Two Walls and a Roof Read Free Page B

this was a bit optimist ic, and I knew I would get far more fun from t he gun, but she absolutely forba d e me ever to touch it.
    Our bedclothes were an under sheet , which was old and rough , and our coverings were a number of heavy wool blankets that would eat you alive with the scratching. Sheer exhaustion was the only antidote for the itching, and I’m not even mentioning the nightl y attacks from the savage fleas who , because of the Nan’s over use of DDT , had become immune to it. The survivors were hell- bent on giving us the p lague by their bites.
    One night I was reading my moon book and it vividly described the rocket as it crossed the Moon. It told of a flame shooting out from the back of the rocket and how this flame was the power behind the flight . I t fascinated me totally.  Pretty soon I saw the resemblance between my candle and this rocket ship, especially the flame coming from the top of the candle. There and then I began my first adventure with fire, and it still fascinates me today. I reached out and took the candle out of the bottle and began to fly it about as I read. Soon the bo ok described the hills and the c raters , so I made my own ones by raising my knees , and continued to fly in and out between my legs. I got the odd singe of burn , but it was only when my ship went well behind the hills that disaster struck. The candle flame somehow set fire to the hairy wool blanket and in the flickering light I saw the first signs of a fire. I dropped the candle in total fright, which only added fuel to the fire, and jumped from the bed in terror. It was then almost pitch dark except for the glow from the bed , and to my great credit, I grabbed our piss poe and threw its contents onto the fire.
    It almost went out , but not fully . T hen my last line of defence came into play . I clearly remember getting back onto the bed and standing spreadeagled over the spluttering glow and pissing like a petrified donkey down onto the fire between my legs. It went out , and then shaking with fright , I got the matches from the drawer and relit the candle.
    I surveyed the damage and to my utter relief, the burned area was quite small but very black and charred . H owever , the bed was saturated.  Of all the things I could do to infuriate the Nan, wetting the bed was the worst of them all and I was sure to be killed by her for doing it. Then her craftiness came forth in me again and I got a brainwave. I decided to take off my blankets and swap them over to Michael’s bed, and this I did. Then later , sheer exhaustion set in and I fell sound asleep , still dreaming of the moon.
    Nothing happened for almost two days ; then the row began. She was tearing into poor Michael , calling him a pig and an animal: saying that his s moking almost cost us our lives and that he was going to go, he was definitely going to go, and she’s no t burning alive for his smoking . All this roaring and shouting was played out in front of me, as I was her sounding board. Poor Michael never said a word in his defence and he never broke faith on me either . H e simply took her tongue lashing. She ranted and raved for an hour and her last words as he left were , “And don’t you come back . I won’t have you pissin ’ in the bed, I wont . I’ll not have it I tell you”.
    The total insanity of her empty threats was that at that time, our only source of income was her widow’s pension and whatever few bob he earned from shoe mending and his writing for the newspapers. If he ever really took off for good, both she and I would be out in the street. Of course he returned later in the day and she didn’t mention the smoking again, but I kept far away from the candle after that.

My Nannie.
     
    My Nannie came from the small village of Cullen in County Tipperary. Her people were farmers , and up until recently I believed that she came from fairly well off people, but that was not so however. Her mother , known to me as the Grey Nannie because