The record player was a red box. He’d carried it home from work one day. You could pile six records in it, over the turntable. We only had three; The Black and White Minstrels, South Pacific and Hank Williams The King of Country Music. When he brought the record player home we only had one, South Pacific. He played it all Friday night and all the weekend. He tried to make me learn I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair but my ma stopped him. She said if I ever sang that in school or outside they’d have to sell the house and move somewhere else.

It played 33s and 45s and 78s. 33s were L.P.s like the three we had. Kevin smuggled his brother’s record, I’m A Believer by The Monkees, out of his house. It was a 45. But my da wouldn’t let us play it. He said there was a scratch on it; he didn’t even look at it. He wasn’t even using the record player. It was his. It was in the same room as the television. When he was playing it the television stayed off. He once put on the Black and White Minstrels at the same time they were on the television and he turned the television sound down but it didn’t work. The singer’s mouth, the black fella that sang the serious songs, was opening and shutting when the record was over and the needle was about to go up, but it didn’t. It kept going over the scratch. Da had to lift it.

–Were you messing with this? he said to me.

–No.

–You then; were you?

–No, said Sinbad.

–Somebody was, he said.

–They didn’t touch it, said my ma.

My face burned when I was waiting for something else to happen, for him to say something back to her.

Once, he put on Hank Williams during The News. It was brilliant; it was like Charles Mitchell was singing NOW YOU’RE LOOKING AT A MAN THAT’S GETTING KIND O’ MAD, I’VE HAD A LOT O’ LUCK BUT IT’S ALL BEEN BAD. We all roared. Me and Sinbad were let stay up half an hour later.

When we got the car, a Cortina like Henno’s, a black one, Da drove it up and down the road, learning how to drive it, teaching himself. He wouldn’t let us into it.

–Not yet, he said.

He went up to the seafront. We followed him; we could keep up with him. He couldn’t turn it to go back down to the house. He saw us looking and called us over. I thought he was going to kill us. There were seven of us. We all baled in the back and we reversed all the way back to the house. Da sang the Batman music; he was mad sometimes, brilliant mad. Aidan had a bleeding nose when we got out. He was whinging. Da got down on his knees and held Aidan’s shoulders. He wiped his nose with his hankie and got him to blow into it, and told him he’d have great crack picking the dried blood out of his nose when he went to bed later and Aidan started laughing.

They all went down to the field behind the shops to find the big boys’ hut and wreck it but I didn’t go; I wanted to stay with Da. I sat beside him up and down the road. We went to Raheny. When he was turning he went right over the road and brushed the ditch.

–Stupid place to put a ditch, he said.

A fella honked at him.

–Bloody eejit, said my da, and he honked back when the fella was gone.

We came back to Barrytown along the main road and Da put the foot down. We rolled down our windows. I stuck my elbow out but he wouldn’t let me. He parked outside on the verge two gates down from our house.

–That’ll do us, he said.

Sinbad was in the back.

We went on a picnic the next day. It was raining but we went anyway; me and Sinbad in the back, my ma beside my da with Catherine on her knee. Deirdre wasn’t born yet then. My ma’s belly was all round, filling up with her. We went to Dollymount.

–Why not the mountains? I wanted to know.

–Stay quiet, Patrick, said my ma.

Da was getting ready to go from Barrytown Road onto the main road. We could have walked to Dollymount. We could see the island from where we were in the car. Da made it across and right. The Cortina jerked a bit and made a noise like when you pressed your lips together and blew. And something scraped when we went right in to the kerb.

–What’s that sound from?

–Shhh, said Ma.

She wasn’t enjoying herself; I could tell. She needed a decent day out.

–There’s the mountains, I said.

I got between her seat and his seat and pointed out the mountains to them, across the bay, not that far.

–Look.

–Sit down!

Sinbad was on the floor.

–There’s forests there.

–Stay quiet, Patrick.

–Sit down, you bloody eejit.

Dollymount was only a mile away. Maybe a bit more, but not much. You had to cross over to the island on a wooden bridge; the rest was boring.

–The toilet, said Sinbad.

–Jesus Christ!

–Pat, my ma said to my da.

–If we go to the mountains, I said,—he can go behind one of the trees.

–I’ll swing you from one of the trees if you don’t sit down out of my light!

–Your father’s nervous—

–I’m not!

He was.

–I just want a bit of peace.

–The mountains are very peaceful.

Sinbad said that. The two of them laughed, Ma and Da in the front, especially Da.

We got there, Dollymount, but he had to drive past the bridge twice before he could slow down enough to turn onto it and not miss it and drive through the sea wall. It was still raining. He parked the car facing the sea. The tide was way out so we couldn’t see it. Anyway, with the engine off the wipers weren’t working. The best thing about it was the noise of the rain on the roof. Ma had an idea; we could go home and have the picnic there.

–No, said Da.

He held the wheel.

–We’re here now, he said,—so—

He tapped the wheel.

Ma got the straw bag up from between her feet and dished out the picnic.

–Don’t get crumbs and muck all over the place, Da said.

He was talking to me and Sinbad.

We had to eat the sandwiches; there was no place to hide them. They were nice; egg. They’d gone real flat; there were no holes left in the bread. We had a can of Fanta between us, me and Sinbad. Ma wouldn’t let us open it. She had the opener. She hooked it under the rim of the can and pressed once for the triangular hole for drinking out of and again, for the hole on the other side for the air to go into. After a few slugs each I could feel little bits of food in the Fanta; I could feel them when I was swallowing. The Fanta was warm.

Ma and Da said nothing. They had a flask with tea in it. There was the cup off the top of the flask and a real cup that Ma had wrapped in toilet paper. She held out the cups for Da to hold so she could pour but he didn’t take them off her. He was looking straight in front of him at the rain milling down the windscreen. She didn’t say anything. She put one cup down and filled it, over Catherine’s head. She held it out; Da took it. It was the big cup, the one off the flask. He sipped it, then he said Thanks, like he didn’t mean it.

–Can we get out?

–No.

–Why not?

–No.

–It’s too wet, said Ma.—You’d catch your death out in that.

Sinbad put his hand under his arm and slammed his arm shut. It made a fart noise. Margaret, Mister O’Connell’s girlfriend, had taught us how to do it. Sinbad did it again.

–Once more—, said Da.

He didn’t turn around.

–See what happens.

Sinbad put his hand under his arm again. I held his arm up so he couldn’t slam it; I’d get the blame. He smiled at me trying to stop him. He never used to smile at all. Even when Da was taking photographs of us, Sinbad wouldn’t smile. We had to stand side by side in front of our ma—it was always the same—and Da would walk away and turn around and look at us through the camera—it was one of those box ones; my ma bought it with her first wages before she got married, before she met my da—and he’d tell us to move a bit and then he’d take ages looking down into the camera and then up at us, and then he’d notice that Sinbad wasn’t smiling.