Roddy Doyle - Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha

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.