by Roddy Doyle
They didn’t slam any doors: it was over.
I stayed there for ages.
I heard Ma doing things in the kitchen.
If your pony was healthy his skin was loose and flexible and if he was sick his skin was tight and hard. The television was invented by John Logie Baird in 1926. He was from Scotland. The clouds that had rain in them were usually called nimbostratus. The capital of San Marino was San Marino. Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics and Hitler hated black men and the Olympics were in Berlin that year and Jesse Owens was a black man and Berlin was the capital of Germany. I knew all these things. I read them all. I read under the blankets with my torch, not only after I’d gone to bed; it was more exciting that way, like I was spying and might get caught.
I did my eccer in braille. It took ages, being careful not to rip the page with the needle. There were all little dots on the kitchen table when I was finished. I showed the braille to my da.
—What’s this?
—Braille. Blind people’s writing.
He closed his eyes and felt the bumps on the page.
—What does it say? he asked.
—It’s my English homework, I told him.—Fifteen lines about your favourite pet.
—Is the teacher blind?
—No. I was just doing it. I did it properly as well.
Henno would have killed me if I’d brought in just the braille.
—You don’t have a pet, said my da.
—We could make it up.
—What did you pick?
—Dog.
He held the page up and looked at the light through the holes. I’d done that already.
—Good man, he said.
He felt the bumps again. He closed his eyes.
—I can’t tell the difference, he said.—Can you?
—No.
—When you don’t have your sight your other senses take over; that’s it, I’d say, is it?
—Yes. Braille was invented by Louis Braille in 1836.
—Is that right?
—Yes. He was blinded in a childhood accident and he was from France.
—And he named it after himself.
—Yes.
I tried. I tried to get my fingers to read. I knew what was on the page already. I got in under the blankets and I didn’t turn on the torch. I touched the page lightly: just bumps, pimples. My favourite pet is a dog. That was how my fifteen lines started. But I couldn’t read the braille. I couldn’t separate the dots, where each letter started and ended.
I tried to be blind. I kept opening my eyes. I tied a blindfold around my head but I couldn’t do a good knot and I didn’t want to tell anyone what I was doing. I told myself that I’d put my finger on the bar of the electric heater for every time I opened my eyes, but I knew I wouldn’t so I kept opening my eyes. I’d done that once, because Kevin told me to, put my finger on the bar of the heater. There was a striped mark for weeks after it and I kept smelling my finger burning.
The life expectancy of a mouse is eighteen months.
My ma screamed.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t go and see.
She’d gone into the toilet and found a mouse running round and around inside the toilet bowl. Da was home. He flushed the toilet and the water went over the mouse’s body because it was in close to the rim. He stuck his foot into the bowl and knocked the mouse into the water. I wanted to see now; I knew why she’d screamed. There was no room. The mouse was swimming and trying to get up the side and my da had to wait till the cistern filled up again.
—Oh Jesus, Jesus, said my ma.—Will it die, Paddy?
Da didn’t answer. He was counting the seconds till the water stopped hissing into the cistern; I could see his lips.
—The life expectancy of a mouse is about eighteen months, I told them.
I’d just read it.
—Not in this house, said my da.
My ma nearly laughed; she patted my head.
—Can I see?
She got out of my way, then stopped.
—Let him, said my da.
The mouse would have been a good swimmer but he wasn’t trying to swim properly. He was trying to run out of the water.
—Cheerio, said da, and he flushed the toilet.
—Can I keep him? I said.
I’d just thought of it. My favourite pet.
The mouse went round and further down into the water and he went backwards out of the bowl, down the pipe. Sinbad wanted to see.
—He’ll come out at the seafront, I said.
Sinbad looked at the water.
—He’ll be happier there, said my ma.—It’s more natural.
—Can I get a mouse? I asked.
—No, said Da.
—For my birthday?
—No.
—Christmas?
—No.
—They frighten the reindeer, said Ma.—Come on now.
She was making us get out of the toilet. We were waiting for the mouse to come back up.
—What? said Da.
—Mice, said Ma.—They frighten the reindeer.
She nodded at Sinbad.
—That’s right, said Da.
—Come on, lads, she said.
—I want to go, said Sinbad.
—The mouse’ll get you, I told him.
—Number ones, said Sinbad.—Standing up; so there.
—He’ll bite you in the mickey, I said.
Ma and Da were going down the stairs.
Sinbad stood too far back and he wet the seat and floor.
—Francis didn’t lift the seat! I shouted.
—I did so.
He whacked the seat off the cistern.
—He only did it now, I said,—when I said it.
They didn’t come back up. I kicked Sinbad when he was wiping the seat with his sleeve.
—If the world’s moving why aren’t we moving as well? said Kevin.
We were lying in the long grass on a flattened box, looking up. The grass was real wet. I knew the answer but I didn’t say it. Kevin knew the answer; that was why he’d asked the question. I knew that. I could tell by his voice. I never answered Kevin’s questions. I never rushed with an answer, in school or anywhere; I always gave him a chance to answer first.
The best story I ever read was about Father Damien and the lepers. Father Damien was this man and he was called Joseph de Veuster before he became a priest. He was born in 1840 in a place called Tremeloo in Belgium.
I needed some lepers.
When he was a small boy they all called him Jef and he was chubby. All the grown-ups drank dark Flemish beer. 46 Joseph wanted to become a priest but his father wouldn’t let him. Then he did.
—How much do priests get paid? I asked.
—Too much, said my da.
—Shhhsh, Paddy, said my ma to my da.—They don’t get paid anything, she told me.
—Why not?
—It’s hard to - she started.—It’s very complicated. They have a vocation.
—What’s that?
Joseph joined a bunch of priests called the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. The priest that had started them up had had a life filled with narrow escapes and thrilling adventure during the French Revolution. He’d lived under the shadow of the guillotine itself. Joseph had to get a new name and he called himself Damien after a man called Damien who was a martyr when the Church was young. He was Brother Damien before he became Father Damien. He went to Hawaii. On the way there the captain of the ship played a trick on him. He got his telescope and he put a hair across the lens and he got Father Damien to look into it and he told him that it was the Equator. Father Damien believed him but that didn’t make him an eejit because they didn’t know about those kinds of things in those days. Father Damien had to make hosts for Holy Communion out of flour on the ship because they’d run out of paper hosts. He didn’t get seasick. He found his sea legs nearly immediately.
Vienna roll was the best for m
aking hosts, when it was fresh. You didn’t have to wet it. Batch wasn’t bad either but ordinary sliced bread was useless. It kept springing back up. It was hard to tear the hosts into perfect round shapes. I used a penny from my ma’s purse. I told my ma I was taking it in case she saw me. I pressed the penny real hard into the flat bread and sometimes the shape came up with the penny. My hosts tasted nicer than the real ones. I left them on the windowsill for two days and they got hard like the real ones but they didn’t taste nice any more. I wondered was it a sin for me to be making them. I didn’t think so. One of the hosts on the windowsill went mouldy; that was a sin, letting that happen. I said one Hail Mary and four Our Fathers, because I preferred the Our Fathers to the Hail Mary and it was longer and better. I said them to myself in the shed in the dark.
—Corpus Christi.
—Amen, said Sinbad.
—Close your eyes, I said.
He did.
—Corpus Christi.
-Amen.
He lifted his head and stuck out his tongue. I gave him the mouldy one.
—How do the priests make hosts? I asked my ma.
—Flour, said my ma.—It’s just bread until it’s blessed.
—Not real bread.
—A different kind of bread, she said.—It’s unleavened bread.
—What’s that?
—I don’t know.
I didn’t believe her.
The real good part of the story started when Father Damien went to the leper colony. Molokai was the name of it. It was where all the lepers were put so they couldn’t give it to anyone else. Father Damien knew what he was doing; he knew that he was going there forever. A strange expression burned on Father Damien’s face when he told the bishop he wanted to go there. The bishop was pleased and edified by the bravery of his young missionary. The little church on Molokai was run-down and neglected but Father Damien fixed it up. He broke a branch from a tree and used it as a 48 broom and began to sweep the floor of the tiny chapel. He put flowers in it. The lepers that were hanging around watching him just kept watching him for ages. He was a big healthy man and they were only lepers. After the first day the lepers still hadn’t started to help him. When he went to bed he could hear the lepers moaning in the dark and the surf booming on the barren shore. Belgium had never seemed so far away. After a while the lepers started helping him. He became friends with them. They called him Kamiano.
—Are there any lepers in Ireland?
—No.
—Any?
—No.
Father Damien built a better church and houses and did loads of other things - he showed them all how to grow vegetables—and he knew all the time that he was going to catch the leprosy as well, but he didn’t mind. His greatest happiness was to see his children, the boys and girls whom he had taken under his care. Each day he spent several hours with them.
Bits of the lepers fell off. That was what happened them. Did you hear about the leper cowboy? He threw his leg over his horse. Did you hear about the leper gambler? He threw in his hand.
One evening in December 1884 Father Damien put his aching feet into some water to ease the pain. He got red blisters all over his feet; the water was boiling but his feet were numb. He knew he had leprosy.—I can’t bear to tell you but it’s true, said the doctor sadly. But Father Damien didn’t mind.—I have leprosy, he said.—Blessed be the Good God!
—Blessed be the Good God, I said.
My da started laughing.
—Where did you get that from? he said.
—I read it, I told him.—Father Damien said it.
—Which one’s he?
—Father Damien and the lepers.
—Oh, that’s right. He was a good man.
—Were there ever any lepers in Ireland?
—I don’t think so.
—Why not?
—It only happens in hot places. I think.
—It’s hot here sometimes, I said.
—Not that hot.
—Yes it is.
—Not hot enough, said my da.—It has to be very very hot.
—How much hotter than here?
—Fifteen degrees, said my da.
There was no cure for leprosy. He didn’t tell his mother when he was writing to her. But the news got out. People sent money to Father Damien and he built another church with it. It was made of stone. The church is still standing and may be seen by travellers to Molokai today. Father Damien told his children that he was dying and that the nuns would take care of them from then on. They clung to his feet and said,—No, no, Kamiano! We want to stay as long as you are here. The nuns had to go back empty-handed.
—Do it again.
Sinbad grabbed my legs.
—No, no, Kam—Kam -
—Kamiano!
—I can’t remember it.
—Kamiano.
—Can I not just say Patrick?
—No, I said. Do it again and you’d better get it right.
—I don’t want to.
I gave him half a Chinese torture. He grabbed my legs.
—Lower down.
—How?
—Lower.
—You’ll kick me.
—I won’t. I will if you don’t.
Sinbad grabbed me around the ankles. He held me tight so my feet were stuck.
—No, no, Kamiano! We want to stay as long you are here.
—Okay, my children, I said.—You can stay.
—Thanks very much, Kamiano, said Sinbad.
He wouldn’t let go of my feet.
Father Damien died on Palm Sunday. The people sat on the ground beating their breasts in old Hawaiian fashion, swaying back and forth and wailing sadly. The leprosy had gone off him; there were no scabs or anything. He was a saint. I read it twice.
I needed lepers. Sinbad wasn’t enough. He kept running away. He told our ma that I was making him be a leper and he didn’t want to be one. So I needed lepers. I couldn’t tell Kevin because he’d have ended up being Father Damien and I’d have been a leper. It was my story. I got the McCarthy twins and Willy Hancock. They were four, the three of them. They thought it was great being with a big boy, me. I made them come into our back garden. I told them what lepers were. They wanted to be lepers.
—Can lepers swim? said Willy Hancock.
—Yeah, I said.
—We can’t swim, said one of the McCarthys.
—Lepers can swim, said Willy Hancock.
—They don’t have to swim, I said.—You don’t have to swim. You only have to pretend you’re lepers. It’s easy. You just have to be a bit sick and wobble a bit.
They wobbled.
—Can they laugh?
—Yeah, I said.—They only have to lie down sometimes so I can mop their brows and say prayers on them.
—I’m a leper!
—I’m a leper! Wobble wobble wobble!
—Wobble wobble leper!
—Wobble wobble leper!
—Our Father who art in heaven hallowed by thy name—
—Wobble wobble wobble!
—Shut up a sec -
—Wobble wobble wobble.
They had to go home for their dinners. I heard them through the hedge on the path to their houses.
—I’m a leper! Wobble wobble wobble!
—I have a vocation, I told my ma, just in case Missis McCarthy came to the door about the twins, or Missis Hancock.
She was still cooking the dinner and stopping Catherine from climbing into the press under the sink with the polish and brushes in it.
—What’s that, Patrick?
—I have a vocation, I said.
She picked up Catherine.
—Has someone been talking to you? she said.
It wasn’t what I’d expected.
—No, I said.—I want to be a missionary.
—Good boy, she said, but not the way I’d wanted. I wanted her to cry. I wanted my da to shake my hand. I told him when he got home from his work.
—I have a vocation, I said.
—No you don’t, he said.—You’re too young.
—I do, I said.—God has spoken to me.
It was all wrong.
He spoke to my ma.
—I told you, he said.
He sounded angry.
—Encouraging this rubbish, he said.
—I didn’t encourage it, she said.
—Yes, you bloody did, he said.
She looked like she was making her mind up.
—You did!
He roared it.
She went out of the kitchen, beginning to run. She tried to undo the knot of her apron. He went after her. He looked different, like he’d been caught doing something. They left me alone. I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t know what I’d done.
They came back. They didn’t say anything.
Snails and slugs were gastropods; they had stomach feet. I poured salt on a slug. I could see the torture and agony. I picked him up with the trowel and gave him a decent burial. The real name for soccer was association football. Association football was played with a round ball on a rectangular pitch by two sides of eleven people. The object is to score goals, i.e. force the ball into the opponents’ goal, which is formed by two upright posts upon which is mounted a crossbar. I learned this off by heart. I liked it. It didn’t sound like rules; it sounded cheeky. The biggest score ever was Arbroath 36, Bon Accord o. Joe Payne scored the most goals, ten of them, for Luton in 1936. Geronimo was the last of the renegade Apaches.
I held up the ball. We were on Barrytown Grove. It had good high kerbs for hopping the ball. The ball was a burst one.
—The object, I said,—is to score goals, i.e. force the ball into the opponents’ goal which is—is formed by two upright posts upon which is mounted a crossbar.
They were bursting out laughing.
—Say it again.
I did. I put on a posh accent. They laughed again.
—Ger-on-IMO!
He was the last of the renegade Apaches. The last of the renegades.
—You’re a renegade, Mister Clarke.
Hennessey sometimes called us renegades before he hit us.
—What are you?
—A renegade, Sir.
—Correct.
—Renegade!
—Renegade renegade renegade!