you get what not

Jo warned me, twice, ‘behave yourself’. But she didn’t trust me. Bundled me out the front door, and shoved me down the steps to make sure I got the message. ‘The walk will do you good.’

            ‘But it’s pissing down.’

            ‘Tough.’

            ‘There’s nowhere to go. Nuffin’ to do.’

            ‘You’ll find somewhere.’ She glared at me, nostrils flaring.

            Scuffing the heels of Adidas Samba back and forward on the two-by-two slick wet slabs delayed the inevitable. I sniffed and cleared the back of my throat and went to grog on the patch of grass and weeds that was our front garden, but thought better of it. ‘I’ll probably die of my death of cold.’        

            ‘No great loss there.’ She banged the door shut.

            ‘Cow!’ I said under my breath.

            Sticking balled fists into denim pockets I ambled up the hill to see who I could spy. I wasn’t daft. I knew what my sister was up to. Her fiancé was visiting. I couldn’t remember his name. Something la-da-da-da. A lawyer in the place in which she worked.  He wasn’t up to much. Arrived like a swell, nose like a seagull. Shambled about in our living room like a camel that had run out of desert. The way he dressed was a hoot. A cardigan waistcoat and three-piece pinstripe. Really, you couldn’t have made him up. You’d have thought with him being a lawyer he’d have been talking ten to the dozen, but it was left up to me—until Mum shut me up with a clip to the back of the head and the promise she’d tell Da. But he’d be on my side.  I could see what my sister was getting. At least he was a lawyer.

            I couldn’t see what was in it for him. Sis was flatter than an ironing board. And in the good-looks department she had a face like a bucket and was the equivalent of office space where they kept the mops, brought out once a day and then locked up and hidden. I’m sure she had her good points. I just didn’t know what they were.

            Rab’s mum answered the door when I chapped. Said he wasn’t in. She always said that.  Cross-eyed cow. She’s a funny smell about her as if she’d been dipped in pee.  One eye on Tuesday the other eye flipping over to Wednesday. No wonder he wasn’t in. Didn’t know where he was. Shut the door in my face.

             I tried Campbell’s, but he was getting his dinner. The fat cunt was always eating. Kebabs or Greggs at lunch time. Stuffing his fat face. Thinking with his nose. Always had loads of money for sweets. I didn’t say that, because his mum was hovering about behind him in the hall. Thought I was a bad influence. She was a fat cunt too.  

            ‘Catch you later and we’ll get that wee thing sorted,’ I said to Campbell. She didn’t like that. Would quiz him later about what I meant.

            The only thing to do was to slope off home. Sis would be out with her fiancé and I could watch Star Trek in peace. They were going out for a big fancy meal, Radnor Park Hotel, with the potential in-laws. Mum would be alright. She got on great with everybody. Da was reliably unreliable.

            Mum had warned him about forks. Da liked to eat with the flat end of a knife. No one mentioned spoons. I imagined him hiding the soup-spoon for his ice cream. He always coughed up a ready excuse. Like that time he went to McGrorty’s funeral wearing my mum’s pink anorak.  I’d have been embarrassed and probably flung myself on the coffin and killed myself. He said it was raining and his coat was minging because he’d slipped coming home the night before. Nothing to do with the drink of course. There was no harm done. It wasn’t his funeral and beside he didn’t even like McGrorty. He was only going as a mark of respect. God I’d love to see his face when the bill comes for the meal.

            I giggled imaging la-da-da’’s parent’s sheep- like faces when Da started his carry on.

            I trekked up the side path and pushed on the handle of the front door. It was locked. All the lights out. Fuckers.