There was something else I’d just found out. There was an Introduction on page eleven, beside the page with the George Best photograph. I read it, and then the last bit, the last paragraph, again.
—When I was first shown the manuscript of this book, I was especially pleased to see how the records and statistics had been integrated with the general narrative -
I didn’t really know what that meant but it didn’t matter.
—The book certainly represents the happiest marriage of education and entertainment I can ever recall. You will enjoy it.
And under all that was George Best’s autograph.
George Best had signed my book.
My da hadn’t said anything about the autograph. He’d just given it to me and said Happy Birthday and kissed me. He’d left me to find it for myself.
George Best.
Not Georgie. I never called him Georgie. I hated it when I heard people calling him Georgie.
George Best.
His jersey was outside his nicks in the photograph. The other two had theirs tucked in. No one I knew tucked theirs in, even the ones that said that George Best was useless; they all wore their jerseys outside.
I brought the book in to my da to let him know I’d found the autograph and it was brilliant, easily the best thing I’d ever got for a present. It was called A Pictorial History of Soccer. It was huge, much fatter than an annual, real heavy. It was a grown-up’s sort of book. There were pictures, but loads of writing too; small writing. I was going to read all of it.
—I found it, I told him.
My finger was in the book, where George Best’s autograph was.
My da was sitting in his chair.
—Did you? he said.—Good man. What?
—What?
—What did you find?
—The autograph, I told him.
He was messing.
—Let’s see it, he said.
I put the book and opened it on his knees.
—There.
My da rubbed his finger across the autograph.
George Best had great handwriting. It slanted to the right; it was long and the holes were narrow. There was a dead-straight line under the name, joining the G and the B, all the way to the T at the end and a bit further. It finished with a swerve, like a diagram of a shot going past a wall.
—Was he in the shop? I asked my da.
—Who?
—George Best, I said.
Worry began a ball in my stomach but he answered too quickly for it to grow.
—Yes, he said.
—Was he?
—Yes.
—Was he; really?
—I said he was, didn’t I?
That was all I needed, for certain. He didn’t get annoyed when he said it, just calm like he’d said everything else, looking right at me.
—What was he like?
I wasn’t trying to catch him out. He knew that.
—Exactly like you’d expect, he said.
—In his gear?
That was exactly what I’d have expected. I didn’t know how else George Best would have dressed. I’d seen a colour picture of him once in a green Northern Ireland jersey, not his usual red one, and it had shocked me.
—No, said Da.—He——, a tracksuit.
—What did he say?
—Just -
—Why didn’t you ask him to put my name on it?
I pointed to George Best’s name.
—As well.
—He was very busy, said my da.
—Was there a huge queue?
—A huge one.
That was good; that was right and proper.
—Was he in the shop just for the day only? I asked.
—That’s right, said my da.—He had to go back to Manchester.
—For training, I told him.
—That’s right.
A year after that I knew that it wasn’t George Best’s real autograph at all; it was only printing and my da was a liar.
The front room was not for going into. It was the drawing room. Nobody else had a drawing room although all the houses were the same, all the houses before the Corporation ones. Our drawing room was Kevin’s ma’s and da’s living room, and Ian McEvoy’s television room. Ours was the drawing room because my ma said it was.
—What does it mean? I asked her.
I’d known it was the drawing room since I could remember but today the name seemed funny for the first time. We were outside. Whenever there was even a bit of blue in the sky my ma opened the back door and brought the whole house out. She thought about the answer but with a nice look on her face. The babies were asleep. Sinbad was putting grass in a jar.
—The good room, she said.
—Does Drawing mean Good?
—Yes, she said. -Only when you put it with Room.
That was fair enough; I understood.
—Why don’t we call it just the good room? I asked.
—People prob’ly think we draw in it, or paint pictures.
—No, they don’t.
—They might, I said.
I wasn’t just saying it for the sake of saying it, like I said some things.
—Especially if they’re stupid, I said.
—They’d want to be very stupid.
—There’s lots of stupid people, I told her.—There’s a whole class of them in our school.
—Stop that, she said.
—A class in every year, I said.
—That’s not nice, she said.—Stop it.
—Why not just the good room? I said.
—It doesn’t sound right, she said.
That made no sense: it sounded exactly right. We were never allowed into that room so it would stay good.
—Why doesn’t it? I asked.
—It sounds cheap, she said.
She started smiling.
—It——I don’t know - Drawing room is a nicer name than good room. It sounds nicer. Unusual.
—Are unusual names nice?
-Yes.
—Then why am I called Patrick?
She laughed but only for a little bit. She smiled at me, I think to make sure that I knew she wasn’t laughing at me.
—Because your daddy’s called Patrick, she said.
I liked that, being called after my da.
—There are five Patricks in our class, I said.
—Is that right?
—Patrick Clarke. That’s me. Patrick O’Neill. Patrick Redmond. Patrick Genocci. Patrick Flynn.
—That’s a lot, she said.—It’s a nice name. Very dignified.
—Three of them are called Paddy, I told her. -One Pat and one Patrick.
—Is that right? she said.—Which are you?
I stopped for a minute.
—Paddy, I said.
She didn’t mind. I was Patrick at home.
—Which one’s Patrick? she asked.
—Patrick Genocci.
—His grandad’s from Italy, she said.
—I know, I said.—But he’s never gone there, Patrick Genocci.
—He will sometime.
—When he’s big, I said.—I’m going to Africa.
—Are you? Why?
—I just am, I said.—I have my reasons.
—To convert the black babies?
—No.
I didn’t care about the black babies; I was supposed to feel sorry for them, because they were pagans and because they were hungry, but I didn’t care. They frightened me, the idea of them, all of them, millions of them, with stick-out bellies and grown-up eyes.
—Why then? she asked.
—To see the animals, I said.
—That’ll be nice, she said.
—Not to stay, I said.
She wasn’t to give my bed away.
—What animals? she said.
—All of them.
-Especially.
—Zebras and monkeys.
—Would you like to be a vet?
—No.
—Why not?
—There’s no zebras and monkeys in Ireland.
—Why do you like zebras?
—I just do.
—They’re nice.
—Yeah.
—We’ll go to the zoo again; would you like that?
—No.
Phoenix Park was brilliant - the Hollow and the deers; I wanted to go back there again. The bus, where you could see over the wall into the park when you were upstairs. We went there on my Holy Communion after we were finished with my aunties and uncles; on buses all morning, before my da got his car. But not the zoo, I didn’t want to go there.
—Why not? said my ma.
—The smell, I said.
It wasn’t just the smell. It was more than the smell; it was what the smell had meant, the smell of the animals and the fur on the wire. I’d liked it then, the animals. Pets’ Corner—the rabbits—the shop; I’d loads of money—they’d made me buy sweets for Sinbad, Refreshers. But I remembered the smell and I couldn’t remember the animals much. Wallabies, little kangaroos that didn’t hop. Monkeys’ fingers gripping the wire.
I was going to explain it to my ma, I wanted to; I was going to try. She remembered the smell; I could tell by her smile and the way she stopped it from getting too big because I hadn’t said it for a joke. I was going to tell her.
Then Sinbad came over and ruined it.
1What are fish-fingers made of?
-Fish.
—What kind of fish?
—All kinds.
—Cod, said my ma.—White fish.
—Why do they—
—No more questions till you’re finished.
That was my da.
—Everything on the plate, he said.—Then you can ask your questions.
There were twenty-seven dogs in Barrytown, our part, and fifteen of them had had their tails docked.
—Docked off.
—There’s no Off. Docked, by itself.
They got their tails docked to stop them from falling over. When they wagged their tails they couldn’t balance properly and they fell over, so they had to have most of their tails cut off.
-Only when they’re pups.
—Yeah.
They only fell over when they were pups.
—Why don’t they wait? said Sinbad.
—Thick, I said, though I didn’t know what he meant.
—Who? Liam said to Sinbad.
—The vet, said Sinbad.
—For what?
—They only fall over when they’re puppies, said Sinbad.
—Why do they cut their tails just for that? They’re only puppies for a little while.
—Puppies, I said.—Listen to him. They’re pups, right.
He made sense though. None of us knew why. Liam shrugged.
—They just do.
—It must be good for them. Vets are like doctors.
The McEvoys had a Jack Russell. His name was Benson.
—That’s a thick name for a dog.
Ian McEvoy said it was his but it was really his ma’s. Benson was older than Ian McEvoy.
—They don’t dock the ones with long legs, I said.
Benson hardly had any legs. His belly touched the grass. It was easy to catch him. The only problem was having to wait till Missis McEvoy had gone to the shops.
—She likes him, Ian McEvoy told us.—She prefers him to me.
He was stronger than he looked. I could feel his muscles trying to get away. We only wanted to have a look at his tail. I held his back half. He tried to get his mouth back to my hand.
Kevin kicked him.
—Watch it.
Ian McEvoy was worried; if his ma caught us. So worried, he pushed Kevin away.
Kevin let him get away with it.
All we wanted to do was look at his tail, that was all. It was sticking up in the air. It was the healthiest-looking part of Benson. Dogs were supposed to wag their tails when they were happy but Benson definitely wasn’t happy and his tail was wagging like mad.
My da wouldn’t let us have a dog. He had his reasons, he said. My ma agreed with him.
Kevin held Benson where I’d been holding him and I grabbed his tail to stop it. The tail was a bone, a hairy bone, no fleshiness at all. I closed my fist and the tail wasn’t there. We laughed. Benson yelped, like he was joining in. I fisted just my top two fingers so we could see the top of his tail. I made sure that my free fingers didn’t touch his bum. It was hard for them not to, the way I was holding him, but I made sure that they didn’t rub across his hole.
Ma always sent us to wash our hands before our dinner. Only before our dinner, never before our breakfast or our tea. I sometimes didn’t bother; I just went up the stairs, turned the tap on and off, and came back down.
I pushed the hair out of the way. It was white and bristly. Benson tried to charge away in front of me. He hadn’t a hope. Me touching his tail hair made him panic; we could feel it in him. Now we could see the butt of his tail. It didn’t look like it had been cut—his hair kept springing back—it looked normal, like it was supposed to be that way. There was nothing else to do.
We were disappointed.
—No marks there.
—Press your finger down on it.
We didn’t want to let him go yet. We’d expected more, scars or redness or something; bone.
Ian McEvoy was really worried now. He thought we were going to do something to Benson because his tail hadn’t been worth looking at.
—My ma’s coming; I think she’s coming.
—She’s not.
—Chicken.
We were definitely going to do something now.
-One -
—Two—
—Three!
We got our hands away and, just when Benson thought he was free, we kicked him, me and Kevin; hollow thumps, one boot each, nearly together on each side. Benson staggered when he was getting away. I thought he was going to fall over on his side; a terror screamed through me, up through me. Blood would come out of his mouth, he’d pant, and stop. But he stayed on his legs and straightened and ran to the side of the house, to the front.
—Why can’t we? I asked my da.
—Will you feed it? he said.
—Yeah, I said.
—Will you pay for his food?
—Yeah.
—With what?
—Money.
—What money?
—My money, I said.—My pocket money, I said before he could get anything in.