The winds harsh, pushing needles through Brendan’s thin anorak. But you can’t expect much from something third hand from a church jumble sale at Our Lady of Lourdes. Mammy probably found the money from the coins she hides in old jam jars, dropped from Da’s pockets when he falls asleep after a Friday night booze up at his favourite bar.
Mid winter, rain falling in steely rods from a moonless Belfast sky. The bar gleams like a lighthouse in the darkness. Brendan runs across the street, leapfrogging the puddles on the way. He hugs his scuffed football, hoping for a kick around in the street on the way back, the only way he’ll get his Da to come home.
Provided they stick to their own streets, don’t stray into Prod areas.
“Da, are you coming now? Mammy’s sent me. It’s your Friday favourite, cod and chips. There’s football on the telly, Scotland and Germany. Da, come on!”
Brendan edges forward from the door, peering into the blue smoke haze miasma of the bar. The place is packed with men on their way home, spending their pay before their wives try to confiscate too much. There’s Da, pint of stout in his hand, chaser on the side.
“And let me tell you, that wee lass was a reight quare one. Hung her short skirts from just about under her oxters, so she did. And the skirts were too brief to cover anything bigger than a couple of dandelions. Fancied the new young doctor. Told him she got this pain up here…not quite, just a bit further please…”
Da’s mates roar with a laughter. The stocky little man pretends to wear a minute miniskirt, then waggles stumpy thighs before an imaginary doctor.
“Shhh Michael, your lad’s here. Time to go home. You don’t want to be parlitic so early on a Friday night. Save it for tomorrow. You’re as full as the River Lagan already.”
“Take him home Brendan. Your mammy can do without your Da’s wild staggerings round your house tonight.”
Yes, he must get Da home if there’s to be any kind of weekend at their house.
The man mutters to himself as they come out.
“If I get my hands on that pumlican in there, I’ll smash his bloody pan in, so I will…”
“Come on Da, get the football off me…”
They’re away down the street now, battling for possession, bouncing up against windows, front doors, anything in the way. Da can pull himself together so quickly when faced with the boy’s challenge,
“Careful Da, you’ll bust a winder again!”
“Shut up.”
Da gives an almighty kick, and the ball vanishes into the darkness, clanging off car bonnets on the way.
“Last one there’s a binlid!”
The reach the ball at the same moment. Da kicks at it but five pints of stout catch up with him as he sprawls across the gutter. The ball heads straight into a closed front door. It swings open slowly. So many faces looking out inquisitively from inside. Just like walking late into school assembly after the bell’s gone.
Brendan feels a surge of panic deep in his belly. There’s black crepe on the door knocker.
And these are not their folk. They’re in the wrong street.
*
© copyright John Cragg