Anyone You Fancy

by Faith Miller

"A necklace would have been of more use," my mother said when I showed her and we laughed together.

My sister, Aishlin, sent me a photo of my niece, Andrea. That was it. I heard nothing from my father. Not a word of congratulations or nothing. And I week later, on my sixteenth birthday, it was the same story. Another drink out with Liam and my mother, sitting in the snug. I was trying the Smithwicks this time which went down a bit easier. Liam stuck a ten pound note in my hand when my mother was in the Ladies. Nice of him really since he was just her boyfriend, not my step father or anything official. My aunt bought me six pair of hose to wear to work. It was summertime and they were cheap and my legs itched all the time.

My brothers, Declan and Aidan, had pooled their money together and bought me a wallet. It was a bright cherry red and cheered me up a bit when I pulled it out to get a coffee or a mug of tea.

I took no holidays. I finished school on the Thursday and began working on the Saturday. Five and half days week, it was. Off Sundays and Thursday afternoons. I worked in a shop catering to the tourist trade.

"You're nearly an American, Slaine," Miss O'Brien, the manageress said in my interview, "you'll get on with them, will you?"

"I will of course, Miss O'Brien," I said, trying to keep my voice low and my ankles crossed as they'd instructed us in school.

"Understand their language and their . . . um . . . ways."

"I will."

"All right then, fifty pound a week. Sales, doing the sweeping, fetching the tea. All right?"

"Thank you," I said. I'd had experience in shops before and working for a realtor. I'd like the realtor better but they had nothing full time. Jobs were scarce enough, three from my class were moving up to Meath to work in the Navan mines, six or seven off to Dublin and the same to London and to Cork. Others, like me, found service jobs in the hotels and shops and bars. Some went straight for the dole. My ex-boyfriend, Colm Rourke, and his pal, Tommy McCarthy, headed for New York. Sure hadn't Colm always sworn that's where he'd go. Like me he'd spent part of his childhood there, like me he'd never gotten it out of his system.

I was jealous of him when he left, wishing it was me going, but not jealous of what girls he'd meet. I knew then it was really over.

For work I wore a pink jacket, with a small Celtic design in baby blue, over my own clothes.

"No jeans, Slaine," Miss O'Brien instructed. "Nothing short. Do you understand me, girl?"

"Aye."

"Say, 'yes, Miss O'Brien,'" she said and waited.

"Yes," I repeated. "Miss O'Brien." And I stared at her, waiting.

"Jean," she called to the other shop girl. "Show Slaine the register and explain about breaks and such."

"Yes, Miss O'Brien," said Jean, a great huge country girl looking like Miss Piggy in her pink jacket.

"And, Slaine?"

I turned around.

"Smile." Miss O'Brien stretched her lips to show me how.

"Yes, Miss O'Brien." I stretched my lips as well.

"She's worse than my teachers," I whispered to Jean as she showed me how to enter the merchandise sold in the books.

Jean shrugged. "She's all right, like."

I stretched my lips. "Yes, Jean."

"And this is how we put the money in the register now, Slaine. And large bills, anything over the twenty punt note down below here. See."

"Yes," I said.

I followed Jean through the store, touring the stockroom, finding the lavatory, to be used only during our breaks, and learning how things run.

My face hurt from all the smiling. The pink made me look stupid, clashing frightfully with my red hair. My shoes, new ones, cheap ones, bothered my feet. I had the start of a blister. "Yes," I said. "Yes, Jean. Yes, Miss O'Brien. Yessir. Yes, Madam. Yes, Miss."

I thought of Joyce. "Yes," I said. "I will, I will, yes. I will, yes."

"Slaine," my mother said one night.

"Yes, Mother," I replied.

"Come sit down here." She was seated at the table. My brothers, Declan and Aidan were asleep as was my small sister Michelle. She pointed at a chair.

I sat. "Yes?"

"How much is your make?"

I looked up at met her eyes. She'd grown hard my mother, I could scarcely remember the time when we'd been close, her and I. The time when I'd looked for her to keep me safe. I thought of lying. "Fifty pound."

"Well," my mother said. "Thirty will cover it."

"Will cover what?"

"Your room. Your board." She gestured around the room.

I thought she was mad. I did nearly all the cooking. I minded the kids at night so my mother and her boyfriend, Liam, could go to the pub or the fillums. I did the cleaning. I was like a free servant for her.

She put her hand out. She'd grown very thin, the bones showing through her flesh. She's grown old, so.

"Thirty pounds?" I asked it for a question.

"Aye." She nodded.

Thirty pound a week. A hundred and twenty pound a month. For less than that I could get a room where someone else would do my cleaning, give me breakfast. "That's too much," I said. 'Twas not asked.

"Is it?" My mother's voice was as cold and dead as her eyes.

"It's not fair."

"Is it not?"

"No." I studied my hands. My own eyes were teary. I wished to be as impassive as she.

"Fair? Will we talk of fair?"

When she said it, like that, it reminded me of fairs. The ones where the tinkers came to town and they crowned the Goat King. The May fairs with the girls in long, flowy dresses. The fairs with music and great craic.

My mother slapped her hand down on the table. Crack. "Is it fair that I've been left to support you and the others? Is it fair that your sister, Aishlin, had a bastard child and made me the laughing stock. Is it fair that I have to wear clothes that are old and worn?" She lifted up her arm to show me a great tear in her dress. "Fair, is it that I work forty hours week for seventy pound. At my age? And you, Slaine, you with no leaving certificate make as much. Fair?" She laughed.

I hated her laugh. Unfair, that's what this all was. "Twenty pounds," I said, stretching my lips. "I'll give you twenty pound a week?"

"Thirty," she said.

"No," said I.

"You will, Slaine," she said, grabbing ahold of my arm and pulling me towards her. "Your father's not around now, not to protect you. Sure he's washed his hands of the lot of you. Tis only Aishlin he's looking after now."

There were something in her tone frightened me. Something in her eyes that left me cold. Her fingers hurt me.

"And is that fair now, is it? Your father looked after you. Looked after Aishlin . . . ." There was a peculiar curl to her lip. "Stopped looking after me, now, didn't. No one to look after me save meself . . . ."

"Liam?" I suggested, then bit my lip.

"No one save meself," she said flatly. "You want to look at the accounts, Slaine, you do? I need the money. Declan's thirteen now, he needs the food and Aidan needs a new coat for the fall. Michelle needs, sure, I don't know what Michelle needs. Something. And my money isn't going far enough. It's been over five weeks since your Da sent anything and what he's been sending isn't enough." Her fingers relaxed and lay there, soft on my arm.

"I'm sorry, Slaine. I need the thirty pounds." Her eyes, blue and alive, again, sought mine. "Will you give it to me?"

"I will, Mother," I said. "I will."

"Do you sell sweaters?" The woman asked.

"We do, yes," I said, with a smile.

"Arran sweaters?"

"Ah, no. We've quite nice cardigans and locally made pullovers. Woollen and cotton. May I show you?"

"No, I don't think so. I wanted the Arran Sweaters."

"Sorry." I wanted to tell the woman she was in the wrong place, Galway, not Kerry, was what she wanted. I'd missed something. "Sorry?"

"What about Waterford, do you carry that?"

"Some decorative pieces, Madam," I said.

"Not the glasses?"

"Not the drinking glasses, no," I said. "Sorry."

"Mmm. Really?"

She was in the wrong county for that as well. Waterford was just a few counties to the east. "Sorry."

The customer looked around the store, frowning.

"Something else, Madam?"

"No, no." She hurried on out.

Miss O'Brien approached from the rear. "No sale, Slaine?"

"No, Miss O'Brien."

She clicked her tongue against her teeth.

It was slow that summer, the weather was fine and the tourists seemed everywhere but in O'Brien's Gift House. It was desperate inside, just a wee small fan although the temperature was nearly eighty degrees. The pink jacket was scratchy and hot. Jean sweated like a pig in hers. The hose made my legs go blotchy. I hadn't enough money left to buy better ones when I was done paying for my lunch and personal items. Once a fortnight Jean and I would go for a drink at the pub. I hadn't a bit of problem being served. One of my classmates, John Joe, was the porter there and he often slipped me a packet of crisps or an extra half of lager. It was something different.

Most evenings I sat home with the children playing card games. They were bored to distraction, Declan trying to come up with games and that for them to play. My mother said they weren't to leave the yard. And they didn't, Declan was very responsible like. But they were bored. Aidan was eight and Michelle was six. They played cars in the dirt. Declan read to them. Treasure Island and Robinson Caruso. They asked him to stop.

Sometimes at night I'd lie in bed, thinking about Colm, wondering how he was getting on in New York. Twasn't that I missed him, but I did miss the cuddling, the attention. I missed the odd filum and his hand on me knee. I tried imagining us married, but it seemed impossible. I tried imagining myself heading back to school in the fall, getting me leaving certificate, going for a place in university. That daydream came dead easy.

It was when I pictured myself forever getting up and washing meself and Michelle, plaiting my hour, pulling on the flesh-colored hose and the cheap shoes, putting on a dress my mother couldn't wear anymore, finishing the outfit off with the ugly pink jacket and going off to work at O'Briens Gift House that it came hard.

I'd push away that image, replacing it with other, more palatable pictures. Me, married with children of my own. My university graduation. My job in a fancy building, my feet on the desk in my own office. My family together, my Dad home at least, and my sister, Aishlin, and my niece, Andrea, us all together. Us and them. My Ma as she'd looked five years ago, young and pretty and alive and my father, handsome and dashing. These were the pictures I went to sleep seeing. This was the happy ever after ending I believed in.

I had my hair done down at Sophie's and put on my new flowered blouse. It was dead pretty was lots of little pansies all over it. I put on my black jeans and a silvery belt. I met Jean and her sister, Frances, at the pub. Frances was younger than Jean, nearer my age, she was after studying nursing in Cork City, home for her holidays. She wasn't pretty, looked a lot like Jean, but she wore a lot of make-up. Lip gloss and blue eye paint. Mascara that made her lashes long and dark. A pinky sort of rouge. Frances was wearing a leather motorcycle jacket over a tight jump suit. She had on gold colored sandals with three-inch heels. Jean was wearing a skirt and jumper and the same sensible brogues she wore to work.

I'd met Frances the one time before. I liked her. She was great craic. "Come on now," she said, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside. Jean followed along behind us. "Do ye see anyone you fancy?" I looked around. My Aunt owned the pub. I had been going there from childhood. I knew nearly everyone in the room. I shook my head.

"What about him?" She pointed boldly.

"No, Christ. That's Philip St. Charles. He's English."

"He's cute," Frances said, pursing her pink lips. "I don't care if he's English. Does he live here then?"

"For the holidays." I looked at Philip St. Charles. He was dark and thin and wore thick glasses. English or Irish I wasn't taken with him.

"Three halves of Smithwicks," Frances told the barmaid.

"Hello, Helen," Jean said.

The barmaid nodded, looking bored.

"I was in school with her," Jean said when we found a table.

Frances rolled her eyes. "See anyone you fancy, Slaine? "

"I know them all," I explained.

"Ah, yeah, well. You'll have to come out with me in Cork City. Lots of pubs there. Great time altogether. Your sister lives there, doesn't she?"

I nodded.

"Where does she drink?"

"Ah, she doesn't," I said, sipping my drink. I didn't want to explain that Aishlin's age ad daughter kept her out of the bars.

"A pioneer?" Frances asked, rolling the eyes again.

Her blue was fading a bit. "No, no. Ah, no."

"I wonder did Helen get married," Jean said.

"Was she meant to?" Frances asked. "I don't remember her."

"She lost a lot of weight," Jean said. "She was engaged. I wonder what happened."

"Why don't you go ask her," Frances said sweetly, kicking my shin under the table. "Slaine and I will be all right here."

"I might do," Jean said, not moving.

"So you fancy Philip?" I asked.

"Something, someone different. I like the Brit accent as well." Frances had quite a loud voice; several of the patrons turned to look at her. She tossed her curly hair behind her shoulders and met their gazes. "And what about your one over there? The blondey one?"

"Tim Sheehan," I said. "He's heading for Trinity." I looked at Tim Sheehan. He had straight blonde hair and a father who was a judge. No question of him going to the technical school and working in a shop for fifty pound a week.

"Ah, too smart for me. I like them a bit rough," Frances said, winking.

"Frances!?"

"Ah, Jeannie, go up and have a chat with Helen."

Jean looked from her sister to me and got up. "Don't get into trouble, now." Frances smiled. Her teeth were a bit off color.

We watched Jean go.

"Are you a virgin?"

"Wha?" I turned beet read.

"I'm not. I've had three lovers," Frances cocked her head to one side. "I've never done it with an Englishman, have you?"

"No," I managed.

"I wonder would it be different."

"I wouldn't think so." Lips after all were the same and hands and legs and everything else to.

"Do you know him? To talk to I mean or just to see."

"Philip? Ah, mostly to see."

Frances frowned. "I wanted to meet him. What do you think of the friend? Do you know him as well?"

"What friend?"

She pointed. "The one with the long hair sitting there."

"Sure he looks like a girl." Your man had long dark hair, worn Prince Valiant style, and was wearing a flowered shirt that looked a great deal like my blouse. "I don't know him."

"Do you fancy him?"

"No." My eyes wandered quickly around the room. There was no one there. John Joe, from school, slipped up and handed me a bag of Taters. "Thanks."

Frances stood up and waved to Philip. He pointed to his chest and mouthed, "Me?"

Frances nodded with great enthusiasm.

"What?" He called.

She beckoned him over.

He looked about the room, at his friend, back at Frances and shrugged.

"Will you stop," Jean said, returning to the table with a mug of coke. "You're after making a fool of yourself."

"Ah, give it up," Frances said and crooked a finger towards Philip once again. He laughed and shook his head.

Jean reached across and shook Frances's shoulder. "Get on out of that."

Frances winked at me and stood up. She smoothed the jump suit down, eyes not moving from Philip. Jean and I watched. Frances licked her lips, then unhurriedly moved towards him.

"Hello," we heard her say and then I couldn't make out what she was whispering in his ear.

She came back to get the leather coat, ignored Jean entirely. "It's dead easy, Slaine," she said to me. "Pretty girl could have anyone you fancy."

I didn't say anything back to that, just watched as she exited with Philip, their hands clasped. Didn't say anything when Jean grabbed her coat and went running after them and didn't say anything when John Joe came up and handed me a glass of whiskey and a bottle of Coke.

"Don't you fancy me at all, Slaine?" He asked, leaning down to clear the table.

I opened up the coke and poured it into the whiskey, raised the glass to my lips. John Joe stood there staring at me, his eyes as big and sad as a puppy. I took a sip of my drink and put it back down again. "I don't fancy anyone." I stared at the whiskey as John Joe took the bottles and glasses away for washing. I stared at the whiskey and it seemed to me I could see my future all laid out in the wee cup. Work in the shop, marry John Joe or one of the other lads, raise a couple children, have Sunday dinner with my mother. That's all there is, the whiskey told me and I took another sip to quiet the talk.

"I won't," I whispered, not caring if anyone heard me and some did, turning their heads to give me the quick inquiring glance.

I poured the rest of the Coke into my whiskey and finished it in one huge gulp. John Joe came back and asked, "Will you go out with me sometime? Will you have another drink? Will you have a pint of something?"

"I won't," I said. "I won't."

I put on my own jacket and went outside, walked around the town alone, ignoring the courting couples and the men drinking to the side in the shadows. Walked so long my legs got tired and I needed a piss something fierce. I headed for home, stopping in the fields to relieve myself. The moon stared down recriminations, but I threw back my head and threw them back. "Slaine," I said to myself, in a normal voice so that anyone who wanted to could hear. "You can have anyone and anything you fancy." Saying it like that I knew it was true. I hurried home then, not caring if the moon followed behind me, headed home to pack my bags and prepare to begin my life.