“Mary was a good woman with limited teaching skills. She did something wrong in the end, yes she did, and would have to pay the price for it.”
– Benny O’Brien.
There was a real daft excitement about the town towards the end of that particular month. It had been like that for a while now what with the clocks going forward and everything else. The glorious sun, just the sheer presence of it, had made everyone want to go outside now without a jacket, coat or even a jumper. A T-shirt was all that was needed in this fine weather. A T-shirt, a light pair of trousers and a good old set of protective sunglasses.
Job done.
Mary Agnes Giles, a school teacher at an all boys secondary school, lived quietly by herself in a smallish house located on the outskirts of the town. Luckily, the town itself was of such a size that Mary, conveniently enough, could walk to wherever she wanted to go – the shop, the pharmacy, the take-away, the other take-away – but still, for whatever reason, she’d always choose to take the car.
Out of the two cars parked in Mary’s driveway, only one of them really worked. HERS.
The second jalopy was merely a distraction. A representation of a life she did not actually live. It would belong to her husband, who just so happened to be “Away all the time.” or “Busy with work.” or “At a charity event somewhere in the Middle East because that’s how big his heart is.”
These are the kind of lines Mary would be dishing out to people. She could be in the queue at a bank or at the local butchers. Hey, sometimes it was the post office. For her, drumming up these lies, all it did was take off some of the heat. That’s all it did. Off of her and her non-existent partner, who just happened to be –
“Away on the oil rigs in Turkmenistan” BUT “Didn’t he call me this morning.” she’d say. “Yes he did. He called to say hello and how are you and all the rest of it. And we spoke for the guts of an hour and ten minutes so we did and right at the end, right before we hung up, he told me he loved me very much. That I was his little star, his little puddin, and I of course, with great joy, said it all straight back to him. Yes I did.”
MARY’S MORNING, like any other weekday morning, started off at 7am when the alarm went off –
“BEEP BEEP BEEP. BEEP BEEP BEEP”
At ten minutes past, after an ungodly bout of swearing and snoozing, Mary would eventually roll her large self out of bed and into her favourite pink fur slippers, the cheap brand open-top ones where all five toes can subtly peek out the top.
After a thorough shower, she’d go back into the bedroom where she’d sit on the edge of the bed with a towel wrapped around her head and shoulders. Here, she would stew in silence for a while, staring into space, or into the wall – doing absolutely nothing. She had even said it herself on occasion that “It’s moments like this, when I’m dripping wet, and naked, slightly horny, that I do feel most alive.”
The small act of not having to talk to anybody or anything was a crucial beginning to her day. Had been for years. Better than any cup of hot tea or strong coffee only because the group of delinquents she had to face later that day were, to her –
“The most insufferable gang of pricks who should have never seen the light of day, but anyways.” she’d say. “Isn’t that my job, steering them towards a better path and all of that malarkey. I suppose I’ve only to put in another eight or so years before I can hang up my chalk and retire.”
When her online yoga class had finished, Mary sat in front of a small mirror and, using a variety of tools, she carefully applied all the best make-up she had onto her pudgy face, starting with foundation.
“Jesus Christ.” she said, sweeping a brush across her pimpled forehead. “Men have it lucky don’t they? They have it lucky because they don’t have to do this kind’a shit. THIS. It really is a man’s world out there, isn’t it? Bloody hell.” she said then, ripping the top off her mascara. “I wish us women knew what that was like sometimes.”
With her hair semi-brushed and make-up applied the way she liked it, Mary would eventually ditch the cashmere towel and put on some clothes.
“Get on you bastard.” she squealed, wrestling a pair of tights onto her legs. “I have to wear you today because I didn’t have the time to shave. I need you to go on. FAST. Last thing I want, especially at my age, is for people to see my actual bare legs. Unshaven, they look like André The Fucking Giant’s.”
Once the tights were on and secure, Mary picked a skirt for herself (an old off-white number) and she hiked it real high above her waist so her big belly could sit into it. The ‘not so matching’ jacket was a piece given to her by her grandmother, Delia. It was a green and purple thing, slightly ruffled at the cuffs, and no matter how hard Mary tried over the years, she just could not warm to it.
“That dreadful woman had a wicked sense of dress.” she said, rolling fluff off of the lapel. “Not only was she an absolute terror but this jacket here has about as much charm as a fat tinker’s child. It’s almost as repulsive as her.” Slinking her arms into the sleeves, Mary said “But what choice do I have? None. Because all my other good bits are in the wash right now. Didn’t I foolishly put a wash on last night not thinking at all of what I might need for today.” Then she said –
“To hell with it. It’s only for a couple of hours. Nobody will notice. It’s not like I do turn heads on the daily anyways. From anyone.” and with that she quietly left her bedroom and closed the door after her.
IN THE CAR on the way to the school, she would hit traffic like every other morning. At this point it was expected. Almost predictable. Only this morning she could hear her stomach, the big rumbles of it, over the small frequencies of the radio.
“Christ.” she said, scrubbing through the different stations with one eye on the road. “I haven’t heard a decent song in over thirty frickin years. The stuff that’s out there today is absolute horseshit so it is. HORSESHIT. Bring back Van Morrison or someone like that. Please. Dickie Rock. Or better yet. Joe Dolan. Coz there ain’t no show in town quite like it.”
During these lengthy commutes to school, Mary would often make big arrangements in her head about the future, or, whatever the heck lay ahead of her – circling forever the big question of where she’d really like to end up because “I can’t live out the rest of my days in this hell hole. Screw that. When I’m 65, I’ll need somewhere hot.” she’d say. “Real hot. Where the wine is cheap and there are any amount of good-looking sallow-skinned waiters knocking about. I want to go to a place where absolutely nobody knows my name.”
That morning, Mary’s stomach gurgled and gave out to her the whole trip. Like anyone else, the woman hated any sensation of hunger. “Have I wiggle room” she wondered? “Have I time to maybe stop in to a filling station and get a banana or something for myself. Or a breakfast roll with a full fat coke, with a couple of hash browns thrown in?” Looking at the digital clock on her dash, she said “Shite. I don’t have time for anything. I need to get there fast.” She said “If I didn’t have to oversee this Ag Science test it’d be a different story altogether, but no, I can’t.”
At 9:10am, Mary would meet all the usual parents coming out of the school’s driveway while she went in. Some of the lesser-off students, particularly the ones who had to walk in, were lining the edges of the road, lingering, blocking traffic, with their heads low and schoolbags dripping off of their backs.
The dark cloud above the school was all too real on this particular day and Mary felt it.
Even in the car she could sense a presence.
Like something was warning her from the front seat.
Judging her almost.
Stifled by the stress and reversing the 1996 Opel Astra into her allotted ‘staff only’ space, Mary’d make a few mental notes of exactly the things she had to do once she got into the “Eyesore” –
a.k.a, the main building.
“Ok.” she said. “I’ve to do this, and this, and this, oh yeah and this other thing. I’ve to print those pages, right, and that other yoke, ok, and those things need to be photocopied (twice in fact) for the 2nd years and hopefully,
hopefully,
amid all this nonsense, I’ll be able to score something quick to eat coz Lord knows I am absolutely molested by the hunger today.” Killing the car’s ignition, she said “If I don’t eat something soon. I reckon I might actually die.”
Locking her car shut, she quickly waddled into the school like a ferret with her tattered leather bag under her arm for safekeeping. And if anyone were to watch her from afar, you’d see her disappear, eventually, into the giddy crowd of arriving young students, just like any other morning.
That day, for Mary Giles, went on and on after that without much of a hitch until of course, the very end. And the lads who done it, they’d be savagely punished so they would, every single one of them, a short time thereafter. And everyone would say for years to come that they were nothing but a gang of lowlifes anyhow.
“A disgrace to their families.”
A dirty, rotten motley crew of Little Sickos.
