‘Can I just get some water please, Mammy?’

  ‘He’s awful nice. He’s a credit to you, Josie,’ says Minnie.

  ‘Hurry up, well,’ says Ma, squintin’ at me. ‘And close that door,’ she shouts after me. God, grown-ups are daft. Seriously. With the door closed, I can go right up to the door and listen even better.

  ‘. . . every Friday,’ says Minnie.

  ‘Can I drop it round to you?’ says Ma.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s just I hate them knowin’ my business,’ says Ma.

  ‘Sure, amn’t I here nigh?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Ma. ‘But please, Minnie, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘If I let everyone come round, Josie, I’d get no rest,’ says Minnie, her squeak gettin’ sharper. Killer starts barkin’ out the back. I think she’s in dog range. ‘I’d be up and down from the door every two seconds. And there’s those, I know you won’t believe this, but there’s those who wouldn’t turn up.’

  I burst in. ‘Sure I’ll bring it round to you, Mrs Maloney, and sure I could do your messages for you while I’m there.’ I beam her the biggest smile I’ve got. ‘Go on, Mrs Maloney, a lady like you shouldn’t be runnin’ up and down the street carryin’ bags of shoppin’.’

  Minnie giggles into her hand like one of those women from old filims. I beam over to Ma. Shit. I’ve given away that I was listenin’. I wish I would think for one minute.

  ‘Isn’t he a wee dote? An absolute credit to you. A credit.’ Minnie leans over and pinches my cheek. ‘As a special favour to you, Josie, but don’t let anyone else know.’

  ‘Well, we can all keep quiet then.’ Ma nods and smiles and keeps her smile frozen, turnin’ to me.

  ‘Well, that’s me. No rest for the wicked,’ squeaks Minnie, cuppin’ my cheek with her hand. ‘I’ll be seein’ you then, won’t I? A wee gentleman.’ She turns to Ma. ‘Aren’t you lucky?’ She smiles again and wheezes her way out the door.

  Ma’s arm on my back guides me with her to watch Minnie out the door. She looks right and left. Only kids on the street. But someone will be watchin’ from their window. Ma closes the wee door.

  Whack!

  ‘Mammy! That was sore,’ I shout. And I just bloody helped her.

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have been listenin’, wee boy,’ says she. ‘Now, listen you, watery mouth, if you say one word to the rest of them I’ll kill you stone dead.’

  ‘Wise up, Mammy,’ I say. ‘I’m brilliant at keepin’ secrets, you could tell me anythin’.’ Oh crap. Uncle Tommy. ‘I promise you, Mammy. Cross my heart and hope to fry,’ says me.

  ‘Be careful what you hope for,’ says Ma. ‘Nigh go on out and play.’

  ‘Do I have to?’ I kick the sofa. Ma slaps me across the legs. ‘Mammy, will you stop that,’ I shout.

  ‘Well, you stop kickin’ my good sofa,’ she warns. ‘The money man’s dead. You break that sofa and we’ll use you to sit on. Go on before I hit you a dig.’

  ‘Put ’em up, put ’em up,’ I say like the Cowardly Lion, to make her laugh.

  Ma whacks me across the head.

  ‘What was that for?’

  ‘I just felt like it.’ She pisses herself laughin’. I do too.

  She laughs so much she falls on the chair. I jump on her lap. ‘Jesus Christ and his Holy Mother,’ she moans.

  It’s nice bein’ here. I stick my head on her shoulder. I can’t get down to her chest now, where I like it.

  ‘Fuck me, wee boy, you’re a bag of bones,’ her voice deep and out of breath. ‘Get up, your boney arse is stickin’ into me.’

  I jump up. I don’t want to. I wish I was small.

  ‘Here, go and get yerself somethin’,’ says she.

  ‘No, Mammy, I don’t want anything,’ says I.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Cuz. Minnie,’ I say.

  She laughs. ‘It was just a one-time thing, son.’ Cuz of Da takin’ everythin’. I hate him. ‘Yer Ma’s always alright, son. But if you don’t want the money, I’ll give it to Paddy,’ says she and heads for the door. I follow her. She can’t really be goin’ to give it to Paddy.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Ma looks up and down the street. ‘Pa . . .’

  ‘Ma!’ I shout.

  ‘Shush. You’ll wake your Da,’ says Ma. Her face drops and turns white. ‘Yer Aul’ Ma’s away with fairies.’ She twists the weddin’ ring on her finger. She does it all the time now. ‘Here.’ She holds out her hand flat with a coin in her palm, like it’s Holy Communion. On Sunday the new Priest changed the law so we can get it in our hands like that. Aul Aggie says he’s the Anti-Christ.

  ‘Thanks, Ma.’ I grab the money and run. I turn back, ‘Do you want to go to the shop for me, Ma? Seein’ how I’ve come into a bit of money. I’ll give you somethin’ for goin’.’

  ‘You’re some pup, Mickey Donnelly,’ she laughs.

  ‘I’m no Donnelly, Ma.’

  ‘No, you’re no Donnelly, son, you’re an O’Connor . . .’ She smiles her Ma smile. The one you try hard for. ‘Be back in half an hour for your supper. Don’t have me callin’ you, or all you’ll be gettin’ for dinner is a dig in the gub.’

  ‘Mmmm . . . my favourite!’ I lick my lips and rub my belly. Ma laughs.

  I run to the entry. I turn to do a little dance for her but she’s gone inside. I look over at the gable. Wee Maggie sees me. She’s ragin’. Shit. I ran away and left her. I do a little dance for her. I hold the money up in one hand and the 10p mix-up from McQuillan’s in the other and she runs at me like a baby rhino.

  Behind her I see a boy leavin’ the garage. It’s Helmet Head, the new boy who joined my class with the brilliant stories. He was the actor in the play. I bloody well knew I hated him. I’ll have to bump him off to get in the next play.

  11

  FOUR WEEKS TIL ST. GABRIEL’S

  I’M BORED. WHAT did people do in the old days without TV? I’m desperate. My whole body won’t sit still. Ma and Measles are at work. Wee Maggie’s playin’ with the girls at the gable. Our Paddy’s out collectin’ wood for the bonfire they’re buildin’ in the waste ground. I can’t risk him seein’ me with the girls. I don’t really want to play with them, but I want to find out about the plays. I hate Briege anyway. Could I collect wood?

  I pretend the window is the TV. Martine’s sittin’ on the wall watchin’ the older boys at the bonfire. I wish we could play together, just us. We’d laugh. And just stare at each other. Maybe sing songs too. Like ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’. If only I could get rid of Briege.

  I know. Take Killer for a walk and dander oh-so-casually by the girls. Then I can take him round to show the new people in the new houses. I run out to the yard. ‘Come on, Killer. Come on, wee boy. Good dog.’

  He bounces after me and we run out over the waste ground. At the girls, I stop and pet him while he jumps up and down barkin’. I wind him up by pretendin’ I’m goin’ to attack him.

  ‘Martine, yer wanted,’ her Ma shouts. Damn! I run towards her house, like I was goin’ that way.

  ‘Hiya, Mickey,’ says she. ‘Hiya, Killer.’ She pets him so I stop.

  ‘Hiya,’ I say. ‘What you doin’?’

  ‘Just playin’. Are you not?’

  ‘I have to take Killer for a walk.’ I roll my eyes and tut. ‘Cuz he’s my dog, I have to look after him.’

  ‘You’re so lucky,’ says she. Martine McNulty thinks I’m lucky. ‘Who got him for you?’

  ‘My Daddy.’ I want to lie and say Ma, but everybody knows Mas don’t buy dogs.

  ‘Where is your Daddy?’

  I hit a redner. I can’t believe she asked. ‘He’s in America,’ I say, ‘tryin’ to get work. He’ll send for all of us when he can.’

  ‘Oh, that’s brilliant,’ says she. ‘But you’re not going soon?’

  Holy Battered Sausages! She doesn’t want me to go. ‘Well, we probably won’t go. He’ll probably just bring back loads of money for us to be rich.’

  ‘Martine. Right nigh!’ her Ma shouts.

  ‘See ya later, Mickey. Bye, Killer.’ Martine runs off into her house.

  Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes-sir-ee. I do a little skip. I try the Wizard of Oz dance. I see the boys and stop. I put on the dander I did with Ma’s-a-Whore and yank Killer to me. I sneak a glance and see some of them starin’. So, so jealous. Ha! I turn into the new estate. I don’t need them. I can make new friends in the new estate with my dog.

  I hear somethin’ shouted after me but I don’t even listen.

  This doesn’t even look like our street now. Like its own little private world. I take corners and twists, like Tron on his motorbike. It’s like a maze. I could get lost in here and I only live two centimetres away. Down here they don’t leave their doors open like we do, though Aul Aggie in our street has started shuttin’ her door. She says she keeps it shut even when she’s in the house. It’s the talk of the street.

  Everybody’s movin’ to Ardoyne cuz we don’t pay the TV license. And nobody mugs you or burgles you – except your own Da! – or breaks our laws cuz the IRA shoot your knee-caps off. If you do it again you get Put Out of the district and if you come back, you’re dead.

  I sit on the wee wall of a new house and watch kids playin’ with the sand in another new buildin’ site. A new wee boy’s at his door lookin’ at me. ‘Come on, Killer. Jump up. Jump up.’ I hold my hand out and bounce it up. Killer follows to catch it.

  ‘Bad dog! Get down,’ I shout at Killer, checkin’ the new boy who’s makin’ his way over kickin’ a stone.

  ‘Is that your dog?’ says the new boy.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He’s class,’ says he.

  ‘He can do all these tricks,’ says me.

  ‘Can he?’

  ‘Aye, but you have to give him biscuits. He’s one of those special dogs like you see in the Pedigree Chum advert. We’ve got a bit a paper tellin’ you how special he is.’ I saw that on TV.

  ‘Aye, right,’ says he, laughin’. ‘You’re a right snob.’

  I don’t like him so I walk away. It’s cool to leave first, so I win.

  ‘What school d’ye go to?’ he calls after me.

  ‘I’m goin’ to St. Gabriel’s,’ I shout over my shoulder.

  ‘Ye mean St. Gabe’s. You are a snob,’ he laughs. ‘I’m goin’ there.’

  I want to talk now. I don’t want to win anymore. I turn back but he’s gone in. He could have been a new mate for school. St. Gabe’s. I must stop sayin’ St. Gabriel’s. I don’t want to go there. I want to go St. Malachy’s. It’s not fair. Maybe there’s a way. Think, Mickey. It’s your new mission. Yeah, Mission Friggin’ Impossible.

  I cross into Brompton Park entry and through the broken railings into my old school pitch. Kids are playing all sorts of PE games like school. It’s the Summer Scheme. Brill! That’s what I can do. All summer. Me and Maggie can be goin’ to the Summer Scheme every day. I can’t wait to tell her. I look at all the kids playin’ and laughin’. And boys and girls together. Yes, this is definitely where I’m comin’. Everythin’s goin’ to be brilliant.

  I let Killer off the lead for a wee minute. I shouldn’t but he’s such a good boy, he comes when I call him. ‘C’mon, Killer, good boy.’ I crawl through the hole in the wire fence and come out into another No Man’s Land.

  I thought it was called No Man’s Land like the Bray is called the Bray. There’s no sign on it or anythin’, but everybody knows its name. Then they called this No Man’s Land, too. It’s where no man lives. Between us and the Prods. I’m not allowed here, even though it’s right next to my old school. Ardoyne doesn’t make sense.

  The old Flax Mill is now the army barracks, with a huge look-out post spyin’ on us. Ma worked there when she was a wee girl before the Brits took it over. There’s always riotin’ here.

  The sun comes out and the broken glass sparkles. The waste ground looks beautiful. Like an ocean floor scattered with treasure. I cup my hands round my eyes, puttin’ on my special treasure-seekin’ binoculars. I look for any cracker coloured bits. Sometimes I take bits home and put them in my shoebox under Paddy’s bed. It’s the box where I put the letters from my pen pal. I should write to him again. Maybe my last letter got lost in the post. Maybe I could go see him one day. Maybe he’d help me escape.

  As I’m binocularisin’, I see a beautiful bit of red glass. I lift it and look through it. Ardoyne turns from black and white to colour, just like in the Wizard of Oz. A Brit patrol appears through the doorway cut into the tall corrugated iron barricades of the border. Nobody ever goes through it. Ever. The Prods would kill us for enterin’ their land. And if we saw anyone comin’ into our side, we’d kill them.

  ‘Here, Killer.’ I pat my thighs. I put him back on his lead and run across the road in front of the barricades.

  The Prods live behind them across the Crumlin Road in the Shankill. The Kingdom of the Prods. That’s where they found John McTaggart.

  John McTaggart was drunk in town and he got into a Shankill Black Taxi instead of an Ardoyne one. They look exactly the same but you get them from a different place. John McTaggart opened his mouth. Loose talked. Said where he lived. The taxi man threw him out on the Shankill Road and shouted to the Prods, ‘He’s a Taig’. John McTaggart was taken to a burnt-out house in the Shankill and they dropped breeze blocks on his head til he was dead. Just behind there.

  ‘Come on, Killer, let’s go home, wee man.’ I head back to my old school.

  Two Jeeps appear from Old Ardoyne, movin’ like snails beside the soldiers. On the corner of Etna Drive, a few boys stand guard, watchin’ the border, guardin’ our side. Some older boys join. I feel butterflies in my tummy. I don’t like gangs of boys and I have to walk past them to get back home. There’s nowhere to hide cuz it’s No Man’s Land. The crowd is gettin’ bigger, some pacin’ up and down like the lions in Belfast Zoo. They see me. I’m between them and the Brits. I can’t move. I don’t know where to go.

  Shoutin’. Some big boys put balaclavas on over their faces. Riot. Men join the crowd pushin’ wee ones to the front. They’re only about my . . . Fartin’! Fartin’s at the front! What’s he doin’ down here? He’s mental.

  BANG! Shootin’.

  Fartin’ better watch himself. A police Jeep speeds down Flax Street, then another. They stop and Peelers jump out with riot shields.

  Shots again. From different places. I don’t know if it’s them or us. Move Mickey. Killer barks. ‘It’s OK, wee son.’

  A petrol bomb hits a Peeler’s shield and it goes up in flames. So does the Peeler. The crowd cheers. Peelers flap at their man on fire and put the flames out. There’ll be murder now. A Brit runs past me. A Peeler shoots a rubber bullet into the crowd. He can’t do that, Fartin’s there. They’re only kids at the front. The crowd run down Etna Drive, but the shootin’ hasn’t stopped. The Peelers and the Brits run after them, shootin’ rubber bullets at their backs.

  This is my chance, while the riot is on the run. More shots. NOW. MOVE IT.

  I loosen my hold on Killer’s lead to wrap the length around my wrist and keep him close.

  A sound so loud my body vibrates. I become smaller. Wind blows me to the ground.

  Crash. Crash. Smash. Windows explode one at a time like glass dominoes. Chimneys fall. Alarm bells and sirens all at the same time. Deafenin’. I try to get up but my head is too heavy.

  I’m in the sea. Crawlin’ on the sand. My treasure. My lovely red glass. I must get my treasure. I push myself up to sittin’. Cryin’. Is that me? I don’t know why I’m cryin’. I don’t feel anythin’. Nothin’ at all. Then I do. A warm feelin’ travellin’ down my legs. I must be bleedin’. Ma’ll kill me. I can’t see blood. Oh no, why couldn’t it be blood? Now I really cry. I get up. I hobble. I feel dizzy. Sick. People are comin’ out of their houses. I can’t let them see I’ve wet myself. People will see. A man appears mimin’ words. No sound is comin’ out. He shakes me.

  ‘Son?’ I can hear him now. ‘Can you hear me? Are ye OK?’

  ‘Yes, Mister, just let me go,’ says me.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I wet myself,’ I cry.

  ‘No, your head,’ says he.

  I touch around my head, feel warm, thick stickiness. My hands are red. I’m so stupid. He didn’t even know I’d pissed myself. And I told him. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I hate you, Mickey Donnelly! I hate your guts!

  Three men with balaclavas runnin’ at me. The man holdin’ me hides his face. I copy him. You can’t tell on what you don’t see.

  ‘What the fuck are you doin’ down here?’ one of the Balaclava Men shouts. Two hands grab my shoulders. A Balaclava Man has me.

  ‘Look at your head. Get down home now, Mickey.’ He knows me. IRA men don’t know me. Long Lost Uncle Tommy?

  I know who it is.

  ‘Now, Mickey!’ Our Paddy shouts, but I can’t move. The man who was helpin’ me runs.

  Killer. Where’s Killer? I had him . . . I can’t . . . I’m pulled along the tarmac by Paddy, but I’m draggin’ my legs. I’m goin’ to tell Ma on him, she said . . .

  ‘Run!’ another Balaclava man shouts. ‘He’ll be alright.’ I’m let go. Paddy walks backwards, away from me, turns and runs. The piss is gettin’ cold on my legs.

  Barkin’. ‘Killer!’ I scream. Where is he? ‘Killer!’

  There, in the middle of the road, lookin’ at me. Behind him I see a Saracen comin’ up Flax Street on its way to the barracks. I run but fall. Pain stabs my knees. No sound again. Heavy head. Killer looks so tiny. I can see he’s barkin’. ‘Killer, come here.’ Am I even makin’ sound? I pull myself up. The Saracen comes right up behind Killer. Can’t he hear it? A few kids appear at the bottom of Flax Street and throw stones and bottles at the Saracen.

  Bodies of Brits and Peelers lyin’ on the waste ground. A man with no shirt staggers bleedin’ towards me with his arms out like somethin’ from a horror filim. ‘Killer!’ He’s still there lookin’ at me. Stupid dog. ‘Run!’ The Saracen’s gettin’ closer to him. Move, Killer, go back, please! I telepath.

 

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