by Roddy Doyle
I could tell: he didn’t mean Okay you can have a dog; he meant Okay I’ll get you some other way.
—They cost nothing, I told him.—You just have to go down to the cats and dogs’ home and pick one and they give him to you.
—The dirt, he said.
—We’ll make him wipe his paws, I said.
—Not that dirt.
—We’ll wash him; I will.
—His number twos, said my da.
He stared. He had us.
—We’ll bring him for walks and he’ll be able-
—Stop, said my da.
He didn’t say it like he was angry; he just said it.
—Listen, he said.—We can’t have a dog-We.
—and I’ll tell you why not and that’ll be the end of it and you’re not to go pestering your mammy. Catherine’s asthma.
He waited a bit.
—The dog hair, he said.—She couldn’t cope with it.
I hardly knew Catherine; I didn’t really know her. She was my sister but she was only a baby, a bit bigger. I never spoke to her. She was useless; she slept a lot. Her cheeks were huge. She walked around showing us what was in her potty; she thought it was great.
—Look!
She followed me.
—Pat’ick! Look!
She had asthma. I didn’t know what asthma was, only that she had it and it was noisy and it worried my ma. Catherine had been in the hospital twice because of it, never in an ambulance though. I didn’t know why dog hairs had anything to do with her asthma. He was just using it as an excuse for not getting a dog, my da; he just didn’t want one. He was just saying about Catherine’s asthma because he knew that we couldn’t say anything about it. We’d never complain to our ma about Catherine’s asthma.
Sinbad spoke. I jumped.
—We can get a dog with no hair.
My da started laughing. He thought it was a great joke. He messed up our hair - Sinbad started smiling - and that killed it. We’d never get a dog.
Marrowfat peas sat in the gravy and soaked it up into themselves. I ate them one at a time. I loved them. I loved the hard feel of their skin, and the inside soft and messy and watery.
They came in a net in the packet, with a big white tablet as well. They had to be soaked in water, starting on Saturday night. I did it, slid them into the bowl of water. My ma stopped me from putting my tongue on the tablet.
—No, love.
—What’s it for? I asked.
—To keep them fresh, she said.—And to soften them.
Sunday peas.
My da spoke.
—Where was Moses when the lights went out?
I answered.
—Under the bed looking for matches.
—Good man, he said.
I didn’t understand it but it made me laugh.
Sinbad and me knocked on their bedroom door. I did the knocking.
—What?
—Is it morning yet?
—Morning not to get up.
That meant we had to go back to our bedroom.
It was hard to tell in the summer when you woke up and it was bright.
Our territory was getting smaller. The fields were patches among the different houses and bits left over where the roads didn’t meet properly. They’d become dumps for all the waste stuff, bits of wood and brick and solidified bags of cement and milk bottles. They were good for exploring but bad for running in.
I heard the crack, felt it through my foot and I knew there was going to be pain before it came. I had time and control to decide where to fall. I fell onto a clean piece of grass and rolled. My cry of pain was good. The pain was real though, and rising. I’d hit a scaffolding joint hidden in the grass. The pain grew quickly. The whimper surprised me. My foot was wet. My shoe was full of blood. It was like water, creamier. It was warm and cold. My sock was wringing.
They were all standing around me. Liam had found the scaffolding joint. He held it in front of my face. I could tell it was heavy, the way he was holding it. It was big and impressive. There’d be loads of blood.
—What is it? said Sinbad.
—A scaffold thing.
—Thick eejit.
I wanted to take my shoe off. I held the heel and groaned. They watched. I pulled slowly, slowly. I thought about getting Kevin to pull it off, like in a film. But it would have hurt. It didn’t feel as wet in there now, just warm. And sore. Still sore. Enough for a limp. I lifted my foot out. No blood. The sock was down at the back, under the heel. I took it off, hoping. They watched. I groaned again and took the sock away. They gasped and yeuched.
It was brilliant. The toenail had come off my big toe. It looked cruel. It was real. It was painful. I lifted the nail a little bit. They all looked. I sucked in breath.
—Aaah—!
I tried to put the nail into its proper position but it really hurt. The sock wasn’t going to go back on. They’d all seen it. I wanted to go home now.
Liam carried my shoe. I leaned on Kevin all the way home. Sinbad ran ahead.
—She’ll put your foot in Dettol, said Aidan.
—Shut up, you, I said.
There were no farms left. Our pitch was gone, first sliced in half for pipes, then made into eight houses. The field behind the shops was still ours and we went there more often. Over at the Corporation houses, that end, wasn’t ours any more. There was another tribe there now, tougher than us, though none of us said it. Our territory was being taken from us but we were fighting back. We played Indians and Cowboys now, not Cowboys and Indians.
—Ger-on-IMO!
We built a wigwam in the field behind the shops. Liam and Aidan’s da called it an igloo by mistake. He came into the field to look at us building it. He was walking back from the shops.
—That’s a grand igloo, boys, he said.
—It’s a wigwam, I said.
—It’s a tepee, said Kevin.
Liam and Aidan said nothing. They wanted their da to go away.
—Oh, that’s right, said Mister O’Connell.
He had a net bag for his messages. He took a brown bag out of it. I knew what was in it.
—D’yis want a biscuit, boys?
We queued up. We let Liam and Aidan go first. He was their da.
—Did you see his handbag? said Kevin when Mister O’Connell was gone.
—It wasn’t a handbag, said Aidan.
—It was so, said Kevin.
No one joined in.
There were fields past the Corporation houses but they were too far away now. Past the Corporation houses. Somewhere else.
We’d done the compass points in school the day we got the summer holidays.
—Which way am I pointing—NOW.
—East.
—One of you at a time. - YOU.
—East, Sir.
—Just to make sure you didn’t say that just because Mister Bradshaw got there before you. - NOW.
—West, Sir.
The Corporation houses were west. The seafront was east. Raheny was south. The north was interesting.
—The last frontier, said my da.
First there were more new houses. There was no one in them yet because they’d all flooded before they were finished. Past the houses was the field with the hills, the one that had been dug up and stopped and grown over, where we built our huts. And over the hills was Bayside.
Bayside wasn’t finished yet but it wasn’t the building sites we were after this time. It was the shape of the place. It was mad. The roads were crooked. The garages weren’t in the proper place. They were in blocks away from the houses. Down a path, into a yard, a fort made of garages. The place made no sense. We went there to get lost.
—It’s a labyrinth.
—Labyrinth!
—Labyrinth labyrinth labyrinth!
We charged through on our bikes. Bikes became important, our horses. We galloped through the garage yards and made it to the other side. I tied a rope to the handlebars and hitched my bike to a
pole whenever I got off it. We parked our bikes on verges so they could graze. The rope got caught between the spokes of the front wheel; I went over the handlebars, straight over. It was over before I knew. The bike was on top of me. I was alone. I was okay. I wasn’t even cut. We charged into the garages—
—Woo wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo! and the garages captured our noise and made it bigger and grown-up. We escaped out the other end, out onto the street and back for a second attack.
We got material from our houses and made headbands. Mine was a tartan one, with a seagull’s feather. We took off our jumpers and shirts and vests. James O’Keefe took off his trousers and rode through Bayside in his underpants. His skin was stuck to the saddle when he was getting off, from the sweat; you could hear the skin clinging to the plastic. We threw his trousers onto the roof of a garage, and his shirt and his vest. We put his jumper down a shore.
The garage roofs were easy to get up onto. We climbed up on our saddles and onto the roofs when we’d conquered the forts.
—Woo wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo wooo!
A woman looked out of a bedroom window and made a face and moved her hands, telling us to get down. We did the first time. We got on our bikes and hightailed it out of Bayside. She’d called the police; her husband was a Guard; she was a witch. I got straight from the roof onto the bike without touching the ground. I pushed off from the wall. There was a wobble but then I was gone. I circled the garages to make sure that the others had time to escape.
I’d got the bike for Christmas, two Christmases before. I woke up. I thought I did. The bedroom door was closing. The bike was leaning against the end of my bed. I was confused. And afraid. The door clicked shut. I stayed in the bed. I heard no steps outside in the hall. I didn’t try to ride the bike for months after. We didn’t need them. We were better on foot through the fields and sites. I didn’t like it. I didn’t know who’d given it to me. It should never have been in my bedroom. It was a Raleigh, a gold one. It was the right size for me and I didn’t like that either. I wanted a grown-up one, with straight handlebars and brakes that fit properly into my hands with the bars, like Kevin had. My brakes stuck down under the bars. I had to gather them into my hands. When I held the bar and the brake together the bike stopped; I couldn’t do it. The only thing I did like was a Manchester United sticker that was in my stocking when I woke up again in the morning. I stuck it on the bar under the saddle.
We didn’t need bikes then. We walked; we ran. We ran away. That was the best, running away. We shouted at watchmen, we threw stones at windows, we played knick-knack - and ran away. We owned Barrytown, the whole lot of it. It went on forever. It was a country.
Bayside was for bikes.
I couldn’t cycle it. I could get my leg over the saddle and onto the pedal and push but that was all. I couldn’t go; I couldn’t stay up. I didn’t know how. I was doing everything right. I ran the bike, got onto it and fell over. I was frightened. I knew I was going to fall before I started. I gave up. I put the bike in the shed. My da got angry. I didn’t care.
—Santy got you that bike, he said.—The least you can do is learn how to cycle the bloody thing.
I said nothing.
—It comes natural, he said.—It’s as natural as walking.
I could walk.
I asked him to show me.
—About time, he said.
I got up on the bike; he held the back of the saddle and I pedalled. Up the garden. Down the garden. He thought I was enjoying it; I hated it. I knew: he let go: I fell over.
—Keep pedalling keep pedalling keep pedalling -
I fell over. I got off the bike. I wasn’t really falling. I was putting my left foot down. That made him more annoyed.
—You’re not trying.
He pulled the bike away from me.
—Come on; get up.
I couldn’t. He had the bike. He realised this. He gave it back. I got up. He held the back. He said nothing. I pedalled. We went down the garden. I went faster. I stayed up; he was still holding. I looked back. He wasn’t there. I fell over. But I’d done it; I’d gone a bit without him. I could do it. I didn’t need him now. I didn’t want him.
He was gone anyway. Back into the house.
—You’ll be grand now, he said.
He was just lazy.
I stayed on. I turned at the top of the garden instead of getting off and turning the bike and getting back on. I stayed on. Around the garden three times. Nearly into the hedge. I stayed on.
We ruled Bayside. We camped up on the garage roofs. We lit a fire. We could see in all directions. We were ready for any attack. There were boys in Bayside but they were mostly smaller and saps. The ones our age were saps too. We got one of the small ones; we held him hostage. We made him climb up on the saddle, onto the roof. We surrounded him. We held him over the side of the roof. We kicked him. I gave him a dead leg.
—If we get attacked you’re dead, Kevin told him.
We held him for ten minutes. We made him jump off the roof. He landed the right way. Nothing ever happened. No one came after us.
Bayside was great for knick-knacking. In the night. There were no walls or hedges, no real gardens. A straight row of bells. It was easy. There was a path or a lane at the end of each row. Escaping was nothing. The really great bit was doubling back and doing it all over again. Our record was seventeen. Seventeen times we rang the five bells in the row and escaped. One of the houses didn’t have a bell so I knocked on the glass. We were dizzy by the time we’d finished. We did it in a relay. Me first, then Kevin, Liam, Aidan, me again. The thrill was coming round to start again, not knowing if there’d be a door open waiting to catch you.
—Maybe they’re all out.
—No way, said Kevin.—They’re all in.
—How?
—They are, I said.—I saw them.
It was getting cold. I put my shirt and jumper back on.
—Is it morning yet?
—Morning not to get up.
I was good at waiting for the scab to be ready. I never rushed. I waited until I was sure it was hollow, sure that the crust had lifted off my knee. It came off neat and tidy and there was no blood underneath, just a red mark; that was the knee being fixed. Scabs were made by things in your blood called corpuscles. There were thirty-five billion corpuscles in your blood. They made the scabs to stop you from bleeding to death.
I was the same way with sticky eyes. I let them stay sticky and they got hard. In the mornings this happened sometimes. One eye was sticky where I’d had my head on the pillow. My ma said a draught caused it. I turned on my back. I concentrated on the eye; I kept it shut. Sleepy eyes, my ma called them. She’d cleared them out with the facecloth when I’d shown her them the first time, both of them sticky. I didn’t tell her any more. I kept them for myself. I waited. When my ma shouted up at us to hurry up for our breakfast I got up and got dressed. I tested the eye. I pulled the lids as if I was going to open them. They were nice and stuck, and dry. I finished dressing. I sat on the bed and touched the eye carefully, around the outside and the corners. The outside corner first, I scooped the crust away on the top of my finger and looked. There was never as much on the finger as it felt there’d be, only a tiny bit of flake. They’d pop open and I could feel the air on my eyeball. Then I’d rub the eye and it was normal again. There was nothing when I looked in the mirror in the bathroom. Just two eyes the same.
Sinbad didn’t notice the way I did. There had to be shouts and screams and big gaps between them before he knew anything. When it was quiet it was fine; that was the way he thought. He wouldn’t agree with me, even when I got him on the ground.
I was alone, the only one who knew. I knew better than they did. They were in it: all I could do was watch. I paid more attention than they did, because they kept saying the same things over and over.
—I do not.
—You do.
—I do not.
—You do, I’m afraid.
&nbs
p; I waited for one of them to say something different, wanting it - they’d go forward again and it would end for a while. Their fights were like a train that kept getting stuck at the corner tracks and you had to lean over and push it or straighten it. Only now, all I could do was listen and wish. I didn’t pray; there were no prayers for this. The Our Father didn’t fit, or the Hail Mary. But I rocked the same way I sometimes did when I was saying prayers. Backwards and forwards, the rhythm of the prayer. Grace Before Meals was the fastest, probably because we were all starving just before lunch, just after the bell.
I rocked.
—Stop stop stop stop -
On the stairs. On the step outside the back door. In bed. Sitting beside my da. At the table in the kitchen.
—I hate them this way.
—They’re the same as last Sunday.
Da only had a fry on Sunday mornings. We had a sausage each and black pudding if we wanted it, as well as what we always had. At least an hour before mass.
—Gollop it down now, Ma warned me,—or you won’t be able to go up for communion.
I looked at the clock. There were nine minutes before half-eleven and we were going to half-twelve mass. I divided my sausage in nine.
—I told you before, I hate them runny.
—They were runny last week.
—I hate them this way; I won’t-
I rocked.
—Do you need to go to the toilet?
—No.
—What’s wrong with you then?
—Nothing.
—Well, stop squirming there like a half-wit. Eat your breakfast.
He said nothing else. He ate everything, the runny egg as well. I liked them runny. He got it all up with about half a slice of bread. I could never do that properly. The egg just ran ahead in front of the bread when I did it. He cleaned his plate. He didn’t say anything. He knew I was watching; he’d caught me rocking and he knew why.
He said the tea was nice.
He was still chewing at half-eleven. I watched for the minute hand to click, up past the six; I watched him. I heard the click from behind the clock. He didn’t swallow for thirty-six seconds after that.