Stir-Fry by Emma Donoghue Read Free Book Online Page B

about it and tell him what she said?”
    Ruth slapped the concrete. “That’s
exactly
what our nuns used to say. They must teach it in the novitiate.”
    “Thing was, she needn’t have bothered. The gang dumped me after Christmas when they discovered I didn’t know what an erection was.”
    “So you palled up with the knitters again?”
    “Yeah, except from then on I wore my socks down around my ankles.”
    “Speaking of ankles,” murmured Ruth, leaning over, “is that a shaved leg I see before me?”
    Maria pulled her sock up to meet the trouser leg. “Just a trick of the light.”
    “I wouldn’t like to have to report you to my Wimmin’s Anti-Depilatory Committee for cruelty to poor dumb hairs.”
    “I’m a, what is the word, a postfeminist,” Maria told her, pouting. “I can shave any part of my body I choose.”
    “You’re not choosing, you’re conforming to male expectations.”
    “Ruth, the nearest male is about two hundred feet away across a pond and can’t even see my ankles. Now, piss off and let me sunbathe.”
    She clung to the central pole as the bus chugged its way up the avenue. From time to time, overhanging horse chestnuts rapped their jewelled fingers against the roof. A heavy-jowled labrador cantered alongside, barking irritably.
    Yvonne licked the edge of her pink-glossed lip. “Is something bothering you?”
    “I’m all right.” Maria pulled her head round slowly. “Apart from having spent the morning being humiliated by a personnel manager called Eugene.”
    “Oh, the job interview? I forgot all about it. How did it go?”
    “It was my fault entirely. I put ‘typing skills’ on the bottom of my resumé, just to fill up a line, really, and the bastard gave me a test on his computer.”
    Yvonne let out a small moan.
    “It’s only filing and reshelving they want library assistants for, so I fail to see what the test was for.”
    “But you told me you could type.”
    “Yeah, but I learned on the manual at school and had a few goes on the electric in my uncle’s office.” Maria leaned her heavy head against the pole. “This monster in the library has all sorts of strange buttons, and the keys go into spasm as soon as you put your fingers on them. Do you know, I managed to type
system
with five
S
’s.”
    Yvonne pursed her lips. “Did the Eugene guy tear stripes out of you?”
    “No, he was horribly chummy. Breathed down my neck while I was struggling with the delete button, then stopped me halfway and murmured, “That’s fine now, Maria, we’ll let you know.’ The bus jolted, cracking her head against the pole, and she straightened up. “I hate authority figures who keep calling you by your first name and pronouncing it wrong.”
    “Oh, stuff him,” said Yvonne. “Don’t see why you’re letting a silly job interview get you down.”
    “Maybe that’s because you’re not the one who needs a job.”
    They lapsed into a stiff silence. After a minute, Yvonne ducked to peer out the window and sketched a cross on her scarf. “At least the traffic’s not too heavy. We’re past the church already.”
    “Which church?”
    “A tall one. Tell me, Maria, do you still go to mass?”
    Maria stooped toward the window, then reached above her for the bell. “We should have got off two stops ago, I’m sorry, it’s not my day.” They squeezed toward the side door, then realised that the driver was going to open only the front one and thrashed through the double line of bodies. “Bugger Irish busmen,” Maria muttered, “they never bloody well open the bloody exit door.”
    Her stride gradually slowed and shortened as they neared Beldam Square. “Tantrum’s over,” she announced, turning. “Though why you’d still want to visit me I do not know.”
    “Christian duty,” Yvonne told her with a theatrical sigh. “But listen, about mass. Do you still go?”
    “Of course. I mean, yes,” she went on more warily. She dipped to pick up a squashed can.
    “No, I