Nobody Loves a Ginger Baby (22 page)

Dates: 12th of January, 25th of April, 6th of October, these dates are significant but he can’t remember why.

His tucks his chin into his throat, stretching out the tendons in his neck, feeling that any minute they’ll ping, rupturing so that he’ll no longer be able to support the weight of his head. His head is heavy with unfinished thoughts, thoughts too scary and
confusing
to complete.

He’s upped the dose to three Valium but he still can’t sleep. He lies curled on the couch watching old football videos. He can’t get organised enough to record the current matches but it makes little difference. He’s stopped even changing the tape, playing the same one over and over again. It’s soothing, knowing what’s going to happen, knowing the score. The commentators make the same predictions, tell the same jokes. He slides in and out of dreams that he can’t quite remember but disturb him none the less. It’s an alarm, a really loud one that has woken him.

It doesn’t stop and Donnie begins to wonder where it’s coming from, it’s really loud. When he makes it to the hall he realises it’s coming from the bedroom. That can’t be right. He opens the
bedroom
door. It is right. On his sweat-sour unmade bed a ball of fire is scorching through the sheet and tousled quilt. The smoke is blackening the wall. Why is his bed on fire?

He should do something; he should put out the fire. He stumbles to the kitchen to get water and stumbles back again empty-handed. He doesn’t want to throw water on the bed. The fireball is made up of a large brick wrapped in newspapers. Black slivers of soot fly up the way, the opposite colour and direction of snow. They fly up towards the jagged-glass broken window. Ah, now he’s sees. The neds have done this.

Understanding galvanises him. He takes a corner of the quilt and beats out the flames. More soot flakes rise but it only take a few beats and the fire is out. What is left is a charred brick, fragments of newsprint and the remains of what looks like a dog turd. That old trick. With beating the flames out the shite has been smeared on the quilt, on the bed, on his hands. And then he is sick.

A few hours later he wakes up again, back on the couch in front of the football video. He scrubbed his hands as best he could but he can still smell the dog shit. He would take a shower but the towels are in the bedroom. He can’t go back in there again.

Pierce is celebrating. He’s had an email from Daisy. She says she is ‘excited’ by the three chapters he sent and would like to see the complete manuscript as she has a commissioning deadline at the end of the month. ‘Excited’, I bet she is, thinks Pierce, I bet she’s creaming her pants. What a masterstroke that was, holding out on her.

The one slight problem might be that there is no complete manuscript; three chapters are all he has. Three chapters are all he’s ever managed before getting bored with the project and ditching it for a new idea. Pierce is really a poet; he finds it difficult to rattle out pot-boiler novels to order. In fact he has found it impossible. So far. But he has not had this kind of motivation before. Daisy has practically said that if he can give her a novel she’ll buy it.

So fired up by this offer is Pierce that he resolves to get stuck in, get the head down and just work, all night, every night if necessary,
until he has a complete manuscript, he’ll start it right away. Right after he’s had a few celebratory pints with his mate. Just to lubricate the knuckle joints and the wheels of his imagination.

For once Tam doesn’t have a gig or band practice. He gives Pierce a congratulatory high five as soon as he walks into the pub. He is so pleased for Pierce it is shining out of him.

‘Aw man! How good is that?’ Tam says repeatedly as Pierce tells him about the email.

‘I always knew you were going to do it, I fucking knew it!’

Pierce is pleased and grateful but he recognises Tam’s relief.

Tam has been a bit strange with Pierce recently. Not unfriendly in any way but shy, reticent. Ever since his band was signed he’s been modest, reluctant to tell Pierce of his good fortune and how much money he’s about to be paid. He has a big-shot music business lawyer now who has cut him a fantastic deal with the
publishers
, but Pierce did not hear this from Tam. It was the other band members who boasted on his behalf.

This had saddened Pierce. It put distance between them, the distance was how far Tam was travelling towards success while Pierce stood still. Just like Frank at the book signing, Tam was embarrassed at leaving his friend and mentor behind. As things stood Tam would move on and away from Pierce, it was
inevitable
. But now with Pierce’s publishing opportunity they are fellow travellers again.

The evening is going well. Pierce and Tam are back to where they used to be, Pierce at the helm and both seem more comfortable with that, but a few pints in, Pierce has to sound a warning note.

‘Tam, I can’t be out all night. I’ll need to get back and get stuck in, I’ve got a tight deadline, the end of the month, I’ll need to go some to do it.’

‘Aye no bother, Piercey, whatever you like. I want to get up early tomorrow as well. I’ve got a riff I need to work with, I just made it up on my way here, want to here it?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Well, it’s nothing fancy but I think it’ll work really well for a song I’ve just finished. It’s like,
dum dum dum dum,
do do do
then
it changes
dum dum dum dum dum do do do
, d’you hear it?
Dum dum dum dum
do do do
, then it goes back to the start again.’

While he is demonstrating this Tam is playing an air guitar, plucking the strings with one hand while the other slides up and down the imaginary fretboard. He makes a tunnel of his lips as he hums the notes, unselfconscious, completely taken up with what he’s doing, creatively in the moment. Pierce nearly cries with the beauty of it. To stop himself from crying, and after he has told Tam how good the riff sounds, he gets the next round in.

Now that Pierce is no longer to be left behind in the fame and fortune stakes, an element of competition creeps in.

‘Mind you,’ he says, ‘I might not get the groupie action you’ll get but still, at least mine’ll be posh tottie, with a brain in their heads.’

‘Who cares about brains? As long as they get their drawers off.’

‘Well said that man!’

‘Once your book comes out the two of us’ll be baw deep in starfuckers, whoooeeee!’ Tam shrieks.

And the celebrating continues.

Daphne makes a succession of phone calls, the first one to her mum. The phone rings five times and then the answering machine clicks on. It is her brother Albee’s voice, in the background she can hear his kids. The baby, Daniel, is howling while Albee’s little girl Eva is singing. She sounds so Australian. Even Albee sounds Australian. ‘Hi!’ Albee chirrups, ‘You’ve probably just missed us but leave a message and we’ll get back to you! Don’t be a stranger!’

Mum is so proud of her successful son and his lovely family, she sends new photos every other day by email. It is all Daphne can do to send back gurgly one- or two-line responses agreeing how lovely the kids are and how fabulous the house is. But when she hears the voices she wants to cry. Albee’s house is so full of fun and love and Australian sunshine.

‘Hello Albee, long time no hear, eh?’ Daphne is waiting for them to answer. She has no idea what time it is in Australia but she’s hoping that the family are out in the garden having a barbie, cracking open a few tinnies, that they’ll get to the phone before she cracks.

‘Hello Esther and Eva and Daniel, hello Mum. Hope you’re all well. I got the photos, you’re all looking great as usual. Just phoned for a wee chat. I’m missing you all. Mum, phone me back. I’m missing you, I’m so missing you.’ Daphne catches herself sighing, a deep lonely sorrowful sigh, and realises how pathetic she sounds.

‘Oh well, nobody home. Phone me, Mum, when you get this message. I’m not feeling well, I want to talk to you.’

It is a good ten minutes later before she regains her composure and makes the next call. Also an answering machine.

‘Hi, Carol here. We’re not able to take your call at the moment blah blah, leave a message.’

We’re
not able? Who is we? Daphne had intended to ask Carol to come round. She would have begged if necessary, and knowing what a selfish cow Carol is, it probably would have been. She knows it’s hypocritical to call on the help of someone she despises but Carol is the only woman available and she needs a woman now. But Carol is not answering, the self-centred bitch probably has a man there with her. She’s probably giggling and shooshing him right now while she listens to the message and he removes her clothes. But it’s the blah blah that really gets to her.

‘Carol? Are you going to answer? No? Just as well because I phoned to tell you what I think of you. Yes, it’s me, Daphne,
remember
? Just phoned to tell you that no matter how many shades of blonde you dye your hair – oh and by the way, I know it’s grey, I saw it the last time you were here – no matter how much you spend on your turd brown clothes, no matter how sassy you think you are, at the end of the day I pity you, yes, I pity you because you’re a selfish self-obsessed fuckwit and…’ Daphne is crying now, ‘and nobody loves you!’

She bangs the phone down. Her heart is racing and her face is hot. She’ll have to get a grip, she’s has no idea where that poisonous rant came from. It’s too late to do anything about it now, Carol will have heard it or will hear it when she comes in. So be it.

She takes five big breaths before dialling the next number. She has to look this one up in the phonebook. She really is scraping the bottom of the barrel now. But it’s another answering machine.

‘Hi, Pierce McCormack here, Editor in Charge, Poyumtree Publishing. Sorry I’m unable to take your call at the moment but please leave your number and I’ll get right back to you as soon as I return to the office.’

A snort of laughter escapes Daphne when she hears this and softens what she was about to say.

‘Pierce, it’s me, Daphne.’

She keeps here voice bright and hard like glass.

‘Just wondered if you fancied coming up for a wee plate of
soup. I’ve made too much and I hate to throw it out. If you’re not otherwise engaged with laydeez, would you pop up and see me when you get in? I’d really appreciate it. Eh, don’t bring Tam or anybody, just come on your own.’

She returns to pacing the floor but her tummy is sore and the panic is getting worse. There is no one left to call. Everyone is out. Everyone else has a life. There is one call she hasn’t made and she still remembers his number, but no. Not now, not yet.

She needs to go to the loo again and while she is straddling the toilet pan, her distended belly pushed out in front like a bad case of kwashiorkor, terror overwhelms her. Something terrible is going to happen if she stays here. She has to get out of the house.

She’ll go to the deli, buy stuff for soup. That way if Pierce comes up she really will have soup to give him. Stick to the routine, that’s the thing to do. She grabs her big coat though she’s sweating and it’s a lovely warm night. So eager is Daphne to get out of the house that she nearly forgets her purse and has to go back to the kitchen to get it. Everything’s going to be fine, she tells herself, but she knows deep down inside with the rumblings in her belly, that it isn’t.

Instinctively Donnie dials a number. He doesn’t even know what number he’s dialling, he should call the police, but when the answering machine clicks on he knows. Daphne sounds cheerful
Hi, I’m not here just now but leave a message. Cheers.
She says.

‘Daphne it’s me. Pick it up Daphne, pick it up.’

Donnie’s crying now but what does it matter?

‘Please. Pick up.’

She doesn’t pick up and Donnie smashes the receiver on to the cradle. Probably out with the BMW bastard, he thinks. I have to go round there, I have to tell her, she’ll understand, unconditional, she said.

The phone rings. It’s her. She’s not saying anything but he can hear her breathing.

‘Daphne please, speak. I love you. They threw a shitty brick through the window, those fucking neds, there’s shite all over the bed, I don’t know what to do, Daphne, please, speak to me!’

But she doesn’t speak. A voice laughs, a man’s voice and Donnie throws the phone across the room.

Daphne keeps having to stop in the street. She leans against a bus stop shelter, a shop window, a car. She leans into the pain,
curling
like a hedgehog. She crosses her legs tight, locking them, one foot hooked behind the other knee. The pain consumes her, the only thing in her life. It is always the same, a white hot heat that floods her body and arrests her brain, a religious experience in its intensity, demanding all of her attention. While it’s upon her she doesn’t know where she is, who she is, who she was, who she will ever be again. It is not that she has forgotten it’s just that these things are now of no consequence. The pain is a bottomless well of searing agony, timeless and infinite, and yet it does end, and Daphne staggers on.

This is embarrassing; people will think she’s on heroin. No one approaches her and she is glad of it. She is slick with sweat. Her face is shining and her clothes slide, lubricated, across her body as she walks. When she gets to the park she is going to roll in the cool grass. Now she understands why horses do that. This is the best idea she has ever had and it drives her on. She is walking smartly now, every step tugging at her intestines, gravitational force pulling her guts out of her body.

In the park she reaches the long grass and the trees but the pain comes at her again and she must give in to it. She has no idea how long it has lasted but when it has stopped and she is able to take stock of her surroundings, she finds she has locked her arms around a tree. She has slid down into a squat with her knees wrapped around the thick trunk. Holding hands, holding her own hands, feels okay. The tree is warm and alive, it’s mature, all grown
up, it’s roots are deep and solid. The bark has dug its impression into her thighs and her face but it is not an unpleasant sensation and she must cling on there.

Treehugger
, that’s what Donnie would call her.
Treehugging
hippie
,
as though treehugging was a bad thing. Daphne has never hugged a tree before, never felt the need, never saw the point, but now it feels good.

He has unplugged everything and then as he’s locking the front door it occurs to him that it would be a better idea to leave it open. The keys are left dangling in the door and the alarm system switched off. Downstairs as he comes out of the close he hears a phone ring and wonders if it’s his but it’s too late for that now.

It’s a warm night and they’ll probably be drinking Buckfast up at the railway embankment. Or what used to be the railway
embankment
and was remodelled, at great expense, as a cycle path. Or what was briefly a cycle path until being once again reclaimed as exclusively ned territory.

He walks along the path, his feet making a satisfying crunch on the broken Buckie bottles. In the light of the bright full moon he picks out an empty can of cider and kicks it along, clattering it until it disappears into the undergrowth. The steep embankments on either side of the path are a jungle of bushes and thistles and wild flowers. Their perfume combine to overwhelm the smell of piss except when he enters tunnels. In the tunnels he hums loudly and swings his arms as he walks. Come and get me.

It’s a lovely night for it. Funny he thinks, the way things turn out.

There are no other people on the path. Tunnels and more
tunnels
, he passes the bridge over the river. If he met them now he’d throw them one by one into the shallow river and watch the water turn red with their blood. He imagines their gurgling screams as they lie, bones smashed, unable to move, drowning in knee-deep water. And then he hears them.

Instinctively he darts into the bushes but halfway hidden, as his feet become enmeshed in nettles and sticky willow, he
reconsiders
. Better to meet them head on. No, stupid to give them an advantage. Keep the element of surprise; wait till he can see the whites of their eyes. He pushes further in. Except that this has been a tactical error.

In the bright moonlight he sees that he is standing on a narrow shelf. There are only a few feet of mossy earth and then a
twenty-foot
drop to the river. Another foot and he’ll fall into the gorge. He crouches and clings to a young tree. The neds stop and sit or otherwise lounge around the broken bench that overlooks the river. Panic rises in Donnie’s chest: If they find him they could easily push him over the edge, and no witnesses. It’ll be his blood running in the river.

He can hear the usual ned noises: laughing, bellowing, swearing, they’re close enough for him to make them out. They’re wearing the uniform, the usual neddy sportswear, trainers and caps. They are typical generic interchangeable neds, four of them, but amongst them there is a tall gangly blond one and a wee red-haired runt. These are
the
neds. The ones who hang around the close mouth at the door of the sun tanning shop, the ones he squirted the piss-filled Super Soaker at, the ones who, no doubt, by way of retribution, lobbed the blazing shit brick though his window.

‘Heh Doyle!’ he hears the red-haired runt call to the big lanky one.

I knew it, Donnie thinks: a Catholic, a typical dirty bog-trotting Tim. Doyle looks about sixteen, with blond bumfluff on his chin, but he’s a big bastard, big feet and long arms, and young, he’ll be quick on his feet. But it’s a relief to know he’s not a
Protestant
; Donnie would be uncomfortable killing a Protestant. At this thought Donnie’s legs feel weak and he wonders if he has taken on more than he, one man alone, can achieve.

‘You coming tae Spud’s hoose? He’s got an empty.’

‘Naw,’ says Doyle. ‘Too late, man. I’ve got my work in the
morning
.’

A ned with a job? Donnie can’t believe it.

‘Aw c’mon,’ says the runt, ‘Sally telt wee Shug she fancied you, you’re in mate!’

‘Aye but I’ve got mah day release and I’ve no done mah
homework
, ah’ll need tae get up and dae it in the morning.’

A ned who goes to college and turns in homework?

Any kind of coherent discussion peters out after this as the neds revert to their more usual mode of communication: dummy fighting. Donnie’s legs are sore with squatting so long. He’ll have to make his move soon. But they’ll hear him coming, they’ll be ready, there are four of them. They’ll hurt him. Donnie desperately tries to invoke the mad burning rage that drove him here, the fearless fury, but it has run out on him. It has changed to a sickening terror of the damage four pairs of Doc Martin boots might do. He wanted to kill them he wanted them to kill him. He wanted an end to being frightened.

‘Fancy geein’ the wee man a bell?’ says the runt, laughing.

‘Aw man, whit a laugh,’ says Doyle. ‘We’ve been phoning him for months and the cunt never says nothing, he just breathes,
hhh hhh hhh
, like a fucking paedo in a playground. But the shite bomb cracked it. He’s howling like a wean doon the phone. Doyle affects a nasal whine at this point,
‘There’s shite all over the bed, I need help,’
he says!’

The other neds are laughing.

‘Too right he fucking needs help, needs fucking locked up,’ says Doyle to general agreement.

The pub is shutting and Pierce tries to talk Tam into coming to the disco with him. He begins by reassuring him that this is a cost-effective venture.

‘It’s filthy cheap, cheaper than buying pints here. Five pounds to get in on a Monday and the beer’s two pound a bottle. You can sook the same beer all night if you’re careful.’

Despite now being a big time rock star, money is always Tam’s first concern.

‘But we’re not buying any more pints here, the bar’s closed.’

Pierce tries a different angle.

‘They play all yon pop music, all the latest from the hit parade. It’s good research, you need to keep your finger on the pulse, Tam. You need to know what the pop pickers are dancing to.’

‘Your patter’s rotten,’ says Tam, but he laughs anyway.

Even Pierce can see that this is not a convincing argument and in desperation must state the crude, unvarnished obvious.

‘Monday, book ladies’ll be in, the place is hoaching with fanny.’