Breakfast on Pluto (2 page)

But nevertheless all’s well that ends well and now that she’s suitably drunk she decides to pull the only cracker available, triumphantly producing it from her handbag and yowling:
‘Come on over here and pull this fucking cracker till we get this fucking Christmas finished with!’ as, happy family that we are, like a snapshot from the past, we all come crowding
around, happy bright-eyed bastards all – Wee Tony, Hughie, Peter, Josie, Caroline and snot-trailing Little Ba, who for such a magnificent display of domestic harmony are hereby presented
unopposed with the Patrick Braden A
LL
-I
RELAND
F
UNCTIONAL
F
AMILY OF
T
HE
C
ENTURY
A
WARD
! So congratulations, Hairy Ma and all your little out-of-wedlock kids!

Peepers Egan, the English teacher and acting headmaster, was on the verge of losing his mind as he paced the floor of Class 2A, St Martin’s Secondary School, Tyreelin,
intermittently smacking the sheaf of papers with the back of his weatherbeaten hand as he addressed his hangdog pupil: ‘How dare you!’ he croaked perplexedly. ‘How dare you submit
the like of this to me, Braden! When I said it would please me if you would develop your literary skills, I did not – I repeat
not
! (his croak quite high-pitched now) mean
this
!’

It was unfortunate that I had now learned the truth once and for all about my clerical parentage, for I really was becoming quite obsessed with it. Hence the persistently colourful titles of my
submitted essays, e.g. ‘Father Stalk Sticks It In’ and ‘Father Bernard Rides Again!’

It was inevitable, of course, on foot of this, that poor old Peepers would have to come down and visit Hairy Ma. It was his duty, after all, and, I daresay, the execution of which probably came
close to putting the poor man in his grave. ‘You see, Mrs Braden,’ was all you could hear as he twisted and turned in his chair, ‘I have to be seen to do something . . .
it’s a direct challenge to our authority and a slur on the character of . . .’

‘Daddy!’ I almost squeaked.

But didn’t – keeping my own counsel very impressively indeed right until the very end when Peepers said: ‘You won’t do it again, will you, Patrick? You’ll try and
stop this anti-social behaviour. You’ll try and fit in, won’t you?’ when I replied: ‘Oh, no. I haven’t the slightest intention of stopping it, Peeps, or trying to fit
in either!’

It was, in fact, impertinent of me to call him that. ‘Peeps,’ I mean. Because he
was
my teacher and I liked him and should have shown him more respect. An appraisal of the
situation with which Hairy hastily concurred, out of nowhere landing a fat-fingered thump on my jaw, squealing: ‘Don’t talk like that to the Master! He’s a cur! From the day and
hour I took him in off the street, Mr Egan, a cur!’

Understandably, Peeps didn’t want to get involved any further for he’d gotten himself into such a state about everything already that I think all he wanted to do was charge off to
the Tyreelin Arms and have himself a few dozen whiskies.

I was absolutely sure I was safe, you see, I really was, having cocked my ear to the bedroom door for at least five minutes and then at last heard them squawk: ‘Hello,
Patrick! Patrick – yoo hoo! Are you up there at your books? Me and Caroline are off to Benediction now!’ before trooping off down the hall and closing the front door behind them.
‘Gone for at least an hour!’ I cried, in the grip of a delightful excitement. But no! Hardly twenty minutes later – the pair of them back, mooching about in the kitchen looking
for a prayerbook or something they’d left behind. None of which I was aware of, of course, being much too busy dabbing on Whiskers’ lipstick (Cutex Coral Pink, would you believe!) and
saying: ‘Hello, Patricia!’ into the mirror and pretending I was dancing with Efrem Zimbalist Junior!

Whom I didn’t really know, of course, except that I’d seen him in
Modern Screen
once or twice and really liked the look of him – thought the name quite fab too, may I
add! And was more than glad to say: ‘Oh yes!’ when he husky-groaned: ‘Like to dance then, sweet Patricia?’

As round and round we twirled to my favourite song: ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ – what else, darlings! with Efrem crooning, ‘The only one who could ever teach me was
the—’ at exactly the same moment as the door came bursting in (they must have heard me ‘la-la-laa-ing’!) and who’s there only – yes! – Caroline going:
‘My dress! He’s wearing my favourite dress!’ and putting on quite a performance, I have to say – (Watch out, Efrem! This is Oscar material we’re dealing with here!)
– as Whiskers gets a grip of me and starts yowling and –
slapping
me, would you believe! – saying that this is it, this is definitely the end – and then, can you
believe it, collapsing hopelessly into tears!

A situation which wasn’t helped, I admit it, and it’s not something I’m proud of, by my promising that I would never do it again because they were
Caroline’s private things and I had no business taking them, and then sneaking off a few days later and stealing Mrs O’Hare’s smalls off the washing line, pretending this time
that I was dancing with Lorne Greene out of
Bonanza
! Why him, don’t ask me, whether it was the distinguished grey hair or what I don’t know, all I know is that someone had seen
me climbing over the fence into her garden and next thing there’s O’Hare in the kitchen waving her fists and shouting about the guards. It was stupid, of course – I mean you can
imagine what I looked like in those voluminous monstrosities! (O’Hare was huge!) But I was so frustrated – dying to dance with Efrem so much that I couldn’t get it out of my
mind!

Predictably enough, it didn’t take long for word to get around the town and all you could hear going up the street was: ‘Ooh! Cheeky!’ and ‘Lovely boy!’ It was
pointless explaining to them that I wasn’t all that interested in sex and that all I wanted was for Lorne or Efrem to say to me: You see this spread? It’s all yours. Your name’s
going on the door, Patrick! It’s all yours from now on!

Some nights I’d lie there thinking about that and then see – don’t ask me why! – Caroline and Whiskers standing outside in the rain, drenched, asking: ‘Can we come
in?’

Whereupon I’d chuckle a bit and shrug as I looked at them and said: ‘Sorry, folks! Closed, I’m afraid!’

Well, poor old Whiskers! Would she be furious about that or what!

Certain other people, however, would be admitted straight away to my salubrious abode, and in would stomp to marvel: ‘Boy, Braden! What a place!’ as I cried out:
‘Hellay, dahlings! To my castle, welcome, old friends Irwin Kerr and Charlie!’ continuing to make up more posh rubbish for them to join in with – why? Because that was the way we
went on and always had. For as long as I could remember they’d been calling down to Rat Trap Mansions, annoying the arse off Whiskers asking her could I come out to play cowboys and war. I
met Irwin first when he was in mourning for his brother who was eaten in the Congo by Balubas. He was in floods of tears coming across the square, choking: ‘Bastards! Fucking bastards!’
and saying every one of them would have to die. Except that only three days later, his brother arrived back from Africa with an ebony elephant for everyone in the street and not a bother on him
from the day he’d gone off with his kit bag. ‘He
was
in a fight but . . .’ Irwin said, as we headed off the next day to our hut, which was the headquarters of the famous
Kane Gang. ‘Even though I’m a girl, I have to be in charge,’ Charlie said. ‘Otherwise you can forget about the whole thing.’

Me and Irwin didn’t care who was leader. All we wanted to do was read her comics and listen to the records she played on the battery-operated record player her sister brought home from
England. We’d just sit there on the grass, clicking our fingers and going: ‘Fantastic! Fab! It’s just fab, baby!’

That was how the international modelling shows started. Charlie would bring out her mother’s clothes and start showing all these magnificent creations to fashion-buyers and pop-star
managers from all over the world. ‘What do you think?’ she’d say, and I’d frown and cradle my chin as I said: ‘Oo! Magnifique!’ or ‘No! I do not like
it!’ in the same French accent.

The Juke Box Jury Shows just grew out of that, I suppose, and before long there was one every day. As soon as we got out of school, we’d race off out to the hut and get our gear on and
Charlie would go behind the plank which was the juke box jury counter and announce: ‘Ladies and gentlemen! You’re welcome to Juke Box Jury!’

In the beginning, she did some singing too but after a while I did most of it because Irwin said he was too shy and so there I’d be, going: ‘You know you make me wanna shout!’
or ‘Stop! In the name of love!’ by the Supremes as Charlie held up her cards and cried, like the woman on the telly: ‘I’ll give it foive!’ as Irwin shouted:
‘It’s bollocks It’s a load of bollocks! Look at Braden the eejit dressed up as a woman!’

Which I rarely was, to be honest with you – although not from lack of desire! – and made do mostly with a pearl necklace or one of Charlie’s mother’s blouses. Still
– it was better than nothing! And sometimes she’d bring out a perfume spray to squirt all around the hut and make it smell just fabulous! ‘Nothing like perfume for taking all your
cares away!’ I’d say and do a twirl. ‘If this doesn’t stop,’ Irwin said, ‘I’m quitting the gang!’, but Charlie said: ‘Oh pipe down, why
don’t you,’ and he did, shuffling off and sticking up two fingers.

It wasn’t long after that anyway that we started the wars as well and that kept him happy, there wasn’t a word out of him about the perfume and the international modelling as long as
we promised to keep doing the wars. Which I didn’t mind in the slightest, especially as Charlie clicked her heels and went: ‘Compan-ee-tenshun!’ I loved that, for some reason
– her being the boss! As off we’d march behind her, with Irwin looking all around him for British soldiers to kill and shout ‘Die dog!’ at, as he stuck his bayonet in their
necks.

How all that started was that 1966 was the jubilee commemoration of the 1916 rising and no matter where you went in Tyreelin, everyone was waving a tricoloured flag or singing an Irish ballad.
Every day there was a different politician in the town and in the pubs at night they were all talking about getting into a lorry and driving across the border to take over the north.

To tell you the truth, we didn’t care that much for the wars in the end. But Irwin – he was going clean mad over them! He had even taken to wearing his James Connolly rebel hat
around the town and going off over the fields on his own to practise drilling. To keep him happy, we kept on saying the wars were great and then running off back to the hut to put on the Beatles
and go absolutely mad as we clicked our fingers and jived in and out among the sheep and cows, singing: ‘Try to see it my way! Do I have to keep on talking till I can’t go on! We can
work it out! We can work it out!’ until we couldn’t do any more and just lay down there holding hands and staring up at the sky. And which we kept on doing, and had no intention of
stopping, right through secondary school and everything!

Which at times must have been difficult for Charlie, for let’s face it, what with the famous ‘smalls’ and other similar episodes which I shan’t bother
going into here, as time went on, it became abundantly clear that I wasn’t exactly growing up to become Mr ‘Most Popular Adolescent Boy’ around the town! Not that it seemed to
bother her, mind you! ‘Oh, who cares, Braden!’ she said. ‘The sooner they blow this kip up and be done with it, the better!’

Something that – now that we were a bit older and had started noticing these things – didn’t look like it was going to take very long at all, for every time you picked up a
paper, someone else had been shot or maimed for life. Of no consequence to me, of course, for, as I said to Charlie, I really wouldn’t be hanging around for very much longer.
‘You’re fucking right,’ she said. ‘And as soon as I get my exams, I’m gone too!’

Charlie was doing her Inter Cert now and I was in my final year at St Fucky Good-For-Nothing’s. Her and Irwin were the only people I could be remotely bothered with. ‘You’re
out of your mind!’ Irwin said. ‘Breaking into shops to steal cosmetics! You’re a Head-the-Bail, Braden!’

‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘No doubt your Provisional IRA friends will be around to sort me out!’

‘Don’t worry your head about the Provies!’ he said. ‘The Provisional IRA have a lot more to do than be bothered with dying-looking bastards the likes of you,
Braden!’

Quite how Irwin ever managed to get around to conceiving of himself as a
real
soldier really must be classified amongst the great unsolved mysteries of our time, for the
silly little idiot wouldn’t have been able to shoot a crow! But now, of course, nothing could stop him, it being 1971 and with the balloon in Northern Ireland having gone up in earnest, it
was his bounden duty and his chance at last a
real
soldier to become, to take up arms and: Tuck anyone who gets in the way!’ He was hilarious when he got started!

I, of course, was much too preoccupied with my own personal revolution to be bothered with anything so trivial. As my dearest father was soon to discover when, having made my decision to once
and for all take my leave of sweet Tyreelin, I decided to pop in his letterbox one of my more recent (and somewhat obsessive there is no doubt!) exhaustively crafted compositions!