I ate without letting any of my body touch the table. I swapped my spoon for Sinbad’s. He was in the toilet. He’d probably wet the floor again. He was always doing that. He was afraid that the seat would fall down on him. It was only plastic, and not heavy, but it still frightened him. I was much bigger than him, so I could go into the bowl with only lifting up the hatch part of the seat. I never wet it much and I always dried it. Always. Diseases grew in toilets. If a rat ever got into your house it would go straight for the toilet.
Ma was humming.
It was stupid, not doing the dishes in the night. The food was still soft then and easy to get off; it came off in the water. Now, though, she was going to have to rub real hard. Loads of elbow grease. Blood, sweat and tears. She’d have her work cut out for her. It served her right. She should have done them the night before; that was the proper time to do them.
Morning was the start of a new day; everything should have been clean and tidy. I used to have to get up on a chair when I wanted to play at the sink—I remembered pushing the chair in front of me and the noise it made, like it was trying to stop me. I didn’t need the chair any more. I didn’t even have to stretch much to reach the taps. If the sink was too full my jumper got wet when I leaned over. With jumpers you didn’t know you were wet for a while, unless you got really soaked. I didn’t mess at the sink much any more. It was stupid. The neighbours could see you from the window and you couldn’t pull the curtains over in the daytime. I was supposed to do the dishes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. I’d shown my ma how I could reach the taps and that was what happened; she said she’d let me do the dishes on those three days. Sometimes she let me off, sometimes without asking. I washed. Sinbad dried, but he was useless. He was as slow as anything. It took him years even to hold a plate when he was holding the teatowel as well. He didn’t trust his hands through the cloth. The only bit he liked was the cups, because they were hard to drop. He covered his fist with the teatowel and put the cup upsidedown on his fist and turned the cup round on his fist. I made sure that he got all the suds out of the bottom. Suds weren’t supposed to be drunk; they tasted like poison.
He didn’t want to let me see.
–Show.
–No.
–Show me.
–No.
–I’ll get you.
–It’s my job.
–I’m in charge.
–Who says?
–Ma.
–I don’t want to do this.
–I’ll tell her you said that. I’m the oldest.
He held the cup up for me to look into.
–Okay, I said.—Pass.
He always gave in when I told him I was the oldest. He made sure the cup was flat on the table before he let go of it and he jumped back when he took his hand away, so he wouldn’t get the blame if it fell. When I was let do something and he wasn’t all Ma and Da had to do was remind him that I was older than him and he stopped complaining. He got smaller Christmas presents as well sometimes and less money on Sundays and it didn’t matter much to him.
–I’m glad I’m not you, I told him.
–I’m glad I’m not you, he said back.
I didn’t believe him.
He held up the cup for me, without me asking him.
–Suds, I said.
–Where?
–There.
And I flicked them into his eyes. Ma came in when she heard him.
–I didn’t mean to get his eyes, I told her.—He kept them open.
She stopped him crying; she was great at it. She could make him go from cry to laugh in a few seconds.
It was Thursday morning now. Wednesday wasn’t our dishes night. She should have done them. I asked her.
–Why did you not do the dishes?
Something happened when I was asking it; it was in my voice, a difference between the beginning and the end. The reason—it fell into me. The reason she hadn’t done the dishes. I’d been in a lift once—twice—up, then down. This was like going down. I nearly didn’t finish: I knew the answer. It unwrapped while I was talking. The reason.
She answered.
–I didn’t have the time.
She wasn’t telling a lie but that wasn’t the right answer.
–Sorry, she said.
She was smiling at me. It wasn’t a real smile though, not a full one.
They’d had a fight again.
–You’ll have your work cut out for you, I said.
One of their quiet ones.
She laughed.
Where they whispered their screams and roaring.
She laughed at me.
And she was always the first one to cry and he kept stabbing at her with his face and his words.
–I know I will, she said.
The first one hadn’t been like that. She’d cried, and they’d stopped. It had been nice after that one.
–You’ll have to use plenty of elbow grease.
She laughed again.
–You’re a gas man, Patrick, she said.
It had been nice. We didn’t have to creep, pretend we weren’t hearing. Sinbad was no good at pretending. He had to look to listen. Like everything was television. I had to get him away.
–What’s happening?
–They’re having a fight.
–They’re not.
–They are.
–Why are they?
–They just are.
And then when it was over Sinbad always said that nothing had happened; he wouldn’t remember.
–Blood, sweat and tears, I told her.
She laughed again, not as good as the time before.
The first fight had ended. My da won because my ma cried; he made her. It ended; back to normal, but better. The fight was over, no more fights. I made the plates into a pile, all the knives and forks on the top plate, all of them pointing the same way. The fights didn’t end now. There were breaks, long ones sometimes, but I didn’t believe in them any more. They were only gaps. I pushed the plates slowly over to the edge until the slope part of the bottom plate and the ones on top of it were out past the end of the table. I wondered was my brain strong enough to get my arms to push them the rest of the way.
–They should be put in the thicks’ class.
Kevin was right. We hated them. It was September, the first day back, and two of the boys from the Corporation houses got put into our class. Charles Leavy and Seán Whelan were their names. Henno was putting them into the rollbook.
–Tell him, I said.
I whispered it.
–What? said Kevin.
–Tell him there’s room in the thicks’ class for them.
–Okay.
Kevin put his hand up. I couldn’t believe it. I’d only been messing; we’d be killed if Kevin said it. I tried to grab Kevin’s arm without making noise.
Henno was looking down at the rollbook, writing real slowly. Kevin clicked his fingers.
–Sea?[13] said Henno.
He didn’t look up.
Kevin spoke.
–An bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an leithreas?[14]
–Níl,[15] said Henno.
–Fooled you, Kevin whispered.
We were having Henno for the second year, fourth class. I was ten. Most of the others were ten. Ian McEvoy was only nine but he was nearly ten and he was the tallest. Charles Leavy was two months younger than me; they had to call out their ages and Henno put them in the book. Seán Whelan was nearly the exact same age as me. He had to stop when he was telling Henno his date of birth; he knew the day and the month but he had to think before he said the year. I could tell.
–Thick.
He was put sitting beside David Geraghty. He nearly tripped over David Geraghty’s crutches. We laughed.
–What’s so funny now? said Henno, but he was busy; he didn’t care.