The Butcher Boy (12 page)

I stuck my finger in my mouth and rolled my eyes mischievously.

Guess, he says. Go on, guess.

Sweets, I said.

No, its not sweets.

A book, I said, its a book.

No, he said, its not a book.

I tried all sorts of things but it was none of them. I could hear Tiddly rooting about behind the big armchair and the crackling paper of a parcel. His fingers were all over the place as he fumbled with the twine and tried to open it.

Let me, I said.

O, said Tiddly.

Tiddly's eyes were the size of jampot lids. I swooned.

O father it's lovely!

It was a woman's bonnet with a long white ribbon dangling down.

I felt like laughing my arse off but poor old Tiddly wouldn't have liked that biting away at the skin of his mouth oh Francis.

What do you think says I putting it on and doing a twirl for him in front of the mirror. I went spinning round the room and Tiddly got so weak he had to steady himself against the arm of the chair.

Oo do you think -- ah I'm beautiful -- ah!, I says.

His bottom lip was trembling. Sit up here now I says so up I went. He puts his arm around me you've no idea how much I love you Francis he says in the nights I even dream about you. I want to know everything about you. Ten Rolos, says I. Tell me all about yourself. I told him a heap of lies and true stuff mixed in. That was a good laugh, all about the football match and the town and the drunk lad and all the things that went on but that wasn't what he wanted to know. Yes yes he says but I want to know about
you
Francis. I'll bet you live in a nice house do you? Do you live in a nice house?

He gave me a big uncle smile and that was the first time I thought to myself: I don't like you any more Tiddly.

He chucked at the ribbon of the bonnet and crinkled up his eyes. Go on, he says you can tell me. I was going to tell him nothing but he kept at it go on go on and all this. I told him we had black and white tiles in the scullery and a twenty three inch television but that wasn't enough for him he still kept at it. The more he made me say things the redder my face was getting I had said so much now I could never go back and say that I wasn't telling him about our house at all but Nugents I had to keep going if he had stopped then it might have been all right but he didn't, he kept making me saying more and more. And that's what Mrs Nugent wanted. I saw her standing there beneath a tree in the lane behind the houses not far from me and Joe's puddle. Ma came out into the yard to take in the washing. When she seen her Mrs Nugent smiled through her thin lips. Then she went over to her and leaned over the wall. Ma stumbled with the washing piled under her arm. She just kept smiling at ma. With her eyes she was saying: I'll speak when I'm ready.

And when she was, she said: Do you know what he did? He asked me to be his mother. He said he'd give anything not to be a pig. That's what he did on you Mrs Brady. That's why he came to our house! Her breast was choking me again, lukewarm in my throat. I think I hit him first he fell back and I heard him shout
Don't hurt me Francie I love you!

There was a paper knife on his desk I seen it there plenty of times I just felt around for it and tried to cut him but I couldn't get at him
please please I love you!
was all I could hear.
Put it down!,
I heard I wasn't sure who it was I think it was Bubble and someone else I couldn't see their faces right my head swum, all I could see was ma smiling and saying to me over and over again don't worry Francie no matter what she says about you I'll never believe it I'll never disown you ever ever not the way I did you ma I said
no son no!
she said I said its's true ma no she says but it was and it always would be no matter what I did.

Roast pig in the dark that was what I was when I awoke, they'd locked me in the boilerhouse. I could hear whispering outside it took me a while to make it out.
You're an awful man. It took four of them to hold you. I hear it was like trying to wrassle a weasel. Do you hear me, eh? You showed the fuckers! Hee hee!

The circus sparks put on a show me for me. Look Francie they said but I couldn't see them right I think they must have given me the needle one minute Joe and me would be standing in the lane getting ready to throw the marble, the next Bubble would be floating by like a black parachute in the wind. I could hear the music of the carnival Joe was there on his own just walking in and out of the sideshows. The big wheel turned and yellow balls bounced on watersprays. Pop went the rifles and old targets were thrown away. Beside the gallery the goldfish swam in a big glass tank. There were plastic bags for taking them home in. Then the boy doing the shooting turned around and pushed the hair back from his eyes. It was Philip Nugent, smiling and counting the number of holes in his target. He was going to say something but it wasn't his voice that came out of his mouth:
Hi! Hi! Are you in there? Ha! Ha! Do you want a fag?

Then this fag comes rolling in under the door. I don't know how many I smoked when I was in there. Hundreds maybe. The doors opened and there's Bubble standing in the light but he wasn't his usual self tugging away at his sleeve and looking away from you when he was speaking. You didn't often see him doing that. Well my fine fellow are you ready to behave yourself yet?, he says.

I knew by him he was afraid I was going to say no. For he had no idea what he was going to do then. But I didn't. I liked old Bubble. But Tiddly he was a different story. It'd be God help him if he ever came near me again.

Its not my job to cut effing grass verges, says the gardener. If he says it to me one more time, that's it. I'm out.

What do
you
say?

I didn't say anything, just looked at him advancing on the inch of ash with one eye closed.

Or have you quit talking altogether?

The way he said it I thought I'd be as well to say something before he took into me with the graip.

Cut no verges, I said. No verges now and that's all's about it!

He nearly burst open with excitement. He whacked his corduroys with the battered cap.

Now you said it!, he cried.

Not a one!
I said.

Not a shaggin' one he says with the fag shaking, by Christ you're a good one, here have a fag he said and shook a few of them,
a fag for every fucker of a sky pilot that gets his arse kicked! Go on!

He chuckled away as a ballerina of sparks did a twirl. Did I ever tell you about the time I sprung Michael Collins from the Bridewell jail? he says.

No, I says.

I didn't?

He licked his lips and little infantrymen ran from one eye to the other.
And what would your business be says the officer? Oh I'm a
Holy Ghost Father officer, I says. Very well he says, proceed padre. So off I went and not half an hour later there's me and the head of the Irish Republican Army rattling through the streets of Dublin in a horse and cart! Good man says Collins from under a pile of turnips you'll be remembered for this!

The light was failing outside and they were all heading towards the refectory for tea.

The more I tried to get the goldfish out of my head the more it kept coming back.

One wet day I seen Tiddly climbing into a car and he was never seen again, probably away off to the garage to rub some bogman with his mickey good luck and good fucking riddance. Bubble called me up to his study and I could see he was on for a bit of detective work. Every time he thought I wasn't looking he'd look at me over the rim of the teacup. If I turned he'd look away again quick as a flash. He was trying to think of the right words for he knew if he got the wrong ones I'd tell him nothing and maybe if he did I'd tell him nothing anyway. I sank into the big leather chair and he says do you like Scots Clan I do indeed I says. He asked me a few questions about how I was getting on now. I said OK and yes and no to them all. His face was all creased up trying to find the right way of saying things it was like trying to turn the corner on two wheels. Sometimes I just shrugged my shoulders and looked out the window. Then Bubble stands there staring out knotting the fingers together behind his back wondering what way would he start his speech. It was a different speech this time there was no jokes or any of that for he knew what I thought fuck the jokes and he was right. He said life was difficult, people had their troubles. Some of the things people did were hard to understand. A soggy football went sailing past the window and a clatter of bogmen chasing after it. He said Father Sullivan was a good man. I said nothing. He starts to tell me this story then about him going off to Dublin to visit his sister. He's been working hard lately too hard if you ask me, he says with a watery laugh. His sister will look after him I said and sipped the tea. She will, he says, she's very good to him. He's lucky has her. I didn't mean to laugh but I just had to when he said that. I was chuckling away to myself. Sister, for fuck's sake! Poor old Tiddly was probably climbing up the walls of the garage by now shouting
I love you bogman!
to some young farmer lad.

Bubble knew I was laughing but there wasn't much he could do about it. If he said: Stop laughing, I'd only go and do it worse. I'd push him out of the way and shout out the window: Hey bogmen! Did youse hear about Father Tiddly the Rolo man!

That was what Bubble was afraid of. That everybody would hear. But he didn't have to worry about that. As long as he left me alone and minded his own business I wouldn't say anything about old Father Big-Mickey I mean Tiddly. Now he was gone I didn't give a fuck. I just wanted to be left alone. I hope you're happy here says Bubble. I said I am. Then I said: I'm going now.

Yes Francis, said Bubble holding the cup with one finger up in the air. I wasn't going to tell about Tiddly. But he didn't know that. All he knew was he'd seen him lying whinging in the corner saying I love you to me. I don't think poor old Bubble was used to seeing things like that. The last thing I seen as I went out the door was him standing there all helpless and pained-looking. He was thinking: Why can't all these bad terrible things be over so as I can sing a little happy song. Like
Michael Row The Boat Ashore
maybe!

After that the days were all the same, they just drizzled past, days without Joe without da without anything. I didn't have to worry much about getting the Francie Brady Not a Bastard Any More Diploma anymore after the Tiddly business for I knew they were going to let me go the first chance they got I was like a fungus growing on the walls they wanted them washed clean again.

The day I left Bubble gripped my hand and said it did his heart good. I gave him a big smile. But it was all different now it wasn't like the old days when me and him used to have jokes. He knew why I was smiling. If it did his heart good he wasn't long about letting go of the hand.

I said good luck to the gardener. He said:
Its just as well you caught me for I won't be here tomorrow. I've had it with them and their verges.
He looked right into my eyes and tapped his chest.
Its not my job,
he hissed. The last thing I seen was the soggy ball sailing up into the air.

House of a hundred windows, goodbye and good fucking riddance, I said.

I called straight down to Joe's but he wasn't there. Where is he, I said. Mr Purcell looked me up and down. I have no idea, he said and closed the door. I wondered what was eating him.

I called down to the house a few more times but there was never any answer they must have been away, at the uncle's or someplace. In the end I waited at the bottom of Church Hill and met Joe coming home from school. He was in the second year in secondary now. He was carrying a big bulging bag of books. There's some amount of books in that bag, Joe, I says laughing. There was some other lad with him I don't know who he was I told him to run on ahead.
What?
he says. I said: Run on ahead -- are you deaf?

I'm back Joe, I said, back from the house of a hundred windows. I laughed myself when I said that it just sounded funny saying it there walking round the road with Joe. I didn't know where to start telling him about all these things. I told him it made no odds about the goldfish or any of that that was all in the past now. Then he looks at me and says:
What goldfish?
I hit him a thump on the shoulder. What goldfish! I says, for fuck's sake Joe!

It was the first good laugh I had had in I don't know how long. I asked Joe how things were out at the hide. He said he hadn't been out there. Is it still covered over, I said. He said he wasn't sure it was so long since he'd been out there. I said we'll have to make sure its covered over. If the rain gets in it'll ruin it. He said it would. When will we go out and check on it then I said, this evening? He said he couldn't go out that evening. OK, I said tomorrow is fine. But he said he couldn't go out then either so it had to be at the weekend. I had a pain in my stomach waiting for that weekend to come.

Joe made a wind at a gnat, lay back on the bank of the river and I told him more about it, everything I could think of. I told him about the gardener and the Black and Tans and the bogmen and their bony arses and being locked in the boilerhouse and puffing fags and talking to the saints and St Teresa. It sure is some laugh said Joe, what did they lock you in the boilerhouse for? I says oh nothing just messing around, you know. That was all I was going to say but then he says it again but what did they lock you in the boilerhouse
for?
Then I thought the best thing about friends is you can tell them anything in the whole world and once I thought that I didn't care. As soon as I started the story it ran away with itself. There were tears in my eyes and I couldn't stop laughing the bonnet and Tiddly, I love you! and the whole lot. You want to see the Rolos he gave me I said, I must have ate about two thousand fucking Rolos Joe. Rolos said Joe, he gave you Rolos but what did he give you Rolos
for?
As far as I could see that was all Joe wanted to hear about. Anytime I went on with the story he kept bringing me back to that part what for, what for? I wanted him to stop going back to that. I wanted to stop talking about the whole thing. I wanted to talk about the hide and the old days and hacking at the ice and whose turn it was to toss the marble and all that, that was what I wanted to talk about. They were the best days. You could see through them days, clear as polished glass. But Joe didn't want to. He kept going back to the other thing so in the end I told him and what does he say then he says Francie he didn't really do that did he? I said what are you talking about Joe he
did
didn't I just tell you?