Roddy Doyle - Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha

– Did you? he said. -Good man. What?

– What?

– What did you find?

– The autograph, I told him.

He was messing.

– Let’s see it, he said.

I put the book and opened it on his knees.

– There.

My da rubbed his finger across the autograph.

George Best had great handwriting. It slanted to the right; it was long and the holes were narrow. There was a deadstraight line under the name, joining the G and the B, all the way to the T at the end and a bit further. It finished with a swerve, like a diagram of a shot going past a wall.

– Was he in the shop? I asked my da.

– Who?

– George Best, I said.

Worry began a ball in my stomach but he answered too quickly for it to grow.

– Yes, he said.

– Was he?

– Yes.

– Was he; really?

– I said he was, didn’t I?

That was all I needed, for certain. He didn’t get annoyed when he said it, just calm like he’d said everything else, looking right at me.

– What was he like?

I wasn’t trying to catch him out. He knew that.

– Exactly like you’d expect, he said.

– In his gear?

That was exactly what I’d have expected. I didn’t know how else George Best would have dressed. I’d seen a colour picture of him once in a green Northern Ireland jersey, not his usual red one, and it had shocked me.

– No, said Da.

– He-, a tracksuit.

– What did he say?

– Just -

– Why didn’t you ask him to put my name on it?

I pointed to George Best’s name.

– As well.

– He was very busy, said my da.

– Was there a huge queue?

– A huge one.

That was good; that was right and proper.

– Was he in the shop just for the day only? I asked.

– That’s right, said my da. -He had to go back to Manchester.

– For training, I told him.

– That’s right.

A year after that I knew that it wasn’t George Best’s real autograph at all; it was only printing and my da was a liar.

The front room was not for going into. It was the drawing room. Nobody else had a drawing room although all the houses were the same, all the houses before the Corporation ones. Our drawing room was Kevin’s ma’s and da’s living room, and Ian McEvoy’s television room. Ours was the drawing room because my ma said it was.

– What does it mean? I asked her.

I’d known it was the drawing room since I could remember but today the name seemed funny for the first time. We were outside. Whenever there was even a bit of blue in the sky my ma opened the back door and brought the whole house out. She thought about the answer but with a nice look on her face. The babies were asleep. Sinbad was putting grass in a jar.

– The good room, she said.

– Does Drawing mean Good?

– Yes, she said. -Only when you put it with Room.

That was fair enough; I understood.

– Why don’t we call it just the good room? I asked. -People prob’ly think we draw in it, or paint pictures.

– No, they don’t.

– They might, I said.

I wasn’t just saying it for the sake of saying it, like I said some things.

– Especially if they’re stupid, I said.

– They’d want to be very stupid.

– There’s lots of stupid people, I told her. -There’s a whole class of them in our school.

– Stop that, she said.

– A class in every year, I said.

– That’s not nice, she said.

– Stop it.

– Why not just the good room? I said.

– It doesn’t sound right, she said. That made no sense: it sounded exactly right. We were never allowed into that room so it would stay good.

– Why doesn’t it? I asked.

– It sounds cheap, she said.

She started smiling.

– It – I don’t know – Drawing room is a nicer name than good room. It sounds nicer. Unusual.

– Are unusual names nice?

– Yes.

– Then why am I called Patrick?

She laughed but only for a little bit. She smiled at me, I think to make sure that I knew she wasn’t laughing at me.

– Because your daddy’s called Patrick, she said.

I liked that, being called after my da.

– There are five Patricks in our class, I said.

– Is that right?

– Patrick Clarke. That’s me. Patrick O’Neill. Patrick Redmond. Patrick Genocci. Patrick Flynn.

– That’s a lot, she said. -It’s a nice name. Very dignified.

– Three of them are called Paddy, I told her. -One Pat and one Patrick.

– Is that right? she said. -Which are you?

I stopped for a minute.

– Paddy, I said.

She didn’t mind. I was Patrick at home.

– Which one’s Patrick? she asked.

– Patrick Genocci.

– His grandad’s from Italy, she said.

– I know, I said. -But he’s never gone there, Patrick Genocci.

– He will sometime.

– When he’s big, I said. -I’m going to Africa.

– Are you? Why?

– I just am, I said. -I have my reasons.

– To convert the black babies?

– No. I didn’t care about the black babies; I was supposed to feel sorry for them, because they were pagans and because they were hungry, but I didn’t care. They frightened me, the idea of them, all of them, millions of them, with stick-out bellies and grown-up eyes.

– Why then? she asked.

– To see the animals, I said.

– That’ll be nice, she said.

– Not to stay, I said.

She wasn’t to give my bed away.

– What animals? she said.

– All of them.

– Especially.

– Zebras and monkeys.

– Would you like to be a vet?

– No.

– Why not?

– There’s no zebras and monkeys in Ireland.

– Why do you like zebras?

– I just do.

– They’re nice.

– Yeah.

– We’ll go to the zoo again; would you like that?

– No.

Phoenix Park was brilliant – the Hollow and the deers; I wanted to go back there again. The bus, where you could see over the wall into the park when you were upstairs. We went there on my Holy Communion after we were finished with my aunties and uncles; on buses all morning, before my da got his car. But not the zoo, I didn’t want to.go there.

– Why not? said my ma.

– The smell, I said.

It wasn’t just the smell. It was more than the smell; it was what the smell had meant, the smell of the animals and the fur on the wire. I’d liked it then, the animals. Pets’ Corner – the rabbits – the shop; I’d loads of money – they’d made me buy sweets for Sinbad, Refreshers. But I remembered the smell and I couldn’t remember the animals much. Wallabies, little kangaroos that didn’t hop. Monkeys’ fingers gripping the wire.

I was going to explain it to my ma, I wanted to; I was going to try. She remembered the smell; I could tell by her smile and the way she stopped it from getting too big because I hadn’t said it for a joke. I was going to tell her.

Then Sinbad came over and ruined it.

– What are fish-fingers made of?

– Fish.

– What kind of fish?

– All kinds.

– Cod, said my ma. -White fish.

– Why do they -

– No more questions till you’re finished.

That was my da.

– Everything on the plate, he said. -Then you can ask your questions.

There were twenty-seven dogs in Barrytown, our part, and fifteen of them had had their tails docked.

– Docked off.

– There’s no Off. Docked, by itself.

They got their tails docked to stop them from falling over. When they wagged their tails they couldn’t balance properly and they fell over, so they had to have most of their tails cut off.

– Only when they’re pups.

– Yeah.

They only fell over when they were pups.