Aye, Fionnula leaned forward.

  Well, now I’m no wearing that. I’m wearing ma hair down wi that Miss Selfridges denim skirt ah got fro the catalogue an the blue T-shirt, the one wi navy cuffs an collar an the white sandally high heels, red lipstick, nail varnish.

  You all brought nail varnish remover?

  We’ll have to get every bit off for Sister Condom.

  Tell yas something minging, Manda spoke round a bolus of quarterpounder, she nodded at Orla, Ma big sister was in some other humburger restaurant …

  What? The one where the marajoronee was growing? Fionnula gave a false smile.

  Eh nah. Think it was another …

  Fionnula went, Oh. Took off her sunglasses, squinted at the fluorescence round her and sniffed across the table.

  Well, ma sister bit into something in a chicken thing, it was crunchy, and she picked it out and it was, like a cyst that’d been in the living chicken! Minging, eh?

  Ah dinnie scum us OUT!

  Orla held up one nugget and dropped it into her mouth.

  Crunch, crunch. Fionnula smiled.

  Manda goes, When ah split up wi Jamie at Christmas there, well know how ma sister shares the house up Pulpit Hill with they ice factory lassies? Well one of them was going with some farmer’s son and he’d gave her a fucking turkey for a Christmas present, like a fucking live turkey and they had it, just running all about the carpets in the house so they got pissed Christmas Eve, chased it, caught it and didn’t have guts enough to kill it so’s they tried to gas it in the oven, thought it was dead and plucked it, feathers all over the place but it woke up on the chopping board and went mental. They had it running round the house over Christmas, this sorry-looking plucked thing, really horrible like, then they decided to take it back but it escaped at the bus stop and was running about the Port.

  Ooo, nay chance.

  If it wasny on a table by lunch-time it’d only because someone was shagging it …

  Ah swear that’s true.

  Mmm, Orla put her forefinger under her left eye and tugged the lower eyelid down a couple of times.

  Chell let out a huge burp.

  Was that yur fanny or your arse, girl?

  Whatever, an angel certainly spoke.

  But what did it say?

  God save the Queen and two Hail Marys.

  Kylah was blinking.

  What was the bet with your wee brother?

  What’s this?

  She had a bet with her wee brother.

  Ah had to swallow ma contact or he had to stuff a pepperami up his bum hole, far’s it’d go.

  What was the bet?

  That I could be in and out the bathroom in twenty minutes.

  Twenty! An ya lost!

  So ya swallowed a contact, ah’d told him to fuck off.

  You’ve got to do dares Manda, Fionnula grinned, You’ve got to take a few risks.

  Aye, Sambuca-Sambuca challenge, Kylah growled and bared teeth.

  What about when it comes out your rear end, honey?

  Ah throw them away anyways. Ah get a new three-month supply from Boots on Monday.

  Hi, hi, Fionnula nodded, See that guy, that Scorgie guy, the Doc Drumvargie’s actual brother, tho they aye pretend they’re no?

  Yup, Astronaut or something, yon guy can waterski and smoke at the same time.

  Argonaut, Argonaut – it’s an old Greece warrior that went on seas.

  Aye! Jason n the Argonauts ave seen that yon one with the sword-fighting skeletons; all shitey special effects.

  Fionnula shrugged, Ah don’t watch films. Anyways right, Iain Dickinson went to Amsterdam wi that Argonaut and Panatine …

  Magine, he’s just a wee baby and going wi they mental cases!

  Aye, right, Fionnula leaned forward across the tumbled french fry and hamburger wrappings, So’s they’re coming back from Amsterdam through Paris cause they’ve run out of money. Iain took the most, the whole of what he got from summer in the ice factory …

  Were you ever actually going with Iain Dickinson?

  Nut. So’s they get to Paris somewhere and …

  This is them coming from where?

  From Amsterdam.

  Where’s that?

  Dutch.

  Holland.

  Netherlands.

  You know all the bars you can take drugs in and red light districts?

  What fucking dump that sounds.

  Aye, ah bet there’s no a decent disco in the whole place, just rave shite and guys with fucking dreadlocks and camouflaged trousers …

  Oh don’t scum us out!

  Bet even the lassies are fucking tramps, all drug addicts with greasy hair, grungers and that, no decent make-up or clothes or that …

  What’s it called? Dutch-Holland-Nether-regions?

  All of those.

  What; it’s got loads names, the one country?

  Ah mean what’s the point in going to a fucking place like yon when you could go to the sunshine, Lloret de Mar or Kos or Greece or Benidorm? Manda whipped off her 99p Cool Shades With Each Purchase, for emphasis.

  So you’re saying it’s got three names, that’s confusing?

  But it’s like Britain, the UK.

  What about this place! You take the fourth bridge across the fifth or fourth to the Kingdom of Five!

  What!?

  It’s true, the Kingdom of Five is across the fifth or fourth and ya use the fourth bridge to it!

  Ah’ve heard folk say it.

  What were you saying, Fionnula?

  Ah never mind.

  Nah tell us, tell us about The Dick.

  There was a long pause and they didn’t think Fionnula was going to speak. Then she muttered, Yous huv heard of Paris, aye?

  The other four smiled round the table. Aye, mind, no tonight Josephine, the wee picture in the Second Year book, guy with a fishing rod and ah, goes Pecher, To Poach Miss! Manda laughed.

  All remembered and laughed.

  Chell was waggling the miniature Barbie doll she’d got with her Happy Meal, its frizzed, erect strands of blonde hair, vibrating.

  They’d been on some overnight train and got into Paris real early and they’d hardly no money at all, they’d a few coins and so’s they gave them to yon Argonaut and he came back wi these fish sandwiches and a bottle ouzo …

  That’s minging, like aniseedy, ma sister …

  Aye. So’s they ate the fish sandwiches and drunk the ouzo bottle and they’ve all day still to kill in Paris fore their train up to the ferry went that night. Just half an hour tho and Iain’s feeling sick as a dog and The Panatine an The Argonaut are pretty rough too. They quiz The Argonaut an it turns out the bastard had spent all the money on ouzo after finding the fish sandwiches out back of some Arab restaurant.

  Oh minging …

  Ah scum us out!

  So they’re middle of Paris and they’re getting the total skitters so they leap over into this square wi bushes in it and they coorie down wi the skitters an The Argonaut an Panatine are howling so much Iain’s laughing, right, then when they pull their breeks up they find there are all these luxury apartments round the square with balconies and all these folk, wanker-folk like, sipping champagne and that, staring down at them and they realise they’re having massive puddles of shite in a private garden, then they hear the police sirens. The police threaten to arrest them but in the end give them a lift to the railway station that is miles away in the middle of Paris and they’re told: Get the next train out. Iain is just laughing but The Argonaut and Panatine are no looking very happy, they start walking through Paris. All the way back to that square where they climb into the gardens and there’s all these little lumps in the puddles of shite of Panatines and Argonauts. It’s condoms of cannabis that Panatine and Argonaut had swallowed, planning bring it back to the Port an the bastards had no even told Iain. They coulda been locked up for years if they’d got caught.

  Ach, thanks a lot Fionnula, went Kylah, putting down the last of the strawberry sundae.

  That’s absolutely, totally, disgusting, Manda shook her head.

  Ugch, they rolled-up condoms popped out their bum holes?

  Just like having a fucking baby.

  Aye shitting a melon, ma mum says it was like getting me out, Fionnula smiled.

  Are you saying Dicky was selling drugs?

  That was no the point of the story ah just told you, Manda.

  Okay, okay! Ah was just asking.

  There was a belligerent bit of silence.

  Ahm, Chell went, See what you were saying Manda, bout yur sister, well ma Uncle Buzz, know the brother-in-law? You know ma family tree, it’s more like a stick!

  A few laughed, well Manda and Fionnula and thats what counted.

  Chell went on, Well, see what yur saying, yur sister, with the turkey feathers. Ma Uncle Buzz used to fill all the cushions in his house with his own hair when he cut it. That’s how mean he was!

  Cmon let’s get going. Manda coughed.

  Wait, we’re meant put all this crap in they bins.

  To pot with that. Let’s get our clothes on!

  All five of them squeezed no too bad into the toilet wi the wheelchair sign on the door. There was a wee washbasin wi actual smallish mirror above. The Sopranos kneeled gently and wi both their hands would lift clothes out of their coloured Nike and Head and Adidas shoulder bags. They removed footwear wrapped in separate Superstore carrier bags so’s soles wouldn’t stain clothes. They took off their white shirts (cept Manda who hadn’t been able to afford nothing new). They dropped their tartan school skirts on the yellow floor tiles, then put the white shirts on top that, then laid the city clothes on top of everything to keep them off the floor. They passed round two cans of deodorant, their fingers swung up near the fluorescent casing. The short hisses of the deodorant made the same noise as little zips at the back of skirts going up.

  When someone entered the main door into the Ladies outside their cubicle, they stopped talking about what make-up was going to be used, so their stoops, bends, stretches and movements of dressing took on a businesslike, religious deliberation an sobriety. No girl smiled as she dressed – a ritual they each treated wi more reverence than ingestion of any transubstantial host; cause the vestiary metamorphosis was going bring about an immediate transformation that the body and blood of God’s son never could.

  Orla, a black sweat blossom under each oxter of her velvety body stocking – one of them she’d aye wore since her poorliness so’s couldn’t see her no-bra-wee-tits; Orla’s thighs just dived into her pants seeming almost no thickerness from her leg above knees and her two arms were like dangly, wet ropes fappering about. As she whispered the trousers up, Orla says, Poverty goes without saying, Chastity comes despite ma best efforts and Obedience is forced onto yous, but by fuck am going for it the day. She took her retainer brace out her mouth, picked at it with the kilt pin she aye carried, then scooshed the contraption free of food fragments.

  The Last of The McDonald’s, Orla grimaced; replaced the braces.

  Fionnula chuckled, her spread fingers, nails varnished, under the hand dryer.

  Orla looked in the mirror, banged her tits a bit n sighed.

  Hush honey, for a cleavage, you should get two elastic bands and tie them between the shoulder-straps across your back, it really bumphs up at the front.

  If ah shout out, someone promise they’ll pass me their wonderbra!

  Ya can have mine.

  Christ look, goes Manda, I didn’t shave high enough up ma legs for this skirt.

  Chell goes, Am no surprised lassie, is it a skirt or a belt?

  Everyone laughed.

  Aye, you’d need do yur bikini line to wear a skirt that short, goes Kylah.

  Get fucked. Look at yours.

  Everyone laughed again.

  You wear it well honey, you look just gorgeous, Fionnula goes.

  AMANDA

  School shirt but last two buttons open and the sides tied thegether in a handsome bow knot, exposing her midriff and sister-pierced naval, enobled wi a cheap amethyst ring.

  Top shirt buttons undone down to her big sister’s wonderbra.

  Electric blue, pleated mini-skirt. Short.

  White plastic, strappy high-heeled shoes.

  Big sister’s G-string.

  CHELL

  V-neck leopard-print short-sleeved top.

  Cream coloured skirt cut on the bias with brown, decorative buttons on front of waistband. Short.

  Bare legs and just school socks under the knee-length, brown suede boots.

  Leopard-print tanga and matching bra.

  KYLAH

  Lilac T-shirt wi navy collar and sleeves.

  Miss Selfridge denim mini-skirt.

  White high-heel sandals secured with silver cross-over strap.

  Satin bra (black) and knickers.

  FIONNULA

  French Connection, viscose, long-sleeved, blue-striped shirt wi front buttoning.

  Black A-line skirt. Short.

  Black, open-toed platform shoes (from last year).

  £15 white wonderbra, black cotton knickers (3 for £1).

  ORLA

  Crushed velvet body-top wi thin straps and black lacy shirt over it.

  Black, flared hipster trousers from catalogue.

  Same school shoes and socks.

  No bra needed. Black G-string.

  Orla; she takes Hide The Blemish an dots it on the two-days-dead spot, the side of her forehead. She squirts the big dob Perfectly Pale foundation, plasts a bit onto the spot then all over her face. She uses the sponge to blend out, bringing it down and behind her ears, making sure there’s no tea-stainish tide mark round her neck.

  She takes the brown eye-liner pencil and puts the tip up to the bulb of the light above the mirror to soften the end. She goes all round the eye wi the pencil. Then, wi eye-shadow, she pushes dark, chocolate brown into each eye-socket and brings it out at the corners. She gets gold Pearl eye-shadow and fingers it onto the browned eyelid to make her eyes sparkle. She puts a brown mascara on her lashes; the hairs longer and thicker.

  Wi a plum liner she gives definition round the limits of her lips and fills the lip surface, taking the colour from the stick, using a brush, then she goes over the lip using the actual stick tip. With the stick from the lip gloss, she slides the clearness along then squeezes both lips thegether in a slappy pucker.

  She opens the lid of the loose powder – as per-usual, some smokes out – she patters it on using the sponge being canny no to get any near her glossed lips. So much Vanderbilt perfume her collar-bones fizz then glisten.

  The other girls are putting on make-up in the big mirrors, nail varnishing, using each other’s bits and pieces; some Sopranos put their powder on after their foundation, some do it last thing. And they’re packing up the school clothing, no worrying too much about folding the shirts. Each lassie huffed up her bag wi school uniform and shoes and make-up in.

  Let’s go to Jericho, says Chell, her eyebrow ring in.

  Let’s find some rides, Manda pulled open the door.

  The Anchored Submarine

  Jonah’s whale, come to swallow us all, Father Ardlui abandoned trying to light his pipe for the third time and smiled at the captain beside him who’d come ashore to register. The wind gusts had regrouped then stampeded back across the pier but Ardlui noticed how the captain’s hat never seemed to be in any jeopardy and McNiven, the painful Protestant, was hatless.

  A morbid and curious haul had gathered on North Pier as the mirage – the low slick of the submarine with its dorsal conning tower out in the bay – threw into relief seaward views Port folk were inured to. The cove at first island (cross to, firemen versus police would sponsored-raft race each summer!) seemed much closer than as per-usual; cause of that black hull’s presence, sobering, always calling the finite and true dimensions of the waters. Usually we seem to sit on the edge of the world, as if anything that happens here really has a continuity on, across seas, but now we seem to sit on the edge less securely than before; the give of the world is tearing, an it makes our bay seem so wee which serves us right. This isn’t Naples, Ardlui thought, says, Blowy. Raising white horses!

  McNiven grunted and the captain gave a forgiving smile.

  White horses not a nautical term then you son of a gun? The captain didn’t look the part, there again, McNiven never had either. Ardlui had says to the captain on the phone that morn: ‘McNiven & Sons, undertakers, captain. They will smoothly initiate the transfer. McNiven’s seen it all, captain. He’s had a lad ten days missing off a trawler, balloon up below his workshop at Christiansands. Just strolled down an scooped him off the shingle. Captain.’

  Ardlui glanced sideyways. The captain was hideously young, small without fisherman eye-lines from squinting the silver-sunned oceans. Ardlui looked for periscope eye. Nothing.

  Orange lifeboat secured alongsides the black hull out there, with insecty movements on-deck an the lifeboat was sliding a’, mashing the black bay white an green at stern then steered pierwards. Ardlui noted when the captain took off his hat. He did it when the coffin was swinging and turning in the canvas slash, then the hat was squeezed back on with three downward squeezes and a twist sideyways with that scrunchy sound on his cropped hair.

  The hat came off again after the hurl in the cars, as McNiven and his glum sons wheeled the coffin into the cathedral and it stayed off as Ardlui called the Lord Have Mercy and only the organist and Sister McTavish replied.

  The hat crunched on as Father Ardlui led the coffin through back sacristy, wondering if there was some way to inveigle the visitation, the black submarine with its invisible anchors, rigid on the skyline, a coffin wobbling above harbour waters, a captain with an over-casual stroll, some way to get it into his half-finished novel.