray town seemed far away. I jumped up and had the kettle on, bed made and curtains open in seconds. Compact suited me, I decided.
Maddy arrived at twelve. She wore old jeans, several cheap, strappy T-shirts – one on top of the other – no make-up and her hair was in a scrunchie, yet you’d still ride her. We got started on the shed, and I waited until we were fully engrossed before casually mentioning that I needed a change.
‘What sort of change?’
‘I dunno. I love my new life but I’m still a bit bored with myself.’
‘So what do you want then?’
‘Excitement.’
‘Lulu, baby,’ she scolded, but it was playful. ‘You’ve been saying that for ever.’ She stopped assembling the shelf unit for the shed and sat on a tea chest. ‘We’ve been through all this.’ To her credit, she didn’t look like she was bored to death with the topic. ‘Your sister got all the mad genes and you got the nice, normal ones. And years of growing up trying to please your mother have taken their toll. You are what you are, which is pretty damn good from where I’m standing.’ She redid her scrunchie. ‘Trying to be something you’re not never works. Men are attracted to women who are confident in their own skin – pretending to like snooker and beer and laughing at their weak one-liners was for when we were fifteen. Be yourself,’ she chided gently. ‘A big fat cliché, but true nonetheless.’
‘I’m tired being me. It’s dull. I know I can’t fundamentally change who I am, but I want to be less uptight, less safe.’ I sighed. ‘I feel I am, deep down. If only I didn’t worry all the time.’ Even thinking about it made me scared it was never going to happen. ‘And let’s face it, if I think I’m boring, what chance has anyone else?’
‘Well, you’ve moved from a house to a caravan, gone from a car to a motorbike, changed job and abandoned your power suits. I’d say you’ve loosened up considerably.’
‘Really?’ I was pleased. ‘Well, could I make myself a bit more, em, jazzy, maybe?’ I decided to cut to the chase. ‘A bit more out there looks-wise. I fancy a fling.’ I grinned.
&
nbsp; ‘OK, tell you what. Once we finish here, let’s wash your hair, for a start. I’ve always wanted to see it left to dry naturally.’ She was warming to it, I could tell. ‘And you could lose the drab brown eye colour you always wear, along with that nondescript lipstick you keep stocking up on.’ She hesitated, wondering if she’d gone too far, I suspected.
‘You’re absolutely right.’ Far from being insulted, I was thrilled. ‘That’s me – neutral. Well, not any more.’ I threw my fist in the air, Che Guevara-style. ‘My hair is not like Becky’s though,’ I warned, feeling nervous straightaway. ‘It’s more wiry than wavy.’
Clodagh arrived just as we started lunch. A few texts had persuaded her to join us early after all. She’d brought some sort of couscous muck, which she tucked into quite happily. Maddy and I had a deli roast stuffed chicken on warm baguette with lashings of butter and, for dessert, a coffee slice each. Clodagh nibbled on goji berries. We saved the wine for later and got back to work in earnest, filling Clodagh in on our plans as we worked. She was equally enthusiastic, and I was delighted, feeling I was really doing something positive with my image at last. Ditching the black suits was fine, but replacing them with anything other than Next or Zara plain casuals or an M&S white T-shirt was beyond me.
By five thirty we were all cream-crackered, so we had a pot of coffee (Clodagh had mint tea) and chilled for half an hour, then the girls got stuck into ‘Operation Transformation’.
Two hours later, I looked like a dark-haired version of one of those brazen blonde barmaids in Corrie – a mass of curls and psychedelic and sparkle. The girls ruined their make-up laughing when I said as much, but they insisted I looked younger and, more importantly, hot. My lovely hair, my only comfort in life, was indeed ‘natural’. It also totally redefined ‘big hair’. My slinky top was a riot of colour, my padded bra was orange lace with a chocolate trim, and my earrings would fit around your neck. The jeans – the only thing I owned – were fine, but the shoes were red patent with polka-dot bows and the cute peep-toes revealed blood-red nails. Most of the stuff belonged to Clodagh’s flatmate, our only option when we phoned her and begged her to come over and help. Oddly enough, I sort of liked it in a horrified but thrilled way.
Still, it was an indication of how desperate I was for a new image that I let them bring me to the pub looking like that. It was their insistence that the look was ‘so now’ that convinced me. Given that it had only been invented in the past hour, it was definitely what you’d call happening.
Each time I dithered about actually facing the public, they sold it to me on the basis that I looked cool – and cool was what I craved. Two equally cool beers in quick succession helped convince me to stay.
What happened next will haunt me for ever. Three guys approached us, and we chatted away for a while. We knew they were coming, they’d been watching us for ages, feigning nonchalance, as guys do. They ranged from not bad to middling to OK after a few vodkas – and guess which one I got? Still, I wasn’t downbeat. He was an artist called Jason who played in a band, so he was definitely trendy, and Paul – the cute(ish) one who fancied Maddy – invited us to their next gig the following week in the only decent pub in Shankhill. So far, so definitely happening then.
We eventually made our way to the disco next door. At this stage I was nervous. I hadn’t had enough to drink, so that sense of abandonment I craved hadn’t kicked in – or been let out, in my case. In fact, that was another of my hang-ups I needed to deal with. I was always careful about alcohol – terrified in case I’d lose control, the ultimate shame.
Still, we took to the dance floor like we were fuel-injected. I noticed Jason hung back by the bar while his two mates joined us. After a while, I was exhausted, and my earrings were so heavy they were ripping my neck to shreds, so I wandered over to where he was standing.
‘Hi.’ I decided to go for it.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Great. You?’
‘Yeah, cool.’ That word again. It was a sign.
‘Actually, I should explain.’ I knew this was a mistake as soon as I started. Guys didn’t want to hear this kind of stuff. ‘You see the girls sort of “did me up” for the evening. I’m not usually quite so . . . bright . . .’
‘No, you’re fine.’ He swallowed rather a lot of his pint, which I should have taken as a warning. Instead I took it as a come-on. It was his smile, I decided later. He had a nice smile. His mate left a pint down beside him and winked at me, another sign as far as my deranged mind was concerned. I took a deep breath and decided I’d quite like to kiss him.
‘Eh, fancy . . . going outside?’ No, I don’t know what came over me. I think I must have had a brain seizure, actually. I hadn’t ‘gone outside’ since I’d been asked to bring in a crate of minerals at the school disco when I was fifteen. In fact, I don’t think the term exists any more. Worse still, I hadn’t been on my own with him for thirty seconds and, besides, outside in this case was the main street and I had two choices – snog him in front of the taxi rank or buy him chips.
‘Eh . . . no, thanks all the same.’ He tried to smile, but his eyes had panic written across them as clearly as if he’d used my purple kohl pencil to do it. ‘Sorry, I probably should have . . . it was just my mates . . . and yours . . . eh, I’ll see you.’ And he left a full pint as evidence of his desperation.
To my credit – Maddy insisted later – I didn’t crumble. She swore I’d looked totally chilled the whole time. It felt like forever as I glanced around trying to pretend I hadn’t just been dumped before I’d even been picked up. I waved vaguely at people I didn’t know simply to keep my hands busy. The girls gestured at me to join them, but I avoided eye contact because of my halogen-hot face and bitten lip, so eventually they cut short their floor show and strolled back to the bar.
‘Where’s Justin?’ Maddy wanted to know.
‘Jason,’ Clodagh insisted.
‘Him too.’ She looked at me.
‘No idea,’ I said in a bored voice.
‘Have we had enough girls?’ Clodagh yawned. ‘I’m up at six.’
‘On a Sunday?’
‘Yep, meeting a gang in Enniskerry at eight. We’re walking a new route up the Wicklow Way.’
‘Sure what else would you do before breakfast?’ I tried to joke. ‘Well, I’m happy to head for the hills myself.’ I had to stop myself breaking into a gallop, in fact.
‘OK so.’ Maddy gave in rather quickly for her. ‘Although I did quite fancy another dance with Paul . . .’ She glanced around trying to spot him. ‘I have a feeling he was waiting for someone, though. Intuition.’ She shrugged.
‘Come on, I’ve had enough.’ I could have kissed Clodagh for saying that. ‘Sure we know where they’ll be next Saturday night if we want them.’
Yep and I knew where I wouldn’t be. You’d have to tether me to a trailer to get me anywhere near that pub in Shankhill they’d mentioned, but I wouldn’t be telling the girls why any day soon.
‘Let’s not appear too keen, eh?’ Clodagh continued as she picked up her bag.
‘She means you.’ Maddy poked me in the ribs. ‘I saw you . . .’
‘Get a life.’ I tried to flick my hair nonchalantly, forgetting I had a mop on my head – a hairsprayed one at that. ‘I can’t even remember what they were saying half the time. Bit too culchie for me.’ Stop now, you’re going too far the other way, I warned myself.
‘Well, Jason said he’s playing in that pub in—’ Clodagh offered, but I cut her dead.
‘Oh that?’ I shook my head as if I knew something they didn’t. ‘I really don’t think it’s for us. So, anyone for chips on the way home?’
‘Yes, please.’ I knew Maddy would do anything for a fag and a large bag of greasy fries. She’d been moaning about being hungry since we’d arrived.
‘Let’s go, girls,’ she said enthusiastically, confirming my thoughts. I only realized I’d been holding my breath when we were safely outside.
Clodagh got strai
ght into a taxi, wrinkling her nose at the smell from the chipper, so Maddy and I strolled home to my place, eating spiceburgers and swapping stories. Eventually, of course, it came out. Maddy suspected something and was not easily put off the scent.
‘You said what?’ She pulled her arm out of mine and spun around. God, I hated that grin.
‘I know, I know.’ I was mortified. ‘Please, I beg you, if you have any regard for our friendship, never bring it up again, or I’ll die, I swear.’
‘But . . . did you . . . actually . . . say . . . ?’ Even Maddy struggled to deal with the magnitude of my gaffe. It was written all over her face. ‘I mean, even if you’d asked him back to your place – but “outside”, I mean, how old are you?’ She was really enjoying this. ‘And besides, there is no . . .’
‘Shut up.’ I hit her over the head with my chip bag, and the saturated bottom collapsed and vinegar dripped into her hair.
‘Ow, get off.’ She pushed me away. ‘Yuck, what’s that?’ She put her hand up to her head.
‘Grease, hopefully. And smelly vinegar.’ I dodged the blows and ran on ahead, and we eventually fell on to my deck laughing. She was still singing ‘Falling Slowly’ through the wall an hour later as we lay in our rooms having drunk two pots of tea and made chip butties with what was left unsquashed of our supper. Not one of your best encounters was my final thought before I fell asleep, deciding that even if I lived to be a hundred I would never make a fool of myself like that again.
9
THE GIRLS WERE BACK IN TOWN. BRONWYN AND SUSIE WERE SITTING hand in hand in the waiting room when I arrived at lunchtime on Monday, and Mary was trying hard not to stare. I loved our receptionist to death, but she was as holy as her name suggested and very straight-laced. Mind you, she did look after the entire building effortlessly and made endless cups of coffee and photocopied for Ireland, as far as I could see, so I wasn’t about to complain any day soon.
Still, I suspect I was the most exotic thing she’d seen in a long time – my job, that is, rather than me personally – although I’d overheard her telling Miriam, our cleaner, that she thought I was ‘wild’ because I’d sold my house and now lived in a trailer. I was secretly thrilled.
