mdm

Between all the Boogey Men, Quare Fellas, Chancers, Gougers, Tinkers and Nuns I was lucky to make it through the first years of my life.     Back then the summers lasted for about 4 years and my mind throws up pictures of a small girl in a knobbly jumper whiling away the long hot days and nights scraping  chun gum off paths with icepop sticks - * which was a banned substance and as out of place in our house as accidentally seeing a dogs vagina.*  - tormenting her parents,plotting where she would bring her smaller brother the next time she was allowed out. He was not exactly an unwilling accomplice, as the joys of the path had worn off for him quite quickly.   It was in the spirit of discovery and innovation that I escorted him by the hand, firstly across the road, and then when our impudence was not immediately discovered, running  faster until it was safe to explore.  I knew what I was doing in that I only went a distance...

Tonight as I sat in her darkened room, lit only with Christmas tree lights, rubbing Siobhan's hand where she had a ring cut off today, I reminded her of an episode of my childhood. It is all I can do to prompt the vast recall of memory that entwines us.   And so I talk of old times, and times past and they come blushing in,   tippytoeing like a ballerina on point, afraid to break the hush. The soundtrack of my Mother’s life now is her daughter’s voice. The room she lives in is silent. Apart from the steady thrum of machinery into her electric air bed, the faint voices permanently calling from the halls for tea, for a nurse, for Bridie. One evening in late summer I sat by the open window listening to the water trickling down the fountain in the garden and heard the plaintive sounds of singing coming from the sun room. One elderly man had begun to softly sing a snatch of a song, one no doubt he had often sung in happier ti...

I had been in regular correspondence with a boy who had moved to Old London Town after singling me out in a nightclub for the slow set , where he held a large bottle of Macardles in the small of my back as we danced, and would collect me from the house in a Datsun Sunny 120Y that he had souped up.   I was reduced to calling the Country Boy from a payphone to break it off with him.  He took it hard, much harder than I thought and embarrassed the pair of us by turning up at work with flowers and chocolates and begging for another chance. I was glib and uncaring and had not been battered by the winds of life and love and behaved in a cavalier fashion that I was to rue, and remember with irony when the situation was reversed.  The London Boy took me to the Red Bar i n Whites and made me sing while he played his guitar, and brought home random musicians and cans to his front room for sessions, while his parents remonstrated from the bedroom by banging ...

The massage table like the Princess and the Pea Once upon a time I lived in a duplex apartment in the very heart of town  at the top of 4 flights of stairs. It was all very Carrie Bradshaw -  leather sofas, angled lamps, beaded curtains, bamboo blinds. It had an open plan living room with 7 windows that afforded  spectacular views of the streets. It was colder than a witch’s teat on a Siberian ice floe. It may have been constructed entirely from plasterboard and was icy enough on a mild day to inspire my Father  - A-    To refuse to remove his coat when he came for dinner B - To send men from Joyces up the impossible  stairs with a Super Ser and a cylinder of gas. " That place is perishin', she'll get her death up there " he informed random strangers sagely. I watched in disbelief as the car park across the road was turned into a building site, and then immediately back into a car park, and then  immediately back i...