‘To your fairy stories?’

‘Your mother has me destroyed with her tongue. She’s a bitter woman.’

‘Oh,’ said Joe.

He took the teapot down from the shelf and poured some hot water into it.

‘I was, after all, for a short moment of my life, a hero. That is something. Something, hey, son? Isn’t that better than a kick up the backside? Son?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘Make it good and strong. I need it strong.’

Joe emptied the water back into the kettle and put three spoonfuls of tea into the pot.

‘Once a hero always a hero. True? Would you say that was true?’

The boy poured the boiling water into the teapot and put the lid on. He shook his head.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Well, you can take it from me it’s not true. Not true. There’s not a bloody sod in this city would take off his hat to me in the street. Or even pass the time of day. Here, give me that tea.’

‘It’s not drawn yet.’

‘No matter. I want to be away before she comes in.’

He watched while Joe put milk in a mug and then shook the teapot for a moment to mix the leaves round a bit.

‘I could die in the night.’

When you go to the heavenly land

I’ll hang out the flags and order the band.

The tea spurted out of the spout, colouring the milk and freckling it with a thousand tiny black grains.

‘So I could. Die.’

He looked gloomily into the mug, regretting his haste.

‘And not a moment too soon.’

He stirred in three large spoons of sugar to give it some taste.

‘I should have died then, instead of being mutilated, body and soul. Aye, soul too. I have wasted away my life since.’

The drums will beat,

The bells will ring,

Hail another hero,

The angels will sing.

And I will clap my hands and cheer

Because you are no longer …

The hand that lifted the cup was trembling so that the tea lurched over the side of the cup and trickled over the fingers down on to the table. With a sudden gesture of rage the man threw the cup on to the floor.

‘I can’t drink that muck.’

The cup broke neatly into three pieces and the tea spread over the linoleum in thin curves, leaving a pile of leaves and unmelted sugar under the white china segments.

He got slowly to his feet, hands pushing against the edge of the table, feet scraping on the floor.

‘Oh God.’

His body had become a dead weight which he dragged across the room and down the passage to the door. Joe stooped down and picked up the broken pieces of china. The sound of the dragging steps, the heavy breath filled his throat and chest with hate.

He was in the scullery wringing out the cloth with which he had wiped the floor when he heard his mother come into the house. The wind rattled the back door. In Mrs O’Toole’s yard something was loose and banging gently against the roof of the hen house. He poked the tea leaves down the sink with a finger. She’d eat him for that, if the drain got blocked. He could see her in his mind shaking the drops of rain off her coat and then raising herself on her toes to hang it on the hook by the door. It was her shopping night and she would have plastic bags that would have pained her arms as she carried them up the hill.