she wanted to go. So she filled her gullet with stout and wished it was vodka.
“Leave her be,” said Lizzie. She knew that faraway look.
Nan returned her gaze to her cards. “Might have known you two were in cahoots. Thieving bastards the pair o’ ye!”
“I’ve never stolen a thing in my life!” said Lizzie.
“Liar! I’ve seen ye at the end of a shift. Lumpy as porridge and heavy as oats! Stuffing your work pinny full of rolls of hospital toilet paper and bottles of dish soap.”
“Do you know the price of that nonsense?” asked Lizzie indignantly.
“Aye, of course I do,” sniffed Nan. “Because I actually pay for mine.”
Agnes had been floating around the room, unable to settle. Now she nearly upended the card table with an armful of plastic shopping bags. “I bought youse a wee present,” she said.
Nan usually wouldn’t have allowed the interruption, but a gift was free and she knew better than to pass that by. She tucked her cards securely into her cleavage, and as they passed the plastic bags around, each woman drew out a small box. For a while they sat in silence contemplating the picture on the front. Lizzie spoke first, a little affronted. “A bra? What am I wanting with a bra?”
“It’s no just any bra. It’s one of those Cross Your Heart bras. It does wonders for your shape.”
“Try it, Lizzie!” said Reeny. “Auld Wullie will be at you like it’s the Fair Fortnight!”
Ann Marie took her bra from the box; it was clearly too small. “This bra isnae my size!”
“Well, I tried my best to guess. I got a couple of spare, so mind and check all of them.” Agnes was already unzipping the back of her dress. The alabaster of her shoulders was shocking against the claret of the velvet. She unhooked her old bra and her porcelain breasts slid out; she slipped herself quickly into a new bra, and her breasts lifted several centimetres. Agnes dipped and spun for the women. “A fella was selling them off the back of a lorry down Paddy’s Market. Five for twenty pound. Pure magic, eh?”
Ann Marie rummaged and found her size. She was more modest than Agnes, so turned her back to the room as she took off her cardigan and slipped off her old bra. The heaviness of her tits had left red strap welts on her shoulders. Soon all the women except for Lizzie had unfolded their dresses or unsnapped their work coveralls and were sitting in their new bras. Lizzie sat with her arms across her chest. The others, almost bare from the waist up, were running their hands along the satin straps and staring down at their own tits and cooing appreciatively.
“This might be the most comfy thing I’ve ever worn,” admitted Nan. The bra was too loose across the back and was doing its best to hoist her enormous breasts off the shelf of her belly.
“Now those are the boobs I remember from when we were lassies,” said Agnes approvingly.
“Dear God, if only we had known then what we ken now, eh?” said Reeny. “I would have let any bastard that wanted a feel play wi’ them right then and there.”
Nan rolled her tongue lasciviously. “Pure shite! You were never one to keep your hand on your ha’penny anyway.” She was already keen to get back to business and was pushing coins around the table again. “Right, can we all stop looking at oorsels like a bunch of stupit lassies.” She gathered the cards back up and started shuffling the deck. The women still hadn’t drawn up their tops.
Lizzie tried to quietly burst the cellophane on a new cigarette packet. The other women were hawkish, growing sick of smoking harsh rollies and picking tobacco off the ends of their tongues. Lizzie sniffed, “I thought we were smoking our own?” But it was like eating ham hock in front of a pack of strays; they would give her no peace. She grudgingly passed around the fresh pack, and everyone lit up, enjoying the luxury of a manufactured cigarette. Nan sat back in her bra and held the smoke deep in her lungs as she closed her eyes. The air in the room grew hot and curdled again as the smoke swirled and danced with the paisley wallpaper.
Now and then fresh air pulled in and out of the sixteenth-floor window, and the women blinked at the sharpness of it. Lizzie drank her cold black tea and watched as the women all descended towards the darkness in their moods. Fresh air always did this to the drunk. The light, gossipy energy was leaving the room and being replaced by something stickier and thicker.
There was a new voice. “Mammy, he won’t go to sleep!”
Catherine stood in the living room doorway with a look of exasperation on her face. She held her little brother on her hip. He was becoming too big to be held like that, but Shuggie clung to her tight, and it was clear how he loved the bony comfort of her.
Catherine, sour-faced for sympathy, pinched at his wrists and pried him from her. “Please. I can’t handle him any more.”
The little boy ran to his mother, and Agnes swept Shuggie up into her arms. There was the static crackle of nylon pyjamas as she spun him, content at last to have someone to dance with.
Catherine ignored the fact that the women were sitting, half-naked, in new bras. She searched the debris of fish suppers. She preferred the smallest brown chips, the curly skins that spent too long in the fryer and became crispy in the hot fat.
Lizzie smoothed her hand across Catherine’s hip. Everything about her granddaughter seemed meagre, somehow unfeminine. At seventeen Catherine was long-limbed and boyish, with waist-length, poker-straight hair and no real curves. Fitted skirts seemed a disappointment on her. Lizzie had an absent-minded habit of rubbing her hand over her granddaughter’s hip, as if this might cause some sudden femininity to raise up. From pure routine, Catherine pushed Lizzie’s fussing hand away.
“Here!” said Lizzie. “Tell them about that smashin’ job ye’ve tain in the city.” She didn’t pause to let her granddaughter speak but instead turned to the women. “I’m that proud. Assistant to the chairman. That’s almost like being the gaffer yourself, eh?”
“Granny!”
Lizzie pointed to Agnes. “Well! That one thought she was going to get by on good looks. Thank fuck somebody’s got brains.” Lizzie crossed herself quickly. “I’ll gladly go up the confession for boasting.”
“And swearing,” said Catherine.
Nan Flannigan did not look up from her cards. “Now that ye’re working, doll. First thing to do is open two bank accounts. One for when ye take a man. The other one for yersel. And never fuckin’ tell him about it, eh.”
The women all murmured agreement at Nan’s wisdom.
“So, no more school then, hen?” asked Reeny.
Catherine stole a sly glance at her mother. “No. No more school. We need the money.”
“Aye. The state of the day’s world ye’ll be supporting any man ye do get.” The women all had men at home. Men rotting into the settee for want of decent work.
Nan was growing impatient again. She rubbed her chapped hands together. “Listen, Catherine, I love ye, hen.” She sounded insincere. “When ye are our first Scottish space cadet I’ll be sure and pack ye some sandwiches for yer trip. Till then . . .” She motioned to the cards, then pointed to the door. “Fuck off.”
