The new white shirt Vinnie was going to wear for dinner on Father’s Day, didn’t Mam go and wash it with something red. It came out all streaked with these mad-looking pink blotches. I’m upstairs doing my hair and I hear them shouting in the kitchen, and then some heavy thumps and crashes. What’s she like, letting something red in the white wash, I thought that only happened in dopey comedies on the telly. I dunno how he puts up with her.
Vinnie was already in a stinker of a mood because we were in the pub the night before, and Jimmy went and made one of his stupid cracks. ‘Are they taking you out for a pint for Father’s Day, Vinnie? Pints for the pint-sized?’
Roaring laughing, thinking he was all smart. Jimmy knows exactly what Vinnie’s like, but still, he never stops winding him up.
And now Vinnie has to wear a different shirt and he’s all pissed off about it, says it doesn’t sit right, and on the walk to the restaurant he keeps adjusting it and tucking it into his trousers, and getting more furious-looking. I try to cheer him up by saying me and my boyfriend Gerry will pay for the dinner, cause it’s Father’s Day. Vinnie smiles a bit at that.
Gerry’s not happy, and he falls back a few steps so he can give out to me.
‘Whatcha say that for, we’re both skint, and anyway he’s not even your real dad,’ he says to me. Lucky for him he says it quietly, otherwise I’d have boxed him right there in the street. I grab him by the arm and say as low as I can: ‘He might as well be, Gerry, he’s the one who stuck around isn’t he? And who else is gonna be with my Mam? Let it go.’
Gerry throws a filthy look at me. How dare he, on Father’s Day and everything, I’ll deal with him later. He doesn’t have to put up with Mam when she’s single, when she takes to the bed, and lies there smoking and moaning that she’ll die alone. It wasn’t Gerry who had to pick up the pieces last time she got dumped, it was me, I won’t even get into what that was like. And me only eleven years old at the time.
Vinnie’s looking over his shoulder at us, so I distract him by saying: ‘Jimmy’s a bit of a smartarse, isn’t he?’
And Vinnie laughs and says, ‘Yep, hate to say this about my own brother but that’s a man who could do with shutting the fuck up.’ We all laugh at that. By the time we get to town, Vinnie’s in better form and he starts slagging Gerry and me, saying, ‘I’m gonna go mad at the Chinese now lads if you’re paying, all the prawn crackers and spring rolls for Vinnie, I might even try the crispy fried dog!’
We’re walking past the last few houses on O’Byrne Road before we turn the corner, and all of a sudden, Vinnie stops and he’s directing a car out of a driveway. He’s always at that, as soon as he sees a car reversing, he’s over. Doing the hand gestures and the ‘lock hards!’ He nearly got creamed once by this massive SUV in the GAA carpark, because the driver couldn’t see him. Jimmy slagged the life out of him, wouldn’t let it go, kept calling him The Fisher Price Lollipop Lady. I thought Vinnie would have a hernia he was so red in the face, and he and Mam had a massive scrap about it when we got home.
Anyway, he’s directing this driver, but they’re not moving, they’re rolling down the window and saying something to him. I can’t hear them, but Vinnie’s saying, ‘No, no, I’ll help you, go now!’ and he keeps doing hand gestures. The driver, and I can see now it’s a woman, says something else, raising her voice. Vinnie turns to us, and his face is so hurt and outraged, he looks like a little kid.
He goes: ‘She’s telling me not to help her! Says I’m in the way, I’m ‘patronising’ her!’
We all turn and look at the driver, who’s pulling out now. She’s old, in her forties I’d say, and driving a shitty old Nissan. Vinnie goes, ‘Can you believe the state of this?! I was helping her!’
And he shouts across to her, ‘You’re a BITCH!’
Mam’s going, ‘What happened Vinnie, what happened?’, but he ignores her and goes ‘FUCK YOU!’ to the woman.
We all stand staring at her, while Vinnie’s losing his shit, giving out about what a bitch she is. The woman stops her car, rolls down the window, and she shouts across something like, she said no thank you, what’s he at calling her a bitch, there’s no need for sexist abuse. And she says he’s a disgrace.
And we all start shouting back, me, Gerry, Mam is yelling, ‘How dare you!’ Your one drives up a bit to the top of the road and stops at the sign, waiting to turn left. I run up quickly to get a proper look at her, and her face – all white, pink spots on her cheeks, the way she’s looking at us, the stick up her arse – makes me so angry. I step into the road and bang on her car window and she flinches away, and I get my face right up to it and I shout, ‘Fuck off with your ‘sexist’! He was only HELPING YOU!’
I could kill her, she’s ruined everything, he’ll be in a deep fouler now for the whole evening. It’s like the time that waitress in O’Connell’s snapped at him out of nowhere, going: ‘Can you please just back offa me?!’
None of us said anything because we were all so shocked, some young one talking to Vinnie like that. And because none of us backed him up, it was World War Three when we got home, he wouldn’t leave it for days. And now it’s happening again, some woman had to go and upset him and get him all cranky.
But turns out Vinnie’s delighted with me for banging on the car and frightening your one, he says: ‘That’s my girl, Deirdrey!’
And I say, ‘She was asking for it, talking to my Dad like that.’ And his face lights up and he looks like a little kid again, a happy one this time.
When we get to the Chinese, he keeps talking about what a bitch your one was, imagine saying a man is a sexist when he’s with two women, his own family, how could a man like him be a sexist. And he’s drinking too fast, his face is getting redder, and he’ll be like a bear tomorrow with the hangover. But he’s happy now, he’s having a good Father’s Day, and it was me who saved the day, I did it. And the evening is grand after all.
