‘I don’t think so. Not tonight, John.’
She stands up. ‘Come. You need to say goodnight.’
My father is in his armchair by the fire. Usually when I come to him to say goodnight, he parts his legs, or uncrosses them. And even though I’m too big, I sit on his knee, just for the play of it, and he asks me whether I’ve combed my teeth, the same joke he makes every night, and we laugh.
But when he sees me walk into the living room, he keeps his legs tightly crossed, and looks at me as though he has never seen me standing by his chair before. He has swept his fringe away from his eyes and the artery on his left temple pulses in time with the grandfather clock; it looks like mercury pumping inside sausage skin, ugly and hot.
‘Goodnight, Da,’ I say.
‘Goodnight then,’ he says.
‘Goodnight,’ I say again, but he pretends not to have heard.
I go back to bed and read for a while.
My mother comes in. ‘OK?’ she asks.
‘OK,’ I say.
‘Read for a bit longer tonight, if you want to,’ she says.
She’s wearing a pair of my father’s pyjamas, and the hems drag on the floor.
‘Why was everything different today?’ I ask.
‘Nothing was different today, John.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, darling. I’m sure.’
She steps closer to the bed. I sit up and lean forward. Instead of kissing me, she touches the collar of my pyjama top.
‘Sleep well,’ she says to the wall behind me. But her voice is kind, and after she leaves I am happy for a while, until I realise that there is something stuck in my throat and that the feeling is getting worse.
I can hear the melted snow trickling into the drain outside and I’m afraid of something, although I don’t know what. I wonder what it means to be sure that a person has lied. I will check the Guinness Book of Records tomorrow to see if there is an entry for lie detection.
2
My mother is outside in the car, waiting to take me for a drive with her into town to buy some new trousers. I’ve outgrown my old ones.
On the way out through the kitchen, I pass my father, who is reading at the table. During the night he buried the kittens in the back garden and put a rock over them. The window in my bedroom looks out over the side of the house and, when I stand up, I can see over the hedge to the small road that leads to the cemetery. And although I didn’t see outside last night (I was under the blankets, keeping warm), I knew by the kicking noises my father made that he was looking for a rock.
‘Hello,’ I say.
There’s a plate of half-eaten black pudding in front of him. I move towards him and ask, ‘What’s the book about?’
He looks up at me. ‘The same thing it was about the last time you asked.’
‘Oh,’ I say.
‘Criminals and criminology,’ he says, rubbing his knee.
‘What kind of criminals?’
‘Lombroso’s born criminals. Criminals who can’t seem to help but break the law.’
His dressing gown is too short and his knees and his hairy white calves poke out from under the table.
‘Like robbers and murderers?’ I ask.
‘Your mam’s waiting. I’ll see you later. And I’ll have a present for you.’
‘Last time you forgot.’
A gust of wind slams the door shut and he looks up at me as though it is my fault. ‘I didn’t forget,’ he says. ‘But this present will be a very good one. You’ll see.’
He looks back at his book and I look at his wide mouth. I wonder what would happen if I walked to the end of the table and kissed him goodbye. He might like that, or he might be irritated. I can usually tell whether he’s in the mood to be kissed, but today he seems both to want and not want me near him. I watch him carefully.
He rubs his knee again, then he looks up. ‘What are you staring at?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Goodbye, son. Have a good day with your mam.’
I walk away.
My mother is wiping the inside of the windscreen with the sleeve of her coat. I get in. ‘What kept you?’
‘I was talking to Da.’
It’s cold today and even colder in the car. I put my fingers against the palm of my hand and wonder how my palm can be warm when my fingers are already so cold they feel bruised. I fold my arms tight around my body and make myself rigid.
I want to ask my mother whether she thinks my father will go to university and, if he does, whether we will move to Dublin. I like it here, but I like Dublin too, and it’s only two hours away. It might be easier to meet with the people from the Guinness Book of Records in Dublin.
‘Are you looking forward to going back to school next week?’
‘Not really.’
She uses the same sleeve she used to wipe the windscreen to wipe under her nose.
‘Do you want a hanky?’ I ask. ‘I’ve one in my pocket.’
I wipe her nose with my handkerchief while she drives and I wonder where the pink hanky I gave her for Christmas has gone. The end of her nose is red and there’s a thin blue vein around the edge of her nostril. I don’t remember seeing this vein before or the dark mole near her knuckle with three black hairs growing from it.
‘When did they last measure you at school?’ she asks. ‘I thought maybe we should talk to the doctor again?’
‘I’m an inch and a half shorter than you,’ I say. ‘I’m exactly five foot eight and a half.’
‘We want to keep an eye on things. That’s all. Wouldn’t you be happier talking to the doctor about these things?’
‘There’s nothing to talk about. I’m just tall. That’s all.’
‘What about other things?’
‘There are no other things! I’m just tall.’
She clears her throat and slows the car. ‘What about puberty? It might begin early for you.’
‘Well, it hasn’t. So what’s there to talk about?’
‘But look at your legs,’ she says. ‘There’s barely room for them in the car. And your hands! As big as rubber boots.’
‘I’ve been this size for weeks. They’ve been like this for at least three weeks.’
‘Well, then. You’ve had another growth spurt. Maybe we should talk to the doctor? What do you say?’
Soon after my tenth birthday my voice began to break like the voices of the boys in the sixth class. But the sixth class is only one class above me now and my voice and height don’t bother me as much as they used to. Besides, I always feel the odd one out at school. I feel more nervous and, although I don’t like it, I am used to it.
I have only one friend at school. His name is Brendan and I made friends with him on my first day at Gorey school. He asked me if I knew how to make a paper helicopter and at break-time we sat down on the floor in the classroom and tried. Most of the other boys don’t like me because I don’t say much, and don’t play sports or games with them.
My class teacher, Miss Collins, doesn’t much like me because I’m doing poorly at Irish when she knows that, if I wanted to, I could do well enough. I’m not a brilliant student; third, fourth and sometimes as low as fifth place in tests, but I’m not stupid.
I’ll admit that I’d like to be smarter than I am and that it would be good to excel in tests with less effort. But I know I’ll discover how to stand out and make an impression in the world, in ways that will matter much more than being clever.
My mother doesn’t want to let the subject rest. ‘John, please listen when I ask you a question. Are you teased about your height? Do other children tease you?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘They don’t even really notice.’
They do notice. They sometimes call me Troll, after the fairytale monster who lives under the bridge in ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’. And, before Christmas, when my Uncle Jack and Uncle Tony came to stay for a few nights, and played cards with my father, Uncle Jack came into the bathroom when I was washing before going to bed.