I can’t even remember what he looked like. I can’t even remember my grandfather’s body lying there in his coffin at all. All I can remember, and it’s clear as a dream, is me and Peter, standing there, holding hands with my da in this grey room, next to a coffin, and him smiling and saying to us, go on, don’t be scared. There’s worse things to take to your grave, I’ll tell you that.

*

So Tommy goes ahead and subscribes to the Reader’s Digest, which he can’t even fucking read, which tells you all you need to know about Tommy right there. He would sit in the shop with his feet up on the desk, and he would flick through the pages and make an act like he was reading. I mean, what he was taking in, god only knows, but he was taking in something, because he would bring all these strange and alluring facts up to me and Barney and he would use them to lord it over us. We’d be sitting there reading our comics. This is what we should be reading, he says to us, and he comes over and smacks me round the head with a Digest. It fucking hurt, they were compact wee bastards. We should be educating ourselves, he says to us. Reading up about the world. They’re talking about hypnotism in here, Tommy says to us. The Boys should be making full use of this. They do alreadies, Barney says. What do you think the suits and the gold rings are for? Don’t fucking cheek me, Tommy says to him, I’m talking about autosuggestions. Don’t you know the Reader’s Digest is funded by the CIA? I says to him. Even better, he says. We’re learning from the pros. Naw, Barney says, all that means is that the fucking FBI or the CIA or whatever this mob is just put the idea of autosuccession into your head. You could see Tommy was thinking about that one.

Then the wee kid shops up, the wee midget Picatsto, and he’s drawn a comic strip of us. Did you ever see that cartoon Beavis & Butt-Head? That wasn’t out at the time but that’s the only thing that comes to mind when I try to remember what he looked like, this guy what looked like Beavis from your Beavis & Butt-Head. So Beavis goes up to Barney – Barney’s his mentor and his main collector at this point – and he hands him the strip. He’s drawn the three of us as superheroes and the title of it is The Forever Family. That was the name of our superhero group. Alright, so try and guess what our superpowers were. Try and guess.

Naw, no invisibility. That was a pity. That was me and my partner in real life, The Invisible Kathy M.