Had my sixth short story published today – it’s called ‘Come on Eileen’ and you can download it for free on the website of Untitled: Voices, a really cool group of writers who aim to amplify the voices of underrepresented writers – hope you enjoy it ☺️ #feelingproud #amwriting

Update: April 2025 – the website for Untitled: Voices no longer seems to be functional, so I’m reprinting the whole story below.

Enjoy!

Come on Eileen

Turkey in the oven. It was the screaming that I looked forward to most. I knew they would scream. I was ready for it. The moment she opened the oven door and said,

“There she is!”

But the screaming was even louder than I thought it would be. A trail of children running from the house. Eileen laughing to herself.     

She was my babysitter. Not that I needed a babysitter. But the turkey had come along. With her pink screwed-up face and her constant wailing. And then Eileen had appeared. A cloud of mystery surrounding her. She’d come from a place called Birmingham. A place none of us had ever heard of, where she’d picked up an English twang and a funny way of dressing.

I loved the madness in her. The terrifying feeling of freedom when she was around. You never knew what she would say or do next. Of course, the turkey was safely tucked into her cot in the living room. The turkey in the oven was a real one. It just looked a bit like a baby.

Looking back on it as an adult, I can see how wrong it was. What Eileen did. If it was nowadays, the social services would be called in. People would give her the help she needed. But it was the eighties. Even the adults laughed, when they heard about it later.

The last time I saw Eileen.

I was a teenager by then. Hanging around with a gang of boys on BMXs. Terrorising the pavements with our bikes. Eileen had stopped babysitting us a few years before. The turkey was in school now, and well able to look after herself. I’d missed Eileen when she stopped coming around. Then she’d disappeared completely. Gone back to England for a while. When I saw her again, I was too ashamed to acknowledge her.

The ambulance outside her block of flats. A drama that was important enough to make us swing our bikes around and stand there gawking, like everyone else. Ambulances showed up on our street often enough. There was always a drama. When they brought her out, supported on each side by neighbouring women. Alexis Carrington. Dark glasses. Blanket wrapped around her. Resigned to fate.

“C’mon, Eileen!”

Climbing the steps into the back of the vehicle.

“Look at me.”

A million hearts cried.

“No, see me!”

Da-Na-Na-Na. Come on Eileen.

The time I like to remember her best was when she taught us how to dance. Me and two of my girl cousins. Lined up in the living room. Music blaring through the house. Shoulders moving. Step forward. Hips swaying. Copying her. She was a ruthless teacher. We repeated the moves. Over and over.

“We are far too young and clever.”

Laughing until we choked up.

“C’mon, Eileen!’ “

Verging. Doctors and nurses.

“But sure what do they know?”

They wouldn’t know about the times we dressed up the Barbie dolls. Fashion parades I wouldn’t admit to. Spraying Ma’s perfume and swatting the air afterwards.

Eileen talked to me like a grown-up. Her self-confidence rubbing off. An attitude, as my mother would later call it.

Babysitter. Not wife. Not girlfriend or mother. The ambulance. And the neighbours coaxing her in.

“C’mon, Eileen. C’mon love! “

Basted. Temperature high. Skin crackling. Stuffed with life.

My parents’ room. The reason Ma hates Da. Doors shut and a whacking sound. Eyes sunk.

“Can you see that?”

“What?”

Screaming and running out onto the street. Sure it was all just a bit of craic.

Late night, national anthem. Soldiers are we.

“Stand up! “

“But I want to sleep.”

It’s midnight and, and …

Another image surfacing. Eileen in the kitchen.

“Let’s play a game. “

It’s called sitting still. It’s called listening to our lives passing.

“Can you hear that? “

Something wrong with her.

“See who can stay quiet the longest.”

It’s called silence. It’s called giving Eileen’s head peace. As if someone had died. As if turkey had been in the oven for real. I waited for a sign. A hint of laughter in her eyes. A bout of tickling. But Eileen’s eyes looked empty and I wondered what it was then, that made me love her so much.

Dungarees and the smell of pups being born. Eileen is wild about them. She wants to adopt them all. Save the bitches from being drowned in a bucket of water.

“Can I keep just the one? “

But Eileen can’t keep anything, as it turns out.

Not a pup. Not a silence. Not a turkey in the oven.

The things you think as a child. Wishing Eileen was my mother. Wishing I didn’t have to stand for the national anthem, when it’s midnight and I’m half asleep. Wishing Eileen would smile again. Wishing the doctors and nurses would leave her alone.

At this moment. You mean everything.