Vinge

Not much to report. I spent a few days recovering from the weekend, sittign at home after work, having a few glasses of wine. I made dinner of apricot, garlic and thyme roasted haunch of lamb with jus. This cheered me up.

On Wednesday I’m sitting in work. I’ve been spending the week getting as many surreptitious glances of this new bird Cathy as I can. She’s small and slim, and moves like a rumour around the office. She’s an elegant construction, and my ever prying eye has garnered no ring on her finger. I ask the occasional ‘casual’ question of my acquaintances. They know little or nothing. I’m piqued.

Weds I’m sitting there, doing as little as possible when the phone rings.

“h?”

it’s my brother. Cuntstable Cuntrack of Cuntington. “what?” I ask, as pleasantly as I can.

“it’s on Saturday” oh Christ, he has this way of talking. “it” and I should know instantly or else face the full brunt of a theatrical sigh, that lasts about a week. And then the recriminations, for not knowing what it is, or for not wanting to be involved…whatever. I cut him off at the pass.

“can’t make it.” And I can’t, me and Gert are busy, with the girls. “busy”

“you can’t make it to your own fathers memorial service”

Fuck. Anyway, I’m not backing down, I can’t. Busy. Plus I couldn’t give a fuck. But I don’t like giving him the moral highground. He’ll encamp. He’ll build a Maginot line of self righteousness. But fuck it.

“can’t”

“your fucking father. This is so like you”

“yeah, like you had this much time for him while he was alive”
”what? He lived here for six months. He died in my house. I waited on him for six fucking months”

forgot about that. Too late to back down. “is that all. Yeah, you turn up at th endgame, and take all the credit”

“what are you on about. What did you ever do?”

“I was there for him”

“you visited once”

“I visited more than once, you fucker”

“once. You were drunk. You tried it on with my wife. Surely you remember, I punched you?”

“emotions were high”

“you know what. Don’t fucking come. I’m not even going to tell you where it is.”

“good on you”

“you’re a worthless shit”

“fuck you pal,” I roar, and slam the phone down. There’s an uneasy silence around me.

“are you all right” she says. She’s crept up behind me like an insinuation. Cathy. The light coming in makes gold of her red hair. There’s last summers freckles faintly recalled across her cheekbones. I’d love to ram her.

“uh” I say. “family”

“oh, yeah. I know”

“it’s my brother. My dad’s dead”

“oh god, I’m so sorry”

“no, he’s gone a while. But my brother won’t let me go to the memorial. It’s the same every year. Won’t let me go. He’s trying to exclude me from his family.”

“Oh that’s tough”

“I cared for the old man for six months,” I say. “he died in my spare room.” I have to look at the ground to stop from laughing. I’m thinking of me with a spare room. “I think I’ll go for a walk,” I say. “thanks for listening” she smiles at me. Contact!

I go for a little wander. The boss accosts me. “h”, he says” you do fuck all”

HA ha ha. We all have a merry laugh.

Later I meet Gert cos we’re doing a phone interview on Phantom fm. We want to talk about the gilrband and this weekends auditions. We’re talking to some dj, I don’t know who he is, and we’re going on… “we’ve been in the industry for so long now, we want to use our contacts and our experience and basically we want to make some money”

I laugh “it’s about time. I’ve done the ground work, I’ve played with a lot of bands, I’ve toured, produced, managed. Now I want money. Ha ha”

“a couple of simon fullers,” he says “how it goin so far.”

“it’s ok,” says gert. “the quality of girl we’re going for.. well, it’s not girl, so much. Woman. We don’t want kids. We want someone who’s been lived in.”

there’s a few seconds of dead air. “lived in?”

“yes.” Gert clears his throat. “experienced”

“ok”, says the Jerk. “I’m with gert and H, back after these”

“expiereienced” I say. “expiereienced? Wqe don’t want some alcoholic bowlers.”

“we don’t want 15 year olds either”

“whatever.”

“must be fun tho, guys” says the dj, mischievously. Like he’s taking the piss.

“well, the girlband I back up”

“what’s that” says Gert to me. I should point out we’re both talking into the loud speaker on Gerts mobile in the booths O’Neills on pearse st, which is quiet tonight.

“I said we should go for a boyband. Guaranteed money”

“bollocks”

“yeah? Look the fucking evidence. I can’t believe I’m saying this to you again.”

“spice girls.”

“a fucking anomaly. And a real fucking ugly one. They’r efucking munters and prostitutes.”

“why do you hate women?”

“I don’t hate them you fucking pranny”

“uh…. We’re on the air….. so, uh”

“yeah, sorry about that. We’ll be auditioning on Saturday”

After we hang up we have to laugh. I kow Gert just wants to offer this girls a glimpse of fame then whip it away from them again. He’s the one who really hates women.

A few Guinness that night, back to work. Cathy smiles at me as she floats by with a clipboard in her hand.