Read Online A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Roddy Doyle
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the back of his cart. He tilted the ladle again and let more milk fall onto the milk already in the jug.
—And a drop more for the cat.
He handed the jug down to a woman and the jug and milk went under her shawl. He led the horse to the next door where the house’s women were waiting for their milk. Already, there was sex. I watched all the women. I followed them, I rubbed against them. I breathed them in and waited for them to arrive. I fell in love fifteen times a minute. I followed them to their doors. I heard their noise and bustle; I heard them crying. A woman crying - and there were plenty - made me furious and thrilled. You need meeee . Pick me up; I’ll take your tears. And I went weak when they were together, laughing or complaining or fighting; I needed the railings to keep me standing. Women together. The sounds they made, the way they walked, the shawls that wrapped and hid them. Oh God, those shawls. I wanted to climb in under and die for the rest of my life. I saw them looking at men. I watched their eyes following as they tightened their shawls and stood still. I wanted to feel their eyes. I wanted to get up to their eyes. I sat down on the street and ached.
I stayed out until I was falling, and when I got back to No. 7 my mother was on the steps. I’d climb into her lap and stare into faces angry like mine. I’d spit and I’d gouge. I’d fight for the lap, for my rightful place under her shawl. We’d stay out there till Daddy’s tap tap set us howling. And often, always, it was the wrong tap tap, the tap tap of another leg. Some old veteran of some old war staggering home after a night of boasting and bawling. Dublin was suddenly full of one-legged men, their limbs left behind on the Empire’s battlefields or under the screeching levers and wheels that powered Dublin’s feeble industry. And they all walked past our door. I knew my father’s tap from theirs, the distance between his taps, their power and majesty, but the sound of any wood on the footpath or cobbles filled me with cruel hope.
We moved to another house. I was put into the cart with Alexander, Susie, another new baby and Granny Nash. We were there to give it weight, to stop the straw from escaping out of the mattress. We were moving from Summerhill, to somewhere nearer the river. My mother pushed the cart and Granny Nash navigated as she turned the pages of Rousseau’s Confessions . I clutched my father’s leg, the one he’d worn to the butt the night I’d been born. I was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to find us. I spat on the ground at every corner and hoped that he would come looking before it rained and washed my marks away. Granny Nash lifted her bony hand, pointed right and we turned off Summerhill. My mother had to hold on tight to the cart as we sailed down towards the Liffey, down into a lightless hollow where the fogs met and fucked.
Into a smaller, darker room. The walls were wet. The smell of earth and death came up through the floorboards. The window was a hole that offered nothing.
Home.
But we were back in the cart and on to Standfast Lane, a short stump of a street, a place made for lurking or dashing through, too narrow for carts, too poor for trade; even daylight stayed away. Into another crumbling house, down steps this time instead of up, down to a basement. The smell was waiting for us, daring us to keep going. My mother was behind me, wheezing, trying to manage her cough. I heard water settling and the house above us groaning like a ship fighting a rope, objecting to our presence.
Home.
My father must have found us because another baby arrived, after two funerals. Two Victors. They stayed only for a day or two - I saw neither of them - then went up to the stars, and hung on either side of twinkling Henry. My mother swayed as she tried to pick them.
—There. See?
She held our hair and made us look.
And the new baby was called Victor too. No objection from my mother. No sobbing or hiding behind
—And a drop more for the cat.
He handed the jug down to a woman and the jug and milk went under her shawl. He led the horse to the next door where the house’s women were waiting for their milk. Already, there was sex. I watched all the women. I followed them, I rubbed against them. I breathed them in and waited for them to arrive. I fell in love fifteen times a minute. I followed them to their doors. I heard their noise and bustle; I heard them crying. A woman crying - and there were plenty - made me furious and thrilled. You need meeee . Pick me up; I’ll take your tears. And I went weak when they were together, laughing or complaining or fighting; I needed the railings to keep me standing. Women together. The sounds they made, the way they walked, the shawls that wrapped and hid them. Oh God, those shawls. I wanted to climb in under and die for the rest of my life. I saw them looking at men. I watched their eyes following as they tightened their shawls and stood still. I wanted to feel their eyes. I wanted to get up to their eyes. I sat down on the street and ached.
I stayed out until I was falling, and when I got back to No. 7 my mother was on the steps. I’d climb into her lap and stare into faces angry like mine. I’d spit and I’d gouge. I’d fight for the lap, for my rightful place under her shawl. We’d stay out there till Daddy’s tap tap set us howling. And often, always, it was the wrong tap tap, the tap tap of another leg. Some old veteran of some old war staggering home after a night of boasting and bawling. Dublin was suddenly full of one-legged men, their limbs left behind on the Empire’s battlefields or under the screeching levers and wheels that powered Dublin’s feeble industry. And they all walked past our door. I knew my father’s tap from theirs, the distance between his taps, their power and majesty, but the sound of any wood on the footpath or cobbles filled me with cruel hope.
We moved to another house. I was put into the cart with Alexander, Susie, another new baby and Granny Nash. We were there to give it weight, to stop the straw from escaping out of the mattress. We were moving from Summerhill, to somewhere nearer the river. My mother pushed the cart and Granny Nash navigated as she turned the pages of Rousseau’s Confessions . I clutched my father’s leg, the one he’d worn to the butt the night I’d been born. I was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to find us. I spat on the ground at every corner and hoped that he would come looking before it rained and washed my marks away. Granny Nash lifted her bony hand, pointed right and we turned off Summerhill. My mother had to hold on tight to the cart as we sailed down towards the Liffey, down into a lightless hollow where the fogs met and fucked.
Into a smaller, darker room. The walls were wet. The smell of earth and death came up through the floorboards. The window was a hole that offered nothing.
Home.
But we were back in the cart and on to Standfast Lane, a short stump of a street, a place made for lurking or dashing through, too narrow for carts, too poor for trade; even daylight stayed away. Into another crumbling house, down steps this time instead of up, down to a basement. The smell was waiting for us, daring us to keep going. My mother was behind me, wheezing, trying to manage her cough. I heard water settling and the house above us groaning like a ship fighting a rope, objecting to our presence.
Home.
My father must have found us because another baby arrived, after two funerals. Two Victors. They stayed only for a day or two - I saw neither of them - then went up to the stars, and hung on either side of twinkling Henry. My mother swayed as she tried to pick them.
—There. See?
She held our hair and made us look.
And the new baby was called Victor too. No objection from my mother. No sobbing or hiding behind
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