Free Under My Skin by Alison Jameson

I look down. There are three broad beans left on my plate.
    One – two – three.
    Three – two – one.
    Tick-tock.
    Tick-tock.
    Tick-tock.
    Pappy watches me.
    Oh please
, and I say this down low and inside myself, but the word that comes back is ‘No’.

    The red history book shows a dead body being taken away in a wheelbarrow. There is also a woman in a green shawl and she is crying and waving her hands in the air. We are learning about the famine and thinking about all the people who died. Doreen draws a speech bubble from one of the people. ‘Can anyone tell me the way to McDonald’s?’ it says. Then there is a test and we are asked to list ‘the effects of the famine on Irish society’. We consult each other and Doreen writes her only answer in very faint pencil –
    a lot of people died
    I do not have any other answers so I write –
    Apple drops
    Fizzle sticks
    Marshmallows
    Bonbons (lemon, strawberry and white)
    Chocolate hearts
    Milky teeth
    Coconut mushrooms – and
    Flogs

    Bright patches. There are some. Today I am walking up the street with Daniel, and Pappy is standing smiling at the shop door. On a sunny day like this he might come out and meet us or sometimes he will sweep the dust from the step. On a bright-patch day he might stop and lean on the brush a little and then talk to the mechanic from the garage next door. He does not know that there is a notebook in my bag where Isave all my questions for him and for this kind of day. They are mostly about ads on TV, men and women, love, angels and death.
    At lunch Daniel will not eat his potatoes.
    ‘I have the famine,’ he says.
    And today there are words everywhere. They fly out of Pappy’s mouth and run up the stairs. They fill the saucepans in the cupboard and fall out of paper cups and plates. On days like this he likes to talk and talk and sometimes I think he will never stop. He talks about my mother and how beautiful she was – and how romantic it was when they first met – and then he goes back to his schooldays and growing up in the countryside. He talks about his mother and the animals on her farm. He tells us about pigs and sheep and goats, and even rats and mice. He stands at the shop window and whenever anyone passes, he waves. And it is a big wave with two hands and sometimes they get a fright. He buys too much of everything at the Cash and Carry and there are boxes of Love Hearts and lemon bonbons under our beds.
    ‘He’s on a high today,’ Mrs Deegan says, and she sticks her head out and she is led back across the street.

    Daniel sits quietly in the barber’s chair. The double red doors are bolted and the blinds are down. When I walk inside with Doreen he does not look around. Instead he looks at our faces in the mirror and says, ‘Pappy told me to wait here, and not to go upstairs.’
    The house is quiet and when I walk down the landing to his bedroom the boards do not even creak. I turn the handle quietly and when I open the door Pappy is wearing the white glittery suit and standing on a white painted chair. The sequinsfrom his suit catch the light and make small white spots on the bedroom walls. He looks just the way he did on the stage, except there is a leather belt around his neck and he is facing my mother’s picture on the shelf. His eyes are looking into my mother’s eyes and her eyes are sad and looking away.
    ‘What are you doing, Pappy?’ I ask, and he turns around very slowly. He looks at me as if he does not know me.
    Again.
    Again.
    ‘I’m changing the light bulb,’ he says

    Yesterday I made my first phone call to my grandmother. I called her and when she answered I read everything out from a copybook page.
    ‘This is Hope Swann calling,’ the first line said.
    ‘Pappy is not well,’ the second line said.
    ‘Please send help,’ and then without waiting for any answer I put the phone down and tried to imagine her setting off with her huskies and a sleigh.

6   
Is This What I Get for Loving