Roddy Doyle - The Van

But Bimbo was sacked; it was a fact. He was hanging around doing nothing. And Jimmy Sr was hanging around doing nothing, so the two of them might as well hang around and do fuckin’ nothing together. Only, with the two of them, they could do plenty of things. Playing pitch and putt by yourself on a cold March morning could be very depressing but with someone else to go around with you it could be a great bit of gas. And it was the same with just walking along the seafront; and anything really.

Jimmy Sr hadn’t felt bad, really bad, in a while; not since before Christmas. He hadn’t felt good either, mind you; just — settled. Now though, he felt good; he felt happy. Bimbo was helping him and he was helping Bimbo. The day after the night they’d got locked — the day after Bimbo’d been sent home — Jimmy Sr called for him and took him out for a walk. Maggie patted Jimmy Sr’s arm when he was going out the front door. It was a Saturday, a day when Bimbo would have been at home anyway, but he could tell that Bimbo didn’t think it was an ordinary Saturday. He had a terrible hangover as well. But the walk had cheered him up and Jimmy Sr took him into Raheny library and got him to fill in a card and he showed him what books were where.

On Monday, the first real day, Jimmy Sr called for Bimbo at nine o’clock and made him come out for a game of pitch and putt. He had to threaten to hit him over the head with his putter if he didn’t get up off his hole but he got him out eventually. He even zipped up his anorak for him. And

Maggie filled a flask for them, which went down very well cos it was fuckin’ freezing. They gave up after six holes; they couldn’t hold the clubs properly any more because they’d no gloves, but they enjoyed themselves. And Jimmy Sr showed Bimbo what was wrong with his swing. He was lifting his head too early. They watched a bit of snooker in the afternoon, and played Scrabble with Sharon until Gina upended the board, the bitch, when they were looking at something in the snooker.

On Wednesday — it was pissing all day Tuesday — Jimmy Sr brought Bimbo into town. Bimbo had only been on the DART a couple of times before, so he enjoyed that. And some little cunt flung a stone at their carriage when they were going past the hospital in Edenmore, and that gave them something to talk about the rest of the way; that and the big new houses off the Howth Road in Clontarf that were so close to the tracks the train nearly went through them.

— Imagine payin’ a fortune to live tha’ close to the tracks, said Jimmy Sr.

— Thick, said Bimbo.

Jimmy Sr pointed out the houses he’d plastered.

He brought Bimbo up to the ILAC Centre and he got a young one behind the counter to put a programme about volcanoes on the telly and they watched a bit of that. They went for a cup of coffee, after Jimmy Sr had taken out a couple of books and he’d explained to Bimbo about the computer strip yokes inside the books and on Jimmy Sr’s card and how the young lad at the check-out only had to rub a plastic stick across them to put the names of the books beside Jimmy Sr’s name inside in the computer. They still stamped the date you had to bring them back by the old way.

They went for a coffee downstairs. The coffee was lovely there but Bimbo had insisted on having tea. He could be a cranky enough little fucker at times. Jimmy Sr was going to make him have coffee — because it WAS lovely — but then he didn’t. They looked out at what was going on on Moore Street. They enjoyed that, watching the oul’ ones selling their fruit and veg and the young ones going by. They saw a kid — a horrible-looking young lad — getting a purse out of a woman’s bag. He’d done it before they knew what they were seeing, so there was nothing they could do. The woman didn’t know yet either. She just walked on along, down to Parnell Square, the poor woman. The kid had probably done it to get drugs or something. They didn’t say anything to each other about it. It made Jimmy Sr think of Leslie.

— Taste tha’ now, Bimbo, said Jimmy Sr.

He held his mug out for Bimbo to take. Bimbo took it, and sipped.

— There. Isn’t it lovely?

— Oh, it is, said Bimbo. — It is, alrigh’.

— Bet yeh regret you didn’t get a mug of it for yourself now, wha’, said Jimmy Sr.

They went home after that.

They did something every day nearly. The weather was weird. It was lovely one minute; they’d have to take their jackets off, and even their jumpers. And then it would start snowing — it would! — or hailstoning.

— Snow in April, said Bimbo, looking up at it.

He liked it, only he was cold. They were in under the shelter at the pond in St Anne’s Park. Bimbo didn’t want to lean against the wall because he could smell the piss; it was terrible. They had Gina with them, in her buggy.

— It’s mad alrigh’, said Jimmy Sr.

— It was lovely earlier, said Bimbo.

— That’s righ‘, said Jimmy Sr. — It’s the fuckin’ ozone layer; that’s wha’ I think’s doin’ it.

— Is April not always a bit like this? said Bimbo.

— Not this bad, said Jimmy Sr. — No.

He made sure that Gina’s head was well inside her hood.

— The greenhouse effect, he said.

— I thought tha’ was supposed to make the world get warmer, said Bimbo.

— It does that alrigh’, Jimmy Sr agreed with him. — Yeah; but it makes it go colder as well. It makes the weather go all over the shop.

— Yeh wouldn’t know wha’ to wear, said Bimbo. — Sure yeh wouldn’t.

He put his hands up into his sleeves.

— Yeh’d be better off goin’ around in your nip, said Jimmy Sr.

They laughed at that.

— At least yeh’d know where yeh stood then, wha’, said Jimmy Sr.

— I’d need shoes though, said Bimbo.

— An’ somewhere to put your cigarettes, wha’.

They laughed again.

— I’m never happy unless I have me shoes on me, said Bimbo. — Even on a beach.

— Is tha’ righ’?

— Or slippers.

Then it stopped. And the sun came out nearly immediately and it was like it had never been snowing, except for the snow on the ground. But that was disappearing quick; they could see it melting and evaporating.

— I love lookin’ at tha’ sort o’ thing, said Bimbo.

— Yeah, said Jimmy Sr.

He checked on Gina. She was still asleep.

— Just as well, wha’, he said. — She makes enough noise, doesn’t she, Bimbo?

— Ah sure, said Bimbo. — That’s wha’ they’re supposed to do at her age. She’s lovely.

— Isn’t she but, said Jimmy Sr. — If the rest of her is as good as her lungs she’ll be a fine thing when she grows up.

They got going. They had a read of the newspapers in the library, to get in out of the cold, on their way home. But they had to leave because Gina started acting up.

They didn’t meet much at night; once or twice a week only.

— Look, said Bimbo one morning.

He took something out of a brown envelope with a window in it.

Jimmy went over and turned so he could see it. Bimbo didn’t really hold it up to him; he just held it.

It was his redundancy cheque.

— Very nice, said Jimmy Sr.

Bimbo put it back in the envelope and went into the kitchen and gave it to Maggie. Then they went out.

Bimbo put a lot of the lump sum into the house. He got aluminium windows for the back; they already had them in the front. And he put his name down for the gas conversion, the Fifty-Fifty Cash Back. Jimmy Sr helped Bimbo put new paper up in his kitchen and Veronica went through him for a short cut when she saw the paste in his hair and he told her how it had got there. He had to promise to do their own kitchen before she’d get off his back, but they didn’t have the money to buy any paper or anything so it had been an easy enough promise to make.