At first we tied Kathy to a chair in the middle of the room with a gag and a pillowcase on her head but whenever we untied her to let her eat a chinky she just throws the food at us and kicks at us with her high heels, so as we take the high heels away from her and try feeding her with a spoon. Then she just spits it back in our faces. And the lingo that came out her mouth. Como would’ve blushed. Let her fucking starve, Tommy says to us. You’re not in a hotel now, love, he says to her. As soon as we take the gag out she goes ballistic about the IRA. You’re supposed to be fucking looking out for people like me, you useless bastards, she’s screaming, stuff like this. Sure as I felt bad and all. What’s the point in torturing one of your own? But Tommy says to her, your man borrowed money from The Boys and he needs to have the gumption to pay it back. The gumption? I says to myself. What do you think the IRA runs on, Tommy says to her, buttons? Loaning him money was looking out for him, he says to her, and now he needs to do the right thing. Is this what it’ll be like in a united Ireland, she says to him, and the tears are streaming down her face. Kidnap, torture, rape, she’s saying, is this what the future adds up to? Nobody’s raping nobody, Tommy says to her. Get me the fuck out of Ireland, she says to him, get me the fuck out because it’s a madhouse. Every one of youse is the fucking troubles. She kept saying that. Every one of youse is the fucking troubles. I’m going to be your fucking troubles alright, if you don’t button your lip, Tommy says to her.

*

Me and Tommy goes to see her husband. It’s not a bookshop he owns but a comic shop. We walk in there and there’s weans talking at the counter so as we immediately goes to the headsdown style and start with the browsing. And that’s when I spot it. Doctor Who’s Tardis in the corner of the room. Like a hypnotist snapped his fingers and I’m eating a raw onion, I immediately go into this flashback only it’s like I’m back in the outdoors toilet and I’m nailed to the floor while it’s taking off into space. I’m holding onto the comic racks to stay on my feet, I’m covered in this cold sweat, I’m seeing this fucking skating rink in the sky, in this fucking frozen mirror, and I put my arms out to my sides and I feel myself taking off, into the air, until I’m on a planet with two moons and the moons have both got a face like Tommy’s, hypnotising me, drawing me toward them, and the moons are calling me, Xamuel, Xamuel, Xamuel of Old, they says, and that’s when I wake up and I’m lying on the floor of this comic shop and Tommy and the guy what runs it are both looking down at me but I can’t tell them apart because they look the exact same.