We ought to have known better. Father noticed that the dog had changed. He no longer barked at us from fear. He barked because seeing us made him happy. 102

One more friday and father was expected. He used to travel with a mate from work. We heard the car door slam.

Bror who was much less tense during father’s weekly absences instinctively put his hands to his ears. Lines of anguish appeared in his face.

No one knew how the weekend would be. Only that one way or another it would be bad.

We went downstairs. Newly arrived he was. He was greeted like a saviour.

He carried out his rituals. Unpacked spirits and beer from green and white plastic bags.

Laddie he said. You take the beers down into the coolcellar apart from two that you put in the freezer. Obedient bror. There were no other kinds of brothers. Up went the trapdoor to the coldhole and each time he carried as many cans as he could hold without falling off the vertical ladder.

Five were left. He hugged them tenderly as if they were glass. His arms hardly reach around them.

Just as he put his foot on the top rung of the ladder a can slipped from his grip and rolled fizzing across the floor.

I ran along with a dishcloth. Passed father who just stood there looking on with his arms crossed on his chest. Satisfaction twitched in the corner of his mouth. As bror went to the workbench to throw the burst can in the rubbish bin father grabbed his neck. Hold it he said no one just dashes about here. What do you say.

Sorry bror said quietly.

Bror’s neck was as slender as a bicycletube. A thumbgrip would have been enough but father’s hand closed around it as he propelled bror brusquely towards the hall.

I followed tried to protest. Tried to get inbetween them. 103

He pushed me away.

It usually didn’t begin so early. Only later once father had boozed his fill from the weekend partybags and was looking to have a good time.

Snatching for air. Childhands could not ever wrench away a fatherhand. As smartly as a club bouncer he opened the door and threw bror down on the ground.

He barely moved. Squeezed his eyes shut not to see not to hear. I touched him he lay still. Father followed. Up you get laddie he roared but laddie lay where he was. A new grip round bror’s neck and he was hauled across the yard to the dog kennel. He hung limply from the man’s hand like sauchweed.