The Choice, page 10
The rain had stopped but I could feel it in the bottom of my boots, and my socks were wringing wet.
‘We expected a very high standard here today, and we certainly got it. Myself and the other coaches will need a little bit of time to think before we pick our final twenty. If you’ve made it, your club manager will be in touch with you tomorrow to give you the rest of the details. And if not, well done, and we’ll hopefully see you again soon.’
I couldn’t concentrate at all in school the next day. I sat at my desk in Mr Clark’s maths class staring at the door, waiting for a knock. I was hoping Colm would call to the school to tell me I had been picked: that way everyone would know. I focused all my energy into imagining that somebody was about to knock on the door, in case it turned out that I was psychic and I could make it happen. But Colm didn’t knock, and neither did anyone else.
The chalk in Mr Clark’s hand squeaked across the blackboard. Two or three of the lads started howling, pressing their hands over their ears, and more joined in. We never missed a chance for a bit of messing.
‘Sir, my ears. I think I’m gone deaf, sir!’ Luke Nolan stood up from his desk and was making funny faces, like he was dizzy and the room was turning upside down on him.
‘Quiet!’ Mr Clark slammed his hand on the board with a crack. ‘Luke, into your seat now.’
When we came back in after lunch, Colm still hadn’t knocked. The longer the day went on, as we sat through our afternoon classes, I began to think that maybe he wouldn’t. Your club manager will be in touch if you have been picked – that’s what Gerry Mangan said. Maybe they had already contacted the 20 players who had been picked and told them. The more I thought about it, the more distracted I got.
When the bell went at the end of the day, everyone else went home and soon it was only me and Kev hanging around the yard by ourselves. It was my idea to stay, just in case Colm had planned to catch us at the end of the day but had got delayed for some reason.
‘Maybe they still haven’t made up their minds yet,’ Kev suggested.
I looked at my watch. It was five past four, which meant that we’d been waiting for over half an hour. Colm wasn’t coming. ‘Come on and we’ll go,’ I said reluctantly.
But we didn’t know where to go. Neither of us wanted to go home and wait there thinking about it until it got so late that we had no choice other than to accept that we hadn’t been picked.
When we got to Kev’s block, he went upstairs and reappeared a minute later, throwing me a football. ‘Will we go down towards Albert College?’ he suggested. ‘Taz and Jimmy might be there, and if not, we can walk over towards their houses to see if they’re hanging around. They might have heard from Colm.’
But when we got to the park, there was no sign of them, and we just stayed there instead, walking, talking and kicking the ball.
‘Why did you change your name yesterday?’ Kev asked.
I could have tried to brush him off but I wanted to talk. ‘Did you not feel like a bit of an outsider there?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The usual stuff. People hear that you’re the lads from Ballymun, and they don’t know anything about us, but they still think we’re all poor, and that nobody in our family works so we go around robbing stuff all the time instead, and that the whole place is just full of alcos and druggies.’
‘Maybe, yeah,’ Kev said, but it didn’t sound like he had really felt the same way. ‘I dunno, I suppose I wasn’t really thinking about it – I was trying to concentrate on getting picked.’
‘How many of those lads from yesterday do you think have brothers who are addicted to heroin?’ I said.
‘None.’
‘None, exactly. I can guarantee you. And then along comes the lad from Ballymun, who they already think they’re better than, and he does.’
Nobody was near us in the park, except for a woman throwing a ball for her dog in the distance. It sounded like I was arguing with Kev, but he wasn’t the one upsetting me.
‘They think they’re better than me too,’ he said, ‘and probably Taz and Jimmy too, even though they’re not from Ballymun.’
‘That’s not the point, though. What if one of them found out about John?’
‘So what if some fella at a Dublin trial finds out about your brother? What difference is that going to make?’
‘Of course it makes a difference,’ I said, and this time I was arguing with Kev. ‘What happens if I get picked and then someone finds out? Do you think any of these other lads have ever seen a syringe in their lives except on the telly? Most of them have probably never even seen a lad smoking a spliff.’
We stopped walking but I kept talking.
‘None of them are going to want to be on the same team as the lad whose brother is on heroin. Even if they didn’t care, imagine what their parents would say? They’d probably have a heart attack. And what if Gerry Mangan or one of the coaches found out? They’d be watching me to make sure I’m not dealing in the corner of the dressing room.’
Kev laughed at that last part, which made me laugh a bit too, even though I was deadly serious.
‘Have you talked to him at all since he came home?’ Kev asked. ‘Talked to him about it, I mean.’
‘I don’t want to talk to him,’ I said. ‘I don’t have anything to say to him. He nicks everything in the house, disappears off for a few weeks and then comes back home laughing and joking like everything is normal.’ Kev seemed surprised by how angry I was, but I kept going. ‘And yeah, sure, he’s back living at home, but we still don’t know where he is most of the time. He just disappears off. I mean, I could go days at a time without seeing him, and the two of us share a bloody bedroom. Mam and Dad are in bits worrying about him, and there’s nothing that any of us can do.’
I flicked the ball up into my hands and kicked it straight over the goalposts in front of us.
‘He’s not worried,’ I said as we walked after the ball to get it. ‘He doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him or what they think about the rest of us. Otherwise he wouldn’t be doing it.’
‘So you changed your name?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ve some bad news for you so, buddy,’ Kev said. ‘He’s always going to be your brother, no matter what. You could change your name to David Beckham and it wouldn’t matter. You’d still be stuck with him, and you wouldn’t be any better at taking free kicks. Or married to one of the Spice Girls.’
I knew he was trying to lighten the mood a bit and make me laugh, but it didn’t work. ‘You don’t understand. I don’t want to be the lad whose brother is addicted to heroin. I don’t want our family to be that family. I don’t want people looking at me and feeling sorry for me. Or looking at me and thinking they’re better than me. I don’t want anything to do with it.’
We kept walking up and down the same pitch until it started to rain, then we hid underneath a big tree to get a bit of shelter. Kev didn’t ask about John again, and now that I’d figured out what was upsetting me so much by saying it out loud, I was happy to think about anything else. The rain ran down off the leaves over our heads, and I practised volleying the drops as they fell in front of me.
When it started to ease and looked like stopping, we walked back towards home, silently accepting that we couldn’t stay out in the park forever and that, even if we could, Colm was unlikely to find us there.
Mam called me as soon as she heard the front door open. ‘Philip, is that you?’ she said frantically. ‘Where have you been? Come here, quick.’
For a moment, I got this sinking feeling in my stomach. Had something happened to John?
Mam burst out of the sitting room before I could get to her. ‘Colm was here, you just missed him,’ she said, and she was smiling like I hadn’t seen her smile in a long time. In her hand, she was holding a small white envelope, clutching it tight. ‘You got picked, Philip! You’re in the academy!’
15
Mam and Dad and Kellie all gathered around me as I sat down on the couch to open the envelope. The Dublin GAA crest was printed in dark blue in the bottom right-hand corner. It really was from them. I unfolded the page carefully and started to read.
‘Read it out loud there so we can all hear,’ Dad said. The three of them crowded in beside me, trying to get a look over my shoulder. I read it slowly, making sure that I took in every word.
Dear Philly,
We are delighted to inform you that you have been selected to join the Dublin GAA football academy for the coming year.
The standard at this year’s trials has been exceptionally high. Our warmest congratulations to you, your club and your family on your selection.
Along with this letter, you will have received a Dublin GAA kit bag, along with a Dublin GAA tracksuit, shorts and socks. Please wear this official team gear to your first academy training session on Sunday morning in Parnell Park, Donnycarney, at 10 a.m sharp, and to all future events at which you are representing Dublin GAA.
We’re looking forward to seeing you again on Sunday, and to a successful season ahead.
Very best wishes – Áth Cliath abú!
Gerry Mangan
Head of Academy, Dublin GAA
When I finished reading it out loud, I went back to the start and read it again to myself. The words danced off the page: ‘delighted to inform you’; ‘exceptionally high’; ‘representing Dublin GAA’.
I checked the name at the top again, just to be certain that it wasn’t a mistake, but it wasn’t. I had been picked for the Dublin academy. When I finally looked up from the sheet of paper in my hand, Mam and Dad and Kellie were all standing there staring at me.
‘Look at all this gear Colm brought for you,’ Dad said, falling over himself with excitement.
He picked up a kit bag, still in its plastic wrapper, and handed it to me. It smelled brand new. I turned it over in my hands and saw that it had the Dublin crest embroidered on the side.
‘Colm said he knows a place that will do a lovely job stitching your initials into it, if you want, and on your tracksuit too,’ Dad said, rubbing his hand over the crest to feel it. ‘There’s a guy out in Coolock who does it for all of the senior players.’
There was a tracksuit and knicks and socks and a few training tops, all stacked in a neat little pile on the floor, all in my size.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ Mam said, throwing her arms around me and squeezing me tight. ‘So, so proud of you. You’ve worked so hard for this.’
‘Yeah, well done, Golden Balls,’ Kellie said, joining herself onto the hug; I hadn’t heard that nickname for a while. ‘Maybe I should give up the art and become a physio instead – what do you think?’
I held on to the both of them like I was holding on to the moment itself, trying to make it last forever. I opened my eyes when I heard the sitting-room door squeak. I glanced over and saw John hanging back in the hallway, unsure whether or not he should come in.
‘Well done, Philly. I knew you’d do it,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ I said, still smiling, and I turned back to Mam before my face started to drop. ‘Did Kev get in?’ I asked her, suddenly remembering.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Colm never mentioned.’
‘And did you not ask him?’ I said, ignoring the fact that I had only just thought to ask myself.
‘No, sorry. I was so excited about your news that I completely forgot.’
I burst past John and out the front door and sprinted across the field and up the steps to Kev’s flat. I knocked on the door and then realised that I was still holding my letter in my hand. I quickly folded it up and stuffed it into the pocket of my school trousers. I didn’t want to be too excited in case Kev was disappointed.
When he opened the door, he was holding a navy tracksuit top in his hand with two sky-blue stripes running the length of the sleeves.
‘You got in!’ I said. Kev looked the way I felt.
‘Yeah! Did you?’
‘Yeah!’ I said breathlessly.
‘Are you serious?’
I pulled the letter back out of my pocket and waved it like a lottery ticket. Kev ran out onto the balcony and jumped on top of me, and the two of us started shouting and cheering and celebrating, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d swear we had just kicked the winning score in an All-Ireland final. Maybe some day but for now, right now, we were the kings of the world.
‘We did it,’ I said, clenching my fist with pure joy. I’d never seen Kev as happy in my life, but it felt as though I was looking at myself in a mirror.
‘Yeow!’ he roared, giving me a high five and a hug. ‘Yup the flats!’
For a few days everything was fine again, until it wasn’t.
Kev and I bounced into school the next morning as if we owned the place, practically begging someone to ask us if we had heard anything yet, just so we could tell them that we had got in. I even brought my tracksuit top with me in my schoolbag and the letter with the Dublin GAA crest on it, in case anyone thought we were making it up.
‘Give us a look there,’ Vinny Blake asked when I took out the tracksuit top so they could all see it. He reached over and tried to take it out of my hand.
‘Get off,’ I said, pushing him away with my arm. ‘I only just got it last night. I haven’t even tried it on yet.’
I had tried it on. It fit perfectly. I loved it already.
‘The state of you,’ Vinny said, doing his best to pretend that he hadn’t really been that interested in the first place. ‘You think you’re great because you’re after getting picked for some crappy little training squad. I bet you get dropped once they see you play for real.’
From behind us, there were a few hopeful ooohs at the thought of a scrap. I went to go for Vinny and give him a clatter, but Kev jumped between us and pushed me away just as Ms Breen walked into the room to start geography class.
‘Shut up you, Vinny,’ Kev sneered, walking me backwards towards my desk. ‘How would you know? You weren’t even good enough to get a trial anywhere.’
We left the Dublin gear at home when we went training that evening. Taz and Jimmy hadn’t been picked. I felt bad for them, even though we all knew it was unlikely that the four of us would get picked and that at least one of us was going to end up disappointed. If it was me who had missed out and they had got in, I know I would have been gutted, so I decided not to mention the academy unless someone said it to me. Lots of them did, and Taz and Jimmy were the first two over to congratulate me and Kev. Colm made a short announcement before training to tell the rest of the team the news. I didn’t know how to feel: I tried my best to look embarrassed at being singled out, but not so secretly, I was delighted.
We had no match that weekend, so Colm told me and Kev to take Thursday night off training to make sure we were well rested for our first session with the academy. Which is how I ended up on the couch at home, staying up late to watch a bit of Forrest Gump with Mam and Dad, when John tried to sneak in.
It was only because it was a quiet part of the film that we heard him. The click of the front door as the lock settled back into its latch was a giveaway, followed by slow, careful footsteps. Dad darted up from the couch and opened the door into the hallway. The light was off but there was nowhere in the shadows for John to hide.
He hadn’t been home for days. I knew when he was missing because there was nowhere else for him to sleep other than in our room.
‘Come here,’ Dad barked. It caught me by surprise and made me jump. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
John’s hood was still pulled up. He was unsteady on his feet and his head was bobbing like he was listening to a song that only he could hear. ‘To bed, I’m wrecked.’ For such a short sentence, it took him a long time to say it; the end of each word went on for days. Mam picked up the remote from Dad’s chair and put the TV on mute.
‘Wrecked from what?’ Dad said. His voice filled the room. ‘Where have you been?’
He turned the light on in the hall. John squinted as if he’d just been sprayed in the face, but didn’t answer.
Dad stared at John. ‘Philly, go on to your room,’ he said without turning around. I moved closer to Mam on the couch but made no attempt to get up and leave.
Dad’s eyes never left John for a second. ‘Right, come over here,’ he said firmly. ‘Now.’
John moved towards him slowly, putting his hand onto the wall for support, steadying himself, until the two of them were only a couple of feet apart. I had never seen him like this, and a pang of fear hit me. It wasn’t a few cans of beer that had him this way.
‘In here now, and empty your pockets onto the table,’ Dad said.
‘Leave me alone, would you. Who do you think you are, the guards?’
‘You’ll be wishing I was the guards if you don’t do what I tell you right now.’
Hearing Dad speak to John like that, his orders cut with the toughness of his Belfast years, gave me a bit of a fright. He led and John followed. The TV turned to ads, flashing bright pictures of sandy beaches and crystal-clear blue swimming pools.
John emptied his right trouser pocket and then his left – coins and keys and all sorts of rubbish, foil wrappers from chocolate bars and scrunched-up tissues. ‘There. Are you happy now?’
Dad didn’t react. ‘Your jacket pockets too.’
John slowly turned one of his pockets inside out and made a big show of shaking out every last bit of fluff and dirt so Dad could see there was nothing in it.
‘The other one, John,’ Dad said. His voice didn’t soften in the slightest; he sounded like he was losing patience, quickly.
‘What’s going on? Have you gone mental or something?’ He looked at Mam, desperate for help. ‘Ma, tell him to just let me go to bed.’
‘Just do what you’re told, John,’ Mam said before Dad completely erupted, taking her hand from her face to speak.
I recognised the look on John’s face. It was the same beaten look as the night when Mam had discovered her jewellery was missing, when he knew he had nowhere left to hide. As he turned out his other pocket, a little clear plastic bag, no bigger than a ten-cent bag of sweets from the shop, dropped onto the middle of the floor.
‘We expected a very high standard here today, and we certainly got it. Myself and the other coaches will need a little bit of time to think before we pick our final twenty. If you’ve made it, your club manager will be in touch with you tomorrow to give you the rest of the details. And if not, well done, and we’ll hopefully see you again soon.’
I couldn’t concentrate at all in school the next day. I sat at my desk in Mr Clark’s maths class staring at the door, waiting for a knock. I was hoping Colm would call to the school to tell me I had been picked: that way everyone would know. I focused all my energy into imagining that somebody was about to knock on the door, in case it turned out that I was psychic and I could make it happen. But Colm didn’t knock, and neither did anyone else.
The chalk in Mr Clark’s hand squeaked across the blackboard. Two or three of the lads started howling, pressing their hands over their ears, and more joined in. We never missed a chance for a bit of messing.
‘Sir, my ears. I think I’m gone deaf, sir!’ Luke Nolan stood up from his desk and was making funny faces, like he was dizzy and the room was turning upside down on him.
‘Quiet!’ Mr Clark slammed his hand on the board with a crack. ‘Luke, into your seat now.’
When we came back in after lunch, Colm still hadn’t knocked. The longer the day went on, as we sat through our afternoon classes, I began to think that maybe he wouldn’t. Your club manager will be in touch if you have been picked – that’s what Gerry Mangan said. Maybe they had already contacted the 20 players who had been picked and told them. The more I thought about it, the more distracted I got.
When the bell went at the end of the day, everyone else went home and soon it was only me and Kev hanging around the yard by ourselves. It was my idea to stay, just in case Colm had planned to catch us at the end of the day but had got delayed for some reason.
‘Maybe they still haven’t made up their minds yet,’ Kev suggested.
I looked at my watch. It was five past four, which meant that we’d been waiting for over half an hour. Colm wasn’t coming. ‘Come on and we’ll go,’ I said reluctantly.
But we didn’t know where to go. Neither of us wanted to go home and wait there thinking about it until it got so late that we had no choice other than to accept that we hadn’t been picked.
When we got to Kev’s block, he went upstairs and reappeared a minute later, throwing me a football. ‘Will we go down towards Albert College?’ he suggested. ‘Taz and Jimmy might be there, and if not, we can walk over towards their houses to see if they’re hanging around. They might have heard from Colm.’
But when we got to the park, there was no sign of them, and we just stayed there instead, walking, talking and kicking the ball.
‘Why did you change your name yesterday?’ Kev asked.
I could have tried to brush him off but I wanted to talk. ‘Did you not feel like a bit of an outsider there?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The usual stuff. People hear that you’re the lads from Ballymun, and they don’t know anything about us, but they still think we’re all poor, and that nobody in our family works so we go around robbing stuff all the time instead, and that the whole place is just full of alcos and druggies.’
‘Maybe, yeah,’ Kev said, but it didn’t sound like he had really felt the same way. ‘I dunno, I suppose I wasn’t really thinking about it – I was trying to concentrate on getting picked.’
‘How many of those lads from yesterday do you think have brothers who are addicted to heroin?’ I said.
‘None.’
‘None, exactly. I can guarantee you. And then along comes the lad from Ballymun, who they already think they’re better than, and he does.’
Nobody was near us in the park, except for a woman throwing a ball for her dog in the distance. It sounded like I was arguing with Kev, but he wasn’t the one upsetting me.
‘They think they’re better than me too,’ he said, ‘and probably Taz and Jimmy too, even though they’re not from Ballymun.’
‘That’s not the point, though. What if one of them found out about John?’
‘So what if some fella at a Dublin trial finds out about your brother? What difference is that going to make?’
‘Of course it makes a difference,’ I said, and this time I was arguing with Kev. ‘What happens if I get picked and then someone finds out? Do you think any of these other lads have ever seen a syringe in their lives except on the telly? Most of them have probably never even seen a lad smoking a spliff.’
We stopped walking but I kept talking.
‘None of them are going to want to be on the same team as the lad whose brother is on heroin. Even if they didn’t care, imagine what their parents would say? They’d probably have a heart attack. And what if Gerry Mangan or one of the coaches found out? They’d be watching me to make sure I’m not dealing in the corner of the dressing room.’
Kev laughed at that last part, which made me laugh a bit too, even though I was deadly serious.
‘Have you talked to him at all since he came home?’ Kev asked. ‘Talked to him about it, I mean.’
‘I don’t want to talk to him,’ I said. ‘I don’t have anything to say to him. He nicks everything in the house, disappears off for a few weeks and then comes back home laughing and joking like everything is normal.’ Kev seemed surprised by how angry I was, but I kept going. ‘And yeah, sure, he’s back living at home, but we still don’t know where he is most of the time. He just disappears off. I mean, I could go days at a time without seeing him, and the two of us share a bloody bedroom. Mam and Dad are in bits worrying about him, and there’s nothing that any of us can do.’
I flicked the ball up into my hands and kicked it straight over the goalposts in front of us.
‘He’s not worried,’ I said as we walked after the ball to get it. ‘He doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him or what they think about the rest of us. Otherwise he wouldn’t be doing it.’
‘So you changed your name?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ve some bad news for you so, buddy,’ Kev said. ‘He’s always going to be your brother, no matter what. You could change your name to David Beckham and it wouldn’t matter. You’d still be stuck with him, and you wouldn’t be any better at taking free kicks. Or married to one of the Spice Girls.’
I knew he was trying to lighten the mood a bit and make me laugh, but it didn’t work. ‘You don’t understand. I don’t want to be the lad whose brother is addicted to heroin. I don’t want our family to be that family. I don’t want people looking at me and feeling sorry for me. Or looking at me and thinking they’re better than me. I don’t want anything to do with it.’
We kept walking up and down the same pitch until it started to rain, then we hid underneath a big tree to get a bit of shelter. Kev didn’t ask about John again, and now that I’d figured out what was upsetting me so much by saying it out loud, I was happy to think about anything else. The rain ran down off the leaves over our heads, and I practised volleying the drops as they fell in front of me.
When it started to ease and looked like stopping, we walked back towards home, silently accepting that we couldn’t stay out in the park forever and that, even if we could, Colm was unlikely to find us there.
Mam called me as soon as she heard the front door open. ‘Philip, is that you?’ she said frantically. ‘Where have you been? Come here, quick.’
For a moment, I got this sinking feeling in my stomach. Had something happened to John?
Mam burst out of the sitting room before I could get to her. ‘Colm was here, you just missed him,’ she said, and she was smiling like I hadn’t seen her smile in a long time. In her hand, she was holding a small white envelope, clutching it tight. ‘You got picked, Philip! You’re in the academy!’
15
Mam and Dad and Kellie all gathered around me as I sat down on the couch to open the envelope. The Dublin GAA crest was printed in dark blue in the bottom right-hand corner. It really was from them. I unfolded the page carefully and started to read.
‘Read it out loud there so we can all hear,’ Dad said. The three of them crowded in beside me, trying to get a look over my shoulder. I read it slowly, making sure that I took in every word.
Dear Philly,
We are delighted to inform you that you have been selected to join the Dublin GAA football academy for the coming year.
The standard at this year’s trials has been exceptionally high. Our warmest congratulations to you, your club and your family on your selection.
Along with this letter, you will have received a Dublin GAA kit bag, along with a Dublin GAA tracksuit, shorts and socks. Please wear this official team gear to your first academy training session on Sunday morning in Parnell Park, Donnycarney, at 10 a.m sharp, and to all future events at which you are representing Dublin GAA.
We’re looking forward to seeing you again on Sunday, and to a successful season ahead.
Very best wishes – Áth Cliath abú!
Gerry Mangan
Head of Academy, Dublin GAA
When I finished reading it out loud, I went back to the start and read it again to myself. The words danced off the page: ‘delighted to inform you’; ‘exceptionally high’; ‘representing Dublin GAA’.
I checked the name at the top again, just to be certain that it wasn’t a mistake, but it wasn’t. I had been picked for the Dublin academy. When I finally looked up from the sheet of paper in my hand, Mam and Dad and Kellie were all standing there staring at me.
‘Look at all this gear Colm brought for you,’ Dad said, falling over himself with excitement.
He picked up a kit bag, still in its plastic wrapper, and handed it to me. It smelled brand new. I turned it over in my hands and saw that it had the Dublin crest embroidered on the side.
‘Colm said he knows a place that will do a lovely job stitching your initials into it, if you want, and on your tracksuit too,’ Dad said, rubbing his hand over the crest to feel it. ‘There’s a guy out in Coolock who does it for all of the senior players.’
There was a tracksuit and knicks and socks and a few training tops, all stacked in a neat little pile on the floor, all in my size.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ Mam said, throwing her arms around me and squeezing me tight. ‘So, so proud of you. You’ve worked so hard for this.’
‘Yeah, well done, Golden Balls,’ Kellie said, joining herself onto the hug; I hadn’t heard that nickname for a while. ‘Maybe I should give up the art and become a physio instead – what do you think?’
I held on to the both of them like I was holding on to the moment itself, trying to make it last forever. I opened my eyes when I heard the sitting-room door squeak. I glanced over and saw John hanging back in the hallway, unsure whether or not he should come in.
‘Well done, Philly. I knew you’d do it,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ I said, still smiling, and I turned back to Mam before my face started to drop. ‘Did Kev get in?’ I asked her, suddenly remembering.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Colm never mentioned.’
‘And did you not ask him?’ I said, ignoring the fact that I had only just thought to ask myself.
‘No, sorry. I was so excited about your news that I completely forgot.’
I burst past John and out the front door and sprinted across the field and up the steps to Kev’s flat. I knocked on the door and then realised that I was still holding my letter in my hand. I quickly folded it up and stuffed it into the pocket of my school trousers. I didn’t want to be too excited in case Kev was disappointed.
When he opened the door, he was holding a navy tracksuit top in his hand with two sky-blue stripes running the length of the sleeves.
‘You got in!’ I said. Kev looked the way I felt.
‘Yeah! Did you?’
‘Yeah!’ I said breathlessly.
‘Are you serious?’
I pulled the letter back out of my pocket and waved it like a lottery ticket. Kev ran out onto the balcony and jumped on top of me, and the two of us started shouting and cheering and celebrating, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d swear we had just kicked the winning score in an All-Ireland final. Maybe some day but for now, right now, we were the kings of the world.
‘We did it,’ I said, clenching my fist with pure joy. I’d never seen Kev as happy in my life, but it felt as though I was looking at myself in a mirror.
‘Yeow!’ he roared, giving me a high five and a hug. ‘Yup the flats!’
For a few days everything was fine again, until it wasn’t.
Kev and I bounced into school the next morning as if we owned the place, practically begging someone to ask us if we had heard anything yet, just so we could tell them that we had got in. I even brought my tracksuit top with me in my schoolbag and the letter with the Dublin GAA crest on it, in case anyone thought we were making it up.
‘Give us a look there,’ Vinny Blake asked when I took out the tracksuit top so they could all see it. He reached over and tried to take it out of my hand.
‘Get off,’ I said, pushing him away with my arm. ‘I only just got it last night. I haven’t even tried it on yet.’
I had tried it on. It fit perfectly. I loved it already.
‘The state of you,’ Vinny said, doing his best to pretend that he hadn’t really been that interested in the first place. ‘You think you’re great because you’re after getting picked for some crappy little training squad. I bet you get dropped once they see you play for real.’
From behind us, there were a few hopeful ooohs at the thought of a scrap. I went to go for Vinny and give him a clatter, but Kev jumped between us and pushed me away just as Ms Breen walked into the room to start geography class.
‘Shut up you, Vinny,’ Kev sneered, walking me backwards towards my desk. ‘How would you know? You weren’t even good enough to get a trial anywhere.’
We left the Dublin gear at home when we went training that evening. Taz and Jimmy hadn’t been picked. I felt bad for them, even though we all knew it was unlikely that the four of us would get picked and that at least one of us was going to end up disappointed. If it was me who had missed out and they had got in, I know I would have been gutted, so I decided not to mention the academy unless someone said it to me. Lots of them did, and Taz and Jimmy were the first two over to congratulate me and Kev. Colm made a short announcement before training to tell the rest of the team the news. I didn’t know how to feel: I tried my best to look embarrassed at being singled out, but not so secretly, I was delighted.
We had no match that weekend, so Colm told me and Kev to take Thursday night off training to make sure we were well rested for our first session with the academy. Which is how I ended up on the couch at home, staying up late to watch a bit of Forrest Gump with Mam and Dad, when John tried to sneak in.
It was only because it was a quiet part of the film that we heard him. The click of the front door as the lock settled back into its latch was a giveaway, followed by slow, careful footsteps. Dad darted up from the couch and opened the door into the hallway. The light was off but there was nowhere in the shadows for John to hide.
He hadn’t been home for days. I knew when he was missing because there was nowhere else for him to sleep other than in our room.
‘Come here,’ Dad barked. It caught me by surprise and made me jump. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
John’s hood was still pulled up. He was unsteady on his feet and his head was bobbing like he was listening to a song that only he could hear. ‘To bed, I’m wrecked.’ For such a short sentence, it took him a long time to say it; the end of each word went on for days. Mam picked up the remote from Dad’s chair and put the TV on mute.
‘Wrecked from what?’ Dad said. His voice filled the room. ‘Where have you been?’
He turned the light on in the hall. John squinted as if he’d just been sprayed in the face, but didn’t answer.
Dad stared at John. ‘Philly, go on to your room,’ he said without turning around. I moved closer to Mam on the couch but made no attempt to get up and leave.
Dad’s eyes never left John for a second. ‘Right, come over here,’ he said firmly. ‘Now.’
John moved towards him slowly, putting his hand onto the wall for support, steadying himself, until the two of them were only a couple of feet apart. I had never seen him like this, and a pang of fear hit me. It wasn’t a few cans of beer that had him this way.
‘In here now, and empty your pockets onto the table,’ Dad said.
‘Leave me alone, would you. Who do you think you are, the guards?’
‘You’ll be wishing I was the guards if you don’t do what I tell you right now.’
Hearing Dad speak to John like that, his orders cut with the toughness of his Belfast years, gave me a bit of a fright. He led and John followed. The TV turned to ads, flashing bright pictures of sandy beaches and crystal-clear blue swimming pools.
John emptied his right trouser pocket and then his left – coins and keys and all sorts of rubbish, foil wrappers from chocolate bars and scrunched-up tissues. ‘There. Are you happy now?’
Dad didn’t react. ‘Your jacket pockets too.’
John slowly turned one of his pockets inside out and made a big show of shaking out every last bit of fluff and dirt so Dad could see there was nothing in it.
‘The other one, John,’ Dad said. His voice didn’t soften in the slightest; he sounded like he was losing patience, quickly.
‘What’s going on? Have you gone mental or something?’ He looked at Mam, desperate for help. ‘Ma, tell him to just let me go to bed.’
‘Just do what you’re told, John,’ Mam said before Dad completely erupted, taking her hand from her face to speak.
I recognised the look on John’s face. It was the same beaten look as the night when Mam had discovered her jewellery was missing, when he knew he had nowhere left to hide. As he turned out his other pocket, a little clear plastic bag, no bigger than a ten-cent bag of sweets from the shop, dropped onto the middle of the floor.
