Paula Spencer Page 9

  —Shut up.

  —She made people move away from us when we sat down in the back of the church because we were late. For my Holy Communion. Because she couldn't get up on time, even though I tried to get you up and even brought you up a cup of tea and got a stain on my dress because of it.

  Leanne is giving it all to her. And Paula just wants to slap her. What about now? she wants to yell. What about now? I'm sick of feeling guilty.

  Leanne's still at it. Shifting her weight from foot to foot. It's only her hips are moving. And her mouth.

  Paula's not listening. Get over it! she wants to yell. Grow up and get out of my house. If it's all that fuckin' bad. Get the fuck out, so I don't have to face you every day and feel guilty all over again.

  She knows what her life has been like and what she's had to do to stay alive. And this bitch is kicking away at it, with her stampy little feet.

  She's gone. She's not even in the kitchen.

  Paula's alone.

  It's three in the morning. Three minutes after. Has Leanne been yelling at her for an hour? It's not impossible.

  I never made you drink with me.

  Pathetic. If that's all she could use to defend herself. When she finally had the chance to take her punishment and listen, then admit and ask forgiveness; all the conversations she's dreamed about and planned. But all she could say was that. I never.

  So.

  What's the point?

  She won't sit down.

  It's all so fuckin' dreadful. She doesn't know what to do. Can she even go to bed? The charge of a drink, the sprint to her head and pain – she'd love it. With ice from the freezer. She'd do it in style. She can taste it – she doesn't need to remember. Then she'd lie down.

  But there's nothing in the house. She remembers throwing out the last bottle. Actually, she just dropped it over the back wall. Into someone's garden. It used to be Kellys' but there are other people there now. She doesn't know who. She hasn't seen them. Leanne probably has a bottle hidden. There's a charming thought. Two hours ago she'd have been upset. Now she wants the bottle. They can fight for it and reconcile, in the spill and broken glass.

  She's not going to drink. She knows. Even if she found a bottle she'd forgotten about or if Leanne came down with a bottle of Smirnoff and threw the cap in the corner, she wouldn't drink. Not even to win back Leanne.

  Win her back? She never had her. She gave her away years ago. She threw Leanne away.

  It's one of the interesting discoveries. Sentimentality doesn't have to be soft. She threw Leanne away. An old alco's sentimental shite. She threw Leanne nowhere. She held her tight and slobbered all over her. Your mammy loves you SOOOOOO much.

  But it's dreadful. That's rock solid honest. It's fuckin' dreadful. There's no sleeping on this. It's just dreadful.

  So why does she feel so good?

  She goes up to bed. She leaves the White Stripes staff card on the table.

  She's in the cafe.

  The coat will have to wait. Women like Paula don't wear real coats any more. Working-class women. They wear anoraks, snorkel jackets, padded shiny sexless things. That's why she can get away with wearing Jack's. No one knows. Not even Jack. Especially not Jack.

  Where would she wear a good coat? She doesn't go out anywhere. She doesn't go to Mass. She doesn't go to the pictures. She's never been in a theatre. Work and the shops – that's it. Her sisters have given up on her. Her last text from Carmel was ages ago and it wasn't a party invitation. She was offering Paula a chicken. Spare chkn. Wnt? Paula didn't answer.

  Shve it up yr arse.

  She'll get the coat when Christmas is out of the way. A long one with a big collar. Soft – cashmere, or something like that. A coat that Melanie Griffith would wear, letting it slide off her shoulders to the rug, showing she's wearing nothing underneath. What film was that in? She doesn't know but she can see the coat. She can see Melanie Griffith's shoulders. She'd kiss them.

  Where's Melanie Griffith these days? Paula always liked her.

  The vegetable place across the way didn't last long. It's all closed up again. It'll be someone else's bright idea in a month or two.

  She's here. But she doesn't remember getting here.

  That's too dramatic. She remembers deciding to come here. It's not like she woke up in the place. She was over in the supermarket and she decided she'd come here on her way home. Because she was after buying a little notebook, and a biro. Because she wanted to make a list of the things she'd need for Christmas. Different lists. The food she'd need, presents, things to be done. She'd start on the lists and look out the window. So it's not as if she's losing her mind or anything. Going mad. She's been daydreaming. And that's nothing new.

  She was miles away when she noticed the girl at the counter. The nice Italian young one. Smiling at her.

  There's nothing wrong.

  There's a mad one she sees on the Dart some nights. She wears colours that hurt Paula's eyes. Pink and orange DayGlo. Her eye shadow is always a half-inch to the left or right of her eyes. It's always red or purple. She wears stripy, odd socks. Pink ear-muffs, all year. And she whispers along to her Walkman. Paula sat near enough to hear her once. WE WILL BE TRUE TO THEE TILL DEATH. She was singing a fuckin' hymn. She must be well into her thirties. Listening to hymns on her pink Walkman. She's mad and she doesn't know it. She doesn't see what Paula and the others see.

  Is Paula like that? Like, today. She's the woman they see every couple of days. The women in the supermarket, the girl here, people along the way. The woman Paula looked at in the bathroom mirror before she left – is that who they see too? Or do they see a mad one? The woman with the SuperValu bags. She's not wearing eye shadow or pink ear-muffs. If she had a Walkman she'd listen to Van Morrison or Deep Purple. Or the White Stripes.

  She's tired.

  She has the notebook on the table. She has her new pen. Jesus, it's some sort of sparkly thing. She thought it was just a biro when she bought it. But it's a madwoman's biro. She draws a line – pink.

  She might as well use it. She has nothing else.

  She's waiting on her coffee.

  She hasn't seen the pizza fella since, the one she took a shine to in the summer. He seems to be gone. And she can't ask. Not today anyway, after what's just happened.

  She was just suddenly there. Awake – she hadn't a clue. With a bag in each hand, standing at the counter.

  She remembers being in the supermarket, at the till. She thinks she remembers taking things out of her basket. The feel of the chicken, cold from the fridge. Afraid her fingers would burst the plastic covering. She thinks that was today. But she thinks that every time she picks up a chicken in a supermarket. She's always afraid the blood will come through the plastic. She can feel the cold in the fingers of her left hand, picking it out of the basket.

  And then she was here. The woman behind the counter was smiling at her – the usual way. Waiting for Paula to ask for her coffee and maybe a cake. The usual.

  What did she look like? What do they see when they look at her?

  She mutters to herself a bit at home, in the kitchen, wandering around.

  Enough. She's grand.

  She opens the notebook. She writes the names down the page. With her madwoman's pen. She can hardly read the pink ink. She definitely needs her eyes tested. Carmel and Denise need glasses for reading.

  She writes the names. Jack, Nicola, Leanne.

  She stops.

  She tears out the page. The page says it all, the order she's written the names in – Jack, Nicola, Leanne. She puts the page in her jacket pocket.

  She'll get a handbag too, when she's buying the coat. She might as well, go the whole hog. She heard a woman this morning, on Marian Finnucane. I just love a nice bag, Marian. I'm addicted to them. Fuckin' eejit. Spending thousands on handbags.

  She starts again. The grandkids' names. John Paul's first. Then Nicola's two. Then Jack – he's still a kid. Then Leanne. Nicola. John Paul. Carmel. Denise. N
ieces, nephews. The big, happy family. She can't remember them all. Denise's second lad. The one who did well in his Leaving. All sorts of honours. What's his bloody name? She knew it yesterday. Is that why she's suddenly keen on lists, because it's all slipping away?

  She just wants to be organised. She wants to know what she has to do. How far she can get with the money she'll have.

  Here's the coffee.

  Kieran.

  The girl puts it on the table, and the little jug of milk.

  —Thanks very much.

  —Are welcome.

  Kieran.

  She writes it down. It's a big list. It's taken two pages. And now she remembers, she left out two. Tony. That's Nicola's fella. And John Paul's partner. No-Arse.

  The girl has a name and it's Carol. Except she calls herself Star. It's tattooed on the knuckles of her right hand. She did it herself. Paula will never need reading glasses to see those letters.

  Are reading glasses expensive? Depends on the glasses. She supposes. She'll ask Carmel. She'll text her. Glses exps? She'll get the reply. Spare pr. Wnt?

  Thank God for selection boxes. That's what most of these kids will be getting. And thank God for Rita Kavanagh, three doors up from her. It's 23 November and Rita has been up to Newry twice already, doing her Christmas shopping. Paula met Rita getting out of her car last week and the car was stuffed with bags, mostly filled with selection boxes. The whole back of the car was full of chocolate.

  —I'm after saving a fortune, Paula, she told her. — It's a great day out. You should come with us. There's a convoy of us going up to Enniskillen next week. Jesus, the crack.

  Paula's never been to the North. She suggested it to Jack last summer, a day in the train to Belfast. A big breakfast on the train, shopping for a few hours, maybe that tour of the black spots she heard about on the radio, and back to Dublin on the train. She'd have liked that, the day out with Jack, and the walk home through the estate with the Belfast shopping bags. But he wouldn't go. She didn't ask Nicola, because Nicola would have spent too much. And she never thought of asking Leanne.

  That's a lie. She didn't want a long day with Leanne. Especially the journey home. Jesus, Ma, you'd need a drink after all that walking around.

  She isn't going to Enniskillen. But Rita has promised to get her as much stuff as she wants.

  —We're being robbed down here, Paula. And I'll tell you another nice thing about up there. The girls in all the shops and cafes and that. They're Irish. It's great. They know what you're talking about.

  Those girls must be great if they know what Rita Kavanagh is talking about. Five minutes in the car with Rita would drive Paula fuckin' demented. She'd be writing on the car window with her mad one's pen. Let Me Out! But Rita's going to get her all the selection boxes.

  She puts lines through the grown-up nieces and nephews. It'd be mad getting them anything. Carmel and Denise won't be getting anything for her older ones. Just Jack. Maybe Leanne.

  She hates Christmas. She always has – or since she was a few years married and she realised she was poor and she was always going to be. She hadn't liked it much before then either. It always seemed a bit much for just one day. It was always a bit of a strain. She remembers going through the supermarket with a trolley full of six-packs and mixers and the rest. She couldn't make the trolley go straight. Jack was in the carrier part. She was afraid the whole thing was going to topple over. Leanne was pulling on the other side of it, asking for every biscuit and family pack they passed. And she actually – did she? – she smacked Leanne, until she let go of the trolley. She tried to smile through the whole thing, piling the stuff onto the conveyor. She threw a few bars of chocolate onto the pile, to make it look more normal, the expensive black chocolate kids don't even like, and Jack was trying to climb out and Leanne was snuffling and refusing to look at her. A chicken instead of a turkey and four bottles of vodka on the table. That was Christmas.

  There were good ones too. But they were always a surprise.

  Do Carmel and Denise know about Leanne?

  Carmel knows everything. Denise knows nothing. They're a strange pair.

  She told them about John Paul. It was hard to start but she doesn't think she was too embarrassed or ashamed. Heroin was so foreign. It had nothing to do with her. She'd thought that then. He'd walked into the house and he'd walked straight back out with the television. And that was how she'd started to tell Carmel and Denise. It was so mad. Her own son. He was only sixteen. She hadn't seen him in weeks. She opened the door, he pushed right past her. Don't say Hello or anything. She watched him walk down the path, down the street. She didn't follow. As for the telly, she couldn't have cared less. It was only later, when Jack wanted to watch his cartoons, she realised what a pain in the neck not having a telly was.

  —He's a heroin addict.

  They'd probably known already. A lot of families had one – more than one. It was like an alien invasion. Nothing to do with them, but coming up the path. Junkies even look a bit like aliens. Like someone made a human but left out something – blood, colouring, something vital. It was devastating but safe. An accident. Nothing to do with her.

  She looks at the coffee. She puts down the pink pen. She picks up the cup. She tastes the coffee. She hears the little voice inside her – this is me drinking a nice cup of coffee. She puts the cup down – this is me putting the cup down. She picks up the pink pen. She'll show it to Leanne when she gets home. Will you look what I bought today by accident.

  She hasn't spoken a real word to Leanne in weeks.

  Leanne hasn't spoken to her.

  She picks up the menu. She has to hold it quite close to her eyes. There's a bit in small print at the bottom that she can't read at all, about vegetarians. It's in that slanting italic print. Even looking at it – it seems to shimmer – it makes her feel a bit sick.

  The list.

  She feels something coming. Something big and bad. She's dragging it to her.

  The list.

  She hasn't a clue what to get Leanne. Does Leanne still like music? She has no idea. Barbie was always a safe bet in the old days. Leanne and Nicola's room was full of Barbies, all of them sitting up and staring at Paula whenever she went into the room. She could still get her one, for the laugh. Melt the ice. Boozer Barbie – little bottles, one little shoe with a broken heel. Smashed-Ankle Barbie. The little medical card, the little tracksuit.

  That's what's waiting for Paula at home. Smashed-Ankle Barbie herself. Leanne on the couch, in a dirty tracksuit, firing bullets at the telly with the remote control. She's been there for three weeks. It's no wonder Paula's going mad. Not one friend has come near Leanne. It's as if there's never been a previous life. Even work – Paula doesn't know if Leanne's job will be waiting for her when her foot is mended. She's afraid to ask too often.

  Leanne called Paula. She was crying, not able to make proper words. She was in hospital, or on her way – something.

  —What hospital, Leanne?

  She didn't know; she wouldn't tell her.

  —What hospital, love? I'll come and get you.

  Leanne just cried. Paula was in the hall now, putting on her jacket, looking for the money to get her a taxi – where? – and back. She had enough. She'd been paid the day before.

  —What hospital, Leanne?

  —I'm sohhh-ry.

  Paula tried to hear beyond Leanne's tears and gasps. A friend's voice, an ambulance fella – a word or hint that might tell her where to go. She ran out of the house. She headed for the main road. It was raining. She couldn't zip up the jacket and keep the phone to her ear.