‘I don’t wanny, Da. A big mausey rat was in the coal bunker and it scared the shite out of me.’
‘You scared of a wee rat, hi?’ he said, teasing me.
‘Aye, but it was a big mauser, Da!’ I said, my hands held apart to show its size. ‘Its tail was that size!’ I said, widening the gap between my hands.
‘All right, I’ll take them out,’ he said and took the parcel out to the bin.
‘Close that door behind you,’ called me ma after him. ‘I don’t want any rats running through the house!’
‘God, it would founder you out there,’ said me da when he came back in.
Me da used crumpled up newspapers, sticks and half-burnt coals from the night before to light the fire in the sitting room. Scrunched-up paper was arranged at the bottom, the sticks were set on top of the paper, followed by last night’s coals and some fresh coal. The hall door had to be open for the draught. Our Paul pulled the hall door after him one time when me da was lighting the fire and the whole room filled with smoke.
‘Do yous want the fire lit in your room the night?’ he asked us wains when he’d got the fire in the sitting room going.
‘Aye, Da, that would be great.’
We all loved the fire going in the bedroom.
Me da took all he needed up to our bedroom to get our wee fire ready. I carried the sticks up for him. The hearth in our room was smaller than the sitting-room fire, and the fireplace was made of dull brown tiles. He laid the fire but didn’t light it.
‘I’ll light it after seven. No point heating an empty room,’ he said, and we went back downstairs.
‘Nearly time for your baths,’ called me ma from the kitchen. ‘Karen, you bath on your own the night.’
‘Why’s Karen having a bath on her own?’ asked Patrick.
‘Because she’s bigger now,’ said me da.
‘But so am I,’ said Patrick, getting up from the sofa to show his height. He was as tall as Karen.
‘Just never mind,’ said me ma. ‘Karen, your bath’s running. Get yourself ready.’
Karen got her bath first and then Patrick went in on his own. Me and Paul went in afterwards. Me da topped the water up a bit with a kettle full of boiling water. The bathroom was freezing so we scrubbed quickly in the warm, soapy water and then stood up in it to get dried.
‘Let me see your hands, Paul,’ I said.
Paul studied his hands for wrinkles.
‘Ha! Caught you!’
‘Shut up, you,’ said me da, laughing. ‘No narking the night.’
Once we were dry we ran through the kitchen and sitting room in the nude to go upstairs to put our pyjamas on.
‘Would ye look at them two,’ laughed me ma as we flashed past her. ‘Like two whippet pups!’
When we came down for our Saturday night fry, Karen and Patrick were glued to the TV. There was a group singing ‘Beg, Steal or Borrow’. It was Britain’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, played on the Cliff Richard Show, so I instantly hated it. Our Patrick said Cliff Richard talked as if he had his balls in his mouth. The TV reception wasn’t great and we called me da in to look at it. He lifted the aerial with the two antennae from the top of the TV and took it to the windowsill, but it didn’t make any difference so he banged the side of the TV with his hand and did the same on the other side. Still no difference.
‘It must be a valve going. I’ll have to see about getting it fixed next week,’ he said.
It was watchable though; we could still make out most of what was going on.
Because it was cold and we had only two chairs at the kitchen table, we were allowed to bring our fries into the sitting room, balancing the plates on our knees while our mugs of tea sat on the floor at our feet. Doherty’s sausages, mince, black pudding, potato bread and a fried egg with tea, bread and butter. By this time the fire was well caught so the hall door could be closed to keep the heat in and we all sat eating our fry and suffering Cliff Richard on the blurry TV.
I found myself trying to imagine Uncle Joe in a British Army uniform, and wondered how he could join them after seeing what they had done in our streets and houses. What would we tell people if the IRA shot him dead? Jesus, I didn’t know!
‘Da, can we stay up to watch Match of the Day the night?’ asked Paul. I had said to him when we were in the bath to ask me da. It had worked before.
‘Aye, if yous are good and yous behave yourselves.’
‘Great! I hope Leeds is on,’ said Paul.
‘Leeds are shite, so they are,’ I said.
Patrick wasn’t interested in football. Only me, Paul and me da. Me da supported Man United. In the summer he’d bought me a Man United jersey. I hated Man United by then, but loved the idea of looking like Georgie Best, and I wore it when we played football a few times out the Daisy Field.
‘Watch your language, boy,’ said me da.
‘All right, Leeds are a pile of brown mess,’ I said.
‘That’s better,’ he said with a smile.
The strains of ‘The Men Behind the Wire’ drifted in over the sound of the TV from the front room, where Karen and Patrick had gone. I followed shortly afterwards because I wanted to learn the song. The song was important because it was written in support of the internees, as the prisoners were called. I didn’t know why. That’s all me da told us. They were internees, interned without a fair trial. Patrick and Karen knew the words already. I needed to catch up. The front room was freezing. It had a hearth but the fire was never lit.
Proudly march behind our banners,
Firmly stand behind our men.
We will have them free to help us,
Build a nation once again.
Later in the evening, before Match of the Day came on, we were all in the sitting room enjoying the warmth when me da reached down beside the sofa and brought out a brown-paper bag filled with old shoes. He kept all the old worn shoes that couldn’t be handed down to burn in the fire in the winter.
‘Oh great, Daddy, you’re goin’ to burn the shoes,’ said Paul.
We loved burning the shoes.
‘Aye, son. That’s right. It’s that time again,’ said me da, placing an old pair of his own on the fire, heels down and toes up with the sole facing out. They started to burn right away and me da lifted the fireguard and placed it over the fire. After a few minutes they were blazing, giving off orangey-blue and green flames, different from the orange and red of the coals. The room filled with the dancing light, and the heat made us drowsy. Paul nodded off on the sofa and the rest of us struggled to keep our eyes open.
Just as Match of the Day was about to start, I saw me da looking round at us, splayed out on the sofa and chairs in various stages of sleepiness. I sat up and forced my eyes open, but it was too late.
‘Okay, wains, it’s pollyfookie time,’ said me da, meaning for us to get up the stairs. ‘Yous are all knackered and we’re for early Mass in the morning. C’mon you, Paul.’
He reached down to the sofa and lifted Paul up over his shoulder to take him out to the toilet for a pee. I followed. Me da had to hold Paul up beside the toilet to pee because he had his eyes closed already. Both of us peed together into the toilet at the same time. If Paul had have been awake we would have had a pee-race to see who finished first. Me da lifted Paul up again and went upstairs ahead of me. The fire had been lit earlier in our room and it was nice and warm.
‘Pull them blankets back there, Tony, till I put him in,’ said me da and he laid Paul down on the bed. ‘Jesus, this young fella’s a ton weight.’ He stood up, holding the bottom of his back with both hands. ‘He’s too big for me to lift now.’
I climbed into bed beside Paul and pulled the covers up over us.
‘Okay, night night, wee Dohertys,’ said me da and he turned off the light.
‘Night night, Daddy,’ I said back and out he went, pulling the door closed behind him.
As we drifted off to sleep, the room glowed red from the fire and threw slow-moving shadows on
the bedroom wall.
I woke in the middle of the night needing to do a pee. I lay in bed, afraid to get up. After a while I nudged Paul to see if he was awake. No response.
‘Paul!’ I whispered right into his ear. ‘Are you wakened?’
He just gave a sleepy grunt and I knew there was no chance of him getting up with me. I persevered.
‘Paul, have you to pee?’ I whispered, pushing his shoulders, hoping his bladder would force him awake like mine had.
No joy. He was dead to the world. The image of the big mausey rat scarpering out of the coal bunker filled my head. I lay on for a while and tried to get back to sleep, but the pee in my bladder wanted to come out and it was getting painful. I got out of bed and went out onto the landing. I thought about knocking on me ma and da’s door to see if one of them would come downstairs with me, but both Colleen and Glenn were in there as well and I’d get killed if I woke
them.
I stood at the top of the landing and stepped down the first few stairs before the turn at the landing window. Looking down, I saw that the door to the front room was open. In my mind all I could see was a huge, grey rat with a long, pink tail sitting behind the door waiting for me to go past. I couldn’t go any further. I was scared stiff and I could feel the pee about to come out. I hated that room already because of the tin shield over the window; now there was a huge mausey rat in it! I went back upstairs to the landing window. All I could see outside was darkness and the lights of Creggan in the distance. I went back down a couple of stairs, but the thought of the rat was too great and I went back to the top of the stairs, moaning and crying under my breath in case I woke anyone. I couldn’t handle the pain any more. I pulled down my underpants and peed all over the stairs. I knew if I peed in one spot there would be a puddle for days. So I spread the pee around and pushed it out till it hit the bottom of the stairs; I kept the dribbles for the top stairs. With a bit of luck it would be dry in the morning, I thought. I went back to bed greatly relieved and tucked back into the warmth beside Paul.
* * *
The marlies were freezing in my hands. We kept them in our pockets and only took one or two out at a time to play. The wee net bags with the colourful cardboard tops had appeared in Melaugh’s shop the previous week and we’d spent our pay on them on Friday night when me da came home from work. He paid me and Paul at the front door where we were waiting and we ran full speed up the street to Melaugh’s. It was a race and I beat our Paul to the shop door. Every boy in the street and far beyond was into marbles now.
Me, Johnny Barbour, Dooter, Paddy Brown and our Paul were playing just outside our house. We had tried to prise chewing gum from the footpath with our fingernails but it was frozen solid.
‘Get a butter knife,’ said Paddy, and I went into the kitchen and got one.
The house was dark and there was no one in. I came out with the knife and poked at the large white patch of flattened chewing gum; eventually it came free of the freezing flagstones in small, hard slices. There was enough to share so we all got a piece, kissed it up to God and put it in our mouths. It wasn’t long before the heat in my mouth softened the chewing gum to reveal the minty taste of Beechnut. We chewed gently, sieving out the dirt and grit with our tongues and front teeth.
The bright winter sunlight was beginning to fade and was soon replaced by the light of the street lamps.
‘Will we get a game of boodlies?’ said Paddy.
There was nothing else to do. The marlie circle was gouged out with the butter knife from the dry, frozen muck just below the kerb and we gathered round the circle on our hunkers to pitch into it. Each of us had green snotters dripping from our noses with the cold, which we licked, snorted up or wiped on our hardened sleeves. I threw my marlie first. The marlie flew wrongly from my cold fingers and skidded on the hard muck and out of the circle.
‘My fingers are freezing. I have to get another go,’ I said and tossed another into the ring.
No one objected. It was easier this time and the marlie stayed in. I threw my fist in the air and pretended to smoke a fag in satisfaction, blowing out a long puff of frosty air as smoke.
‘Right, Dooter, throw your boodlie!’ I said.
He threw his marlie and it stayed in the ring.
‘Yessss!’ said Dooter, as if he had scored a goal in football. He wiped his snottery nose on his sleeve in satisfaction.
‘There’s Fuck-a-dee,’ said Paddy Brown, and we turned to see Eff-a-dee come out of his house, his hand stuck to his mouth and him grinning behind it. His da followed. They didn’t come over to us. Eff-a-dee just sat on his windowsill, watching and grinning. His da stood at the door.
‘My turn,’ said our Paul and he threw his marlie into the ring. It stayed in. ‘Yes!’ he cried and all eyes fell on Paddy Brown.
Paddy was a brilliant marlie player. He wiped his snotters on his sleeve, sucking them up his nostrils at the same time, and stood up from his hunkers. He bent over, swung his throwing hand between his legs and tossed his marlie in, hitting mine and knocking it out of the ring. It scooted along on the frozen muck and fell down the grating, gone for ever.
‘Jammy balls!’ I said, angered at getting knocked out and losing the marlie for good.
‘Jammy balls, me hole! That was the shot of the century!’ said Paddy.
‘Who’s jammy balls?’ said Gutsy, approaching from his house and tapping his bulging pocket full of marlies. ‘Yous’ll see a bit of class now!’
‘Hi, John,’ he called over to Eff-a-dee. ‘You wanny play?’ Eff-a-dee looked back, grinning, and stood up from the windowsill.
‘Is it my turn or what?’ said Gutsy, turning his back on Eff-a-dee, who was coming towards us.
Gutsy put a marlie in his mouth, took it out, dried it on his trousers and rolled it between his finger and thumb. Then he flicked it with his thumb and it landed cleanly in the ring, knocking Paddy Brown’s out with a sharp crack.
‘Fuck!’ said Paddy.
‘Fuck is right,’ said Gutsy. ‘You’re out to fuck!’ and he bent to lift Paddy’s marlie.
‘I want back in again,’ I said and stood up from my hunkers to throw.
‘Your da’s been shot, hi,’ said Gutsy, as I was about to throw.
Something shifted within me between my heart and my gut. I put my hand on it. If anyone had news to bring it would be Gutsy. My mouth went dry, and the Beechnut I was chewing became hard and tasteless. I spat it out on the road. I looked at our Paul but he hadn’t heard Gutsy. He was distracted by Eff-a-dee coming over to us.
‘What? How would you know?’ I said to Gutsy.
‘Fuck-a-dee,’ said Eff-a-dee, grinning, now part of our circle around the ring. Our Paul and Johnny were laughing with him.
‘He was shot down the Bog,’ said Gutsy. ‘I saw him getting carted into an ambulance.’ He popped another marlie into his mouth.
‘You be good now, John. No cursing or I’ll bring you in again,’ said Eff-a-dee’s da from his front door across the street.
‘Gutsy, I’m goney batter the shite out of you for telling me lies!’ I said, sort of realising how ridiculous the threat sounded under the circumstances. I had no choice. He was telling lies.
‘I’m not. I swear to God, hi,’ he said, hurriedly blessing his heart with his marlie hand.
‘Fuck-a-dee, fuck-a-dee,’ said Eff-a-dee excitedly, a marble in his hand.
Paul, Johnny and Paddy Brown were laughing.
From the corner of my eye I noticed the figure of Kathleen McCallion approaching our house. Kathleen was married to me da’s cross-eyed cousin, Paddy McCallion from Quarry Street. Kathleen walked past us without a word and went into our house. The front door was open. Strange, I thought, what would she be looking for?
‘Gutsy, you’re gettin’ it after we come out later on,’ I said and got up to go in. I had the butter knife in my hand.
Gutsy got back on his hunkers, ready to throw another marlie.
I walked into the hallway and pulle
d the front door behind me. That Gutsy’s a wee effing shite, I thought to myself. I’ll kick the shite out of him later for telling lies. But a wee voice in my head was saying that it might not be a lie. Why would he lie about such a thing? And what was Kathleen doing in our house on a Sunday? She’s hardly ever in our house. I walked through the sitting room and Kathleen was in the kitchen busying herself. The kitchen was already tidy. We had all cleaned it up after the Sunday dinner earlier on, before me ma and da went out to the march with their big coats on.
Kathleen heard me coming in and pretended she didn’t. She was wiping the sink with a cloth made from old knickers. I went through to the toilet, did a pee and came back into the kitchen. Kathleen was still standing at the sink with her back to me. She didn’t look at me once. I took in her dirty fair hair and her flowery apron tied in a bow behind her waist. I wonder why she came to our house with her apron on, I thought.
‘Kathleen, is me da shot?’ The words rang out round the cold kitchen and sounded as if someone else had said them.
Kathleen stiffened at the sink with the cloth still in her hand. She said nothing. She didn’t turn round. I stood on, wondering if she had heard me.
After a few seconds she said, ‘It’ll be all right, Tony. Go you back out to the street to play.’ There was a flat emptiness in her voice. She still hadn’t turned around to face me.
I know it’s true. I know, I said to myself. But she didn’t say it was true and she’s a grown woman. I knew then, but I didn’t know. It couldn’t be true because no grown-up has told me so. We’d only had our dinner a couple of hours ago. Meat, spuds, peas and gravy. They’d gone out together with their big coats on. They’ll be back shortly, me ma and da, from the march.
I went back into the sitting room. The house was freezing as the fire hadn’t been lit yet. I went and stood out in the hall. The front door had blown open and I could see our Paul, Johnny, Paddy Brown, Gutsy and Eff-a-dee playing in the frozen muck at the kerb. It couldn’t be true. Sure, isn’t everyone out still playing boodlies? I sat at the bottom of the carpeted stairs, examining its pattern and colour between my feet and scuffing it with my shoes to see if I could change it any. I remembered what had happened in the middle of the night and felt the backside of my trousers to see if it was wet with pee. It wasn’t. The pee must’ve dried in. I touched the carpet with my fingers and it felt dry. There was no smell either.
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