Nobody Loves a Ginger Baby (17 page)

‘We’re out on the town this night. She’s not really my type, Carol, talks a lot of shite, but she’s okay, up to a point. So, we’re out: couple of drinks, dinner, nice bottle of wine, both a bit pished. Back to the hotel room, the usual, I’m giving her it and she’s fucking loving it.’

‘Yeah,’ says Tam.

‘So, I’m getting a bit thirsty with all the work I’m putting in so I get up and go to the bathroom for a drink of water. I’m away a matter of minutes. I come back, back on the job and I,’ Pierce is demonstrating by rocking his pelvis to and fro, ‘stick my hand under her head, under the pillow, y’know, to get a bit of leverage and…’

Tam is nodding, he knows.

‘And suddenly my hand feels cold and sticky.’

‘Eh?’

Tam is confused; the story has taken an annoyingly unexpected turn.

‘So I pull back the pillow and, you’ll never believe it.’

‘What?’

‘There’s a big pile of red sick under the pillow.’

‘No way, man.’

‘Way. Red wine, bits of chicken, whole strands of spaghetti, fucking disgusting, man. While I was in the toilet she felt sick so she just puked under the pillow, just like that, and carries on as if nothing has happened.’

‘That is gross, man.’

‘And d’you know what she says to me, d’you know what she fucking says?’

Tam shakes his head in disappointment, disbelief and because he doesn’t know what she fucking says.

‘She says, ‘What? The cleaners change the sheets every day, what’s the problem?’’

‘Daphne, it’s me. I need to speak to you.’

‘What about?’

‘I can’t talk now, I can’t talk about it over the phone. Can I come round, please?’

‘Okay.’

Daphne is sick of these phone calls from Carol. She has phoned nearly every day for three weeks, sometimes more than once. She is using Daphne in the most obvious way. Her desperation makes her transparent and although it annoys Daphne she can’t help but feel sorry for Carol.

Pierce is giving Carol the cold shoulder. He has seen her only three times since they’ve come back from New York, twice for lunch, on both occasions at Carol’s insistence and she paid, and once for a coffee. He is apparently busy every evening.

Carol, always so cool with men, has become obsessed with Pierce and is now unable to comprehend what it means when he says he is too busy to see her. She is apparently unaware that she has been chucked. Nicely, in a
let her down easy
kind of way, but chucked none the less.

Daphne knows that Pierce knows that Carol doesn’t know. She wishes he would just be man enough to tell her straight. Despite the fact that Pierce had his plaster removed weeks ago, the soup sessions continue and Daphne, unlike Carol, sees him every day. When the Carol phone calls begin to really annoy her, she berates Pierce for his cowardice and he is unable to meet her gaze.

Carol is dishevelled when she arrives. A shocking sight. Her eyes are red from crying and her clothes have not been ironed. Her T-bar is at least five centimetres wide. It gives Daphne no satisfaction to see that Carol’s roots are coming in grey.

‘Now he won’t even answer the phone to me. I phoned him yesterday morning at five past eight, I mean, where is he at that time of the morning? I’m falling apart, Daphne. I’m up to 150 migs of Novazex.’

Carol says this as though expecting Daphne to be impressed.

‘Dr Wilson has put me on the maximum dose. They’re the most expensive, y’know.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘So I left Pierce a message to get back to me and then I had to phone again tonight and leave another message. He’s not in; I buzzed his flat before I came here. Why is he doing this to me? What is it I’m supposed to have done? Can you tell me, Daphne, because I don’t bloody know!’

‘You haven’t done anything, Carol.’

‘D’you think he’s seeing someone else?’

Carol is crying. Daphne wants to cry too. Not for Carol’s pathetic unrequited love, but for her own. Okay, she acknowledges, there is a difference. She and Donnie were together for five years as opposed to Carol and Pierce’s holiday romance, but it comes to the same thing.

Daphne puts her arms around Carol to help absorb the
convulsive
jolts from the weeping. Let her cry it out, and then when she has, she’ll pick herself up, dust herself down, start all over again. Plenty more fish. Pierce is no great catch; he’s an unemployed layabout with delusions of grandeur, she tells her. Carol is far too good for him. But just as Carol’s weeping is running out of steam, there is a knock at the door.

Of course it’s Pierce and Tam. While Daphne is answering the door Carol locks herself in the toilet.

‘All right, Daffers? Just swung by to keep you company and help you scrape the arse out the soup pot.’

Daphne lets the lads settle in: take their jackets off, select a CD, begin to skin up, before she tells him.

‘Actually, Pierce, I’ve got company.’

A look of panic crosses Pierce’s face and Daphne smilingly nods confirmation.

‘Yes, Carol popped round.’

Pierce is on his feet but it is too late. Carol has emerged from the toilet, fully made up and smiling.

‘Hello Pierce.’

‘Hi Princess, how are you doing?’

Pierce has crossed the floor towards Carol and gives her an
innocuous
peck on the cheek. He moves past her towards the door but Daphne is not letting him off the hook.

‘Pierce and Tam want to join us in a wee bowl of soup, don’t you lads?’

‘Aye,’ says Tam, ‘the chip shop was shut.’

Daphne leaves the uneasy threesome playing music and rolling the joint while she goes to put the soup on. While she is in the kitchen each of them come to her, Tam is first.

‘All right, Daffers?’

‘Aye.’

‘Need a hand?’

‘Nope.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yep.’

‘Okay. If you need me, give me a shout,’ he says and retreats back to the living room.

Daphne deeply regrets ever having snogged Tam and is now uncomfortable when he is solicitous.

Next up is Pierce.

‘What the fuck is she doing here?’ he whispers.

‘The same as you: taking advantage of my good nature.’

‘T’was ever thus.’

‘You better sort it out with her; she’s making herself ill.’

‘Och, you know I’m no good at this kind of thing, Daphne, can you not tell her?’

‘No, I bloody cannot. For God’s sake Pierce, be a man and just tell her, will you?’

‘Okay, okay.’

Carol sweeps into the kitchen a changed woman. Make-up and the presence of the object of her love have transformed her. She is flushed and giggly, paranoid and conspiratorial with the effects of the dope.

‘What was he saying about me?’ she sniggers.

‘Nothing.’

‘I hope he wasn’t telling you about what we got up to in New York.’

‘Carol, I don’t want to know.’

‘Oh shoosh,’ says Carol flapping her hands, ‘God love him, you know, he makes out he’s a sex machine but he’s just a big teddy bear.’

‘That’s nice for you, Carol.’

Daphne has had to water the soup down to spin it out enough for four plates and now she is annoyed that it is too thin. She is boiling it hard in an attempt to reduce it but she’s awful warm in her big baggy jumper, sweat and steam from the soup are making her face damp.

‘Sex with Pierce is quite domestic, but in a nice way. I had to fake it a lot, but he’s sweet and funny and…’

But Daphne is not listening. The soup isn’t thickening and the chicken chunks are becoming stringy. She tastes a spoonful and knows she has watered it too far, it tastes of nothing, dishwater. She has no fresh coriander left and is forced, something she hates doing, to add a stock cube and more salt.

‘Can you pass me the cornflour Carol, please?’

As Daphne is putting the doctored soup in bowls, Carol is still hanging around, stoned and dithery, now intent on telling a joke.

‘You’ll like this, Daphne, this is a good one for that creep, Donnie.’

Carol has stopped even pretending to help. Daphne gathers the cutlery and plates on to trays. As she moves between the living room and the kitchen, Carol follows behind reciting the joke.

‘Husband and wife are at the hospital. The wife has been in labour thirty-six hours when the doctor comes out and tells the husband he has good news and bad news. The husband says okay,
give me the bad news first. I’m afraid the baby has ginger hair, says the doctor. The man is devastated but finally pulls himself together. Well, what’s the good news?’

Carol, who has been sniggering all through her slurred telling of the joke, can hardly get the punchline out for laughing.

‘The good news is it was a stillbirth.’

Pierce laughs first. He thinks it’s hilarious. Carol joins him with hyena-like barking. So funny is the joke that Carol falls down on to the couch on top of Pierce who catches her and hugs her tight, both of them screaming and laughing.

Tam doesn’t know whether to laugh or not. He’s not sure, as he himself has ginger hair, if the joke is personally offensive. Finally he settles on an unconvincing titter.

‘Right! That’s it!’ says Daphne. ‘All of you out. Get out of my house.’

This only serves to make Pierce and Carol scream harder and Tam bray louder.

‘I mean it. Get out! I’m sick of this, I’m sick of you people. I hate you! I hate you and your poetry and your joints and your seven shades of blonde and your stupid brown clothes and your pathetic gigs and your sad little band and your golden arm hair and, and, oh just get out!’

While the soup lies, thinned and thickened and steaming, on the coffee table, Daphne runs to her bedroom and bangs the door shut behind her as hard as she can.

It is several minutes before she hears them let themselves out.

Daphne resolves not to answer the phone but even as she resolves she knows that she must. It could be the college, or Mum
phoning
from Australia. It could be Donnie. In the event her resolve is not tested because no one phones. Carol, now that contact has been re-established with her beloved Pierce, no longer has need of Daphne. Pierce, although she can hear him moving around below her, does not chap up for soup or knock her door. She is sick of soup anyway.

The phone does eventually ring and Daphne surprises herself in her keenness to get to it. It’s Mum.

‘Daphne, what’s going on?’

‘Hello Mum.’

‘Look Daphne, I know all about it. I wasn’t going to say anything but this is going on too long’.

‘All about what?’

‘You’ve split up with Donnie, haven’t you? I could hear it in your voice the last couple of times on the phone but you didn’t say anything so I didn’t say anything. I’m worried about you.’

‘Mum, there’s nothing to worry about. These things happen. I’m absolutely fine.’

‘You’re not fine. You’ve been off your work for months. Ellen McNicol tweets me every day, her granddaughter is a student in the college.’

Daphne had forgotten what an insidious network of old-lady contacts her mother has.

‘Agnes Preston was on Facebook last night and she says that she never sees you in Asda anymore.’

Hotmail, Twitter, now that Mum has got to grips with
technology
she’s better informed than Interpol, thinks Daphne.

‘What’s wrong with you, pet?’

‘Nothing Mum, honestly, I’m fine.’

‘Now Daphne, you’re going to make me angry. You wouldn’t be off your work if you were fine. The doctor must have put
something
on your sick note. Please tell me, Daphne, I’m worried sick. I could email Janice Dickson, she works part time in the surgery, she would tell me quick enough.’

‘I’ve got free-floating anxiety. At least that’s what it says on the sick line, but there’s nothing wrong with me, I just need a break.’

‘Tell the doctor to give you Sevezonor, I was on that, it works pretty well.’

‘
You’re
on antidepressants, Mum?’

‘Oh no, not now. I’m in Australia now.’

The weather is too warm now for Daphne’s big coat but she hasn’t got anything else to wear. On the other hand, wearing a big coat in warm weather will indicate to the doctor that Daphne is still ill and needs her sick line extended.

She has phoned ahead to check the doctor’s availability and it’s perfect. Dr Wilson is on holiday and a locum doctor will be taking the open session today. But when Daphne approaches the reception area the treacherous Janice Dickson is on duty.

‘Oh hello Daphne, how are you, love? How’s your Mum getting on over in Australia?’

As if she doesn’t know. She’s probably already compiling her report ready to email it as soon as Daphne leaves the consulting room. Mum will be up to speed on what diagnosis and treatment she is to receive before Daphne has even made to it to the chemist’s. Janice Dickson will no doubt post it on the
Nosey Old Biddies
Facebook page

Entering the waiting room is another traumatic moment. She is stealing herself for an encounter with Carol but, mercifully,
lightning has not struck the same place twice. Carol is not there. Daphne likes the doctor’s waiting room, she likes the atmosphere of calm. The chairs are not hard plastic; they are old-fashioned comfy armchairs. The magazines are always quality. The radio plays quietly in the background, easy listening, Radio 2. The other patients wait patiently, reading the magazines. They look up briefly when she comes in then go back to their reading. No one notices her. Daphne begins to relax. Then Janice Dickson comes and speaks to her.

She whispers loudly, drawing the attention of the other patients who listen while pretending to read.

‘Oh a bit of good news, Dr Wilson has popped in to pick up her mail and she’ll see you.’

Daphne does not consider this to be good news. Dr Wilson is a good doctor. What Daphne wants is not a good doctor but a busy doctor, an unfamiliar, box-ticking, sick-line-writing,
repeat-prescription
-giving, no questions asked, doctor.

‘How are you, Daphne?’ says Dr Wilson.

‘I’m fine. I mean. Still the same.’

Daphne’s face is scarlet, embarrassed by such obvious lies.

‘That’s been a wee while now. The tablets aren’t making a
difference
yet?’

‘Eh, a bit, but I still feel… I don’t feel ready to go back to work, I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to, I’m keen to get back but I’m just, I’m scared and I can’t go back yet. Don’t make me go back yet. I’ll resign if you…’

‘Daphne, nobody is going to make you do anything. And don’t worry. I can see from your records that you have no history of absence. You don’t have to convince me of your illness though I think you may have yet to convince yourself.’

Daphne begins to cry.

‘I’m going to sign you off for another month. Now, can you roll your sleeve up please? I want to take your blood pressure.’

With the tears rolling down her cheeks Daphne complies. At least the sick line is secure; her humiliation has not been for nothing.

‘Your blood pressure is a wee bit high. How are you feeling, I mean physically, Daphne?’

‘Eh,’ Daphne clears her throat, ‘okay.’

‘Your fingers are a bit swollen. Any swelling anywhere else?’

‘No.’

‘Let me see your knees.’

Daphne hauls her voluminous coat up around her waist and clings to it as she hoists up the legs of her baggy tracksuit trousers.

‘Hmm, they’re a bit swollen, too. When did you last have a period?’

Daphne thinks carefully before answering.

‘Now. I’ve got my period just now.’

‘Oh. Well, can you call the surgery when it finishes? I’d like to examine you. And I’ll need a urine sample today. Here,’ says Dr Wilson, fishing out a glass tube and handing it to her, ‘just hand it in at reception on your way out. And Daphne, don’t be so hard on yourself. We all get ill sometimes.’

Daphne can only nod, she is scared she’ll start crying again, and Janice Dickson is out there.

There is a queue for the toilet. A wee boy is in front of her and while she is waiting a man comes and waits behind her. Pressure. Inside, the toilet is clean and comfortable and the wee boy hasn’t peed on the seat. There are paper towels and a pump of liquid soap advertising a drug company. The soap is a lemon colour.

The first time she does it Daphne puts in too much soap. The mixture is bright yellow and a bit frothy. Too obvious. The next time she puts a much smaller amount in and pours the water in slowly so as not to cause any bubbles. It’s perfect.

Daphne smiles as she hands the sample tube to Janice Dickson who calls out after her, ‘Give my best to your mum when you speak to her.’

‘Yeah,’ says Daphne, sending Janice her fiercest optical death rays, ‘you too.’

Donnie is sick. Sick and tired and baw weary although his balls have seen little action, save for the occasional lethargic wank, since
he returned from Egypt. Since before Egypt, in fact, but Donnie would rather not think about Egypt. He would much rather sleep. His bed is warm and quiet and dark, he has pulled the blackout blind down, sealing the room against the harsh noise and light of the world.

He gets up to go to work and when he comes home he makes a sandwich and a cup of tea and stands eating it in the kitchen before laying the heavy burden that is his body back in the bed. He sets his alarm for work the next day, he has to, despite getting upwards of fourteen hours of sleep a day, he wakes up tired.

Donnie knows he should go back and see his doctor, not to show him his mosquito bite which has since completely disappeared, but for head medicine. He knows that the long sleeps are a symptom but he can’t be bothered to make an appointment and anyway he likes sleeping. He supposes he should be disappointed that he is apparently unable to function normally without antidepressants but if this is what it’s like, who wants to function normally?

Bertha refused to sit with him on the return plane journey. He pleaded with her but she instructed the girl at the check-in desk that she was to be seated as far as possible away from this gentleman. She held their British currency and forgot to leave him money for a drink. It was a long flight. He sat with a family, in a row beside a mother and a boy of about eight years old who didn’t seem to understand that hitting air turbulence wasn’t a fun thing.

While Bertha enjoyed one gin and tonic after another, the nearest Donnie came to a drink were the mini cans of Coke the kid next to him slurped noisily throughout the journey. During the flight, throughout several thirsty, terrifying and lonely hours, Donnie hated Bertha.

When the plane landed she waited for him to disembark and acted as if nothing had happened. She was cheerful, more cheerful than she had been throughout the holiday, making jokes, holding his hand and kissing him, as they waited at the luggage carousel for their bags. Donnie began to think that maybe they could put the ignominy behind them, forget about it. They had left Egypt and would never return, why not leave the memories and never
revisit them? He certainly could if she could. Things could be okay again. He didn’t hate her. He had given up everything to be back with her, how could he hate her?

‘Right,’ said Bertha on her return from the long queue at the ladies’ toilet, ‘I’ve phoned Mum and told her we’ll be over, she’s made us our dinner.’

‘What, now? We have to go to see your mum now? We haven’t even cleared immigration yet.’

‘I know, I know, it’s a nuisance, if it was up to me I’d go home first and get out of this hideous T-shirt, but she knows the
problems
we’ve had and she’s worried. There’s something at her house that I need to pick up, toiletries and stuff. And anyway, we have to go, she’s cooked.’

‘She knows the problems we’ve had?’

Donnie knew exactly how Gertie would react to the problems they’d had and how those problems will be portrayed. Gertie will eat this up and sook the bones dry. In her unstinting desire to
belittle
Donnie his mother in law will embroider the events, working the outlines into shimmering broad tapestries. She’ll turn his every little mistake into a powerful legend: How Donnie Mistook The Tour Guide For A Terrorist, How Donnie Exposed His Cock In The Temple, The Strange Tale Of Donnie’s Grossly Inflamed Anus, How Donnie Broke The Air Conditioning And Ruined Bertha’s Holiday. And last of all, best of all, the story the grandchildren will crowd round her to hear at family gatherings: the hilarious When Donnie Had Spiders Up His Arse.

‘Bertha, I’m not feeling well,’ Donnie said sadly as he kissed her goodbye. ‘I have to go home.’

He could see Bertha was confused. Gertie had cooked, they had been summoned, and here was Donnie refusing to attend. He was openly defying a Gertie edict.

Sleep. It’s like getting really, really drunk without the expense, subsequent embarrassment, or shocking hangover. When Donnie is asleep he doesn’t feel scared, or sexually frustrated, or a failure. The problem is that after more than a week of long sleeps, Donnie can sleep no more.

Instead he notices how grubby the kitchen has become. Also it occurs to him that he hasn’t yet emptied his suitcase. At 4.30 a.m., after he has cleaned the house from top to bottom, he finds the leaf. He is scrubbing the back of the door and notices that on the underside of the metal box he has fitted to prevent the neds from torching his flat, a rotting piece of vegetation protrudes. He unscrews the box from the wall and finds two halves of the now dried out leaf. He knows instantly what it is, where it has come from and what it means.