Free A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle

her hair. There were four children, countless ghosts and my growing, dying mother packed into the only corner of the room that wasn’t flooded, all fighting for space on the poor old mattress. We had nothing to burn and there was no mantelpiece for Daddy’s leg and the Blessed Virgin. We packed in together, too furious for cuddling and comfort. No light from the window, Standfast Lane wasn’t worth a streetlamp of its own. We crouched in the dark and all the one-legged men in the world tapped past, above us.
    I got out of there. I climbed over the family and paddled out of that kip. I took my time going up the steps. It was pitch, pitch dark, like climbing out of deep water. I felt something at my side. It was Victor. He’d followed me, climbed the steps all by himself; not bad for a nine-month-old whose only nourishment was whatever memories of milk he could suck out of our mother’s empty breast. I picked him up.
    —Come on, I said.—Let’s go lookin’.
    I was five.

Four
    H e was Dolly Oblong’s faithful delivery boy. Alfie Gandon
    H says Hello . He carried the message all over Dublin. And he slept in a hole under a back stairs. He put his ear to the floor and fell asleep listening to the house. He guarded it while he slept. He gave his life to Dolly Oblong. He went back to her room only twice in those years and, once, he stepped aside as she left the house and went down the steps to a waiting cab. He was so overpowered by her magnificence, by the eyes made huge by belladonna, by the smell of peppermint that strayed from her mouth to his, he didn’t think of dashing down to open the cab door until the cab was a dying sound beyond the light of the streetlamp. And he cursed his stupidity. The chance to be of help, to touch her sleeve, and he’d let it go right past him. The fading horse’s hooves drove nails into his stupid, saturated heart.
    The visits to her room were short. Once, she gave him two pounds and the name of a man.
    —Mister Gandon does not like this man, she said.—He is not good for business.
    The second time she gave him five pounds and two names, on a piece of paper. He didn’t look at the names; he knew that this, his first look at her handwriting, would make him weak.
    —These men do not like each other, Henry, she said.—Mister Gandon thinks that this is what they would want.
    Henry . Her voice held up his name in front of his eyes. It caressed and slapped it. He took the fiver and fell out of the room. He stood outside and, again, cursed himself and his numb, useless tongue. It was too late to go back in, to start again. He had the money, he had the names. Two names on a small piece of paper. The perfect grease stain left by her fingers - it was heart-shaped; he could see it - where she’d held the corner of the paper, there for him to see and keep. And her writing - she was in the lines and dips, the ink was from inside her. He remembered the names, folded the paper and gently lowered it to the bottom of the pocket inside his coat, as near to his heart as he could estimate.
    Two names. Two unmarried brothers in one house. An easy job. The Brennans. Desmond and Cecil. A very easy job. In the kitchen window, not a squeak or objection. Up the stairs. No secret creak or hidden toy. Into the bedrooms. He tied them fast to facing chairs, to let them watch each other bleed. He sawed one throat, and then the other. He wiped the blade on his sleeve and left the room so the brothers could enjoy their last moments together. He went downstairs and found some biscuits.
    It took him three nights to get rid of the bodies. He dropped parcels into water all over Dublin. A heart went into Scribblestown Stream, a torso into the Little Dargle. He climbed down drains and into granite caves. He went further and used new rivers. Naniken River and the Creosote Stream. He was careful and fair. No river got too much. If an arm went north, another went south. It was a job of work, and he was tired. He felt like