Ian put his head round the door. ‘“Angel of Death”,’ he supplied. ‘We were playing “Angel of Death” when she walked in.’
Helen giggled, but Harry was as unsmiling as ever. ‘I fail to see the joke,’ he said pompously.
‘You always fail to see the joke,’ snapped Helen. She ripped off her pink elbow-length gloves, as if preparing for a fight. ‘I’m fed up with this,’ she began, as Mum walked slowly in from the kitchen. She must have heard the shouting, and had brought in a plate of cakes as an excuse to find out what was happening.
‘I made these earlier,’ she said brightly. ‘Cherry rum cake, brandy snaps, coffee-frosted–’
‘Harry’s just leaving,’ Helen interrupted, marching Harry to the door.
‘Good riddance,’ she muttered as the door slammed shut.
For a few minutes there was an atmosphere of tactful gloom. Then Mum asked hopefully, ‘Is he gone permanently?’
That infuriated Helen. ‘Mum, stop interfering!’ she yelled. ‘When will you realise that we want our independence? We don’t want you coming round here interfering with … everything.’
‘I see,’ said Mum, slowly and quietly. She put the plate down, just out of my reach and turned to face Helen. ‘And what interference would you like me to cease? Cleaning your bathroom? Ironing your clothes?’
‘Everything,’ replied Helen, stooping down and picking up the cakes. The coffee frosted ones had thick, smooth icing, the crunchy brandy snaps were oozing cream.
‘We’re grown up now.’ Helen continued as she thrust the plate back at Mum. ‘We just don’t need this sort of molly-coddling.’
‘I see.’ Mum was still unnaturally calm. ‘Well,’ she said, heading towards the back door, ‘I shall respect your wish for independence. This is the last time I shall come in uninvited,’ she added with an attempt at dignity.
I wanted to say something to cheer her up. I knew she was deeply hurt. I wanted her to know that I for one appreciated her attention, but she was moving fast towards the back door.
‘… leave the cakes,’ I managed, but the slam of the door drowned out my words. Mum had gone.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Great Pretender
Harry had slammed out of the front door, Mum out of the back, and now Ian started shouting, ‘So why did you send me to that hotel in Foxrock?’
‘Me? I didn’t.’
He dragged me into the hall to face the messages. ‘Yes, you did. Here it is.’ He pointed to, ‘Helmly Hall, Foxrock’ in Helen’s loopy handwriting.
‘That’s not how I write. Look at it.’ Helen had done everything but decorate the message with flowers.
I jabbed a finger at the message I’d written. ‘Here it is. “Hell’s Bells, nine.”’
‘So I’m meant to swing upside down to read that? We’re not all built like orang-utans.’
‘Well, whatever species you’re closest to, it’s a pity you can’t tell the time.’
‘What?’
‘You’re meant to be playing in the Hell’s Bells at nine. It’s ten past.’
Ian was gone. Then the telephone rang.
‘If that’s Harry, tell him I never want to see him again and that he’s the most pompous, affected, miserable, self-obsessed–’
Her voice followed me out the back door. I hadn’t eaten all day, and was going in search of food.
No 10 was so peaceful and quiet after all the yelling and slamming of doors at no 8.
‘I played in the A team today,’ I told Mum over my three-course dinner.
We were sitting in the kitchen, facing each other. Dad was obviously out, though Mum didn’t mention him. ‘That was nice.’
There was a long pause.
‘Scored a goal from a drop kick.’
‘Well done.’ The quiet was starting to get eerie. I wasn’t used to it.
I tried again. ‘The goal that won the game.’
‘Very nice.’
I tried a cheerful topic. ‘At least Harry’s got the heave-ho!’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Mum answered, disappearing upstairs.
Later, back at no 8, the phone was off the hook and Helen was deconstructing herself upstairs.
When she came down, she was transformed. At least three layers of colour and make-up had gone. She was wearing blue jeans, a Guns n’ Roses T-shirt and her hair was covered by a scarf, gypsy style.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said.
‘Where do you suggest?’
Just then, Ian pushed the front door open. He was carrying an amplifier again.
‘You’re back early.’
‘This one blew up too! We only played two numbers and the landlord refused to pay us.’ He dumped the amplifier down on the greyish-white carpet. ‘God, I hate music.’
‘We’re going out. Want to come?’ asked Helen.
‘Yeah, I know a few pubs we could go to.’
‘But Dave’s only twelve.’
‘He looks sixteen.’
‘I’ve been in pubs before. Don’t worry – I won’t drink. Sullivan’d kill me.’
Ian took his drum kit out of the van and left it in the hall, and we piled in. Out of nowhere came Psycho Phil, or his Doppelgänger, to join us.
‘Know a great place,’ he told us, guiding Ian to a pub I’d never noticed before.
‘Karaoke tonight!’ announced the notice outside.
‘We’re going in here?’ asked Helen doubtfully.
‘Yeah, why not?’ Ian said.
‘But you said you hated music.’
‘Exactly.’
The place was full and a girl had just finished singing ‘Cinderella Rockafella’. I thought she must have been brilliant because the clapping and cheering was tremendous, but as the evening continued, I realised that applause was awarded for nerve not notes. Karaoke’s like bungee jumping: you’re admired for having the guts to do it. Neither is a musical activity.
Not, that is, until my brother went forward and took the microphone. He’d been drinking Fanta all night like me, so it wasn’t Dutch courage that made him sing. He’d chosen the song carefully and he didn’t need the words on the screen to prompt him.
He sang a Freddie Mercury hit, ‘Great Pretender’, and he sang every word as if he meant it.
When he finished, the applause was subdued. He’d sung it as well as Freddie Mercury, every note accurate, every line loaded with feeling. The audience was stunned. They’d come for Karaoke; they’d heard real music. The words, ‘I’m pretending/That I’m doing well’ kept repeating in my mind as we drove home. I knew the song was Ian’s farewell to Heavy Metal. He was back with classical music.
Ian had got it right first time. By the time he was fifteen, he was tired of doing what Mum, Dad and everyone else expected, hence his Heavy Metal rebellion. Now he was facing up to the truth – he loved classical music. He wasn’t going to pretend anymore.
Helen had worked it out too. Ian, at the wheel, was silent, but Helen turned to me and whispered, ‘We’ve got Beethoven back.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Fire Dims
Snow fell in April, throwing Dublin into chaos. The roofs of the houses in Highfield Road were covered in a rich thick layer like icing sugar.
Rugby practice was cancelled – not for our sakes, you understand, Sullivan would have us practising in a cyclone, but for the sake of the pitches.
Joe, Abbas and I slithered up the hill of Highfield Road and spent our spare time at no 8. We mastered the knack of toasting marshmallows (two seconds max, then they’re crisp on the outside, soft inside). But by the time we perfected the toasting there was something wrong with the fire. I lit it every afternoon when I got home from school, using the thin wood from the dividing fence as kindling. And there was still coal left from before Mum’s argument with Helen. But after nearly a month, the fire was slower and slower to light. Even when I got it alight, the coal produced more smoke than welcoming red glow.
Helen was worse than useless when consulted.
‘Why isn’t it lighting properly?’ I asked her.
She gazed at the fire blankly. ‘How would I know? Don’t ask me. I’ve done enough for you,’ she said bitterly.
I stared. I couldn’t remember her doing a single thing for anyone else, let alone me.
‘Just what have you done for me?’ I asked sarcastically. I consulted my watch. ‘Don’t hurry. I’ve got five seconds. That should be more than enough time for a detailed list.’ I’d heard her say this to Mum, years ago.
Helen narrowed her eyes at me just as Mum had done at her. ‘You don’t know how demanding it is running a house, David.’
‘Running,’ I laughed. ‘Helen, you’re not even walking this place.’
I looked around the sitting-room. One curtain was hanging lopsidedly from its rail. The once white carpet was mottled with pink and grey sticky circles. Up in the bathroom, the towels had been emitting toxic fumes for days and the sink was growing a worrying mould on its grey rim. ‘Running,’ I repeated, ‘the only thing running around here is bacteria.’
But Helen had slammed out of the room. I sighed. My conscience wasn’t quite clear about the curtain rail. That might have come down during a fight that had developed between Joe and me, a fight that might also have been responsible for the splitting of one of the bean bags and the distribution of about a thousand plastic beans throughout the room.
Joe had been trying to strangle me with one of the curtains when Ian walked in – and this just goes to show how weird he is – ignored us completely. My older brother has never, not once, beaten anyone up on my behalf. Of course, with a physique like his he’s not well-equipped to do much beating up. In fact, my brother would be more likely to reduce Joe to a quivering wreck by singing him an aria, which is almost what happened.
Ian just headed towards the piano, as if in a dream. Joe stopped strangling me and listened. He knew Ian had won a scholarship for his singing, but not that he could play the piano brilliantly. Ian began with ‘Chopsticks’, played with two fingers. As far as Joe was concerned, that’s how everyone plays the piano.
But the ‘Chopsticks’ turned into some concerto or other which seemed to need a hundred fingers and Ian was playing the piano as if his life depended on it. Joe stared in disbelief. When the playing came to an end with a dramatic crescendo, he let out a slow whistle of appreciation.
‘I never knew you could play like that,’ he said admiringly.
‘That,’ answered Ian contemptuously, more to himself than to Joe. ‘I want to play better than that.’ And he started playing again.
From then on he was always at the piano, so often that it interfered with our TV watching. We tried turning the volume right up but it’s very unnerving trying to concentrate with Beethoven in the room with you. Even if we chucked marshmallows at him, he just kept on playing. Now, don’t try to tell me that’s normal behaviour.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A Mess
And then a terrible thing happened. The TV controls went missing. We searched the whole room for them, flinging the bean bags about so that the beans from the torn one flew in all directions, but we couldn’t find the controls.
I challenged Psycho Phil who had turned up because he thought Helen would be home. ‘You’ve taken the controls,’ I said.
‘Controls? What controls?’
‘What controls? The supersonic jet controls. The border controls. The self controls. The TV controls, of course, you idiot.’ I looked at Psycho. He was tall, but I’ve seen more muscle on a gerbil. I guessed that he weighed less than ten stone.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Try this. Stand up straight.’ I got behind him but he swivelled round. ‘No, stand that way,’ I instructed, turning him back. ‘Now, I’m going to catch you. Fall backwards.’
He didn’t move.
‘Just relax and fall backwards,’ I repeated. I waited, ready to catch him. For a moment nothing happened. Then he crumpled to the floor in a faint.
Just then Ian walked in. He was strangely different. Gone was the razor blade in his left ear-lobe, back was the cherub-like expression. Stepping over Psycho, he headed towards the piano.
‘Welcome home!’ I said. ‘Know what’s wrong with the fire?’
But he just sat at the piano and started playing some intricate composition.
And still the fire wouldn’t light properly. Joe didn’t come round any more. Abbas did, but mainly to supply domestic advice from his mum. She couldn’t speak much English so stayed indoors a lot. I’d come to think of her, sitting inside, a Goddess of Domestic Science, waiting to hand out advice to me when I needed it. Abbas decided to consult her and report back.
It was bad news. ‘She says how often do you clean it out?’ he said.
‘Clean it out? What do you mean “clean it out?” Coal burns, doesn’t it?’
‘Coal burns into ash,’ Abbas pointed out, grinning. He pulled the front away from the fire grate. It was packed thick with ash.
‘How do we get rid of this?’ I asked Helen, who’d just entered the front room.
‘No idea,’ she said sharply. She was carrying a blouse. ‘All this washing,’ she moaned.
Mum still washed all my clothes at no 10, but she refused to do Helen’s.
‘You seem a bit ruffled today,’ I said to her, grinning. ‘In fact, you look positively unironed.’
Helen glowered. ‘Friends round again,’ she commented.
‘At least my friends don’t annoy the neighbours,’ I retorted. We’d received another spidery note that morning written on the back of a ‘Get Well’ card.
We could read only two words: ‘car’ and ‘blockage’. Helen had a new boyfriend, ‘new’ but not ‘young’.
‘If your boyfriends get any older, they’ll be parking their Zimmer frames in the hall,’ I commented.
Abbas looked uncomfortable. ‘I’ll go and get something to pick up the ash,’ he offered, and sped off.
He returned with a small shovel that his mum said could be used for ashes.
I shovelled the ashes out from under the grate and into a plastic bag. The cinders left in the fire immediately began to glow red. But when I was carrying the bag of ashes out to dump them in the back garden, a funny thing happened. The plastic bag shrivelled to nothing and a mound of grey ash landed on the carpet.
‘You idiot,’ shrieked Helen. ‘Look what you’ve done. Quick, quick! It’ll burn the carpet.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do–’ I began, but when Abbas started shouting, ‘Where’s the vacuum cleaner?’ I realised there was a real danger of fire and I went in search of a vacuum cleaner too.
But we didn’t have a vacuum cleaner. We had a grand piano and a TV set as big as a Punch and Judy booth, but no vacuum cleaner.
‘Get Mum’s!’ I shouted.
Helen ran next door. I kicked at the ash to stop it burning through the carpet. It was smouldering by now and some of the ash stuck like glue to the sole of my right shoe, which started to smoke.
I was just wiping that off on another bit of carpet when Helen returned with Mum. Mum had a bucket of water with her which she threw over the ash. There was a sizzle and then everything went silent.
Except Mum. ‘Fancy even thinking of using a vacuum cleaner to suck up hot ashes,’ she yelled. ‘What did you think would happen when the fire met the electric current?’ She was really livid. ‘Or haven’t you two heard of electricity?’ she asked sarcastically.
‘It was his idea,’ said Helen, pointing to Abbas.
‘Don’t drag David’s friends into this,’ snapped Mum. ‘You’re meant to know what you’re doing, remember?’
I did. Now look at Helen: she was the oldest, supposedly the most responsible of us, and she couldn’t even organise this little place. I stared round the room. It was dismal. The ash had settled on every flat surface, adding an extra inch or two to the dust already there.
‘This house is getting disgusting,’ I complained.
Helen lifted her gaze from the wet ash and look
ed at Mum beseechingly. ‘Mum?’ she said.
Mum smiled in quiet triumph. ‘This is nothing to do with us, is it?’ she said sweetly to Abbas. ‘Let’s leave those who know how to run their own lives to it, shall we? Would you like a piece of oaty date cake, dear? Or would you prefer datey oat cake?’ I heard her saying as she led Abbas out towards her back door. Since Mum got rid of her three children, she had the time to bake so many cakes that you’d think she was trying to compete with Mr Kipling.
Then I considered. ‘Got rid of her three children’ was pretty accurate.
I set about scraping up the soggy grey ash. Helen and Ian always went on about wanting more independence, but I didn’t. Twelve years old and abandoned, I thought bitterly. Left to fend for myself with a sister intent on electrocuting the lot of us and a manic depressive brother.
The letterbox clicked. I picked up the card. On one side was a picture of two squirrels and a poem:
A birthday is a special day
For laughter, love and cheer
For sharing warm and happy times
With those you hold most dear.
On the other side was a scrawled message: ‘Will call police if you park car in alley.’
Mum and Dad had a lot to answer for, I thought gloomily as I mounted the stairs to my cold, bleak bedroom.
The smell of burning lingered on the stairs and on the landing. That, and the realisation of my parents’ criminal irresponsibility, made me feel sick.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Illness
After a restless sleep full of nightmares involving marshmallows, ash and fire, I woke and was sick.
‘Helen!’ I called feebly. I could hear the movement of jars and aerosols in the bathroom that signalled the beginning of Helen’s day.
‘Helen,’ I shrieked, trying to combine feebleness with volume. ‘I’m being sick.’
My Nasty Neighbours Page 6
