Personality Read online

  3. The room divider. A wooden item on short legs which offered a series of shelves on which to place more ornaments. Rosa had placed a bowl of ceramic fruit she was fond of in the middle of this. On another shelf was a collection of tiny brass ornaments: a phonograph, a boot, a tortoise, a miniature grand piano, Big Ben, and a racing car. Most of these were bought from a shop in Montague Street called Bojangles. One of the other shelves on the room divider held a digital clock radio. The bottom part with sliding doors had booze inside, mostly cans of McEwans Export and Tennant’s Lager, the odd bottle of stout, and a half-empty bottle of Bell’s. At the back there was usually something like Advocaat, Midori or Martini Bianco, booze for women who didn’t like booze. The tumblers were also kept in here.

  5. The sofa. A green cord three-seater which had been Maria’s entire planet for the first three years of her life. If you put your hand down the back there were masses of biscuit crumbs, a child’s debris, stuff that had somehow missed Rosa’s vacuum cleaner and her damp cloth. Now and then a brown coin would turn up too: Maria would scrub any coin she found with ketchup, making it shine like a gold button. The knots of nylon on the sofa’s surface were coming undone. It was like a giant dog and even in adulthood Maria would think of its comforts.

  6. The coffee table. Smoked glass with a bit underneath for the TV Times, Rosa kept several small ceramic baskets of flowers on top of this, and at the centre was an alabaster ashtray and a matching alabaster lighter shaped like a cube.

  7. The dining table. At the back of the living-room was a table bought at some expense for family dinners that never happened. It was always covered with ironing.

  *

  One of the nights before Maria went to London her mother gave an Avon party in the house. It wasn’t meant as a send-off party or anything, but it turned into a night she would often think of when she thought of her last days on the island.

  Kalpana was allowed to stay overnight. Rosa had placed bowls of crisps and nuts around the living-room – on the coffee table, the room divider – and she took the chairs from the dining table so all the women could sit. The living-room was filled with laughter and coughing. Everyone had a drink, the Avon catalogues were spread over the carpet, and to do her job Rosa was going round squirting perfume on people’s wrists and shaking out her own wrist to let them smell. Kalpana and Maria sat on the stairs in their nightdresses. They could watch everything that was happening and people passed them up crisps and then gave them chocolates too and they were watching all the events and feeling great.

  Maria had noticed that something nice happened to Rosa when she was surrounded only by women. Sometimes, the years fell away from her, she laughed more and drank more, was more girlish, and the weight she perpetually carried around seemed to drop off her. Maria had only seen her like that with men a few times in her life. Wearing her carpet-slippers, a bottle under her arm, distributing glass tumblers to the women, Rosa seemed happy to be herself for that time. She never cried so much in front of other women, the way she did with men.

  All the Avon perfumes that season were named after Greeks. One that Kalpana thought smelled of oranges was called Ariadne. One in a round blue bottle was called Pandora. Mrs Bone liked the smell of Medea. Doing her saleswoman act, Rosa liked them all but her favourites were Jocasta, Leda and Penelope. She went from chair to chair spraying wrists and giving out little glass tubes of free samples. Maria had not seen her mother so happy in a long time. That was the thing about Rosa that took years to understand: beneath the everyday buzz of unhappiness and self-pity, she had the most amazing resources, no matter what – they fuelled her bid to survive her troubles, and she liked to be among people, until she felt they had let her down.

  The girls got to stay up late, and when the women had all filled in their order forms Rosa put on a record and brought the girls downstairs. Kalpana loved the party. Rosa turned the music up and put a curtain across the kitchen door. Maria was behind it. Then Rosa put on a new record. ‘Ladies,’ she said, ‘a wee bit of hush. For your own pleasure. Wee bit hush for the proud mother. In a special command performance, for one night only, I am delighted to introduce my own daughter – Maria Tambini!’

  The record started and Maria jumped through the curtain. All the women clapped and Maria was holding a hairbrush and immediately began swaying and popping her eyes. ‘Would You Like to Swing on a Star’. All the women cheered and Kalpana clapped. Rosa swigged from her glass and handed out ashtrays; she kept time to the music and didn’t seem to care if things got spilt or if anything went on too long. ‘What the hell,’ she said, ‘it’s only us having a nice time for a change.’ Maria would sing her song three times that night and the phone rang out in the hall, but they ignored it, going on with the song, and then other songs and drinks from the back of the cabinet.

  In the morning the records were spread over the living-room carpet, and the Rosa who put them back in their sleeves was not the same person who’d taken them out. The mother Maria adored came out when Rosa forgot herself. But that didn’t happen often. Maria was still lying in bed, smiling and singing, when she heard the Hoover scrape over the landing and knew her mother had become herself again.

  11

  Giovanni

  I used to work on the trawlers, that’s what I did before I met her, so the work just carried on out there but I hated it, and during a bad night I’d think about her lying in bed, and sometimes in the middle of fucking nowhere I would say her name, standing on the deck it was bloody freezing and I’d just say her name.

  Rosa.

  Miles from anywhere. Fucked. That’s when you know you love somebody when their name comes into your head and everything else just fades away, nothing else matters but her name and her face on the pillow. Listen to yourself, you’re pathetic. A woman like her and she is always sad I swear to Christ you could have a happy life just doing the right things I’ve told myself a million times. When the boat came back into the bay and you could see the lights you just loved her and when you got in the door she would wash your hair and say you’re daft go to sleep. You’re daft, so you are.

  There’s no need. You don’t know it sometimes but you’re just letting yourself right fucking down aren’t you? She’s unhappy. That is a fact. I just touch her head sometimes and hold it in my hands and when she moves my overalls are wet where her eyes were. There’s no need for that in this day and age. We should be happy and that’s my job is it no to make her happy? That’s what I want as well. I’m telling you. I should fucking run away and leave them all in peace so I should. Sometimes when I’m out I can hear her voice talking to me. She’s not there. I’ve gone to the phone and rung her and she comes to the phone sleepy and says leave us alone you’re no good. You’re not a good man. Leave us alone she fucking says to me.

  She already had Maria when I met her. There was never any problem. Even in her cot the wee lassie was special I’m telling you straight. I really took to her, and me and Rosa used to tuck her in at night. I never met her real father and neither did the wee lassie and that didnae matter. He worked up at the Polaris base on the Holy Loch once upon a time and he was back living in America years ago as far as I know. I hate it when Rosa says I’m just like him, we’re all tarred with the same brush – it makes me feel like fucking nothing. I’m not like him. Just sometimes it seems there’s nowhere to go and you know you could do everything right if you wised-up.

  I don’t want this I’m telling you straight. She calls me a people-pleaser and she’s right all I do is laugh and joke in the pub, as if those people mattered. Have another drink boys. Go on eh. Live it up. Live it up eh the big fucking diddy’s getting the drinks. You don’t just stand back and watch things go to hell, go to fucking pot. That’s some bloody way to go ahead being the big man right enough. You need to have a word with yourself and sort the thing out for Christ’s sake. Here you are fucking pathetic and feeling sorry for yourself again, away and do something about it then. You’ve got to put an end to all this and
make things right. She deserves a better kick of the ball than this.

  On nice days I used to drive them around the lochs and across to Dunoon or else over to Largs. What a good carry on and a good laugh. Like a proper family. That’s the way it should be. The windows down and racing up the Electric Brae. Getting the stuff in at the ice-cream van. Have whatever yous want. Life is what you make it eh? I love to say her name. You’ll see a change Rosa. Believe you me you can bet your life.

  I found a pack of old radio cards. I gave them to the wee lassie as a present and she loved them so she did. Pictures of all the old stars that used to sing on the radio. I think they were American. They had people like Mario Lanza and Judy Garland on them. All that. And then sometimes we’d have wee concerts in the café. What the hell I’d say. A rainy day. Hand sweeties out to the weans and let them sit at the tables and be the audience. And wee Maria would come downstairs all done up and a right lady. She always sang that wee lassie as if the whole world was watching her. Would hardly credit it now: London. They’re working it all out for her down there now and I’m telling you she fucking deserves it that wee lassie, deserves the lot. There’s people belong in a place like London and she’ll have all the chances in the world down there.

  Life is what you make it. The weans would all clap and shout for ice cream and Maria would sing her wee heart out. What the hell I would say. Give them the lot. Give them the whole bloody lot. I would empty the shop for them so I would. There was a television mast up on the meadows and Maria and her wee pal Kalpana used to go up there with their dolls and have concerts. Right underneath the mast with a force ten gale blowing half the time. She has some fucking guts on her that wee lassie. It’s frightening so it is, frightening to watch.

  You should see her watching the telly. If it’s one of they singing programmes she fidgets on the sofa in time to what they’re singing and mouths the words, you know? She’s totally into it. The other night I came in the door of the living-room and she didn’t see me. She was right up against the telly screen. She was putting her hands on the glass the way kids do to feel the interference. Then she sat back on the pouffe and watched. The Miss World competition was on and she just stared into the faces of the lassies and giggled when they said what they’d do if they won. She’s a treasure I’m not kidding. I watched her from the door and she didn’t even turn round, it was as if she was just sleepwalking or something, just her wee hand stroking the telly screen as if she could actually touch the hair on the lassies. Maria watches the TV the way other people look at people they love. She just pulled her knees up to her chin on the carpet and then the commercials came on and she still stared. It was only a lot of commercials but you should see the way she watches them. Six inches from the screen.

  Beanz Meanz Heinz.

  Rosa’s never been a laugh a minute. She’s just got too much on her mind half the time but she can be a great woman when she wants to be. I was shaving this morning and I looked at myself in the mirror and said, this is up to you. If you want to fucking mess up your life then it’s up to you. It’s in your hands. Control yourself man and get your house in order. There’s no excuse. There’s a lot of things I’d like to say to Rosa. Remember that time at Saltcoats we rolled down the beach having a kiss? We couldn’t stop laughing and we got sand in our mouths and everything. ‘This didn’t happen in From Here to Eternity,’ you said. Back in the car I said I loved you and you cried and we went to the Melbourne Café and had knickerbocker glories leaning against the Vitrolite. Perry Como was playing on the jukebox.

  I’m back on the boats for money. Out here at night the men are rolling drunk and talking rubbish and I just walk to the stove and above it the radio crackles and I think ‘land’ – oh, for Christ’s sake, dry land – and I think about you, the moon over Arran and here’s the ropes dragging over the good boots you bought me, and the big horn sounding out: I think to myself, holy fuck, I’ll never be a good man in your eyes. Up on the deck it’s a bunch of bams – fucking diddies talking about fighting and all sorts of shite. Some prick from Brodick’s going on about how he fell out with his sister over a pot of soup. The sister says to him, ‘Oor mother made a rare pot of soup,’ and he says, ‘Don’t talk fucking shite, it was like tar thon soup.’ ‘Away,’ she says, ‘it was the best soup on the west of Scotland, pea and ham, ham thick as the walls at Barlinnie, you loved it.’ ‘Away and geez peace, and stop telling me what I loved,’ he says, and he’s telling us the full story. ‘You could’ve danced on thon soup and it was bloody horrible and I’m fed up listening to you bumming it up. Soup, soup, the fucking soup was boiling hot and it near melted the fucking spoon. Jesus, it was molten lava, would you no geez peace about the soup!’ That’s the kind of thing you have to listen to, that’s the fucking level of conversation out here.

  The times me and you had in the car. We could talk to one another about things, you and me and the wee lassie out in the car with pokes of chips, we know how to live, sitting parked at Portencross and the rain battering down, remember, the windows of the car clouded up and wee Maria in the back making footprints on the window with the heel of her hand and her fingers. You Rosa and me and the wee lassie out there ourselves: the smell of air-freshener and the rain pelting outside. We know how to live hen. I want to be good in your eyes. If God should strike me down. Starting from today I swear to God, no more rubbish from me. Don’t turn the light off I’m asking you, don’t forget me Rosa in your green eyes.

  12

  Kelvinator

  Lucia was down in the café. She was looking for some tape in a drawer through the back; the drawer was full of tacks and labels and batteries and old peelers. ‘This is some state to keep a drawer in,’ she said. ‘Bloody ridiculous. No like you at all.’

  ‘We’re trying to run a bloody business in here,’ said Rosa, ‘and there’s a family as well. I’m run off my feet here. I’ve only got one pair of hands. And you want me to bloody stop and tidy the drawer into the bargain.’

  ‘I’m just saying,’ Lucia said. ‘I’m just saying it doesn’t do to let things go. You need to keep on top of these things.’

  ‘And you’re so organised about everything aren’t you mammo?’

  ‘Well. When you’ve no choice you just have to cope.’

  ‘And you’re so good at coping aren’t you?’ Rosa had now put down the knife she was cutting with and was looking straight at Lucia. ‘You always do the right thing don’t you mammo?’

  Lucia was stirred by the way Rosa spoke to her, but she was frightened to go further. ‘I was just saying.’

  ‘Well don’t say!’ said Rosa. ‘I’ve got fish to prepare here and you’re just getting in my road.’ She squeezed herself in front of the drawer and found the tape right away. She dropped it into Lucia’s hand and went back to the table.

  ‘I just want to pin up a sign about the jumble sale,’ said Lucia, but she walked through to the front shop with her bottom lip trembling. She put the notice up and left. When Rosa looked into the café she could see the prints of Lucia’s slippered feet all the way to the door. All the time she was through the back her mother had been standing in a puddle of dirty potato skins. ‘Well done, Mrs Mop,’ Rosa said to herself.

  Maria was up in the living-room watching Opportunity Knocks. A man-and-wife act from Torquay were doing a routine about clowns. Maria sat on the sofa biting her nails. The woman leapfrogged over the man and they knocked each other over then returned to the microphone for the finale, and Hughie Green the compere came back. He had grey hair slicked back and his voice was half-American. There were lines across his forehead and he only smiled on one side of his face. ‘I mean that most sincerely, folks,’ he said.

  Maria wondered if Hughie Green had been to all the places in America. He talked as if he knew everyone and had seen everything. He always used the word ‘talent’. He said this one had talent and that one had talent and what a lot of talent there is packed into the next act. Maria tried to picture the studio in London. She was
going there in two weeks. After her big night at the Jubilee she had gone to another audition at the Barrafield Halls in Largs and the letter had come soon after saying she had made it onto the show. She watched Mr Green on Opportunity Knocks and wondered if he would like her. He was nice with his grey hair, and she felt he looked like someone she had known all her life.

  ‘What talent is, how you find it, is what Opportunity Knocks is all about,’ said Hughie Green, ‘and we like the public to make the decisions for us. Not just the public here in the studio, but the mums and dads sitting in front of their television sets at home. One thing I’ve learned, ladies and gentlemen, is you can’t beat the opinion of the great British public.’

  You saw each of the acts on the screen and the clapometer recorded what the studio audience thought of each one. When she was only a baby, Alfredo had told Maria the clapometer could hear the claps in Rothesay and all over Britain. She knew that wasn’t true, but she still clapped for the act she thought was best, feeling glad when the needle went up.