Spit Against the Wind by Smith Anna

Author:Smith, Anna [Smith, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2013-10-16T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

We had to walk for ten minutes across town until we got to the big private road that led to the Bishop’s house. This was the first time I had been as far away as this without my mum. I had only ever been allowed to go on the bus to the town nearest the village if I was going to the pictures or the café, but now it felt as though we were nearly in Glasgow. I saw a sign for Hamilton, but I had no real idea where I was. The journey on the bus had seemed like an age, and we hardly spoke a word. I sat beside Tony, who smoked two cigarettes but said nothing. Kevin sat with Dan, who stared out of the window most of the time. We went through small villages then countryside until the faster road that led to the town where the Bishop lived. Every now and again on the journey, I noticed that Kevin would pat Dan’s arm reassuringly, and Dan would look at him and try to smile. But there was no smile there. Not like the way it used to be, before his dad died and before any of this stuff came out about Father Flynn. I wondered how long it had been happening for. I felt angry. Jamie said nothing. He just sat with knees up on the seat in front, staring out of the window. The skin was broken on his knuckles and he picked at it. I knew that he was thinking about his mum and what Cowan had said about her going to the ‘laughing academy’. That was what they called the mental hospital and it was where they took you if you went crazy. A lot of people had gone crazy in the past few years. I heard people say it was the Valium or something. But Mary McCabe never seemed the type to be crazy. She was always working and having a laugh with the neighbours. Everyone asked her to parties because she was a great singer, but they were always afraid because if Jake was with her he would always pick a fight at the end of the night and she would end up getting a black eye. But lately she had been doing funny things. People had seen her crying and walking the streets late at night on her own. I sat next to her at mass once and the tears rolled down her cheeks and she had to get up and go outside.

Jamie was always worried about her and tried to help in the house by running to the shops and sometimes even cooking chips for his sister and brother’s dinner, because his dad was drunk and his mum was upstairs crying. I wished Kevin could fix it for Jamie too, but I knew he couldn’t.

*

We all stopped in our tracks when we saw the Bishop’s house. I had never seen a house as big as this in real life.

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