After the Lockout

After the Lockout Read Free Page A

Book: After the Lockout Read Free
Author: Darran McCann
Tags: Fiction, General
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insane adventure of Easter week, sneaking regard flowered into strident pride. No-one from Madden had ever been famous before.
    Victor’s best friend Charlie Quinn had volunteered to go to Dublin to find him. Stanislaus asked Charlie whether he thought Victor would agree to come home. Charlie said he didn’t know.What he was willing to predict, though, was that Victor would still be every bit as angry as he was the day he left Madden. Stanislaus was discomfited to think of the rage-filled boy coming back into his life a full-grown man. He pushed the newspaper across the desk under Father Daly’s nose and pointed to the Ulyanov headline.
    â€˜This is the kind of man we’re talking about. A bolshevist, you know,’ he snapped.
    â€˜He can’t be that bad if he was with Connolly, God rest him,’ said Father Daly.
    â€˜Connolly was a communist.’
    â€˜Only in life. No-one will remember that whole communist thing in the long run.’
    Stanislaus got up from his desk. He had no intention of debating with a guileless liberal not five minutes out of the seminary. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said. He went downstairs, opened the door and pulled on his coat as he strode out the gate into the street. He grimaced at the red bunting and flags as he passed under them. Otherwise good parishioners openly disobeying his injunction – and the Cardinal’s – against Gaelic games. They’ll all be thrilled when they hear of their Victor Lennon’s return, he thought. He whispered a prayer for the peace of the parish.

    It’s your stick. You found it. It’s the best stick you’ve ever seen: three feet long, thick but pliable enough to bend double without cracking. Your brothers are jealous of it. Charlie’s jealous of it. Even Maggie’s jealous of it, and she’s a girl. You use it to hunt, to fish and a hundred other things. It’s yours, and the bastard thinks he can justtake it. Phelim Cullen. You know the name. Everyone does. He’s three years older than you, looks like he’s nearly six foot, fifteen and out of school with the cigarette to prove it. He tells you to go away, stop pestering him. You are far from home, five or six miles at least, in his parish to watch the Madden footballers take another hammering. It’s his parish and he says he’s keeping your stick. He’s laughing but he’s threatening to lose his good humour any second. But it’s your stick and he can’t have it, no matter what.
    â€˜You rotten thieving bastard.’
    His expression darkens and he swings the stick at you with a terrifying whoosh. Last warning. Christ but he’s a vicious bastard. Charlie and Maggie are looking at you with pleading, terrified eyes.
    â€˜If you don’t hand over the stick I won’t be responsible for what happens to you.’
    The crowd gathered around winces as his open palm cracks loudly against your cheek. A slap in the face. Wouldn’t even dignify you with a closed fist.
    Well, you’ll dignify him with one.
    He doesn’t see it coming. Not in a million years did he think you’d do it. He’s stunned, and he’s not the only one. Your fist opens his nose like a knife through a feed sack. You swing again and again and the blows land again and again, till he drops your stick and flees like a beaten dog. You pick up your stick, gingerly, since your knuckles are bruised and bloodied. But it’s not your blood.
    Charlie and Maggie look at you differently now. It’s like they’re scared. You’re a little scared yourself.

    Charlie follows me onto the Number 14 tram. My old route. Once upon a time I knew every tram driver in Dublin but I don’t recognise this young, ignorant-looking fellow with the shirt collar too small on him. He yanks the handbrake too sharply and rings the bells like he’s Quasimodo. Everything about him screams non-union. A bastard scab. We

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