Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma (2 page)

Grandma had cooked mince, tatties and skirlie. It was pension day. Ma sat in a nylon nightie, one with scratchy lace around the sleeves, stirring the oatmeal-and-onion slop into her tatties.

‘Aye, well, it just wasnae what I was expectin', that's all. I've only been home a few days.'

‘I just thought, since she isnae taking the breast, it wouldnae make a difference if it was me or you. An' McHennessy's will bring in more than the dole.'

‘But I'm sick of it, Ma. The white boots that reek of other women's feet an' the buckets of bloody water an' fuckin' stink of fish guts. I'm no' a fishwife, I don't want tae be one.'

‘No' good enough fer yeh, is that it? Miss High an' Bloody Mighty thinks she's too fancy fer the fishhouse now she's been tae London and got herself preggers by a Yank? Well, what an affront. It was good enough tae put food on the table fer my ma and her ma before her.'

Ma stirred her tatties slower, twitched her left foot.

‘Naw, Ma, it's no' that. I just want tae get tae know my bairn. An' what about when you're at the bingo or want tae go down the Black Dog?'

‘I'll just take her with me of course.'

Ma stared down at her muddy plate of mixed food her lips set firm. ‘Well, I'm not doing it and yeh can't make me.'

Grandma put down her knife and fork, food half finished, and reached for her fags. ‘While you're in my house yeh bloody well will. Yeh'd think yeh've forgotten that it was you who turned up on my doorstep, without a penny to yer name or a father fer yer bairn.' Grandma didn't raise her voice, though there was steel there: cold, sharp and ready to cut. But Ma wasn't afraid, she was used to her own ma's slicing words.

‘What? An' have her dragged about from pub tae pub like we all were?'

‘An' what's that supposed tae mean? At least I could keep a man, someone fer yeh all to call yer da.'

‘But it wasnae one man, was it? It was three, an' what a fuckin' bunch of charmers an' all!'

Grandma took a puff of her fag and stubbed it out. ‘At least they stuck around an' helped tae bring some money in. And yours hasnae. That is why, my ungrateful wee daughter, you've got tae work.'

From my cocoon of pillows on the sofa I saw the gleam of the knife and fork in my ma's tight white knuckles.

‘An' where are they now, Ma, yer army men? Are you keeping them under the sink, eh? Maybe you rush off tae a penthouse at the Palace Hotel when I'm at the fishhouse? Because the last time I looked it was just you, by yourself, in this wee flat.'

She put her knife and fork on the plate. Grandma's face crumpled, like air had been sucked from her lips and cheeks, but she rallied, raised her chin, pointed a polished nail at Ma.

‘Yeh ungrateful bitch. Tae make fun of a poor pensioner who's taken yeh in, out of the kindness of her heart, offering tae look after yer wee bastard.'

‘Aye, cause yeh did such a good job of that on our first day back from the hospital.'

‘Still the same old Irene Ryan, yeh'll never change. Runt of the litter, a black sheep. Runnin' off tae London and getting intae God knows what. Runnin' around wi' a Yank that couldn't get shot of yeh quick enough. You always were a nut job but I ignored the gossip, held my head high an' I never loved yeh any less.' Grandma's teeth slipped out and she snapped them back in. ‘Yeh've never been a proper Ryan, yer nothin' better than a cuckoo in the nest.'

I felt myself roll sideways, watching Ma's stunned face upside down before I saw a rush of velour and my arm and shoulder exploded with a thump, my cheek scraping itself across the sour-smelling brown carpet.

Silence, a stilling of six lungs, as Ma and Grandma stared in horror until I screamed. I felt the burn on my silky cheek, the burst of pain in my shoulder no stronger than pipe cleaners and Play-Doh.

Ma grabbed me. ‘Are yeh alright?' She picked up my limbs and shook each one. ‘Is she alright?' She turned to Grandma who took me in her rough grip.

‘Ach, it's nothing. Look, she's kicking away an' that's just a wee carpet burn, but this is proof, yeh can't look after her yerself.'

Ma looked over, lips tightening into a line of skin, and put her arms out to take me back. ‘I see what yer trying tae do. Yer trying tae take my bairn but yeh can't take this away. She's mine an' yeh won't keep me here by stealing her.'

Ma had her hands around Grandma's wrists trying to wrench them from my middle. My head waggled back and forth in the struggle.

‘Yer not a fit mother an' anyone would tell yeh the same.'

‘Aye? Well, look in the mirror, Mother.'

In a burst of mad genius, Ma lifted her hands to Grandma's damp armpits, gave them a tickle then grabbed me, my neck snapping backwards with the force of it.

‘Yer nothing but a bitter old bitch, an' yeh'll not see her or me again. I'm her ma, fit or otherwise, an' that's not fer you or anyone else in this town tae judge.'

Grandma pulled back her hand and delivered a slap that echoed from her fox-hunting decorative plates and rang in my ears like a scream.

‘Get out o' my fuckin' house then.'

‘Don't you worry, we're going.'

Grandma sat back in her chair, turned up the TV and didn't look round as Ma left, holding me with one arm and fingering the burning red blotch on her cheek with a shaky hand.

*

So we trundled through the rainy streets; Ma in her nightie, winter coat and grubby plimsolls and me in a Moses basket propped on my pram. Underneath me was a tumble of knickers tangling with rattles and leaky shampoo bottles.

Ma had stuffed me into my snowsuit, letting out a growl each time my slithery legs escaped. We left in a frenzy of clothes-throwing and screaming and, finally, the slamming of Uncle Frankie's note-stuffed envelope through the letter box. The scatter of notes a reminder to her ma: she was no one's Charity Case. The weather girl told us it would be ‘rain, rain and more rain again' at high volume, as if the volume itself was proof enough of how little Grandma was reacting.

The rain beat down; I imagined drops sliding down the inches of bare flesh between Ma's coat and plimsolls, slicking her bony ankles. At the phone box Ma wedged the pram half in half out and rummaged till she found a 10p piece. She tried two times before she got the right number.

‘Frankie? No, she's alright, but me and Ma had a massive screaming match an' she's chucked us out. We've nowhere tae go. Come an' get us? It's pissing down.'

The rain covered my blanket with sparkling wet diamonds.

‘What? What do yeh mean yeh don't want tae take sides? Fuck's sake! What do yeh mean go back? She threw me out an' then she slapped me, while I was holding the wee one an' all . . . I shoved it back through the letter box, I'll not have her saying I was sponging . . . Aye? Well, fuck you then!'

She slammed down the receiver, banged the window with the palm of her hand, looked at me with pity, maybe a little hate, picked up the receiver again and punched in three sharp numbers.

‘Hello?' She spoke in a posh, softer voice. ‘No, not the fire service an' not the ambulance either. Maybe the police? Aye, well, I'm out in the rain with my two-week-old baby an' we've nowhere tae go.' She listened, whispered ‘bitch' under her breath.

By the time Ma had spun half-truths (a slap, a baby, no place for the night) and half-lies (there was no storming out, no Postman Pat with twenty-pound notes, no telling Frankie to fuck himself) we had an address.

I was wet, crying the fat, futile tears of a baby who thinks she is owed something. We walked for twenty minutes, past warm squares of window and sprinkles of laughter from pub doorways left ajar. Ma cried the whole way too, her salty tears mixing with the rain and glossing her cheeks. The family that cries together stays together. Aberdeen, as cold, hard and grey as you would expect from a town carved from granite.

A woman wearing a plastic headscarf, anorak and wellies stopped us.

‘You alright, love?' She looked at the bluish stretch of skin where Ma's coat fell open. ‘Yeh shouldnae be out in this weather.' She peered into the pram at my pink screaming face and the pile of sodden clothes. ‘An' with a baby. Do yeh have somewhere tae go, lassie?'

‘We're going somewhere now. Thanks though.'

‘Where to, love? Would yeh not catch a bus?' She looked at the pile of clothes, the huge showpiece pram that Frankie had bought. ‘No. Maybe a taxi would be better for yeh?'

Ma's exhalations came out in low sobs.

‘No, honest, we're just ten minutes away now. Don't worry, we are going somewhere.'

The woman, cheeks ruddy and rounded, took Ma's elbow. ‘Then yeh'll let me put yeh in a taxi, aye?' She looked closely at Ma's face. ‘For the baby, if no' for you.'

Ma nodded. And so we three waited for a taxi to splash along the shining street. The taxi that would take us somewhere warm, after the cab driver had bundled our knickers, shampoo bottles and pram into the boot and the woman pressed five pounds into Ma's hand and made the sign of the cross when she heard the street number and name, though you couldn't have known it if you hadn't been there yourself. Ma took the note in her wet, limp hand and forgot to say thank you when the taxi pulled away.

That's how we found ourselves at the Grafton Women's Shelter, a house so inoffensive you'd never guess how many bruised faces and hopes were sheltered inside.

Years later I'm told this story, as a humorous cautionary tale about the famous Ryan Women's temper, but as Ma summoned the strength to ring the bell there was nothing funny, nothing funny at all, about a shivering twenty-year-old in her nightie and winter coat, with a screaming baby in the pram beside her.

*

A circle of light, a shiny star, flashed in the centre of the door and darkened just as quickly.

The door opened ajar showing a mousy fringe and a nose that dipped up and down assessing us. Then it opened and flooded our miserable bodies in syrupy golden light and I heard Ma exhale; breathing out the cold, horrifying afternoon.

The woman in the doorway smiled, looked closely at Ma's face, and seeing me, smiled wider. She had short hair, a haircut that made you think of a bathroom sink and a pair of kitchen scissors. Her square, short frame was covered with a green, bobbled sweatshirt and she had the kindest face I had seen in my two short weeks of life.

The hallway was heavy with the sweet smell of tomatoes and garlic.

‘Iris, is it? I'm Jane the Centre Manager.' She gave a short light laugh and smiled at Ma's expression. ‘They called and let us know to expect you. You're safe.'

Her accent was different, the
rrs
sliding like soft butter into your ears.

It was so quiet I wondered if the people who lived there ever turned up the telly or stitched their sentences with shouted swear words aimed to wound.

‘Now I'll just take you into the Welcome Room and get you set up. I'm sure you're exhausted, cold too.

We left the pram in the hallway and in Ma's arms I was ushered into a hot room with pink floral wallpaper and fat orange armchairs. There was an electric fire in the corner, yellow light dancing behind the dusty plastic coals.

In one of the armchairs, a dirty-blonde head stooped; she turned and I saw two wide blue eyes full of fright and a face like a stamped-on overripe fruit: yellow and purple, split with gashes, swollen and sunken in the wrong places.

‘Oh, Sandra. You're still waiting for the doctor? Sorry, I'll just get Iris settled and I'll see where she is.'

Ma looked at the girl in the chair, who was maybe younger than her, with her mouth open.

‘OK, Iris, we'll have a chat about everything tomorrow. In the meantime I'll –'

‘There's nothing tae talk about.'

‘Well, we won't make you talk about anything you don't want. There's time, please don't worry about anything right now.'

Ma's head shot from side to side, looking for an escape route. ‘No, what I mean is I, I'm no' like her.' She jerked her head to the girl who gave a derisive, flat ‘Ha' in response.

Ma bit her lip. ‘Sorry, I didnae mean . . . No, I just mean I think there's been a mistake. I didn't know this is where they were sending us.'

Jane placed her hand on Ma's shoulder. ‘Listen, whatever the case is with you, and everyone is different here I promise, there's a place for you and . . . what's your little girl's name? Can I?'

She opened her green sweatshirted arms and Ma settled me in. Jane smelt of vanilla and newspapers.

‘Oh, I've not decided. But listen, I don't belong here.'

The girl in the chair let out an exasperated sound, turned round and said in a hard, child's voice, ‘Listen, none of us want tae come here. Just be fuckin' grateful. Do yeh have anywhere else?'

Ma's arms hung at her sides, a shamed look on her face, and Jane looked up from me.

‘Come on, Iris. Have a shower and warm yourself up. I'll look out some clothes for you. We'll talk about how to move on after you've had a sleep.'

Ma nodded dumbly and Jane's arms loosened from around me.

‘You don't mind, Sandra? I'll just show Iris the shower room and then come back and find out where that doctor is.'

Transported from the warm sureness of Jane's embrace to Sandra's tentative arms, I felt her holding her breath, then exhale as she looked down towards me, my own little battle scar still on my cheek.

In the corridor I heard Jane tell Ma that the house was completely secure. I looked up at Sandra's big blue eyes and thought how beautiful all those beaten-up colours were.

A moderately stained mattress was brought in from the hallway into a room three others shared.

Two of them only left their beds for their meals. They sat silently, spooning in mouthfuls, gulping them down at Jane's insistence, before retreating to their duvets. One had the jutting body of a little boy and the other heavy drooping breasts and they were known, in plural, as ‘the Sleepers'. It was Jodie, our third room-mate, who first called them that and it stuck like pillow creases on their cheeks.

Jodie had a body that dipped and oozed with the suggestion of sex and dressed to show it off in sleeveless, plunging blouses and denim minis, though her skin was greying and puckered from the cold climbing all over.

Her face was generous too; she had a round lopsided nose, a blob of pallid pastry squashed there in a hurry, her teeth protruded from loose lips and her eyes bulged inside the stumpy prickles of ginger hair that circled them. The same coarse orange colour stuck up from her head in an unruly pelt, no two sections going the same way.

The first night in the Grafton Hilton, as the guests liked to call it, Jodie and Ma swapped stories in whispers, fat velvet caterpillars curling into each other's ears.

‘. . . ended up in topless bar, Mayfair though. I didnae care – before I had this one I had a lovely pair. I was chuffed tae show them off.'

‘They're still nice, Iris, I noticed right away. I bet yer heart goes out tae me, blessed with a body like this an' cursed with a mug like this. One of my boyfriends, and not the one who landed me here either, would only do me from behind. Did me like a dog so he didnae have tae see my face. An' I liked him that much that I didnae really mind. An' then he borrowed forty quid an' stopped coming round anyway.'

‘Jesus.'

‘Aye, an' he was a fat fucker an' all. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.'

Smiles lingered in the dark. Shared secrets, warmer than five blankets and a radiator.

Jodie turned on her side. ‘I'm chuffed yer here, Iris. It's good tae have someone tae talk to who isnae writing it all down and nodding in sympathy or dozing off like them two. How long will yeh stay?'

‘No idea, but not long cause of the bairn. I didnae plan any of this, Jodie.' Ma stopped, as though those fat velvety caterpillars had started crawling down her throat.

‘Well, none of us did, Iris, that's for sure.'

‘I know, an' I'm much better off than some, but the last time things weren't spinning I was in a squat in London an' planning tae catch the Victoria Line tae a clinic tae get rid. I don't know why I changed my mind and I don't think I can do it.'

Ma's voice was thick, the words rushed out in a panic. Jodie climbed from her bed; the light from the hall warming the edges of her wild hair and neat curves.

‘None of us think we can, Iris. But we do, an' you will too. Spinning or not you'll find your way.'

She brushed Ma's hair with her fingers.

‘Now get up an' share with me cause yeh'll be hot as fuck by that radiator an' I can't sleep by myself anyway.'

So we lay, two Ss and a comma tucked together, surrounded in a blanket of each other's heat.

*

We stayed at the Grafton Hilton for three weeks. In that time I saw tears fall into spaghetti-hoop dinners and spines jolt at the sound of drunken passers-by.

There were fourteen of us in total but only two kids; me and Mark. Mark was a fat four-year-old famous for putting things down the back of the nappies he still wore. A fried egg from breakfast or Jane's mini-stapler; he wasn't fussy.

Within two days, with Jodie as her sidekick, Ma was holding court at mealtimes talking loudly about her psychedelic trip to London and my da.

‘Yank. Loaded he was, but I said, “It doesnae matter tae me. Yer just no man enough for a good Scottish woman.”' Chuckles rose and fell around the table. ‘“Please!” he begs me. “I've taken eight Valium.” Eight? “Well,” I said to him, “yeh'll have a nice afternoon sleep. Now ta-ta!”'

The women laughed so loud that Jane stuck her head in to see what the commotion was. Shepherd's pie sat forgotten on plates except for the Sleepers who grudgingly ploughed through theirs, eager to get back to their beds. Jane gave them an ignored thumbs up and my ma a lingering look.

*

Since the only things I stowed away in my nappy were what nature intended I was the favourite, passed from woman to woman ‘for a hold', like a coveted toy in a poor family. Sometimes Ma would come in, smelling of outdoors and fags, and shout, ‘Where's the bairn? Jodie, if yeh've painted her nails again I'll murder yeh!'

Jodie and Ma shared mascara wands and blow-job tips and planned nights out down the Roxy, for when they had some cash and no curfew.

‘I've a suit from Selfridges in London. It cost a bomb but the Yank bought it when he was trying tae win me back. I wear it with nothing on underneath, it's dead sexy.'

Every few days Jane took Ma and, if I wasn't being petted by one battered wife or another, me into her office to discuss Options for Moving On.

‘Well, we have the house in Monarch Avenue and –'

‘I'm not moving tae Monarch Avenue, I've told yeh. What sort of area is that for a bairn? I might as well start shooting her up on smack now since that's what'll happen.'

Jane took a deep breath, nodded.

‘Or, the other option –' Jane lingered for a moment, lowered her voice as though to protect me – ‘is temporary state care; just until you get yourself sorted out? We have some really good foster-parents and it is very temporary.'

‘No, I'm not having her taken intae care. I know how it works; yeh get her an' then some posh woman with dried-up ovaries takes a fancy tae her an' I'll never see her again. No fuckin' way.'

Jane looked above Ma's head at the clock.

‘OK.' She met Ma's eye. ‘Iris, everyone here is very . . . fond of you. I especially am very fond of you indeed. But four weeks is all the relocation time we are given when there's a minor involved.'

Jane took Ma's hand, rubbed the palm with the pad of her thumb.

‘There is . . . another way. I've got a –' she gave an uncomfortable cough – ‘a spare room in my flat, and as I said I have grown, been growing, very fond of you.'

Ma straightened, her head tilted to one side as if straining to hear, though the message was loud and clear.

‘And I know you've become close to Jodie but I thought . . . well, once you're officially out of my care there's no reason I shouldn't offer you a place to stay. With me.'

Jane's face was a beacon; red, full of wishing and embarrassment. Ma removed her hand slowly and gave Jane's knee a stiff pat.

‘Jane, you're wonderful, but I'm not that way inclined. I mean, if I was I wouldnae be in this state! But I'm flattered, honest. An' I mean, if yeh had a cock, well, then –' a giggle gurgled up Ma's throat – ‘that would be a different matter!'

Jane gave a dry laugh and looked down.

Ma leaned over and gave Jane a soft kiss on her burning cheek. ‘Always worth a try, eh? Now, tell me about the Monarch Avenue place again.'

*

Two days later Jane bought us all fish and chips and bottles of pop. Mark stole a fishcake and put it down his nappy, but no one paid any attention, it was mine and Ma's night. They said how much they would miss us and smeared my face with fish-and-chip kisses. The rustle of hot newspaper filled the room as greasy raspberries vibrated on my stomach.

Ma stood, clinked her Coke bottle with a wooden fish fork.

‘Ladies, ladies! I'd like tae make an announcement. As yeh all know, so far the wee shitting an' eating machine here has been nameless as well as gormless. But I've decided she should be called after two of the best women I know.' She held me high, ‘Everyone, meet Janie!'

Silence, a few women exchanged confused glances, one snuck another chip.

‘See? It's Jane and Jodie mixed together?'

Jodie piped up. ‘All I get is “ie”?'

Ma looked at her, lowered me slightly. ‘An' the “J”, yeh both get that!'

‘Iris, it's an honour, thank you so much.' Jane's eyes shone.

‘Aye, ta very much,' Jodie said sulkily, taking a bite of saveloy.

Jane stood. ‘Everyone, a toast to Janie and Iris and Monarch Avenue!' Eyes rolled at the words Monarch Avenue but Coke and Irn-Bru bottles were raised. Ma held me above her head, and surrounded by chip wrappers, raised bottles and bruised women with wary eyes and smiling mouths, we celebrated the night I became Janie Ryan.

*

Dirt caked into every nook and cranny of 125 Monarch Avenue. The blocked coal fire had blackened the surrounding wall and the kitchen had a sweet, bitter smell that Ma couldn't get to the bottom of, but it was our first proper home. It even had two bedrooms and a back garden with a forest of nettles that the late-November weather pummelled.

We were at the end of Monarch Avenue; ‘easy escape' is what Ma said.

On the way to buy the moving-in essentials – tea, milk, bread, fags, Jif and a half of vodka – my eyes soaked in our new neighbourhood. Graffiti and scorch marks, echoes of small fires, decorated doorsteps. Golden Special Brew cans and crushed vodka bottles, bright as diamonds, collected in the gutters. Front gardens were filled with mouldy paddling pools and, occasionally, a rust-burnished shell of a car. I had never seen anything so beautiful, so many colours, before in grey Aberdeen.

Ma bought her shopping from a dusty shop with a sign saying ‘To avoid embarrassment, please don't ask for credit', and someone had scrawled ‘Then we won't have to tell you to go fuck yourself' in blue biro underneath.

Ma walked us home quickly, not stopping to look round. Three teenagers with dark lips and stiff moussed hair walked behind us.

‘Look at the state of that fat fuckin' pram,' said one who had dark eyebrows pencilled in above her fluffy pale ones.

‘Never mind the pram, look at the fat fuck who's steering it,' a taller girl said, sucking on a blue ice pole, hard enough to ignore the winter cold.

The third girl, who walked behind them, had a roll of fat around her chin and a protruding belly through her T-shirt, no coat. ‘Aye!' she added. ‘Fat bitch.'

Ma's grip tightened on the pram handles and I saw her flinch at the word fat.

‘Haw, bitch! Aye, you, yeh no going tae stop an' have a natter? Too posh fer us, are yeh?' asked Ice Pole Girl crunching at the blue ice with grey teeth.

‘Yer no from round here, are yeh? No with a fat fancy fucker of a pram like that one,' shouted Eyebrows, but Ma didn't turn round. ‘Haw, yeh stuck-up cunt, I'm talking tae yeh!'

Eyebrows took an extra-long step to catch Ma's heel under her foot. Ma's heart beat so fast I could see the pulse in her neck. Still, we had already made it past the boarded-up window with ‘NONSE' sprayed on it and in a few minutes we'd have been home and could have locked the door, maybe boarded up the windows. But Ma had lived in the town too long, established herself in enough squats, to know that closing the door wasn't enough.

Ice Pole Girl spoke up. ‘How much do yeh reckon is in tha' purse, Shona?'

They were close enough to smell cloying perfume over grubby skin and the fag breath whistling through craggy teeth.

‘Enough for a wee score, I reckon,' replied Eyebrows while Ice Pole Girl sucked the last of the juice from her wrapper and spat it towards Ma. ‘Bitch, will yeh loan us yer purse?' Ma walked faster, heels inches in front of their feet. ‘Look at that! The fat fucker is ignoring us. Well, Shona, we asked nice, didn't we? We'll just have tae take it.'

Eyebrows and Ice Pole Girl lunged for the pram's handle where Ma's bag swung but Ma pushed in front, her full body leaned forward, she looked capable of murder. She kept her voice low but her face was ferocious. ‘Get the fuck away from me and my bairn.'

Eyebrows lifted her hand and Ma jabbed her hard in the chest with two fingers.

‘I'm fuckin' warning yeh. This is your chance tae walk away. Take it.'

Ice Pole Girl rolled her eyes but didn't move. Ma gave them a long look.

‘Do yeh know my fella? No? Well, my boyfriend is Tony Hogan. Do yeh know the name? No? Well, ask yer brothers or das or yer fuckin' dealer. Now I'm warning yeh, step back or he'll not just have you lot he'll have every bloke yeh gave a blow job tae in the last six months an' all.'

Eyebrows and Chubby took small steps backwards but, credit due, Ice Pole Girl stood her ground for a second before shrugging. ‘We were just having a laugh.'

‘Aye? Well, fuck off an' have a laugh somewhere else.'

They turned and ran, Chubby tripping over her laces as she went.

Ma walked to our door as slowly as she could manage, shoulders back, looking straight ahead. She lugged the pram up our front steps, unlocked the door with a shaky hand and bolted it again before sliding down the hallway wall. I chewed my pale yellow sock and wondered who this Tony Hogan was and what would happen when Ma's lie was found out.