‘Tomorrow’s Saturday …’

‘Whisht, child. Away and do what you’re told.’

He went slowly up the stairs, one heavy foot dragging after the other. No one spoke. It was cold in his room and there was nothing to do but get into bed. He didn’t feel like studying, so he lay in the dark, his school bag untouched on the floor beside him, and the voices reached up to him, full of anger and misunderstanding. He lay with his arms folded back under his head and stared at the shimmering light from the street as it coloured parts of his room. After the voices grew into an explosion of words, the door slammed. He could hear the men’s feet climbing the steep street. He could hear his mother crying. He put his hands over his ears and turned his face into his pillow. ‘Oh God,’ he prayed. ‘Don’t let me grow up.’

He was awakened by Brendan coming into the room. Even though he had taken off his shoes the soft shuffle of his socks on the lino crept into Joe’s head. He turned over and opened his eyes. Outside, the sky was red. The room was filled with the smell of smoke. He shut his eyes again quickly and listened as his brother took off his clothes and creaked into the big bed. The fire sirens were sounding.

‘Joe.’ It was a whisper.

The father was banging round in his room. The muttering of his voice could be heard through the wall.

‘Joe.’

‘Mmm?’

‘Who was the bird?’

‘Bird?’

Joe opened his eyes and looked at the light flickering on the ceiling.

‘What’s burning?’

‘The one you were with this afternoon. Who?’

‘A teacher.’

God’s holy truth.

‘Yes, but, has she a fellow?’

Orange and black shapes twisted for a moment like dancers.

‘A fellow?’

‘Don’t be bloody thick.’

‘How would I know a thing like that?’ He kept it to himself that she wore a ring, touched it from time to time with a gentle finger. ‘I hardly know her anyway.’

‘Oh.’

An army truck roared past the top of the road. A child cried for a moment next door. The ambulance clanged in the distance. Father coughed. Night music.

‘Does she have a name?’

Why don’t you leave it alone? She’s my private life, my friend, my person.

‘Doherty.’

‘Miss Doherty?’

‘Miss.’

That was all. He shut his eyes so tight the millions of dots whirled in his head and he fell asleep to the sound of the night music. Oh please God, oh God, oh blessed Mother of God don’t let it rain tomorrow. Oh Kathleen … oh … friend … oh …

Mam never worked on Saturday, well, she didn’t go out to work, to be more exact. It was the day she cleaned the house down from top to bottom, and boiled the towels and the dish cloths. Pans bubbled and steamed all morning on the stove, and she humped bucket after bucket of hot water up and down the stairs. The house was filled with the sound of her scrubbing brush working over the floors and banging against the walls, and also with the smell of soapy steam. By the end of the day her hands and the lower parts of her arms were red, and wrinkled like the nuts you see in the shops round Hallowe’en. She stripped the beds, and the pillow-cases and sheets were thrown into one of the bubbling buckets, and stirred and banged with a long wooden spoon, until they finally flapped wearily from the line in the back yard. Joe was glad to be leaving the house. Saturday was never a happy day. His mother’s exertions, the draining of colour from her face as the day went on, the tight clamp of her hair on her forehead, the heavy burden her body seemed to become, made him uneasy. He always tried to keep out of her way, but she always wanted to know where he was going, who he was with, every moment of his time had to be accounted for.