On the Brinks Read online

  Ironically, years later, when our house was searched for guns belonging to the IRA, it was my grandfather’s Orange sash hanging proudly on the wall beside portraits of the Pope and John F Kennedy that not only confused the raiding party of peelers, but made them rethink their strategy and offer profuse apologies for searching the house of a true son of Ulster. They quickly abandoned the search, empty-handed.

  * * *

  “Bastards,” said the barman to himself. “Hope to fuck a few of ’em die of a heart attack in this heat. That’ll take the sectarian marching out of ’em. Orange bastards.”

  Just as the dog bowed its spine, preparing to leave its shitty mark, there was the sickening sound of wood on bone, as the barman cracked the unfortunate creature over the head with his scrubbing brush.

  “Get, ye dirty bastard!” he screamed, sending the injured dog running for its poor life. A few seconds later, he spat, just where he had spent all morning scrubbing, before walking back to serve a customer tapping an empty glass annoyingly against the counter.

  Peering in the window, I could see the counter lined with pints of perfect Guinness. Rivulets of condensation were forming on the fat bodies of the pints, sitting there, sweating tantalisingly, tight, like a synod of clergy in secretive discussion.

  Suddenly, in the window’s reflective glass, I spotted a familiar shape jumping up and down, directly behind me.

  “Yer da’s lukin’ fer ye, Sammy!” screamed Gerry Green, waving his hands frantically, from across the street.

  There was nothing Gerry loved better than bringing bad news. The more distressing the news, the happier he became. He was the local bully, but an unusual one because he had a conscience and only hit you when you deserved it – which was usually twice a day, except on Fridays when he got his pocket money. He never touched you on Friday. A decent bully, I suppose. He was three years older than me, with glass-cutting blue eyes. A family of pimples inhabited his entire face. He’d no doubt be a horror to look at in later years.

  “Yer da’s shoutin’ all over the place like a mad man fer ye. Luks like yer in fer it!” he hallelujahed, as I crossed over to the other side of the street.

  To see someone “in fer it” could bring tears of joy to Gerry’s blue eyes. He was practically pissing himself with happiness escorting me back down Lancaster Street, fearful I would escape whatever justice awaited me.

  “Luks like yer gonna get a good boot up the arse, Sammy,” said Gerry, encouragingly, marching triumphantly behind me.

  From a distance, I could see the towering and intimidating figure of my father, standing outside our house. As I neared, a rosary of knots formed in my stomach, warning me.

  “Where’ve you been?” Dad was putting on his jacket, as he handed me a bag of fruit. His shoes were gleaming, as usual, because he was a great believer in the Cherry Blossom legend: A shine on your shoe says a lot about you. “Didn’t I tell you not to be going away from the door?”

  “I was just helping the barman kill flies.”

  “You shouldn’t have left the door. When I tell you to do something in future, make sure you do it. Now, hurry up and get your coat and let’s get going. We’re late.”

  Gerry was devastated. I didn’t get a good boot up the arse. Not even a slap on the head. For a moment, I thought he would complain to my father about misguided leniency. Instead, he simply walked away, head down, despondent.

  “For heaven’s sake, will you cheer up a bit?” Dad said, as we turned the corner of the Crumlin Road. “It’s the hospital; not O’Kane’s – not this time, anyway.”

  O’Kane’s was the local undertakers, but as far as I was concerned there was little difference between it and the dreary wards of the Mater Hospital, which we entered twenty minutes later.

  “How is she today, doctor?” Dad said, stopping beside the young doctor outside the ward.

  “A slight improvement from yesterday, Mister Millar. We hope to give her soup, later. She had some tea last night, but couldn’t hold it down for long. I’m sure you appreciate that it’s a very slow process.”

  A soft breeze suddenly began rallying the combined stenches of piss, vomit, disinfectant and the dry talc smell of death, filling the corridors and my nostrils with a debilitating dread of all hospitals.

  Entering the small ward, a nurse escorted us to a bed at the end. The nurse looked sadly at me before moving on with the rest of her duties.

  On the bed, my mother lay motionless, her pallid complexion as one with the linen sheets, making her almost invisible.

  It wasn’t her first attempt at suicide, but it was her most imaginative as well as elaborate. Instead of simply opting for an overdose, she had decided to slash both her wrists also. This time she almost made it, having been pronounced DOA by the doctor on duty. Her effort was frustrated only by the attentive eyes of my older brother Danny, who, upon hearing the doctor’s verdict, became maniacal and demanded a medical miracle.

  It worked. God granted the miracle. She would live to die another day.

  I knew she could hear me whispering in her ear as my father sat silently, chained to the guilt of wasted memories that were cemented in the heat of anger and fury. “You could’ve waited,” I accused. “I told you my exam results were due and that I would do well. But you don’t care, do you? I hope you die, next time.”

  She ignored me, feigning the death she had yet to perfect. A log, stiff with shame and loneliness. Suddenly, her exhausted eyes turned dark. The way a beetle’s shell looks when raindrops fall on it.

  It was the last time I would ever see her, as she fled into shadows a few nights later. And when neighbours snidely insinuated she wouldn’t be back, I knew they were mistaken. They didn’t know what I knew: she had only smoked two of her Park Drive. She would be back for the rest.

  But even the pictures on the wall knew better. The Sacred Heart became more melancholy, while the vulpine grins of the princes of Rome and Camelot mocked my naiveté. They knew.

  Oh, what a fool I had been.

  From that day, I could never listen to Middle of the Road’s classic wee number, “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep (Where’s Your Mama Gone?)” without feeling sick to the stomach with anger and betrayal.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Very Hot Summer

  AUGUST 1965

  Everything that deceives also enchants.

  Plato

  And life is thorny and youth is vain

  And to be wroth with one we love

  Doth work like madness on the brain.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  A madness of sorts possessed Dad now that he was on his own. For a while, things were great, as he pitied me more than himself. But as the cold reality began to bite at him, he slowly reversed his feelings in favour of himself, finding fault with everything I did. I had to run like hell when he sent me on an errand. He would time me, always criticising with a “what the hell kept you?” It would have made no difference had I broken the world record, it would still be “what the hell kept you?”

  Of all the days I hated, Friday mornings, before school, were the worst, having to deal with George Flanders, the greengrocer from hell.

  “How many, young Millar?” asked Flanders, a giant with tight clothes, lamb-chop side-burns, a ruddy complexion and an enormous nose that defied gravity. The kids called him Banana Nose. His eyes had the tight look of someone who scrutinised beaten dockets, hoping beyond hope. The same eyes could remove skin, burn you with their intensity.

  “Fifty, Mister Flanders,” I squeaked, hating this part: the barter of apples from my father’s tree.

  Flanders handled one of the apples, rubbing his thumb against the texture, before smelling it with his giant nostrils. “Four cabbages. Howsabouthathen?”

  “My dad said five cabbages, four carrots and a quarter stone of blue spuds.” I always wished Flanders would speed it up, in case one of my mates came in for an apple, and ended up witnessing my humiliation.

  “Ha! Yer da’s arse is
out the window! I’m a greengrocer, but I’m not green.” Flanders laughed. He was now juggling some of the apples, like a clown, winking as he pretended to let them fall.

  Dead, supine flies lined the window of the fruit shop like a contiguous military convey debilitated by superior forces, while their air-borne comrades struggled menacingly above, attached to flypaper, tearing off their own limbs. I would stare at the adhesive, fascinated by its struggling victims, trying in vain to detach themselves from the sticky graveyard. It reminded me of the currant buns sold next door in Mullan’s bakery. I had never tasted one in my life. Never would.

  That’s life, I thought, one big sticky ending that comes to us all.

  “Ye’ve caught me in a generous mood, young Millar,” Flanders said, his face a politician on polling day. “Four cabbages. And here’s some carrots as well.”

  It was over. He had won. I had lost. As usual.

  As I left his shop, Flanders handed me a pear. It was badly bruised and had his teeth marks in it. “Here, that’s for yerself. And tell yer da he’s gotta git up early ta catch me!”

  I could still hear his laughter halfway down the lane.

  “That’s all you got?” Dad said, looking on the exchange with disdain.

  Why didn’t you go yourself? I would ask, in my dreams. Afraid of the humiliation?

  But if Friday mornings were bad, Friday nights were a nightmare. I had to run to Peter Kelly’s for fish and chips. And even though I would run like a madman and the fish and chips would’ve burnt the mouth off him, Dad would still greet me with: “These are freezing. What the hell kept you …?”

  As I ran, people would stare at me, as if I’d become completely mad. Despite this, I still couldn’t find the courage to refuse to run, in case I incurred Dad’s wrath. But all that was about to change, when one Friday night someone else’s madness intervened.

  The line at the chippy snaked the corner, stretching all the way to McCleery Street. Everyone loved Peter’s fish and chips, so there seemed to be a perpetual queue at it, especially Fridays and Saturdays, when working-class people had some money in their pockets.

  Dad’ll kill me, was all I could think of as I ran even faster to get my place in the queue.

  “I watch ye every Friday night. Ye think ye are somebody, don’t ye?”

  He was a bit younger than me. His face was filthy, as if a dirty rag had attached itself to his skin, sucking the life out of him.

  I was so exhausted I could hardly breathe, let alone answer.

  “What’s its name?” he said, running in perfect unison beside me.

  “What? Get away from me, will you?” Everyone was watching the two of us.

  “Yer horse, stupid? What’s yer horse’s name?”

  I tried to ignore the head-case.

  “They call my horse Silver. Just like the Lone Ranger’s,” he said, proud as a peacock up at Bellevue Zoo.

  My chest was burning with exhaustion. I needed to stop.

  “The great thing about Silver is that he’s invisible. I’m the only one who can see him.” Suddenly, he did a strange, jerking movement, before patting the neck of the invisible horse. “Easy, boy. Easy. No one’s gonna hurt ye.”

  Ignoring the threat on my face, he continued talking.

  “The great thing about Silver being invisible is when he shites all over the street. Nobody can see it, so they walk on it! I laugh when I see them walking into their houses, trailing Silver’s invisible shite along with them! And the smell! Worse than visible shite, I can tell ye! Everyone laughs at me, but I always get the last laugh. Don’t I, Silver?”

  Without warning, he leapt two feet into the air, patting the nervous horse, reassuring it. “Easy! Easy, Silver. Good boy.”

  Everyone was grinning at us, but before I could grab him he shouted: “See ye! Hi ho Silver, away!”

  And away he went, slapping the arse off himself, jumping over bin lids and empty cardboard boxes.

  That was it, I decided. No more running like a madman. Dad could do what he liked to me, but I’d been humiliated enough.

  I was more than surprised when Dad didn’t force the issue and was quite proud of my stand. But pride always comes before a fall and a week later, to my horror, he enrolled me in the local boxing club, where I won many friends as a walking punch-bag.

  It would be many months before I’d meet the Lone Ranger again. His face was a mask of sweat as he cleared three bins with ease.

  “What happened to yer horse? And where did ye get the black eyes?” he asked.

  He seemed genuinely concerned, so I humoured him.

  “He went limp, so I shot him. Got the black eyes when I fell from the saddle and hit my head on a rock.”

  He shook his head. “That’s sad. He was a good horse. Maybe ye’ll find another one, some day.” He studied the ground for a few moments, then said: “Well, got to go now. See ye about.”

  I hoped not. Then he began to laugh that weird laugh of his.

  “What’s wrong?” I said. “Who’re you laughing at?”

  “Ye just walked on Silver’s invisible shite! Shouldn’t have shot yer faithful horse!” And with that, he was gone, jumping over boxes, screaming, “Hi ho Silver, away!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hares or Rabbits? Or Just Hairy Rabbits?

  “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

  “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

  “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

  Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

  But by the barber’s razor best subdued.

  John Milton, Samson Agonistes

  To escape Dad’s mood swings in the aftermath of Mum deserting him, I would climb to the top of Saint Patrick’s school, impervious to the caretaker’s threats to get the peelers for me. How the hell could heavy cops master the fragile drainpipe that sighed wearily under my youthful weight?

  As I lay there, invisible to all except those empowered with flight, my mind would fill with the imagery of velvet butterflies and cooing pigeons. In the distance, the imposing cranes known as Samson and Goliath, stood guard, like futuristic Orwellian sentinels watching the modicum of Catholics labour below them like hostile bugs. An anathema to Catholics, the cranes were a salient reminder – as if we needed one – of our second-class citizenship, and British and Unionist ascendancy.

  But at that time, of course, I knew nothing of such things: of the gerrymandering, discrimination and squalid housing conditions. I was only eleven and didn’t care about any of it. That would come later. Right now, I was king of the castle, looking down on my subjects in Lancaster Street.

  From the roof, I could hear stones breathing and the soft whisper of distant traffic. A handball game was in progress and the ball was making hypnotic, heartbeat staccato thumps. I could discern bare hands slapping, slicing, and aiming for points. Despondency and triumph manifested themselves in the voices of the untiring warriors.

  Gazing towards the yards, I could see washing lines full of fluttering clothes. The garments resembled gulls scampering for food. Dirty water was snaking through the striation of arteries in the pavement, suffusing discarded oil from an old abandoned car that lurked like a great wounded beast against the scrapyard wall.

  At the end of the street, the horses utilised by the local glazier now stood in unison, eating, pissing and shitting. They never stopped. Their great arses perpetually pushed out fist-sized boulders with slivers of undigested straw protruding from them like burnt cacti. Kamikaze sparrows darted in and out between the horses’ legs, capturing the spillage.

  There was one other place I – along with a few mates – sought shelter, and God help us if ever we were caught in it. The rag store …

  Sadie reigned as the de facto boss of the rag store, irrespective of the grumbling from the proprietor, Mister Jacobs, to the contrary. She negotiated the prices, hired and fired, and took care o
f the cats that helped to control the rat population. She was a pleasant-faced woman, with wide hips like freshly baked bread. An enormous money bag rested on those hips with a cosy familiarity, its leather lips worn and scuffed from the constant transactions performed in the store. And, oblivious to the danger of flammable rags, a Park Drive cigarette dangled perpetually from a dark gap where a tooth had once been.

  Sadie often joked of having accumulated enough tar in her lungs to cover York Street, all the while releasing menacing plumes of fog from her nostrils like an exhausted dragon. When she spoke – which was rarely in conversation – her voice was a raspy, sandpapery growl.

  Her smoking wasn’t the only health hazard in the store. The rats topped the list. Sly and bold, they harassed and then banished most of the mangy, bounty-hunter cats, which turned out to be quite cowardly.

  Sadie had been bitten so many times she seemed immune. Her legs were a constellation of horseshoe-shaped bites. Sometimes on Fridays, with too much Mundies wine, she’d hoist her flowery gypsy dress, pull down her knickers and slap her bare arse, saying: “Whaddya think of ’em, eh? Bit me arse, dirty bastards!”

  Had the place been on fire, we couldn’t have cleared out faster, after being exposed to her sagging buttocks, scarred black and blue.