![]() ![]() It was probably the most wretched I ever felt in my life, this kind of ecstatic wretchedness that in a way I was practically enjoying. And at first I really thought you would come. You know I went up to my room and waited for you, right? I mean for hours. And I said I didn’t think the utility room was a good place to be kissing and we left. “Remember the first time we kissed? he said. This remark later became evidence in my father’s theory that my mother had poisoned me against him.”ĥ8. Instantly I replied: please let me out of the car. Your mother wants to break up our family, my father said. The DART went past on our left and I could see the Poolbeg towers out the car window. Instead of going home, we drove away from town, toward Blackrock. One day, when I was twelve, he turned up unexpectedly after school to pick me up. I’d say to my mother: he’s in a mood now. Something about the way he closed the door or handled his keys would let me know, as clearly as if he yelled the house down. When he came home from work in the evening I used to freeze entirely still, and after a few seconds I would know with complete certainty if he was in one of the moods or not. I would have let my real face burn in the fire too. ![]() Afterward my mother said: why didn’t you lift it out of the fire? Can’t you at least make an effort? I shrugged. I learned not to display fear, it only provoked him. It missed and went in the fireplace and I watched it smoldering like it was my own face smoldering. He hurled one of my school shoes right at my face once after he tripped on it. Other times he would bump into a piece of furniture and then lose his temper. Sometimes he would go out for a couple of days and when he came back in we’d find him taking money out of my Bank of Ireland savings jar, or our television would be gone. ![]() It was hard to be specific about what my father’s moods consisted of. Ignoring him made my heart beat very hard and afterward I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. Humoring him made me feel dishonest and weak, a soft target. During his periods of contrition he tried to make conversation with me about school and I had to choose between humoring and ignoring him. While we were there I was allowed to eat as many digestive biscuits as I wanted, and when we returned, my father was either gone out or else feeling very contrite. I was aware that alcohol played a role in these incidents, but its precise workings remained mysterious to me. My father had “moods.” Sometimes during his moods my mother would take me to stay with her sister Bernie in Clontarf, and they would sit in the kitchen talking and shaking their heads while I watched my cousin Alan play Ocarina of Time. I couldn’t remember seeing my mother and father in the same room unless they were eating. Couples in films and on television performed household tasks together and talked fondly about their shared memories. “It had been obvious to me from a young age that my parents didn’t like one another. ![]()
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