Let Me Die a Woman Read online

  © Alan Kelly 2010

  All rights reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First published in Great Britain by Pulp Press

  All paper used in the printing of this book has been made from wood grown in managed, sustainable forests.

  ISBN13: 978-1-907499-39-5

  Printed and bound in the UK

  Pulp Press is an imprint of Indepenpress Publishing Limited

  25 Eastern Place

  Brighton

  BN2 1GJ

  A catalogue record of this book is available from

  the British Library

  Cover design by Alex Young

  www.brainofalexyoung.com

  Acknowledgments

  First I would like to thank the following for their support: Danny and Kim and everyone at Pulp Press, Alex Young for the fanfuckingtastic cover. Cathi Unsworth has been a rock this last year. Susan Tomaselli and everyone at 3:AM. The book is dedicated to Heidi Martinuzzi, Shannon Lark, Hannah Neurotica, Elvira,

  Jovanka Vuckovic, Suzi Lorraine & women in horror everywhere. The following people who have never let me down are: Tiffany Fitzgerald Brosnan, Luke and Jon, Gina and Audrey, Vincent & Catherine, my future husband Matthew Solis, Carmel Kinsella, Sharon Fitzgerald, Kenneth Scare, Noel and Katryna, Margaret, Declan, Thomas and Tina Esmonde. Ita and Stan Kettle, Billy and Maura (Fred and Rose), James and Caroline, Rose and Jimmy Keogh, Polish Greg for making me long island ice-teas in Panti Bar, Nanny Lil and my mother, and Amy Tarr - the first person to have faith in me!

  1

  When the Old World Was Good

  Jessica Spark sat on the edge of the bed and waited for her mother to fill a basket with food for the ‘Scarecrow Festival’ in Roundwood later that afternoon. She surveyed herself in the full-length mirror of her sister’s bedroom and sighed. She was almost twenty-three now, another boyfriend had broken up with her, her drinking the cause this time. She knew she withdrew from others; she didn’t need Sally Jessie to tell her that. This time Jessica hadn’t even given him the chance not to be an asshole. It was a cycle she had tried and failed to break. She turned on someone before they got the opportunity to turn on her.

  Jessica frowned at the mirror and noticed her sister’s Pekingese Shaggy, a vibrating ball of twitchy fur, watching from the doorway. It was her mother Lila’s fault she drank, she thought. It was Lila’s fault she could never keep a man and, instead, lost herself in chance encounter after chance encounter. But, Jessica could live with the scars Lila caused. Caused by withdrawing her affection when she was just a girl.

  Satisfied, Jessica dabbed on some blue eye shadow, let her vamp red hair fall either side of her narrow face and blew her reflection a kiss. On her way out she levelled her gaze with Shaggy as if to mesmerise him and, when he was distracted, she kicked the poor dog out of her way and chuckled all the way down the stairs.

  Sparking a cigarette Jessica watched her mother place pickled gherkins and spray cheese into the hamper. One of Lila’s mingy stray cats was licking itself at Jessica’s feet, a furry leg raised high in the air. She pushed it away from her with the toe of her boot.

  ‘You goin’ to help or what or just sit there smoking your life away?’ Lila asked, clucking about the kitchen.

  Jessica ignored her and took a long drag on her cigarette. Why should she help? It was her mother’s idea to go to this festival, not her’s.

  Lila’s wizened face looked at her with carefully restrained fury.

  ‘I’m depressed,’ Jessica muttered under her breath.

  Lila rolled her eyes and threw her pipe thin arms in the air. Jessica held a delicate hand over her own eyes and pretended to notice something interesting at her feet. Jessica despaired that the older women got, the more incessantly they jabbered on and the more convinced they were that they were right about everything. Or maybe that was just her mother? She doubted it. Sitting there watching the Wicked Witch Jessica realised that the mother-daughter relationship was the most brutal relationship of them all. She decided, as she stubbed out her fag in a used eggcup, that she was never going to give birth.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ Lila demanded, pinching at Jessica’s arms. Jessica swatted her away and grabbed the basket while Lila rang to confirm the taxi was on its way and would be parked at their gate in five minutes. She pressed two bottles of Cava into the bottom of the basket, out of sight under the jammy dodgers and the portable radio. The day might go to plan after all, she smiled. As she locked the kitchen window she couldn’t help another chuckle. The cats wouldn’t get anywhere near the spread her mother had laid out for them. Jessica decided that, after today, she would call the RSPCA and have the animals removed while her mother was at her ‘Adult Literacy’ class on Monday.

  Out on the porch a single Magpie flew straight by her. She hated them. Those bastards had a way of flying straight into your vision and waving their fucking little tails mockingly so that you couldn’t not notice them. Jessica saluted it and looked around her mother’s overgrown garden for something purple to touch. There were some flowers Lila had planted in the spring and she ripped them from their stems viciously.

  ‘Bastard Magpies,’ she seethed.

  Jessica felt her phone vibrate in her back pocket and knew without looking who was sending the message. It was Ron. Who else? It was the fifteenth message she’d received since she dumped him last Saturday (or rather, he dumped her). Maybe she should plot a move somewhere, get a job as a hostess in a club in Ibiza? She was young, beautiful, had no trouble mimicking intelligence, why not?

  Jessica got into the back of the car and pushed the basket over to the other side. She was beginning to think, as they pulled off, that he could cause her some real hassle. She’d had stalkers before and it was fucking horrible. She had been around the block in this situation already. Try not to have anymore contact with him – which was not easy in a small place – but maybe she was being melodramatic? After all these kind of people thrived on attention and if she didn’t give him any, well, eventually he’d go away. Satisfied with her own problem solving she relaxed.

  Her mother was playing Snowy White’s Bird of Paradise on the portable radio and Jessica watched the road lead away from the battered two-story she shared with Lila. They passed through the village where a group of boys were gathered, rolling joints and drinking cider with ice outside the local pub. The taxi took a sharp turn onto the Arklow Road and she caught her mother squinting into the rear view mirror. God she really didn’t age well. Her face, which perhaps was once pretty, was now hard-bitten by a desperate sort of need. Lila had done everything for her sisters, thought Jessica. She wished that just once, only once, Lila could allow herself to smile.

  Jessica was enjoying this music, grateful that the driver wouldn’t get the opportunity to listen to the bland shite churned out on the hour, every hour by the local radio stations. This was the first time Jessica and Lila had spent an entire day together in a while, and she was determined that it would be her last. At least around here, in the countryside.

  Jessica dreamed about her escape route as they passed Glenealy, another cul-de-sac with a closed down train station, one pub and a slaughterhouse. Yes, Jessica couldn’t stay here and stay sane. After the festival she would sit her mother down and explain that she needed to leave for London. She needed the relative freedom and the anonymity of the city. She needed to get lost and be whoever the fuck she wanted to be.

&nb
sp; Today she was on her way to Roundwood, a nice little patch for inbreeding, with no real incomers since the Vikings. Why did her mother even suggest a scarecrow festival anyway? Jessica had never seen a scarecrow, let alone an entire army of them. The extent of her experience with them was being forced to watch the nauseating Wizard of OZ. That character was a simple-minded idiot with, she suspected, paedophilic inclinations what with the way he was fawning all over Dorothy and that Godforsaken mutt Toto who always followed the prize fools around. Jessica had always preferred the witch. At least she had some spunk.

  Jessica lit a cigarette and was about to take a drag when her mother ripped it from her mouth.

  ‘Not now Jess,’ she hissed, rolling the window down and throwing it out into the nearest ditch. Jessica would’ve slapped her but such a move wouldn’t have been very wise with a witness present. She returned her eyes to the window. The cab continued to drive further inland, they passed a lake, some roads with a dusty lane of cottages and some pheasants that ran out onto the lane then scarpered when they heard the car engine. Jessica pulled the window down, liking the smack of the wind on her face, the music in her ears and the sun in her eyes. She deserved all this, she smiled into the heat, it was bliss.

  Jessica still wanted a drink though. She decided there and then that she’d be honest and ask her mother to open a bottle which they could share. She started a sentence but it was snatched from her lips by the wind and scattered on the road behind her. Fuck, I’ll have to do it myself, she thought. She reached over and carefully removed a Cava and a corkscrew from the basket. Jessica caught a disapproving glance from her mother and threw her back a sardonic smile.

  ‘Cheers Queers,’ she said, holding up the bottle and offering a salute, and then taking a long swig of the drink. It was a light bodied refreshing Cava with barely any alcohol and it hit the spot. Her mother looked back at her and her face was torn between concern and disgust.

  ‘Jessica what have I ever done to you? I thought you wanted to come with me?’ Jessica took another mouthful of the Cava before replying.

  ‘It’s a drink on a day out mother, that’s all. Now could you not worry about me? I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself,’ she said. When her mother frowned Jessica thought that the lines were so deep that a farmer could probably sow potatoes in her forehead but she also thought better of vocalising the image. Lila smiled at the taxi driver and applied some lipstick in the mirror, never taking her eyes off either Jessica or the bottle. After she had freshened up she asked in a much calmer voice, ‘are you unhappy, I mean really unhappy?’ The heat was stifling and Jessica had already polished off the entire bottle.

  ‘Not unhappy exactly,’ replied Jessica, closing her eyes and leaning her head back on the headrest. When she closed her eyes, she saw violent images of Ron, in a bathtub, slowly sinking down into dirty water under a film of coagulated brownish gore. She opened them again quickly and asked the driver how much further until they reached the festival. Her mother’s hands were buried in the basket for a while and eventually she took out a bottle of water.

  ‘It’s warm Jess, but it should be OK’ she smiled sadly, handing the bottle over. Jessica muttered her thanks and took long hungry gulps of the water, which rinsed her mouth of the tepid taste of cheap wine. She sloshed it around and spat it out of the open window.

  ‘Charmed, I’m sure!’ Lila said to the taxi driver, who laughed. Jessica sat quietly while they came into Roundwood. The entire village was decorated with lines of flags, stalls full of various knick knacks, leery men drinking lager and young couples shouting at their babies. There were scarecrows everywhere. Their button eyes and jaunty hats could be seen peering over walls, from behind the tents where the stalls were, looking around corners.

  ‘Scarecrows everywhere but where they want to be.’ whispered Jessica to herself while peering from the car. The taxi driver turned to Jessica.

  ‘You women be careful where you wander today OK?’

  ‘Why?’ asked Lila, fixing her skirt.

  He took a deep breath.

  ‘You’ve not heard about the incidents then girls?’

  ‘What incidents would they be?’ asked Jessica.

  ‘Well,’ the driver began, ‘horse and cow ripping goin’ on lately.’

  ‘What on earth is horse and cow ripping?’ Jessica asked, feeling a bit annoyed.

  ‘Someone or somethin’ goin’ into the fields, cutting great holes out of the animals, plucking their eyes out, cutting off their sex organs, that sorta thing.’

  Jessica’s mother had gone pale, her brow knitted with worry. Jessica threw twenty euro at the cab driver and shouted sarcastically, ‘thanks for the tale dickhead,’ before slamming the car door.

  Jessica looked at Lila, who suddenly seemed really nervy. Feeling a bit jittery herself she wrapped her arms around her.

  ‘Don’t listen to him, the idiot was just talking about a scene from Deliverance or something,’

  Jessica linked arms with her mother across the square, quietly pleased that this was only a bridge that had to be crossed in order to get out of her situation.

  Just thinking about what had allegedly happened to those animals brought on nausea in Jessica and she wondered what sort of person would do such a thing. It had to be a few people at least, to subdue animals that large. Jessica watched the people moving around her, she felt so very lost here. She thought of the lyrics from a Tom Waits song Ron, her ex boyfriend, used to make her listen to. It was the one about putting a pocket full of flowers on her grave, in a time when the old world was good. The dreadful people in this place were the flowers and the pocket was this small village in the middle of nowhere, a lost old shantytown in time.

  She saw a pub up ahead and felt like sitting outside and having a drink.

  ‘Come on Mom, I want a drink.’ Her mother made a choked sound like an animal caught in a snare but Jessica dragged her on towards the pub anyway. It was apparently the highest pub in Ireland, or so she’d read in some tourist brochure years ago. Inside it was heaving and she was forced to elbow her way to the bar while Lila waited in the beer garden outside.

  ‘Excuse me, can I…’ Jessica shouted and the barman ignored her, serving the hard faced cow beside her with vicious peroxide hair, hoop earrings and the tattoos to complete her ensemble.

  ‘I was first alright?’ the woman scowled at her.

  If looks could kill, thought Jessica, the undertakers would be throwing her skinny little body in the ground. She felt like giving the dog a lashing with her venomous tongue and, any other time, she would have but her mother was waiting for her and the last thing she needed was a bar brawl with some ugly skank. Jessica tried to get the barman’s attention three more times when a voice behind her said, ‘you’re not a local, huh?’

  She turned around and was knocked for six by the vision in front of her. A beautiful man, dressed entirely in black with the greenest eyes and smooth, sallow skin hovered over her.

  ‘No, I’m not, thank God,’ replied Jessica, eyeballing the bitch at the bar. He carefully parted and wet his lips with his tongue and Jessica felt her cunt hammering between her legs.

  ‘What’ll it be then?’ he gestured towards the bar.

  ‘A double vodka and tonic and an orange juice.’

  Jessica took some money from her purse and was going to hand it over to him but he was already at the bar. While she was waiting she noticed that the skank and a group of her friends were watching her from their corner of the pub. Jessica stared back at them defiantly. She wouldn’t be intimidated by a small group of village girls. She almost felt sorry for them, with their pockmarked skin, greasy ponytails and yellow teeth. They’d no doubt have a bunch of neglected, dragged up bastards stored away somewhere so they could drink their social welfare cheques.

  Jessica also noticed a gaggle of rugby player types eyeing her, for obvious reasons, and she undid two of the buttons on her fitted jumper. One of the girls got up from her seat and walked towards
her. She was a towering brute of a woman with frizzy red hair and she looked like she’d have no problem cracking your face open. She stood looking down on Jessica, who ignored her.

  ‘Ya gotta problem or something?’ the hulk barked down at her.

  ‘No,’ began Jessica, ‘other than your BO, I’m quite alright. Now why don’t you do everyone a favour and go home and feed your horses, pig tits.’

  ‘I ought to smear your face over the wall, cunt.’

  Jessica turned her back on Red, not wanting to be a part of a tedious debacle. But Red had other ideas. She lunged for Jessica, grabbing her hair and flooring her. Another girl joined in and kicked Jessica hard in the stomach. Jessica bit down hard on Red’s free hand and she let go of her hair. She got to her feet and, without thinking, head butted Red hard in the face. Jessica felt a crack and Red backed onto a table where a family were eating, her nose pouring thick blood. Jessica looked sharply at Red’s weasel faced mate.

  ‘Come on bitch,’ hissed Jessica.

  The weasel started apologising profusely and the stranger in black materialised beside her, his jaw hanging. Jessica took the drink from him, knocked it back with one shot and handed him the empty glass.

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ he asked.

  ‘She,’ said Jessica, pointing at Red and her cronies, ‘started something that I finished.’

  She went to the bar and ordered the same again and the barman didn’t dare ignore her this time.

  ‘Where did you get to Jess?’ her mother asked, when she brought the drinks out to the beer garden. Lila looked at the man beside Jessica and the tiniest smile was promised by the movements of her mouth, but denied at the last second.

  ‘Mom this is…’ Jessica was about to introduce her compatriot when she realised she didn’t know his name.

  He picked up on this quickly and finished her sentence.

  ‘I’m Benjamin and you are?’ he replied.