I was sent to the shops in Central Drive for messages. At Barr’s I had to get plain flour, sliced hard cheese, buttermilk and a fine-toothed comb. Dozey Ford came along with me. The Fords lived a few doors up the street from me granny. Dozey was the same age as me. He was great craic. He always mimicked his mother talking. She had white hair and looked like his granny. The Fords’ house was the same as me granny’s with the wee round porthole window on the wall beside the front door. They had a dog called Rusty. Rusty Ford. Rusty came to the shops too.
A crowd had gathered on Bishop’s Field, just opposite the shops. We crossed the road to the field to get a better look. There was a man with long hair and a beard standing up on something and speaking to the crowd. He was very nervous.
‘The men down there, down the Bog, are under wild pressure,’ he called out hoarsely. ‘The police are forcing them back. If they break into the Bog they’ll come for Creggan as well. Ye’s need to get yourselves out of the bookies and out of your houses. Now, if I get down from here and run down that hill there towards the Bog, will you all follow me?’
‘Aye!’ some of the crowd shouted back to him.
‘The men are desperate down there for help! Will yous follow me now or not?’ he called out again.
‘Aye,’ shouted more of the crowd.
‘Well, let’s go then!’ he called out and made to run down the field towards the New Road. Everyone ran after him. So did me and Dozey and Rusty, until we got near the bottom. I had the bag of messages in my arms.
‘Dozey, me granny’ll kill me if I don’t bring her messages back,’ I said.
‘So she will, Tony,’ he replied and we stopped.
‘Hi you, young Ford,’ some man shouted to Dozey. ‘Git back up that hill or I’ll put me boot up your arse!’
We ran back up the hill towards Barr’s shop. We looked back and the crowd was disappearing from view down the New Road. There were still a lot of people hanging around the field and the shops.
* * *
Granny Sally spread the newspaper on the floor near the hearth and we took turns. The light was on and so were her thick, Coke-bottle reading glasses. Joe was first to bend his head over the paper. She knelt down behind him and worked the fine-toothed comb through his thick brown hair. She said he had hair like a Brillo pad. The nits made a light pattering noise, like drizzle, as they crash-landed from his head onto the newspaper. You could see the wee brown spiders easier if they landed on a dark piece like an advertisement. He was then sat under the light as me granny went through his hair looking for nits and cracking them between the nails of her two thumbs. Me ma came in from the kitchen and joined the inspection line.
Patrick was next. He had black hair like me da. Me ma did the fine-tooth combing and me granny did the searching with her glasses on. Then it was my turn. I had fair hair. The fine-toothed comb hurt when it was dragged across your scalp. The nits fell from my head onto the paper. You heard them first and then saw them. The new ones were a lighter colour than Joe’s and Patrick’s. They walked very slowly. After me ma finished I got down between me granny’s knees as she sat in her chair and I felt her fingers search through my hair for the smaller nits and eggs. She cracked their spines right beside your ear and rubbed the dead bodies on her trouser leg.
After about ten minutes, Granny Sally said, ‘That’s you finished now, Tony,’ and Paul took his place between her knees.
Me ma gathered up the newspaper in her hands, taking care to fold in the edges. She scrunched it up, placed it in the empty hearth and put a match to it. It went up in a ball of flames.
* * *
It was night time. We were put to bed. The heat was fierce so we only had a single sheet covering us. Nobody could sleep with the heat. Sweat ran down our legs. All the teenagers – my uncles Michael and Gerard and aunt Siobhán were out, down the Bog at the ‘royets’. There was a noise downstairs of someone coming into the house. Someone was singing. Connor was singing ‘Sally’ to Sally. We ventured out of the room in our underpants to listen at the top of the stairs. Karen and Lorraine were already there in their drawers and vests.
‘He’s been over in the Telstar all night,’ whispered Lorraine, giggling. ‘He must be bluttered.’
As well as the strains of song, the smell of fish and chips wafted up from below.
‘C’mon yous all down,’ called Sally from the hall.
After putting on vests and trousers we all clattered downstairs to the sitting room. A feast of red (smoked) and white (unsmoked) battered fish and chips awaited us on the coffee table. Sally divided it into roughly equal portions on newspaper. More salt, more vinegar and glasses of Coke.
‘No Coke for that boy,’ said Karen nodding at Paul. ‘We’ll all be floating down the stairs in the morning.’
He was about to cry.
‘Ach, give wee Paul a wee glass,’ Connor slurred. ‘He’ll not pee the bed, won’t you not, Paul.’
Paul looked happy again.
We all sat and ate and watched the TV, though Connor was more entertaining. He had on a grey pinstriped suit with a tie that had been loosened at the neck. As he sat deep in his chair you could hear the coins trickle from his pockets onto the seat. He paid no attention to it.
‘Sing us a song, Da,’ said Lorraine through a mouthful of chips.
‘Ach, I could sing with the best of them in my day,’ he replied. His nose and cheeks were red. He was a big strapping man with a full head of jet-black hair combed back like Humphrey Bogart. ‘I sang wi’ Josef Locke. He wasn’t as good a chanter as me,’ he said, smiling.
‘Is that right?’ I asked me granny. I didn’t know who Josef Locke was.
‘He did,’ she replied. ‘Your granda sang wi’ Josef Locke. That was years ago – in the thirties, before the war. Joe McLaughlin we called him before he changed his name.’
‘What did you do in the war, Granda?’ I asked.
Sally laughed and answered for him. ‘Oh, your granda was part of the suitcase brigade.’ Both of them giggled. Sally was laughing at him but he looked away.
‘I fought a red-headed nigger in Sarajevo,’ he said, smiling broadly.
‘What’s that, Granda?’ I asked.
‘What’s what?’ he said.
‘What’s a red-headed nigger in Sarajevo?’
‘A black man wi’ red hair. I boxed the head off him in Sarajevo during the war,’ he replied with a light laugh.
‘Did ye really?’ I asked, intrigued.
He just kept smiling and so did Sally.
The battered and smoked red fish was greasy and delicious. So were the chips. The extra salt and vinegar worked a treat. Connor had finished eating. Sally was watching him through half-closed eyes. There’d be no more songs from him tonight. Sally gathered the greasy papers in a ball in her hands and placed them in the hearth where the greasy paper burned fierce and bright for a minute.
‘C’mon you, up to your bed now,’ said Sally moving across the room in Connor’s direction. He was starting to nod off and his head shot to attention at the sound of her voice. ‘Joseph and Karen, give me a hand wi’ him. He’s fit for nothing.’
‘C’mon you, up ye get!’ she commanded.
‘Aye, all right. God bliss us and save us – can a man not enjoy his drink?’ he said with a slur, sitting forward in his chair to get up. As he rose Sally grabbed one arm and Joseph grabbed the other. They steadied him and moved towards the door. Karen followed behind them.
‘Hold on a minute, hold on a minute would ye!’ he said in a raised voice. ‘Wait till I give the wains something.’ He reached into his back trouser pocket. ‘C’mon over here, wains,’ he beckoned us with his hand.
We approached one by one and he placed a large green pound note into each of our hands. Sally was red-faced but said nothing. On they went – to the toilet first, where he farted, rifted and pished loudly with the door half open, humming to himself, and then upstairs, slowly clumping until you heard the creak of the bedsprings above.
Sally came back downstairs with Joe and Karen.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Hand me all the pound notes back. He must’ve made a rise at the bookies the day. He tells me nothing and gives me less.’
The party was over. We handed back our big green notes, which she bunched together in her hand.
‘Yous can take that,’ she said, nodding to where Connor had been sitting.
A scramble to the seat revealed a tidy sum of around ten bob in assorted coins under the cushion. It hadn’t had time to slide down below the springs and fabric.
‘And here,’ she said, wagging her finger, ‘not a word to your granda in the morning or yous’ll dear bye it.’
We all nodded our assent and went back to our hot beds. There wasn’t a word in the morning. Anyway, there was no sign of Granda Connor as the morning turned to midday.
* * *
The Cropie at the end of Central Drive was a massive green roundabout with grass on it. Cars drove around it and we played on it. There was a flat patch in the middle where we could play football. We had to be careful that the ball didn’t run off the Cropie down Westway, as it wouldn’t stop. The Cropie swarmed with wains, mostly boys playing football; girls played in the long grass around the pitch.
Danny Friel’s nickname was Celtic. Danny Celtic. He was older than me but the same size, and he had dark red hair. He was a brilliant footballer. He could dribble the ball around everyone on the pitch. It was great to be on his team. Martin Stewart had dark red hair as well, but he was bigger than us. He supported Celtic too, but he was just called Martin, not Martin Celtic. Joe, my uncle, supported Manchester City. Joe was the same age as Martin Stewart but wasn’t as good at football; his asthma held him back. Dozey Ford supported Spurs. I supported Manchester United then because of Georgie Best. I had a red Man United jersey with a white collar band and cuffs. Other boys from Dunree Gardens – the O’Hagans and the Morans – came over to the Cropie for football as well.
The Cropie was big enough to hide in and snipe from. It was Japanese (Japs) against Americans; the Cropie was the jungle. Teams were determined by height. One team would stay put to hold the fort and the other would fan out across the Cropie’s expanse. Martin Stewart was the tallest so his team were the Americans fanning out. He was the captain. Danny Friel was small so he was the Jap captain. I was a Jap as well, along with Whitey O’Hagan and his wee brother. We were all short like Japs. Uncle Joe was the only one with a real cowboy gun and he was an American. He got the best of everything because of his asthma. The rest of us had long sticks. Our grenades were invisible. You just unhooked one from your t-shirt, pulled the pin out with your teeth, threw it at the enemy and made your own explosion noise.
Us four Japs were facing out of our smoothed-down grass fort in different directions, holding our sticks to our shoulders and pointing. The long grass rustled as the Americans approached. A shot rang out. It was Joe’s cowboy gun.
‘You’re fucking dead, Whitey, ya wee Jap bastard,’ called Joe from behind the long grass.
‘Ye fuckin’ missed me,’ Whitey replied. ‘It bounced off me helmet.’
‘You don’t have a helmet, ye’ve only a beret,’ shouted Joe and fired two more live caps at him. ‘You’re fuckin’ dead now, ya Jap bastard!’ He was a wild curser, as bad as our Patrick.
Whitey said ‘Aahhhh’, held his belly and fell over and died.
We started firing back with our machine guns into the grass. ‘Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat’ we all went.
‘Yous haven’t got machine guns, only rifles,’ shouted Martin Stewart from the long grass.
‘Aye we do. We have Jap riddley guns,’ shouted Danny Friel defiantly and continued firing.
The sound of gunfire could be heard from behind the long grass. They were getting closer. Dozey Ford knelt upright and fired at Danny Friel. I fired back at him and he got down again.
‘Dozey, you’re got. I got ye,’ I called out.
‘Naw I’m not got. Ye missed,’ he replied.
‘Okay, men,’ Martin called out in a John Wayne drawl, ‘we’re gonna wipe this Jap fort out.’
We Japs hadn’t a chance against the advancing and better-equipped American forces. More rustling in the grass meant they were getting closer. It was hopeless being a Jap. Suddenly they were firing on all sides. While we fired back – ‘bang bang bang … bang bang bang’ – the Americans simply refused to die. When the big Yanks got up to overrun the fort we had no choice but to go ‘Aahh!’ and fall over and die. The Americans prodded us with their guns as we lay still on the ground to make sure we were dead.
Joe poked me with his muzzle in the back.
It hurt and my dead body kicked at him and missed. ‘That’s too hard,’ I shouted, sitting up in the grass. ‘Pack it in!’
The other dead Japs were still dead.
‘You’re dead, ya wee Jap fucker,’ he said, poking me again in the chest.
‘Japs and Americans is a load of shite. And stop pokin’ me with that cowboy gun. It’s not even an army gun.’
‘The Americans can use any gun they want,’ he replied.
‘Well, I’m not playin’ again. It’s not fair.’
‘You won’t be playin’ again. You can’t take your fuckin’ oil.’
‘I’m tellin’ me granny that you’re over here cursing.’
‘Tell her whatever the fuck ye like,’ he said and walked away with his Yankee friends, his cowboy gun over his shoulder.
Everyone had gone in. I was on my own lying flat in the long grass looking at the pure blue sky. When you lie down in the long grass no one can see you from the street. I sat up facing down Westway. I could see beyond the city towards Magilligan Strand on one side of the water and Greencastle on the other, places I’d never been to. People say you can see the coast of Scotland from here on a clear day. This was a clear day and Scotland was nowhere to be seen.
A black man with black hair and wearing black clothes was walking up Westway towards the footpath round the Cropie. As he got closer he looked in my direction sitting up in the long grass.
‘Hi boy, what are ye doin’ over there on your own?’ the black man asked. His teeth were very white.
‘Daddy!’ I called back.
It was me da, back from the riots down the Bog. He’d been away for three or four nights. I ran across the road to meet him and he gave me a tight hug.
‘Why are you black, Da?’ I asked. He looked like he was covered in soot and dark oil.
‘Sure I’ll tell yous all later. Let’s go home.’
He took my small white hand in his huge black hand and we walked up to Granny Sally’s house. When we got to the steep steps at the front everyone came out to meet us. The riots were over. The B-men were beat. The British Army had moved in.
Me ma made him a fry. He had a bath and went to bed. So did me ma.
* * *
‘We stayed in Finner Camp. It belongs to the Irish Army,’ Dooter told me and Paul. ‘So did the O’Donnells.’
I felt robbed. An Irish Army camp! We were back in Hamilton Street. There was a lot of people milling around. The fear had gone. Me da was taking the chicken wire down from the front window.
‘The soldiers let us hold their guns. Our Terry fired one,’ Dooter added.
It got worse. All we did was play football in the Cropie and go to the shops and get our hair fine-tooth-combed for nits.
‘They said for us to come back again. Me ma said we’re goin’ back next year,’ Dooter went on.
‘There’s a fleadh the night up the lane,’ said Gutsy.
‘What’s a fleadh?’ I asked him. Gutsy was always in the know.
‘I dunno, a party or somethin’,’ he replied. ‘The Da Willies are playing.’
‘The Da Willies? What’s The Da Willies?’ I asked. It sounded funny, like dickies.
‘I think they’re a band,’ he replied. ‘We’re allowed up late for it anyway.’
‘The Da Willies! The Da Willies! The
Da Willies! The Da Willies!’ we shouted for the rest of the day. It became the answer for everything:
‘What are you gettin’ for your tea?’
‘A Da Willie!’
‘What’s your ma’s name?
‘Da Willie!’
‘Will we play marlies later?’
‘Da Willies!’
The fleadh turned out to be a concert staged on the back of a coal lorry positioned between Moore Street and Hamilton Street. Gutsy was right – The Da Willies were a band. They all had long hair and some had beards. One played a banjo. Others played on the accordion and tin whistles. They sang about the Cork and Kerry mountains and meeting Captain Farrell. They also sang ‘The Black Velvet Band’. The crowd stood looking up at the band. Some were dancing with their hands up. Gutsy’s da was drunk. He wore tinted glasses and his hair was combed back from his sharp face. He looked like Count Dracula. Gutsy’s ma was there too but kept her distance, watching him. We were allowed out late. It was long past dark when we were called in for the night. The fear had gone.
* * *
Someone brought a magazine into the house to show me ma and da. There was a picture of me da on the front with flames and smoke in the background. A lorry was on fire. He was wearing a helmet and carrying a petrol bomb. His face was dark but it was definitely him. He was smiling and his lip was curled up like Elvis. He was looking away, but he seemed to know he was being photographed.
‘Our street’s in Free Derry,’ said Gutsy.
‘What’s Free Derry?’ I asked him.
‘It’s where the police aren’t allowed into any more,’ he replied. ‘The army can only come to the foot of the street but they have to ask to get in.’
‘Who do they ask?’ I said.
‘I dunno,’ he shrugged.
Men wearing white armbands stood guard at the foot of the street. They were unsure of themselves and smoked. We played football around the gable. Someone had painted over the Moore Street sign with black paint and written ‘Hooker Street’ beneath it with the same paint. No one knew why or knew what Hooker Street was supposed to mean.
The army arrived in large, green, canvas-covered lorries. They sat for a while on Foyle Road, at the bottom of our street. A tall soldier in a peaked cap was the first to get out. He spoke to one of the men wearing armbands. We couldn’t hear what they were saying but they were standing face to face. A few minutes later the tall officer approached one of the green lorries, pulled a couple of levers and opened the metal gates at the back. Soldiers jumped out. They carried rifles and one had a machine gun with bullets sticking out its side. Other green canvas-covered lorries were parked at the end of Moore Street and Anne Street. Soldiers were jumping out of all of them. Most wore helmets, strapped under the chin, like you saw in war films; some had dark berets on their heads.
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