Roddy Doyle - The Van

Jimmy Sr would throw the little shitehawk out on his ear if he turned up now. No, though; he wouldn’t.

Trespassing on the tracks. Then he’d gone on to the big time, robbing fuckin’ poor boxes. He was probably sleeping in a cardboard box—

It hadn’t been a bad day; not too bad at all. Fair enough, probably nobody got the present they’d really wanted — the faces on the poor twins when they’d seen their presents, clothes. They used to get new clothes anyway, their Christmas clothes; their presents had always been separate. Still, they were happy enough with the clothes. They’d been changing in and out of them all day. They were getting very big, real young ones. Gina was the only real child left in the house.

Jimmy Sr had got David Copperfield for Darren, and he’d liked it; you could tell. To Darren From His Father; that was what he’d written inside it. He saw Darren reading it after the tea.

They’d had their turkey as well, same as always; a grand big fucker. They’d be eating turkey sandwiches for weeks. He’d won it with two Saturdays to spare, and a bottle of Jameson. His game had definitely improved since he’d gone on the labour.

He got a tea-towel for Veronica, with Italia 90 on it. She liked it as well. She showed it to Sharon and the two of them laughed. He gave out to her later when he caught her using it to dry the dishes and she’d laughed again, and then he had as well. That was what it was for, he supposed. But she could have kept it for — he didn’t know — a special occasion or something.

— Jimmy, love, she’d said. — Christmas is a special occasion.

Then she’d shown him how to use it; for a laugh. It had been a good oul’ day.

You got used to it. In fact, it wasn’t too bad. You just had to fill your day, and that wasn’t all that hard really. And now that the days were getting a bit longer — it was January — the good weather would be starting soon and he’d be able to do things to the garden. He had plans.

The worst part was the money, not having any of it; having to be mean. For instance, Darren had gone to Scotland with the school when he was in second year, but the twins wouldn’t be going anywhere. They’d come home soon and ask and he’d have to say No, or Veronica would; she was better at it.

Unless, of course, he got work between now and then.

Only, it was easier to cope if you didn’t think things like that, getting work. You just continued on, like this was normal; you filled your day. The good thing about winter was that the day was actually short. It was only in the daylight that you felt bad, restless, sometimes even guilty. Mind you, the time went slower, probably because of the cold.

It hadn’t been cold at all yet this winter, not the cold that made your nose numb. Inside in the house during the day, when they didn’t have a fire going — when the kids were at school — and they didn’t have any heaters on, except in Sharon’s room for Gina, it was never really cold, just sort of cool, damp without being damp. It wasn’t bad once you were dressed properly.

He’d had to take his jacket off a good few times when he was out walking with Gina it was so warm. He did that a lot, went out with Gina. He even took her to the pitch ‘n’ putt once, and some fuckin’ clown had sent a ball bouncing off the bar of her buggy when Jimmy Sr was teeing up at the seventh, the tricky seventh. God, if he’d hit her he’d have killed her, and he’d only said Sorry and then asked Jimmy Sr did he see where his fuckin’ ball had gone. Jimmy Sr told him where the fuckin’ ball would go if he ever did it again. But it had scared him.

Mind you, at least he’d had something to tell Veronica when he got home, something genuine. Sometimes he made up things to tell her, little adventures; some oul’ one dropping her shopping or some kid nearly getting run over. He felt like a right prick when he was telling her but he kind of had to, he didn’t know why; to let her know that he was getting on fine.

He went into town and wandered around. He hadn’t done that in years. It had changed a lot; pubs he’d known and even streets were gone. It looked good though, he thought. He could tell you one thing: there was money in this town.

— Si.

Bertie agreed with him, and so did Bimbo.

Young ones must have been earning real money these days as well; you could tell by the way they dressed. He’d sat on that stone bench with the two bronze oul’ ones chin-wagging on it, beside the Halfpenny Bridge; he’d sat on the side of that one day and he’d counted fifty-four great-looking young ones going by in only a quarter of an hour; brilliant-looking women now, and all of them dressed beautifully, the height of style; they must have paid fortunes for the stuff they had on them; you could tell.

He’d read three of your man, Charles Dickens’ books now; they were brilliant; just brilliant. He was going to do some Leaving Cert subjects next year, next September; at night, like Veronica. He read the papers from cover to cover these days. He read them in Raheny Library, or Donaghmede if he felt like a change. He preferred Raheny. And he watched Sky News in the day. He couldn’t keep up with what was happening these days, especially in the Warsaw Pact places. They were talking about it one day, him and Darren and Sharon and Veronica, and even the twins, at their dinner; they were talking about it and he’d noticed one thing: the twins called Thatcher Thatcher and Bush Bush but they called Gorbachev Mr Gorbachev: that said something. Because they could be cheeky little bitches when they wanted to be.

Sky News was good, better than their other poxy channel, Sky One. But he wouldn’t pay for it when they had to start paying for it later in the year sometime. It wasn’t worth it, although he didn’t know how much they were going to charge. And that reminded him: there’d been a bill from Cablelink stuck up on the fridge door for weeks now. It could stay there for another few; fuck it.

He’d made a list of things to do in the house and he was doing one a week. He’d fixed the jacks yesterday, for example; tightened the handle. It was working grand again now. That sort of thing. But nothing mad. He wasn’t going to become one of those do-it-yourself gobshites, fixing things that didn’t need fixing, and then invading the neighbours and fixing their stuff as well, and probably making a bollix of it. Once the weather got better and the days got a bit longer, he’d be out there in the garden, ah yes; he wouldn’t notice the days flying past him then. He had plans.

He had loads of things to keep him going. The money was the only thing. He’d be going past a pub in town and he’d have the gum for a pint — he always did when he heard the voices and the telly on — just one pint, but he couldn’t go in; he couldn’t afford it. Or he couldn’t buy an ice-cream for Gina when they were out, not that he’d let her have an ice-cream in this weather, but that kind of thing; it was irritating. It was humiliating.

Still though, money wasn’t everything. He was happy enough.

Bimbo was crying.

Jaysis.

Bimbo; of all—

— What’s up? said Jimmy Sr.

But that sounded bad, like nothing big was happening. The man was crying, for fuck sake.

— What’s wrong with yeh?

That was worse.

— Are yeh alrigh’?

Better.

He sat down, in front of Bimbo, at the other side of the table. He blocked Bimbo from the rest of the bar so no one could see him, unless they were looking.

— Ah, I’m—

Bimbo tried to smile. He wiped his cheeks with the outside of his hand.

— I’m grand.

It was like Bimbo remembered where he was. He sat up and lifted up his pint. Jimmy tasted his; it was fine, the first in five days.