The Doll's House

Stevie poured himself a large Jack Daniel’s, drank it in one go and immediately felt better for it. The next he left on the side of the armchair, to savour.

It was an awful long time ago, but he still remembered plenty about the good-old bad-old days, including how there’d been something between that fucker Becon and the ever-so-beautiful, up-herself Lavinia Hamilton. Even as a kid he’d seen it. The way Becon looked at her. Lavinia Hamilton had had no time for Stevie. Fuck her, had been his attitude. But that was the funny thing about people thinking you were lower than shit. They’d start forgetting you were there. Or even that you had a brain. One connected to your eyes and ears. Maybe Becon had been trying to regain his misspent youth with young Ruby. Turn back time by pretending he could start all over again with a newer model. He wouldn’t be the first eejit to fall for that sad joke. Fucking ridiculous the way old farts think with their pricks.

Martin’s involvement with Becon probably explained how he’d met little Ruby and thought, Presto, I’ll have a bit of that. Stevie didn’t really blame him.

He smiled, thinking about the first time he had kissed Clodagh Hamilton. A crowd of them had gone off with some cans to the old railway tracks. Pissed out of their heads, most of them. He hadn’t known any of the girls at first but recognised Clodagh as soon as she arrived. She was all glammed up, looking gorgeous and shiny, glitter on her arms, and that fucking amazing red hair of hers. To this day, he can’t be sure she knew it was him when they met. She’d had a good few on her. She went for it all the same. In the dark, the two of them eating the face off one another, while the others laughed and messed around in the background. Muck under both their arses. She wore white jeans, as tight as anything. They didn’t look very pretty when she stood up. He’d thought she knew who he was, especially when he was feeling those lovely pert breasts of hers.

It was when he’d called her by name, his face buried in the warmth of her neck, smelling that red hair and wanting more, that he’d detected the first signs of withdrawal. Then had come the turn of the head, the arching of her body, the quick double-take as she’d tried to work out how he knew her. She got out of there like it was the only option in town.

He ran after her, and caught her. He grabbed her into a laneway. Tried it on again, but it had lost its beauty. She didn’t think he was good enough, and he wanted to give her a good lash there and then, take some of that prettiness off her face. Teach her not to be mixing with the big boys, playing fucking dress-up in her tight jeans, far too much sex-on-legs not to be fucked. Christ, she couldn’t have been more than thirteen. Four years younger than her daughter was now and already pissed out of her head, ending up in the wrong place with the wrong company. Stevie took a swig of his whiskey. Boozed up or not, she’d still tasted beautiful.

A quarter of a lifetime on, part of Stevie still bore a gnawing thought. The reason he hadn’t taken her that night didn’t sit easy with him. It was because a fucking huge slice of his brain knew that, where Clodagh Hamilton was concerned, he could never be good enough – in her eyes or his own.

He poured another whiskey, smirking to himself. Here they were, all these years on, and a bit like that fucker Becon clapping eyes on Ruby McKay, wanting to rekindle some kind of fucked-up happiness, he’d been contemplating the bleedin’ same. Not for the first time in his life he damned ever hooking up with the Hamiltons, and all the other fuckers that frequented their miserable fucking world.

Stevie made up his mind. His time playing fucking detective for Alister Becon would be short-lived. He had no intention of being strung along as a fool. No matter what nasty fucked-up logic Becon lived by.





Clodagh


It takes Dominic an age to answer. The room is in semi-darkness, the only light trickling in from the landing.

‘Clodagh, I was worried about you. I asked Martin for a set of keys, just in case.’

‘In case of what?’

‘In case you needed me.’ He keeps his eyes fixed on me. ‘I told Martin I was worried you weren’t coping, that I needed the keys in case …’

‘In case I decided to top myself, or drink myself into some drunken stupor? Is that what you’re saying?’ Again I want to throttle him.

‘It was a precaution, and it wasn’t only that.’

‘I can’t wait to hear the rest.’

‘Less of the dramatics, Clodagh. I’m only thinking of you.’

‘The whole world seems to be thinking of me. You, Martin, Orla – even Val’s expressed her concerns. But do you know what the laughable thing is, Dominic?’

‘What?’ He stands up, barely able to contain his own anger.

‘Despite everyone’s bloody concern, I’ve never felt so shagging lonely in my whole bloody life.’

‘I know that, Clodagh.’

‘So what was the other reason for you needing keys?’

‘I don’t trust Martin.’

‘Well, why didn’t you ask me?’

‘I wanted him to know I had them.’

‘Why?’