Donal Ryan - The Thing About December

THE BIG FIGHT happened on the second-last Friday before Christmas. Siobhán told him to text Mumbly Dave and ask him to know would he bring the teacher wan up to the house so they could have a look at her. She said she was in no rush home; she could even stay over if they had a drink. It was Friday night, for God’s sake. They were staring Christmas in the face! She couldn’t stay in one of those creepy rooms on her own, though; she’d have to sleep in with him. Aw, she said, am I after embarrassing you love? Don’t worry, I won’t jump on you! I hope you have fresh sheets on your bed! He hadn’t changed them in weeks and weeks. Christ. Balls. Then she said she was going to run down to the off-licence and would she bring back a Chinese and he said Grand, and she said What will you have, and he said Beef curry and chips, and she said Typical man and laughed but it was a nice laugh and thank Christ, now he’d be able to change the sheets and tighten up the room above and hide Dwyer’s magazine.

She was going to stay the night. In his bed. Oh, Lord. Would she be in her knickers or what? He horsed a shovel of coal and two logs into the fire. Imagine if the back boiler broke. She’d want about five blankets. Or she mightn’t stay at all in the cold. Oh, Mother of Christ. An actual girl, in his bed.

Will u call up 2 nite he sent Mumbly Dave.

Im goin to town u sir Mumbly Dave sent back straight away.

Bring ur 1 back here n stay over . He had that idea himself. How’s it he’d never thought before of asking Mumbly Dave did he want to stay? Himself and the teacher wan could easily sleep in the big double bed in the spare room. It had hardly been used since the Yanks stayed that time. He’d put fresh sheets on that bed too. He was starting to feel a bit excited. He was having a few people around. He was throwing a party. He was entertaining. He was in his hole. He was doing what he was told.

OK sound said Mumbly Dave. Still and all, though, it was going to be great craic. Mumbly Dave and Siobhán would have to call a halt to that auld sniping with your wan around. Mumbly Dave would be as high as a kite, trying to make two women laugh. All Johnsey’d have to do would be laugh. He could worry about the sleeping part after. There was no point thinking about it. That kind of thing all comes natural, anyway. That’s what Daddy said one time abroad in the yard when Mother told him he had to have a talk with the boy about the facts of life. He’d heard Mother telling him in the back kitchen: You have to, Jackie. He can’t be going around like a gom, not knowing what does what. But Daddy didn’t want to, he said Yerra them teachers tells them all that stuff these days. Mother said They do in their arses, now tell him what’s what and be done with it. Daddy said how no one had had to feckin tell him . Signs on, Mother said. For a finish, Daddy turned around to him at the milking-parlour door and said Don’t worry about all that auld craic with women and sex and what have you, that all comes natural. All right? Grand. Good man. Come on so till we get these cows milked.

SIOBHÁN ARRIVED and backed her car right up to the front door. She had the world of drink inside in the boot. They ate their Chinese fine and quick and she drank a glass of wine with hers and he drank a can of Harp with his. Then he threw the dishes into the sink and started to tighten up a bit. Siobhán said he was some fusspot; it was only Mumbly Dave and some slapper that was coming, not the pope and the queen. But before she could finish, Mumbly Dave drove in to the yard and she skipped over to the window and looked out and said Aw for fuck’s sake, where is she? Either she’s a dwarf or he hasn’t brought her. Ah shit, anyway! We have to listen to Mumbly Dave for the night for nothing!

And he came in with a bag of drink and told them how Evelyn couldn’t come on account she had to take the kids on a school tour early in the morning and she had to have an early night and Siobhán said Really, Dave? Is that really true? About Evelyn ? And the way he went red gave the game away. You wouldn’t get much past her. Why would you make up a girlfriend, Dave? You weirdo ?

Johnsey didn’t think Mumbly Dave was a weirdo. So what if he tried to embellish himself a bit? Plenty did it. He’d imagined himself being more than he was and having more than he had every day of his life. Mumbly Dave’s face was getting redder and redder and Siobhán should have let it go and left him make a laugh of himself and he’d have had a funny way surely of explaining why he invented a woman for himself inside in town and it’d seem like a gas thing he’d done and nothing out of the ordinary at all, only a bit of fooling around. But she kept staring at him and shaking her head and saying he was an awful weirdo and Mumbly Dave for a finish got pure thick and said he’d done it to have an excuse not to be knocking around up here while she was around the place, and Siobhán said Oh, so it’s my fault you’re a fucking freak? And Mumbly Dave said she was a poison bitch and a gold-digger and he was the one that was here all along helping Johnsey through all his trouble.

Siobhán said Really? What did you do to help? Besides slug cans of beer and talk bollocks to him about all the imaginary women you’ve had sex with?

And Mumbly Dave said I writ a letter to them newspapers.

And Siobhán, all sarcastic, said Wow! That was some letter I’d say! What did you say to them?

That they was only a shower of shitbags, all a them news-paper fellas, and they didn’t know notten about Johnsey Cunliffe and …

Dear Newspaper Fellas, You is only a shower of shitbags. Wow, Dave! I can’t believe you didn’t make the front page. It’s a wonder they haven’t been on to you to know would you be their new editor-in-chief.

I still done more than you, up here tormenting the poor boy with your tits inside in his face, making a pure fool out of him.

You’re a horrible jealous yoke. That’s all you are. You fairly latched on to Johnsey because you had no one else and he’s too nice to get rid of you. You’re a big, fat, friendless loser, Dave. That’s all you are. Why don’t you go back down to your council hovel and ride your sister or whatever it is ye do for fun down there? You freak .

Mumbly Dave had no answer. Or if he did, he hadn’t the stomach for the saying of it. He looked at Johnsey and there was a big fat tear rolling slowly down his cheek and it flung itself on to the floor and Johnsey turned his face away from Mumbly Dave and stared at the little star-shaped puddle that the tear made and when he looked up again, his friend was gone.

IT WAS Minnie the Mouth who came to the door the next day to tell Johnsey the news. Sure, why wouldn’t it have been? She fattened on the telling of sorrowful tales, and everyone has to take their pleasure where they can. Minnie the Mouth said wasn’t he a pal of yours, that boy of the Cullenses? Her eyes were gleaming. Her cheeks were glowing red with excitement. She was trying to see past him to know who had he inside. Did you not hear the news? Well, I’m fierce sorry now to be the bearer of sorrow, but it looks like he was killed last night. Lord have mercy on him. Apparently he slid on black ice and hit that feckin auld dead elm at the bad bend over beyond near Pike’s Cross. In the small hours of this morning it was. Where the hell was he off to, I d’know? How well he had to hit the tree! By all accounts he was killed outright, at least there’s that, anyway. That boy always drove like the divil; I always maintained he was an accident waiting to happen. At least there was no one took with him! He was often up here with you, wasn’t he? Ye palled around a lot, didn’t ye? He thought the world of you, I’d say. I often heard him backing you up to the hilt and you getting read left, right and centre below in the village by them that knows notten. I seen ye knocking around together. That auld bad bend is a solid fright. Lord save us and guard us, isn’t it just a fright to God? They’ll surely straighten it now. Or drag out that auld tree out of it at least. The poor misfortune, how well he had to hit the tree.