Read Online The Young Wan by Brendan O'Carroll - Free Book Online

right stood a four-ring gas cooker and oven. Beside this was a large Belfast sink precariously hanging on two brackets sticking from the wall. Over the sink was one brass pipe, which when Constance turned the faucet began to groan, bang, and then spurt ice-cold water. She looked at Bosco with a raised eyebrow.
     
    “Needs a bit of work,” he said.
     
    Constance turned one of the brass fittings on the cooker. The putt putt and smell told her it was working. She moved to the window, undid the sash lock, and tried to raise the window open. It didn’t move. From behind her Bosco mumbled. “Needs a bit of work too.”
     
    Constance wet her finger and ran it across the windowpane, leaving a clear streak on the glass.
     
    “Who lived here before?” Constance asked.
     
    “The Widow Clancy,” Bosco answered.
     
    “She could have at least cleaned the window,” Constance moaned.
     
    “She lived here on her own with five children, she hadn’t time to look out the window, never mind clean it,” Bosco answered with a disapproving edge to his voice.
     
    “Sorry,” Constance said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”
     
    Bosco waved his hand before Constance could finish. “No, Connie, I’m sorry. I’ve been just waiting for you to complain. You’re right, it wouldn’t have taken much to clean the fuckin’ window. Look, as I said, it’s not a palace.” He held his arms out by his sides and tilted his head.
     
    “No, it’s not, and it probably never will be, but we can do our best to make it into a home,” Constance said. They smiled at each other.
     
    “The Penthouse.” Bosco laughed. Constance joined in, gently at first, then loudly, then hysterically, until tears ran down her face. She put her arms around Bosco and they rocked back and forth, laughing with tears streaming down their faces.
     
    Over the following six weeks, Constance would leave the iron foundry and go straight to 4C to work on the flat. Bosco would join her there when he was finished work, and they would work shoulder to shoulder to prepare their nest. Constance scrubbed and scraped, painted and polished. Bosco hammered and sawed and heaved and planed. Until, on October 11, 1933, just two weeks before they were to be married, Bosco and some of his friends carried the iron bedstead and mattress up the forty-one steps. They assembled the frame and placed it into the largest of the two bedrooms. With this done, the two surveyed their home. In the living room the wooden floors had been sanded and polished; over them was laid a square remnant of carpet that served as a rug. The ceiling, now with three coats of white paint, gleamed back the light from the 150-watt bulb Constance had acquired from the stores of the iron foundry. The walls were painted buttercup yellow and the dado rail white. The sink now had a cupboard built around it and a scullery cabinet beside it. The copper pipe and faucet were polished within an inch of their lives and gleamed gold over the sink.
     

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    The wedding bells clanged loudly across the parish for Bosco and Constance’s wedding day. The bell-ringer, a young man named Michael O’Malley, was swinging from the bell rope with great enthusiasm. Like many of the young boys in the Jarro, Michael came from a republican family, and to him Bosco was a hero, a living legend. When he had rung out the call to sacrament, Michael hightailed it down to the vestry to dress for serving the Mass. Michael had become an altar boy at just four years of age. Now, at eight, Michael, although younger than most of the boys, was in charge of the altar boys in St. Jarlath’s. This was one wedding he wanted to serve at the altar for himself. This was the importance attached to the wedding by the locals who knew and adored Bosco Reddin.
     
    It was the most one-sided wedding ever held in St. Jarlath’s Church. On the groom’s side there was not a seat to be had. On the bride’s side sat just four people.