— Here! a young fella outside shouted. — These chips are raw!
— Yeh never said yeh wanted them cooked! said Jimmy Sr, and he dashed back to turn the burgers.
He was enjoying himself; the three of them were.
The older lads came out later, Bertie and Paddy and them, and it was more relaxed, a good laugh. It was nearly one o’clock. Jimmy Sr had lost weight, he could tell. He put his hand down the back of his trousers and there was much more room than usual, even with no shirt or vest in there. It was like working in a sauna. He liked the idea of losing a few pounds. He’d say nothing yet to Veronica about it, not for a few days. He’d do a twirl in front of her and see if she noticed.
The place was a mess, and getting dangerous. Sharon had fallen and Bimbo had scorched two of his fingers. It served him right for trying to pick up the burger with his hand cos Jimmy Sr was using the fish slice.
— Night nigh’, compadres.
— Good luck, Bertie.
There was no one left. Jimmy Sr closed the hatch. He could see another gang coming up the road and he didn’t want to have to start all over again. Anyway, they’d hardly anything left. There were a few chips in the bottom of the bin but they were a bit brown looking. Most of the water was on the floor. It could stay there. They were too shagged to do any cleaning. They made room for themselves on the ledges and shelves and sat up or leaned against them.
— Fuck me, said Jimmy Sr.
— Look at me shoes, said Sharon.
— Buy a new pair.
— Wha’ with?
— This, said Bimbo.
He held up a handful of notes, then put them back in the box. He showed them the rest of the cash in the box. He had to squash it down to keep it from falling out; not just green notes either, brown ones as well, and even a couple of blueys.
— Fair enough, wha’.
Someone hit the hatch a wallop.
They ignored it, and stayed quiet.
It felt good, being finished, knackered. They were too tired to grin. Jimmy Sr’s ears were buzzing with the tiredness. He got a can from under the hotplate and it slipped out of his hands because of the grease; the flask cup had flowed over.
— Ah Jaysis—
He held the can with his apron, opened it and took a slug: it was horrible and warm.
— Ah — shi’e—
Bimbo got a can and held it up to make a toast.
— Today’s chips today, he said.
Jimmy Sr nudged a chip on the floor with his shoe.
— Absolutely, he said.
It had been some day.
At the end of the week — next Friday — he was going to put money on the table in front of Veronica, and say nothing.
They went home.
— Look it.
Sharon showed Jimmy Sr, Veronica and Darren the spots on her left cheek all the way up to her eye, clusters of them in little patches. She’d just found them, up in the bathroom. Her left side was much redder than the right, horrible and raw looking; she couldn’t understand it. She wanted to cry; she could feel them getting itchy.
— My God, said Veronica, and went to get a closer look.
Darren was a bit embarrassed.
Jimmy Sr leaned out from his chair to see.
— Gis a look, he said.
— It’s some sort of a rash, said Veronica, — or — I don’t know.
— That’s gas, said Jimmy Sr. — I’ve them as well; look.
He showed them the right side of his face.
— I shaved over them, he said. — But yeh should be able to still see them.
He rubbed his cheek.
— They’re still there alrigh’.
Veronica was confused but Sharon was beginning to understand.
— D‘yeh know wha’ it is? said Jimmy Sr. — It’s the hotplate; the fat splashin’ up from the hot plate.
He mimed turning a burger.
— I was on the righ’ an’ you were on the left, he told Sharon.
He grinned.
— Poor Bimbo must be in tatters, he said. — Cos he was in the middle.
Darren laughed.
By the time Ireland played Egypt, the Sunday after, they’d added sausages to the menu and Jimmy Sr was putting less lard on the hotplate.
Business was hopping.
On Friday they pitched their tent outside the Hikers earlier, at five o’clock, and stuck up posters — Jessica’s work — all over the van: £I Specials — Chips + Anything—5 to 7.30pm. It worked; the Pound Specials went down a bomb. Women coming out of Crazy Prices with the night’s dinner read the posters and stopped and said to themselves Fuck the dinner; you could see it in their faces. They either bought the chips and anything immediately or went home and sent one of the kids out to get them.
It was Maggie’s idea.
— Twelve Poun’ Specials, Mister, said one little young one, and that was the record.
By seven, when they were having a rest, Jimmy Sr and Bimbo were talking seriously about getting an engine; then there’d be no stopping them. They’d have to get some sort of a flue put in as well. Even with the hatch and the door open, the fumes were gathering up in the back of the van. You noticed it when you went down there to get more chips from the bin; you came back crying. And the smell off your clothes; no amount of washing could get rid of it.
— It’s an occupational hazard, Jimmy Sr told Veronica.
Spots, singed hair and smelly threads; Veronica said that he looked like something out of Holocaust.
— Ha fuckin’ ha, said Jimmy Sr.
— A large an’ a dunphy.
— Wha’? said Jimmy Sr.
He looked down at the customer, a young fella about young Jimmy’s age, with his pals.
— Large an’ a dunphy, he said again.
He was grinning.
— What’s a dunphy? Jimmy Sr wanted to know.
— A sausage, said the young fella.
— Sausage, large, Jimmy Sr called over his shoulder to Bimbo.
He looked back at the young fella.
— Are yeh goin’ to explain this to me? he asked.
— Sausages look like pricks, righ’?
— Okay; fair enough.
— An’ Eamon Dunphy’s a prick as well, said the young fella.
By Thursday of the second week, the night of the Holland game, the word Sausage had disappeared out of Barrytown. People were asking for a dunphy an’ chips, please, or an eamon, a spice burger an’ a small single. Some of them didn’t even bother eating them; they just bought them for a laugh. Young fellas stood in front of the big screen in the Hikers and waved Jimmy and Bimbo’s sausages in batter instead of big inflated bananas.
— This is where the real World Cup starts, said Paddy, when they’d settled down again after the final whistle.
— He’s righ’, said Jimmy Sr. — For once.
Ireland were through to the knock-out stages.
Jimmy Sr took another deep breath.
— Fuckin’ great, isn’t it?
They all agreed.
— After all these years, wha’, he said.
— COME ON WITHOU’
COME ON WITHIN
YOU’VE NOT SEEN NOTHIN’ LIKE THE MIGHTY QUINN—
Bertie summed up the campaign so far.
— We beat England one-all, we lost to Egypt nil-all, an’ we drew with the Dutch. That’s not bad, is it?
— OOH AH—
PAUL MCGRATH—
SAY OOH AH PAUL MCGRATH—
Jimmy Sr stood up.
— Yeh righ’, Bimbo?
The van was outside waiting for them.
It was hard leaving the pub after all that, the match and the excitement: but they did, Bimbo and Jimmy Sr. You had to admire them for it, Jimmy Sr thought anyway.
The day after the Holland game Maggie brought home T-SHIRTS she’d got made for them in town. They had Niall Quinn’s head on the front with His Mammy Fed Him On Bimbo’s Burgers under it. They were smashing but after two washes Niall Quinn’s head had disappeared and the T-SHIRTS didn’t make sense any more.