53

Fallout

Atomic by Donna McLean

Bridget pointed the hose at Paul, her finger over the spout making the water shoot out faster.  Paul ran around the half-filled pool, his pink rabbit in one hand, the other holding up his swimming trunks which had become saggy from overuse. Her mum had left her a fiver to get sunscreen from the shops, as well as the tea; she’d promised Paul it wouldn’t be fish fingers again, she’d promised to learn how to make something else.  Since her mum got her driving licence she’d been going off to Greenham every weekend.  

Through cuts and bruises, snots and chickenpox, Paul’s measles and Bridget’s tonsillitis, through all the tantrums and ingratitude and endless clearing up, her mum had done what Bridget now did on a Saturday and Sunday while Janet put her feet up by the fence.  Bridget hadn’t realised before what it took to run a house, to look after everyone.  Up until then she’d thought her mum was pathetic, lazy even, no ambition, not wanting anything, content to smoke her cigarettes and look out the back door. But now she knew there wasn’t time for anything else. That her mum had put her own life aside for them, that she’d done it without complaining. Bridget had said, I can’t believe you stand it. Janet had replied, It’s called love, love, and stroked her cheek. There was a woman a Yellow gate selling badges with, Wages For Housework, written on them. She’d told her mum, but her mum said she already knew. 

She threw the hose in the pool where it snaked, trying to get out.  Paul jumped in after it. “I’ve got to go to the shops.” 

Paul held his rabbit above his head. 

“Where’s your hat?” she’d already put it on his head three times.  His shoulders were pink.  “Don’t do anything stupid.”  She left him making rainbows with the water, the hose pointed up, his small hand over the nozzle, an arc of water with sunshine streaming through it.

When she’d told Dawn and Cerise, they’d demanded to meet her. “Your dad’s Hot Lips Houlihan?”  They’d said it about fifteen times.  “The Hot Lips Houlihan? But you told us -”  

“I didn’t tell you anything.”

“You said you couldn’t go home.”

“He’s a liar,” said Bridget, feeling foolish.

“She’s famous,” said Cerise.

“That doesn’t make them a nice person though,” said Dawn.

“But he is,” said Bridget, knowing it was true. “He never, you know, did anything bad like you thought.”

“Her,” said Dawn and Cerise together.

She’d pretended to get it just to shut them up, all right, all right, Her, because she didn’t get it, she didn’t get why he liked to be called, she, when he got on stage and she didn’t get how his lies were okay and she really didn’t get how if he was gay what had he been doing being married to her mum all these years and how the fuck could her mum forgive him. She didn’t even get how he could be gay and still be her dad. 

He was practically sitting in the dark, the telly room was so dim after the glare outside. She said, “Do you want anything?”

“Bridget.”  He stopped her leaving.  “Come and sit.”

He looked so old.

“Mum says I’ve not to let Paul get sunburn.”

“Just a minute.”  He patted the arm of his chair.

She wasn’t going to sit down.  She went over to the TV and turned it up.  She didn’t know how he could hear anything.

“I don’t want the sound.”

“Why are you watching it then.”

“Come and sit for a minute, will you?”

She stood in front of the telly.

Ray said, “I didn’t mean for all this.”

She wished he wouldn’t say that. 

“I meant for you to have a normal life.”

Bridget remembered the first time she’d gone to Greenham, how she’d stepped out of the minibus onto Greenham soil as women poured out of coaches, poured onto the ground and washed up against the fence in the early morning light, how cold it had been, how the base had reared flat and ugly, how beautiful the chain link covered in banners and wool. 

“Your mum’s been very good about it.”

“Don’t cry, dad.”

“Only I want you to understand.”

Only six months, yet a lifetime. 

“It kept me up worrying about you and Pauly.”

When Bridget had found out about her mum and Monica she’d threatened to go round to Yellow gate and punch her till Dawn had told her to wind her neck in.  Why shouldn’t her mum have a bit of fun.  Bridget had shouted “they can’t both be fucking gay,” sending Dawn and Cerise into fits, and Dawn had said, “why not?  Most people are a bit each way, they just don’t know it.  You can be anything you want.  You might want to think about who you are rather than getting your knickers in a twist about everybody else,” and Bridget had stomped off to shout at a policemen on Blue gate.

“I didn’t want you to suffer.”  He lit a cigarette.  The ashtray beside him was full.

“I’m fine.”

“Have you a boy you like?”

“Dad.”

“Or a girl?”

The truth was she didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to say that to him. 

“I just want you to be happy, Bridge.”

“I am happy.”

“Just be yourself, Bridget, whatever that is.”

“I have to get Paul’s sunscreen.”  The heatwave was trying to get in through the curtains.  The room felt stifling, her dad’s sorrow pouring out like his commands to learn the fallout warnings, but now he was broken like the chair he’d punched, now he sat collapsed as if all the life had leaked out of him. 

“There’s lots of different kinds of people, Dad.”

He smiled a bit, a glimpse of how he used to be, his funny eye and glasses.  He hadn’t shaved.  There were bristles on his chin. 

“Off you trot then.”  He blew his nose into his handkerchief. 

“Mum says I’ve got to get you out of your chair.”

They looked at each other.

“We could walk to Safeway or something.”

“I think I’ll stop here.”

“I’ll get you bourbons if you like, then.”  They were his favourite biscuit.

“That’d be nice,” said Ray.

THE END

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