Roddy Doyle: Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha

Mister O’Connell made brilliant dinners. Chips and burgers; he didn’t make them, he brought them home. All the way from town in the train, cos there was no chipper in Barrytown then.

– God love them, said my ma when my da told her about the smell of chips and vinegar that Mister O’Connell had brought with him onto the train.

He made them mash. He shovelled out the middle of the mountain till it was like a volcano and then he dropped in a big lump of butter, and covered it up. He did that to every plate. He made them rasher sandwiches. He gave them a can of Ambrosia Creamed Rice each and he let them eat it out of the can. They never got salad.

Sinbad ate nothing. All he ever ate was bread and jam. My ma tried to make him eat his dinner; she said she wouldn’t let him leave the table till he was finished. My da lost his temper and shouted at him.

– Don’t shout at him, Paddy, my ma said to my da, not to us; we weren’t supposed to hear it.

– He’s provoking me, said my da.

– You’ll only make it worse, she said, louder now.

– You have him spoiled; that’s the problem.

He stood up.

– I’m going in now to read my paper. And if that plate isn’t empty when I come back I’ll let you have what for.

Sinbad was scrunched up in his chair looking at the plate, staring at the food to go away.

My ma went after my da to talk to him more. I helped Sinbad eat his dinner. He kept dropping it out of his mouth onto the plate and the table.

He made Sinbad sit there for an hour until he was ready to inspect the plate. It was empty; in me and in the bin.

– That’s more like it, said my da.

Sinbad went to bed.

He was like that, our da. He’d be mean now and again, really mean for no reason. He wouldn’t let us watch the television and the next minute he’d be sitting on the floor beside us watching it with us, never for long though. He was always busy. He said. But he mostly sat in his chair.

I polished everything in the house on Sunday mornings before we went to mass. My ma gave me a cloth, usually part of a pair of old pyjamas. I started upstairs in their bedroom. I polished the dressing table and straightened her brushes. I wiped the top of the headrest. There was always loads of dust up there. It always left a mark on the cloth. I wiped as much of the picture of Jesus with his heart showing as I could reach. Jesus had his head tilted sideways, a bit like a kitten. The picture had my ma and da’s names and the date they got married – the twenty-fifth of July, nineteen fifty-seven – and the dates of all our birthdays, except my youngest sister that my ma was only after having. The names were written in by Father Moloney. My name was the first; Patrick Joseph. Then my sister that had died; Angela Mary. She was dead before she came out of my ma. Then Sinbad; Francis David. Then my sister; Catherine Angela. There was a place left for my new sister. Her name was Deirdre. I was the oldest; the same name as my da. There was room for six more names. I wiped the stairs, all the way down, including the rails. I cleaned all the ornaments in the drawing room. I never broke anything. There was an old music box; you turned a key at the back and it played a song. There was a picture of sailors at the front. The felt material at the back was wearing away. It was my ma’s. I didn’t do the kitchen.

Aidan and Liam’s auntie, the one that lived in Raheny, she cleaned their house. Sometimes they stayed with her. She had three children but they were much older than Aidan and Liam. Her husband cut the grass for the Corporation. He did the verges on our road twice a year. He had a huge red nose like a sponge with little lumps growing all over it. Liam said it looked even better close up.

– Do you remember your ma? I asked him.

– Yeah.

– What?

He said nothing. He just breathed.

His auntie was nice. She walked from side to side. She said God the cold or God the heat, depending on what the weather was like. When she walked across the kitchen she went Tea tea tea tea tea. When she heard the Angelus at six o’clock she’d go into the television and all the way she’d be saying The News the News the News the News. She had big veins like roots curling up the side and the back of her legs. She made biscuits, huge big slabs; they were gorgeous, even when they were stale.

They had another auntie that wasn’t really their auntie. That was what Kevin told us anyway; he heard his ma and da talking about it. She was Mister O’Connell’s girlfriend, although she wasn’t a girl at all; she’d been a woman for ages. Her name was Margaret and Aidan liked her and Liam didn’t. She always gave them a packet of Clarnico Iced Caramels when she came to the house and she made sure that the white and pink ones were divided evenly between them, even though they tasted the same. She made stew and apple crumble. Liam said she farted once when he was sitting beside her, during The Fugitive.

– Ladies can’t fart.

– They can so.

– No, they can’t; prove it.

– My granny always farts, said Ian McEvoy.

– Old ones can; not young ones.

– Margaret’s old, said Liam.

– Beans beans good for the heart!

The more you eat the more you fart!

She fell asleep once in their house. Liam thought she was falling against him – they were watching the television – but she was only leaning. She snored. Mister O’Connell held her nose and she snorted and stopped.

During the holidays, after Christmas Day, Liam and Aidan went to Raheny to their real auntie’s and we didn’t see them for ages. It was because Margaret had moved into the house with Mister O’Connell. They had an empty bedroom in their house. Their house was the exact same shape as ours; Liam and Aidan had the same bedroom and they’d no sisters so there was one room left over. She was in that one.

– No, she isn’t, said Kevin.

Liam and Aidan’s auntie, the real one, had taken them away. She’d gone to their house in the middle of the night. She had a letter from the Guards saying that she could take them, because Margaret was staying in the house and she shouldn’t have been. That was what we all heard. I made up a bit; she’d put Liam and Aidan into the back of their uncle’s Corporation lorry. It was great hearing that after I’d thought it up. I believed the rest of it though.

Their uncle had given us a go on the back of the lorry once. But he made us get off because we kept standing up and he said it was dangerous and he wasn’t insured if one of us fell off and smacked our heads off the road.

We walked to Raheny. It took a long time because there was no one looking after the E.S.B. pylon depot so we climbed in and had a mess. There were all pyramids of poles in there, for the wires, and a smell of tar. We tried to break the lock of the shed but we couldn’t. We didn’t really want to break it; we were just pretending we did, me and Kevin. We were going to Liam and Aidan’s auntie’s.

We got there. She lived in one of the cottages near the police station.

– Are Liam and Aidan coming out? I asked.

She’d answered the door.

– They’re out already, she said. -So they are. Down at the pond. They’re breaking the ice for the ducks.

We went up to St Anne’s. They weren’t at the pond. They were up in a tree. Liam was way up it, up where the wood was bendy; he was shaking it like mad. Aidan couldn’t get up as far as him.

– Hey! said Kevin.

Liam kept swinging the tree.

– Hey!

Liam stopped.

They didn’t come down. We didn’t go up.

– Why are you living with your auntie and not your da? Kevin said.

They said nothing.

– Why are yeh?

We left, across the gaelic pitch. I turned. I could hardly see them in the tree. They were waiting for us not to be there. I looked for stones. There weren’t any.