We moved house when I was six. A procession of children, only some of them Dohertys, came down the lane from Moore Street to 15 Hamilton Street bearing boxes, lampshades and bundles of bedclothes. We were moving again. It didn’t take long. Paddy Stewart wasn’t coming with us to Hamilton Street. He wanted to stay where he was. To get more peace, me ma said. The new house was a dull cream colour with a dull brown door and dull brown windowsills. Coffee and cream, it was called.
We brought our black plastic sofa and beds. We got a new bed as well from me granny Sally’s house. Me ma and da got their own bedroom. Colleen stayed in with them in her drawer. Me and Paul had a bed of our own, and Karen and Patrick had a bed of their own. But the four of us were still in the one room. Their bed was over near the brown-tiled fireplace with their headboard facing the door, and me and Paul’s bed faced out the window towards the front street. Downstairs, there was a room beyond the scullery called the bathroom. It had a white bath in it and a toilet. We must’ve left the tin bath in Moore Street. We had a new front room with orange carpet and a long brown press with brass handles. A brown plastic farm-horse stood on the floor beside the fireplace.
Hamilton Street was much longer than Moore Street. It curved away towards Lecky Road and the Bogside at one end and met Foyle Road at the other end near the river. It was a terraced street too, with houses built at odd levels. Across the street from our house was a row of four smaller houses that were more like cottages. The McKinneys had moved to Hamilton Street before us. There were now two McKinney families in the same street, and three Brown families. The Barbours – Davy, Tommy, Johnny and Hughie – lived a few doors to our right beside Gutsy McGonagle and then the Starrs. Further up and across the street to the left were the O’Donnells, the Kellys and the two McKinney families. There was a huge swarm of wains.
A few days after we moved in we came home from school to find the house had been painted from top to bottom. We had another green door, and green windowsills, and green in a band at the bottom where the house met the street. The walls were cream-coloured. Our cream walls met a brown house on the right and a lilac house on the left, the paint touching in straight lines from the top of the house to the bottom. Our drainpipe was green too. It stood out from the other houses in the street, even when you stood away down the street and looked up. It was great to live in a house that stood out from the rest, I thought.
* * *
Me and Paul went up the town with Paddy Stewart. In the Diamond a statue of a soldier was killing someone on the ground with his rifle and bayonet. We stood in the crowd surrounded by men in their long, dull overcoats. There were women there too. Someone was shouting about houses and jobs but we couldn’t see a thing. Everyone clapped the speaker. We were bored but well-behaved.
On our way home Paddy took us into Neilly Doherty’s, the barber’s at the top of Anne Street, for a haircut.
‘Hello, Paddy, how’s the form?’ asked Neilly.
‘Hello, Neilly. Grand. I brought the two boys in for a chop.’
‘Sit yous down there,’ Neilly said to us. ‘There’s a few comic-cuts there on the table.’
An old man of about Paddy Stewart’s age was getting his white hair cut and was looking at us in the large mirror. Neilly stood behind him. All his haircutting tools were sitting on a silver tray attached to the back of the big red chair. I picked up the Beano, but Paul just sat looking around him, watching the old man getting his hair cut.
Neilly finished with him and brushed the hair from his neck.
‘Right, who’s first then?’ he asked as the old man left the shop.
‘Away you go, Tony. Show Paul how easy it is,’ Paddy said.
I got up on the big red chair and Neilly pumped it higher with his foot. He placed a large grey cape around my neck and tied it at the back. I could see the street in the mirror, and Paddy and Paul as well. Paddy was reading the paper for the racing and Paul was just watching me. Neilly switched on the electric razor that went with a hum and he started humming to himself as well as he ploughed through my thick fair hair. The cuttings tumbled onto my shoulders and fell to the floor. He used scissors at the front and turned the chair around so that I was facing him. In no time at all I was cut down to size and Neilly was brushing the hair from my neck and face.
‘D’ye want lacquer on it, son?’ he asked, with the bottle in his hand about to shoot. I hated the lacquer but I said, ‘Aye, all right then’, and he sprayed it all over my newly cut hair and patted it down with his hand at the front.
‘There you go. Is the wee man next, then?’ asked Neilly.
‘Aye. Away up you go now, wee Paul,’ said Paddy.
‘Naw, I don’t wanny.’
‘C’mon, wee Paul. Sure didn’t Tony get his cut?’
Paddy took him gently by the hand and led him to the chair. Neilly put the grey cape over him and tied it behind his neck. But Paul had his head bent down to his chest and his eyes were closed. Neilly lifted his chin up, but down his head fell again when Neilly took his hand away. Neilly placed his hand under Paul’s chin and lifted it up again, looking over at Paddy and me. Down it fell again. Neilly laughed and so did Paddy.
‘Oh, boys-a-boys! If you don’t lift your head,’ said Paddy, ‘he’ll have to cut a baldy spot on the top of it like a monk.’
Paul opened one eye and looked over at me in the mirror, smiled and lifted his head up for Neilly. But as soon as Neilly started with the electric razor on his neck the tears came. He didn’t cry out – just silent tears that kept coming until Neilly sprayed him with the lacquer bottle and patted his hair down at the front.
‘What about you, Paddy? Are you havin’ a chop the day?’
‘Naw, Neilly,’ said Paddy, handing him money. ‘I’ll be in next week.’
Away we went out the door.
‘I’m headin’ over here to the bookies,’ Paddy said. ‘D’yous want to go on home yourselves?’
Me and Paul headed over towards Hamilton Street. There were wains out playing everywhere. The two of us were spied from afar. We knew what was going to happen next and just had to accept it; we walked in silence down the street with our heads bowed.
The playing stopped.
‘The Dohertys got their hair cut! The Dohertys got their hair cut!’ they all chanted, girls and boys. It was terrible.
‘Baldy balls, baldy balls!’ they called out.
We just kept walking. Paul was crying with the shame of it. I didn’t cry, but I wanted to.
‘Baldy balls, baldy balls!’ echoed down the street until we reached the house.
When we came back out to play football later on there was no mention of the haircut.
* * *
John lived across the street with his da. Our Patrick said he was a spastic. Patrick called everyone a spa but John definitely was one. He was tall and lanky with dirty fair hair and blue eyes. He was called Fuck-a-dee because that’s all he said; some people called him Eff-a-dee because they didn’t curse. Our Patrick didn’t care about cursing – he called him Fuck-a-dee, but not in front of me ma or da, or Eff-a-dee’s own da.
Eff-a-dee said ‘Fuck-a-dee’ with the heel of his hand stuck in his mouth. He slabbered a lot over his jumper. When he came out of his house, one of the cottages opposite our house, his da came out with him. He said ‘Oh Jesus, Da’ as well. Sort of. It sounded like ‘Oh Jeedit, Da’, but we knew what he meant. He didn’t play with us, but he would sometimes come over near us, the heel of his hand in his mouth, saying ‘Fuck-a-dee’ and smiling at us.
Eff-a-dee came out of his house as we played football in the street. He was wearing baseball boots. His da followed to keep an eye on him and tell him to stop cursing. But Eff-a-dee just said ‘Fuck-a-dee’ back to him and gave him a breathy, grinning laugh through the heel of his hand. Eff-a-dee circled some of us and we stopped playing. It was hard to play when he was on the pitch along with his da, so we just stopped to let him walk around us. When his da got fed up he called him to come back in, saying that they had to get ready to go out. Eff-a-dee’s da didn’t look at us. He just looked at Eff-a-dee and only spoke to him.
‘Oh Jeedit, Da,’ said Eff-a-dee.
‘Right, son. C’mon now, till we go,’ said his da.
‘Oh Jeedit, Da,’ said Eff-a-dee, louder, walking around us.
By this time some of us were sitting on the edge of the footpath, watching. He didn’t want to go in.
‘Come on now, son,’ said his da, walking towards him.
‘Fuck-a-dee,’ said Eff-a-dee excitedly, the heel of his hand in his mouth.
‘Now, John, no cursing. That’s not nice now,’ said his da.
‘Oh Jeedit, Da,’ said Eff-a-dee, walking ahead of him towards their house.
‘Good boy, John,’ said his da.
‘Fuck-a-dee,’ said Eff-a-dee. He was standing on the road, near his front door.
His da took his hand to lead him in. ‘Good boy, John.’
‘Oh Jeedit, Da! Oh Jeedit, Da!’ squealed Eff-a-dee, agitated and refusing to move.
‘That’s a boy. C’mon in now, John. Be a good boy,’ said his da.
‘Fuck-a-dee! Fuck-a-dee! Fuck-a-dee!’ Eff-a-dee squealed again.
His da gently pulled him in through the front door and closed it behind them.
We returned to our football.
* * *
Me ma got a box of apples from Eddie McKevitt, the Fruit Man who brought fruit and nuts to our door every Hallowe’en. The box of apples smelled nice and appley and the smell filled the whole downstairs. She also bought a pallet of sugar somewhere and it was brought to our house as well. She came in a day or two later with a bundle of green-dyed sticks tied together with cord. Toffee apples! The smell of sugar melting in a big pot on the gas cooker filled the house. She cut a green stick in three, stuck a piece of green stick into an apple and rolled it around the inside edge of the pot filled with melted sugar. She let it drip for a moment into the pot and then she set it down on a tray covered with baking paper, which would eventually hold twelve, sixteen, twenty, upturned toffee-coated apples, depending on the size of the tray. Some trays were round – Carling Black Label trays from the Silver Dog bar. They only held six apples or so. The scullery windows were open and the trays were left on the table to let the toffee cool down and harden. The toffee formed a flat base on the tray as it hardened. Three shops sold them for her: Melaugh’s shop, a shop in Bishop Street and a shop on the corner of Quarry Street. When we were sent to Melaugh’s for a message, me ma’s toffee apples were sitting on the counter beside the buns.
Karen and Patrick were allowed to go round the doors the whole way up Bishop Street to sell them from Colleen’s pram. Me and Paul weren’t allowed to sell them in case big boys took the money off us, but we followed at a distance from the pram until they got too far up Bishop Street. Big boys once took the pram off them, scooped out a handful of toffee apples for themselves and let the pram free-wheel down Stanley’s Walk over in the Bog until it hit a car at the bottom. This was why the Bog was out of bounds for us, me ma said.
Gutsy McGonagle lived a few doors down the street with his ma and da. He had a cousin with red hair called Tony, who stayed with him all the time. Tony never talked and always looked like he wanted to cry or hit you. Gutsy’s ma started making toffee apples as well. They were darker than ours.
‘Me ma makes them with better sugar than yous,’ said Gutsy.
Me ma was raging and gave off to me da. Me da didn’t do anything. Gutsy and Tony went round the doors with a pram. Colleen’s pram was better and newer-looking; shinier too.
‘I looked into Gutsy’s ma’s kitchen window,’ said our Patrick. ‘She was rolling the toffee apples in the po on the cooker. That’s why they’re dark brown.’
A po! That people pish in! Word got round the street. Gutsy’s ma stopped making her toffee apples. No one would buy them off her.
* * *
Me ma was ironing in the sitting room. There was a smell of hot shirts. The clothes were hanging on hangers attached to the scullery door or folded neatly on the chair. The iron didn’t look hot. It was pure shiny and upright on the ironing board. Me ma was in the scullery doing something else. I couldn’t resist: I rested my right hand flat on the iron. The shock of the heat kicked me back. Too late! I couldn’t shout or cry. I held my hand under my armpit to hide the pain. Me ma came back from the scullery.
‘What’s wrong wi’ you?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘Nothin’, Mammy. I’m going out.’
It was my own fault for being stupid. The iron put a sheen on my hand for weeks. And it was painful to make a fist.
* * *
The Barbours lived four doors down from us. The da was called Davey. He was a huge, strong-looking man. The ma was small and round and didn’t speak much – at least, not in the street.
‘Mr Barbour enjoys his pint,’ me ma observed when he staggered past our house on his way home.
Johnny Barbour was the same age as me, Tommy Barbour was the same age as Patrick, Davey Barbour was the same age as Karen, and Hughey Barbour was the same age as our Paul. There were no girls. Johnny was my mucker, but so were Tommy and Davey. Davey was big and strong; him and Terry McKinney were our leaders.
* * *
Me da made a wooden frame covered in chicken wire and was fixing it over the outside of the front window. He was up on a chair.
‘What’s that for, Daddy?’ I asked.
‘Just in case there’s any bother,’ he said.
‘What kind of bother?’
‘Ach, you never know,’ he said, hammering nails through the chicken-wire frame onto the wooden window frame.
I went inside to the front room. You could still see out. We’d be able to see the bother when it came. We didn’t know what kind of bother he was talking about.
* * *
‘Tony and Paul, yous are wanted quick,’ said Karen to us as we played up near Moore Street. Moore Street was quieter now that us and the McKinneys had moved to Hamilton Street.
‘Yous are wanted too. Your mammy’s out calling yous in,’ she said to Dooter and Jacqueline McKinney.
We all ran home. There was a smell of boiling cabbage in the house. There were a few bags full of clothes in the hall.
‘The B-men are coming. They’re going to invade,’ said me ma, bustling about the sitting room.
‘Is the B-men the police?’ asked Paul.
Fear was in the air.
‘Aye, the B-men. We have to go to your granny’s,’ she said.
‘In Creggan?’ I asked.
‘Aye. Shut up the lot of yous till I get ready,’ she snapped. ‘Karen, make sure the lids are down right on them pots. Bring them out to the hall. I had to send for a taxi.’
This was the first of several flits from the Brandywell to me granny Sally’s in Creggan.
Getting a taxi was exciting. It was a shiny, black, square-looking taxi. The driver wore a white shirt and dark tie. It was hot. We all got in the back seat. Me ma got in the front. She had Colleen in her arms. I was holding a frying pan with bacon in it. It sat on a newspaper on my lap. I could feel the heat coming through to my bare legs. There were pots on the floor of the car – we were having cabbage, bacon and mashed spuds for dinner – and bags of clothes. We passed McKinneys’ house and their door was closed. Me da wasn’t with us.
Me granny Sally’s house had a long back garden with a single rose bush in it and hedges to divide it from the Edgars next door and from the gardens in Dunree Gardens below. My uncle Joe had asthma. He was only two years older than me so he wasn’t really my uncle. He puffed on his inhalers when he was out of breath. ‘Oh, me asthma. Oh, my ma,’ he chanted when he wasn’t really suffering from it, or when he was taking his inhalers. He went to bed when he suffered badly from it. Me granny said he ‘had asthma all over his hands and arms’ and it had to get wrapped in bandages and cream. My aunt Lorraine was younger than me so she wasn’t really my aunt either; she was younger than our Paul.
We were show-jumpers out in the back garden. We set up jumps with brushes, mops and lengths of wood placed between buckets as fences. The hedges were jumps as well. Or we were boxers. We boxed with tea towels wrapped around our hands for mitts. I boxed our Paul until he cried out. Joe boxed me until I cried. Patrick boxed as well but he was too rough.
‘There’s the Yanks bombing in Vietnam,’ said Granny Sally from her chair in front of the TV as pictures of jet fighters and huge explosions on wooded hillsides appeared on the screen. She drifted off to sleep and when she awoke again Top of the Pops was on the TV. ‘Is that the Rolling Spuds?’ she asked, pushing her brown-rimmed glasses up to her eyes. Everyone started to laugh. ‘It’s the Rolling Stones, Ma!’ said Lorraine, and me granny’s false teeth shot out of her mouth onto her chest as she let a loud laugh out of her as well.
We boxed on – Cassius Clay against Sonny Liston. Joe was the ref, shouting ‘Box!’ at the start and ‘Break!’ in the middle, or when we were in a tangle of tea towels.
* * *
Aunt Siobhán was in the kitchen with me granny and granda. She was older than Joe by a few years. They were arguing. I was sitting on a chair beside the cooker eating a piece and jam – mixed fruit jam. Siobhán was going to go down the town to the riots. She called them riots, but Sally and Connor called them ‘royets’. She was wearing a multi-coloured overcoat and had a scarf wrapped loosely around her neck.
‘You’re not goin’ down there and that’s it!’ said Granda Connor.
‘Aye, I am! They said everybody’s needed. Every woman and every man!’ She was being defiant, standing up for herself. ‘Anne Stewart’s goin’ down and so am I,’ she said. She was raising her voice, but not shouting.
‘You’re goin’ to git arrested. You’ll be too slow to run from the B-men,’ Granny Sally said. Siobhán was a heavy girl. ‘Please Siobhán, don’t go down.’
‘They’re firing CS gas by the square yard,’ said Connor. He was half shouting, half pleading. Siobhán was winning. ‘It’ll choke the life out of ye!’
‘I don’t care what yous say,’ said Siobhán, moving towards the kitchen door. ‘I’m goin’ down and that’s it.’
And away she went.
Granny and Granda sat on at the table after she left. They made no attempt to follow her. They sat in silence. Me granny took a fag from the Embassy Red twenty-pack sitting on the table and lit it, sucking the smoke in deeply and letting it out with a long, deep sigh. The smoke came out down her nose and through her mouth. The early afternoon sun caught the white plume in its rays.
‘That’s nothin’ but a cheeky bitch, that wan,’ said Granda to no one in particular, the resignation obvious in his voice.
Granny Sally smoked her fag. There was no more to be said.
Granny Sally had huge silver pots. They were a lot bigger than our pots in Hamilton Street and they were used for chicken soup, stew, mushy peas and spuds (not all in the same pot!). Her teapot was far bigger too. In silence, befitting the occasion, I got up from my chair and went out to the street. My jam piece was done.
I was sent to the shops in Central Drive for messages. At Barr’s I had to get plain flour, sliced hard cheese, buttermilk and a fine-toothed comb. Dozey Ford came along with me. The Fords lived a few doors up the street from me granny. Dozey was the same age as me. He was great craic. He always mimicked his mother talking. She had white hair and looked like his granny. The Fords’ house was the same as me granny’s with the wee round porthole window on the wall beside the front door. They had a dog called Rusty. Rusty Ford. Rusty came to the shops too.
A crowd had gathered on Bishop’s Field, just opposite the shops. We crossed the road to the field to get a better look. There was a man with long hair and a beard standing up on something and speaking to the crowd. He was very nervous.
‘The men down there, down the Bog, are under wild pressure,’ he called out hoarsely. ‘The police are forcing them back. If they break into the Bog they’ll come for Creggan as well. Ye’s need to get yourselves out of the bookies and out of your houses. Now, if I get down from here and run down that hill there towards the Bog, will you all follow me?’
‘Aye!’ some of the crowd shouted back to him.
‘The men are desperate down there for help! Will yous follow me now or not?’ he called out again.
‘Aye,’ shouted more of the crowd.
‘Well, let’s go then!’ he called out and made to run down the field towards the New Road. Everyone ran after him. So did me and Dozey and Rusty, until we got near the bottom. I had the bag of messages in my arms.
‘Dozey, me granny’ll kill me if I don’t bring her messages back,’ I said.
‘So she will, Tony,’ he replied and we stopped.
‘Hi you, young Ford,’ some man shouted to Dozey. ‘Git back up that hill or I’ll put me boot up your arse!’
We ran back up the hill towards Barr’s shop. We looked back and the crowd was disappearing from view down the New Road. There were still a lot of people hanging around the field and the shops.
* * *
Granny Sally spread the newspaper on the floor near the hearth and we took turns. The light was on and so were her thick, Coke-bottle reading glasses. Joe was first to bend his head over the paper. She knelt down behind him and worked the fine-toothed comb through his thick brown hair. She said he had hair like a Brillo pad. The nits made a light pattering noise, like drizzle, as they crash-landed from his head onto the newspaper. You could see the wee brown spiders easier if they landed on a dark piece like an advertisement. He was then sat under the light as me granny went through his hair looking for nits and cracking them between the nails of her two thumbs. Me ma came in from the kitchen and joined the inspection line.
Patrick was next. He had black hair like me da. Me ma did the fine-tooth combing and me granny did the searching with her glasses on. Then it was my turn. I had fair hair. The fine-toothed comb hurt when it was dragged across your scalp. The nits fell from my head onto the paper. You heard them first and then saw them. The new ones were a lighter colour than Joe’s and Patrick’s. They walked very slowly. After me ma finished I got down between me granny’s knees as she sat in her chair and I felt her fingers search through my hair for the smaller nits and eggs. She cracked their spines right beside your ear and rubbed the dead bodies on her trouser leg.
After about ten minutes, Granny Sally said, ‘That’s you finished now, Tony,’ and Paul took his place between her knees.
Me ma gathered up the newspaper in her hands, taking care to fold in the edges. She scrunched it up, placed it in the empty hearth and put a match to it. It went up in a ball of flames.
* * *
It was night time. We were put to bed. The heat was fierce so we only had a single sheet covering us. Nobody could sleep with the heat. Sweat ran down our legs. All the teenagers – my uncles Michael and Gerard and aunt Siobhán were out, down the Bog at the ‘royets’. There was a noise downstairs of someone coming into the house. Someone was singing. Connor was singing ‘Sally’ to Sally. We ventured out of the room in our underpants to listen at the top of the stairs. Karen and Lorraine were already there in their drawers and vests.
‘He’s been over in the Telstar all night,’ whispered Lorraine, giggling. ‘He must be bluttered.’
As well as the strains of song, the smell of fish and chips wafted up from below.
‘C’mon yous all down,’ called Sally from the hall.
After putting on vests and trousers we all clattered downstairs to the sitting room. A feast of red (smoked) and white (unsmoked) battered fish and chips awaited us on the coffee table. Sally divided it into roughly equal portions on newspaper. More salt, more vinegar and glasses of Coke.
‘No Coke for that boy,’ said Karen nodding at Paul. ‘We’ll all be floating down the stairs in the morning.’
He was about to cry.
‘Ach, give wee Paul a wee glass,’ Connor slurred. ‘He’ll not pee the bed, won’t you not, Paul.’
Paul looked happy again.
We all sat and ate and watched the TV, though Connor was more entertaining. He had on a grey pinstriped suit with a tie that had been loosened at the neck. As he sat deep in his chair you could hear the coins trickle from his pockets onto the seat. He paid no attention to it.
‘Sing us a song, Da,’ said Lorraine through a mouthful of chips.
‘Ach, I could sing with the best of them in my day,’ he replied. His nose and cheeks were red. He was a big strapping man with a full head of jet-black hair combed back like Humphrey Bogart. ‘I sang wi’ Josef Locke. He wasn’t as good a chanter as me,’ he said, smiling.
‘Is that right?’ I asked me granny. I didn’t know who Josef Locke was.
‘He did,’ she replied. ‘Your granda sang wi’ Josef Locke. That was years ago – in the thirties, before the war. Joe McLaughlin we called him before he changed his name.’
‘What did you do in the war, Granda?’ I asked.
Sally laughed and answered for him. ‘Oh, your granda was part of the suitcase brigade.’ Both of them giggled. Sally was laughing at him but he looked away.
‘I fought a red-headed nigger in Sarajevo,’ he said, smiling broadly.
‘What’s that, Granda?’ I asked.
‘What’s what?’ he said.
‘What’s a red-headed nigger in Sarajevo?’
‘A black man wi’ red hair. I boxed the head off him in Sarajevo during the war,’ he replied with a light laugh.
‘Did ye really?’ I asked, intrigued.
He just kept smiling and so did Sally.
The battered and smoked red fish was greasy and delicious. So were the chips. The extra salt and vinegar worked a treat. Connor had finished eating. Sally was watching him through half-closed eyes. There’d be no more songs from him tonight. Sally gathered the greasy papers in a ball in her hands and placed them in the hearth where the greasy paper burned fierce and bright for a minute.
‘C’mon you, up to your bed now,’ said Sally moving across the room in Connor’s direction. He was starting to nod off and his head shot to attention at the sound of her voice. ‘Joseph and Karen, give me a hand wi’ him. He’s fit for nothing.’
‘C’mon you, up ye get!’ she commanded.
‘Aye, all right. God bliss us and save us – can a man not enjoy his drink?’ he said with a slur, sitting forward in his chair to get up. As he rose Sally grabbed one arm and Joseph grabbed the other. They steadied him and moved towards the door. Karen followed behind them.
‘Hold on a minute, hold on a minute would ye!’ he said in a raised voice. ‘Wait till I give the wains something.’ He reached into his back trouser pocket. ‘C’mon over here, wains,’ he beckoned us with his hand.
We approached one by one and he placed a large green pound note into each of our hands. Sally was red-faced but said nothing. On they went – to the toilet first, where he farted, rifted and pished loudly with the door half open, humming to himself, and then upstairs, slowly clumping until you heard the creak of the bedsprings above.
Sally came back downstairs with Joe and Karen.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Hand me all the pound notes back. He must’ve made a rise at the bookies the day. He tells me nothing and gives me less.’
The party was over. We handed back our big green notes, which she bunched together in her hand.
‘Yous can take that,’ she said, nodding to where Connor had been sitting.
A scramble to the seat revealed a tidy sum of around ten bob in assorted coins under the cushion. It hadn’t had time to slide down below the springs and fabric.
‘And here,’ she said, wagging her finger, ‘not a word to your granda in the morning or yous’ll dear bye it.’
We all nodded our assent and went back to our hot beds. There wasn’t a word in the morning. Anyway, there was no sign of Granda Connor as the morning turned to midday.
* * *
The Cropie at the end of Central Drive was a massive green roundabout with grass on it. Cars drove around it and we played on it. There was a flat patch in the middle where we could play football. We had to be careful that the ball didn’t run off the Cropie down Westway, as it wouldn’t stop. The Cropie swarmed with wains, mostly boys playing football; girls played in the long grass around the pitch.
Danny Friel’s nickname was Celtic. Danny Celtic. He was older than me but the same size, and he had dark red hair. He was a brilliant footballer. He could dribble the ball around everyone on the pitch. It was great to be on his team. Martin Stewart had dark red hair as well, but he was bigger than us. He supported Celtic too, but he was just called Martin, not Martin Celtic. Joe, my uncle, supported Manchester City. Joe was the same age as Martin Stewart but wasn’t as good at football; his asthma held him back. Dozey Ford supported Spurs. I supported Manchester United then because of Georgie Best. I had a red Man United jersey with a white collar band and cuffs. Other boys from Dunree Gardens – the O’Hagans and the Morans – came over to the Cropie for football as well.
The Cropie was big enough to hide in and snipe from. It was Japanese (Japs) against Americans; the Cropie was the jungle. Teams were determined by height. One team would stay put to hold the fort and the other would fan out across the Cropie’s expanse. Martin Stewart was the tallest so his team were the Americans fanning out. He was the captain. Danny Friel was small so he was the Jap captain. I was a Jap as well, along with Whitey O’Hagan and his wee brother. We were all short like Japs. Uncle Joe was the only one with a real cowboy gun and he was an American. He got the best of everything because of his asthma. The rest of us had long sticks. Our grenades were invisible. You just unhooked one from your t-shirt, pulled the pin out with your teeth, threw it at the enemy and made your own explosion noise.
Us four Japs were facing out of our smoothed-down grass fort in different directions, holding our sticks to our shoulders and pointing. The long grass rustled as the Americans approached. A shot rang out. It was Joe’s cowboy gun.
‘You’re fucking dead, Whitey, ya wee Jap bastard,’ called Joe from behind the long grass.
‘Ye fuckin’ missed me,’ Whitey replied. ‘It bounced off me helmet.’
‘You don’t have a helmet, ye’ve only a beret,’ shouted Joe and fired two more live caps at him. ‘You’re fuckin’ dead now, ya Jap bastard!’ He was a wild curser, as bad as our Patrick.
Whitey said ‘Aahhhh’, held his belly and fell over and died.
We started firing back with our machine guns into the grass. ‘Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat’ we all went.
‘Yous haven’t got machine guns, only rifles,’ shouted Martin Stewart from the long grass.
‘Aye we do. We have Jap riddley guns,’ shouted Danny Friel defiantly and continued firing.
The sound of gunfire could be heard from behind the long grass. They were getting closer. Dozey Ford knelt upright and fired at Danny Friel. I fired back at him and he got down again.
‘Dozey, you’re got. I got ye,’ I called out.
‘Naw I’m not got. Ye missed,’ he replied.
‘Okay, men,’ Martin called out in a John Wayne drawl, ‘we’re gonna wipe this Jap fort out.’
We Japs hadn’t a chance against the advancing and better-equipped American forces. More rustling in the grass meant they were getting closer. It was hopeless being a Jap. Suddenly they were firing on all sides. While we fired back – ‘bang bang bang … bang bang bang’ – the Americans simply refused to die. When the big Yanks got up to overrun the fort we had no choice but to go ‘Aahh!’ and fall over and die. The Americans prodded us with their guns as we lay still on the ground to make sure we were dead.
Joe poked me with his muzzle in the back.
It hurt and my dead body kicked at him and missed. ‘That’s too hard,’ I shouted, sitting up in the grass. ‘Pack it in!’
The other dead Japs were still dead.
‘You’re dead, ya wee Jap fucker,’ he said, poking me again in the chest.
‘Japs and Americans is a load of shite. And stop pokin’ me with that cowboy gun. It’s not even an army gun.’
‘The Americans can use any gun they want,’ he replied.
‘Well, I’m not playin’ again. It’s not fair.’
‘You won’t be playin’ again. You can’t take your fuckin’ oil.’
‘I’m tellin’ me granny that you’re over here cursing.’
‘Tell her whatever the fuck ye like,’ he said and walked away with his Yankee friends, his cowboy gun over his shoulder.
Everyone had gone in. I was on my own lying flat in the long grass looking at the pure blue sky. When you lie down in the long grass no one can see you from the street. I sat up facing down Westway. I could see beyond the city towards Magilligan Strand on one side of the water and Greencastle on the other, places I’d never been to. People say you can see the coast of Scotland from here on a clear day. This was a clear day and Scotland was nowhere to be seen.
A black man with black hair and wearing black clothes was walking up Westway towards the footpath round the Cropie. As he got closer he looked in my direction sitting up in the long grass.
‘Hi boy, what are ye doin’ over there on your own?’ the black man asked. His teeth were very white.
‘Daddy!’ I called back.
It was me da, back from the riots down the Bog. He’d been away for three or four nights. I ran across the road to meet him and he gave me a tight hug.
‘Why are you black, Da?’ I asked. He looked like he was covered in soot and dark oil.
‘Sure I’ll tell yous all later. Let’s go home.’
He took my small white hand in his huge black hand and we walked up to Granny Sally’s house. When we got to the steep steps at the front everyone came out to meet us. The riots were over. The B-men were beat. The British Army had moved in.
Me ma made him a fry. He had a bath and went to bed. So did me ma.
* * *
‘We stayed in Finner Camp. It belongs to the Irish Army,’ Dooter told me and Paul. ‘So did the O’Donnells.’
I felt robbed. An Irish Army camp! We were back in Hamilton Street. There was a lot of people milling around. The fear had gone. Me da was taking the chicken wire down from the front window.
‘The soldiers let us hold their guns. Our Terry fired one,’ Dooter added.
It got worse. All we did was play football in the Cropie and go to the shops and get our hair fine-tooth-combed for nits.
‘They said for us to come back again. Me ma said we’re goin’ back next year,’ Dooter went on.
‘There’s a fleadh the night up the lane,’ said Gutsy.
‘What’s a fleadh?’ I asked him. Gutsy was always in the know.
‘I dunno, a party or somethin’,’ he replied. ‘The Da Willies are playing.’
‘The Da Willies? What’s The Da Willies?’ I asked. It sounded funny, like dickies.
‘I think they’re a band,’ he replied. ‘We’re allowed up late for it anyway.’
‘The Da Willies! The Da Willies! The Da Willies! The Da Willies!’ we shouted for the rest of the day. It became the answer for everything:
‘What are you gettin’ for your tea?’
‘A Da Willie!’
‘What’s your ma’s name?
‘Da Willie!’
‘Will we play marlies later?’
‘Da Willies!’
The fleadh turned out to be a concert staged on the back of a coal lorry positioned between Moore Street and Hamilton Street. Gutsy was right – The Da Willies were a band. They all had long hair and some had beards. One played a banjo. Others played on the accordion and tin whistles. They sang about the Cork and Kerry mountains and meeting Captain Farrell. They also sang ‘The Black Velvet Band’. The crowd stood looking up at the band. Some were dancing with their hands up. Gutsy’s da was drunk. He wore tinted glasses and his hair was combed back from his sharp face. He looked like Count Dracula. Gutsy’s ma was there too but kept her distance, watching him. We were allowed out late. It was long past dark when we were called in for the night. The fear had gone.
* * *
Someone brought a magazine into the house to show me ma and da. There was a picture of me da on the front with flames and smoke in the background. A lorry was on fire. He was wearing a helmet and carrying a petrol bomb. His face was dark but it was definitely him. He was smiling and his lip was curled up like Elvis. He was looking away, but he seemed to know he was being photographed.
‘Our street’s in Free Derry,’ said Gutsy.
‘What’s Free Derry?’ I asked him.
‘It’s where the police aren’t allowed into any more,’ he replied. ‘The army can only come to the foot of the street but they have to ask to get in.’
‘Who do they ask?’ I said.
‘I dunno,’ he shrugged.
Men wearing white armbands stood guard at the foot of the street. They were unsure of themselves and smoked. We played football around the gable. Someone had painted over the Moore Street sign with black paint and written ‘Hooker Street’ beneath it with the same paint. No one knew why or knew what Hooker Street was supposed to mean.
The army arrived in large, green, canvas-covered lorries. They sat for a while on Foyle Road, at the bottom of our street. A tall soldier in a peaked cap was the first to get out. He spoke to one of the men wearing armbands. We couldn’t hear what they were saying but they were standing face to face. A few minutes later the tall officer approached one of the green lorries, pulled a couple of levers and opened the metal gates at the back. Soldiers jumped out. They carried rifles and one had a machine gun with bullets sticking out its side. Other green canvas-covered lorries were parked at the end of Moore Street and Anne Street. Soldiers were jumping out of all of them. Most wore helmets, strapped under the chin, like you saw in war films; some had dark berets on their heads.
The soldiers on Hamilton Street began taking sandbags out of the back of the lorry, two men to each sandbag, and placed them on the ground on the corner. They stacked them on top of each other like building bricks. A woman from the street arrived with a tray of china cups and a plate of sliced apple cake. A young girl behind her carried a china teapot.
‘Ye’s want a wee drop o’ tea, boys?’ she asked.
The soldiers, most of them looking like teenagers and one of them black, stood still, unsure what to do, and looked towards the officer in the peaked cap.
‘Take the tea, chaps,’ he said, approaching the woman and giving her a broad grin.
The woman smiled back and offered him the tray. He took it from her hands and held it while the woman, smiling, took the china teapot from the girl and poured the tea.
‘Come on, chaps, don’t be shy!’ he called out, and the soldiers approached, smiling, and took a cup of tea; some took a triangle of apple cake.
Everyone smiled.
There was no apple cake for us. More women arrived with more tea, buns and biscuits. By this time there was a crowd at the end of the street. The soldiers had stood their rifles in a neat row up against the gable wall, the muzzles pointing up.
‘They’re SLRs,’ said Terry McKinney.
Gutsy agreed. ‘You can tell from the handle. There. Look.’ He pointed his finger at the wooden handle sticking out from the metal piece in the middle.
‘What’s SLR stand for?’ I asked.
Terry and Gutsy looked at each other and said they didn’t know. A swarm of boys gathered close, eyeing the SLRs. They were a curious mix of polished wood and grey-blue metal. The wood looked out of place beside the metal pieces in the middle where the magazine was. A young soldier was left to guard the SLRs. He had no tea as he still had his rifle in his hands.
‘Hi, what’s SLR stand for?’ Gutsy asked him.
‘You wha’?’
‘What’s SLR stand for?’ Gutsy repeated.
‘Self-loading royfils,’ the soldier replied.
‘Self-loading royfils!’ said Gutsy, mimicking his accent. Then he turned back to us: ‘Oi! Self-loading royfils!’
The soldier smiled back at us in a nervous, uncomfortable sort of way, as if he’d be unsure what to do if we did something. He kept looking towards the soldiers taking their tea. Other women from the street had come out of their houses, some with plates of sandwiches and more pots of tea. They were all laughing – soldiers and all. And drinking tea.
‘The soldiers have built a hut at the end of the street,’ said Paul the next morning.
We were in the scullery, standing around the table – we had no chairs.
‘They call them sangars,’ said me da. ‘Not huts.’
Me ma came in and poured herself a bowl of Special K and milk. The Special K box had a big red K on the front. We weren’t allowed Special K – it was for me ma’s diet.
She sat down. ‘I must take them soldiers somethin’ down the day. I’ll make them ham and cheese sandwiches,’ she said.
‘You’re not takin’ anything down to them Limey Bs,’ me da said, looking her straight in the face. ‘Them boys aren’t here to protect us. They’ll get nothin’ from this house.’
‘What are you on about – Limey Bs?’ she asked. ‘They are here to protect us. That’s why they were brought in.’
‘What’s a Limey B, Da?’ asked Paul.
‘A Limey is an English soldier,’ me da said. I could see he was annoyed with me ma. ‘A Limey is a Limey. They never change. They’re not here for our good.’
‘Aye they are, Paddy,’ me ma said. ‘They’re here to keep the B-men and the Paisleyites from doing their worst.’ She wasn’t for backing down. ‘The poor soldiers only have army rations to eat. I’ll get them some stuff in the shop later.’
‘Listen to me now, Eileen. They’ll get nothing from this house. Them Limeys will turn on us. You can’t trust them. They’re nothing but Limey Bs.’
‘That’s oul guff, Paddy. Wise up,’ she said and put a spoonful of Special K in her mouth.
‘Well, we’ll see,’ said me da.
Paul looked at me. Me ma had won.
The sangar was built at the end of our street on the corner with Foyle Road. It was built around the end house and it went around the corner. Its walls were made of sandbags. Some of the sandbags were damp and smelled of canvas. It had wooden posts for a doorway and a shiny, corrugated-metal roof. The soldiers could see up our street and both ways along Foyle Road. They also built sangars on the corners of both Moore Street and Anne Street. Gutsy said there were sangars further down Foyle Road as well.
‘I went to the shop for one of them last night,’ he said as we approached our sangar. ‘The boy gave me two bob for going.’
‘Why did he not go himself? Sure it’s only over the street,’ I said.
‘They’re not allowed. They cannae go up the street.’
‘Hi mister, d’ye want us to go to the shop for ye?’ I asked one of them.
There were four soldiers in the sangar, sitting on the ground reading newspapers. Their SLRs were lined up against the wall of the house.
‘Yeah, moyt,’ said one back and he reached into his pocket and brought out a green pound note. ‘Get me a bottle of lemonade – cream soda – and a Flake,’ he said, handing me the money.
We laughed at his accent. It was like Blue Peter, only different.
‘Anybody else want anything in the shop?’ asked Gutsy.
They looked up from the ground and one said, ‘No, maybe later.’
Me, Gutsy and our Paul went to the shop. McLaughlin’s shop was just up the street. We all went in. It was dark inside, as usual. There was an old woman behind the counter.
‘Give us a bottle of cream soda and a Flake,’ I said, placing the pound note on the counter and sliding it towards her.
‘Is that for the soldiers?’ she asked.
‘Aye. One of them gave me two bob for going to the shop last night,’ said Gutsy.
‘Righty-o,’ she said and reached behind her for the Flake. ‘Go an’ lift a bottle of cream soda from the crate there by the door.’
Several lemonade crates were lined along the wall near the door. I went and lifted the cream soda out of one and brought it back to the counter. Gutsy took a hold of the bottle as I reached for the change.
‘This is my message, Gutsy,’ I snapped. Gutsy was smaller than me. ‘Here, give me that and you take the Flake. I have to bring him back his change.’
Gutsy handed the bottle back and out we went back towards the sangar. The soldier smiled as we approached. I handed him the cream soda and the change, and Gutsy gave him the Flake.
‘Oi, Tony, give us a drink of lemonade,’ said one of the soldiers sitting on the ground.
‘Fack off and get yer fackin’ own,’ said Tony the soldier, laughing.
‘Hi, ye call him Tony as well, so ye do,’ said Gutsy pointing at me.
‘Here you are then, Tony,’ said Tony the soldier, handing me a shilling from the change. I smiled and took the coin from his hand, feeling a bit disappointed. Tony the soldier noticed the look in my eyes and said, ‘Is that alroyt, moyt?’
‘Gutsy got two bob last night for going to the shop,’ I said.
‘Who’s Gutsy?’ he asked.
‘I’m Gutsy,’ said Gutsy. ‘I got the two bob.’
‘Alroyt then,’ said Tony the soldier, smiling, and handed me another shilling. ‘Thank you, Tony.’
‘Dead on, hi!’ I said, feeling rich.
Tony the soldier was pouring the cream soda into metal cups on the ground when we left to head back to the shop.
The sangar and the soldiers became the centre of attention on Hamilton Street. We played football at the bottom of the street next to it, instead of up the street. Women, including me ma, brought them tea, buns and sandwiches in relays. The local men were civil to the soldiers but distant. Officers were ferried to and from the sangar in dark green, open-backed jeeps. When the officers were gone the soldiers allowed us to look down the sights of the SLRs, picking out people as targets as they walked along Foyle Road. Some of our targets laughed and waved back at the sangar, while others didn’t seem to notice.
Chalk The Water came down the street on his donkey and cart.
‘Chalk The Water!’ we all called out to him. ‘Chalk The Water!’
He waved his stick in the air and called something back. The soldiers looked on, smiling but not saying anything. Chalk The Water stopped at the junction beside the sangar. He didn’t even look at the soldiers. He just looked out to see if anything was coming along Foyle Road, made a noise to the donkey and away they went.
‘That’s Chalk The Water. He’s mad,’ I explained, looking up at the soldiers. ‘He drives out to the dump every day on his cart. D’ye want anything in the shop?’
‘No, we’re okay for the minute,’ said one of them, smiling at Chalk The Water’s donkey and cart.
It was trolley season. How seasons were determined I didn’t know. The only season that was definite was conker season. That was in September, when conkers grew on the huge chestnut trees overhanging the high walls of the College on Bishop Street. Trolley season just happened, a bit like marlie season. The marbles just appeared in bags in the shops and then it was marlie season.
Trolley season required the hands and the know-how of Davy McKinney and Thomas Starrs, the big boys in the street. Davy was twice as tall as Thomas, but both were referred to as ‘big boys’.
We had to cross Foyle Road to get planks of wood to build the trolleys – our Paul, Dooter McKinney, Terry McKinney and Davy McKinney. The McKinneys’ dog, Dandy, came with us in case there were rats. People were dumping rubble there in mounds and all you had to do was pull the wood out from among the red bricks. We tucked our trouser legs into our socks in case a rat ran up and bit our dickies off. My uncle Joe once told me that when he had to go into hospital one time with his asthma, a man came in with a white towel around his neck. When the nurse removed the towel there was a huge rat hanging by its jaws from his throat.
Dandy sniffed around, her stubby sandy tail wagging in the air. The plank I wanted was buried deep and needed a few more boys to help pull it out. As we pulled at the dusty plank, sure enough a big mauser of a grey rat darted out from the rubble, ran up the plank and jumped over my shoulder.
‘Holy shite!’ I screamed, letting the plank drop and scurrying away in terror with my two hands up to my throat.
‘Rats, Dandy! Rats!’ called Davy McKinney to the dog.
Dandy chased it under another pile of rubble and was barking and scraping at the red bricks. Despite our deep fear of rats, we pulled at the rubble to help Dandy. The rat ran out from the back of the pile in panic and Dandy chased it along the open ground. The next pile of bricks and rubble was too far away – the rat was doomed. Dandy sprinted after it and caught it in her teeth, shaking it violently back and forth. The rat squealed in Dandy’s mouth and then stopped. Dandy threw the rat up in the air and it landed with a thud on the dusty ground. It was still squirming a bit so it was still alive. Dandy scooped it up in her mouth again and shook it hard from side to side. The rat made no sound. Dandy threw it up in the air and this time it fell lifeless to the ground.
‘Good girl, Dandy! Good girl,’ said Terry McKinney as Dandy prodded the dead rat with her nose, inspecting it for signs of life.
‘Wait till ye see this,’ said Davy, lifting a boulder. He lifted it up over his head and brought it down on the dead rat. When he lifted the boulder the rat’s skull was crushed and there was dark red blood on the ground underneath. He brought the boulder down on the dead rat again. When he lifted it there was no sign of further damage.
‘Can we take turns?’ I asked, and we all stood around the dead rat with boulders in our hands, bringing them down one by one on its lifeless body.
Eventually the rat’s belly split to reveal a mass of pink and red, which looked strange against its dark grey coat.
‘That’s its guts,’ said Terry, pointing to a tangle of squashed flesh after we’d finished pummelling it.
When we left with our planks, carried between two of us, Dandy jumped up on Davy and Terry’s plank, her tail wagging, and we returned to Hamilton Street in victory.
The wheels for the trolleys were recovered from old prams, along with their axles. You really needed large wheels for the back and small ones at the front in order to go faster. The wooden planks became the chassis for the trolley.
For the front axle you required a brace and bit. The only people who knew what the brace and bit were and how to use them were Davy and Thomas. Davy operated the brace and bit, and Thomas held the chassis plank steady for him to drill it. As many as ten boys were in the street with their planks and wheels. Everything was ready except for the fixing of the front axle to the chassis. For that, you needed a large nut, bolt and washers to attach them.
One time, when there was no brace and bit to be found, Davy and Thomas brought out white-hot pokers from the fire in Davy’s house and roasted holes right through the planks. Back into the house they went for over an hour as the pokers cooled down, and out again with the white-hot pokers held high until all the planks were bored right through, with the heat and the smell of scorched wood filling the air around us.
The larger wheels were fixed to shorter lengths of wood and nailed to the chassis at the back. Nails were hard to find and we usually combed the bonfire site on the waste ground between Moore Street and Hamilton Street or scoured the back lanes to find them. We hammered them into the short planks in two straight parallel lines. Placing the axle between the lines, we then bent the nails over it, making sure the axle had enough space so the wheels were free to spin round.
Then you needed to attach a short length of rope to either side of the front axle in order to steer, and a square piece of wood for you to sit on. You also had to fix a short length of wood across the chassis to keep your feet off the ground. After greasing all the axles, Davy and Thomas declared each trolley roadworthy.
Hamilton Street was flat and so was Moore Street. We had to go up Bishop Street, which had a steep slope, to race down it without being pushed. We couldn’t go too far up or the Bishies would stone us. We raced to the bottom and just flew out onto Foyle Road as there was no way of stopping once you got going. You could use your feet but you’d destroy your shoes. It was okay if your shoes were old. After a few goes down Bishop Street we changed position on the trolleys. Instead of sitting back, we lay headfirst and flat on the plank with the steering ropes in our hands. That way you could push with your feet at the start and then jump on flat, like it was a bobsleigh. It was faster that way and you could hear the rumble of your pram wheels on the road, as your ears were right next to them as they spun round.
The army moved into the Mex, a disused factory on Foyle Road next to the Daisy Field. They dismantled the sangars. The trolleys became a taxi service for the soldiers’ messages to the shops. We cruised outside the new barracks and waited for one of the soldiers to call us over to the iron railing gates, which were sometimes open and sometimes closed. On the flat, if you had no one to push you, you knelt upright at the back of the trolley and pushed with one foot. You could build up a good speed that way and be back at the Mex with the fags, chocolate, chewing gum, lemonade or crisps within five minutes – an express service. The money was good. It usually worked out at two bob a trip. We called the soldiers by their first names: Dave, Pete, John and George. That was just some of them.
The army drove up and down Foyle Road in a number of different vehicles. As well as the three-tonner canvas lorries and the open-back jeeps, they also drove Pigs, Ferrets and Sixers. Most were painted dark green, but some were sandy-coloured. Me da said they were painted the same colour as the desert sand for camouflage.
Pigs were square, squat-looking armoured cars with long snouts that squealed when driven at any speed. They had lookout hatches at the front, sides and back, and their huge black wheels were bigger than us. Ferrets were like small tanks with their turrets and machine guns sticking out. They had lookout hatches too, and sometimes a soldier sat up on the turret looking down on the road. Ferrets looked like large toys from a distance. They made a different squealing noise from the Pigs. Sixers had six wheels the same size as the wheels on the Pigs. They were almost the same as Pigs only with shorter snouts and a turret on top near the front. Sixers had hatches on the front, back and sides, and their engines squealed too, sort of like the Pigs.
If we were out playing in Hamilton Street and heard the noise of an approaching engine on Foyle Road, we stopped and tried to guess what type of vehicle would go past the gap at the bottom of the street on its way to or from the Mex.
‘That’s a Pig, I bet yis,’ said Gutsy.
‘Naw, it’s not, it’s a Sixer,’ said Paddy Brown, who lived next door to Gutsy.
We all looked down the street towards the gap and a Pig drove by.
‘I told you it was a Pig. You owe me money,’ Gutsy said to Paddy Brown, chancing his arm.
‘I didn’t take your bet. I only said it was a Sixer,’ he said.
Me da and our Patrick were coming down the street from Lecky Road.
‘Get yous all into the house,’ me da said pointing towards the door. ‘Gutsy, g’won you home, son. Patrick, go and get Karen and tell her to get home.’
Patrick ran up the lane. Me and Paul went into the house. Karen and Patrick came in shortly after. The green front door was closed after them.
‘What’s wrong, Daddy?’ asked Karen.
‘Just stay in and keep the door closed. That Gutsy McGonagle was mouthing to Patrick. The fucker’s as full as a po.’
Someone knocked loudly on the door. We ran to the front window to see who it was. It was Gutsy’s da. You called him Gutsy too. He was on a crutch. He knocked again on the door, using the brass knocker this time.
‘Cripple bastard!’ said me da in the hall.
Gutsy’s da knocked hard on the door once more. Me da went out to the hall and opened the door. We heard a thump and saw Gutsy’s da landing on his back out in the middle of the road. The front door closed again. Gutsy’s da didn’t move on the road; he still had his crutch in his hand. After a minute or two, he started shouting for his wife and tried to get up on his feet. Gutsy’s wife came out of her house to help him. Me da told us to get away from the window and into the back room. Me ma wasn’t in. Me da was breathing heavily and stayed in the hall waiting to see if Gutsy’s da would knock again. He didn’t, but we were kept in for a good while just in case.
* * *
‘Paddy Brown said that I have to sing something to you,’ said our Paul to Karen.
‘Sing what?’ she asked.
He started singing in an English accent, ‘Did you ever, did you ever, see your sister in the raw?’
Karen laughed. ‘That Paddy Brown’s a dirty wee brute. Don’t you let me da hear you sing that to me.’
‘Why, what’s it about?’ he asked her.
‘Never mind. Just don’t sing that again or you’ll be in bother,’ she said.
* * *
The Military Police, or MPs as we called them, patrolled our street, a man and a woman wearing peaked caps with a red band and white belts. They had armbands with the letters ‘MP’ written on them and they carried a pistol in a holster attached to the white belt. They walked up our street from Foyle Road, went towards the Lecky Road and then, about fifteen minutes later, they came back down the other side of the street. They didn’t speak to us. Gutsy said they didn’t like us going to the shops for the soldiers. They were brought in to put an end to it. He also said there was a new regiment in the Mex.
‘Your da was fighting wi’ a soldier the other day. He battered him,’ said Gutsy.
‘Who battered who?’ I asked.
‘Your da battered the soldier – outside the Silver Dog. The soldier was mouthing and pointing his gun at him. Your da said to him to put his gun down to see how much of a big man he was.’
‘And what happened then?’
‘He put the gun down and your da beat the shite out of him. The other soldiers lifted him up and took him down the street. His nose was busted. You wanny see the blood, hi!’
‘And what happened then?’
‘Nothin’. They all just went back into the bar.’
No one took tea and cakes any more to the soldiers at the Mex. It was probably too far away to carry them. Older boys threw stones at the Pigs, Sixers and Ferrets as they drove along Foyle Road. The stones made loud, tinny noises when they struck. Some of the vehicles were splattered with different colours of paint from paint-bombs made with milk bottles and beer bottles. The Foyle Road was covered in splashes of paint where the boys had missed their targets or were too far away to hit them.
But no one said anything to us about running to the shop for the soldiers so we just kept on going up to the gate with our trolleys and waiting to see if anyone needed anything. We didn’t know their names any more and they didn’t know ours. They still bought plenty of sweets, lemonade and chocolate in the shop, though.
Marlie season came. They appeared in the shop in wee net bags. We used the money we got from the soldiers to buy them. Only older people called them marbles; it was marlies or boodlies to us. There were two marlie games. One was like pitch-and-toss, where the boy who threw the marlie that landed closest to the kerb was the winner. We played on the road as there weren’t many cars in our street. Winner took all on the pitch. The other marlie game began with a circle drawn in the dust or dry muck below the kerb. You had to try and knock a marlie out of the circle with your own marlie. Some flicked their marlie out with their thumb; others simply tossed it with their finger and thumb. Gutsy was a great flicker – an expert. He rolled the marlie on his tongue, dried it with his fingers and shot it out with a flick of his thumb into the circle. If it connected with an opposing marlie, it sent it flying out of the circle. If you pushed a marlie out of the circle it was yours, and you got a free go. If you hit a marlie and yours bounced out of the circle you lost it to whoever owned the first marlie. We made a bigger circle of players around the small circle drawn in the dirt by the kerb and took turns, going clockwise.
As we played outside our house me da came out of the front door. He carried a wooden frame with a rusty brown metal sheet attached to it. He went back in and came out with a chair and a hammer. He put the chair beneath the front window and got up on it and proceeded to hammer nails through the wooden frame into the window frame.
‘What’s that for, Daddy?’ I asked him as he worked.
‘Just in case there’s bother,’ he answered, not looking around.
I went into the front room to see the effect of this and, when the door was closed, it was completely dark, like night time. His hammering was fierce loud in the room.
When I went back out, Chesty Crossan was standing outside his cottage across the street looking over.
‘Can you do one for me, Patsy?’ he called over. He was in his white vest and you could see his white, hairy shoulders.
‘Aye, surely,’ said me da. ‘I have timber and metal sheet left over out in the yard. I’ll bang it together and come over later to put it up.’
‘That’s dead on, Patsy. I’ll sort you out with a few bob when I get me money,’ said Chesty.
‘Indeed you will not, Chesty. I’ll be over later. Looks like more bother is on its way.’
‘It does, Patsy. More bother surely,’ said Chesty, looking down the street towards Foyle Road.