Paula Spencer Hardback - 2006

Summary

Excerpt

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, hard-working, 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.

Media reviews

“Doyle returns to the heroine of his 1996 novel, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, in this engrossing tale. . . . Doyle’s love of language and acute ear for dialogue keep his narrative thrumming . . . inspiring . . . This is an extraordinary story about an ordinary life.”
–People

“Reading Paula Spencer is pure, undiluted pleasure, and it’s not necessary to have read the first novel to thoroughly enjoy this one.”
–The Washington Post Book World

“Paula Spencer is written with an immediacy that makes us feel like we’ve crawled inside her head. . . . The remarkable intimacy achieved using third-person narrative is partly what’s enthralling here, but it’s also the humanity, wit and stubborn resilience. . . . Doyle’s new novel is an utterly convincing, worthy sequel.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

“A tale of ultimate personal struggle, and told superbly. . . . [The book’s] sparseness serves to ratchet up its intensity, compressing every episode and emotion. . . . Paula Spencer is neither gloomy nor glib. It is not patronizing or falsely melodramatic. Instead it brims with compassion and acuity and Mr. Doyle shines a light on a supposedly ordinary life, tenderly illuminating its extraordinary contours.”
–The Wall Street Journal

“A nakedly personal tale . . . this is a book about a brave woman living a life of work and family. This is as real as realism gets.” –The Atlanta Journal Constitution

“Its protagonist is a phoenix still half-covered in ash, and that itself suggests a story of both flight and atonement. Doyle’s dialogue can be masterfully swift and precise.”
–Boston Globe

‘Captivating new novel…It’s like watching a real person getting a white-knuckled grasp on day to day life….You want to cheer Paula on…As ever, Doyle’s dialogue is pithy, his mordant comedy direct and delicious. Another of the sheer pleasures of Doyle’s writing is his lightness of touch, the way he keeps out of his characters’ paths. We’re allowed to get Paula, her story and what it means, without anything underlined, emboldened or signposted. No aids for the thinking-impaired here, just pure story and a superbly drawn heroine.’
–The Independent

‘an amazingly cheerful story, full of real resilience…she is so utterly likeable that we cheer for her, and every tiny victory is a triumph for us as well…Roddy Doyle has done the impossible- he has made Paula Spencer even more unforgettable the second time round’
–Maeve Binchy in The Times

‘Doyle…writes like a recording machine of the heart and voice. [Paula Spencer] is suffused with love and sex, violence and innocence …Doyle’s dialogue…is the core of the genius of his writing and of the happily politically incorrect imagination he uses to choose each perfectly pitched word…[a] marvellous novel’
–Financial Times

‘Paula’s story is set against the backdrop of the changing face of Ireland, skilfully interweaving Paula’s personal tale with major events, both national and global…the writing enables the reader to become totally immersed in every aspect of Paula’s daily life.’
–The Daily Express

‘Doyle has created a little masterwork, a gem of persuasive realism’
–Scotland on Sunday

“Doyle’s trademark, staccato style…encapsulates here the tension which attends Paula’s every step…The honed, humane artistry of Paula Spencer exceeds the …plaudits of “demotic fluency” that have greeted…Doyle’s work; like its eponymous protagonist, this brave, mature novel demands to be taken seriously”
–Times Literary Supplement

‘a vintage performance that will leave his readers, new and old, wondering if they aren’t just a little wiser and a little better for having read this novel. This is one of the things we might hope for from art, and this is a novel which adds to one’s sense of the possibilities of betterment.’
–Waterstones Books Quarterly

‘A masterclass in how to produce gripping dramatic moments with the fewest possible words. This is a book with huge emotional impact.’
–Marie Claire

‘Paula is a triumphantly original character, and her gently anarchic sense of humour, her ruthless honesty and the bursting sense of fun that permeates the book scotch any hint of sentimentalism. Doyle constructs his set-pieces and orders the narrative with a craft so unobtrusively elegant and clever that it demands a second reading. This is a splendid piece of work.’’
–The Independent on Sunday

‘this is a magnificent novel…not once does Doyle offer any sentimental cop-out or wallow in bleakness…It’s a disciplined piece of writing, full of humour and immense empathy — and what more can you ask than that?’
–The Scotsman

‘A painful, funny, humane novel: beautifully written, addictively readable and so confident’
–The Times

‘a magnificent achievement…Moments of catharsis are to be found in the almost imperceptible shifts of understanding…It celebrates that among the clod hoppers there are amazons’
–The Guardian

‘a warm-hearted look at one woman’s will to survive’
–Red

 ‘Delivered in punchy, almost punch-drunk, first-person prose shot through with dark comic wit, Doyle’s novel is sympathetic without being sentimental, and its portrait of survival, coupled with our need to reach out to each other, feels universal’
–Metro

‘every detail seems perfectly chosen’
–Literary Review

‘Doyle’s style is cinematic and accessible…a complex, funny story’
–Eve

‘A blisteringly realistic and wry-humoured view of a woman struggling to keep her life together and make her family closer’
–Good Housekeeping

‘the story of a survivor. Harrowing, moving and emotional’
–Evening Telegraph

‘an intoxicating sequel…a phenomenally rewarding read’
–The Observer

‘Doyle’s characteristic warmth shines through…[he] tells this tale of redemption with insight and respect.’
–New Statesman

Praise for The Woman Who Walked into Doors:

“[This novel] honours not the female experience in the abstract, but the experience of this one woman, Paula Spencer; it examines it with tenderness, but with fearless clearsightedness. And it’s funny in places too.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“A tour-de-force of voice.”
–The Gazette (Montreal)