When they got back to the house, there were red words written on the kitchen window. Johnsey thought of them horror films he could only ever watch half of. Mumbly Dave told him it was lipstick. Lipstick, you dipstick! Ha ha ha! But Johnsey well knew Mumbly Dave was joking away his own hurt feelings. The words said:
Hi J
I called @ 6 but you must be off with your boyfriend
Txt me l8r 087 7946509
Siobhán xxx
Mumbly Dave said Jay like he was disgusted and boyfriend like he was more disgusted again and when Johnsey chanced a sideways look at him, he was nearly sure he saw a glint of water in his eye, but Mumbly Dave just said it was unbelievable that a fella could have rides of nurses scrawling love messages on his kitchen window and he not even having a phone to text her with and he having been given her number twice now and he was starting to wonder had he even a mickey to ride her with and it was an unnatural waste! If it was him she was after, he’d have had her rode and given the road long ‘go but he had no farm of land ha ha ha and he’d want to be getting his finger out in the name of Jaysus. Johnsey couldn’t stop looking at the lipstick message. Three kisses. Mumbly Dave said they could also stand for triple x, as in porno, like. Johnsey wished he’d stop saying words like hole and porno in regards to Siobhán, but how do you tell someone something like that without them thinking you’re an awful holy Joe and an auld spoilsport and hurting them even further?
The next day they went into the phone shop and a wan who Mumbly Dave said had flaking knockers on her sold him a mobile phone and he couldn’t tell what sort of knockers she had because he couldn’t look at her, but she smelled quare nice and she sounded lovely and he dropped his money on the floor when he went to pay her and Mumbly Dave said Watch him, he’s throwing it away, ha ha ha, signs on he can do it and he a feckin millionaire, ha ha ha, and Johnsey felt himself going from red to purple and he suddenly pictured himself smashing the new phone into Mumbly Dave’s face. How’s it he couldn’t just shut up and let him pay the girl besides trying to be smart the whole time and showing off and probably now the girl who smelled lovely would cop his face from the paper and think look at this greedy prick in buying phones and why is everything you do just so embarrassing and how is it he couldn’t control them awful thoughts? Did badness now have the run of his brain?
Mumbly Dave said horse her off a text there so as they drove home. Johnsey asked him what should he say? Mumbly Dave said Jaysus boy, will I have to ride her for you as well? After he said that, Johnsey wouldn’t please the prick and resolved to make his own text without any help. You had to scroll through the menu to figure out all the yokes but he didn’t ask Mumbly Dave for his advice and he didn’t make a bad fist of it all the same now and for a finish he said: Hello Siobhan this is Johnsey Cunliffe sorry I missed you please call again.
Mumbly Dave asked what was he after sending her? Had he the number in right? Johnsey wondered how Mumbly Dave was all of a sudden so browned off with him. It was he was making the smart comments and making little of Johnsey and yet here he was nearly shouting now about the blessed text and he was looking over at Johnsey and reaching to grab the phone off of him and the car was roaring for the want of a change of gear and he wasn’t being too careful about staying inside the white line the way you have to be because Daddy always said to Mother when she was driving if you put your wheels out over the line, some day you’ll go around a bend and there’ll be as big a fool as you coming against you and BANG! Two dead fools. And no knowing how many crathurs of innocent passengers taken with them, all out of foolishness. And Mother would roar at him to shut his face but still and all she’d pull back towards the ditch to quieten him.
When Johnsey called out the text he’d typed, Mumbly Dave said hoo hoo hoo, that was the gayest thing he’d ever heard! Please call again? You’re some tulip, boy! This is Johnsey Cunliffe! Mother. Of. Jaysus. You’re some stones. You’re … And the car shook as the wheels on Johnsey’s side took too much of the soft verge and Mumbly Dave cursed and his hands moved fast on the wheel and when he got it straightened he said Ha ha! That shook you, boy! As much as to say he’d been doing the jackass on purpose, his bad driving only a stunt to put the wind up Johnsey. But there was a lot of colour gone from his face for a fella that was only playing the fool.
He must have copped on then that Johnsey was like a dog with him for making a laugh of his text to Siobhán and was wishing to God he could reach in to the sky and pull it back and send something else cool and smart and funny and imagine it was out there now, bouncing off of a satellite and back down to earth and into Siobhán’s phone with the pink case around it and the blue love heart on it and wasn’t it an awful dangerous thing, a text message, because once you pressed that little send button, that was it. Like pulling a trigger of a shotgun and sending a pellet into a little rabbit’s brain as he sniffed the sweet spring air. You couldn’t undo it. You couldn’t ever take it back. Mumbly Dave said Don’t worry, boy, don’t worry, and drove straight and not too fast the rest of the road home.
IT WAS ALL THE ONE for a finish. Siobhán had no interest in big long text messages. She just said: OK no prob Ill call l8r after wrk. And that was it then, she would text that she was going to call and he would just reply ok, and she would arrive about six or half-six and one day she sent a text to say: On way starving, and he panicked and rang Mumbly Dave and asked what would he do and Mumbly Dave said he didn’t know in the hell and he asked what had he in the fridge and Johnsey said sausages and rashers and puddings and he said make her a fry so I suppose and when Siobhán arrived she wanted to know did he really think she’d want to eat a plate of burnt, dead pig? And she laughed and told him eat it himself but it was quare hard to chew and swallow when your mouth was dry and your stomach was sick with embarrassment and she ate a sandwich made out of brown bread with cheese and sliced apple! Imagine that, a sandwich with apple in it! And after that if she said she’d be calling he’d have a bit to eat ready for her, like a sandwich made of brown bread and lettuce and low-fat cheese and a Diet Coke and an apple maybe (but not in the sandwich) because that’s the kind of stuff women love eating, apparently.
Mumbly Dave took to going away before Siobhán arrived. If she sent a text message, he’d ask Johnsey what did it say and Johnsey would say she’s calling in later and Mumbly Dave would nod his head and say nothing and then he’d say he had to go away, anyway, he was meeting a few of the lads in the village for a pint but Johnsey knew he was going to go home to watch Home and Away on his own and then probably Emmerdale and Coronation Street, maybe, with his mother because she was sometimes home by half-seven.
He was quieter these last few days since Siobhán started calling. He didn’t ask Johnsey too much about what they did when she called. Johnsey thought that was strange, but in a way he was glad: how would he have told Mumbly Dave that he just sat there like a tool trying not to leave his eyes wander down her chest or up her leg, trying not to think about what happened in the hospital, listening to her giving out yards about auld Dinny Shanley trying to feel her arse all day and his wife dribbling all over herself inside in the bed? But still, all the same, wasn’t it a fright that he couldn’t have Mumbly Dave and Siobhán without having to feel guilty about Mumbly Dave feeling left out and then feeling resentful if he included himself and being scared in case Siobhán expected him to do or say something meaningful or what have you and was it an awful bad thing if he wished sometimes he could go back to walking down the Callows with Mumbly Dave and talking comfortable auld nonsense about nothing? It was grand having Siobhán calling up alright, but did one thing you had have to be a bit ruined by getting another thing? Is that how life balanced itself out?