Free Heaps of Trouble by Emelyn Heaps Page A

the perimeter of each newly completed concrete section was secured with forty four-gallon barrels, topped with long planks from which hessian blankets were hung. This was an attempt to keep out the stray animals that appeared to show as much interest as I did, if not more, in the freshly laid concrete. In the evening the truck arrived to collect the workforce, having first unloaded the night-watchman, complete with his galvanised, domed hut, oil-lamps, and coal brazier. With calls of ‘Jimmy, don’t catch your death of cold’ from the departing workers, the watchman immediately set about building his coal and slack fire in the brazier. Once lit, he would sit close by the fire, hunched over with his head cupped in the palms of his hands, staring into the flames as if in search of the answer to some question he had spent his entire life investigating. His concentration spasmodically interrupted by passers-by, who would engage him, briefly, in conversation, as an excuse to warm themselves by his fire. After heating their hands over the coals, they emphasised the cold of the night with the stamping of their feet on the ground and eventually, exhausting all conversation, reluctantly they moved off, allowing the watchman to revert back into his hidden world.
    On that last night of freedom, having accepted the realisation that there was no escape from the impending doom of a new school term on the morrow, I recall being led to my bed by the grandmother. Casting a last glance at the watchman, whose face had now taken on an orange glow from over-exposure to the heat of the fire, I recall thinking that I wished I were he.
    I turned and twisted in my bed, unable to sleep because the fear had settled deep in the centre of my stomach, and I listened to the quiet snores of my grandmother. The silence of the street outside was broken only by the sound of a car or bus negotiating the roadwork barriers. Or the shouts of the night-watchman directed at some dog attempting to leave his paw marks in the wet concrete, as proof of his existence on this planet: ‘Geerron outa there you shaggy mongrel, geeerron, geerron before I take my stick to you.’
    â€˜The pipes have busted, the pipes have busted!’ The whole school was now in uproar, with the nuns running around trying to restore order. I stood in the middle of the room with the older kids from the other classes rushing by me to the door, screaming ‘no more school, no more school’, before they disappeared off down the street. I still did not fully understand the problem, but was beginning to realise that, whatever had happened, it meant that we were being sent home for the duration. For me it was like a stay of execution and, with a feeling of exhilaration, I turned and collided head-on with sister Ann. The fear of committing a sin of this magnitude caused me to nearly die with fright; but, as she was so preoccupied with the problem of the burst pipes, she sent me on my way with an almost half-hearted clip over the ear. With the front door wide open and beckoning like the pathway to heaven, I joined my fellow classmates, skipping and jumping down the street towards temporary freedom. My mother was surprised to see me back home so early and we had to wait until the father got back that evening for him to explain the ‘busted pipes’ story that I had repeated to her throughout the day. In his words, ‘the nuns were too bloody mean to leave the heating on low throughout the holidays. So when they started it up again, all of the pipes, being frozen, just flew off the walls. If those bloody twisters spent less time praying and more time running a school, well, the lad would be back in school tomorrow.’
    â€˜Ron, not in front of the child,’ admonished the mother.
    That night I even said my prayers before going to bed, after taking a last look out of the window at the night-watchman who seemed to have aged more since the previous night. I