school photos 44

Jean was first out of bed, but the porridge she made Joey he said was lumpy, he complained about his tea being cold, said she was smoking too much and keeping him awake with her hacking cough. He didn’t complain about her being up all night with Little Ally again. He was like most men, selfish, the tired sullen droop of his eyebrows and the curl to his lips as he glared at her, his response was to grab for the covers and snuggle further into their bed.

The kids were at school and she sat with her feet up on the end of the bed. She was trying to have a nap. Outside it was dark and sodden, with a wind whining through the trees below their garden. She burrowed under the blankets with her nightgown on and a thick pair of Joey’s woollen sock, darned at the heel with the wrong colour, yellow wool. He was meticulous, almost military, about taking care of his feet. He’d have a nannyroony if he’d know she was wearing his socks, but she’d just fold them and stick them back in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers and he’d be none the wiser.  She daubed out a fag in the square ashtray next to the bed, full of the smelting and smouldering grey clouds of ash and clods of blackened douts.  Her nose wrinkled in disgust, but figured it would be best to empty and clean it out later. She reached for her lighter to have another-quick-one before she got up, but it was out of paraffin and wouldn’t spark into a flame. She reached across, dangling her hand. There was nothing but junk in the top drawer of the bedside cabinet. Batteries that might come in handy someday, a blue Matchstick car with three tiny plastic wheels from when John was a boy, a set of rosary beads, a black and white wedding photo and, thank God, she thought a packet of Swann Vestas. She rattled the box. Satisfied there were a few matches in it, her body relaxed into a contented sigh. Her back was up off the bolster for a few moments, most of them had been used, put back in the box, and only two were left. She lit a fag, plumped herself up on the pillows and idly lifted the photo and waved it about daring herself to look. A lungful of smoke hanging in front of her face helped veil the threat. She felt an old woman now, hair suddenly threaded with grey, shadows like horses’ hoofs around her eyes, always panting and out of breath, a whinger and whiner, shapeless as a flag pole and always tired.

But there she was glowing in her white dress, arm through Joey’s, delirious with the discovery of him and herself.  Her sisters had all said how beautiful she was and she hadn’t believed then, not then. She held the lit end of fag over her face in the photograph, tracing an arc from left to right, back and forward, darting in and out, like an old-school game of dares, daring herself to do it, burn it. The arc widened. She took another draw and waved the fag-end over Joey’s face. He looked just the same as he did now, she thought, because he was spoilt and got to sleep soundly every night. His eyes winked up at her, hair a coiffured planet doom and a smile so wide it would split the stars, stocky, bursting out of his shiny double-breasted suit, tie shoogled to the side to give him a bit of breathing space. She didn’t mean to but with not sleeping, the foggy tiredness in her bones and her thoughts so far apart a double-decker bus could park between them, the burning smell startled her. Joey’s face was singed, she flicked at it and it harrowed away with her bitten nails.

          ‘Jesus.’ She sat bolt upright, neck turning right and left as if someone were watching her.  

          Her fag was forgotten, smouldering in the detritus of the ashtray. She rolled out of bed and into her slippers like a sailor on shore leave, the photo pincered between index finger and thumb.  The air was colder in the hall. Slowing for a few seconds to check out what chores needed done later, the living room remained warm from when the bar on the electric fire had been left on for the girls and the smell of burnt toast filtered out of the kitchen. In the hallway outside the kitchen, she tugged the back door open and a sudden gust of wind flashed into the house.

Snow lay on the grass outside, but it was soft and melting into the silhouettes and circular code of black footprints in the slush where they had walked. She pulled the nightgown round her, bunching the material and clutching at her chest, the photos sticking out of her hand like a ticket. Her slippers crushed down on the heels flopped about on her feet, but she was careful on the back stairwell and stairs. Below her was the spire of St Stephens and next to it Little Ally’s school. Above her hummed the sound of a plane, but with the cumulus cloud hanging low it couldn’t be seen. Snow cotton-wooled traffic and trains so only other sounds were the drip, drip of water falling and sliding from roofs and garden huts was heard.

 She knocked the snow from the top of the bin. Before she flung the photo in she looked upstairs and along at the other windows in the four-in-a-blocks to check if Daft Rab or any of the other neighbours were noseying. Tearing at the photo she ripped it into small pieces, letting it fall like confetti among scrumpled newspapers, potato and turnip peelings and the empty crushed shells of peas and bean tins covered in a layer of fag ash and empty cartons of Regal King size.   

          When Little Ally came in from school Jean knew from the way she kicked her shoes off in the hall, let her school bag drop from her shoulders and the slide of her bottom lip that she was in a strop.

          ‘What’s the matter darlin’?’ Jean asked.

          That was enough to release the cloud burst of tears. Little Ally rushed along and flung herself, face pressed against, her mum’s leg. ‘Nobody wants to talk to me or be my friend,’ she cried. ‘When Mrs Hone asked us to split into groups for maps of the world I was left sitting myself.’  

          Jean took a drag on her cigarette and switched hands so she could pat Ally on the head and she made cooing noises. She bent down to lift her up and lifted her into the living room and let Ally make a hanky out of the capped sleeve on her blouse. She took another nip of her fag, her daughter’s head lopped over her shoulder like a beanbag, when the door banged loud and continuous as if it was the police.

          ‘Don’t answer it Mum.’

          The voice made Jean shrug off her daughter from her torso and let her slide down her leg. The voice sounded like Lily, but Ally’s red-rimmed eyes silver with tears, looked up at her.

          ‘Don’t answer it Mum.’    

          ‘Don’t be a silly-billy,’ Jean tried to adopt a jocular tone, but the words caught on her throat.