Ghosts and Lightning Read Online Free Page A

da never talked about lesbians. Not to me, anyway.
    —Am I sure? Yeh fuckin serious?
    Paula shook her head and turned her attention to Richard Whiteley. There was hurt in the look, though, mixed with the nonchalance, the defiance.
    —I don’t mean it like that, Paula. I just mean, like —
    — Just leave it Denny.
    She was still staring at Countdown. Paula hated Countdown, she said it was a show for nerds. Carol Vorderman was doin a sum. I fancied Carol Vorderman, a bit. She looks nicer the older she gets. I wanted to retrieve the situation, though. I didn’t want to fuck things up.
    —Have yeh got a girlfriend?
    Paula stubbed out her cigarette. The way she did the stubbin, it was a statement: she bludgeoned the cigarette butt, a tiny act of violence.
    She lit another cigarette and pursed her lips.
    —I’m not messin, I said. —Just wonderin, yeh know? Seriously.
    Fuck. It was dead embarrassin. Me sister was a … wha had Maggit called them? Dykes? I took a drag on me cigarette to calm down. Smoke curled in front o me eyes.
    —Have yeh?
    —I do as a matter o fact.
    Paula’s eyes were still on the screen. Maybe she was someone I knew, this girl? That would’ve been a bit weird. I didn’t know any lesbians (except Paula, of course, and it seemed like I didn’t know her at all), but maybe there was another surprise comin. Maybe it was someone I went to school with. Maybe someone off the road?
    —Who?
    —Yeh wouldn’t know her.
    —Well go on so.
    —Her name’s Teresa.
    —Where’s she from?
    —Town.
    —What’s she like?
    Paula rolled her eyes, then looked at her cigarette.
    —She’s nice, she said. —I like her.
    I nodded. Wha the fuck else was I supposed to do? Congratulate her? And then somethin occurred to me.
    —Wha about Harry?
    —Wha about him?
    —Does he know?
    —About Teresa or me bein a lesbian?
    —I don’t know. Either.
    —No, I don’t think so.
    I broke off a bit o me sausage. I could feel the grease coolin on me fingers.
    —Maybe he has an idea, she said. —I don’t know. I don’t fuckin care either. He’s a fuckin prick anyway.
    —Took yeh long enough to say it.
    I hated Harry Cummins. He was a leery bigheaded gimp and he’d taken a lend o Wrestlemania XII off me and never brought it back up. Bret Hart versus Shawn Michaels was on that one, the Iron Man match. I fuckin love that match. People’ll tell yeh it’s crap, that it goes on for over an hour and nothin happens in it, but that’s why I love it — the slow build, all the holds and jockeyin. I was fuckin ragin Shawn Michaels won though. He fuckin loves himself.
    —Well it’s said now, said Paula. —I’m finished with him as of tonight. I told him. He can go fuck himself for all I care.
    —Yer well shot of him.
    —Yeah.
    —The bleedin head on him. Fuckin knock a wall down with that head. He should hire his head out to builders, demolish a few walls.
    Paula laughed.
    —His head’s somethin else, isn’t it? I said. —Fuckin mallethead. It was deadly gettin to slag Harry off. Even before that night I knew Paula wasn’t really mad into him, but she’d still never let yeh say boo about him. Even down to the videos I lent him: I’d say it to Paula and she’d look at me like I had two noses; for some reason Harry Cummins wasn’t to be discommoded. Even if he robbed brand new wrestlin videos on yeh. Well, second-hand from Chapters, but they were new to me.
    Paula turned to me. —Giz a bit o that sausage.
    —Yeh can have it. I’m not hungry.
    —Wonders never cease.
    —How’ll I get me videos back?
    —I think he lent them out.
    —To who?
    Paula shrugged. Then she laughed. I looked at her for a few seconds, then I laughed as well. The videos were gone. But fuck it, so were a lot of things. I was glad.
    *
    The moth — and it is without doubt a moth, even if it is a freaky fat fuck nearly three inches long — is squattin still and upside-down on the ceilin o Paula’s bedroom. Like them bats at the zoo.