Playing with dialogue for novel

‘How was Jo or whatever his name is.’

Bronwen draws on her cigarette and exhales slowly, eyes dark. When she speaks it’s in the resigned, dull monotone that spells imminent booze and recklessness.  

‘He was boring. Very, very fucking boring. He knew he was boring, so in the middle of the night he pretended to sleep-talk. So that he would seem less boring. This is a thing people do now – I’ve seen them doing it on Big Brother.’

She draws again on her cig, eyes foggy.

‘Only fairly recent Big Brothers, though. See, even in 2010, when people were cunts, they weren’t such cunts as they are now. Have you noticed that?’

I’m about to ask her how she knows when it’s fake, but I know exactly. You just do. Well, people like Bron and me do. This is our magic. It is also the thing that will probably kill us.  

Without taking her eyes off the telly, Bron slithers her hand out from beneath her nest of blankets and grapples about on the sideboard for her bottle of wine.

‘Was he nice, though?’

‘No.’

‘Oh. What are you watching?’ I try to keep my voice light and cheery in the hope that hers will miraculously follow suit.

‘Celebs Go Dating.’

‘Doesn’t that have sleep-talking cunts on it?’

‘No, s’good. Can you get me a thing of seafood from the fridge?’

‘What do you mean seafood?’

‘It's in the fridge.’

Uneasy, I shuffle in my slippers to the fridge. In it there are ten packets of Waitrose seafood antipasti, neatly piled on top of one another. There is also a carton of Alvalle Gazpacho and three bottles of James White organic carrot juice. And nothing else. 

‘Where’s the Waitrose?’

‘Dornoch.’

‘How did you get to Dornoch?’

‘I got the bus. That was my activity for today. Anyway, no he wasn’t nice. He kept trying to fuck me when he’d already come, and he also didn’t put his boxers back on between sessions, which I hate. So he was lounging about in my bed, flopping about like a cherub in one of those paintings, with his small, out-of-proportion arse. Then he tried to fuck me again with his flaccid Botticelli cock and I got fed up and asked him if he understood basic anatomy and he went all quiet and then he thought about it a bit more and was downright fucking raging and said to me, what the fuck were you thinking calling your son Marius—'

Marius comes thudding down the stairs, and for a second it’s as if the whole thing is a sitcom, except it isn’t, it’s our lives.

‘Mummy, were you talking about activities? Because our activity today was potato painting and Jeremy said—’

‘Which teacher did potato painting with you and called it potato painting’ says Browen, seething.

‘Miss Hynes.’

‘Is Miss Hynes the one who gave you the idea to call your grandpa Pap-Pap?’

‘Bron, don’t.’

Maris’s little tummy inflates and deflates as he breathes quickly, keeping up with the change of tack.

‘Yes, Miss Hynes said grandpa was Pap-Pap because it’s a song: WHEN YOU BOYS AND GIRLIES PLAY SNAP-SNAP, REMEMBER TO ASK YOUR OLD PAP-PAP. FOR OLD PAP-PAP WON’T BE HERE LONG, SO LET HIM PLAY AND SING ALONG.’

Bron stares at me, enraged.

‘What’s snap-snap?’

‘Bronwen, don’t.’

‘I told mum, the last thing I TOLD HER BEFORE SHE DIED… is that he’s not going to a primary school with five other ffffff-ing children in it—’

‘WHEN YOU BOYS AND GIRLIES PLAY RAM-BAM, REMEMBER TO ASK YOUR OLD GRAM-GRAM. FOR OLD GRAM-GRAM LIKES… ehhh… LIKES PLAYING TOO, AND SOON SHE WON’T BE HERE FOR YOU.’

Bron sinks back into her armchair and pulls the blankets tightly around her as Marius pulls his t-shirt up, swells his tummy out as far as it will go, and beams at me.

‘And guess what?’

I kneel, twisting my arms around his sticky neck.

'Miss Hynes made those songs up herself!'