Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha

  I kept it to myself. If he went up for communion I’d see what happened. I knew and God knew.

  I loved twirling the dial on the radio. I turned it on and put it on its back on the kitchen table. I was never allowed to bring it out of the kitchen. I got the dial and turned it as much as my wrist would let me, as quick as I could. I loved the high-pitched scratch and then the voice and the scratching again, different, and a voice, maybe a woman; I wouldn’t stop to find out. Around and back, around and back; music and bloops, voices, nothing. There was dirt in the lines of the plastic front, where the sound came out, like the dirt under your nails, and in the letters of the gold BUSH stuck on the bottom corner. My ma listened to The Kennedys of Castle-ross. I stayed in the kitchen with her when it was on during the holidays, but I didn’t listen to it. I sat on a chair and waited till it was over and watched her listening.

  I opened the box of Persil and sprinkled some of it on the sea. Nothing happened really; it just spotted the water and disappeared. I did it again. I couldn’t think of anything else to do with it.

  —Give us it, said Kevin.

  I did.

  He grabbed Edward Swanwick. We grabbed him as well when we saw what he was doing. Edward Swanwick wasn’t really a friend of ours. He was on the edge. I’d never called for him. I’d never been in his kitchen. At Halloween, when we knocked at his house, they never gave us sweets or money

  - always fruit. And Missis Swanwick warned us to eat it.

  —What did she mean?

  —It’s none of her business what we do with it, said Liam.

  We got Edward Swanwick onto the ground and tried to get his mouth open. It was easy; there were ways of doing it. Keeping it open was the problem. Kevin started pouring the Persil onto his face; Liam held Edward Swanwick’s head by the ears so he couldn’t get his face away; I held his nose and pinched his diddy. Some of the Persil got in. Edward Swanwick was gagging and shuddering, trying to shake us off. It was in his eyes as well. The box was empty. Kevin shoved it up Edward Swanwick’s jumper and we let him up. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t; if he didn’t pretend he’d enjoyed himself he was gone, out of the gang. He got sick; not much, mostly the Persil.

  That was the type of thing we robbed, mostly. Sweets were hard, up at the counter, hard to get at because of the glass and the women. They guarded the sweets because they thought that no one would be bothered robbing the other stuff. They didn’t understand. They didn’t understand that robbing had nothing to do with what we wanted; it was the dare, the terror, the getting away with it.

  It was always women. There were about six shops between Raheny and Baldoyle that we raided. There were no supermarkets yet, just grocers and shops that sold everything. Once, when we were out on a walk, Ma asked for the Evening Press, four Choc-pops, a packet of Lyons Green Label and a mouse trap and the woman was able to get them all without stretching. I was a bit nervous: I’d robbed a box of Shredded Wheat out of there a few days before and I was afraid she’d recognise me. I minded the pram while my ma talked to her, about the weather and the new houses.

  We only robbed when the weather was nice. We never robbed in Barrytown. That would have been stupid. There was Missis Kilmartin’s one-way glass, but that wasn’t all; the people in the shops were friends with our parents. They’d all got married and moved to Barrytown at the same time. They were all pioneers, my da said. I didn’t know what he meant but he liked saying it; he loved going down to the shops and meeting and talking to the owners, except Missis Kilmartin. He told me that Mister Kilmartin was locked up in the attic.

  —Don’t listen to him, said my ma.—He’s in the British Navy.

  —In a ship?

  —I think so.

  —Anywhere except at home, said my da.

  He’d just fixed the wonky kitchen chair so he was feeling a bit proud of himself; you could tell by the way he kept sitting on it and looking down at the legs and trying to rock it.

  —That’s grand now, he said.—Isn’t it?

  —Smashing, said my ma.

  The grocer in Barrytown was a man, a nice one, Mister Fitzpatrick. He gave you more broken biscuits than you were entitled to. He was huge. He leaned over you. I remembered when I was small, he stepped over me. We’d never have robbed off Mister Fitz. He’d have known what we were up to, and everyone loved him. Our parents would have killed us. Missis Fitz sat on a chair in the front door when the weather was nice, like an ad for the shop. She was lovely looking. They had a daughter, Naomi; she was in secondary school. She was as nice looking as her mother. She worked in the shop on Saturdays, after school; filled the cardboard boxes, the weekend orders for all the houses in Barrytown. Kevin’s brother did the deliveries on a colossal black bike with a basket in the front. He got seven and six for it. He said Naomi could open bottles of Fanta with her gee. I wanted to kill him when he said that. I wanted to save Naomi.

  Get the biggest box. It was Kevin’s idea. It was great. Whoever got the thing in the biggest box out of the shop, he won. It had to be a full box; that was one of the first rules, after Liam came out of a shop with an empty one, a huge one that had had boxes of Cornflakes inside it. You couldn’t do this in any shop. You had to be careful. Most of the shops had their own specialities, although the women behind the counter didn’t know this. The one in Raheny was great for robbing magazines; the comics were up on the counter, too near the noses of the three ancient women that patrolled the counter. The magazines, though, were much easier. The women were saps: they thought that we wouldn’t be interested in women’s magazines and knitting magazines, so they put them on a rack right beside the door so they’d look nice in the window. Another thing, they served grown-ups first, always. I waited for the right moment. I was outside, tying my lace. A woman went in; the three old women dashed to serve her and I leaned in and grabbed five Women’s Weeklys. I brought them down the lane beside the new library and we tore them up. I once got a Football Monthly out of the window rack. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it there. They must have run out of room on the counter. I thought for a sec that they might have put it there as bait. I thought about it; I looked around. I took it. There was another shop that invited you to rob their biscuits. It was in Baldoyle. The tins of biscuits - the loose ones - were on a ledge that ran along the counter, just under it. You could fill your pockets while the woman counted your aniseed balls. One box had Milk-choc Goldgrain in it, the only chocolate ones. We’d queue up in front of that box, waiting our turn. She thought we were being polite. It was dark in the shop; she must never have seen the crumbs.

  For boxes, we went to Tootsie’s.

  —A quarter of jelly babies, Tootsie; all boys.

  Tootsie was in charge of this big manky shop up a bit from where we swam at the seafront. The windows were wasps’ graveyards; they dried and cracked in the sun. We added some. We collected them, and bees, in jars, watched them dying and milling each other, then went up to Tootsie’s and poured them all over the stuff in the window when Tootsie wasn’t looking. We’d have done it even if she was looking; she looked at you and didn’t see anything; it took ages for her face to catch up. Tootsie didn’t own the shop. She minded it for someone. She did everything in slow motion, everything. Sometimes there was even an action replay; she’d pick up something again, dead slow-ow-owly, to check the price again. She wrote the price of everything on a paper bag, real neat; she used a ruler to do the line under the numbers. Then she did the sum, but she stopped and started again all the way, like she was climbing down a ladder with wobbly rungs. That was when you could have walked out of the shop with anything. We robbed her steps, the ones she used for the top shelves. I took one end and Kevin took the other. The woman Tootsie was serving wasn’t from our place. We didn’t know her. We made it look like we were helping Tootsie, kept our faces serious. We threw the steps into the sea. It made a good noise but not much of a splash. We stood on them when the tide was half-in to make it look like we were walking on the water. You coul
d ask Tootsie anything.

  —D’you sell cars, Tootsie?

  —No.

  She thought about it first.

  —Why not?

  She just looked.

  —D’you sell rhinoceroses, Tootsie?

  —No.

  You could see the track-marks of Tootsie’s fingers in the cream in the cakes on the tray on the fridge behind the counter. The cream was yellow, the tracks hard and permanent. The fridge was small and fat, for ice-pops and blocks of ice-cream. I crept behind the counter and pulled out the plug.

  There was a bakery in Raheny guarded by two women. It had the best smell of any shop. It wasn’t bread; it wasn’t a rushing smell, like steam surrounding you. It was quieter, part of the air, not warm and smothering and upsetting. The smell made me feel good. The cakes were on shelves inside the all-glass counter, not stacks of them, a few of each on plates two feet apart down the shelves; small cakes, not huge things exploding with cream. The cakes were bright, hard in a nice way - biscuits that were too good to be called biscuits. Like cakes in a fairy tale; you could have built things out of them. I didn’t know where the baking got done. There was a door at the back but the women always closed it when they were coming and going, never together - there was always one of them behind the counter, knitting. They both knitted. They might have been having a race. They were very fast. We couldn’t go in there to look around; we couldn’t pretend we were looking for something. There was just the counter, and the shelves under it. We looked in the window. Sometimes I’d have enough money for a cake. They weren’t as nice as they looked. And I’d have to share. You had to hold the cake so that most of it was behind your fingers, safe, so the others could only get a small bite.

  We got caught.

  My ma saw us and she blabbed to my da. She was out on a walk with the girls and she saw us grabbing a pile of Woman’s Ways. I saw her before I went down the lane. I pretended I didn’t. My legs weren’t there for a few seconds; my stomach felt empty and full; I had to stop a moan from getting out. What was she doing in Raheny? She never went to Raheny. It was miles from Barrytown. I had to go to the toilet, immediately. The others kept watch. I’d told them about my ma. They were in trouble too. I wiped myself with Sinbad’s hankie. He wanted to run after Ma; he was crying. Kevin gave him a Chinese torture. He looked over at me to make sure it was alright. But Sinbad was crying already; he didn’t seem to notice the pain, so Kevin stopped. We looked at my gick. It was like a plastic one, perfect. None of them jeered at me when they saw it.

  There was only one way out of the lane, back the way we’d run in. I hated my ma. She’d be waiting behind the wall, waiting. She’d smack me, and give me Sinbad’s share as well, in front of the others.

  Kevin had done it. I’d only been with him.

  I tested it.

  I was still in trouble.

  Ian McEvoy went out onto the path first. I could tell from his face that my ma wasn’t there. We cheered and ran out onto the path. She hadn’t seen us.

  She’d seen us.

  She hadn’t seen us. She’d have come after us and made us bring the Woman’s Ways back and say Sorry to the women. She’d been too far away to recognise us. She hadn’t seen what we’d done, just us running away. We hadn’t been running away, we’d only been running - having a chase. We’d paid for the Woman’s Ways; they were old ones and the women had said that we could take them, they’d asked us to. She’d been too far away. I looked like two of my cousins. I took my jumper off. I’d hide it and go into the house in just my shirt. It couldn’t have been me if it had been a boy in a blue jumper like mine cos I wasn’t wearing it. She’d been looking at Cathy in the pram. She’d been too busy.

  She’d seen us.

  She told my da and I got killed. He didn’t give me a chance to deny it. It was just as well. I would have denied it and I’d have got into even bigger trouble. He used his belt. He didn’t wear a belt. He kept it just for this. The back of my legs. The outside of my hand that was trying to cover my legs. The arm that he held onto was sore for days after. Round in a circle in the living room. Trying to get well in front of the sweep of the belt so it wouldn’t hurt as much. I should have done it the other way, backed into the belt, given him less room to swing. Everyone else in the house was crying, not just me. The whistle of the belt; he was trying to get in a good shot. Messing, playing with me, that was what he was doing. Then he stopped. I kept moving, jerking ahead; I didn’t know he’d stopped for good. He let go of my arm, and I noticed the pain there. Up where it joined the shoulder, it was very sore there. I was heading into uncontrollable sobs. I didn’t want that; I didn’t enjoy it any more. I held my breath. It was over. It was over. Nothing more would happen. It had been worth it.

  He was sweating.

  —Go up to your room now. Go on.

  He didn’t sound as hard as he’d wanted to.

  I looked at my ma. She was white. Her lips had disappeared. It served her right.

  Sinbad was already up there. He’d only got a few belts; it had all been my fault. He was lying face-down on his bed. He was crying. When he saw it was me he slowed down.

  —Look.

  I showed him the backs of my legs.

  —Show me yours.

  He didn’t have half as many marks. I didn’t say anything. He could see for himself; some of them should have been his. I could see that that was what he was thinking, and that was enough for me.

  —He’s a big bastard, I said.—Isn’t he?

  —Yeah.

  —He’s a big bastard, I said again.

  —He’s a big bastard, said Sinbad.

  We got under our blankets and had a war. I liked the dark under the blankets. You could get rid of it easily when you wanted to. And it was nice the way the blankets pressed me down; I could feel it in my head. It was warm. Light came in. The blanket had been lifted up. It was Sinbad. He climbed in.

  Our venetian blinds were different colours. One day - it was raining - I realised that there was a pattern. The bottom one was yellow, the one next was light blue, then pink, then red. Then yellow again. The top one was blue. The frame at the top was white. So was the cord. I lay on the floor with my feet towards the window and counted the slats, faster and faster.

  There were lots of venetian blinds in Barrytown but we were the only ones I knew that had them in the back of the house as well as the front. Me and Kevin went around all the houses and there were seventeen blinds in the front windows that were crooked. There were fifty-four houses in Barrytown, not counting the new Corporation ones and the other ones that were just finished and had no one in them yet. We went around again; eleven of the seventeen were crooked on the left side. The blinds came down to the window ledge on the right but were stuck about five slats up on the left. Worst was the Kellys’ with ten slats. We could see Missis Kelly in the front room doing nothing. O‘Connell’s weren’t only crooked, they were buckled; not Mister O’Connell’s bedroom ones upstairs - they were perfect, and closed - the front-room ones, the room we played in. Only twenty houses didn’t have blinds.

  —Useless.

  Kevin’s house had coloured ones as well.

  —Multi-coloured are best.

  —Yeah.

  My ma filled the bath with water when she was washing them. She only ever did it once. I wanted to help but there wasn’t room; I wanted to make sure that she put them back in the right order. She pulled the cord out of all the holes in the slats and put each slat in the bath, one at a time. I looked at a new washed yellow one and a dirty yellow one while she was feeding the babies; I put them beside each other. They were different colours now. I pulled my finger through the dirt; the new yellow was underneath it.

  I asked her not to wash one of each colour.

  —Will you not? I asked again.

  —Why?

  She always stopped and listened; she always wanted to know.

  —Just-

  I couldn’t explain it; it was kind of a secret.


  —To compare.

  —But they’re filthy dirty, love.

  I knew when I was going to bed that I’d never lie on the floor and look up at the colours again. She came in to turn off the light. She put her hand on my forehead and hair. Her hand smelt of water and the dirt behind the fridge. I got my head from under her hand; I shifted to the corner.

  —Is it because of the blinds?

  —No.

  —What is it?

  —I’m hot.

  —D’you want one of the blankets off?

  —No.

  She spent ages tucking me in; I wanted her to go but I didn’t as well.

  Sinbad was asleep. He’d once got his head caught in the bars of his cot and he’d cried all night, till daylight when I saw him. That was years ago. He slept in a bed now. My Uncle Raymond had brought it on the roof of his car. The mattress was wet because it had started raining when he was half-way between his house and our house. We said it was because of all our cousins’ wee-wees, me and Sinbad. We didn’t know till two days later, when the mattress was dry, that it was Sinbad’s bed. Then Uncle Frank took Sinbad’s cot away on the roof of his car.

  —They were dirty, Patrick, she said.—You have to wash things when they’re dirty. Specially with babies. D’you understand?

  If I said Yes that would mean more than I just understood. I said nothing, the way Sinbad always did.

  —Patrick?

  I said nothing.

  —Have you any tickles?

  I tried like mad not to laugh.

  Aidan was the commentator. He was brilliant at it. We had to tell him our names before the match. We were playing across the road. Our pitch was gone. The gates on each side were the goals. There were eight of us, just right, four a side. Whoever had the ball when a car was coming got a throw-in when the car had gone. If you decided to risk it but the driver blasted the horn before you took your shot the goal was disallowed, if it was a goal. You couldn’t use the kerb for shielding the ball. Anything higher than the top of the pillar was over the bar.