The Fall Girl (16 page)

‘Yeah.'

‘Jaysus! Could he see where your mouth was?' Orla, the other girl, asks.

‘Shut up.' Jackie makes a swipe at her.

‘He didn't stick his tongue up your nostril, did he?' Lesley winks at me.

‘Ah, fuck off, will youse? He was a fucking great kisser, if youse must know. He wore the face off me.'

‘Oh, you randy wee bitch,' Orla says.

‘You mean lucky,' Lesley says. ‘I haven't had a decent snog in weeks. Did youse go far?'

Jackie opens the top two buttons of her shirt, revealing a big, dark red bruise just above the top of her bra.

‘Oh my God!' I stare at the mark. ‘Did he punch you?'

‘No, he didn't, ya big innocent gobshite ya,' Jackie says. ‘It's a love bite.'

Orla sniggers. ‘She's in bad need of a fella,' she says to Lesley about me. ‘You should fix her up with someone.'

‘Would you be on?' Lesley says, nudging me.

I have no choice but to say yes. I want nothing more than to be like these girls – cool, wise, experienced and entitled to look down my seasoned nose at the likes of Kat Mulcahy or any other girl who hasn't the guts to live the way I intend to from this moment on.

‘Don't tell me you've never kissed a fella.' Jackie stares at me with an incredulous frown.

Lesley throws her a disgusted glance. ‘Of course she has. She met someone when she was on her summer holidays up in Mullaghmore, didn't you?' she says, turning to me, her big, brown eyes purging the lie.

‘Yeah.'

‘What was he like?' Orla wants to know.

‘Oh, don't ask.' Lesley shakes her head. ‘She's not ready to talk about him yet. It's a long story, isn't it, Frances?'

‘Yeah.'

The girls are intrigued. ‘Ah, go on, Frances,' Jackie says. ‘We'll not breathe a word, will we, Orla?'

Lesley sneaks a look at me and makes a stupid face.

‘On me mother's life,' Orla says, licking the tip of her index finger and crossing her heart.

I cover my face with my hands and laugh. My shoulders are shaking.

‘Now look what youse have done, nosy bitches!' Lesley says, putting her arm around me. ‘Can't you see she's still in bits over him? Just the mention of his name and she breaks down.'

‘But we didn't mention his name,' Orla says. ‘We don't know it.'

‘Rock,' Lesley says.

‘Rock!' the girls shout together.

‘Yes,' Lesley says, and I moan hard with the pain in my ribs, ‘as in Hudson, only twice the ride.'

‘God! We didn't mean to upset you, Frances, honest,' one of the girls says.

‘It's OK.' I wipe the tears from the corner of my eyes.

‘If youse want to make it up to her, go 'way and buy some fags. There's nothing like a smoke in a crisis, isn't that right, Frances?'

‘Mmm,' I nod, lifting my head for a puff of air.

‘Jaysus, I'm really sorry,' Orla says, hugging me.

‘Never mind sorry,' Lesley says, ‘just get her a fag.'

Both girls root in their pockets but manage only 12p.

‘Don't look at me,' Lesley says. ‘I'm broke.'

I give them the 30p I have left after buying two bottles of Coke for Lesley and myself on the way down the hill from her house. It's still not enough for a packet of ten.

‘Fuck it,' Lesley says, ‘if I don't get some nicotine into my bloodstream quick, I'll smoke that bloody telegraph pole. Come on.' She takes my hand and pulls me to my feet. ‘We'll be back in a few minutes,' she tells the others.

‘Rock!' I say when we're out of their earshot.

‘Well, it's better than Aloysius, isn't it? Or Francis. Oh, imagine that – Frances and Francis – poxy or what?'

‘Definitely poxy.'

‘Whereas Rock …'

‘Oh God, what am I going to tell the girls the next time they ask me about him?'

‘Don't get your knickers in a knot. We'll think of something.'

The shop door squeaks as she pushes it open.

‘Shop,' a woman shouts from a room behind the counter.

A man in his forties comes out in his Sunday best. ‘Well, lassies.'

‘Hello, Mister Jermyn,' Lesley says. ‘Oh, look; you're wearing the same tie that I gave my daddy for Father's Day. You were with me when I bought it, Frances. Remember I couldn't make up my mind between it and the blue one?' She gives me a dig.

‘Yeah.'

‘It goes lovely with that suit. You've great taste.'

‘Oh, th … th … th … th … thanks very much, love,' the man says, straightening the tie. ‘Though I didn't pick it myself. I'd be no good at that crack.'

‘It doesn't matter who picks the clothes, Mister Jermyn, so long as there's a decent peg to hang them on. And you're not a bad peg, is he, Frances?'

‘No.'

‘Oh, you'd give a fella an awful big head, so you would,' the man laughs. ‘Anyway, what can I do you for?'

‘Just a couple of bags of cheese and onion please.' Lesley holds out her hand to me for the 30p.

‘Twenty-six pence please, girls.'

Lesley hands him the money, leaning across the counter when he turns to the till. ‘They're good, sturdy boxes, them Tayto boxes, Mister Jermyn. Would you have any to spare?'

‘God knows, I might, love. Why?'

‘I've a whole load of stuff at home ready to take out to the sale of work, only I have nothing to put it into.'

‘What sale of work is this?'

‘They're having one out in Crosslea where Frances lives. It's for Trócaire, isn't it, Frances?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Well, if youse hang on there a minute, I'll have a wee gander out the back and see what I can come up with.'

‘Are you sure you don't mind?'

‘Not at all. Why would I?'

‘Thanks.'

‘How many do you need? One … two?'

‘Two'd be great, cos she has a pile of stuff needs packing too, haven't you, Frances?'

‘Mmm,' I nod.

As he disappears through the swinging doors, Mr Jermyn is whistling chirpily.

Before I have time to draw breath and ask Lesley what she's up to, she's in behind the counter swiping packets of fags from the cigarette dispenser.

‘Lesley!'

‘Shut up, will you?'

I'm hopping from one foot to the other. My heart's doing a sprint.

‘Jesus, Lesley, hurry up, I think I hear –'

She slips back out from behind the counter and starts stuffing cigarettes into my jacket pockets. I try to protest but it's no use; there's a packet in each pocket and two more stuffed into her bra.

‘Take the guilty-looking face off ya,' she says, zipping up her bomber jacket, ‘unless you want to get caught.'

Get caught! What's she talking about? I haven't done anything.

Mr Jermyn backs his way through the doors carrying two boxes, walks out to the customer side of the counter and hands one to each of us.

When we thank him, he holds the front door open for us.

‘I don't care what people say about you youngsters today
having no religion about you, as far as I'm concerned what you girls are doing now is far more important than any amount of praying.'

‘And I don't care what some of the smart alecks of teenagers say about you adults,' Lesley says without a hint of mockery, ‘I don't think you're a generation of morons.'

As soon as I hear the shop door close, I start to run. I'm convinced that Mr Jermyn will notice the missing cigarettes straight away and come tearing down the street after us.

‘Relax, will ya?' Lesley says, catching up with me.

‘I can't believe you did that. What if he cops the missing fags?'

‘He won't,' she says, taking the box from me and throwing both down the mouth of an alleyway. ‘He'll be back in front of the telly now, watching the afternoon film.'

‘How do
you
know?'

‘Did you not hear the cowboys and Indians fighting every time he came through the swinging doors?' she says, breaking into a tribal dance on the footpath, tapping her open mouth and imitating an Indian war cry.

I fold over laughing. I can't help it. She could have got us both arrested for shoplifting and it wouldn't have cost her a thought. But I don't care. I still love her – my crazy, beautiful friend.

Lesley changes her mind about going back to the town square. She wants to sell some of her cigarettes to her brother Keith, so that she'll have the money to go out dancing later on.

‘What about the girls, Lesley? They'll be expecting us.'

‘Yeah. And they'll be expecting free fags too. Fuck them. Come on,' she says, linking my arm.

Half-way up the hill to her house, we stop at the children's playground and sit on two swings. There's no one else around.
The chains screech as we throw back our heads and swing as high as we can.

‘Yahoo,' Lesley roars, and I turn my bobbing head to look at her. Her neck is elongated. Her black tresses are flying through the air like an open fan, skimming the ground each time the swing drops downwards.

I haven't been on a swing since Aunty Lily died and I've forgotten how good it can feel. I love the soothing motion, the wind in my face, the way I can close my eyes and think about nothing.

When I hear Lesley's shoes scuff the gravel, I snap out of my trance and slow down the swing.

‘Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to go home at all?' she says, straddling her seat to face me.

‘It's all right for you. Your parents are really liberal.'

‘My parents don't give a shite. There's a bit of a difference.'

‘I wish my mother didn't give a shite. I swear, she's worse than Hitler.'

She extends her right arm and roars at the top of her voice, ‘
Sieg Heil!
'

An old woman passing by on the footpath staggers and looks anxiously around to see where the outburst has come from.

‘Was that you, young Kelly?' she says, looking through the wire at us.

‘No, Missus Costello, it was this one here,' she points at me, ‘she's my German pen pal.'

The woman ogles me suspiciously.

‘Up Ireland,' she croaks, punching the air with her knobbly fist. ‘Never mind your oul
Sieg Heil
.'

When we burst out laughing, she mumbles something and then hobbles on.

‘Lesley, you get on well with your
mother
, don't you?'

‘I did … until yesterday.'

‘What happened?'

‘I had a big row with her.' For a moment her eyes look glassy.

‘Over what?'

‘Not helping her out around the house,' she says, taking two cigarettes from the packet. ‘Sandra was working yesterday, so I was supposed to do the shopping, the vacuuming and a whole load of other crap as well.' She strikes a match and we light up. ‘I told Mammy I had to call down to Jackie first, but promised to be back in an hour. That was at ten in the morning. I didn't get home until ten last night.'

‘You're codding me.'

‘I'm not,' she says, smirking.

‘Were you not shitting a brick going home to face her at that hour?'

‘No. Why should I be? I'm not her bloody slave.'

‘What did she say?'

‘She went pure mental … attacked me with a wet fucking dishcloth, the demented bitch. I swear, I was just waiting for her head to start spinning, like that possessed kid's does in
The Exorcist
.'

‘Did you not feel awful guilty, letting her down like that?'

‘Says she who'd stick a knife in her own mother if she got half a chance.'

‘That's different. My mother
is
a demented bitch. But your mother … she doesn't be well, does she?'

‘Hey, whose side are you on? She said some really rotten stuff to me, so she did.'

‘Like what?'

‘That I was just like my stinking father.'

‘What did she mean by that?'

‘That I'm a liar and a cheat, I suppose, cos that's what he is.'

‘Oh.' Her father had made me feel very uneasy the day I'd met him on his upstairs landing, but Lesley has never talked much about him one way or the other.

‘She must really hate me, comparing me to that oul bastard.'

‘Is he really that bad?'

‘No, he's worse.'

‘How?'

‘Well, he's hardly ever home for starters, and when he is, he struts about the house like he's lord of the fucking manor. Mammy could collapse in front of him from an asthma attack and he'd barely lift his head up over his newspaper to check if she was still breathing.'

With reluctance, I remember my surprise at Lesley's own indifference towards her mother when we'd found her bent over the kitchen sink, gasping for breath.

‘It'd probably suit him down to the ground if she croaked it. Then he could hammer away at the widow across the border and have nobody to nag him about it.'

‘What?'

‘He's having it off with some widow woman from Keady.'

‘You mean he's having an affair?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Jesus, I can't believe that! I've never known anyone to have an affair before … except for President Kennedy that is … him and Marilyn Monroe.'

‘Well, I suppose if my mother was living in the White House with a shitload of servants, she wouldn't give a bollocks, but seeing as he spends half his wages keeping yon tramp in gin –'

‘You mean, your mother knows?'

‘Yeah – they're always rowing about it. It's no secret: everyone knows.'

‘Janey Mac, that's awful.'

‘The whole reason we came home from England was because Mammy couldn't stick his cheating any longer. We lived in a huge estate, ten times bigger than where we're living now. According to Sandra – she remembers better than I do – there was always some husband or other banging on our front door claiming that Daddy was screwing his missus.'