Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle Read Free Book Online Page A

sometimes. Like Nicola was. Like Leanne wasn't. Like John Paul? – she doesn't know. She's not sure what teenagers are. They're probably the sign of a healthy house – a full fridge and teenagers. Hers were all good kids – or absent. They were too good really. Forced to grow up. Teenagers shouldn't have to wash their mother's face and hair. They shouldn't have to peel their own potatoes. They shouldn't get their first alcohol at home. They shouldn't be homeless on their sixteenth birthday. Junkies should never be sixteen.
    She watches Jack walk out of the kitchen. She wants to follow him, pull up his jeans at the back.
    He's never obnoxious. In a chat with other women about their impossible teenagers, she'd have nothing to say. She'd have to make up something. He's lovely. He organises his own pocket money; he works. He's good in school. He's had nothing pierced. He's made no young one pregnant. She should be very proud of him. She is – and worried.
    He's too like a fuckin' saint. She thinks that sometimes. She wants to shake him. She wants him to throw things and hate. her. She'd understand it. She'd cope. She doesn't really know his friends. She's not sure if he has any. She'd love to meet a girlfriend. She'd love it if he brought one home. Some gorgeous kid. She'd get a cake.
    But she doesn't know his life.
    She read a thing in the paper once – someone had left it on the seat on the Dart. The Irish Times. About gayness and the absence of the father. The mother made a gaybo out of the son if there wasn't a dad around to stop her. Because of the lack of balance and a male example.
    He was some example, Jack's da. A man who beat his wife for seventeen years. In front of Jack and his brother and sisters. But Charlo was Jack's father and he died when Jack was five. So Jack hasn't had a dad. And no other man to show him how to wee standing up, or how to walk like a king, or how to look at a girl quietly.
    Jack looks at everything quietly.
    She'd love to see a girl.
    She's being stupid. He's not gay.
    She doesn't care.
    He isn't.
    She often points out women on the telly and in films.
    —She's lovely. Isn't she, Jack?
    The young one from Spiderman, or any of those kids from Neighbours.
    —She's alright, he'd say. Or just, —Yeah.
    He's useless, hopeless.
    She's stupid. No boy wants to talk about girls with his mother. It's different with daughters. She could never follow a film when she was watching it with Leanne, when she was Jack's age.
    —Oh, he's massive. Look at his jacket.
    Every man from ten to ninety-seven had to get past Leanne. She'd fast-forward to the next fella. Paula watched Ocean's Eleven with Leanne but she actually saw about ten minutes of the story. Brad Pitt and George Clooney.
    —Brad or George, Ma?
    —George.
    —No way. Brad.
    —D'you not like George?
    —I do; Jesus. But Brad. For fuck sake – sorry.
    Leanne hasn't a clue.
    Watching films with Jack is a waste of time, unless the film is good. It's actually lovely, just the pair of them watching quietly, the odd comment.
    —Why did he do that?
    —Don't know.
    —But—
    —Wait.
    Jack telling her to wait. Like the dad, the adult. Teaching her to wait, how to watch and listen.
    She likes Sean Penn. She'll watch anything with Sean Penn in it.
    She'd love to go to the pictures with Jack. Or to the concert tomorrow. She'd love to go places with him, any place. To be able to show her pride, to walk beside him. Look what I've done, look what I've produced.
    He's grand. There's nothing to worry about. She missed this part of it when John Paul was Jack's age, so she doesn't really know.
    John Paul. Another thing she's had to face. Another one of her lost children. But they're fine, herself and John Paul. They talk. He calls to the house, now and again. She has his mobile number. He has hers. She meets his kids, her other grandchildren.
    She can't help it – other. As if they're not quite hers. But that's not what she feels. She laughed and cried