Our Ladies, page 6
The other girls laughed.
He says yous can do backing vocals.
There were a few snorts as Fionnula and Manda turned in their seats to look through the cigarette smoke and disco light where the three grungy-looking guys sat.
If that one had tidied himself up a bit he could’ve been cute, Manda gravely pronounced.
Fionnula drawled, Wha’d you say?
Kylah had goes, I telt them to get off home and keep on watching their fucking Commitments video!
They all bust out laughing but during the week, Kylah’s mum called her to the phone ten minutes into Brooky.
Hellop?
It’s Spimmy. Asked to join our band in the Mantrap.
How’d you get my number? she says, too quickly.
Kylah’s mum was stepping past the photo of the Pope in the porch to the front room; looked back suspiciously.
Kylah tutted.
You’re in the phone book.
How’d you know ma name then?
Ah saw … ah heard you sing at the Gaelic League, your name was in the programme.
I was crappy.
When you did Glencoe in Gaelic … you’ve just an amazing voice.
Fionnula McConnel has an amazing voice, I don’t. And Brookside is on.
I’ll phone back.
Ya will no.
Could we meet you? Me and the other two guys in the band. We had a singer but we were just making faces behind him, he used to check his hair in the new cymbals after he leapt around.
Aye? Kylah was smiling and it showed in her voice.
Ahm sorry bout Brooky but it’s no as good as it used to be; have you seen the old repeats with Harry Cross in?
Nah. Mum says he was a right dour so and so.
Oh! He’s a legend, Harry Cross.
Listen, ah’ve no sung even through a microphone before but I write songs, ah’ve got the brother’s guitar, he’s hopeless on it, no amplifier, I play unplugged.
AYE!! What are your influences?
Ma what?
What do you listen to?
Cocteau Twins … some of ma dad’s records, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Geoff Love, James Bond themes, soundtrack to Jaws, and Superstar.
Cool.
I could make a cassette with me singing on it but ya mustn’t play it to a single soul.
Look, have to go ma money’s running out.
Oh. Right. Where yous from?
Silvermines.
Aye, ah knew it was out the villages.
Can we meet you in town on Saturday?
Suppose, for a wee minute aye.
Where do you know?
Everywhere.
Will you meet us in a pub, do ya get in?
Course ah do … well in Barrels.
What time?
One ah suppose.
Right. Barrels. One.
Okey-dokey.
Bring your cassette.
All right.
We’re called … the line died.
Thunderpup, the drummer nodded, tipping his pint towards his lips.
Despite pretending to be cool, she’d washed her hair night before though she’d all Saturday afternoon when she usually did. It was piled all up with a pink scarf in and she’d on the mini-skirt, the new Converse All Stars and was chain-smoking Marlboro Lights. They bought her a blackcurrant Hooch.
The cassettes didn’t need to be listened to, those boys were going to get her in the band.
The bassist was cute but his hair was greasy and always, touch, touching it away from his cheeks; Guitar hardly spoke but he did try to impress her, saying he could play The Man with the Golden Gun on his ‘Fender copy’, that she nodded to and weeks later discovered it was a guitar.
Drummer was nice too but all that military gear shite.
I want to hear what yous sound like, Kylah said.
We brought a cassette of our last practice with our stuff on it.
And there’s another thing …
Yes? The three leaned forwarders.
This name Thunderpup will have to go.
Rest, and Be Thankful
The Sopranos had been using the undoing of singular shirt buttons as forfeits in the sadly censored strip poker. Some sat wi their blazer and ties off, since Manda Tassy sat at the side window and was losing, she’d her buttons undone down to her belly button so’s you could see the little ribbon on the front clasp of her wonderbra.
Kay Clarke, arms out steadying herself, was motioning her way up the back with a box Cadbury’s Roses that she was distributing, chatting with the Seconds and Thirds as she approached the enclave of Firsts.
Kay, Fionnula nodded.
Want a Roses?
No ta.
Rachel?
Na.
Manda?
Nut.
Kylah?
Aye go on then, always partial to a Rosey, specially Ian Brown … ah like the wee squares ones – all chocolate just, they’re blue with pink roses, Kylah dangled her fingies in the box that Kay held and nicked one out, frowning with concentration.
How is the band?
Fine, aye.
No dances planned?
Nope.
I heard that your cassette was just … amazing.
Kylah gave a hollow, dull, Aye?
I mean I heard it was just … you couldn’t actually believe it was you singing it, it just sounded like a real band … I mean like a band from a city … a dead famous big band from a city. It’s going to be a record, isn’t it?
Just a wee compilation CD, bands wi no records out, it’s no big deal and the guitar on its start is shite. Kylah looked about, We shoulda come down here an recorded in a big, proper studio. She muttered something about money, plugged her mouth with the big cherryade bottle of hooch.
Aye, well mind us when you’re famous, Manda goes, doing up her buttons.
How’s your violin-playing? Fionnula smiled, out the side of mouth.
Cello, Kay nodded. Not very good, she chuckled, oddly.
Want a sip of Natural Lemonade? Chell went, tipping the bottle at her, so the alcohol fizzed inside.
No thanks.
Cmon Kay; this is the party end of the bus.
Drink up lass, Manda snorted, You’ll get the toilet at Rest & Be Thankful.
Fionnula goes, Thing about Rest & Be Thankful, it’s the highest up pub in the country, so ah reckon the effects of alcohol there would be exaggerated by the thin air at that altitude.
Everyone laughed.
Kay shrugged and smiled, You lot going up the town when we get there then?
Too right. Are you not?
Umm, yesss. If the Seconds get the time, we’re ropey compared to you shower, she smiled at Fionnula, who shrugged. Kay went on, I was actually down with Dad last weekend anyway.
Oh oh! Well then, goes Manda. This must be a real bore for you.
How come you were down?
What? Sudden, Kay seemed a bit jumpy.
How come you were down in the capital? Fionnula goes.
Ah, just Dad was down on business so I came along for the ride, you should see River Island for clothes and Schuh for you, Orla.
Aye? Orla humphed.
What are you getting? Kay smiled.
Knee-length boots.
How much are you spending?
Suddenly, Fionnula interrupted, Hoi, hoi, hoi, what’s your business how much she’s got on her, what is it, you gonna give’r the money you were gonna pay Michelle in with the night? Fionnula twisted her lip.
Kay shrugged, Maybe Michelle didn’t want to come out.
NO Kay, course she does. She’s pregnant and grounded in her house, you ever been in Michelle’s house? Fionnula snapped on without letting her answer, Staying in at night is just for folk who have nice, BIG houses that are comfortable to stay in, where ya can get a bit privacy, in a wee house yer sat looked at the four walls, or sat wi yer folks in the front room wi the telly blaring crap … it’s a crippling feeling, magine how Michelle feels … staying in at nights is for … it’s for the bloody middle classes. Fionnula had taken a brasser and she turned to look out the window.
Kay looked and swallowed, seemed to be about bursting out with the greeting. Kay spoke louder, You five are going to ruin today for everyone.
Piss off; if you want this choir to do well it’s just so it’s another fucking badge ya can pin on your blazer or tell your dad about; well it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to me or any of us, its just a treat to get down the city.
Why though? I mean, yous sing better than any of us, we all admit that, but you are just chucking it away like, like you were saying in Guidance the other day.
What? Orla turned to Kylah.
Kylah unplugged the cherryade booze, Ach. A drop squash canie out the corner of her mush and she rubbed at it with arm of her blazer, and it was that cheap, nylony material the blazer was made from, so a wee dribble liquid scampered cross the cuff, not being absorbed.
Ach, ah just goes that I’m not ambitious with the band and that … I just want the best job in town, she smiled.
What’s that?
Behind the record counter in Woolies. Only job ah’ve ever wanted – think about it, just sat behind there wi Top 40 at your fingertips, you can play what ya want. This lassie from the proddy High’s there an am quite pally with her, mind she was hanging round with us two weekends back.
She’s quite pretty, Fionnula grumbled, still looking outwards.
Aye. Well if she keeps coming out with me, it’s just a matter of time before she’s on maternity leave!
Everyone squawked, even Kay smiled.
… Then ah’ll just close in there an … clinch the position!
Kay, Orla spoke so everyone stopped fidgeting, Kay, no everyone has to want to go to university with you.
Mind you, Kylah piped up, Ah still want to sing on a Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart CD, he gets the bestest singers; ah’m telling you!
Orla was still speaking, After what happened to me, I think we should live for today, no the morrow an …
Sudden-like, Kay nodded curtly and turned, began making her way, balancing very carefully, down the aisle. The Sopranos looked along the backseat at each other, mouths wide in triumphalism, showing the chewing gum’s blocks.
What’s up wi her? Orla popped more Wrigleys in her mush.
She’s just bored, sat there next to Ana-Bessie, ‘Ann, Ann, what’s a man?’
Everyone laughed, making sure it was loud enough to reach front of bus.
She looked near bursting out with the greets, goes Fionnula.
Guess she just can’t stand no having another fucking badge to pin to her tits.
Tits? went Chell.
Orla goes, She’s got nice tits, the university boys’ll love her.
Let’s shut up about her and get dressed dearies, I’m fucking dying for a fag, Fionnula (the Cooler) shifted in her seat.
The Sopranos began to swing round and knot their ties.
Now the bus was moving over a pass between two colossal blocks of mountain – slabs and rations of granite burst through meagre top soils, thrusting up like broken bone through split flesh.
The whole landscape was massively ancient, under scattered screes, the exposed cliffs below the glacial glens showing time wasn’t finished with the world here. A landscape from an age unslept.
At the summit, there was a huge overlook on the glen, its veering meander of the old, single track below the Main, reflecting sun on the un-usedness of its macadam, up to where the Humbers and Austins used to steam-boil their radiators outside what was once a military supply station in The Clearance Centuries: Rest & Be Thankful Hotel.
Old Jerry the driver swung in and was first off the Mud Bucket that had been specially cleaned on orders of the Mother Superior. On its normal school run, the bus windows were sometimes so filthy, the village girls couldn’t be sure they’d actually pulled up outside Our Lady’s.
Jerry was famous for swerving to hit pheasants on the Bultitude estates. When he copped one, he’d stop the school bus and scour verges.
Old Jerry headed off for the hotel foyer to try borrow a shaver – his own electric had burned out with a stinky frazzle that morn, so the busload choirgirls had given it tight to’m bout his 50 per cent beard – a perfect half from upper lip to the chaff point on his Adam’s apple above the shirt collar.
Another two, empty, Bova tour buses were parked in the lot outside the hotel.
Don’t worry, Sister Fagan, Chell says, passing her, Parrots and budgies have been knowd to survive months up home in the wild, and specially in summertime.
Oh, I hope so Rachel, The Pagan was almost snivelling again… . I just can not stop thinking of the litde soul out there, lost. I almost feel like heading straight home.
Fionnula nodded, enthusiastically.
How did he get out Sister? goes Manda.
I just can’t understand that Amanda, I think it perhaps may have been the janitor but I wouldn’t want to lay blame on the fellow. By the time I’d trotted up to chapel on my old legs, there was nobody there, Father Ardlui was in the sacristy, and he’d heard nothing.
As the Sopranos bundled into Rest & Be Thankful, Chell was hissing, Parrot don’t have a chance, the hoodies’ll savage’m minute they see him.
Wow-wee-ow!
Yanks, Manda whispered
To get to the toilets, the Sopranos had to walk through the large lounge then turn right up the corridor with the tartan carpets.
The entire lounge was crowded with elderly American tourists, talking very loud and lifting small white bread pieces to their slow-mouths. When the mouths were empty of the pieces, they started to move very quick indeed.
As the five schoolgirls walked between tables, a good few the old people’s heads followed them, the jaws work-working.
Manda lifted a sandwich off a table she passed, then grabbed another from the next empty table, there was a RESERVED sign hung on the back of the chair with this little chain attached to it and Manda nabbed that too, fixing the sign to the top button on her shirt.
The LADIES was down a corridor before the GENTS, but already a few Yank tourist women, wearing cream or fawn macs and Burberry caps, were queued, awkward-like, waiting to get in where all the cubicles had been nabbed by smokers from Seconds and Thirds, Fat Clodagh, Iona, Aisling and Assumpta most probably.
Cmon, Orla nudged, the five girls strode on, rounded the right angle, Orla shoved the door, cocked her nut in and round about and they were within the magical alienness of the GENTS. It was very cold and their laughs echoed. As they brought out their cigarettes and lighters they stared at the hissing, long trough on the far wall.
Nae mirror, Chell nodded at the four screw holes above the sink and she fired up one of Manda’s Camel.
Fucking men, eh? says Manda.
Ahm no sitting on that, Fionnula announced from the cubicle, dropping the only toilet seat, using just two fingers.
Look, Manda lifted a wee white bread piece out her blazer pocket, she peeled apart the bread and they heard the tacky ripping sound as the butter separated from the filling.
Cucumber. Manda tossed it, with a splat, into the urinal.
Yeuch, cucumber – no use to man nor beast, went Orla.
But great for a woman’s cunt, Fionnula murmured from the cubicle door and they smiled or chuckled, then stopped.
The door opened and an elderly man took a half-step inward, the clothes they saw him wearing were a flat cap and very white running shoes; a blue raincoat.
By instinct, each girl jerked their cigarettes to the smalls of their backs.
Well apologies, young ladies … apologies, the man said, backing out and scrutinising up at the door front through his glasses as it sucked closed.
The girls shrugged, blew smoke through their tittery lips.
Think he’ll tell?
Na.
Will we get in the cubicle?
No ways is Condom going to come in here.
The Sopranos smoked, slow, luxuriously. No speaking, they were quite drunk and realising it.
Ah fancy a drink, dying for more, all ma Hooch is gone flat, Fionnula says.
Mine too.
The door opened.
Aww, I do beg your pardon. Another Yank old-timer, keeked in, rapidly retreated.
Suddenly they heard the rush downward: Fionnula was hovered, knickers hanging in the network of splayed tights round her thighs as she peed.
Wop, she’s at it again! Kylah smiled, who was stood in front the cubicle.
Manda keeked, tutted and stepped forwards, Fionnula cooried a bit as she was, moved her eyes up to Manda’s face. Fuck sake Fionnula, Manda tried to step in, grab the edge of the door with both fists and pull it shut. You could see she was really annoyed, but she’d have to shift Fionnula’s crouched position to get the cubicle door swung shut; she sort of moaned and gave up, trying to smile it off, One of those old bastards’ll have a heart attack if they see you …
They heard the piss stream stop. Rattle of bog roll holder as she scooped in under her.
Aye, aye, says Fionnula, thinking, What’s Manda tutting at? Mind back when we were three or four, me, her, that wee Ginty lad, aww three us thegether on the toilet seat in Manda’s Mum’s, peeing away, me facing front, those two on sideyways and when we got off, wee tinker Ginty had done a sneaky shite … a string of little curranty, purley-wurleys and …
She’s making me need piss too, shove over, as Fionnula stepped out to the sink Kylah shoved in, pushed the door semi-shut and went about peeing.
Fionnula turned on the cold water tap slow so’s it didn’t splash.
Mmm, Manda eyed Fionnula, shaking her head.
Cmon, am gonna piss in the real place, went Chell and she was stepping outwards and turning when her head moved upways, Ooo she went.
An old man Yank voice goes, Got ya!
Several other male presences made chuckly rumbles slowly.
Chell drew her fingers up to her mouth, went a brasser and stepped back in laughing.
What is it … ? What is … ? Manda was shoving her way out the pulled door and the Sopranos jostled after her.
INT/HOTEL CORRIDOR/DAY
Five teenage school girls, kilts well above their knees, chewing gum emerge from DOOR marked GENTS.
