The dress in my lap. It was all weird. Boy’s skin, woman’s dress.

  ‘After I’d seen The Boys, I went inside and said to all and sundry, I hate New Zealand. Ma said, Would you rather be back in Clonard wondering if your Dad’s going to come home in a box? I said, Yes, low so neither Ma nor Dad, who was tacking up curtain rails, could hear. Yes, the freedom fighter was tacking up curtain rails. Much rather, I said.’

  •

  The sun was slanting into the room. A beeline for—yes, the costume. I had to turn sideways from it. There’s a hole in the ozone layer, you know, and New Zealand cops it more than anywhere. It’s a bit of a worry. My hands were, at this point, embedded in the costume as if they loved it, but not moving, just lying there with it, but he didn’t notice and I couldn’t be bothered doing any more. I was sick of this costume, if you want to know the truth. Sick of it.

  And he was rabbiting on anyway. He was away. About how his dad got the first job of his life. But I’ll tell it. It’s quicker. Remember, a few ums and ahs, a few sighs, a few gawuffs. Patting for fags, pacing about the room.

  Anyway.

  His dad went to the Labour Department and came home with a job more or less tucked under his arm. Had the interview, got the papers, everything, start next Monday. Grinning all over, fit to bust and saying to the ma, Concepta, there’re all these jobs and no one wants them, all over this board! And you just go up and take one and go up to the counter and they send you for an interview. It’s like the jobs grow on trees. So he’d found this job, apparently, and it was like a leaf, it was like a fucking leaf growing on a tree. And he said (apparently) that if you took that board with the jobs on it to the Brew and said anyone could apply for them, even Catholics, there’d be the biggest mob they’d ever seen in Belfast, including on the twelfth.

  It was for the railways. A trainee shunter, he said. He’d be doing shiftwork, all hours of the day and night. The ma said, Okay, good (apparently). That night they had lamb for dinner. They knew where the next meal was coming from. Courtesy of the railways. And the parents had beer, and the dad went to sleep in the chair from the side of the road. If they’d been in Clonard they would’ve kept going all night, talking and getting hilarious and maybe having a dance if the wives came in, and then getting serious, as the night wore on, and sending the kids to bed because it was not for little ears. But now it was just them, the father, the mother, the kids, in paradise, and so the dad went to sleep.

  They should’ve died. They should have all been dead.

  On the first day of his job the dad was on Mornings, and was up at the crack of dawn, and the client—Shane—watched him drinking his tea at the kitchen bench, because there was still no furniture, apart from the chair. It was light early because it was summer. The ma was cutting the dad’s lunch, and when she’d finished she brushed off her hands and put the packet next to him and went off to get dressed, humming. As soon as she’d gone there was an odd, animal noise. The dad had his tea on an angle about to spill, and tears were pouring down his cheeks. Shane hesitated, and wondered if he should run for the ma, but somehow he knew that the dad had been saving these tears for when the ma was out of the room. He stood there. It was like the world was coming to an end, because, well, this was a man crying, and he was crying like a baby, and the only other time he’d cried was when Bobby Sands died. Shane edged in close, which he hoped would make the dad stop, anything for him to stop. The boy didn’t know what to do, because wasn’t it meant to be the other way around, a kid crying and the parent comforting? Maybe it was topsy-turvy in the Southern Hemisphere, where grown men cried and kids, well—Shane suddenly hurled himself at the dad and hugged the dad’s waist. The dad was saying through his sobs that he was sorry, he couldn’t explain it, son. He knocked back his tea, tipping the cup back to drain every last drop as he always did. He seemed to recover and he said, My father was unemployed from the age of thirty and I’ve never had a job and now I have a job and you’ll have a job. And here it became apparent that the dad hadn’t recovered because he let out such a loud sob that Shane thought the ma would come running and be upset and then the girls would wake up and everyone would be upset, but she didn’t. The sob must have been almost silent, something between them, just felt. The dad said again, You’ll have a job, when you’re grown up you’ll have a job. Shane said he would, he’d get a job, don’t worry. The dad was saying, That’s my lad, you’ll get a job that’s a damn sight better than your old dad’s. Shane was saying no he wouldn’t—the dad was a freedom fighter, he’d risked his life for the armed struggle—of course Shane wouldn’t have a better job than that. There was no better job. But the dad said fiercely, You’ll get a better job than me, lad, much better. And Shane kept saying, No I won’t, Dad, I won’t. The dad suddenly exploded. For God’s sake, are you stupid? Why the hell d’you think we came to this godforsaken country at the end of the earth? Shane was alarmed. Godforsaken? He’d thought they were meant to be happy about coming here. Ma had shushed him when he said how much he hated it. So the dad was allowed to hate it. The dad was in a trigger-happy mood. Shane hesitated. Whatever he said would be the wrong answer. But Dad wanted an answer. Why d’you think we came here then? Shane licked his lips. Why? Why? thundered Dad. Because of the Mass card, said Shane. Dad stared at him. Because of the Mass card? Is that what you think? Shane said he didn’t know. The dad stared out the window. The fucking Mass card, he said, we could’ve moved down the road to get away from that. We could’ve gone anywhere. We came here for you! We came to the end of the earth for you and your sisters, so you can have a better life, a better life entirely than me or your Ma or your Grandpa and Granny ever dreamed of. He sank down a bit, exhausted. That’s why.

  The ma could be heard moving around in the bedroom and the dad seemed to come out of some sort of dream or nightmare. He hugged Shane quickly. Don’t worry, son, I’m going off to my first job and I can’t believe it. Be happy for your old Dad.

  The ma came into the kitchen and said, Kevin, the bus, it’s twenty past. And the dad nodded and took his pathetic packet of sandwiches that the ma had packed for him and his jacket, and kissed them both—kissed them, the man who’d probably picked off an Orangie on the twelfth—and he went down the steps and the ma and Shane waved him off from the doorstep.

  In the evening the dad was so tired he didn’t eat his tea or wash off the dirt from the railway yards. He fell into bed. The ma hauled off his boots and shut the bedroom door. It was broad daylight. He was thirty-eight years old and doing the job of a sixteen-year-old.

  When the dad got his first pay, they all met him in town and bought clothes at Farmers. More clothes, only better. The family looked spick and span. On the way home on the bus, the dad said, Now we’ll look like everybody else. But they didn’t, they looked like immigrants. The father added, Like everybody else in this godforsaken fucking place. People on the bus stared. Shane hissed, Dad, we need to not draw attention to ourselves! He wanted to fit in.

  They didn’t fit in. Shane wanted to look ragged like The Boys, but instead he wore the clothes he would’ve worn in Ireland if they’d had two pennies to rub together, which they hadn’t. He remembered the ma asking why the rich children (everyone was rich apart from them) looked like peasants. He didn’t know. All he knew was he wanted to look like a peasant too. But they couldn’t afford it.

  That’s it.

  He put the wineglass to his lips. He’d finished. He patted his pocket. ‘I’ll just pop out for a fag.’

  While he was gone I tossed the costume over the back of a chair and got up and stretched my legs. I caught sight of him on the veranda, chugging away. I ran my finger over the spines of books. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, Outside in the Teaching Machine, We Shall Not Cease. The room now seemed like a crucible of sunlight, which any moment would be tipped out. The light would slip through my fingers. There would be nothing I could do.

  He sat on the couch, which was intensely red.

  ‘There was another incident.’

  ‘Oh, what?’

  ‘Well, a couple.’ He smiled. ‘The school, and a piano. Seeing you’re still going.’ Flapped at the costume.

  You know what? I should’ve been giving titles to these stories. The Rats. The List, The Piano Lesson.

  ‘Wine?’

  I went to the kitchen and fetched crackers, salami (I know, grease near the garment), and a jar of artichoke hearts, the ubiquitous dried apples. Yes, fetched. As I came back along the passage I could see sunlight like liquid running under the door.

  I poured red.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Blackout food,’ I said.

  He ignored this detail. He was neutral about the Blackout. I loved the Blackout. I’d never lived so well. He scoffed the food though.

  I could have provided a few titles for myself: The Pole House, The Dropout, Rip Burn Snag. But I didn’t.

  Okay, so, The School.

  I’ll tell it.

  (This was great. The costume over the back of the chair. He didn’t even notice. Instead, we raised our glasses into the last of the sun. Cheers.)

  The ma (he said) went to enrol the kids at the local Catholic school, and she was gone a long time. The dad was at home. (He was on Evenings.) All the time the ma was out, the dad was like a cat on hot bricks, pacing back and forth. The empty New Zealand house was perfect for pacing. In Clonard you’d encounter a wall within a step or two, but here the dad could pace to his heart’s content. The girls were next door with The Girls. Shane said to the dad, Dad, don’t worry (all of twelve years old), there aren’t any snipers here. The dad stopped in his tracks and looked at Shane, and he said, Don’t you go thinking Belfast is dangerous and the rest of the planet is safe. Otherwise you may as well go and get yourself a job on Fleet Street. Shane said, I’d never do that, not in a million years. And the dad nodded, Good lad, I know you wouldn’t. Human nature was the same everywhere, he said, it just depended on circumstances how people behave. Shane said, I know, Dad.

  But the ma still wasn’t coming back. Shane said she was probably having a cup of tea with the nuns and the dad laughed and said, You’re probably right there. Because Ma was always inviting the sisters and the priests in for a cup of tea and they seemed to be her friends, whereas a lot of people didn’t think nuns and priests were friend material. They were too holy or weird, or dressed in too much black. But the ma got on with them like a house on fire and they always had a great old yak. The dad would hang about the edges, a bit nervous because he wasn’t sure if they weren’t too holy to be friends with, but he’d end up having a bit of a laugh too.

  Except in the end they didn’t come to the Clonard house, nobody did, because the dad had had the Mass card.

  The client was thundering through the dried apples.

  When the ma finally came home the dad seemed to stifle his happiness at seeing her alive. He stopped halfway towards hugging her and narrowed his eyes. What is it, Concepta? (he said). The ma had an odd expression on her face. She sat down in the chair from the side of the road. She said, They’re to go to the state school. I had to get the bus to Mount Albert to enrol Shane at the intermediate school. And the girls will go to Mount Albert Primary.

  There was a silence like the moment after an explosion, shattered by the dad going, What?

  The ma said that was the way it was, St Mary’s was full. It had a waiting list. The principal had put Sharon and Dana on it. It wasn’t worth it for Shane because he only had one year left at primary school. Shane could hear the dad saying, way in the distance, A waiting list! But he’d flown into his own panic. He couldn’t go to the state school. He’d be murdered. The ma was saying, You won’t be murdered at all, this is New Zealand. But he would be murdered.

  And then it occurred to him that all was not lost. This would be the deciding factor. Now, because of the state school, they would all go back to Clonard, to the squat, and the woman and her five—no, four—children would give it back because that was only decent. Shane would run outside and find his friends again, the gang of boys tossing rocks over the barricade, and they’d call out to him, Shane! Shane! And they’d admire his new clothes. And he’d start mucking around with them as if nothing had happened, as if New Zealand had never happened, as if it didn’t exist on the face of the fucking earth. And when he went inside for tea, he’d even find his Superman lying on the floor, kicked into a corner. The new kid wouldn’t have taken it after all. So it was good it had turned out like this. Thank fucking Christ for the state school.

  They didn’t go back. Obviously.

  Meanwhile the dad was pacing about (again). He had the look of when he was planning something back home. He was saying to the ma, But they have to take Catholic children, surely they do, and the ma was saying, No they don’t, they don’t have to. Surely we have a right, said the dad. No we don’t, said the ma, who looked like she was getting to that point where she’d say, I’m too tired to talk anymore, like she did sometimes. But she said, There’s a waiting list and what’s more, not only Catholic children are on it. Dad stopped in his tracks. You mean Orangies are on the waiting list? The dad laughed. Yes laughed, even though Shane might die at the state school. (Shane hated him.) Prods wanting to go to a Catholic school? This couldn’t be true. Well, said the ma, not necessarily Prods—they could be anything, Jewish or Hindu, they could be atheists. They’ll be Prods, said the dad. Who else would want to infiltrate a Catholic school? And they take them! They fucking take them! Five percent, said the ma. Five percent non-Catholic. Jesus fucking Christ, said the dad.

  Shane said it didn’t matter anyway, because they were going home, but no one heard him.

  The dad was saying, God Almighty, we come all the way from the other side of the world because we’re Catholic, when it comes down to it, no other fucking reason. We’ve been drummed out of our own country because we’re Catholic, and we come to this country because they tell us you can practise your own religion and nobody gives a damn, nobody gives a toss whether you pray to the sun.

  The ma interrupted. No one gave a toss about that in Ireland either, when it came down to brass tacks.

  The dad said he knew that. Of course he fucking knew that. But anyway. Now, now, their kids were being turned away from the Catholic school in favour of fucking Prods. And after all they’ve been through (the kids, he meant). They were more Catholic (the kids, he meant) than that nun’s little finger.

  Actually, said the ma, she wasn’t a nun. And the ma put her head back in the rickety chair and closed her eyes. The dad said (darkly), I might have known. She was an ordinary person, Mrs Somethingorother, was she? The ma, still with her eyes closed, said, Yes, she was an ordinary person. Jesus, said the dad, the principal is an ordinary person. The ma said the principal had told her she was of the Anglican faith herself. The dad was asking, Is this England, for fuck’s sake? What’s someone doing being an Anglican here? This is New Zealand! The dad went over to the window and stared out into the windy garden as if to verify that this was New Zealand. And at a Catholic school! He shook his head.

  Shane looked at his back. The tense, muscled back that was like a face. Shane would die at the state school. He was being sacrificed for the dad, while the dad lived on in New Zealand. He felt hatred filtering through his body like dye. Like the barium meal the ma had to eat once when they thought she had a tumour, and she told them all about it, how the barium showed up brightly on the X-ray. That was how he felt. A meal of hatred glowing in his intestines. He let out a wail. The dad looked at him as if he was mad, fucking crackers. What? Without opening her eyes the ma reached out from the tottering chair and patted Shane. It’s not like that here, son, don’t you worry. The dad closed his eyes for a moment too. With both the ma and the dad with their eyes closed, it seemed that Shane was the only one left on the planet. Dad’s face ironed out into something floppy and plain, like a sheet off the line. Then he opened his eyes and said to Shane, Don’t you worry, you’re going to the Catholic school. I’m going down to St Mary’s straight away to have a word with the ordinary person. You and your sisters have a right to be at that school. I’m going down there. I’ll just have a cup of tea first. Shane nodded. Of course the dad wouldn’t let him be murdered at the state school. The dad was a hero. In the row, the dad was the most famous hero.

  After he’d had his tea, the dad said he didn’t feel like going down to the school that afternoon. He said he was too emotional and he’d probably give the ordinary person an earful he’d regret and then they’d be put on some fucking blacklist and the kids would never be allowed to set foot in the school. He’d go the next day. The ma kept her eyes closed through all this, even refusing the cup of tea which sat cooling on the floor beside her.

  By the next day the dad was asking what the fucking use was anyway. He didn’t go down to St Mary’s to have a word with the ordinary person. And so for three weeks Shane lived in terror of being murdered at the state school. He’d never feared death back in Clonard. Even if he had, Clonard was worth death. It was worth joblessness, poverty and death. He hated paradise.

  He was beaten up on the first day at school for being a whingeing Pom. They thought he was a Brit. And he hadn’t bloody complained about anything. That night, he put his broken nose an inch from the dad’s. He could feel the dad’s breath. What? The dad was the reason they’d come to New Zealand. Shane said, I told you I’d be murdered at the state school. He growled the last word, like an animal, a dog. The dad looked away.

  •

  I remember the odd thing. I remember the cold, mushroomy clay under the pole house. The ironed smell of Sister Jude’s embroidery being unwrapped. I remember the wind.

  25

  There was a period of restlessness. The client staring out the window. Me folding my arms and thinking. Yes, thinking. The client on the veranda having another fag. Me going to the kitchen for food, wine. Suddenly he appeared there with plates and things. (Never say ‘suddenly’, because it isn’t ever really sudden.) His face went like a prune.