Big Girl Small Town Read online

  Big Girl, Small Town

  a novel

  Michelle Gallen

  ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL 2020

  For Mehdi, who sees clearly

  What if we accept these points of light, their translucence, their brightness; what if we let ourselves enjoy this, stop fearing it, get used to it; what if we come to believe in it, to expect it, to be impressed upon by it; what if we take hope and forgo our ancient heritage and instead, and infused, begin to entrain with it, with ourselves then to radiate it; what if we do that, get educated up to that, and then, just like that, the light goes off or is snatched away?

  Milkman, Anna Burns

  Contents

  Monday

  Tuesday

  Wednesday

  Thursday

  Friday

  Saturday

  Sunday

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Majella kept a list of stuff in her head that she wasn’t keen on. Her top ten hadn’t changed in seven years:

  1) Small talk, bullshit, and gossip

  2) Physical contact

  3) Noise

  4) Bright lights

  5) Scented stuff

  6) Cunter

  7) Sweating

  8) Jokes

  9) Make-up

  10) Fashion

  The full list of things Majella wasn’t keen on extended to ninety-seven items, with subcategories for each item. For example, make-up included nail polish, lipstick, foundation, mascara etc., and Majella had further itemized each subcategory:

  Item 9.1: Make-up: Nail polish

  • Is too heavy—weighing fingers down.

  • Looks utterly unnatural when colored—e.g., red, orange, black—giving people the appearance of wearing beetle carapaces on their finger ends.

  • Difficult to apply, requiring practice, time and skill.

  • Prone to smudging during drying period.

  • Impermanent: cracks and flakes sometimes in hours, but always within days.

  • Requires chemicals during the production process and for removal.

  • Complete waste of money.

  The list of things Majella did see the point in was much shorter:

  1) Eating

  2) Dallas (except for the 1985–86 season, also known as Bobby’s Dream)

  3) UK Gold

  4) Her da

  5) Her granny

  6) Smithwick’s

  7) Painkillers

  8) Cleaning

  9) Sex

  10) Hairdryers

  Sometimes Majella thought that she should condense her whole list of things she wasn’t keen on into a single item:

  • Other People.

  It was people who talked shit. It was people who made up rules that said you were cool or not because of what you wore. It was people who judged one-half of the human race for not wearing make-up, and the other half for wearing it. It was people who switched on lights, made noise, sweated and fought, wept and shouted. Majella knew when she came down to it, she wasn’t keen on Other People.

  Monday

  4:04 p.m.

  Item 12.2: Conversation: Rhetorical questions

  — Majella?

  Her ma’s voice was coming from the hallway. Majella pulled the duvet over her head, balled it in her ears and closed her eyes.

  — Ma-jell-ah?

  She could still hear her ma’s oversize monster slippers slapping closer on the stairs. Joke slippers were item 10.4 on Majella’s list.

  — MAJELLAH? Are ye STILL lying in yer pit?

  Majella took her hands from her ears and began to flick her fingers to distract herself. She flinched as her ma cracked her sharp knuckles on the bedroom door.

  — Majella? D’ye not have work tae go til this evening?

  Majella had work to go to, just as she had done every Monday for the past nine years. And Majella knew that her ma knew that, because her work schedule and weekly Mass were the only routines their lives revolved around. She didn’t know why her ma was asking her a question that she already knew the answer to. So she didn’t reply.

  — Am ah standing here talking tae myself? Am ah just some eejit wasting her breath talking til her daughter’s door? Is there nothing that—

  Majella needed her ma’s voice to stop.—Ah’ll get up when ah’m ready. Ah’m not in tae six.

  Majella lay stiffly in bed as her ma stood outside the door for a few moments. She slowly relaxed when she heard her shuffling away and flopping back down the stairs. Majella waited until she could hear the telly chittering, then she swung her feet to the ground and stood up. She unlocked her bedroom door and trudged to the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She sat on the plastic toilet seat and began to pish. She pished for thirteen seconds, which was a good long pish, made possible by the two liters of Coke she’d drunk before bed. She’d read in one of her ma’s Your Health! magazines that Coke was a diuretic. The magazine highly recommended diuretics to its readership, to reduce bloating from excess water. But the Your Health! team weren’t fans of Coke—they recommended an all-natural organic dandelion tea that readers could purchase from their magazine or website. Majella had been impressed that scientists had proved that dandelions were a diuretic. At school everyone’d called dandelions “Pish-the-Bed” because they said when you picked one you’d wet your bed that night. Majella knew this wasn’t true, but in school, she watched the big boys in the yard pick on the wee-er weans, forcing them to pick a dandelion, then jeering at the child for the rest of the day. Some children wet themselves in class before ever getting near their bed, earning a scolding from the teacher, who would then dress them in the classroom-accident pants. Majella didn’t like the classroom-accident pants: the same washed-out pair had served both boys and girls for years unknown in St. Jude’s Primary School. Majella had only been got once by the dandelion gang. The big fellas had surrounded her in the school yard one break time. As soon as she’d understood they wanted her to pick a dandelion, she walked straight over to the nearest bunch, plucked the biggest bloom she could see and presented it to Charley Daly, the ringleader, with her blank face (the one she used when her ma and da or the teachers were shouting). Charley Daly had been pure raging. He’d knocked the dandelion to the ground and mashed it into the tarmac with his foot. Then he’d shoved Majella so hard she fell back on her arse. Majella had sat where she fell, watching him and his gang walk off behind the prefab classroom, then she picked herself up and went back to sitting on the step of Mrs. McHugh’s classroom on her own, where she’d hidden her hands in the cradle of her skirt, flicking her fingers and humming until the bell rang.

  Majella stood up and went to the mirror. It was spattered with flecks of toothpaste from where her ma’d brushed her teeth the night before. Majella couldn’t brush her teeth with the mirror like that, so she turned on the electric shower and stripped off as she waited for the hot water to kick in. Her da had installed the shower in 1988. It was the last home improvement he’d done. The last home improvement that had been made in the house in fifteen years. The grouting was now black with mold, the shower head leaking from a warped seal. The white tiles around the bath clashed with the patterned tiles that had covered the rest of the room ever since the seventies. Her da’d promised to rip the old tiles down and fit the whole room with plain tiles—he’d even bought enough tiles to finish the job. But when his brother Bobby died, he’d lost all interest in the bathroom and had left the tiles sitting where they still sat, locked in his shed in the back yard. Majella remembered him that autumn after they’d got the news. The way he shrank into a dark place inside himself. Things were never the same after that.

  Majella watched the steam rise and clot on the wind
ow, then she climbed into the green bathtub. The water was as hot as she could bear and she stood under it for a long time, until she felt sure that the smell of too many years of chip grease, fish batter, burger meat and sausage fat had been washed from her burning skin. Afterwards, when she was toweling herself dry, she thought she could catch the tang of incense from the funeral last week. She didn’t know how to wash that away.

  5:00 p.m.

  Item 21, sub-items 1–4 (inclusive): The news

  Majella listened to the creak of each stair as she made her way down them. Ever since she was wee she had loved these sounds. She loved how they sounded different depending on whether you were coming up or down the stairs, and the speed at which you were traveling. She did not love the way the fag smoke drifting from her ma in the living room clashed with the fresh after-shower smell of her skin. She went into the kitchen, where she flicked the kettle on before dropping four slices of white bread into the toaster. She grabbed her soup mug and spooned three sugars into it, then went to the fridge. There was frig all in it, as usual: a carton of skimmed milk, a tub of spreadable margarine and twelve mini-bottles of her ma’s probiotic yogurt. She poured some of the anorexic milk into her mug, then closed the fridge. She dropped two round spoonfuls of SPAR Value instant-coffee granules on top of the milk, careful not to lose a single granule. Majella hated the way her ma scattered coffee around her when she made a cup. The kettle was grumbling its way to the boil. Majella checked the time on the kitchen clock: 5:05 p.m. Her shift started in fifty-five minutes, so she had plenty of time for breakfast and telly. The kettle switch flicked up and the toaster popped at the same time, sending a surge of pleasure through Majella, and she flicked her fingers to release the tension. Her da had liked it when the toaster and kettle stopped at the same time. Sometimes when she was wee he’d sing to her when the toast was near ready to pop and the kettle about to boil and, every now and then, he’d get the timing just right and the toaster and kettle and pop would happen simultaneously.

  Half a pound of tuppenny rice

  Half a pound of treacle,

  That’s the way the money goes

  POP goes the weasel!

  Majella spread an even layer of margarine over the top of her toast, then smeared each slice with MACE raspberry jam, which bore the claim of being 20% real fruit! Majella knew the other 80% included glucose-fructose syrup, citric acid, acidity regulator (sodium citrate), gelling agent (pectin) and that the sugar content of the jam was noted as being 65 g per 100 g. She did not know why the jam was not called sugar jam (65% highly processed sugar!). They did not buy the jam based on its fruit or sugar content, nor for taste. They bought MACE raspberry jam because it was the cheapest jar on the shelf. Majella took a moment to survey her breakfast, then nodded to herself in satisfaction before carrying it through to the living room. The local news was coming on, so her ma turned the volume up. Majella did not like the local news, but her ma loved it. She sat up in her chair for the reports of car accidents wiping out four members of the same family on Christmas Eve, stared mournfully at the pictures of smiling children who’d drowned on their first foreign holiday, shook her head at the night-time footage of fishing boats searching for three generations of men for weeks, for months, while the fishes and crabs feasted. When a bride and groom crashed on their way to the airport for their honeymoon, Majella’s ma first sucked up the misery on BBC Northern Ireland before switching to UTV for a slightly different angle and camera footage. If a tragedy was of sufficient magnitude to feature on the Free State news, she’d try to catch it on RTÉ too. Majella stared out through the grey net curtains to the drizzle outside. Throughout her childhood, the local news had been a litany of deaths, explosions and murder attempts. Things only got worse after peace broke out. Reporters who’d worked internationally on terrorist atrocities were now reduced to covering record-breaking attempts that usually featured children or vegetables.

  Police in the small village of Ag-gee-Bow-gee . . .

  The reporter’s mispronunciation of her hometown caused a shot of pain to lick down Majella’s back. She didn’t understand why reporters from Belfast couldn’t pronounce Aghybogey. They were as bad as the Brits.

  . . . are calling for public cooperation in . . .

  Majella’s ma scrabbled at the + volume button. Majella braced herself before the TV boomed.

  . . . reporting the latest developments in a story that has gripped and shocked this small, close-knit community . . .

  Majella eyed the podgy reporter in a beige coat who was standing in the center of Aghybogey to cover this shocking and tragic story.

  The Police Service of Northern Ireland have made it clear that the DNA testing and fingerprinting of males aged between sixteen and sixty will be selective, that samples will only be used in connection with this case, and that all samples will be destroyed once the police have ruled out the suspect. Police have also confirmed that the death early last week of eighty-five-year-old Mrs. Margaret O’Neill is being treated as murder. Local residents have given a cautious welcome to the new developments.

  A series of people Majella knew flashed up on the screen.

  . . . well on behalf of the local community and my constituents I would like to condemn this senseless act of violence that has resulted in the death of a well-respected elderly woman. The PSNI are doing their best to apprehend the assailant and I would ask for the cooperation of all local people . . .

  . . . well you know I don’t mind what they do so I don’t as long as they catch him so they do cuz it’s not easy so it isn’t tae sleep in yer bed at night so it’s not when that beast’s out there so he is prowling after weemen and childern and it could as well be yerself next other than anyone . . .

  . . . well all ah can say is he’d better hand himself in like cuz ye know ah wouldn’t like tae be him and get caught by someone else if ye know what ah mean cuz some a the local boys is wile angry and ah sort ah agree it’s hard tae hold people responsible if things sort ah just happen like . . .

  The reporter signed off, sending his audience back to the newsroom in Belfast. Majella held her breath as her ma pushed the “–” volume button on the remote control. She sat still, chewing her mouthful of toast to mush, unable to swallow. Her ma dropped back in her chair, shaking her head.

  — Well now. Ah’m sure yer Aunt Marie had wind of this for long enough before the reporters got tae it. And she didn’t break her neck running over tae us til warn us about it.

  Majella said nothing, her toast lying thick on her tongue.

  — Ye’d think maybe even a phone call. But naw. We had tae find out over the telly. PissNI doing DNA testing! And ah bet ye every frigger around us knew before they went to the telly. Bertie Daly and the Shinners and the whole fucken shower of them.

  Majella let the wad of toast slide down her throat, then she took a mouthful of coffee.

  — Ach poor, poor Maggie. Never wan for the limelight but her now thrown in tae it again at her age and her not out of it even now she’s dead and buried. Twas the shame that kilt her in the end, not what that baste did tae her.

  Majella eyed the rest of her soggy toast, her appetite dead. Her ma stared mournfully at the christening photograph above the mantelpiece, where she stood sulking in a miniskirt despite a biting November breeze, aged just seventeen. On one side stood her mother-in-law Maggie O’Neill, stiff-backed and formal in a navy suit, her steely hair pinned tight underneath her hat. Majella’s aunt and godmother Marie looked decades older than Majella’s ma, despite being a year younger. Only Majella’s father looked happy, as he stood there, flanked by the three women in his life, cradling his baby girl. He looked cozy in his brown velvet suit with his extravagant flares. Her uncle and godfather Bobby wasn’t in the photo. He hadn’t been arsed to stand outside the chapel waiting for the photographer to get the camera set up, so he’d pissed off to the pub. You couldn’t see Majella in the picture: she’d been half-smothered in the blankets her granny’d wrapped around her. r />
  Majella got up and went to the kitchen, where she dumped her remaining toast into the pedal bin, then washed her plate and cup in scalding water before leaving them to dry on the draining board. She lifted the plastic bag that contained her overalls, walked down the hall and opened the front door. She could hear her ma on the phone in the living room, complaining to someone about the DNA testing.

  — Ah’m away.

  She shut the door without waiting to hear if her ma said goodbye.

  • • •

  5:38 p.m.

  Item 3.3: Noise: Shutters in work

  Majella let herself in the side entrance of the chipper. Marty stepped past her, whistling.

  — Bit early the day, are ye not, Jelly?

  Majella glanced at the clock, then shook her head. Only Marty was allowed to call Majella Jelly. Other people might roar it at her in the street or say it to her face, but only Marty was allowed. He’d started that craic in the early days of them working together. She’d hated the nickname in school and she’d hated being hefty. But Marty liked big girls so the way he said Jelly was different. She also let him off with the slaps on the arse he’d give her when she was rummaging about in the chest freezer for another batch of chicken burgers. The slaps didn’t do much for Majella, mind, but they cracked Marty up, so Majella didn’t see the harm in letting them by her.

  — Ah seen that bit on the news about yer granny. Shower of fucken eejits them PissNI. Like that baste’ll walk up tae the door of the barracks and open his gob for them tae have a wee scrape at it?

  Majella was climbing into her light-green overalls in the darkness at the front of the takeaway. The interior walls were a light blue. Mr. Hunter’s wife (joint proprietor of A Salt and Battered! Traditional Fast Food Establishment) had sponge-stenciled luminous pink fish onto the takeaway walls. When the fluorescent lights were on and Majella was tired, she felt like she was swimming along with the fish.