Roddy Doyle - The Snapper

There was something else as well: she was making an eejit of him. She wasn’t doing it on purpose — there was no way she’d have got herself up the pole just to get at him. That wasn’t what he meant. But, fuck it, his life was being ruined because of her. It was fuckin’ terrible. He was the laughing stock of Barrytown. It wasn’t her fault — but it was her fault as well. It wasn’t his. He’d done nothing.

Jimmy Sr stood up. He was miserable. He’d admitted shocking things to himself. He’d been honest. He was ashamed of Sharon. He was a louser for feeling that way but that was the way it was. He could forgive her for giving him all this grief but it would still be there after he’d forgiven her. So what was the point?

He did forgive her anyway.

A bit of gratitude would have been nice though. Not just for himself; for Veronica as well.

Jimmy Sr went up to bed.

* * *

Sharon nearly died.

Her heart stopped for a second. It did.

She was just getting to her gate and there was Yvonne Burgess, coming out of her house, across the road.

She must have seen her.

Sharon threw the gate out of her way and dashed up the path. She nearly went head-first through the glass in the front door. She hadn’t her key with her. Oh Jesus. She rang the bell. She couldn’t turn around. She rang the bell. She was bursting for the toilet. She rang the fuckin’ bell. And she wanted to get sick. She rang the — The door opened. She fell in.

— I nearly gave birth in the fuckin’ hall, Jackie, she said. — I’m not jokin’ yeh.

* * *

— When will they be finished, Mammy? said Tracy.

— When they’re ready, said Veronica.

— When?

— Get out.

Linda spoke.

— We have to have them—

— Get out!

Veronica felt Larrygogan at her feet. She gave him a kick and she didn’t feel a bit guilty about it after.

* * *

Jimmy Sr got moodier. He wouldn’t go out. He sat in the kitchen. He roared at the twins. He walloped Darren twice. He’d have hit Les as well but he didn’t see Les. He stayed in bed, didn’t go to work two mornings the next week. He listened to the radio and ate most of a packet of Hobnobs one of the mornings and Veronica nearly cut herself to ribbons on the crumbs when she got into bed that night. He couldn’t have been that sick, she said. It wasn’t his stomach that was sick, Jimmy Sr told her. What was it then? He didn’t answer.

But she’d guessed it and she wanted to box his ears for him.

Jimmy Sr knew he could snap out of it but he didn’t want to. He was doing it on purpose. He was protesting; that was how he described it to himself. He’d been wronged; he was suffering and he wanted them all to know this. Especially Sharon.

What he was doing was getting at Sharon. He wanted to make her feel bad, to make her realize just how much she’d hurt her father and the rest of the family.

He couldn’t tell her. That wasn’t the way to do it. She’d have to work it out herself — he didn’t know; say Sorry or something; admit — something.

He sat in the kitchen by himself. He was dying to go in and watch a bit of the American Wrestling on the Sports Channel — he loved it; it was great gas and he always ended up feeling glad that he lived in Ireland after he’d watched it — but he didn’t want them to see him enjoying himself.

He looked down at the Evening Press crossword. 8 across. Being a seaman he requires no bus. — What did that fuckin’ mean?

He looked at the pictures of the women’s faces on the Dubliner’s Diary page and decided how many of them he’d ride. — All of them.

He drew moustaches on some of them, and then glasses.

Bimbo called.

— He’s in the kitchen, said Darren.

— There y’are, said Bimbo.

— Howyeh, Bimbo, said Jimmy Sr. — I’m not comin’ ou’.

— Ah, why not?

— Ah, said Jimmy Sr. — I’m not well. — I’m fed up, Bimbo. I’ve had it up to here.

— Wha’ has yeh tha’ way?

— Ah—, said Jimmy Sr.

He was saying nothing.

— I know wha’ you need, said Bimbo. — An’ so do you. A kick up the hole an’ a few nice pints.

— No way, said Jimmy Sr.

— Go on, said Bimbo. — Yeh must be constipated, yeh haven’t had a pint in ages. Bertie says your shite must be brown by now.

Jimmy Sr grinned.

— Hang on till I get me jacket.

He was only human.

* * *

Sharon noticed. It wasn’t hard. Her daddy stopped talking to her during the drives into work. He stopped saying Thanks Sharon when she handed him things at the table. He stopped asking her how she was and saying There’s Sharon when she came in from work or in the mornings. He said Howyeh to her as if it cost him money.

At first she didn’t know why. He’d been great before; bringing her out, giving her lifts, telling her not to mind what people said. He’d helped her. He’d been brilliant. But now he didn’t want anything to do with her.

It annoyed her.

She caught him looking at her belly when she turned from the cooker. She let him know he’d been snared.

— I’m gettin’ very big, amn’t I? she said.

— S’pose so, he answered.

That was all; no joking, no smile, not even a guilty look. He just stared at the cinema page of the Press. He never went to the pictures.

She knew now for definite what was eating him: she was. There he was, sitting there, pretending to read the paper. For a second she thought she was going to cry, but she didn’t. She would have a few weeks ago, but not now. She had no problem stopping herself. A few weeks ago she wouldn’t have blamed him for being like this. But — she flattened her hands on her belly — it was a bit late to be getting snotty now.

She’d have to do something.

* * *

What though? What could she do?

She didn’t know.

But she did know that she wasn’t going to put up with it. He probably didn’t believe her about the sailor. Why couldn’t he, the oul’ bastard? Everyone else did. There was nothing she could do to make him believe her — at least she didn’t think there was — but she wasn’t going to let him go on treating her like shite. The twins might start copying him; and Darren. And then she’d be having the baby in — in ten weeks — Jesus — and if it didn’t look a bit Spanish they’d all gang up on it before it was even fully out of her.

There was nothing in the book about snotty das. She was on her own.

She took all her clothes off and locked her parents’ bedroom door and looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror and the dressing table mirror. Jesus, she looked terrible. She was white in one mirror and greeny-pink in the other one. Her tits were hanging like a cow’s. They weren’t anything like that before. A fella she’d gone with — Niall, a creep — once said that she should have been in the army because her tits stood to attention. She looked like a pig. In both the mirrors.

She washed her hair but the shampoo stayed in it and it looked worse. Now she wanted to cry. She tried to think of something to set her off. She thought of everything but she couldn’t cry. A few drinks would have got her going; bawling. But she’d no money. And now the baby was throwing wobblers inside of her.

— Ah, lay off, will yeh, she said.

She sat down on her bed and slumped and stayed that way for ages.

* * *

Jimmy Sr began to time his moods. This gave him the best of both worlds. He could enjoy his depression when Sharon was around or when he thought she was around and he could enjoy his few pints with the lads as well. Sharon didn’t go up to the Hikers any more — she went to Howth or Raheny or into town — so he let her believe that he didn’t go there either. He didn’t announce it or anything. He just hinted at it. He wondered out loud where he’d go tonight or he waited till she went out before he went out. Or he stayed in. He wanted her to think she’d robbed his local off him. Now and again guilt got to him. He felt like a bollix and he thought he should leave her alone and get back to normal. He’d have liked that. But every time he saw one of the soccer shower looking his way or when Georgie Burgess came into his head he decided to keep it up. Anyway, it was for her own good. She had to be made to realize all the trouble she’d caused, the consequences of her messing around.