Our Ladies, page 11
Kylah and Chell had bought Magnum ice cream lollies, were sauntering alongside the main street windows, frowning at their mouths in the sun-dark shop glass, tongues streaking out and whippling round the curved ice cream, making sure there was no chocolate on their lips. They came to a door entrance served by a single stereo speaker lashed in polythene. It was banging out Citadel by the Rolling Stones. A blackboard in pink chalk told of the Cocktail Happy Hour now in progress. Chell and Kylah looked at each other the once and without talking, stepped in.
Sorry ladies but you can’t eat those in here.
Kylah had her head turned almost on its side, cheek on shoulder, to lick her lolly.
Three guys sat end of the bar gave the girls a steady, predatory, more-than-the-onceover. One guy says something in another language.
What IS it wi barkeepies in this town? Chell looked through her still-on-sunglasses.
I just don’t know Chell, Kylah says aloud, and leaned on the metally bar top.
I’m no spoilsport, but they just won’t let you bring food in. We have a menu.
Chell and Kylah looked at each other, took their sunglasses off. Kylah goes, Can we see yur cock … (then she lowered her voice) … Tail list.
Tears were in Chell’s eyes and she near cracked her shite in the hysterics. Chell says, Am near cracking ma shite at you!
Leaned further over and the barman had gone a beetroot brasser, Kylah says, Have you got a liquidiser to make yur COCKtails in?
Sure.
Kylah pinched Chell’s Magnum out of her fingers, passed both lollies cross the bar thegether, while going, Well mix both these in wi a bit cream, Coca-Cola, Malibu and Southern Comfort.
The two girls curled up onto the stools tapping their skirts flat on their thighs.
The barman looked at them.
Can we have an ashtray? Chell smiled.
Kylah went, And two shots of Sambuca.
Am getting real cheesed off wi her, says Manda and she took a swallow of the Hooch Orla’d bought her.
They’d gone back up onto the street where the first pub was and plumped for one called the Auld Hundred, so’s Manda could try on the Doc’s. There was a good juke box but no atmosphere, just some mildly bonkable city lads in Adidas tops, wolfing lager in the corner, but they were smoking Lambert and Butler! Ah mean for fucksake! When the girls come out the toilet the barwoman had put the two Hooches on the bar and the nicest of the guys called, Why do lassies always go to the toilet together? Like he was original or something an he was starting to seem more of a dippy student than anything else.
Cause we don’t have a polaroid with us, went Manda.
So we check eaches make-up, Orla explained, Can’t trust mirrors.
Eaches?! Eaches!! Ha, ha, ha.
Cmon, Manda rolled her eyes to the farest-away-from-the-guy area then snatched her Hooch up offof the bar and when they got over there Orla was whispering.
Steady on Manda, he was pretty cute.
It’s our first pub, if we start hitting on the boys the now, they’ll be a fucking queue of butchers’ dogs ahind us by seven.
You know how slow ah am at coming forward, it’ll take me all afternoon.
You can do much better than that.
Do you think ah should take out ma braces? She grinned and her lipstickedness slipped up over the mess of wire and silver solder lumps.
Only if you’re going down on him.
I’m saving that for the bouncer at the Mantrap if he’ll no let us in the night, Orla smiled.
The girls laughed, glugged back at their Hooch using two fingers neatly clicked round the bottle necks.
What’s it actually like?
Ah telt you!!! I telt you at Christmas. Mind that orange medicine you’d get for upset tummies? Just like that but … but queerer … musty.
Mmm.
Ah mean there’s such a fuss made bout it. But we’ve all of us gulped down a big grogger when we’ve got the cold, have we no?
Hee! If Chell was here know what she’d says?
At the same time the two girls goes loudly, AHHH, DINNAE SCUM US OUT! and they squirmed round on the seats in hysterics.
But you’re meant to be such a heroic bimboic if ya do it and it’s just nothing special, there’s worse and besides ah’ve always been … Manda kind of leaned forwarders and dropped her voice … Ah’ve kind always been in to it and, like you won’t say to Fionnula nut?
No-no.
Not really in here you know? she pointed her finger into her mouth, But, more … all over ah always liked, cause outside and that, round the back of Mantrap or down on the blaes in the dances, it’s so warm when it comes out them.
Orla’s was the lowest whisper, Like on your face?
Manda, nodded her head quick and patted the open school shirt down near the bra ribbon, with a flat palm, An here too, on them. Once ah saw steam come off it in the moonlight an …
Who was that?
Ahm no telling.
Go on!
No. But ah tell you, you really need your mirror and that and you’ve got to hold your hair … ah … sorry but see … you’re perfect for it!
Orla laughed.
Got to make sure ya keep your hair the fuck out of there and no wi black on.
So it’s really warm?
Hot sometimes. Ah mean ahve only done it couple times but it was something I wanted to do; see me, ah just do things ah want to, Manda lit up a cigarette. She went on, See, Catriona had these nuddy mags under her bed and I could just go into her room and look at them any time ah wanted cause she knew dad would never tell me anything, periods and that it was all left to Catriona and you know? She’s just great, eh?
Aye she’s great, aye. Where did she get them?
Och Ex’s, same as Fionnula.
Oh right.
An there was this photo in one and it was guys, y’know, it was pretty disgusting cause it was more than one guy and they were going all over this girl’s face and here, an I was really a bit freaked out y’know, it seemed heavy like, but one Christmas, Catriona got us this face cream an it was in one of those plunger dispensers, you know? So it scooshes it out on palm of your hand, when you shove it down.
Oh aye.
Well if you kind of squeezed it sudden, turned on its side, it would shoot out this white face cream.
Orla laughed, surprisingly, deep, horny chuck-chuckle.
Like then there was that issue of More, aye? The wanking one: ‘get relaxed in bath, make sure you won’t be disturbed,’ all yon shite. An we were all trying it … well, in ma bath ah put milk powder under the hot water tap cause I like the feel, mind ah’ve told yous … ?
Aye.
So am sat there, in ma milk, going at it, in full commotion an when I happened, splash up the hand’ve been using, grab the face cream an go, YAH!, jet a shoot right in ma face pretending it’s Rob Lowe or that coming on me so it was obviously something that was preying on ma mind.
Orla let out a real shriek of hysterics. So you pretend, it’s spunk like!
Manda Tassy looked around, Well I don’t do it anymore, I do it for real, but ah used to, aye.
Well you’ll need try it wi all these subMARiners the night, like wee Maria McGill was saying this morn.
Aye, SubMARiners, Manda put on a big, deep voice and the two girls laughed.
Am getting really cheesed off wi Fionnula, says Manda who took a swallow of the Hooch Orla’d bought her.
I don’t see why ya don’t just buy stronger cigarettes.
It does work out that wee bit cheaper. Chell was tearing the sticky bit offof her Rizla paper and wrapping the wee holes in the filter of her Silk Cut. She says, Try. Ya can really tell the difference.
Kylah held the cigarette under her nose, squinting at it then took a draw on the modified fag.
Mmm. No just want one of ma Marlboros? She handed it back.
You shouldnie be smoking them.
Why?
Ruin your voice for the band.
What about you. You’re a Soprano!
Aye, but your voice is serious. That’s what happened Yolanda McCormack; fore you joined, Yolanda was a Soprano.
Never! Goes Kylah.
Honest Injuns. She smoked Silk Cut Extra Mild, great Soprano voice, then she started getting out at nights, smoking Marlboro Lights, next term she was down to the Seconds, then she starts on the straight red Marlboro and when we went on the French trip, she smuggled back two cartons those French cigarettes. Gilroy or something?
Don’t know.
Anyways, they were brutal though they smelled nice. Six weeks and Condom had her singing bass alongside Fat Clodagh.
Kylah briefly held up her Marlboro. Ah fuck it, am thinking of going solo anyways and sides, ah need more fags. Want some?
Nah, I’ve seven here, you’d be best waiting for a newsagent, you’ll only get eighteen in these machines.
Well ahm no smoking your contraptions. Got any pound coins?
Chell fished into the zipper poke of her backpack, took out a wee purse: emptied coins onto the metal bartop. The girls slid around some change, Kylah replacing everything she took with the equivalent, then going, That’s forty pee ah owe ya. Kylah slid, gingerly offof the stool an crossed over the cigarette machine.
The boys end of the bar watched her, smoking her last, crossing that floor towards the machine then dropping the coins in. She punched the Marlboro icon then there was the per-usual hesitation, till the packet dunked down into the sluice. Kylah reached out a hand then suddenly paused. She bended her knees a little then twisted, turned her body as if to shield the packet from view of the foreign-speaking boys. She patter-pattered her fingers gainst side of the machine, just above her packet of Marlboros then suddenly walked back, awkward-like with a big red brasser on her mush.
What’s it? Chell hissed.
Ma fucking skirt’s too tight to bend down an get them out!
Chell looked down at her own.
Go give it a go.
Ma skirt’s shorter an tighter than yours, Chell goes, between her teeth.
Pleeeease Chell.
Och. Chell popped down offof the stool and pranced over to the machine, pausing at one point to turn and smile at the end of bar boys who’d quite shamelessly put down their coloured cocktails, rested their cigarettes on ashtrays to stare.
Chell attempted the required kneel, crouched and gave a rapid downward tug to the riding hem of her skirt, changed position and attempted to drop further, then grimaced, abandoned the attempt and walked back to Kylah.
No way José. Not without showing that lot ma fanny or ma ass and that’s no a choice am willing to make.
Excuse me. Excuse me.
The barman turned round and moved up past the fridges.
There’s a problem with the cigarette machine.
Oh. Hold on there. He turned and walked to the far end of the bar where he exited the already lifted hatch. He crossed to the machine where Kylah was stood.
How much did you put in?
Oh it’s no that, it’s just ma skirt is so tight I couldn’t lift the packet without taking it off, you couldn’t lift those out for me could you? Please?
What’s she cheesing you off about? goes Orla, who’d leaned forwarders and shoogled her new boot.
Och ah don’t know. Like when she cracked up at Kay Clarke the day, ah mean we all know Kay’s an asswipe but there was no need to give her such a slagging, the lassie was near greeting.
Aye, suppose.
And all that she was saying, what was it all? middle class and that, ah mean Fionnula would never ha says that stuff last summer when we were just all having a great time getting off with those guys. It’s like now she really thinks she’s got something we don’t have, as if we’re no all the same anymore, and she’s something special.
Mmm. Maybe.
And sometimes, ach sometimes she’s a bit … tartishly bimboic. Like ah know she’s got a great figure and that, but she’s aye showing it off now, like there in Rest & Be Thankful, she NEVER shuts the toilet door these days, like Saturday nights in the Mantrap, LAST Saturday it was the same! Sat wi knickers and tights round her feet and lassies she hardly knows coming in and she’s just so … ach so … like the time with Iain Dickinson, handjobbing him during the slow sets at yon dance; that was the start of it. It’s like everything has to be showing off now.
What do you mean?
Well look, I’ll try explain something weird.
What?
See when we were aw looking down on that couple shagging at the hall there.
Aye!
Well ah was only half looking at them, ah was really looking at Fionnula, our Fionnula, an, ah can’t really describe it, but ah just had this awfy feeling of jealousness, cause she was just staring at this two, fucking in broad daylight an ah think that kinda stuff’s a big thing to Fionnula, ah think that’s what she wants to be doing.
Aye but it is sexy for some people, they might get caught an that!
Ach aye, but it’s no getting caught, it’s wanting all to see, an when ah started slagging the lassie outside, calling her Dirty Hoor an that, I knew in me, inside me, ah was sorta seething at Fionnula, ah was really slagging Fionnula when ah was going on like that, bout yon lassie … though ah suppose yon girl is a bit of a dirty hoor doing that, it was really Fionnula ah was getting at.
Do you feel you’re sort ah losing her as your best friend?
Ach, this is starting to sound like Rikki Lake.
But that must be how you feel.
It’s. Manda paused. It’s she needs to top everything. Like this morn when Michelle was there and you were feeling the baaby kicking. Fionnula went up last, slapped both hands on her belly and had to stand there, just for ages, gazing into her eyes, like she was the fucking father or something …
Orla laughed.
Or like Mystic fucking Meg, with these hidden powers an she goes all spacey.
Orla laughed again.
Suddenly Manda smiled again. Sometimes ah think she’s on drugs. Ecstasys or that; no telling us.
Orla just smiled an shook her head. There was a bit of silentness. She leaned forward again, These boots are starting to hurt me.
Like with Catriona, she’s just so cool, you can talk about anything and she tells me everything about herself, but ah feel ah know Fionnula less an less.
Thanks for that.
Quite all right.
Kylah and Chell were back at the bar and Kylah was unwrapping her Marlboros, There was this girl up there, aye, she says to the barman. Thirteen-year-old and she got pregnant from the guy who fills all the cigarette machines up our way.
The Marlboro Man! goes Chell.
Thirteen! goes the barman.
Oh aye. Back of the van in the carpark. We’ve got these friends right, Fionnula an Manda, an there’s this population sign outside the Port, wi like, six thousand four hundred or whatever, writ on it an when that girl got pregnant they went up one night an painted ‘six thousand four hundred AND ONE’ at the end of it.
The barman laughed.
Chell says, She had her wee baby and ah hear, subsequently, it became a heavy smoker!
They all laughed.
Girls, the barman clapped his hands, would you like to try one of my special cocktails?
Well we’re a bit short on money now.
In a lower voice, to Chell, Kylah announced, We’ve to meet Fionnula in HMV.
On the house, he smiled.
They shrugged, On you go then, says Chell.
Manda?
What.
I was quite, ah got really horny when ah saw them two screwing.
You couldn’t see the guy hardly!
Ah know, it was a shame, but it was the idea more than anything.
Manda shrugged, lit another cigarette.
Manda, keep a secret?
What?
It’s about when ah was in hospital.
What?
I tried to screw this guy who was in a coma.
What?!
Kylah and Chell tumbled from under the polythene lashed speaker, the Volkswagens of rock were giving it a more recent composition above their heads.
What way? Chell whipped on her sunglasses.
Cmon, Kylah linked arm with Chell and, one eye turned slightly towards the sun, they strode ahead.
Wow-wee-oww. Jeez-oh, Orr! Manda blew out then smiled.
Next day he was tied down to the bed wi belts, Orla sighed.
Kylah an Chell stood mong the racks of a hundred thousand CDs, Chell scanned this way then that.
What IS this shite they’re playing? Kylah announced and she fished out the boys’ shopping list, unrolled the twenty pound notes and looked at them.
Where the fuck is she? Chell goes, then she looked at the roll of twenties and went, How much you got with you the day?
Me maself? Thirty-three pound left.
How much they give you?
There’s a hundred and twenty here.
Chell looked round, impatient once more, then goes, What was that you says bout going solo?
Do you think that’s sin?
Nut. We’ve all been to same school but ah believe suicide is an only sin; abortion is okay, sex before marriage … all that, obviously anything goes, but suicide, ah can believe your soul goes to limbo. Fionnula thinks that’s the only sin too. If you ask me, you were being kind to the guy, sort of.
It was the fact he was helpless, that he couldn’t do anything that made me do it. That’s what am really into, handcuffs and that, I’d love to try that.
Aye Orr but you should start in the shallow end. We need to get ya set up with a nice guy, you bonk the daylights out him with a flunky on then you can start trying all the bondage Barbie stuff.
Sounds okay to me.
Cmon then, let’s get out here.
Right.
Fionnula (the Cooler) was moving below the high sun, the bag containing her school clothes, hung on one shoulder, her cheap sunglasses held with two fingers, the arms still extended. She was walking, pausing at street corners and looking, squinting up when it was against the sun, to read street name signs, then moving on with purpose. She had moved downhill away from main streets so the sun tended to be off behind the big, solid buildings to her left. Huge wreaths of sunlight fell out of the street ends. Buses, taxis and expensive cars moved through the bright areas.
