I polished everything in the house on Sunday mornings before we went to mass. My ma gave me a cloth, usually part of a pair of old pyjamas. I started upstairs in their bedroom. I polished the dressing table and straightened her brushes. I wiped the top of the headrest. There was always loads of dust up there. It always left a mark on the cloth. I wiped as much of the picture of Jesus with his heart showing as I could reach. Jesus had his head tilted sideways, a bit like a kitten. The picture had my ma and da’s names and the date they got married—the twentyfifth of July, nineteen fiftyseven—and the dates of all our birthdays, except my youngest sister that my ma was only after having. The names were written in by Father Moloney. My name was the first; Patrick Joseph. Then my sister that had died; Angela Mary. She was dead before she came out of my ma. Then Sinbad; Francis David. Then my sister; Catherine Angela. There was a place left for my new sister. Her name was Deirdre. I was the oldest; the same name as my da. There was room for six more names. I wiped the stairs, all the way down, including the rails. I cleaned all the ornaments in the drawing room. I never broke anything. There was an old music box; you turned a key at the back and it played a song. There was a picture of sailors at the front. The felt material at the back was wearing away. It was my ma’s. I didn’t do the kitchen.

Aidan and Liam’s auntie, the one that lived in Raheny, she cleaned their house. Sometimes they stayed with her. She had three children but they were much older than Aidan and Liam. Her husband cut the grass for the Corporation. He did the verges on our road twice a year. He had a huge red nose like a sponge with little lumps growing all over it. Liam said it looked even better close up.

–Do you remember your ma? I asked him.

–Yeah.

–What?

He said nothing. He just breathed.

His auntie was nice. She walked from side to side. She said God the cold or God the heat, depending on what the weather was like. When she walked across the kitchen she went Tea tea tea tea tea. When she heard the Angelus at six o’clock she’d go into the television and all the way she’d be saying The News the News the News the News. She had big veins like roots curling up the side and the back of her legs. She made biscuits, huge big slabs; they were gorgeous, even when they were stale.

They had another auntie that wasn’t really their auntie. That was what Kevin told us anyway; he heard his ma and da talking about it. She was Mister O’Connell’s girlfriend, although she wasn’t a girl at all; she’d been a woman for ages. Her name was Margaret and Aidan liked her and Liam didn’t. She always gave them a packet of Clarnico Iced Caramels when she came to the house and she made sure that the white and pink ones were divided evenly between them, even though they tasted the same. She made stew and apple crumble. Liam said she farted once when he was sitting beside her, during The Fugitive.

–Ladies can’t fart.

–They can so.

–No, they can’t; prove it.

–My granny always farts, said Ian McEvoy.

–Old ones can; not young ones.

–Margaret’s old, said Liam.

–Beans beans good for the heart!

The more you eat the more you fart!

She fell asleep once in their house. Liam thought she was falling against him—they were watching the television—but she was only leaning. She snored. Mister O’Connell held her nose and she snorted and stopped.

During the holidays, after Christmas Day, Liam and Aidan went to Raheny to their real auntie’s and we didn’t see them for ages. It was because Margaret had moved into the house with Mister O’Connell. They had an empty bedroom in their house. Their house was the exact same shape as ours; Liam and Aidan had the same bedroom and they’d no sisters so there was one room left over. She was in that one.

–No, she isn’t, said Kevin.

Liam and Aidan’s auntie, the real one, had taken them away. She’d gone to their house in the middle of the night. She had a letter from the Guards saying that she could take them, because Margaret was staying in the house and she shouldn’t have been. That was what we all heard. I made up a bit; she’d put Liam and Aidan into the back of their uncle’s Corporation lorry. It was great hearing that after I’d thought it up. I believed the rest of it though.

Their uncle had given us a go on the back of the lorry once. But he made us get off because we kept standing up and he said it was dangerous and he wasn’t insured if one of us fell off and smacked our heads off the road.

We walked to Raheny. It took a long time because there was no one looking after the E.S.B. pylon depot so we climbed in and had a mess. There were all pyramids of poles in there, for the wires, and a smell of tar. We tried to break the lock of the shed but we couldn’t. We didn’t really want to break it; we were just pretending we did, me and Kevin. We were going to Liam and Aidan’s auntie’s.

We got there. She lived in one of the cottages near the police station.

–Are Liam and Aidan coming out? I asked.

She’d answered the door.

–They’re out already, she said.—So they are. Down at the pond. They’re breaking the ice for the ducks.

We went up to St Anne’s. They weren’t at the pond. They were up in a tree. Liam was way up it, up where the wood was bendy; he was shaking it like mad. Aidan couldn’t get up as far as him.

–Hey! said Kevin.

Liam kept swinging the tree.

–Hey!

Liam stopped.

They didn’t come down. We didn’t go up.

–Why are you living with your auntie and not your da? Kevin said.

They said nothing.

–Why are yeh?

We left, across the gaelic pitch. I turned. I could hardly see them in the tree. They were waiting for us not to be there. I looked for stones. There weren’t any.

–We know why!

I said it as well.

–We know why!

–Brendan Brendan look at me!

I have got a hairy gee!

Mister O’Connell’s name was Brendan.

–Brendan Brendan look at me!

I have got a hairy gee!

–Mind you, I heard my da saying to my ma,—when was the last time we heard him howling at the moon?

Margaret was coming up from the shops. We were waiting, behind Kevin’s hedge. We heard her steps; we could see the colour of her coat, bits of it through the hedge.

–Brendan Brendan look at me!

I have got a hairy gee!

Brendan Brendan look at me!

I have got a hairy gee!

I wanted a drink of water. I didn’t want it from the bathroom. I wanted it from the kitchen. It was dark on the landing after the nightlight in the bedroom. I felt for the stairs.

I was down three steps before I heard them. People were talking, kind of shouting. I stopped. It was cold.

In the kitchen, that was where they were. Burglars. I’d get my da. He was in bed.

But the television was on.

I sat down for a bit. It was cold.

The television was on; that meant my ma and da weren’t in bed. They were still downstairs. It wasn’t burglars in the kitchen.

The kitchen door wasn’t closed; the light from there was cutting across the stairs just below me. I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

–Stop.

I only whispered it.

For a while I thought it was only Da, shouting in the way people did when they were trying not to, but sometimes forgot; a bit like screamed whispers.

My teeth chattered. I let them. I liked it when they did that.

But Ma was shouting as well. I could feel Da’s voice but I could only hear hers. They were having another of their fights.

–What about you!?

She said that, the only thing I could hear properly.

I did it again.

–Stop.

There was a gap. It had worked; I’d forced them to stop. Da came out and went in to the television. I knew the weight of his steps and the time between them, then I saw him.