Where is Barney? I miss Barney where is my Mammy I remember now she’s dead in a box in the mud she doesn’t like it to be dirty I don’t want to be dead why are all the dead people in the mud my daddy is in the mud too but I seed him in photos and Alice telled me he was a great man.
I forget lots of things all the time but I remember being in my house with Mammy and Alice and Barney visiting and telling me stories. Barney telled me he was going to marry Alice and I could live with them but it’s a secret and I’m not telling anyone I wish he would hurry up because Oliver the baddy man already married Alice and it’s Barney’s turn now. Alice went away when Oliver married her and they lived in a flat I visited two times but I was only allowed in Alice’s corner and Oliver has a locked-up green box for his writing and me and Alice are not allowed to see in the box. I want to know what’s in the box but Alice says it’s Oliver’s private business. One time I was looking at the box and Oliver shouted at me just for looking I think there’s a monster in the box. I wasn’t allowed to visit Alice after that and I was sad but Barney came and read me stories and we went in his car I’m not allowed in the front seat because I can’t stop beeping the horn Barney thinks it’s funny but the baddy men in the other cars are very cross very cross and I have to sit in the back. Mammy got sick and was in the hospital. Mammy is dead. After Mammy went in the mud Alice came home to live and that was nice I miss Mammy where is Mammy oh yes dead in the mud. Oliver came to live in our house too he is mean and calls me bad names and it’s my house and Alice’s house not Oliver’s house. I hate Oliver he punched me when Alice wasn’t looking and then he telled a lie he calls me a big fat pig I am big and fat but a man he is a pig stealing Alice and Mammy’s house he said I had to have my dinner in the kitchen and it’s his house now and he’s the boss of me but I like the kitchen and I like Mammy’s and Alice’s and my house but not when Oliver is the boss. Oliver took my flying chair and goned it somewhere I don’t know Barney doesn’t come and do flying any more now he can’t no chair. Oliver fell over in the garden one time and I laughed and laughed it was funny. He went to the hospital and when Alice came home, Oliver telled her that I hurted him his tail is as long as a telephone wire but he locked me in my room and I shouted all night until Alice let me out she was crying and it wasn’t funny any more and I was sorry for laughing when Oliver hurted himself. Then another time I was sitting at Alice’s dressing table brushing my hair with her silver hairbrush that was Mammy’s she’s in the mud and Oliver came in and smashed the mirror and turned the dressing table upside down. I was frightened and Alice came running and the big fat liar says I done it but I didn’t for cross my heart and hope to die and then it’s my birthday and I have a cake with birthday candles and I blow them out and wish that Oliver isn’t here but Oliver is nice to me on my birthday and lets me play with his lighter that is shaped like an aeroplane in the shed in the garden but there is an accident and I am very bad boy because I started a fire and help! help! like in Jane Eyre one of Alice’s favourite books. Oliver says he is scared of me and doesn’t want to be in the house with me hurrah this makes me happy and dancing because Oliver is going away but he isn’t going away I am going away and I hate him.
Oliver said I had to come and live here in St Catherine’s I don’t know what St Catherine’s is I think it’s where a saint lives and I said yes if Alice comes too. He lied and said Alice was coming too Alice telled a big fat lie and then she is crying crying and it’s me making her sad and Oliver says it’s me making her sad I have to go to St Catherine’s on my own. No Mammy.
I was frightened here in the start where is Saint Catherine not here no saints here just some mad people I know I’m a bit mad Barney told me I’m a bit mad in a good way but the people who live here are really mad in a mad way much more mad than me and some of them shouting but not in words just in noises I don’t like shouting and some of them like dead people strapped in wheelchairs and fed like babies with bibs and televisions on everywhere loud louder.
And the boss is a lady Miss Noreen who is all smiley and laughing when she rings Oliver to tell him I’ve been a bad boy I can hear her through the wall in the nurses’ station but here no smiles laughs chats but Lord Snooty face and ignoring everyone only shouting at the nurses where is Mammy I remember now in the mud where is Alice she used to come on Tuesdays with cakes and we play games only now she doesn’t come any more either. In the start I was really scared and want to go home to my own room and my own bed with my record player that Barney gave me but Alice says I live with twelve friends some of them don’t like me and some of them love me Nurse Marion is my favourite I don’t like Miss Noreen makes me sit with my hands under my legs Christy is very old he dribbles like I used to Mammy said that was bad manners and I told Christy but he was shouting and Miss Noreen said go to your room it’s not my room it’s all of our room there’s Christy, Billy, Malachy, Conal and I forget the others we share a big room and no talking when lights are out and no stories at bedtime and no jam sandwiches in bed I remember Barney jam sandwiches and stories with the Selfish Giant and the one about Alice going down the hole with the rabbit but I’m in a story with Grimace and I am the Prince so that’s my favourite one Christy went in the mud yesterday no more dribbling thank God.
He was dead in his bed and I told him look after Mammy in the mud Nurse Marion is my favourite one she’s here in the daytime and gives me sweets our secret Alice didn’t come yesterday, or last week, or lots of weeks. I seed Miss Noreen and Nurse Marion fighting. Miss Noreen made Nurse Marion cry Nurse Marion asked me about Barney and where he lives I telled Nurse Marion that Barney is my friend and she ringed him up and now he is visiting me every day he telled me that Alice is in Happyland drawing pictures and flying around in a chair. She is not in the mud. He sweared me that and Barney always telled the truth. Barney says we can visit Alice when I am growed up, but I think I am a growed-up. Barney says I must be growed up more.
12. Oliver
My study is a high-ceilinged room at the rear corner on the left-hand side of the house. When Alice’s father was alive, he might have used it as an office or a den, but when we moved in, it was a kind of playroom for Eugene. Full of soft toys, picture books and an old record player, it was grubby and disorganized. In the centre of the room, on an old, foul-smelling rug, there was a chair that might have been more suited to the kitchen – Shaker-style, with spokes emanating from the seat to a bar across a low back, and arm rests. It had been painted many times over the years, and several layers of blue, red and yellow paint flaked under the general grime. This apparently was Eugene’s ‘flying chair’. I suppose I should have been flattered that my first book inspired the flying chair, but it certainly was not what I had in mind.