Paula Spencer (9 page)

She finds the tub of skin cream beside the bed, where she dropped it. The tub is nearly empty; E45. It's Leanne's, for her dry skin. Although she hasn't been using it. Leanne's skin is red raw in places, like it used to be when she was a little one. Her neck, her wrists – it's horrible.

Paula gets the lid off the tub. She puts two fingers into the cream. She puts the fingers to her head, just over her forehead, the small patch where it still hurts. She rubs the cream in gently through her hair, to the skin. The coolness is nice. The cream softens the little hills and clots of blood. It isn't too bad. And it doesn't look bad; she's seen that already. She puts the lid back on the cream. She drops the tub beside the bed. She moves it with her foot, where she'll be able to reach it.

She turns off the light. She opens the door a bit more. She gets back into bed. She rubs her legs. She rubs her arms. She pulls the duvet up over her chin. The pillow's a bit better with the jumpers tucked under it.

She listens.

Leanne is in her room. She might be asleep. She probably is.

She came home before Paula went to work. Paula heard the key in the lock. She had her jacket on. She was already late. She took off her jacket. She threw it on a chair – she was in the kitchen. She took the lid off the soup. She dropped it – she caught it. She gave the soup a stir. She turned on the gas. She hummed. She heard herself and stopped.

Leanne didn't come into the kitchen.

—Is that you, Leanne?

She'd gone straight to the couch – she must have. Paula went out to the hall. Leanne was there. Leaning against the wall. She was still, but wheezing. And sweating across her grey skin.

Her daughter.

Could you force yourself to love your own child?

Holding her off-licence bag.

Paula grabbed Leanne. She got her arms around her. Her knuckles rubbed against the wall.

—Leanne, love.

She held her, and smelt her. She pressed her hand against Leanne's head and tried to get it – gently – to her shoulder. Leanne didn't stop her. But it was awkward. She was stiff. Paula rubbed her back. The feel of her tracksuit top was horrible, like carpet with a hardened spill in it.

She held her.

That was all.

She'd missed her Dart. The light was going; winter afternoon. The door glass was darkening. Jack would be coming in soon.

—Would you like a drop of soup?

—What?

—Soup.

—Soup?

—Can you not smell it? said Paula.

—Is that what it is?

—Yeah. I made it.

—Oh, said Leanne. —I thought it was just something burning.

She was still Leanne.

—Yeh bitch, said Paula.

She still held her. Leanne's arms didn't move.

Paula decided. She wouldn't go to work. She took down her arms. She looked at Leanne.

—Come on, she said. —Have some soup.

The hall was the wrong place. It was too like a cell. They needed the kitchen. Room to back off. There was no heat in the hall. Paula hated it.

She grabbed Leanne's sleeve. She tried to make it playful.

—Come in here.

Leanne limped in behind her. She'd left the crutch in the hall. Where was the other one? It wasn't in the house.

Paula grabbed a chair.

—Sit down there.

She made the move as Leanne sat down. She grabbed the bag. Leanne pulled it back. The brown paper ripped. Paula had the bottle before it hit the lino. Smirnoff. Three cans fell out with it, and a big bottle of Coke. They hit the floor flat and rolled. Leanne's hands were on the bottle but Paula held the neck. It was easier for her to pull. She was stronger too – that was shocking.

She was on her knees beside the chair. She had the bottle out of Leanne's grip. She started to stand up. She put the bottle on the ground beside her.

Leanne leaned out. Paula put herself in front of the bottle. But Leanne went for Paula's hair. Paula felt the fingers before she saw Leanne's scratched wrist right over her eyes, felt the weight of Leanne's hand and arm. She felt the fingers pull tight across her scalp. She grabbed Leanne's wrist.

—No!

She feels her scalp now. There's no hard, black blood there, demanding an excuse. I walked into a door; sorry. The cream seems to have lifted it away. She'll see in the morning. She pulls a finger over the place on her head. She's fine.

Leanne had her hair. She was pulling it hard. She was trying to get at the bottle with her other hand. Paula thought she'd have to give it to her. She held Leanne's wrist, right over her eyes. Her own thumb pressed into her forehead.

But it stopped. Leanne's hands were gone and Paula fell back. She sat on the floor. She was gasping. The bottle was beside her.

Leanne sat there. She was shaking, hiding behind her hair. It needed a wash.

Paula stood up. She put the bottle on the counter.

She went to the soup. She found the ladle. She kept an eye on Leanne. She had a bowl ready, the nicest bowl. There are five bowls in the house. This one was yellow, with blue around the rim. It was the last one of six. She'd had it for years. She remembered buying them, in the basement of Roche's Stores. Plates, cups, saucers, bowls. In a box with a plastic window that showed you the top plate. Springtime Classic. Charlo carried it home.

She lowered the ladle into the bowl. She poured carefully. She dipped the ladle again and dredged the bottom of the pot. She lifted the ladle and made sure she had loads of lentils. She poured the lentils into the bowl. When the bowl became the last one, Leanne decided that it was her favourite. It was her special bowl and it was left where she could always reach it. That was how it went, for years.

Would she remember it? Paula didn't know. She didn't care that much. The bowl wasn't the point. The soup wasn't even the point. The woman bringing the soup to Leanne, holding the bowl in front of her, not shaking – the woman was the point. She was always there for me. Paula heard some poor junkie talking on the radio a few days before, talking about her mother. She was always there for me. That was Paula.

She put the bowl on the table and she went back for a spoon. She had soup spoons. She'd bought them another time, when she'd had a few quid. She searched through the cutlery and got out a soup spoon. She got two. She'd have some herself. She was starving.

She put the spoon beside Leanne's bowl.

—There.

She was fine. It hadn't really happened, the fight. Leanne had stopped herself. That was the important thing.

She watched Leanne pick up the spoon. She went back to the soup. She filled a bowl for herself. Cracked bowl, no blue border.

—D'you want some bread, Leanne?

—What? Oh. Yeah.

—It'll be nice. It's nice and fresh.

She put three slices on a plate and brought it over to the table.

—Butter?

—No. Thanks.

She went back to her bowl. She tasted the soup.

—God, it's lovely. If I say so myself.

—Yeah.

Leanne gathered her hair in her fingers and put it behind her ear. She held it there while she went at the soup.

Paula put her hand to her head. She looked at her fingers. There was no blood. She was sore but it wasn't too bad. She remembered her domestic science teacher, a mad oul' bitch called Miss Travers. She said it one day. We don't drink soup, girls. We eat it. Well, Paula drank hers now. She lowered it like a vodka and Coke, with carrots. And it was fuckin' lovely.

She put the vodka bottle up in the press. She got up on her toes and pushed it well back.

Then she pretended to go to work. She'd done enough, for now. That was what she told herself. Leanne got the message. And she'd see her room cleaned when she went up. Fresh bedclothes. The extra pillow.

She put on her jacket, said her goodbyes and she left.

She went into town. She went one extra stop on the Dart. She got off at Pearse instead of Tara, in case anyone she knew saw her. That waster, Hristo, or one of the others from work. She'd phoned in sick before she'd left the house. She'd tried to make herself sound croaky. It hadn't been too hard.

She walked down Nassau Street. The blood and the little cuts were hidden by her hair. She thought they were. She put her hand to her head. She kept doing it. Her hair seemed good and thick. She could feel little clots under it, just in a small patch.

She went into Trinity. She hadn't been there in years. She wasn't sure she'd ever been there. Jack would have fitted in among the students she passed. He looked no different. He dressed the same. Even Leanne – when she was on the mend. Leanne could be a mature student. Paula knew a girl – a woman – who'd done that, gone to college, after her own kids had finished with school. It wasn't Trinity but it was a real college. The place in Glasnevin with the Helix – she thought it was there. Leanne was bright. Leanne was the brainiest of her kids.

She came out the arch, through the little gangs of students, onto College Green. She went up to Grafton Street. It took her ages to get past the queues at the bus stops, along the Trinity wall. The crowds coming from the opposite direction – she had to stop and shift, and start, and wait. Grafton Street was a solid wall of kids. Girls in black hoodies like Paula's, and fat jeans – she didn't know what the style was called. Girls with their tummy buttons pierced, their bellies hanging out. Paula was in better shape than most of them. She'd get her own belly pierced. She'd bring it home to the kids. She'd fall back on the couch and pull up her top. She was always there for me.

She went towards the top of Grafton Street. The shops were shut or closing. The bookshop near the top of the street was shut. That was a pity. She'd have liked a book. She was in the mood and she had enough money. She'd like to have held a new book.

Around the Green and then she'd go home. She thought she was doing it right, staying away for a while like this. Leanne had to decide.

There were people getting off the Luas. It looked gorgeous. She'd go on it one of these days. She'd go to Tallaght, on the one that went from Connolly. Off the Dart, straight onto the Luas. She'd make a day of it. She'd never been out to Tallaght. She'd have a look at the Square. She could bring the grandkids, Nicola's children. They'd love it, the day on the Luas with their granny. They run to her when they see her. They're still that lovely age.

She's still awake in bed now, nowhere near tired. But she doesn't mind. Jack can get himself up in the morning. But she knows. He'll be worried. He'll be wondering is she drinking. Is that why she isn't up? She'll just get up. It's easier.

She lifts her head a bit. She listens. She drops her head back to the pillow. She closes her eyes.

She came home from town. Leanne was on the couch and Jack was beside her. They were watching something – photographs of a woman, Before and After pictures. Then she saw the actual woman, screaming, being hugged by a younger, better-looking, woman.

—What's that?

—
The Swan,
said Leanne.

—What?

The bottle was on the floor beside Leanne's bad leg, with the Coke and a cup. Half empty. Half full. Would she have a limp for the rest of her life? There was a plastic bottle of pills standing beside the bottle.

—
The Swan,
Leanne told her again. —Have you not heard of it?

—No.

Paula sat down on the side of the couch. Leanne's head was close to her hip.

—What is it?

—Women get plastic surgery and you see them before and after.

—Ah no, said Paula. —And during?

—Yeah. A bit.

—For fuck sake.

—No, it's great. You get to know their stories and that. They've had tragic lives, some of them.

Paula laughed. She leaned back and hit her head off the wall.

—Serves you right, said Leanne. —See her?

—Which?

—Her. The presenter. The gorgeous bitch. She's Irish.

—Is she?

—Yeah. Amanda.

—Good girl, Amanda. And is that one the same girl in the photos?

—Yeah, said Leanne.

She sounded a bit proud, as if she'd just proved something. The Smirnoff bottle was at Paula's feet. She leaned down. She picked it up. She sat back up. She held the bottle by the neck. She didn't hide it.

—Can they do all that with surgery? said Paula.

—Yeah, said Leanne. —Big difference, yeah?

Paula would remember this. She knew. Her kids on the couch, herself, the bottle. Two alcoholic women and a teenaged boy, watching women being sliced apart and reassembled. And it was great.

She stood up.

—What's her story? she said.

She nodded at the telly, at the brand new woman. She was still screaming. I'm gorgeous, I'm gorgeous.

—She had very low self-esteem, said Leanne.

—Is that right? said Paula. —Does she still have it, d'you think?

—She looks happy.

—Well, if her self-esteem is as big as her tits there, she'll be grand.

—Ah, lay off.

Paula went to the door. She didn't hide the bottle. Leanne didn't say anything.

It didn't mean anything. These things were easy, these deals and promises. Never again. Paula had said it so often. She'd said it while she was picking up a glass. It meant fuck-all. The smiles, the hugs. They were the sentimental shite that addicts love. She was always there for me.

She went to the sink. She turned on the taps. She ran the hot and cold water, full blast, so the smell and the taste wouldn't lift up and grab her. She got the top off the bottle. She poured.

Hme?

She texted John Paul earlier, to make sure she didn't waste her time. She'd done that once, before she got the mobile. She'd gone right across the city but they weren't home.

It's the last Sunday before Christmas. Two buses and a bit of a walk.

Hme?

Yes.

3.00?

Okay.

She's going out with the presents. Six days before Christmas. That's as near as she'll get. The new granny.

She has two of Rita Kavanagh's selection boxes. She has a Dougal, the dog from
The Magic Roundabout,
for Sapphire; a nice, soft one. There's a film of
The Magic Roundabout
coming out soon. Maybe she'll get to bring Sapphire to see it. That would be nice, just the two of them, maybe. Sapphire is four. Find out their birthdays. Write them down. She has a Tamagotchi for Marcus. Rita Kavanagh told her that it was what all the kids wanted this year. She'd been looking for a Tamagotchi for her own granddaughter.