Rough Ride Read Online Free PDF Page A

Geminiani, much to the disgust of Granny Kimmage, who said Raphael was no name to give a child. Kevin, the third son, was born three years later and Eccles Street started to get crowded. We moved to a new complex of flats in Ballymun five miles north of the Liffey.
    The flat was bright and clean, had toilets and running water and a unique central heating system – the floors heated. But my parents didn't like it. On the day we moved in the lifts broke down and Da had to carry a washing machine up eight flights of stairs on his back. Soon after he caught Raphael hanging over the balcony and got a terrible fright. Raphael was given the standard punishment: his bum was reddened. I suppose it's what I remember most about my youth – my father's war cry when we misbehaved or were 'bold', as we say in Ireland. It was always: 'I'll redden your arse for you.' He rarely did, the threat was enough to put the fear of God into us.
    We stayed in Ballymun for a year and then moved to a new three-bedroomed semi-detached house in Coolock, two miles to the east. My fourth brother, Christopher, eleven years my junior, was brought up here. The family was complete and Kilmore Avenue remains the family home today. My Da stopped racing in 1972: he was thirty-four years old, and raising sons was very time-consuming. He tried to get me interested in every kind of sport, but I was only ever interested in doing one thing. When I was ten years old he bought me a racing bike.

3
PACKET SOUP AND
FRUIT CAKE
    Delving into one's past can be discouraging, even disturbing. Questioning my mother about how she met my father was awkward. Questioning my father about my childhood was as bad. It's as if they have something very precious which they don't want to share with anyone. It's strange. Maybe I'll feel the same if I have children of my own one day.
    Ma (Dublin kids always call their mother 'Ma' and their father 'Da') says I was a dependable child. To illustrate this she tells the pound of sugar story. She would often come in from the shops having forgotten to buy a pound of sugar. This was a major headache because it meant putting my clothes on to go out again. Sometimes she just left me in the middle of the floor, surrounded by kitchen chairs, and sprinted to Geraghty's in Dorset Street for the sugar. When she came back I would always be there, not having moved an inch. A dependable child.
    My St David's Primary School teacher Michael O'Braoinain tells me that at school I fought injustice. I would never let him get away with anything unjust even if I risked a clip on the ear for my insubordination. My father says that as a child I was a nightmare – but he's lying, for I know I was good. This is not to say I didn't get my arse tanned on several occasions. But generally I was good. And this is what disturbs me. It's almost a disappointment to discover that I wasn't a tyrant child, unsuccessful at school and on my way to a life in prison only to be saved by athletic prowess. No, I was good, boringly good.
    I have a few vague memories of Eccles Street: of the old and very mad woman we frequently met on the road, who terrified me; of my father leaving me to go to the hospital late one night; of Mrs Geraghty's sweet shop in Dorset Street, and one or two other trivial things.
    My memory banks started to function when I was six and we moved to Ballymun. I loved it there. Much of that concrete jungle was still being built and I found the building sites fascinating. Ma would leave me in charge of Raphael (I was dependable, remember) and I would drag him around the sites, where we would play. Lipton's Supermarket was another favourite haunt. We would hang out at the incinerator, eating the half-burned rotten vegetables that we found lying around. It was all pretty harmless but Ballymun did have its dangers. My father made the flats' underground basement a strict 'no go' area after a paedophile was reported to have interfered with a neighbour's daughter.
    Scuttin'