Two Walls and a Roof Read Online Free PDF Page A

went up. Brid Anne was older and seemed to have no fears of the concert , and neither did Gerry: both of them were a lot nicer to me too.
    My last memory of those concerts was unforgettable. The curtain went up and Brid Anne introduced the show and called on Gerry to say a poem or something like that. Then Mattie had to do his bit , but I can’t remember what he did. Then the finale was always my part and a big show was made of the ‘special guest’. “ John Cahill from Cork will now sing Doonaree” I peeped through the curtain and saw Nannie beaming with pomp and pride in her John as my name is being called out.  Then I was shoved out from behind the curtain by Mattie, and I fell over a chair.  After pulling myself together I began to sing. “Oh to be in Doonaree where the ……” I could n ot remember the next line. T otal silence fell on the room; s tage fright had hit m e. Mattie sniggered from behind and I raged inside, then I tried again with Brid Anne trying to prompt me.
    “ Oh to be ….. “ T his time I got a bit further along , based on her prompting.  Nannie was glaring at me and had put on that dark face which I knew meant a good hiding was on the way at the very least, but it could mean death was a possibility also. Again , total stage fright hit me and I froze a second time.   Mattie shouts out from behind, “Up Tip, Tip for the All Ire land”, a nd even though not a sporting type myself, that slur on Cork was too much for me and I lost control . F iguring that I was going to ge t killed anyways by the Nan, I ran round the chair and began punching him in the head and kicking him like a mad man. He fought back and uproar was all the go. We fell on the ground and he was trying to bite me. I kneed him in the ‘mi ckey’ and he roared out in pain; all this happened in seconds. We were soon dragged apart. Nannie ordered me to say sorry and I refused, bang, a clatter across the head changed my mind. “Say sorry I tell you now, and shake hands with your cousin”. As we were both in trouble , we reluctantly shook hands , but he tried to stick me with his finger nail as we shook. Later that night Nannie threatened me with never taking me there again, and as I did love the place , especially the stories, I felt bad all night long and couldn’t sleep. Of course we did go back and Mattie and I made it up, but there were no more concerts after that night.
    My brother Kyrle was born about a year or so after me, and I guess he became my parent s ’ first child , or at least that’s how I felt about it always. Kyrle had beautiful hair as a child and mine was a dead loss, getting worse the more the Nan tried to fix it, and it’s the same to this day. She resorted to using what I called her ‘crocodiles’. These were definitely antiques I would say from some time of torture in the Middle Ages. They were shaped like half moons that opened out into jaws which had jagged , razor - sharp teeth. I assume the way they worked was the jaws grabbed the hair and the teeth held it in place, and ultimately a smile or
    a ‘wave’ would form; waves were all the go then. Kyrle had curls and apparently looked great and my hair was flat and straight with a ‘cow ’ s lick’.  But Nannie determined that now, I was going to have waves too.
    The normal way these crocodiles were used, when not for to rture, was that the person put them on some time before bed, then removed them before sleep. Not so with the Nan though. She felt sure she would get better results if I had them in all night long, and to make sure they stayed in, she would almost stick the bloody things into my scalp. She definitely had two of them, but more likely she had four. For God only knows how long, she tortured me with these implements of pain. Every night I would be yelling, “No Nan, not the crocodiles again tonight . ” The cries fell on deaf ears though, and then I had not alone to contend wit h the scratching from the fleas and the