Authors: Lisa O'Donnell
Dirty Alice isn’t saying much these days, which is a good thing because she’s usually such a blabbermouth. Mr McFadden and Mrs Connor go everywhere together. It must make her sick with rage.
Da says it’s nice to see Mr McFadden looking so happy. Ma says the same and so does Granny. They like Mrs Connor better these days since she has a regular man in her life with two children.
‘She’s turned herself around all right,’ says Ma.
‘And seeing to that girl like she was her own daughter, which can’t be easy with the lip she gets from her. Hair brushed. Shoes shined. Not so dirty any more,’ says Granny.
She’ll always be Dirty Alice to me, I think.
‘She’s a good woman. Haven’t I been telling you that for years?’ says Da.
Paul MacDonald’s changed his tune too.
‘I think Dirty Alice is looking all right now,’ he says to me.
‘She’s a dog,’ I say.
‘She has nice long hair,’ says Fat Ralph.
Paul MacDonald is girl mad but Fat Ralph isn’t, not usually, and to notice Dirty Alice and her hair makes me angry and so I call him a poof.
‘You want hair like Dirty Alice, don’t you?’ I say.
‘No, I’m just saying it’s long and shiny. What’s wrong with having hair that’s shiny?’
‘Nothing, unless you want it for yourself,’ I say.
‘I was just saying,’ says Ralph.
‘Well, don’t,’ I say.
It made me fairly annoyed Dirty Alice was being noticed at all and I was upset at Fat Ralph because of all the people in the world he knows how much I hate Dirty Alice, even if her hair is shiny.
Fat Ralph and I are not as friendly as we used to be. He’s hanging around with Paul, who’s not dribbling in the talent show any more. He’s going to be bobbing about with Fat Ralph doing something stupid probably and they haven’t asked me to bob about with them. I’m definitely not asking so I hope they make an arse of themselves, maybe one of them will fall over and split their head open or something like that. I can do fifty keepy-uppies in two minutes without dropping one time. Ma is going to be so proud of me, so is Da and Granny.
Marianne has asked Tracey and Fiona to sing the song about the Japanese boy. This talent show is getting serious now and I’m wondering if it might actually happen. Tracey and Fiona have to wear their mas’ housecoats and paint their faces white and use eyeliner like Mrs Connor does on her eyes, all curly and dark. Tracey and Fiona are right excited. Marianne has also asked Dirty Alice to do the Highland fling. I don’t understand why Marianne doesn’t want to do everything any more. She’s great at everything. My ma says it’s called ‘delegating’ and Marianne is a clever girl to be sharing the responsibility.
‘Singing every song will hurt her throat and be boring for everyone else. There are other girls that can sing around here. She’s right to give them a chance,’ says Ma.
I think maybe I should sing with the boys but I’d get laughed at and I don’t like to be laughed at. I’ll stick to the football. It’s more man-like.
Anyway, Ma doesn’t know anything about Marianne. I think she isn’t singing all the songs because of Tricia Law. Marianne is sad and is afraid to sing probably. She knows we all know the scandal of her life and doesn’t want us looking at her or something, except me, she let me look at her all right, but it was a different kind of looking. I hope she doesn’t show it to anyone else because that would not be good for her reputation.
‘Reputation is everything,’ says Granny.
IN THE NOTICES
section of the local newspaper it says that Louisa Madeline Connor will marry Samuel John McFadden and that they’re delighted to announce it. When Da sees Mr McFadden he slaps him on the back and wishes him well. Ma and Granny give Mrs Connor a hug, except she’s not Mrs Connor any more and never was. She’s Miss Connor.
‘A Miss is someone who’s not married. Connor was her maiden name, Michael,’ says Ma.
‘So why does everyone call her Mrs Connor?’ I ask.
‘No one does, only you. You call everyone Mrs,’ says Ma.
‘I do not,’ I say.
‘It’s an easy mistake to make. You’re still young.’
Telling me I am young annoys me. My ma thinks I’m a baby all the time. Anyway they don’t hate Miss Connor any more, they call her Louisa because she’s going to be a married woman, and she’s not a slut any more or a prostitute. Also there will be a big party at the Bowling Club everyone will go to. Granny and Ma like a good party, especially Granny because she gets to sneak a few brandies into her hip flask. That’s what Da says anyway.
Dirty Alice is furious about the whole thing. Everyone is a little afraid of Dirty Alice right now, everyone except me. I have beaten Paul MacDonald and I am the toughest lad in the world, but still, I don’t want to be rolling around the grass with Dirty Alice McFadden to prove it. She broke a window and says ‘fuck’ all the time, she also bit Fat Ralph on the leg. I bet he doesn’t care about her shiny hair now. Da says she needs a good hiding. Ma says she needs to move on and Granny says the whole family needs a priest to remove the angry spirit of Dirty Alice’s ma, who is probably not keen on the wedding at all.
‘She is probably up there not liking it one bit. The children need a mother but they also need a woman who goes to church and Maria was nothing if she wasn’t a good Catholic.’
‘Louisa’s not a Catholic, Ma, she’s divorced, so Maria up in heaven will have to lump it,’ says Da.
‘I suppose she will. He has a mother for Alice and Luke, that’s the main thing,’ says Granny.
‘He’s a lovely boy,’ says Ma.
Always on about Luke, I bet he’ll be a bridesmaid.
Ma is in an especially good mood because she passed all her exams and she can now go on to the next level of her Open University course, which she is delighted about. Da has also decided to be delighted about it and doesn’t care about the professor any more and we all have a heavy cake Granny bakes to celebrate. Da gets indigestion because of it and Ma has a small piece so as not to offend Granny, who thinks she’s a brilliant baker. Da says we have birds in the sky that wouldn’t eat the crumbs in our garden. I have a big piece because I like the frosting. Granny makes nice frosting. It’s not all bad with her baking.
Ma talks about going to university in Glasgow and though Da bokes at the idea you can see Ma is serious and not to be stopped. She’s like a train, but with all the sleep she gets at night Granny says it’s a good thing and has improved her mood so we can all be happy, except Da, who is still sleeping on the sofa. He actually brings the lager home now, which he never did before. The cans have half-dressed women on the tin, I like to have a good look, but I keep getting caught by Ma or Granny and get slapped about the head. Now Da has to put a rag around his tin while he drinks, but I can still see their faces with the lovely red lipstick and the feet of their black stockings. They remind me of Miss Connor dancing in her living room, except with more clothes on. They do not remind me of Marianne. I don’t know why that is and I have no one to ask about it with Da busy with his beer and Ma busy with her learning. Granny isn’t very busy at all but she’d most likely drag me to the priest or tell on Marianne and have her dragged to the priest, or worse, have her arrested for showing her fanny off.
I wish someone would arrest Dirty Alice; she wants to cancel the talent show and everything because she’s in a bad mood. Everyone disagrees with her and is against her. She’s got a long drippy face on her all the time because of this wedding. Even Luke is sick of it and actually opened his mouth to moan about her, which he never does.
‘She’s a terror in the house. Breaking things. Screaming. Da had to take the strap to her. Louisa cried the whole time, but I think Alice needed it. You know she broke my chess trophy?’
‘No, I didn’t. You must have been gutted, Luke,’ I say.
‘Devastated,’ he says.
Then he went away, leaving us all stunned because he’d actually talked to us and that was a big surprise.
THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY
of Miss Connor and Mr McFadden is a big scandal.
The party was at the Bowling Club and everyone was dressed up nice. They had punch for the children and punch for the grown-ups and my da loved that. Ma was so embarrassed by him because there was also a bar and he had pint after pint. The food was amazing. They had prawn cocktails, I love prawn cocktails, and everyone in the world does. And they had these little sticks with pineapple and cheese and little tiny onions rolled onto them. They also had sausage rolls and something called quiche I didn’t like at all, but they had a lot of paste sandwiches and so I was as happy as a boy could be. They had a disco too with flashing lights, but only the women danced at first, with their handbags on the floor, and then some men danced around them, but the men were annoying the women I think and kept whispering in their ears. The women laughed at them, but then the men tried some more whispering and some of the ladies turned to dance with them. I wondered why Da didn’t whisper to Ma and I wondered if Granny would stop drinking out of her hip flask when there was plenty of punch. I wondered a lot that night.
Marianne was there with her ma and da, and of course Dirty Alice was wearing a nice dress because it was a special occasion, she actually looked clean for a change, but I didn’t say anything. No way. Marianne made her dance and to all kinds of songs, but when Madness came on it was only the boys that got up to dance, not the grown-ups, they just watched us, and so we jumped up and down until the greatest song in the world was finished. It was the best of fun but I think all the mas and das were laughing at us, which wasn’t right because we didn’t laugh at them smooching about and whispering all over each other.
Then Tricia Law came in and wearing the shortest skirt anyone in the world had ever seen. Everyone started looking at Marianne’s ma and Skinny Rab. He looked as scared as could be. He was back in the house and he had his family again, but Marianne’s ma was still fuming because you could hear her shouting from the house sometimes. Marianne’s ma looked like she wanted to kill Tricia Law.
‘Jesus H,’ said Ma to Granny. They gave each other a terrible look, mostly because they were worried Tricia was going to cross the floor to where they were standing and they didn’t want that because it would spoil the party, and make Marianne’s ma think they were on Tricia’s side. Ma went bright red but Granny, who only likes Tricia a wee bit, went to the toilet hoping Ma would follow. But that’s not what happened because before Tricia even got across the disco floor Marianne’s ma took a wild run for her and pulled her to the ground like a big dog or something. People were pulling kids out of the way so they could get a better view of the fight. I got myself a chair. Marianne saw me and ran away. I suppose she didn’t want me looking, but it was a fight, what was I supposed to do? I wanted to see Marianne’s ma having a go at Tricia Law, who had been terrible to my da a lot of times. Da didn’t care. He kept on drinking, even though Ma kept pulling at his sleeve to help out. Marianne’s ma is a big lady and Tricia is very small but she was still a good fighter. There was a lot of slapping and pulling of hair because that’s how girls fight. They also scream while they fight. They call each other nasty names. Boys just get on with it because we are better at fighting than girls. We have no time to talk or scream at each other. Also women cry before the fight is over, so it’s hard to know who the winner is. There were lots of people trying to pull them apart and stop the scratching and biting, but Marianne’s ma couldn’t be pinned down. She was really strong and I bet Tricia was sorry she wore that short skirt because everyone saw her knickers. They were black like the girls’ on the lager cans, but it wasn’t a nice thing to see because she was fighting. Mr McFadden was holding Miss Connor, who was crying because her party was spoiled. When Granny came out of the toilet she was sorry to have missed the scandal and also upset for Miss Connor.
Paul and Fat Ralph were also standing on chairs; to be honest we were having a good time watching Marianne’s ma going at Tricia Law like that. Paul would talk about Tricia’s knickers for a long time. I would not because I know her and it’s not right to look at the knickers of someone who comes to your house and drinks tea with your ma.
The fight was eventually stopped by Da and Skinny Rab. Skinny Rab was holding back Marianne’s ma with all his strength and Da was holding back Tricia.
‘Ladies, enough,’ said Da.
‘She fucked my husband,’ screamed Marianne’s ma.
‘Maybe if you had fucked him yourself he wouldn’t have come running to me,’ said Tricia.
Marianne’s ma went to take a run at her again but Skinny Rab had a good hold of her.
Tricia fell into my da’s arms like a swooning princess and started crying and Marianne’s ma buried her head into Skinny Rab’s shoulder and started punching at his arm.
‘Why? Why her?’ she yelled and in front of everyone in the town.
He grabbed at her wrists and said sorry a hundred times and then he pulled Marianne’s ma away from the fighting.
‘Come on, love,’ whispered Skinny Rab.
Ma came to help Da with Tricia and to give her a coat to hide her knickers from everyone.
About ten minutes later Skinny Rab came in shouting for Marianne.
‘Marianne, Marianne. Have you see Marianne, Brian?’
He went on like that for ages until other people started looking for Marianne too, except Tricia Law, who was sipping brandy from my granny’s hip flask. She didn’t care where Marianne was.
Da said it was time for us all to go but then the police showed up and we thought they were going to arrest Tricia and her black knickers, but they didn’t, they were looking for Marianne like everyone else was.
‘I haven’t seen her,’ I say.
‘Where’s the last place you did see her?’ says Mr MacLeod. Mr MacLeod is a very fat policeman. Da says he couldn’t catch a turtle never mind a criminal.
‘He’d have a heart attack,’ said Da one time.
This made everyone laugh including Ma. Da was very funny to her once.
‘Where does she like to go?’ says Mr MacLeod.