The Barrytown Trilogy (Omnibus) by Roddy Doyle

Author:Roddy Doyle [Doyle, Roddy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature
ISBN: 9781409078166
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1993-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

THE VAN

This book is dedicated to John Sutton

Thanks to

Brian McGinn and Will Moore

for their help, advice and recipe for batter

Jimmy Rabbitte Sr had the kitchen to himself. He felt a draught and looked up and Darren, one of his sons, was at the door, looking for somewhere to do his homework.

—Oh—, said Darren, and he turned to go back into the hall.

—D’yeh need the table, Darren? said Jimmy Sr.

—Eh —

— No, come on. Fire away.

Jimmy Sr stood up. His arse had gone numb on him.

—Jesus —!

He straightened up and grinned at Darren.

—I’ll go somewhere else, he said.

—Thanks, said Darren.

—Not at all, said Jimmy Sr.

Jimmy Sr left Darren in the kitchen and went out to the front step and sat on it. Christ, the step was cold; he’d end up with piles or the flu or something. But there was nowhere else to go until after the dinner. All the rooms in the house were occupied. He rubbed his hands; it wasn’t too bad. He tried to finish the article in the Press he’d been reading, about how people suffered after they got out of jail, with photographs of the Guildford Four.

A car went by. Jimmy Sr didn’t know the driver. The sun was down the road now, going behind the school gym. He put the paper down beside him on the step and then he put his hands in under the sleeves of his jumper.

He was tempted to have a bash at the garden but the grass was nearly all gone, he’d been cutting it so often. He’d have looked like a right gobshite bringing the lawn-mower for a walk around a baldy garden, in the middle of November. There were weeds in under the hedge, but they could stay there. Anyway, he liked them; they made the garden look more natural. He’d painted the gate and the railings a few months back; red, and a bit of white, the Liverpool colours, but Darren didn’t seem to care about that sort of thing any more.

—Look, Darren. Your colours.

——Oh yeah.

Jimmy Sr’d noticed small patches where some dust and bits of stuff had got stuck to the wet paint. He’d go over it again, but not today. It was a bit late.

The car went by again, the other way this time. He got a better look at the driver but he still didn’t know him. He looked as if he was searching for a house he didn’t know. He was only looking at the even numbers across the way. He might have been the police. That would’ve been good, watching the guards going in and arresting Frano Traynor again. It had been great gas the last time they’d done it, especially when Chrissie, Frano’s mot, started flinging toys down at them from the bedroom window and she hit Frano with Barbie’s Ferrari.

—Jesus; sorry, love!

—You’re alrigh’, said Frano back, searching his hair for blood.

That would have killed the time till the dinner.

But the car was gone.

There was nothing else happening, no kids on the street even.

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