Will Self - Shark

a blood bib round her neck. — She walks on through the time tunnel, waving her arms above her head like what they do on the telly, and doesn’t stop until she’s deep inside London, which is what Debbie named the copse the day they discovered it, which was the first time Mumsie went to London and didn’t come back all night — which was maybe, Jeanie thinks, two summers ago. Anyway, Hughie was littler then and they’d had to half carry him across the field, ’is feet dragging . . Before that they’d had the two-can dinners: Debbie’d done ’em in the double-boiler . . opened ’em . . plopped ’em out . . two can-shapes of nosh — bangers an’ eggs all stuck togevver by baked beans and steamily glissning . . Then she forked it all up and the two little ’uns squabbled over the sums: Jeanie said, Free inter four bangers don’t go — and Debbie chanted, Dippa-dippa-day-shun my opper-ray-shun, How many trains are there at the stay-shun. . ’til they’d one each — but then Hughie grabbed the last banger an’ stuffed it in ’is gob , but Debbie just laughed Mumsie’s special Hughie laugh — coz Mumsie loves Hughie more than she loves the girls. She screams at the girls: You fucking little bitches and worse — her hatred so high-pitched their ears sing as they run to hide. But even when she’s that mad Hughie’ll come up to her, no clothes on — coz if Debbie don’t dress him Mumsie never bothers — and Mumsie’ll cup his bum in one hand and press her cheek against ’is bulgy Biafran belly . . Right away she’ll be calm — and she’ll stay like that, the smoke from her Embassy curling up and around his cherub face. Then she’ll take his winkle ’tween her fingers annuver ciggie and rubba-dub-dub it. See that, girls, she’ll say, that’s the family-fucking-jewels, that is, the family-fucking-jewels — ’course, it ain’t exactly a World Cup Willie, for that it’d ’ave to ’ave a fucking mane! Then her voice goes all posh and she’ll swirl the melty ice cubes in her tumbler, and she’ll say, I think Mumsie needs another little drinky-pooh, so which one of you dah-lings is going to get it for her mumsie? — That’s on normal days, days when she’s shut up in the shit hole with Miss Hoity-Toity — which is what she calls Debbie — and Dumbo , which is what she calls me, coz me dippa-dippa-day-shun-adder-noyds-opper-ray-shun went wrong . Miss Hoity-Toity, up in the girls’ bedroom, lying on her tummy on the snot-coloured oval rug, with her ear pressed against the warm throbbing weave of the record player, It took me soo-wo— ooo long to find out! And I found out . . that when you’d stared for long enough at Parlophone going round annaround . . if you lifted the holey bit of board inside the cabinet, you could see the hot titty-valves glowing — each with a dark nip . . Then: curled up in the Chesterfield armchair, drawing patterns in its tawny fur. . smoove-light and rough-dark . Then: making Sindy dance on the patterns, coz it’s only when Sindy sings that the ringin’ of me addernoyds stops . — But on Fridays, when she gets back from teaching the mongs and the spazzes in Hemel, Mumsie comes in the cottage door already stripping: off fly her shoes any old how , down drops her navy pleated skirt inna puddle on the floor . — She yanks Jeanie out of the Chesterfield by her ear and shouts upstairs for Debbie, and together the girls haul in the hip bath from the shed. By the time the kettle’s been boiled three times — coz the immersion’s always on the fritz — and the boiling water’s been mixed with a bit of cold in the big galvanised bucket, she’s ready for her gyppo ’andmaidens . It’s a two-girl job, Mumsie’s bath — one to stand on the stool so she’s high enough to pour, the other to haul the bucket up once it’s been refilled and stand back to take in the show : watery snakes coiling round her saggy boobs, unravelling into drop-headed worms wiggling over her hips and buttocks, down her swelling belly and burying themselves in ’er fanny hair . . Mumsie, all pink and blotchy, her soapy fingers rubbing the pinker grooves left by her girdle — Mumsie, snorting like an ’ippo . . Oh! that’s good, that’s so fucking good! and rubbing her boobs. . an’ her fanny all sudsy — Mumsie, calling in her posh voice, Hurry up, gels! and when the next bucket-load plummets down on her steaming shoulders giving a repeat performance again annagain until all the mong-dirt and the spazz-shit has been washed away, and she splashes across the woodblocks to the broken sofa and flings herself into its leather arms, her legs wide open and its skirts lifting up so it farts out mouse droppings an’ dust devils . . Next Mumsie calls for Drinky-poohs! — In the tiny damp scullery, where plaster falls and the green bottles slip slowly into cobweb veils, Jeanie counts them up to twenty-seven and marvels at how big a deposit they’ll get back. . when there’re sixty-nine . She lifts the twenty-eighth bottle of VAT 69, uncorks it with a plop! and carefully pours the drinky-pooh — but before squeaking it back in she sniffs the cork and, emboldened, takes a swig that thrusts a flaming tongue down her throat. — In her belly fire rages like it done at Durrant’s, where Gwen’s dad works . . He said the burning chemicals were ’otter than the sun , and there weren’t nothing of the place left when the firemen came ’cept for the front wall . . Jeanie’s fingers on the scullery wall picker-pattering the plaster, watching whitewash flakes confetti down on to the veils . . so dreamy . . She’d’ve taken another swig if Mumsie wasn’t drumming on the cushions, crying, Drink-ee-poohs! Drink-ee-poohs! — Smelling it on Jeanie’s breath, Mumsie grabs her dress and pulls her to her own burnt front wall . Didja ’ave a little drinkypooh, darlin’? She chuckles her naughty chuckle. Didja? An’ I betcha yer just loved it, didn’tcha? — Standing deep in the heart of London, by the hut where Mister Jarvis the gamekeeper keeps his stuff, Jeanie thinks: That day was a spazzy day too — and I was mong like today. — Mumsie, with her old Sellotape marks on her soft tummy and the moles on her shoulders, was still bigger than this London — bigger than the real one, bigger likely than the world. Hooking her bra at the front, gagging fat belly lips — she pulled it up, blindfolding ’er big brown nips . . She fought her way into her brand-spanking-new Silhouette “X” special girdle, panting and laughing, Don’t be afraid, girls, it’s just me battle of the bulge! As they sat side by side on her bed, watching her dress, she told them, Cost me forty-one-an’-fucking-sixpence at Peckerwoods in Berko. . Which was what she called Peterwood’s Ladies’ Outfitters. . Fucking shysters — but I’ll tell you once, I’ll tell you a thousand times, you won’t get nowhere with the darker sex ’less you build on a firm-fucking-foundation garment — pass me dress. — She held it against her bosoms, its jet beading clicketing against her rings, which she still wore to keep the pests off and, grasping its spangly shoulder, she waltzed to the wardrobe and arched her neck and pointed her chin. Mumsie, inside her own black shadow with her hair up in a French twist — Mumsie, with her legs slickly mysterious now they were sheathed in Aristoc dernier 15 seamless mesh “Undergrads”. — Daylight-fucking-robbery , she’d said, and Jeanie remembers this because that’s what it had been: Mumsie, looking at all three of them standing in the cottage door — she laughed her naughty laugh, the one that came with a light slap or a gentle pinch, and she said, Well, well, well — if it ain’t Bill, Ben and Little-fucking-Weed, then she ground out her Embassy with her patent toe and got into the Gazelle. The engine hacked into life, the exhaust blew out dirty smoke, and the carЧитать дальше