Fuck.

Ernie’s book had come in handy. I’d ploughed through it: sitting waiting for minimum chips. Don: Whatcher reading?

The Communist Manifesto.

Loada rubbish.

How’s that? As I turned to the appropriate page and read about the proles rising against their capitalist oppressors. As Don scratched his arse, wiped his hands on his apron and shook my chips. Capital. You need capital, I explained. Then you can invest in a chain of fish shops and employ other people to work in them, and manage them, and you can retire.

I’d read Marx on the toilet, in the car, waiting for Mum at the shops, during lunch (as Curtis made Twistie rolls), at home (as we watched That’s Incredible), forcing myself through the word sludge in search of meaning. In the same way I’d searched the Fantastic Four, Beatles’ lyrics, bird books, bus timetables, anything that might explain how the world worked. Manuals, newspapers, textbooks, IQ percentile rankings, The Guinness Book of Records, encyclopedias (V—Z, the leftover world from the alphabet of things). Maybe, when all of this brewed, stewed and boiled, there’d be a picture of the world that made sense.

I’d even read it to Ernie, when I took it (heavily annotated) to ask questions. ‘So Marx is saying there have always been class divisions, and always will be?’

‘No, not always. He was saying it’s how we let people walk over us. We need to organise. That’s what you should say in your essay.’

On the wall, a black-and-white photo of a 1969 Conference of Union Leaders: beer bellies and sideburns lined up in anticipation of a lost Russia.

‘Can I hold on to this a bit longer? It’s helpful with my essay.’

‘You can keep it. But the thing is, are these ideas living, or dead?’

‘Ernie!’ Ida, at the door. ‘He’s not interested.’

‘Yes, you are, eh, Clem?’

‘Yes, Mrs Sharpe. See.’ Showing her my underlinings.

She just shook her head. ‘Well, you got your disciple at last.’

Now I had something resembling an essay. I wondered if it was any good. There was only one way to tell. The Donnellan brothers were the best Lanark Avenue could muster. Two degrees, twelve years of university, cast in the weeds of number 33. Doctors of letters waiting for a right to wrong, a chance to show Val she hadn’t wasted a lot of time, money and faith. I went next door and found David in his spot. Showed him the essay and said, ‘Don’t know if this is any good.’

He read a few lines, and seemed interested. ‘History?’

‘Modern European. Just wanna know what I should add.’

His eyes followed the lines, but then dropped into the grass, through the plum foliage, down the street towards a man painting the Polish hall. Like he could, but couldn’t; knew, but didn’t have the energy or willpower. This, I supposed, was the worst thing of all. To know you no longer wanted to be, to fix, to raise and re-lower and bolt in; to realise the thing that used to churn in your belly had been shat into a garden of caltrop and soursobs. ‘What do you think?’