‘McEarly? Are you drunk?’

       …it’s The Ruby ...priceless and standing over me in all her Friday finery topped off by the dark serge reefer that once was her father’s when he worked the Railway…

       Only on Promises, I tell her.  

       ‘You ever keep them, McEarly?’

       Rarely, I say.

       ‘Will you make me one?’ says the Ruby.

       Promises are like coffins, I say, A man puts his foot in one only when he has to.

       The Ruby turns away for a moment. Her Mammy is still over the other corner, head lifting as she admires the new paint recently applied to the toilet door and somewhat inadvertently to the sleeve of my best jacket.

The Ruby sits down beside me.

       ‘Explain...’ she says.

...and as she licks the last drop of barley wine from her glass with the pinkness of her tip I see at once the small smudge of lipstick on her left canine like the red blood left by the rending of flesh and I want to erase it with the dry roughness of my tongue...

       A Promise is forever, I say, just like a coffin… so it behoves a man to make one that fits. Imagine your knees up to your chest and waiting for the Trump of Doom that might not arrive for some while? What would you give for a stretch?

       ‘And here’s me thinking you had the sense of it, McEarly.’

       Alright, I say, I promise to always remember your hair.

       ‘What if you get the Old Timers disease?’ says the Ruby.

       …and she leans so close to me I can almost taste the perfume she’s rubbed in. I recognise it from sliding around the beauty counters at the department store. It does have a name... but then so do most other things I once cared to remember...

       ‘You better touch it, McEarly.’

       …I reach up my hand and watch the tips disappear in a tangle of dark ginger and taste the silk chocolate of it on my skin...

       ‘No,’ says the Ruby, and takes hold of my fingers, ‘...like this.’

She pushes them warm against her scalp …down where the roots are a hack of jungle and the delicate surprise of her ear. I wander in silence and the only wind is the wind of her breath and as I fall closer no barley ever tasted more like wine...

       The Ruby leads my hand away, ‘Now you’ll remember,’ she says, ‘…but that’s such a small promise are you sure you can fit into it?’

       I’ll make you another if you let me take you home.

       ‘McEarly!’ she says, ‘Whatever has come over you?’

       ...I want to say it wasn’t me ...but that sometimes my mind has a manner of speaking ...in a manner of speaking…

       If I promise to behave myself, can I see you home the night?

       ‘Which night?’

       …the Ruby is leaning closer but I still haven’t the name for the scent. I think it’s the big-chested-little-blonde-girl-with-the-bluest-eyes at the stall by the corner …and the mouth is now so full of scent and hope that words have to claw their way around them…

       The night, I say.

       ‘It’s Friday,’ says the Ruby,    ‘...and the Mammy always stays out late of a Friday.’

       I look for my watch then remember the Landlord has it for the price of the beer. There’s a clock over the bar but I can’t bring myself to look beyond her hair...

       ‘What time is it?’ says the Ruby.

...and I’m pouring like custard over her skin of apple-pie perfection ...her eyes the slender, accusing holes my Mammy made to let out the steam...

       The Time of my Life, I tell her.

       ‘You’re a man of small necessities,’ she says, ‘So what’s this about taking me home?’

       I said that?

       ‘You’ve been burning holes in me all night with them lazy eyes of yours.’

       The Mammy in the corner sits bending and dipping ...the ripples in her fat neck working from the quartets spitting her teeth ...each one of them with my name on...

       The Ruby drags my attention away, ‘My sister is here to collect her in about half an hour.’

       And then?

       ‘And then you can take me home.’

       But the Mammy will be there before us.

       ‘And if we time it right, she’ll be in bed.’

       What will happen if I time it right?

       ‘You promised to behave yourself, McEarly,’ says the Ruby.

…and I hear the coffin lid shuffle firmly into place...

 

       The Mammy is leaving on the arm of Beryl. Her eyes catch a hold of mine in a way that wrenches them around in my skull. Her smile is the horn God gave to Joshua …and from the ruins of my emotional Jericho I hear the message…

       The Ruby sits back into her seat and the old Railway coat slides from her shoulders in a single movement. Underneath is a cardigan of rare Marks and Spencer quality ...and underneath the cardigan is a flimsy ...I can’t think of a better word ...and underneath that ...she catches me looking…

       ‘Do you have enough for another drink, McEarly?’

       The watch should be good for another two pints yet, I say, why?

       ‘Because I think I would like one.’

       Thinking is a rare quality, I say, and a facility that shouldn’t be wasted on alcohol. Are you sure that after another drink you will still have the same...

       ‘Cheapskate,’ says the Ruby.

She waves two fingers at the Landlord and he nods. When I do that he throws me out. What a charm the Ruby must have…

       ‘What are you thinking?’ says the Ruby, ‘Quick ...while you still have the facility.’

       I was thinking that I was thinking what a rare charm you have, I say.

       ‘Then at least we’re on the same page,’ says the Ruby.

 

       Four pints after I came in the door has been moved…

       ‘Come on,’ says the Ruby, ‘If the Mammy can get through it, I’m sure you can.’

       If it saw the Mammy coming it probably got out of the way.

       ‘What are you saying about the Mammy, McEarly?’

       Oh...

       She grabs my lapels as we find the door and the softness of the Ruby is upon me and the scents of her hair and apple-pie skin mingling with the creosote and wrought iron from the Railway jacket and I’m swooning and in a moment of swiftly-passing lucidity I know it’s old-fashioned but it fits better than a cheap coffin full of promises and all I’m really thinking is that the Mammy is like one of them Supertankers that takes thirteen miles to stop and thirty more to turn around and the tightening of the Ruby’s knuckles tells me I was thinking out loud.

       Her leg finds the back of my knee and I go down like a sack and the water is going in the shirt collar and out the trouser leg and I’d never have believed someone so fragile could be capable of such utter violence. But now her warmth is upon me... and upon the whole of me. I wrap my arms around her and will not let go.

       ‘McEarly...’ she says, soft in my face as Atlantic rain... ‘McEarly! Let go of me this instant!’

       Can’t you take it as a compliment? I say.

       ‘McEarly, just remember that I’m from Belfast.’

       When I asked to take you home I’d been thinking on the lines of two one pound-forties on the number fifty-two, not a thirty-pound taxi fare, I say.

       She shakes her head and the hair falls full across my face.

       Ruby, I say, just hold your gob still while I kiss it.

       ‘And why would you want to kiss it.’

       Because…

...because you have some lipstick on a tooth that’s driving me mad unless I can lick it off…

       I feel her collapse against me. I slacken my arms and suddenly she’s grabbing me and punching.

Was that a feint? I say.

…for you never know when the use of a good vocabulary might come in handy...

I feel her shaking against me and we roll from the gutter, winkling out each other’s senses with sharp sticks of laughter in the spillings of the recent rain.

       ‘So the Mammy’s a tanker, is she?’

       She beats me gently around the head. I grab her wrists as John Donald’s boy strides over us.

       ‘Hang on in there, Julius,’ he says, ‘I’ve seen the arse of her. It has the hand of Harland and Wolff all over it.’

       …and as he strides there is a hole in the sole of his left shoe and a sticker from the charity shop in the arch of the right and I want him to come back so I can see how much he paid but now he’s gone and there’s just me and the Ruby and she is laughing …against my chest …inside my shirt …her head thrown back and her throat open wide ...whooshing the night air with tones from the wonderful organ insides of her.

       ‘Julius,’ says the Ruby, and collapses again.

       The bus driver makes me stand the whole way and will not reduce the fare.

 

       The rain comes on again the moment we step from the bus. We’re under the new shelter but someone has stolen the curved roof panels to make a cloche and the Ruby has the collar up on the reefer that sheds water from the creosote to go in through the warp and weft of me until I’m soaked back and front. I look down and I’m sure I can see another inch of shoe.

       ‘What you looking at, McEarly?’ says the Ruby.

       I think I’m getting taller by the minute.

       ‘Alright then, Big Man. That’s my house by the dog bin.’

       Location is everything …but I thought it was the Mammy’s house? I say

       ‘She gave it me years ago so the Council couldn’t have it for the caring money. Thought it might attract a man for me.’

She looks up into my eyes and I see the rain leaking from the corners of hers…

‘I shouldn’t have said that, McEarly, you’ll think me desperate. But I’m not ...I’ve just been saving it.’

       Her smile folds against the tweed of my Friday jacket where I hope she doesn’t mind a touch of the lemon yellow paint. My nose is in the scented forest of her hair and doesn’t want to find the way out. Thursday lunch I’ll go down the store and when I find it I’ll buy her some.

       ‘I’m sorry I laughed,’ says the Ruby.     

       Around us, moths are zapping the street lamp like a film run slow and every wing beat is a heartbeat I can feel through the tweed and the shirt and the small patch of curls on the chest I never comb in front of the mirror…       

       What?

       ‘I’m sorry I laughed,’ she says.

       It was nothing, I say.

       ‘That’s what I’d heard,’ says the Ruby, ‘But it wasn’t.’

       It wasn’t what?

       ‘It wasn’t a nothing.’

       So was it Kant or Confucius who said that if a something wasn’t a nothing... then it must be a something?

       ‘No, McEarly, it was the Mammy.’

       And what would the Mammy know about my appendant particles?

       ‘She said that by the look of you they would be something and nothing.’

       And? I say.

       ‘And it was ...something. Alright? And you can stop smirking, McEarly.’ The Ruby reaches up to pull down the corners of my mouth, ‘It wasn’t that much of a something.’

       ‘The bus...’ she says.

...but my hands have found their way inside her coat where the paint will only rub off on the lining and not show and the fingers of them trawling the lace of her cardigan like caught fish too small to keep until I’m touching the flimsy with my skin...

       The bus roars to the stop and the door shishes open. The driver shouts, ‘Are ye getting on, McEarly?’

       …and I want to tell him to wait because I’m a shimmering fish leaping through this wonderful mouth that has just the now reached up to fill mine with a kiss. Her tongue is snaking over and around the teeth and I recoil so I can see her eyes and they are smiling…

       Ruby …I …

       ‘Save it, McEarly,’ says the Ruby, ‘It will keep to the next Friday.’

       ‘Are ye getting on, McEarly?’ says the driver, ‘You’re making me late.’

       ...and he has the head start on me with his creased trousers and brown-stained fingers that run the sawmill of twenty Benson and Hedges between every Terminus…

       The Ruby detaches herself.

       ‘Goodnight, McEarly …and you kept your promise,’ she says.             

       I stand with one foot on the step of the bus and one by the dog bin and watch her walk the walk.

       ‘McEarly!’ says the driver and shishes the door. It bounces open again for my arm is still inside the bus grabbing the rail to keep me from swimming along her path. I lose sight of the Ruby. A light winks on behind the frosted glass panel and I see the Railway coat hung on a frosted glass hook.                

       Take me away, I mumble.

       ‘What was that?’ says the driver.

       I’m a fish.

       ‘What?’

       I said ...I’m a Fish!

       ‘Well… it is the Friday,’ he says.

 

       I press the buzzer.

       ‘What you doing, McEarly. You don’t live here.’

       I look down and there’s a smudge of paint on the bus leather and he won’t find it until his next cigarette and by then I’ll be gone.

       I feel sick, I tell him, and your own doorstep is not the best place.

       ‘I blame it on the dog, myself.’

       I don’t have a dog.

...and now the bus is turning the last corner and the beer is a recurring warmth in my throat where the acid will find its way home tomorrow like a painfully neutered cat…

       ‘I know you don’t have the dog, McEarly.’

       I take out my wallet and the last of my coins roll to the floor. The wallet is empty of notes so it must be mine. If it was found it would have had proper money in.

       ‘It’s me that has the dog, McEarly,’ he says,           ‘A Jack Russell. Do you know them?’

       ...and me with the mark of the strong little legs fresh on the shin from the day I looked after Sheary’s while his wife was up the hospital. I dropped a chicken straight from the oven and he was on it before it hit the floor. I never gave such a howl of satisfaction myself ...not even with Kayla Shaughnessy who is ruinously good and coinously available to anyone wearing bicycle clips...

       Does the wife not take it to the veterinary? I say.

       ‘I tell her it’s because of the Friday that I feed him the sardines.’

       It’s a very convenient fish, I say, but I prefer the Cod. I have such a reclusive one I have spent all the night trying to find a warm place for it to hide.

       ‘You were never going in with the Mammy there, McEarly,’ he says, ‘Buy yourself a dog.’

       I’m sat over the wheel arch and there’s a tick under my arse like a nail in the tyre or my heart stuck to the outside of the rubber like the sticker on John Donald’s boy’s shoe. The universe yawns and streetlights blend moiré patterns around the rain spots of the window.

       I’ll stick with the fish, thank you.

       The moon is running a ladder up the sky with only the half showing from under her skirts. I stare out at the gutters cleansed of Ruby and the lipstick that I forgot to lick... but life is nothing if not a catalogue of missed opportunity and offers from IKEA.

       ‘Do you like fish?’ says the driver.

       I am a fish.

       ‘Would you like a sardine?’ he says.

       He’s out of the cab and opening his snap tin ...fingers unearthing white bread smeared with the blood of tomato-christened slivers…

       ‘The dog won’t eat them,’ he tells me.

       You think the wife doesn’t notice?

       ‘It’s symptomatic.’

       I’m not keen on the music, I say, It’s a possible hole in my life.

       He offers a sandwich across the aisle.

       What do you think I am ...a cannibal?

       ‘Sit your arse down, McEarly. The rain is up at the window and I want to talk to you.’

       I lean back and the moon has drawn her elegantly predictable skirts above a cloud.

       ‘Why won’t you consider the dog, McEarly?’

       His teeth are red in the soft bones of the fish. Arteries of tomato sauce overlap the colour of old vines streaking his skin.

       Are you trying to sell me your dog?

       ‘No, McEarly. If I did that I’d have to get off the two stops before like you. I’m trying to sell you the idea.’

       There is a fleck of sardine swimming the crease of his lips and when he gets home not even the dog will want to lick it off.

       ‘If you buy a dog,’ he says, ‘You don’t need a relationship.’

       I’d sooner have the Ruby.

       ‘You can have the both,’ he says.

       I’d sooner have the Ruby.

       ‘No,’ he says, ‘If it’s affection you want ...buy a Jack Russell.’

 

       Curled up in the bus shelter under a greatcoat is Sheary. I touch his shoulder.

       Sheary, I say, Is it the wife? You’re two streets away. This can’t be you...

       ‘Why don’t you just feck off,’ he says.

       So I do.

       I cross the street and walk the fifty yards to the first junction. By the corner is Sheary’s dog with the print of a bus tyre the length of it like it was still running and the metal disk missing from the collar.

I hear the skitter of a Night-Fox circling beyond the pools of lamplight ...in a dark world where nothing goes to waste.