Free Closed Doors by Lisa O'Donnell Page B

Screaming. Da had to take the strap to her. Louisa cried the whole time, but I think Alice needed it. You know she broke my chess trophy?’
    ‘No, I didn’t. You must have been gutted, Luke,’ I say.
    ‘Devastated,’ he says.
    Then he went away, leaving us all stunned because he’d actually talked to us and that was a big surprise.

SEVENTEEN
    THE ENGAGEMENT PARTY of Miss Connor and Mr McFadden is a big scandal.
    The party was at the Bowling Club and everyone was dressed up nice. They had punch for the children and punch for the grown-ups and my da loved that. Ma was so embarrassed by him because there was also a bar and he had pint after pint. The food was amazing. They had prawn cocktails, I love prawn cocktails, and everyone in the world does. And they had these little sticks with pineapple and cheese and little tiny onions rolled onto them. They also had sausage rolls and something called quiche I didn’t like at all, but they had a lot of paste sandwiches and so I was as happy as a boy could be. They had a disco too with flashing lights, but only the women danced at first, with their handbags on the floor, and then some men danced around them, but the men were annoying the women I think and kept whispering in their ears. The women laughed at them, but then the men tried some more whispering and some of the ladies turned to dance with them. I wondered why Da didn’t whisper to Ma and I wondered if Granny would stop drinking out of her hip flask when there was plenty of punch. I wondered a lot that night.
    Marianne was there with her ma and da, and of course Dirty Alice was wearing a nice dress because it was a special occasion, she actually looked clean for a change, but I didn’t say anything. No way. Marianne made her dance and to all kinds of songs, but when Madness came on it was only the boys that got up to dance, not the grown-ups, they just watched us, and so we jumped up and down until the greatest song in the world was finished. It was the best of fun but I think all the mas and das were laughing at us, which wasn’t right because we didn’t laugh at them smooching about and whispering all over each other.
    Then Tricia Law came in and wearing the shortest skirt anyone in the world had ever seen. Everyone started looking at Marianne’s ma and Skinny Rab. He looked as scared as could be. He was back in the house and he had his family again, but Marianne’s ma was still fuming because you could hear her shouting from the house sometimes. Marianne’s ma looked like she wanted to kill Tricia Law.
    ‘Jesus H,’ said Ma to Granny. They gave each other a terrible look, mostly because they were worried Tricia was going to cross the floor to where they were standing and they didn’t want that because it would spoil the party, and make Marianne’s ma think they were on Tricia’s side. Ma went bright red but Granny, who only likes Tricia a wee bit, went to the toilet hoping Ma would follow. But that’s not what happened because before Tricia even got across the disco floor Marianne’s ma took a wild run for her and pulled her to the ground like a big dog or something. People were pulling kids out of the way so they could get a better view of the fight. I got myself a chair. Marianne saw me and ran away. I suppose she didn’t want me looking, but it was a fight, what was I supposed to do? I wanted to see Marianne’s ma having a go at Tricia Law, who had been terrible to my da a lot of times. Da didn’t care. He kept on drinking, even though Ma kept pulling at his sleeve to help out. Marianne’s ma is a big lady and Tricia is very small but she was still a good fighter. There was a lot of slapping and pulling of hair because that’s how girls fight. They also scream while they fight. They call each other nasty names. Boys just get on with it because we are better at fighting than girls. We have no time to talk or scream at each other. Also women cry before the fight is over, so it’s hard to know who