I was going to but then I said what's the use what's the fucking use I just left him there please Francie and Buttsy crawling along the ground uh! uh! help me yeah sure.
I went round to the carnival you'd think the swingboats were going to take off into the sky altogether. I never heard so many screeches, girls holding on to their boyfriends Save me! and all this. There was Jim Reeves and big pink teddybears and dodgems sparking but I didn't want to see any of that I went over to the shooting gallery to see the goldfish. I don't know how many there was in the tank. Fifty maybe. Every time they swerved there was a little flash of silver. I watched them for a good while just swimming away there. I could see these girls over by the dodgems they were just sitting there swinging their legs and giggling behind their hands. They'd look over at me and nudge each other then they'd start giggling again. There was a small blondie one and they were trying to push her over to say something to me. The older one says go on and blows this pink gumbubble the blondie one says no I won't!
They kept at this for a good while then in the end what did they do didn't the three of them come over. They stood there linking each other and you say it no you say it I didn't know where to look I was as red as a beetroot, I didn't know what they were doing or what to say to them. They knew my face was going red and I knew they were laughing at that too. Look at him, he's going all red. What's he going all red for? I thought that's what they were thinking but I think now maybe they weren't thinking it at all. All they wanted to talk about was Joe.
They said: You're a friend of Joe Purcell's aren't you? Do you want to know something? She likes him!
They pushed the blondie one again and she fell against me. I tried to say watch or are you OK or something but I started stuttering but it didn't matter they were away off again chuckling and giggling about Joe.
The house was littered with bottles when I got home. Da was asleep on the sofa with the trumpet beside him and there was some old lad with a cap sitting in a chair. We had a great chat tonight about the old days, all the old Tower bar crowd he says tell your father not to be worrying his head what Roche says the Bradys are tough men, hard men. It takes more than a pain in the chest to annoy them. Am I right Francie? he says. I said he was. I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about, him and Roche I wanted to hear no more about Roche. Then he fell asleep with his head hanging on his chest like a cloth doll. I wanted to sleep now too. I knew that in a couple of days everything would be all right again. We'd have some laughs then me and Joe. I couldn't wait to see him taking off Buttsy. Uh! Uh! Help me!
There sure is some laughs in this town Joe I'd say. Then we'd stick our faces into the water and tell the fish what they could do with themselves. I didn't think I'd sleep with all the things that had been going on. But I did. I slept like a top. I went curving through my dreams yamma yamma yamma right over the rooftops of the town and when I got back to the lake Joe was hunched there smiling and he looks at me and says: So what if we had an argument? We're still blood brothers ain't we?
Yup, I said, and we always will. That's the way it was meant to be Francie boy!
I left it for a few days so that it would all be forgotten then I called to the house and says to Mr Purcell is Joe there. No, he says, he's gone away to his uncle's for the weekend he won't be back till Monday. O I says I'll call back Monday then even though I was nearly sure I seen him at the curtain upstairs. I didn't say that because there was no sense in causing any trouble. Very well says Mr Purcell I'll tell him. Thank you I said then off I went. But the thing was I didn't see him on Monday either because now Mr Purcell took him home in the car and all I could see was him going past behind the steamed-up glass I never saw him looking out to see if I was at the corner or anything.
Da said to me: I was talking to Leddy this morning then starts spluttering into this big hankie the size of a sheet.
I didn't bother waiting to hear what he was talking to him about.
Another day I met Leddy himself coming flopping down the street in his wellies you could smell the pig dung half an hour before you saw him at all. I believe you might be coming round to give me a bit of a hand he says. Look at Leddy I thought, talk about pigs! Whatever about us, he was one for sure. He'd been working with them that long he'd turned into one. He had a big pink face and a scrunched-up snout. There was enough pigs round there without me I said. I'd had it with pigs. But I said thanks anyway. Right says Leddy suit yourself and off he goes flop flop flop down the street.
I called round to Joe's again. There you are Mr Purcell I says, I was wondering would the man himself be about? Mr Purcell didn't say anything for a minute or two just stood there biting the inside of his lip and then he says: Didn't you call here this morning? I did I says. And what did my wife tell you? O she said Joe was busy helping her in the kitchen I think. Well you think right he said and he'll be busy all evening now if you don't mind. And what does he start to do then only close the door. It was the first time Mr Purcell had ever spoke like that to me. I was just standing there staring at the blue paint of this door and I didn't know what to think about it all. The next time I called Mrs Purcell answered it and when I asked her was Joe coming out to the river she said he was at music. Music, I said, I didn't know he did music where is he at music? Up at the convent she said, where they all go to music. The convent I said, I didn't know he went to music Mrs Purcell. He never went to music before did he? No, she says, he didn't. She was starting to close the door now too. There was a petrol truck trying to turn at the end of the lane. I watched it for a minute and then I says to Mrs Purcell OK then Mrs Purcell I must call down after and maybe he'll be here then. Very well Francis she says looking out through crack then the door closed softly with a click. I stood there standing back from the way she said very well Francis and looking at it like the way you'd hold an envelope up to the light to see if there was anything in it. When I thought to myself: What she means is I hope he doesn't call down here ever again. I felt like I'd swallowed a chicken bone it kept moving around in my throat and I couldn't get it out. I looked up at the bedroom windows to see if there was anybody looking down. But there wasn't of course. That was just rubbish, me thinking that. Just because I thought I saw him there one other time didn't mean he'd be there again if he was there the first time that is. I went off down the lane I was going to go for a walk but then I doubled back because I couldn't figure out how Joe was doing music if he hadn't a piano he must be doing guitar. But the nuns don't teach guitar. I shone the glass of the sitting room window with the sleeve of my jumper and sure enough there it was, a new mahogany piano and sitting there on the music stand the music book with the ass and cart on the front going off into misty green mountains. I couldn't read it but I knew what it was – Emerald Gems of Ireland.
Philip was swinging the music case as he went by Mrs Connolly's hedge singing to himself. I just came out from behind the gate and says well Philip. He starts the twisting again only this time at the handle of the music case and I think he said hello Francis. I said Francie, not Francis. Francie, he said, and then he got all red. I wasn't sure how to start I thought of a couple of different things to say but none of them sounded right. In the end I just said: You gave Joe Purcell your music book, didn't you?