MUMBLY DAVE started to do a line with a girl from the city. Woo hoo, boy, I’ll be right for the Christmas, lads! This wan is mad for me! Siobhán would smile at him and look at Johnsey and roll her eyes to heaven and Mumbly Dave would be hunched over his mobile and he’d be click-click-clicking away ninety and smiling to himself and he’d laugh now and again, high and giggly, like a woman. He’d met this wan while he was doing a bit of tiling inside in a school. She was a teacher, imagine! He had to be quare careful about the nixers these days, auld Timmy Shake Hands was mad trying to catch him out. Wouldn’t you think the prick would leave it go; it wasn’t out of his pocket the claim was coming. It was the insurance company would be paying out. What odds to Timmy, in all fairness? The bitter auld bollix.
Siobhán kept asking when would they get to meet her, this big love of Dave’s? Was she one of these smart city ones that think they’ll spontaneously combust if they come too far out from town? What does she teach, anyway? Braille? And Johnsey was glad that he got it straight away — she was saying your wan must be blind to like Mumbly Dave — but Mumbly Dave had to think about it for a few seconds, and he spent the few seconds looking out of his mouth at Siobhán and then said Oh ya, ha ha ha. But there was no laughter in his eyes, and Johnsey was pure-solid ashamed for egging her on inside in his head to make little of Mumbly Dave. What kind of a fella wants his friend’s feelings to be hurt?
MUMBLY DAVE loved him. He knew it before Siobhán said it, but didn’t know he knew it. How’s it he couldn’t live up to it? It’s an awful burden, being loved. Even by a little fat man. Imagine if Siobhán loved him. He’d never cope with that. That was a worry to join the rest of his worries inside in the room in his brain where he tried to keep them all together with the door locked on them. It was no good, though, they squeezed through the keyhole and flowed out through the jambs and took their shape again outside like the yoke in Terminator 2 that was made of liquid and could become anything it wanted and could sneak around the place letting on to be a puddle and all of a sudden it’d be running around stabbing people. Paddy Rourke was in that room, and Eugene Penrose and his stump and the Unthanks and Aunty Theresa and the newspaper people who thought he was a woeful bollix and the neighbours who thought he was a rotten greedy fecker and the whole village who blamed him for calling a halt to progress and Mother and Daddy, both dead and he never having done one thing his whole life they could boast about and it’d soon be Christmas and should he buy a present for Siobhán? And if he even managed to walk in the door of one of them girly shops inside in town and the girl asked him who was the present for, what would he say? A nurse who gave me a handjob one time and now comes to my house to eat sandwiches and give out?
People can be an awful dose. If you only had to look at them on television, everything would be grand. When they wanted to buy your father’s land and say things about you in newspapers and make little of you below in the village and be your friend and be your nearly girlfriend and shoot lads over what they done to you or really over what was done to them and look out of their mouths at you for a reaction or an answer or a laugh or a digout or an action of which you’re not capable in a million years, they’d wear you out. They’d go through you for a shortcut. They’d wreck your head, the townie lads would say. Isn’t it a noble thing all the same, loneliness? There’s dignity in it, at least. You can’t make a show of yourself when you’re on your own. You can’t sound stupid opposite nobody. People are better inside in your head. When you’re longing for them, they’re perfect.
THAT AULD CROSSNESS came back around the start of December. Siobhán said to Johnsey that Mumbly Dave was only a user. Mumbly Dave said Siobhán was only teasing him. Siobhán said Mumbly Dave was a right weirdo. Imagine, a man in his thirties hanging around with young fellas, driving around in his Johnny-go-fast car, with everyone laughing at him! Mumbly Dave said you’d be as well off give that wan the road, I’m only saying it for your own good, she’s waiting until you haven’t a drop of blood left in your brain because it’s all holding up your horn and you’ll ask her to marry you and she’ll bleed you dry. Siobhán said she couldn’t believe that thing with Mumbly Dave and the barn and he’d make some balls of that job and leave you in the shit, don’t even dream of it, no one would want to live in a crappy apartment in a smelly old cowshed. Mumbly Dave said she only wants you selling everything up so she can give the rest of her days going out foreign and buying expensive shite inside in Brown Thomas like all them wans that thinks they’re bigshots. Siobhán said Mumbly Dave was probably a closet gay. Mumbly Dave said Siobhán was a sneaky little bitch. Then he got kind of sorry and said Yerra lookit, women don’t be in their right mind half the time, with their periods and what have you.
He wasn’t even sure when they had started to read each other so violently behind each other’s backs. It sort of built up over a couple of weeks: a little dig laughed off was brought up when the digger was gone; a smart comment ignored at the time was repeated indignantly when the commenter was in the toilet. They started to change the air when they shared a room. They made it harder to breathe: you’d be aware of your lungs filling and emptying and you’d try not to make noises breathing because that drove Siobhán mad and she’d want to know why you sounded like a fucking respirator and Mumbly Dave would say Leave the man breathe any way he wants, and she’d say Mind your own business, and he’d say it was his business if she was tormenting his friend and she’d say Oh really? And he’d say Yes really. And she’d take a pull of her fag and blow the smoke hard in his direction and he’d tell her she was a classy bird all right and she’d say Are you still here, David? Have you not got a hot date? And she’d make that snorting noise at the back of her nose like she thought he was no more going on a date that night than the man in the moon and he’d say I have actually, and she’d say You’d better run along so, and he’d say I’ll see you, Johnsey, and Johnsey would only say See you, and he never even got up off of his hole to walk as far as the yard with him any more, only sat looking at Siobhán and smelling her and hating himself. Mumbly Dave said he was pussy-whipped. What the hell did that mean? It was some kind of a weakness, like some kind of a sex thing that only a fool would get involved in.
If he couldn’t ask Mumbly Dave what he should buy Siobhán for Christmas, who could he ask? He knew if he went down to the bakery the Unthanks would give a whole hour at least talking about it with him. Himself would suggest something silly like a pound of sausages and Herself would tell him don’t be daft and she’d laugh and he’d laugh and nudge Johnsey when she wasn’t looking and they’d warm him with smiles and fill him with fresh bread and buns and tea. But he’d be afraid then they’d want to tell him they were sorry they hadn’t told him about the consortium and he’d say it was grand, what about it, weren’t they perfectly entitled? And they’d say about how they didn’t know what way it would work out and it was no treachery and Jackie knew all about it. And what if he started crying like an eejit? It’d be out of sadness over their sadness and the mention of Daddy, but it’d only make everything worse, and Herself would start crying again and she’d stand at the sink, knotting a tea towel in her soft old hands, saying everyone invested with them, Johnsey, everyone thought it was a great idea, everyone …