Brass Read online

  Grandad O’Reilley was devoted to my Mum. He thought she was just the best thing that could have happened to his boozy, vivacious son. She was a teacher, like him – and she had finesse. At Christmas when he and Granny would arrive with smiles and bottles of Jamesons and so much cheer and love, he’d stand back on the doorstep and just glow at Mum. He’d stare at her, like she was an apparition.

  That day, he bolted all the way over from Ireland in the hope that he could talk her out of leaving his son and granddaughter. He sat with her holding her hand until way after dark, but it was futile. Her decision was immutable. Dad was a sleazy, sick old man who had wasted twenty years of her life. That’s what she called my Daddy – sleazy and sick. Those two words cut like a knife. But in a way she did me a favour. It numbed the pain of her leaving. I just let her go, after that.

  I spot Kennedy waddling her way over to Dad. She’s a senior lecturer in my department and she’ll be taking us for Postmodernism in Literature this year. She dresses as to discourage contemplation of her body, and yet somewhere underneath those baggy slacks and blanket blouses there must be tits and a cunt. I don’t hate her. She just irritates the fuck out of me. She’s one of those characters students neither like nor dislike. They just accept her as one of the many who neither inspire nor deter – a worthless piece of machinery that keeps the system ticking. She starts gabbing to Dad, cocking her head to one side and twiddling her ear, all over him like fucking eczema. It’s a tragedy to behold. Dad’s eyebrows are slightly raised, like the eyebrows of someone politely listening to a joke he’s already heard before. Her face lights up when she sees me.

  ‘Millie! I didn’t realise you’d chosen Postmodernism for your final year! Well done, you!’

  I can’t stop myself. I should have more restraint. More compassion at least, anyway.

  ‘Yes, mad looking forward to it Mrs Kennedy. Postmodernism is something I feel very passionate about.’

  She’s actually a Miss, a title she wears with some discomfort. Dad glowers at me over the top of her head. He knows my slip of the tongue is anything but innocent.

  ‘Passionate, Millie?’

  I make eyes at him and return my attention to formless Kennedy.

  ‘Well let’s just say that it’s something that leaves itself vulnerable to discursive conflict, isn’t it, Mrs Kennedy?’

  ‘Indeed it is, Millie,’ she says with an ebullient nod of the head.

  ‘And, I suppose what I’m really looking forward to are the tutorials – the opportunity to discuss and challenge some of the fundamental principles that underpin orthodox postmodernist thinking.’

  Dad rolls his eyes.

  I gaze dreamily into the heavens.

  ‘Postmodernism… It’s disrupted all the truths and knowledge that have informed and shaped the very way we view our world. It’s called into question the very foundations of our existence. Frightening it is. Something that students should not take lightly.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she says, beaming. ‘I can’t wait to get stuck into this year. Looks like we have some very promising students.’

  She raises her eyebrows and gives Dad a long slow nod.

  ‘Right then. I best be off,’ I say with a conclusive snort, ‘I want to get to the library and do a few hours background reading before the lecture. See you then.’

  I head off, and Kennedy throws me an urgent wave. Dad is scowling when I look back.

  The Lecture theatre reeks. Like a London bus in a heat wave. Students are dawdling in, in clumps, fervently exchanging holiday anecdotes of sexual derring-do and mapping out their social calender for the year ahead. No one seems to notice me lurking at the back. Hopefully it’ll stay that way for the rest of term. I don’t hate students because they’re students, it’s just that the people I dislike most happen to be students. And I have had student mates in the past. I have. There was Louis and Tumbler, wasn’t there?

  Louis lived just round the corner from me on Rose Lane. He was another one who lived with his folks. We were virtually inseparable around campus during the first year but he was so difficult to talk to. Impenetrable he was, and not in a pretentious or a self-conscious way. He just didn’t like talking. We probably spent more time in The Blackburne Arms than we did in lectures during our first year and I could still only tell you three things about him. That his favourite drink is Gin and Orange, that he’s got a first edition Hemingway and that he had a twin brother who died at birth. We dropped an E together this one time but conversation was still muted. He just sat there with this gleeful idiotic grin emblazoned across his face, pointing at the ceiling and slapping his thighs. And then he just did one – offed to Goa with some hippie chick he met on the Internet. His folks were distraught.

  Tumbler, my other mate, had one of those gormless faces that’s easily forgotten. He was living in the Rathbone Halls of Residence, just at the top of Liam’s road. I found him lumbering home one Friday night, sobbing. His nose was smeared across his face. Some scallies had hopped on him outside Chris’ Chippy on Rose Lane and robbed his money – and his chips. I knew the lads who’d done it. Kids. They were no older than twelve or thirteen, but ruthless en masse. It wasn’t the humiliation of the beating that had upset him, though – it was the fact that his own mates had stood back and laughed at the spectacle. Cunts. What sort of mates do that? So Mother Theresa here, overwhelmed with drink-sodden sadness for this big, daft lad and intent on bigging him up to his docile mates, asks him if he’d like to accompany me to the end of year ball. I figured this would do him more good than sending Junior Keeley and his mob round to chastise the diminutive robbers. It almost worked.

  On arriving at the Student Guild, it became immediately and horribly clear that Tumbler was regarded as nothing more than gratuitous entertainment for his pals – a buffoon who was to be plied with drink and jeered at. So when I swanned into the room in a dirty red D&G number, with Tumbler traipsing behind reeking of Brut and polo mints, his mates were gobsmacked. I did my utmost to pull it off – laughing convulsively at his not funny jokes, applauding wildly at his karaoke efforts, even doing a slowy to Careless Whisper and I think I convinced everyone that by some inexplicable twist of fate, the oaf had hit jackpot. By midnight, sozzled and deluded by his newfound celebrity, he thought so, too. When I politely declined his clumsy advances he got nasty and shoved a chubby hand up my dress. I hit him with two devastating right hooks – one to the left eye and one to the chin – and a left jab to the kidneys. He produced himself at my door early next morning with a box of Dairy Milk and a swollen eye. Had I not been suffering a vicious hangover and had my ovaries not spewed muck all over my clean duvet in the night then I might have taken pity on the bloke, but the sight of his battered slab of a face on my doorstep at that unfeasible hour could only incite hatred and a feeble yet never the less productive left upper. I never saw him again. He didn’t return after summer. Louis and Tumbler, my two student buddies.

  The loud tapping of a ruler against the board slices through the chatter of students. The noise settles into a low murmur and the throb of bodies darting around the room slowly evolves into a class. Jacko, the head of Literature is standing at the front with his trademark furrowed brows, running a hand through his thick blonde hair. He waits until the murmur fades into a silence then starts.

  ‘Welcome back everybody. Hope your summer was a little more colourful than mine. Now, those of you expecting to see Dr Hallam today should know that she’s unwell. Sadly, we shan’t be seeing Jean this semester, if at all this academic year. Those of you wishing to visit or send your good wishes just let me know, please. So this course will now be split between myself’ – a huge sigh of relief floods the room – ‘and Dr Kennedy.’

  Groans and tuts all around. Everybody loves Jacko. He’s not one of those that tries to befriend his students to gain their esteem. You can virtually guarantee that when he’s taking a module, everyone will make a massive effort to hand in their assignments on time.

  ‘So
let’s launch straight into it, shall we? As I’ve said this course will be split up into two sections, if you’d all like to refer to the handouts that are going round. First three seminars are going to be taken by myself and the last four by Miss Kennedy. In terms of assessment, there are two options…’

  I fancy Jacko. Whenever our eyes lock my cunt just melts. He’s pushing fifty, but wears it well. His face has got that timeless edge to it like Steve McQueen or Robert Redford – terminally fuckable. He scribbles something on the board and the veins on his forearms swell with the movement. They’re beautiful arms – slim and striated with sinewy muscle. I had a wank over them in the library toilets last year.

  We’re about half an hour into the lecture when my phone bleeps. One by one, their dull faces lurch towards me like a petroleum blaze and because I’m sat up here on my own, there’s nobody to shift the blame onto. A prickly heat crawls across my face. I wait for the next set of handouts to go round, then slide the phone from my jacket pocket onto my lap.

  One new message.

  Jamie.

  My head begins to spark and sputter. There’s a disconnect here, an overload and it’s all coming from the guts of my animus. I know it, I just know that this is going to be bad. I press Read and blink stupidly at the screen.

  She said yes!xxx

  Trickling into my subconscious, somewhere in the distance, is Jacko’s soft Glaswegian voice, calling my name. I carry on blinking at the screen.

  And then Jacko’s voice is raised and he’s vexed and it’s aimed at me and I can’t hear and I can’t breathe. I’m leaden with fear and grief and the pure resin of a new emotion. Something big and dangerous. I edge my way along the empty row as quietly and as quickly as I can. I fly up the stairs and the door swings me out into a blast of white light. I pause for a moment, unsure what to do next but then my legs carry me over to a huge window. I press my face into the glass and stare out across the city’s topography, a sudden recklessness rising in my throat. Toxteth looks like an over-emotional oil painting – liquid and sinuous and shamelessly sentimental. I can see buses, just moving squares of light, running along the spinal cord that is Princess Avenue and behind them a stream of brake lights that linger long after the vehicles have moved on. I count six rooftops in from the top of the avenue – Jamie and Sean’s old flat. My tummy hollows out.

  ‘She said yes,’ I whisper, ‘She said yes.’

  Jamie

  She hasn’t texted us back, yet – probably still in classes, isn’t she? But I know she’s going to be made up for us. She’ll be well happy, Millie will. Aaaah – fucken boss day this is turning out to be. I just feel sound about everything, la. I’ve got everything to play for.

  Millie

  Walking out of these grounds always overwhelms me with a sense of freedom – even more so when I’m doing a runner from a lecture or a tutorial. But today, the things I’m usually running to are the very things I’m running from. It’s difficult to fathom, but Jamie, our friendship and the life I’ve built up around him and his family and friends – that’s what’s kept me going these last two years. They’re the ones who make it bearable. When I get home at night… I don’t know. It’s strange. Like, I’m always overjoyed to see Dad. Even that brief glimpse of him on the campus blitzed me with warm giddy feeling. But when I walk into the lounge at night and I find him sprawled across a pile of unmarked essays, I don’t know. I feel trapped – like there’s no escape from it. Jamie’s a refuge from all of that. Neither him nor any of his mates have been to University. I mean, he’s mad on books Jamie – people underestimate him but him and Billy and the gang, although they’re all dead supportive and inquisitive and made up with their swotty little pal, they don’t give a fuck about academic life and all the highbrow bullshit that goes with it. That’s why I like being with them. They all have ardently formed opinions relating to politics, society and religion but they carry those opinions with a graceful silence and when they do express them it is done with a lucid simplicity. Students, especially the middle-class ones, have none of that humility. And now it’s gone, all that. Jamie, my rock, my big brother and fun buddy is fucking me off.

  Jamie

  Anne Marie looks fucken amazing today. She’s always gorgeous even without the make-up – which she pure does not need, if the truth be known – but today she is radiant. Her eyes are glinting, big blue blazers just dancing with happiness, and the sun has slashed her nose with a cute gang of freckles. Her blonde hair is dragged back in a simple pony giving her that fresh, supermodel just got out of bed look. Elle MacPherson but miles fitter.

  We’re stuck in the thick of a M6 tailback, both nursing vile hangovers from last night’s celebrations and I’m gonna have her in late for her afternoon shift. She is a flapper where work’s concerned, Anne Marie – dead conscientious and that, even if Sean is her boss. But today he can give her the sack for all she cares – not that he would and that. But nothing’s gonna wipe that smile from her grid. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this happy. Proper makes my heart leap it does. It’s funny like, I knew pretty much straight away she were the one for us – but I always thought Anne Marie deserved better. Don’t get me wrong and that – no one can love her like I do and no one will look after her as good as I will. But, how can I put this? She likes nice things, Anne Marie. I always saw her shacking up with a footballer or a lawyer if you know what I mean – she’s got the looks, no two ways about it. I’m not doing her down or nothing. No way. Why shouldn’t the girl set her sights high after the life she’s had? Spent most of it in and out of fucken foster homes she has, getting carted from pillar to post. Stayed in more different rooms than a fucken ambassador. What must that do to a kid’s head, ay – all them beds, all them fucken bedrooms? Our bedroom was always my main source of security. There was four of us in there at one time, when our Kieron and Eddie still lived at home, but it was still my own little private world. Fuck knows what it must’ve been like for her. Pure burns my head out that, when I think on it. But she’s a fighter Anne Marie. She’s been fighting all her life and she’s always said to us that all the things she never had as a kid, she’ll double have em now. So I don’t mind spunking two ton on a dress for her at that Karen Millen. And I was happy getting the loan out to get her the Tigra when she was starting work at Sean’s. But the wedding, la – my folks are pure gonna go white when I tells em we’re not having a proper church do and that. Not us two, la – not me and her. We’re getting hitched in that Mexico, us. And she’s right by the way. She’s got no family, has she – just a handful of friends and that. I’m not being funny like, they’re good mates, there’s nothing they won’t do for her, but at the end of the day how’s she gonna feel walking into a church that’s chocker with just my family and friends. Wouldn’t be right, la. Would not be on, that.

  Millie

  The sight of the Blackburne Arms as I veer onto Falkner Street puts a big fat smile back on my face. I love this place. It’s the only one in this neck of the woods that hasn’t reinvented itself to appeal to the steady influx of students over the last few years. The Belvedere, The Caledonia, The Grapes and The Pilgrim, they’ve all been given facelifts for the worse. Me and Jamie used to drink in The Belvedere when I was still in school and I was utterly smitten with that place back then – that pub and its night owls and their tales. It was full of mad characters which were as much a part of the place as the nicotine-hued walls. There was a seamy element to the pubs round here, and there was no shortage of brass – good looking brass, too. These girls were a class apart from the emaciated urchins that litter Hope Street now. These were well-groomed women who could talk as eloquently as they could fuck.

  But The Blackburne Arms is immune to evolution. Mr Keeley says it’s exactly the same as it was when he was a kid. The only thing that’s changed are the songs on the jukebox, and even there the classics have prevailed.

  No one notices me when I walk in. Heads don’t even flinch. I like that. It means I can sit in her
e for hours, uninterrupted, with neither threat nor hassle from men other than the random smile here and there.

  There’s half a dozen bodies scattered around the room, all stooped low over pints of dark heavy liquid – solitarily drinkers with faces as timeworn as the furniture. The television is on, its iridescent drone the same as ever, the usual crap. No one is paying any attention to it, but no one seems bothered by it either. It stays on all through the day and all through the night. I order a pint of Stella and put two songs on the jukebox – Aretha Franklin, I say a Little Prayer and Van Morrison, Moondance – perfect lazy afternoon drinking material. I settle down at a table near the backdoor and an old man sitting opposite raises a welcoming hand while his bald brown skull stays slumped to his chest.

  ‘Afternoon Sir,’ I say.

  He replies with the merest nod of his head. I might go and sit with him after this one, maybe buy him a pint or two. I could reinvent myself as a runaway – a Romany gypsy from Prague. I swirl the cold, crisp liquid around my mouth and let it slide down into my gut. Pure magic.

  Time passes. The music’s drowned out the television now and I’m starting to feel nice. All my troubles slowly slithering away. Jamie. I’m going to call him as soon as I get out of here. What we’ve got is too powerful, too beautiful to let slip away. And even if they do get married, it doesn’t mean I’ll lose him. Jamie doesn’t strike me as the type of lad who’ll abandon his mates for a woman, even Anne Marie. He would have done it already. Fuck, I’m family! I’m like a daughter to Mr and Mrs Keeley and nothing is going to change that. I won’t let it. I’ll call him as soon as I leave here, tell him how pleased I am for him, tell him how much I love him. I will, I will. I’ll even tell him I’ll take the bitch for a celebration night out. Aaaah, it’s giving me the best feeling this – the best! I can see his face now, all crumpled with joy and relief that the two women in his life are going to be fine with each other. And then there’ll be anxiety, immediately,’ cos he’ll worry that Anne Marie will try to get out of it, make excuses, won’t want to come. He’s so desperate for her and me to get on. Fuck it, though – I’ll do that for him. I’ll take the amber tart out on the town. But for now I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the soothing drawl of Van.