James had noticed from a very early age that there are two Teezys. First there is the serene Teezy, the ‘end-of-day woman’, with her glass, holding the world outside at arm's length. On the other hand there is the ‘street’ Teezy, who barges her way across town. A woman who is larger and angrier, who forces her way through checkpoints and grumpily ignores bomb scares, shouting at the top of her voice that it is her country and that no one is going to stop her buying her eggs.
‘My goodness, you are shooting up. You're still a bit mealy-looking, mind. A good feed would do you the world of good – do you hear me, Ann?’
‘You saying I don't feed my son, Teezy?’
They have arrived. Teezy is ushering them through the narrow corridor of her small townhouse, clucking and fussing like a mothering hen.
‘No, not at all, but sometimes, you know as well as I do, you have to stand over them.’
‘Well, I've better things to do, Teezy, no harm to you.’
‘Yes, and it begins with an S.’
She says it quietly, out of his mother's earshot; it brings a smirk to James's lips.
‘What did he bring this time?’ she whispers to him.
‘A pile of logs.’
‘The romantic’
One year he got hives. He remembers clawing at them with his fingernails, trying to avoid the heads, drawing red tracks either side of them, itching so much and so often that he numbed his arm. He remembers Teezy slopping palmfuls of calamine lotion all over his body, rebuking his cries by declaring firmly,
‘Too many scallions.
‘Not enough sleep.
Too many tomatoes.
‘Not enough greens.’
Almost immediately the calamine lotion would dry into a crust, the heads of the hives peeping through in weeping clusters.
Teezy and his mother had got together for the evening about a year after his father had died and they were preparing James for bed, fussing around him. His mother was drawing a large hairbrush across his head in hard arcs, bringing tears to his eyes. ‘You've hair like strips of wire,’ she had said, grunting as she pulled the brush across his skull. ‘Stubborn, stubborn hair.’
‘I wonder where he got that from,’ Teezy had said.
As the evening had worn on the two women had filled the house with their laughter. Every now and again James's mother would turn to him, eyes misty with booze, and ask him thickly if he was all right, if his hives itched, and if they did not to touch them. He remembers feeling like a prisoner held captive in his own body, encased in the chalky suit of dried lotion.
At one point Teezy had insisted that she was not able for more drink, raising her hand like a policeman stopping traffic.
‘What sort of a woman are you?’ his mother had said.
‘Oh, all right then, a wee one.’
James can remember seeing Teezy's glass welcome the sherry. It was the first and only time that he had seen his auntie drunk, the only time he had seen her take on his mother at her own game. Slowly the two Teezys blurred into one, and the angrier, the ‘street’ one, began to hold sway. Once she looked over at James in a way that prompted the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up, and caused his skin to itch once more.
His mother, he remembers, never took her eyes off Teezy. At the moment Teezy had looked at James, his mother had placed a record on the old deck she kept beneath some magazines by the television set. Then she began to yelp and dance at the edge of Teezy's vision, thumping her feet down heavily on the linoleum, and slowly began to advance on her.
It took a moment for Teezy to release James from her gaze and turn to look at Ann, a smile breaking across her face. She then had leapt to her feet, clapping her hands.
The two women began to dance. He watched as they made little jinking runs around one another, their arms held out from their bodies. When a slower ballad came on they looked at each other and laughed, and Teezy eased her body back into the fireside chair. His mother had then turned to James and offered him her outstretched arms, her eyes gaily dancing like the flames in the dark mouth of the grate. ‘Come on, dance with me,’ she had said. ‘Dance with your queen.’
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
‘Right, I'm off,’ His mother says.
They stand in Teezy's small scullery as if at a wake, unsure what to say or do.
‘You've things to do yourself, haven't you, Jimmy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘See you in a bit, then.’
‘Send my regards to the reprobate,’ Teezy says.
‘Did you tell her?’ his mum asks him.
‘No.’
‘I may be old but I'm not stupid, Ann,’ Teezy shouts after her.
He can remember the way her skin had slipped on to his like moss along a stone. He can remember her breath on his neck, the way she told him to put his sockless feet on her shoes. He remembers climbing on to them, and feeling his soles lie across the bridge of her feet. He remembers them moving together.
‘My strong man … my fierce, strong little man,’ she had said.
The song had finished and his mother asked quietly how his hives were; all right, he had said. They were still close together, his mother leaning down to meet the smile in his eyes.
‘If Conn was only here to see you …’ his auntie had suddenly said, her head nodding, the fire beating a crimson glow on the side of her face.
Suddenly his mother's eyes had clouded. She turned and ripped the LP from the turntable. A silence sat, fat and solid, in the air. He remembers inching his way back to his seat, its springs squealing as he sat.
James remembers turning the name quietly on his tongue, like a small fiery sweet, Conn … his father's name. A four-lettered bomb exploding in his heart. Conn … Conn … like a fist in his mind, Conn … Conn … Conn.
‘Don't ever mention his name again,’ his mother had said.
And with that she had retaken her seat, and filled her near-empty glass, the liquid spilling across its lip. The two women had sat in angry silence until his mother lifted the glass to her mouth.
He can remember sitting there, his small fists clenched, dried peels of calamine lotion falling on to the crotch of his pyjama bottoms, watching the two women glare at one another. He began to itch and scratch at his hives.
‘Don't,’ his mother had said.
He had stopped and held out his hands towards her, palm upwards, in protest, in defiance, sitting there, knowing that if a secret wore skin it would look something like his.
‘Do you not eat, son?’
‘Yeah … No … I'm fine, Teezy.’
‘You look like a pale streak of nothing. No harm to you …’
He sits alone with Teezy in her scullery. He can imagine his mother scurrying down the town, bustling past shoppers, on her way to meet the heathen Sully.
Teezy stands and gives him a twinkly smile. He turns her head away from her. He knows that look: he knows what's coming.
‘What about you, my boy?’
‘What about me?’
‘Are there any little ladies in your life that I should know about?’
‘No.’
‘That sounds a bit final, son.’
‘Teezy, please.’
‘Come