Whatever happened to The Woman Who Walked Into Doors? In these two extracts from Paula Spencer, Roddy Doyle's new novel, we catch up with one of his best -known characters as she reflects on her life and her family - her children who are a source of worry and her sisters who live quite different lives. Coping with recovery from alcoholism and still working as a cleaner, she also thinks back on the man who made her life hell - Charlo - and about his violent death
She copes. A lot of the time. Most of the time. She copes. And sometimes she doesn't. Cope. At all.
This is one of the bad days.
She could feel it coming. From the minute she woke up. One of those days. It hasn't let her down.
She'll be forty-eight in a few weeks. She doesn't care about that. Not really.
It's more than four months since she had a drink. Four months and five days. One of those months was February. That's why she started measuring the time in months. She could jump three days. But it's a leap year; she had to give one back. Four months, five days. A third of a year. Half a pregnancy, nearly.
A long time.
The drink is only one thing.
She's on her way home from work. She's walking from the station. There's no energy in her. Nothing in her legs. Just pain. Ache. The thing the drink gets down to.
But the drink is only part of it. She's coped well with the drink. She wants a drink. She doesn't want a drink. She doesn't want a drink. She fights it. She wins. She's proud of that. She's pleased. She'll keep going. She knows she will.
But sometimes she wakes up, knowing the one thing. She's alone.
She still has Jack. Paula wakes him every morning. He's a great sleeper. It's a long time now since he was up before her. She's proud of that too. She sits on his bed. She ruffles his hair. Ruffles - that's the word. A head made for ruffling. Jack will break hearts.
And she still has Leanne. Mad Leanne. Mad, funny. Mad, good. Mad, brainy. Mad, lovely - and frightening.
They're not small any more, not kids. Leanne is twenty-two. Jack is nearly sixteen. Leanne has boyfriends. Paula hasn't met any of them. Jack, she doesn't know about. He tells her nothing. He's been taller than her since he was twelve. She checks his clothes for girl-smells but all she can smell is Jack. He's still her baby.
It's not a long walk from the station. It just feels that way tonight. God, she's tired. She's been tired all day. Tired and dark.
This place has changed.
She's not interested tonight. She just wants to get home. The ache is in her ankles. The ground is hard. Every footstep cracks her.
Paula Spencer. That's who she is.
She wants a drink.
The house is empty.
She can feel it before she shuts the door behind her.
Bad.
She needs the company. She needs distraction. They've left the lights on, and the telly. But she knows. She can feel it. The door is louder. Her bag drops like a brick. There's no one in.
Get used to it, she tells herself.
She's finished. That's how it often feels. She never looked forward to it. The freedom. The time. She doesn't want it.
She isn't hungry. She never really is.
She stands in front of the telly. Her coat is half off. It's one of those house programmes. She usually likes them. But not tonight. A couple looking around their new kitchen. They're delighted, opening all the presses.
Fuck them.
She turns away. But stops. Their fridge, on the telly. It's the same as Paula's. Mrs Happy opens it. And closes it. Smiling. Paula had hers before them. A present from Nicola. The fridge. And the telly. Both presents.
Nicola is her eldest.
Paula goes into the kitchen. The fridge is there.
-You were on the telly, she says.
She feels stupid. Talking to the fridge. She hated that film, Shirley Valentine, when Shirley talked to the wall. Hello, wall. She fuckin' hated it. It got better, the film, but that bit killed it for her. At her worst, her lowest, Paula never spoke to a wall or anything else that wasn't human. And now she's talking to the fridge. Sober, hardworking, reliable - she's all these things these days, and she's talking to the fridge.
It's a good fridge, though. It takes up half the kitchen. It's one of those big silver, two-door jobs. Ridiculous. Twenty years too late. She opens it the way film stars open the curtains. Daylight! Ta-dah! Empty. What was Nicola thinking of? The stupid bitch. How to make a poor woman feel poorer. Buy her a big fridge. Fill that, loser. The stupid bitch. What was she thinking?
But that's not fair. She knows it's not. Nicola meant well; she always does. All the presents. She's showing off a bit. But that's fine with Paula. She's proud to have a daughter who can fling a bit of money around. The pride takes care of the humiliation, every time. Kills it stone dead.
She's not hungry. But she'd like something to eat. Something nice. It shocked her, a while back - not long ago. She was in Carmel, her sister's house. Chatting, just the pair of them that afternoon. Denise, her other sister, was away somewhere, doing something - she can't remember. And Carmel took one of those Tesco prawn things out of her own big fridge and put it between them on the table. Paula took up a prawn and put it into her mouth - and tasted it.
-Lovely, she said.
-Yeah, said Carmel. -They're great.
Paula hadn't explained it to her. The fact that she was tasting, really tasting something for the first time in - she didn't know how long. Years. She'd liked it. The feeling. And she'd liked the prawns. And other things she's eaten since. Tayto, cheese and onion. Coffee. Some tomatoes. Chicken skin. Smarties. She's tasted them all.
But the fridge is fuckin' empty. She picks up the milk carton. She weighs it. Enough for the morning. She checks the date. It's grand; two days to go.
There's a carrot at the bottom of the fridge. She bends down - she likes raw carrots. Another new taste. But this one is old, and soft. She should bring it to the bin. She lets it drop back into the fridge. There's a jar of mayonnaise in there as well. Half empty. A bit yellow. Left over from last summer. There's a bit of red cheese, and a tub of Dairygold.
There's a packet of waffles in the freezer. There's two left in the packet - Jack's breakfast. There's something else in the back of the freezer, covered in ice, hidden. Stuck there. The package is red - she can see that much. But she doesn't know what it is. She'd have to hack at it with a knife or something. She couldn't be bothered. Anyway, if it was worth eating it wouldn't be there.
She has money, in her coat pocket. Not much, a fiver and some change. She could go and get bread, more milk. The Spar is still open. But she knows she can't. Her shoes are off.
Tomorrow is payday. Always a good day. Excitement, a bit. Pride, a bit. New clothes, maybe. Food. A good dinner. A half-full fridge. A video.
But tomorrow is tomorrow. Fuckin' miles and hours away.
Cornflakes.
The secret of the Spencer family's success.
She fills a cup with cornflakes. A bowl when she has milk, a cup when she doesn't. She likes cornflakes, especially the big ones from the top of the packet. But the packet is nearly empty.
Tomorrow.
The telly is no distraction. Another of Nicola's presents.
Second-hand; her old one. Nicola has one of these huge flat ones.
This one is grand. The remote works, and that's the main thing. Paula tries to remember a time when she had to get up to change the channel. But she can't. She can't even imagine it.
The old telly is out the back. Smashed. Leanne threw her shoe at it. The heel did the damage. The noise - it exploded.
Leanne.
Leanne scares Paula. The guilt. It's always there. Leanne is twenty-two. Leanne wets her bed. Leanne deals with it. It's terrible.
Her fault. Paula's fault. The whole mess. Most of Leanne's life.
Paula lies back on the couch. She doesn't like going up to bed before Jack comes home. Or Leanne. Although Leanne can come and go as she wants. She tries to get herself comfortable. The couch has collapsed in places. Given up. It's ancient. She had sex with her dead husband on this couch, long before he was killed. That's how ancient it is.
That's another thing. She can't remember sex. Not really. And it doesn't matter. She doesn't think it matters.
Is that true?
Yes. It is. A man. A woman - she thinks, sometimes.
She wouldn't want either. Not tonight.
Where's the fuckin' remote?
She hasn't had sex since her husband died.
The McCartney murder won't go away. Paula knows all about it now. She's seen pictures of the pub where it started. She's seen the lane beside the pub where he was killed. He was from the Short Strand area, in Belfast. She hears the name. She's not sure if she knew it before. It sounds like North Strand, in Dublin. That makes it seem familiar. She's seen pictures of Robert McCartney's kids. She's seen his partner. She's there with the sisters, with Marian Finnucane.
There's hardly anything in the freezer. A couple of bits of - it looks like salmon, in a plastic bag; salmon steaks. She's never had salmon that way, only smoked. She's had that a few times, at weddings. She's not mad about fish. It's good for you but she doesn't like it. She remembers her mother gutting mackerel. She'd haul the guts out with her finger. It frightened Paula. That was why she watched. She thought her mother was amazing. Paula will never do it. But she might give salmon steaks a go. She rubs ice off the plastic. These steaks look solid and meaty. She could like them, she thinks. She's seen them in the supermarket. She knows where to find them.
There's a pizza and half a bag of garden peas. And fish fingers, way at the back. They don't put up much of a fight. It's just the ice she has to hack. Paula's fridge at home defrosts automatically. She'll tell Dympna about it the next time she sees her.
She presses down the coffee plunger. Her thumb aches, all the bones on that side of her hand. But she kind of likes this one. She can worry it without going back through the years. The pain is new, like the duvets and Jack's computer. She earned it. She knows that as she works. She can feel it charge and recede as she holds brush and mop handles, as she gets the lid off the disinfectant.
A thought drops through her. Richie Massey will be getting out of jail.
Richie Massey is the man who did the job with Charlo. Paula doesn't know him. She'd never heard of him until she began to find out what had happened that day. She's never even seen him, except on the telly, going into court. Even then, he had a jacket over his head.
She chooses a white mug.
What if he comes looking for her?
Another ring on the bell.
She pours. She gets the milk from where she left it on the table. It's a lovely table, very light wood. Blond, she thinks it's called. It's the centre of the kitchen.You can't help looking at it all the time. There's always stuff lying on it. Bills, schoolbooks, toys. She likes the mess. They must just shove the stuff out of the way when they're eating. Dympna never leaves the breakfast things for Paula. They're always in the dishwasher.
Richard 'Richie' Massey. That's the way his name was given in the Herald and the other papers. He'll be out soon; he'd have to be. He didn't kill anyone, he wasn't armed - it's twelve years ago. But there's no reason why he'd come after Paula. Charlo wasn't living at home when it happened. He'd been gone for more than a year. And it's not like they've been sharing a cell. Drop in on the missis, Richie. Make sure she's behaving herself. There's no story there at all. Charlo died immediately. Tell her I love her, Richie.
She sniffs the milk. It's grand. Dympna would be fuckin' stunned if she saw Paula sniffing her milk.
He might be out already. There's no real reason why she'd know. There's no one to tell her. He could walk past her today and she wouldn't recognise him.
She pours. Her hand is steady. Brown sugar. There's no other kind here. Paula doesn't use the brown at home. It hardens too quickly. It's like breaking cement.
She stirs. She sips. That's great.
She goes back to the freezer. She listens as she hacks. The women are talking about living in their part of Belfast. A Padre Pio is a bullet through the hand. Or the knee. She's not sure; it's been said before she fully takes it in. Probably the hand. Jesus though - enough.
But she doesn't turn off the radio. It would be too violent, turning off those voices. She leaves them on. She thinks, They'd listen to me. It's true. They probably would.
In another of her houses, they've a huge freezer, as well as the one that comes on top of the fridge. It's colossal, like a supermarket shelf stretched out on its back. She looks in it now and again. But she's never been asked to defrost it. She wouldn't anyway. It'd be too big a job, way beyond the call of duty. She always thinks of Christopher Lee when she lifts the lid. The cold lifts up, around her. It's like a tangle of bodies. Legs of lamb - she thinks. Huge slabs of darker meat. Deer, maybe - she's never had it. All packed in thick plastic. It's like forensic evidence, put there till the trial. It's too much, really. Paula wouldn't have it.
Charlo and Richie Massey went to a house in Malahide. The house belonged to a bank manager, Kevin Fleming, and his wife, Gwen.
Paula's been there, where the house is. She went out on the bus, just to see. To kind of - she doesn't know. She's never been really sure why she went. Mr Fleming was fifty-three when it happened. He's probably retired now, maybe married again. Living in Spain, or somewhere. That's why Paula went that time. To see that life went on, that her husband hadn't torn it away completely.
They pushed their way into the house, with a shotgun and balaclavas. It was eight o'clock in the morning. Richie Massey and Mr Fleming then went in Mr Fleming's car. They were going to Mr Fleming's bank while Charlo held Mrs Fleming, with the shotgun.
He shot her. He killed her.
The Guards were onto them. There was a roadblock waiting for Richie Massey. And they came over the back wall of the house, for Charlo. He shot her. He ran. He ran to the stolen car Richie Massey had parked across the green from the Flemings' house. He jumped in. He remembered - did he? Was he that thick? It dawned on him. He couldn't drive. He tried to get out of the car. Holding the shotgun. Aiming it. They shot him.
Extracted from Paula Spencer, by Roddy Doyle, published by Jonathan Cape on Sept 7