Paula Spencer

  But that's just rubbish. She knows. It hadn't been great. It had never been great. It's all changed now, anyway, the area – the estate. Or it's changing. It used to be settled. It isn't any more. The cafe is a start. And the new name on the pub. There's two groups of people living here now. Those who call it the old name and still go in, and those who call it Finnegan's Wake and don't go in.

  —What's it like inside? she says.

  —What? says Jack. —The pub?

  —Yeah.

  —Alright.

  —I haven't been there in ages.

  He says nothing.

  —Have they done much to it? she asks.

  —Not really, he says. —Just pictures and that.

  —The usual, she says. —You can't do much with a place like that.

  She came out once and he was standing at the door, in the cold, only his shirt on. She went home with him. She put him into the bed beside her. She cried, once she knew he was asleep. And promised.

  Jack knows.

  But it's grand.

  She doesn't miss it, the pub. Not at all. She hated it.

  She hasn't been in a pub since the smoking ban. She wonders what it's like. It's good that Jack will be working smoke-free. She feels good for thinking that.

  —D'you smoke, Jack?

  She doesn't look at him.

  —No, he says.

  —Never?

  —No.

  —Ever?

  She's no one to be talking.

  —I don't like it, he says.

  But she's his mother.

  —Good, she says.

  It's not too late. It's not meaningless.

  —Here we go. Plates now, Jack.

  He gets the plates. He takes dry ones off the rack beside the sink.

  —D'you want butter on your toast?

  —Cool; yeah.

  —Good lad.

  She goes to the fridge. Happy days. She has to move things out of the way to get at the butter. Real butter. Kerrygold.

  They sit at the table. They say nothing. They eat their rasher sandwiches.

  It's later now.

  She's staring at the plate. She can't do anything else. She's afraid to.

  She waits.

  The house is empty. She thinks she heard the door slammed twice. Leanne and Jack. She doesn't know which of them went first. She thinks they're gone. She's not sure.

  Leanne.

  Jesus.

  She screamed at her. Leanne did. She screamed at Paula. She hit her.

  Leanne hit her.

  She can still feel the sting. The shock of it.

  She slapped her. Across the face. Said sorry.

  —It's okay.

  Jesus.

  She's been sitting here for hours. She thinks she has. She thinks the house is empty.

  Today is her birthday. Her daughter has just attacked her.

  She won't let herself get corny. She has to be honest.

  She stands up now. She looks at the clock. She took it down off the wall a few months ago. It had been stopped for years. She took out the old battery. She brought it down to the shops and asked if they'd any more like it. It was one of the old batteries, one of those huge ones, before Walkmans. But they'd had one and she bought it. She brought it home and put it into the clock. She washed the sides and the glass, and she put it back up on the wall.

  She looks at it now.

  She's been sitting there for half an hour.

  She goes to the kettle.

  It's been coming. She knows it has.

  She empties the kettle. She fills it with new water.

  Leanne is an alcoholic.

  But Paula's not sure. She isn't certain. She's a bit of a reformed hoor. Everyone's an alcoholic.

  She puts the kettle onto its stand. She presses the switch. She looks out the window.

  Leanne came in after Jack. Paula'd heard her getting up. Jack was back up in his room, maybe back in the bed. Full of his rasher sandwich.

  Paula listened, as Leanne moved around in her room. She heard her on the stairs. And she was frightened. Of what she was going to see. The signs, the face. Red, wet eyes and broken lips.

  The kettle's nearly there. She hears it starting to rumble.

  She's pleased with herself. That's odd, and kind of indecent. But it's true. She hasn't let the slap become the thing she can't get past. She's over it. She isn't – but she is.

  The kettle clicks itself off.

  She throws a teabag into the cup. She pours the water onto it. She watches the colour glide out of the bag. Like red smoke. She likes that colour, before all the water turns that way and darkens. It would look great in her hair. Just a splash of it. A streak down the side.

  What does an alcoholic mother say to her alcoholic daughter? It's shocking. It's terrible. But Paula's not falling down on the ground. She's not running away or pretending it's not there, or screaming and making it worse. All the things she's done before and will probably do again.

  I am an alcoholic.

  She's facing it.

  She drinks her tea standing up. She needs the energy that standing gives her, the alertness.

  Leanne walked into the kitchen.

  It wasn't just the early-morning mess. The mad hair and last night's mascara. It was the colour of her skin. The veins on each side of her nose. The look in the eyes that came straight at Paula, the anger and panic, terror, the whole lot coming at her. It was Paula looking straight back at Paula.

  Help.

  She understands. She knows.

  She knows fuck-all.

  It's there in her head before she thinks of it. The putdown. She knows fuck-all. But she does know. She knows hatred when it's coming at her. She knows how to duck it. And she knows the hatred comes out of herself. She needs no help from someone else. Paula knows her stuff. She's done her research.

  Leanne walked into the kitchen.

  —Jesus, Leanne.

  Leanne didn't answer. She went to the fridge. She stood in front of it.

  —Leanne.

  Leanne stood with her back to Paula. She was waiting.

  —Leanne, love.

  Paula saw the anger. In the shoulders. Love. The word had nudged her. Like a spike.

  —We have to talk about this.

  —About what?

  —Come on. Sit down. Leanne.

  Leanne opened the fridge.

  —What?

  She talked into the fridge.

  —No juice in this fuckin' dump.

  —Stop that, said Paula. —Come here.

  Leanne turned.

  Her little girl. She's not being corny.

  —What? said Leanne.

  —Look at you, said Paula.

  —Look at yourself.

  Paula nodded.

  —Fair enough, Leanne, she said.

  —Fuck off, Ma, would yeh.

  —Leanne.

  She stepped towards Leanne.

  —Leanne, love.

  —Stop it!

  Before she could get her arms to Leanne. The slap came at her – she could see it coming. But it was gone before she understood.

  She sat down. She had to.

  —Sorry.

  She heard Leanne. She didn't look – she couldn't. She nodded. She managed that.

  —Sorry, right?

  Paula stared at the plate. And the piece of rind she'd taken out of her mouth a few minutes before. The crumbs, the bit of congealed butter that had dripped from the sandwich. She fixed her eyes to the plate.

  It's good. She's confronted it. She's started. We have to talk about this. She's doing what she should do. It's good.

  It's fuckin' sick. She's climbing over Leanne so she can feel good about it. Knocking her down to help her up.

  But that's not true. It's not fair at all. Leanne's in trouble – Paula's fault. But that's not fair either. She's doing her best. She can't go back, to stop it from happening. She can't blame herself for saying Yes when her husband asked her to
dance that first time. She can't blame herself for starting to drink. She can, but she won't. She's always blamed herself, for everything. It goes without saying now; it gets her nowhere.

  She's doing something. She won't let it go away.

  She never thought of Leanne as someone to keep her company. To drink with her at home. The two of them skulling the bottles. They're more like sisters, aren't they? She tried that with Nicola. She bought Nicola a bottle of vodka for Christmas. Wrapped it and all. Nicola was sixteen.

  —Happy Christmas, love.

  Paula shivers, just thinking about it – letting it in.

  —Are you going to open that bottle? she asked her a few days later.

  —I gave it to Tony's ma, said Nicola.

  Tony was her boyfriend then. Her husband now.

  —That was your Christmas present, Nicola.

  —Weird present, said Nicola. —Anyway, it's gone.

  —Bitch.

  She still thumps herself, thinking about it.

  It'll never go away. That was as low as she got. But she only knew that later.

  It hasn't happened this time.

  She's ready.

  That's a fuckin' laugh. Leanne didn't lick it off a stone. She grew up with nothing else. And a few good months aren't going to change that. There have been good months before. Paula could count them. They won't add up to much more than a year.

  Enough.

  She'll do her best.

  She puts the cup in the sink. She's late for work. She goes looking for her keys.

  It's later again. It's after work. She cleans houses four mornings a week. And she has to work again later. She does offices, five nights.

  She's doing the shop. She's going to get a cake as well. Jack and Leanne will see it on the table later, and then they'll remember. If Leanne comes home.

  The supermarket hasn't changed. It's still a bare shell of a place. It has none of the fancy stuff that you'd find in Tesco's. It's changed names a few times but it's still the same. The same people go in and out the door at the back, where the offices are. The management team. The women on the check-out are nearly all foreign. That's the only real change.

  Paula tried to get a job here once. They told her they'd let her know. A woman with ALICE on her badge interviewed her. She stood in front of Paula, blocking her way, telling her, more or less, to get out of the fuckin' shop.

  It's a bare old place. It always has been. They just rip the tops off the boxes and pile them up, on top of each other. The only real shelves are around the sides, on the walls. The aisles are made of pallets and boxes. It's never busy. There are five check-outs but only one of them is open. She's surprised it still does any business. She walks on to Tesco's when she has the money. It's half an hour. But today she just wants the basics.

  The basics. For fuck sake. She could tell you the number of times she's made it past the basics.

  It's getting hot. It's been like this for a few days.

  Her sisters both have mobile homes. Somewhere near Courtown, near the beach and that. They're always at her to go down. She'd like to. She went there once, when she was a kid. And she went there as well on her honeymoon. She'd love to go back to Courtown. But she feels a bit frail when she isn't at home. She doesn't trust herself. Yet.

  Carmel and Denise spend most of the summer down there. Once their kids get their holidays, they pack up and go. She isn't envious – she really isn't. Jack's too old. And he has his summer job. He wouldn't go with her. Leanne went to Spain somewhere, last year. A whole gang of them. She's going nowhere this year. She hasn't mentioned anything. But it's early. It's only the start of June. That would be good. If Leanne came home with the holiday brochures. Last year she'd the whole thing booked before she went back to work after Christmas.

  There's an African woman on the check-out. Nigerian, or one of the others. What other African countries do they come from? Paula doesn't know. There are wars everywhere; you could never keep up. It's the first time she's seen a black woman working here. Good luck to her. She's lovely. Her hair up in a scarf. Her long cheekbones. Lovely straight back.

  What would Charlo think? she wonders. What would he have said about it? Charlo was her husband. He died before all these people started arriving. Before the Celtic Tiger thing.

  She smiles at the African woman. The woman smiles back. Bread, a carton of milk. A half-dozen eggs – she fancies an omelette later. A few tomatoes, two big onions. Cornflakes. Coffee.

  It's nice. She knows she has the money. She didn't have to do the arithmetic when she was filling the basket. The euros are in her pocket.

  That job. There's nothing to it. Holding the things – the items – over the yoke. Swiping, she thinks it's called. You just swipe them over the little light thing. She'd be well up for that. The cleaning tires her out. It always has. She hates the hours, going to work when people are coming home.

  —Please. Twenty euro and thirty-seven cent.

  The black girl, the check-out woman.

  Lovely voice.

  Paula gives her a twenty and a five. She's beautiful. Charlo would have called Paula a lezzer for thinking that, for saying it. It's funny, she doesn't know if he was a racist or not. She hasn't a clue. She'd know these days quickly enough. They're all over the place, the foreigners, the black people. Is that racist? They're all over the place. She doesn't know. She means no harm. It's just a phrase. And she doesn't mind it. She likes looking at all the foreigners. Some of them scare her a bit. The Romanians, the women. They're a bit frightening – wild, like they've come straight out of a war. But most of them are grand.

  The woman here gives her the change coin by coin. Onto her hand. Her nails are perfect; she's painted them white.

  —Thanks.

  —Thank you.

  —Bye now.

  —Goodbye.

  Deep voice.

  Paula has her plastic bag with her.

  —Lovely day, she says.

  —Yes, says the girl.