Free The Bombs That Brought Us Together by Brian Conaghan Page A

Maybe more. Speaking the lingo. The voice sounded agitated and annoyed.
    I just knew that Pav, his mum and his dad were lined up outside their front door totally shitting themselves. I was too scared to look through the letter box. I’d heard all about these night visits. We all had. I didn’t know if they were true or not. Nobody had actually experienced seeing one in action; it was just some eejits at school full of bravado who said that these raids happened. They’d probably upped the ante since the bombs. Someone must have grassed on Pav and his family, that’s all I can say. Told these thugs about Old Country folk living here.
    ‘Who else is inside?’ a second voice said.
    ‘We are just three,’ Pav’s dad said.
    ‘You better not be lying to us,’ Voice Two said.
    ‘No, go see inside; we are just three,’ his dad said again.
    ‘What do you think they want?’ I whispered to Dad.
    Mum put a finger to her lips. Dad’s lips said shut up to me. His eyes became zombieish, as if to say I’m going to kill you Charlie if you don’t rap it, son.
    ‘All clear,’ a third voice said.
    ‘Papers,’ Voice One said.
    You could hear the man rustling through Pav’s family papers: ID papers, entry and exit papers, birth papers,marriage papers, religion papers, employment papers, education papers. All the essentials needed for Little Town Rascals.
    ‘Are you Jan Duda?’ Voice One asked.
    ‘I am,’ Pav’s dad said.
    ‘Are you Danica Duda?’ he asked Pav’s mum.
    The silence seemed to last for ages.
    ‘Speak!’ Voice Two said.
    ‘What’s the matter with your tongue, woman? Don’t you speak the lingo here or something?’ Voice Three came in, which brought a bit of sniggering from the other two voices.
    ‘I not so good,’ Pav’s mum said quietly. They probably thought that she was scared stiff of them, but what they didn’t know was that Pav’s mum was a smashing woman who always spoke softly.
    ‘Are you or are you not Danica Duda?’ Voice One asked again.
    ‘My name is Danica Duda, yes,’ Pav’s mum said.
    ‘And you, you must be Pavel Duda?’ Voice One said.
    ‘My name is Pavel Duda.’ Pav’s voice suggested that he was a tough little nut.
    ‘How old are you?’ Voice Three said, as if he was trying to trip Pav up.
    ‘I have fourteen years,’ Pav said.
    The thug Rascals howled.
    ‘ I have fourteen years , that’s brilliant!’ Voice Three said, mimicking Pav.
    ‘I fifteen years after summer,’ Pav said. I wanted to open our letter box and scream: Don’t say another word, Pav; please schtum it. Don’t give them the ammo to shoot you with.
    ‘They’ve tried to butcher our town and now they want to butcher our lingo as well,’ Voice Two said.
    ‘Disgusting,’ Voice One said.
    ‘Funny though,’ Voice Three said.
    ‘It is funny,’ Voice Two said.
    ‘Very funny,’ Voice One said.
    More howling and giggling.
    I suspected that all the neighbours in our block were terrified to even breathe heavily; I was glad Mum didn’t need a puff to keep her going. She was on puff rationing.
    Then all three Rascals hit Pav’s dad with a quick-fire torrent.
    ‘Why did you come here?’
    ‘Why did you leave Old Country?’
    ‘Did they boot you out?’
    ‘What did you do?’
    ‘Tell us.’
    ‘Who were you against, Duda?’
    ‘Spit it out.’
    ‘We can find out, you know.’
    ‘Scum too much to handle in Old Country for you then?’
    ‘Yeah, full of scum, was it?’
    ‘Riddled with them, was it?’
    ‘Stinking the place up, were they?’
    ‘Mingers.’
    ‘Filth.’
    ‘Tramps.’
    ‘Beggars.’
    ‘Vagrants.’
    ‘Infidels.’
    BACK OFF A LITTLE AND GIVE THE MAN SOME SPACE TO SPEAK, WOULD YOU?
    They started up their laughter routine again.
    ‘Why you want us?’ Jan Duda asked.
    As quick as a light being switched off, the sniggering stopped. Routine over. Mum and Dad changed their facial expressions. Dad shook his head. Mum put a hand to her mouth. I did an inside swear