The Van by Roddy Doyle

Author:Roddy Doyle
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

—Look it.

Sharon showed Jimmy Sr, Veronica and Darren the spots on her left cheek all the way up to her eye, clusters of them in little patches. She’d just found them, up in the bathroom. Her left side was much redder than the right, horrible and raw looking; she couldn’t understand it. She wanted to cry; she could feel them getting itchy.

—My God, said Veronica, and went to get a closer look.

Darren was a bit embarrassed.

Jimmy Sr leaned out from his chair to see.

—Gis a look, he said.

—It’s some sort of a rash, said Veronica,—or - I don’t know.

—That’s gas, said Jimmy Sr.—I’ve them as well; look.

He showed them the right side of his face.

—I shaved over them, he said.—But yeh should be able to still see them.

He rubbed his cheek.

—They’re still there alrigh’.

Veronica was confused but Sharon was beginning to understand.

—D‘yeh know wha’ it is? said Jimmy Sr.—It’s the hotplate; the fat splashin’ up from the hot plate.

He mimed turning a burger.

-I was on the righ’ an’ you were on the left, he told Sharon.

He grinned.

—Poor Bimbo must be in tatters, he said.—Cos he was in the middle.

Darren laughed.

By the time Ireland played Egypt, the Sunday after, they’d added sausages to the menu and Jimmy Sr was putting less lard on the hotplate.

Business was hopping.

On Friday they pitched their tent outside the Hikers earlier, at five o’clock, and stuck up posters - Jessica’s work —all over the van: £I Specials—Chips + Anything—5 to 7.30pm. It worked; the Pound Specials went down a bomb. Women coming out of Crazy Prices with the night’s dinner read the posters and stopped and said to themselves Fuck the dinner; you could see it in their faces. They either bought the chips and anything immediately or went home and sent one of the kids out to get them.

It was Maggie’s idea.

—Twelve Poun’ Specials, Mister, said one little young one, and that was the record.

By seven, when they were having a rest, Jimmy Sr and Bimbo were talking seriously about getting an engine; then there’d be no stopping them. They’d have to get some sort of a flue put in as well. Even with the hatch and the door open, the fumes were gathering up in the back of the van. You noticed it when you went down there to get more chips from the bin; you came back crying. And the smell off your clothes; no amount of washing could get rid of it.

—It’s an occupational hazard, Jimmy Sr told Veronica.

Spots, singed hair and smelly threads; Veronica said that he looked like something out of Holocaust.

—Ha fuckin’ ha, said Jimmy Sr.

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