Like a door that keeps revolving in a half remembered dream.

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 that we could run back from speedily, and so it is in this vein we managed to attend mass, a wedding, and the circus.

 The reader must remember that this was the late 60’s and children were as welcome anywhere as the flowers of May, which may explain why I  had run from the church after lighting about 47 candles without a screed of the coins needed,  and then  being   found waltzing in an old man’s arms at a wedding in Whites while Barty made himself sick eating the hard white icing off the cake. Everyone simply presumed we were everyone else’s children. 

Ditto the circus, where I took the daring step of heading to Harvey’s Field with the massed throngs of the town and thrust my brother under the flap at the back of the big top to do a recce. When he was not unceremoniously flung back out I lifted the flap and followed him in. 

We sat on the benches at the very front and smelt sawdust and animals and candy floss. A woman beside us, enquiring for our Mother and general welfare – I waved a hand vaguely at the queue for candy floss - took pity on us and bought us 2 tubs of HB Ice-cream. 

By the time we were running down the hill home, he sprinting ahead as if to disown me and any or all part in the adventure, a crowd around the doors of Carrigeen wringing their hands and cardigans sent up of a cry of – Oh, HERE they are!! 

 Mary Larey, propped in the doorway gave us a mournful eye and intoned “Oh, hun, you’re going to be kilt” and I looked up at her and said “Eff off”.

It was the shock.

Nana Mahon wore a cameo brooch on a scarf and sheepskin gloves, and a pleated kilt with a giant pin. It was not the pink one that was used for nappies. She wore a housecoat in the house, over her clothes. Not since Victorian times has there been so much dressing and undressing  as there was in a Mahon house. You had your getting up clothes, your round the house duds, your good clothes that you wore down town and then immediately removed when you came in the door, re hung and when complimented said -  what, this old thing? I have it the last 20 years. 

There would be a foot of ash hanging off the fag she kept in the corner of her mouth, her eyes screwed up against the smoke as she cleared the table while you ate.  

“You done with this?  You done with this?  as she placed the condiments and sauces back in the press and stood waiting  to wash your plate .  I used to go there for the dinner - at half twelve in the day- when I  moved to St  Johns Road Mercy School. Every day she would give me a drink of diluted orange in a red plastic mug she kept under the sink.

 The mug had gone frayed at the edges from years of teeth, and once when she was answering the doorbell I hopped up to where she kept the cordial and re-filled the mug to the brim. She caught me and with my cheeks as scarlet as the mug I threw it down the sink.

“I’ll tell your Da on ya” she said. My face burnt with shame and I whispered it was only water.

Which was a lie.

I already knew this woman was no slouch when it came to kids. As a small boy Little Thomasina  was a sickly child and had asthma and was mollycoddled and wrapped in cotton wool. One day, when they were drawn to go to Ferrybank to cool themselves in the water, Nana admonished Kathleen – who was in charge – not to let Tom in the water no matter what. Of course he screeched and roared to get in with the rest of them and he got his way. Then they dried him within an inch of his life, combed his hair to dry in the sun, and swore him to secrecy.

“Did you let that child into the water?” –

No.

“I’ll ask you again, did you let that child into the water?”

No, Mammy, honest to God.

Then she walked across to him, lifted his arm and licked it, tasting the telltale salt. 

Nana had a great devotion to Saint Anthony and the Franciscan Friars and was a regular in the very last seat of the transept  -beside the copper radiator with the ridges - at 6.15 mass, which if it was said by Fr. Leander  was a rushed affair, which he flew through without drawing breath and blessed himself halfway out to the altar, a phalanx  of altar boys struggling to keep up with him at the rails with the patten, and his shortest mass ever came in at 9 minutes .The longest was  by Fr Charles, a friar who was so old by then , that he nodded off at various intervals for minutes at a time and we often wondered if he would make it through the mass at all. It reminds me now of a quote from Noel Coward on aging where he said he was mildly surprised if his colleagues made it through luncheon. Father Charles could bring an evening mass in at around the hour mark and it was another matter entirely on Sundays and Holy Days.

 Nellies'  doorbell rang a multitude a tunes ranging from the Yellow Rose of Texas through to Greensleeves passing Happy Birthday and Auld lang Syne on the way. Their doorbell rang a lot as a parade of characters yoo hooed themselves up the dark hallway through the open door.

I sat on the hard chair against the wall and gave out the information as to who was entering.

 It’s the woman with the purple hair, it’s the man from Bride St, it’s the woman with the SOS money etc.

There was a plethora  of people through the house the livelong day, women calling in for cups of tea and news, Friars from the Friary – one who had a problem with his nerves, and  who  would sit squirming his horny toenails in his sandals with the china cup rattling off his dentures, a blue rinsed brigade of women who bought S.O.S. lines , people for patrons tickets for the Drama Festival, neighbours who wanted a message or a prescription.  

Or both.

 Nellie always had a joke, or a toy, or a walking talking doll from America, or a light up Santa, or a tin that you opened thinking it was sweets and a coiled springy snake bounced across the room while you screamed. At Christmas and New Years  they  and all their  neighbours came out into the street and toasted each other and sang Auld Lang Syne at the doors. My Great Aunt Molly lived up the hill with her husband John, and after he died and she had a stroke ( in the middle of a card game) – “Quick, Molly is having a turn “ -  it was to Nellie’s kitchen she came to sit. Sadly the stroke affected her frontal lobe and her speech was minimal afterwards. One fateful day, Nellie was giving it loads of chat at the door to some woman and had handed me a Wibbly Wobbly Wonder from Lilly Moore’s shop to keep me entertained. I sat licking the melting banana flavoured ice cream while Molly sat watching with a faint smile on her face. Her arms were folded placidly, one holding the other, and she picked a random piece of fluff off her cardigan and carried on staring.  Out of embarrassment I took a huge bite of the frozen centre which came away from the stick and lodged in my neck. The realization that I was choking was ironic as Molly continued to sit serenely   with the patience of a Zen master while I lepped around the kitchen trying to dislodge it or breathe, or die trying. I made noises a Foley department couldn’t replicate and was standing heaving at the sink when Nellie came back in after missing the drama. 

There was a great sense of community and placing in the town at that time, and everyone knew everyone and their children, by name.(In this town also, you are a child till you are about 53 and a girl in your 70's.)

  Placing appears to be a custom particular to this town and everyone above 50 will know people by their maiden names and will always ask what your original name was. Little Thomasina  and his family could while away hours going back through every seed and breed for generations till they find the random connection  and go – “Oh, yis – I have you now”.

I have you now.

Nellie and Kathleen were daily mass goers to Bride Street church, a twin of its sister in Rowe Street. It was through Nellie that I got to go up into the massive choir space which overlooked the body of the church, and stand grouped around the organ with the altos and sopranos singing “The Lord is my Shepherd”. It used to strike me as bizarre that when the whole town hadn’t tuppence to jangle on a tombstone, they built not one, but TWO gigantic churches in the height of luxury, with  stained glass and spires back in 1858. They are only a hundred odd yards apart.

As a small child, I was allowed out to play “on the path” and was admonished severely not to even think about crossing the road. Considering the only traffic back then was the occasional Morris Minor, or a horse and trap, the fears of my imminent plastering on the street proved unfounded.  I contented myself with nosing around other people’s houses and finding out news.  The hallways of every house in the Square were different and ranged from a glimpse of a rubber plant on a half moon telephone table,  to bare boards and plaster hanging off the walls. There was also a huge disparity between the vehicles outside, a run around, a family saloon, a Honda 50. It seemed every house had a giant black Pedigree pram with a gurning baby alternately chawing on, or shaking a rattler behind white netting.  Putting the babby out consumed a considerable amount of time, and meant checking and re-checking that it was still alive, not swarmed by midges, or stolen by Tinkers. There was a preponderance of prams outside the shops on the main street as people would park their offspring, put the brake on and then casually shop for hours. One of the kinder things said to me as I was being chastised for any or all misdemeanours was the fact that I was a changeling baby and that I had been swapped for a Traveller child.

“Oh, there is a lovely quiet child sitting in a Tinkers camp wondering where we are”.