Roddy Doyle: The Guts

— Get out your phone, she said.

— Wha’?

He could feel his da looking at him. But he looked across to the door and his da wasn’t there.

— Your phone, Jimmy, said Imelda. — Not your mickey.

He laughed. He wasn’t blushing, and that made him ridiculously happy. He took his mobile from his pocket.

— Ready? she said.

— You’re givin’ me your number.

— You’re still a fuckin’ genius.

He laughed again. She recited the number, quickly.

— Get tha’?

— No bother, he said.

He saved the number.

— Phone me, she said. — When you want to.

— Will do, he said. — Great seein’ yeh. It must be twenty years.

— Don’t fuckin’ start, she said — she smiled. — I was still in primary school twenty years ago. Is that understood?

— Loud an’ clear, said Jimmy. — I’m gone. I’ll phone yeh.

He probably wouldn’t. He had cancer, kids, a wife he loved.

— Grand, she said.

She was sitting down again. There’d be no kiss goodbye, no hug.

— Tomorrow maybe, he said as he left.

— It’s up to you, Jimmy.

His da was leaning against Jimmy’s car and the alarm was going. He’d heard it inside when he was talking to Imelda. Now though, it was loud — and his. He pointed the key and clicked. It stopped.

— Did yeh fuckin’ jump on it?

— No, said his da. — It went off the minute I fuckin’ looked at it. I was only walkin’ over.

— Anyway, said Jimmy. — I’m gone.

— Grand, said his da.

— To face the music.

— It must feel like tha’, does it?

— A bit, said Jimmy. — But look it. Thanks.

— You’re grand, said Jimmy Sr.

He rubbed his hand across his mouth.

— It hasn’t sunk in, he said.

— I know.

— I’ll say nothin’ at home.

— No. Thanks.

— Well —

Jimmy’s da put his hand out, high. He touched Jimmy’s neck.

— Fuckin’ hell, son.

— I know.

— Go on.

— I’m goin’.

— Phone me, said Jimmy Sr. — Any time, righ’?

— Yeah, said Jimmy. — Thanks.

He opened his door.

— D’you want a lift?

— No. You’re grand. I’ll walk.

— Righ’. Good luck.

Jimmy got into the car. It was warm. There’d been heat in the sun, although it was getting dark now. He waited till his da was walking away before he shut the car door.

He filled the dishwasher. He took a white wash out to the line and hung the clothes in the dark. He kept an eye on the kitchen window while he did it, to see if Aoife was alone in there. She wasn’t. He watched her, angry and gorgeous, giving out shite to Mahalia. He came back in — she was gone. He made tea. He didn’t drink it. He emptied the dishwasher. She came in, followed by Brian, then Mahalia.

He tapped Brian on the shoulder.

— Come here. You as well, May.

He brought them in to the telly. He pointed at it.

— That’s a television.

Brian laughed.

— Now, said Jimmy. — You sit in front of it. That’s right, good man. Perfect.

He held up the remote.

— Have yeh seen one of these before?

— Yep, said Brian.

— Good man again, said Jimmy. — You can watch it for half an hour, okay?

— I already had my half-hour, said Brian.

— You’re too honest, Smoke, said Jimmy. — I told yeh. Be a bit sneaky.

— Sneaky.

— That’s right, said Jimmy. — Have you had your telly today yet, Smokey?

— No!

— Have you not? Well, here yeh go.

Jimmy lobbed the remote at him, and Smokey — that was Brian — caught it.

— I don’t want to watch telly, said Mahalia.

Jimmy kept forgetting she was thirteen — although she looked it. He’d never get used to it. His oldest child, Marvin, was a seventeen-year-old man. The youngest, Brian, was too big to be picked up.

— Just do me a favour, May, said Jimmy. — Stay here for a bit. I need to talk to your mother.

— Begging forgiveness, are we? said Mahalia.

— Somethin’ like that, he said.

— Good luck with that, she said.

— Is that eye shadow you’re wearin’?

— Did you just ask me to do you a favour, Dad?

— I did, yeah.

— The eye shadow is my business then, said Mahalia.

— You don’t need it, yeh know.

— That’s not an argument.

— I love you.

— So you should.

He left them there. Brian wouldn’t budge and Mahalia loved being involved in the messy, stupid world of the adults, even if involvement meant staying out of the kitchen for half an hour.

But Aoife was gone. There was a kid with his head in the fridge and he wasn’t one of Jimmy’s.

— Who are you?

The kid stood up and, fair play to him, he blushed.

— I’m hungry, he said.

— Good man, Hungry, said Jimmy. — But what’re you doin’ pullin’ the door off my fridge?

The kid looked confused, his red got redder. Jimmy felt like a bollix.

— Jimmer said you wouldn’t mind. Or Missis — your wife, like. Are you Mister Rabbitte?

— Yeah.

— Jimmer said she — Missis Rabbitte, like — wouldn’t mind if I, like, got something to eat.

Jimmer was young Jimmy, another of Jimmy’s sons.

The kid’s face had gone past red; he was turning black in front of Jimmy. He was holding a chicken leg.

— Will I put it back?

He was an old-fashioned young fella.

— Did you eat any of it? said Jimmy.

— Kind of, said the kid.

He looked at the leg.

— Yeah.

— You’d better eat the rest of it so, said Jimmy.

— Thanks.

— Where’s Jimmy?

— Your son, like?

— Yeah.

— Upstairs.

— Grand.

— We’re doin’ a project, said the kid.

— What’s your name?

— Garth.

— What?

— Garth.

— And what’s the project about, Garth?

— Supertramp.

— Wha’?

— The group, like.

— You mean, the group tha’ were shite back in the ’70s twenty years before you were born and are probably even shiter now?

— No way are they shite, said Garth.

— Who listens to them?

— I do, said Garth.

Jimmy liked Garth, and he liked the feeling that he liked him.

— And tell us, Garth? he said. — Are you some kind of a born-again Christian, tryin’ to convert my son to Supertramp?

— No way, said Garth. — He converted me.

— He what?

— He says the CD’s yours.

— It isn’t.

— He says it is, said Garth. — It’s old looking and the price on the sticker is in old punts, like, not euros.

Aoife walked in.

— Tell Garth here, said Jimmy.

Garth was turning black again and he was trying to put the chicken leg into his pocket.

— Tell him what?

— That I hate Supertramp, said Jimmy.

— You don’t, said Aoife.

— I do!

— Don’t listen to him, Garth, said Aoife. — He loves them. Or he used to.

She walked across the kitchen. Garth was trying to get away from her. He looked like he was going to climb up into the sink.

— Go on then, Jimmy said to Aoife — Name one Supertramp song.

She hadn’t a clue — she never had.

—’Dreamer’, said Aoife. — ’The Logical Song’, ‘Breakfast in America’, ‘Take the Long Way Home’, ‘It’s Raining Again’. I think that’s the order they’re in on the Greatest Hits collection you used to play all the time. Is your dad a music fascist too, Garth?

— Don’t know.

Jimmy gave up. There was no point in trying to talk to Aoife now — not about Supertramp; fuck Supertramp — about the cancer.

He went in and sat with Brian for a while. He sent Brian up to bed, then sent Garth home, and the others went to bed. It was running taps and the toilet flushing for about an hour, and quiet shouts, and a loud thump that must have been Marvin giving young Jimmy a dig or young Jimmy giving Marvin a dig. He hadn’t seen either of them all night but the house was full of them. And he could hear Mahalia singing. He sat in the dark and listened to the life above him.