Love Story 11

‘She would notice,’ I bit down on my bottom lip to show that was our conversation over.

Ali recovered quicker than a whiplash victim cashing a cheque. ‘I thought yeh said she was auld, practically croaking it?’

‘She is old, but she’s no stupid.’

‘Same thing.’ She put on her huffy face and voice. ‘Yeh don’t love me.’

‘It’s no like that.’ I got up to walk away, but she grabbed my arm, spun me around and was breathing hard in my face. This was my chance to tell her what I really thought and split up without too much hard feelings on my part. But I pulled away from her when she tried to kiss me. ‘You’d need to help. Distract her, or something?’

I gave her a quick peck on the lips, but she pulled away and wiped her mouth. Her eyelids flickered. She hadn’t thought it through.  ‘Dunno, I might staun on a rusty nail or something.’

‘For fuck sake. Why would you step on a rusty nail?’

She rolled her eyes at such a dumb question, but got agitated and couldn’t answer. 

But I didn’t let up as I usually did. Gawped at her until she was squirming and chewing on the edge of her thumbnail.

‘Maybe she’s old and part gypsy. Spat a tack out of the side of her mouth she was using to nail the boards on her coffin lid. Knows she’s gonnae die and built her coffin in the back room.’ 

She glared. ‘Maybe she did.’

The idea was so ludicrous I kept her waiting before I answered with a sigh. ‘There’s no rusty nails.’

I pictured Mrs Connolly in her long nylon, pale blue piny. A tabard, worn over her white blouse and dress to keep them clean.

Piny pockets on the two sides to keep essential things she might need. Things like cigarettes, matches and a petrol lighter with Bluebell matches for backup. She was unlikely as Noah in his storm-tossed Ark to throw anything away. Perhaps her balled-up hanky was a cousin of the menstrual rag. Washed, wrung out and ironed. Reused, now she no longer needed her fanny, but still suffered from a runny nose, especially during the cold bite.

She was of that generation, as Mum would say, as long as her knickers were clean and fit to be seen. Ali would know more about that than me. I already knew her baggies weren’t. I’d spotted a skid mark that has swerved and lost its skinless traction two days later. She’s said I was just being paranoid. That was a word she’s learned to cover most things I’d said or did. In other words, I was a liar.     

Mrs Connolly wore pretty much the same thing every day. She had to struggle into an overcoat half her weight and taller than her for going to the shops. It was no surprise she didn’t go out much with all those buttons, especially the way her fingers were curled into claws.

Coat buttons could be replaced. The cast-iron foot treadle of her Singers sewing machine jigged on, to tap out in a blur, a nice-wee something with salvaged snot rags that could be buttoned together and worn snug over the shoulder.

Hats, scarves and gloves never aged. Five missing fingers were neither here nor there.

Blouses and dresses were dated, but were just the kind of thing she’d worn the day before she was old, kept for special occasions. She was brought up when moths and mildew had to be carefully managed and kept apart, like love and marriage and brown cardigans darned at the pockets.

V-necks and round-neck jumpers that were once all the rage had to be kept in clear plastic bags in case they went missing.

There was a good chance she’d kept her broken crockery. Had more than one jar filled with washers and springs and rusty nails that had worked loose from god-knows where. With her fingers being the way they were, there was an even better chance that she’d dropped one of those jars from the top shelf when cramming something else inside.

I admitted to Ali, ‘There is a half-decent chance, if you went into her room, you’d stand on a rusty nail.’

Ali chortled and wiggled her breasts. ‘That’s exactly what I said.’ She puckered her lips. ‘Has she got any jewellery?’

I kneaded my neck to help me remember. I knew by what Mum said—although nobody much ever talked about it, so it was as if he hadn’t existed—she’d a son that killed himself. She liked to read the Radio Times, even though she didn’t turn her telly on. For her it was just another voiceless box gathering dust like the jewellery boxes in her room. Ali had to lean in because I mumbled. ‘Aye, she’s got millions of stuff. Gold, sapphires and diamonds.’

‘Real?’ Her face grew pink and animated. The dark and wrong side of pretty, but as close as she could hope for.   

I wanted to backtrack. Tell her I was lying. ‘Dunno,’ I mumbled.

She whooped and hugged me. I noticed how long and dirty her fingernails were on my shoulder. I could see them grasping Mrs Connolly’s neck and choking her.

She rubbed at my cock through the denim and pulled my zip down. Giggling she looked down at what was in her hand and rubbed at her boob with the other hand. ‘I didn’t  think yeh were interested.’

‘I’m not,’ then corrected myself. ‘I  mean.’I squeezed my eyes shut.

She stuck her tongue in my ear and rooted about as if excavating a vegetable patch. I jerked my head and pushed her away. Standing up and tucking my cock inside my pants and zipping up

‘Yer always daeing that.’

I put my finger to my lips and pointed towards the door. I whispered, ‘I thought I heard somebody coming.’

She pulled her wet fingers out of her bloomers and wiped them on her cords. Shoving her belly inside the waistband and pushing forward as if giving birth while trying to button herself in. ‘I don’t hear anybody.’

‘I thought I heard something.’

‘Yeh never.’

‘I did.’

‘Yer no gonnae dae this ur yeh?’

‘I might.’

She shook her head in a way she thought made her look attractive. ‘Aw that stuff jist sitting there and going tae waste.’

‘Well, technically, it is her stuff.’

She pulled herself up off the bed and pushed my arm. ‘Yeh’ll never amount tae anything. Yer jist a waste of fucking time.’

‘Probably,’ I agreed.

Most of my classmates would suffer any humiliation to see a naked girl—even if it was Ali—I was much the same as I watched her getting ready to leave, straightening and buttoning her clothes. I was hoping she’d keep her mouth buttoned and would suffer any humiliation if she’d keep her clothes on.

She sneered at me. 'I'll need tae dae it myself.'