Love Story 15

Ali came to my room after dinner. It was too cold to do anything. So we rolled about my bed, cuddling and kissing. She moaned a few times. Flashed her big tits to entice me to do more and pushed my face into them. But I pulled away before she could get my zip down.

‘Yer no fun,’ she said. ‘If I’d another boyfriend, he’d be right intae me. Riding the fuck oot of me.’

‘But you haven’t have you?’

We could see our breath. ‘No, don’t be daft.’  She adjusted the cotton cups of her bra and pulled her purple tank-top down over her belly and over her high-waisters. She pushed up against the backboard of the bed.

I’d took off my shoes when we’d sat on the bed. She’d kept her platform shoes on, staining the sheets with her fake writhing. They added six-inches to her height, but I couldn’t imagine wearing them. It would be like walking on stilts. They buckled on at the ankle.

I’d brought the cake box with the shamrock insignia from the hall before she’d arrived. The polish tins inside and the different types of brushes. Clicked open the lid. Dad sometimes set the polish tin on fire to get the last dregs, but it was a relatively new tin.

I didn’t know I was nervous until I reached for the Oxblood.

‘Whit you daeing?’ she asked plumping herself up, which always meant rubbing her stomach like a lucky charm.

‘Polishing my shoes?’ I thought it was obvious.

It annoyed her. ‘Whit yeh daeing that for?’

It made me feel less nervous, but I said, ‘It’s just like brushing your teeth. You don’t do it for any good reason.’

She pushed my arm. ‘Yer weird. Nobody polishes their shoes before a spot of burglary.’ 

I smiled. ‘You can never be too careful.’

She opened and shut her mouth. ‘Yeh said she’d be in her bed. Nobody will ever know.’

‘God’ll know.’

She sniffed. ‘Well, He’s no likely tae inspect yer shoes.’

‘He’s more likely to inspect your soul.’ I’d an image of Mrs Connolly keeking at me from behind the door. God applying a big black mark to my soul.  I applied the polish to the toe of my Weegins and began shining my shoes with equal brush strokes.

She flung her legs over the side of the bed. Her thighs squeezed in beside my leg. I felt the heat from her body. ‘I don’t think a pregnant woman should go.’ 

‘It was your idea.’ My voice rose. ‘I need you as lookout to see if…’

She wailed, ‘But she might recognise me…and as I’m pregnant.’

 ‘But she doesn’t know you. She knows me.’ I buffed the heels of my shoes. ‘Maybe we should just call it off?’

I was hoping she’d agree to our truce. ‘Maybe yeh should jist wear a mask or something,’ she said.

‘I’m no doing that,’ I said.

She snorted. ‘Well maybe yeh should go the whole hog. Put on a shirt and tie and dae yer hair.’

‘I might.’ I stared at her face. ‘You maybe too.’

She smiled at first, her mouth falling open. ‘Whit dae yeh mean by that?’ She ran her fingers through her lank hair. ‘Yeh saying there’s something wrang wae my hairstyle?’

‘No. No. Course not. It’s absolutely fine…In fact it’s better than fine, It’s…’ I went to kiss her cheek, but she moved her mouth. I kissed her lips. Her arm whipped around my neck and her tongue was down my throat quicker than I could shout, Godzilla. Her hand pawed at my zip.

I had to use my shoulders to duck down and wrestle away from her. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘You could go into labour or something and it could hurt the baby.’

Stillness settled over her face. She reached across to the table and turned the radio on. Fiddling with warbling channels and snatches of static.

The Locomotion washed over the room. I laughed with her. She tried to pull me up to dance, but I remained rigid. She joined in, swinging her hips. Until her shoe flipped off, somersaulted, and smashed the window.

‘Shit,’ I said. And turned the radio off.

Her back was to me. A thin, grainy line at the collar and neck as she mussed her hair. A button was missing.

We heard mum bounding up the lobby. My room seemed smaller until she flung open the door. A cold, wet breeze washed through the broken window.

Mum looked at us for an explanation. Ali stood frozen. I kneaded my hands 

‘It was an accident,’ I said. ‘We were playing dancing. Ali kicked off her shoe and accidentally broke the glass.’

Mum’s gaze was drawn to the broken glass and Ali’s platform shoe. She hissed, ‘Well, if she wisnae so fat that wouldnae have happened.’

Ali blinked rapidly. Lowered her head and ducked down and picked up her shoe. She hopped and ran holding it in her hand sobbing.

We waited until the back door banged before I said, ‘Mum, it was an accident. Honest.’ 

Mum’s eyes burned with her ugly words. Then they held her sorrow. ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘That was stupid.’ She was staring at the broken glass, her shoulders rounded, but that wasn’t what she was talking about.

She settled into practicalities. ‘I’ll get something to sweep it up.’ She glared at me. ‘Don’t step on it. I’ll need tae get the Council out tae fix it. I’ll tell them somebody hit the window wae a baw or something.’

‘But they’ll know the window was smashed fae the inside.’

‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘As if they care, Inspector Clouseau. They’re no gonnae conduct a full investigation for a broken window. Yer as bad as yer da. That’s whit he’d say. They treat everything like a surprise birthday party. You remember them?’

‘Nah.’

‘That’s cause we never hud any cause yeh were too young tae remember. And they was nae point in flinging good money after bad.’

‘That’s cruel.’

‘Shut up.’

She picked up the bigger pieces of glass and stacked them on her palm until it looked ready to topple. Then she stacked some more.

‘Who’s Inspector Clouseau?’

‘Well, he was one of the Goons. English kinda American guy that speaks with a terrible French accent—and he had an affair wae Sophie Loren.’

‘It wasn’t her fault.’

‘Who, Sophie Loren?’

‘No, Ali.’

The sharper pieces fell at her feet with a tinkling sound. She stepped sideways. ‘Well, it wouldnae be, would it? If she wisnae so fat, she’d have known better.

‘Being fat has nothing to dae with it being a total accident or being stupid.’

‘Whose shoe was it, anyway, Clouseau?’