Post by Marion on Mar 31, 2015 10:47:10 GMT 7
Hi there, this is a longish short story I'm revising. The ending didn't work out just yet, so I removed a character and focused some of the action around the main male and female character instead. Not sure that's ideal either - but would love any input on how the ending reads now and how it can be tweaked.
The word count is a bit over 3,000 words and I am happy to comment on the same length of a piece by anyone else. If you don't have time to read this much, I totally understand.
The Slippery Pig
‘If you catch wee Margaret within the ten minutes – that’s a fiver for ya,’ Niall Hogan splutters into Brendan’s ears. The usual whiff of stale coffee and pig comes off him. He takes the boy’s hands up in his big paws and greases them with lard, rolls his blood-shot eyes around the crowd. Five punt for catching the Slippery Pig? How hard can it be? Brendan is thrilled and freaked out all at once. Niall gives the boy a lopsided smile. ‘Mind that hog’s a feckin’ comet, so you better be quick.
Swallowing hard, Brendan takes in his audience round the pen. It’s mostly men in wellies and fleece jackets, fags in mouth, slouched onto the paddock fence same as when their sheep get shorn. Brendan rubs his lardy hands against each other, then down the corduroy pants that he got for his 10th birthday. Mam’ll go spare – but Da was all for it, sure. It was he that suggested Brendan try and catch the Slippery Pig to begin with. The pen’s the size of the Junior Infants classroom and all muck, the sky rain-heavy and low. In the far corner, Margaret digs with her trotters, ignoring him. Sticking a greasy index finger and thumb into his mouth, Niall gives a sharp whistle. The piglet’s head shoots up, black with flared, bat-like ears; the rest of her body glistens white and hairy.
Brendan’s gut sinks.
It all tumbles in on him now: the smell of manure, animals in fear, damp cigarette smoke. The wind whooshes through the tarpaulin covers of the show tents; someone slaps a cow’s haunches so it gives a yelp. It is 25 September 1979 and Mart Day at the Ag Show, with all the riff raff of the county carted up, that’s what Da says anyways, and it’s Brendan’s one big chance to turn around his luck. You better be quick. He’ll do this and he’ll be sound. Grab the cash and sort out his Dilemma on Monday.
‘Off ye go,’ a bell sounds, and with a jab in the back, Brendan tumbles into the pigpen.
‘Grab the fucker! Geter by the trotters!’ A racket of jeering and whistling erupts around him. Money changes hands as the on-lookers make their bets, including Da.
Brendan hunkers down as you’d do for a sprint. Margaret is busy rubbing her mucky shoulder against a pole.
O Paaaaanie, for no good reason the Pope’s song starts playing in his head.
O Panie, I heard you call my name, Brendan tells his brain to shut up. He does what Coach always tells him, breathes into his stomach only. And yes, for at least a few seconds everything inside and outside him goes quiet. He crouches lower, tenses his legs, then charges at Margaret – she didn’t see that coming! Mud splatters around them, Margaret’s little ringlet of a tail bobs as she lurches off, he’ll slam down on her like it’s the All Ireland Finals. But the ground under him turns to slick and jerks his feet the other way – Brendan lands face down in the sludge, all air whacked out of his lungs.
‘You thought you’d geter in your sleep, didya?’ A cackle of laughter explodes above Brendan.
Feckin’ runners. Brendan wishes he’d put on his wellies with proper grip like Mam had told him in the morning. He wipes the muck off his eyes and sees Margaret swishing her ringlet tail about as if to taunt him. Just behind her, he sees Shona Cassidy squeeze toward the front of the crowd in a jeans jacket, strawberry-blonde hair whipping in the wind. With craned neck, she takes stock of the muddle he’s in. She’ll be delighted to see him fail, no doubt.
The jukebox in his head puts on O Panie again, Sister Zofia has been drilling the Pope’s favourite song into them. Sister Zofia is their form teacher at St. Enda’s. She is short and Polish and her tight apron makes her look like a pepper mill. She also has a mighty temper and plays the guitar real good, so they’re all trying to please her, but because she’s from Poland they sometimes have to sing in the Pope’s language and it’s torture. She’s also the reason for Brendan’s Dilemma. The song’s refrain plays in a loop while he’s getting up out of the muck.
O Panie, I heard you call my name.
I’ll leave my boat on the shore now,
And go fishing with you.
From the corner of his eyes he sees Da with a hard-set mouth, not laughing or joking at all. He can’t let Da down in front of everyone. The piglet is ignoring Brendan in the other far corner of the pen now. Margaret, just stay where you are, he pleads. She starts sniffing the outstretched hands of some kids in the crowd, then parades past them in all her glistening glory as if she’s never done anything else. Maybe she hasn’t.
Hope surges again inside Brendan. All he needs to put things right again are the five quid and a good moment with Sister Zofia. He only ever did the real bad thing for John Paul and he’s very sorry now and he’ll make up for it.
He puts his greasy, mucky hands behind his back and slowly strolls in the direction of Margaret, pretending not to look at her. It works, not even her flappy bat ears prick up in his direction.
It had all started at Tuam Cathedral the previous week when Sister Zofia took them on the firth excursion of 5th year. It had been a scorching hot September day, their thighs were sticking to the plastic seats on the bus. When they arrived in Tuam, the square stone cathedral looked like an ancient spaceship with lots of spikes on top that could have been laser guns.
Inside, it was more like a fairy-tale forest, cool with a tall green vaulted roof and white branches in it. Shona Cassidy wore her patent leather shoes that were shiny and clickedee-clacked on the ground and the girls said she was a show-off. In any case, being from County Roscommon made her an enemy. He snuck up to her and just as Shona looked up, he got hold of her ginger braids, holding her head well back. Brendan thought he was being hilarious until Shona rammed her heel backward into his foot and clacked off – it hurt something bad. Sister Zofia told them to shush it: ‘Your soul won’t be saved if you terrorise the lassies, Brendan Creevy.’ They’d all padded on in silence after Sister Zofia to the sacristy for confession practice with Father McGivney .
‘Your sins have to be real sins,’ he’d explained to them as they sat round him in a circle, ‘just admitting you didn’t say your evening prayers is not enough. You have to confess that of course!’ Brendan had felt goose bumps prick up on his bare arms. The Father’s eyes looked huge through his glasses and his short, stroppy eye lashes seemed to be pointing inwards, towards his nose. He went on:
‘What God most wants to hear are your worst sins. Especially before our great shepherd, John Paul comes to visit. Can anyone among you name a really bad sin?’ His voiced sounded soft, but as his glance slid around the circle, all the children looked elsewhere, nobody made to speak. Until Brendan’s hand shot up.
‘Yes, my boy?’
Twenty pairs of eyes flocked to Brendan. He was thinking about Sister Zofia’s recent lecture on “feminine decency” and how awkward it felt now to be hanging the laundry with Mam.
‘Is it sinful, Father,’ he asked, ‘to touch a woman’s knickers?’
Clearly it was. Brendan was ordered to weed the cemetery for the rest of confession practice, while the rest of them took turns kneeling in the dark confessional and telling Father McGivney a real bad sin. Because that’s what they’d have to do before the Pope’s visit. Otherwise all their singing and praying would be for nothing. Because they’d be blemished.
Brendan got to go last into the beeswax-smelling box of sins and confessed pulling Shona’s hair as well as everything awful he ever did to his younger brother, Finn. The Father only gave him Holy Marys to say, which wasn’t too bad. It was almost pleasant to sit in the cool gloom of a pew, forehead on the well-worn backrest of the next pew, turning the prayer into one long babbling brook, andblessedbethefruitofthywooooombjesus. It was only when he lifted his head after the final Holy Mary, squinting at the golden glare that oozed through a stained-glass Jesus Christ, that Brendan realised he was now completely wiped out of sins for the Pope.
And here he is, faced with that greasy piglet, a drizzle is just settling in and Niall Hogan bellows ‘Three minutes to go!’ The slow strolling method works till he gets into actual reach of Margaret. After that, any further step makes her scuttle off. If he dashes after her, she flings her hind trotters into the air, buckles, gallops round the pen a few times until she runs out of steam and falls into a bouncing trot. She seems to enjoy letting him close, but never close enough. He has to get her hind-trotters, he’s seen Da hold pigs like that, their front legs frantically scraping the ground. But even if he got near enough to launch himself onto her, he’d only slip again in the muck.
Then, the unexpected happens: Margaret turns around and gazes directly at him. Tiny eyes gleam under a fringe of white lashes. She lifts her electric socket snout and wrinkles it as she smells the air. This pulls back the skin from her teeth – and it almost looks as though she were smiling. In slow motion, Brendan lowers himself into a crouching position.
O Paaaanie, to Ty na mnie spojrzaaaaales,
Twoje usta dzis wyrzekly me imiiiie.
It’s roaring through him now, he can sing every single word in his mind, in Polish, with Sister Zofia’s perfect pronunciation and he is almost convinced Margaret can hear them, too. There. She takes a tentative step towards him. He is winning her trust! Brendan can feel the crowd around him hold their breath.
He had done it before they went back home from Tuam. After mass and sandwiches they’d parked the bus beside Musgrave’s stores. They were all allowed to get sherbet powder at the store, even Brendan. Sister Zofia exited the store right in front of him; he could see a black fringe of hair stick out at her nape from under her headpiece. Nuns have to cut their hair short, that he knew, but he’d never actually seen one without her white headpiece on. Sister Zofia held on to her change, the fierce midday sun caught in the ruby ring on her pinky, her wedding-band with Christ as she’d once explained to them. Then she took off her cardie, stuffed the change into its pocket and flung it over an iron fence.
They all hung around the street corner then, dipping their sticks into the powder and licking it off. The other kids were messing, but it was as if Brendan were watching them in a movie. The sherbet made his mouth sticky and he felt sweat trickle down his back. His hand shot forth by itself towards the Sister’s cardie and into the pocket. That was also in the movie. It was scarily easy, just like snatching Shona’s braids. The fiver felt soft and damp as he stuffed it into the back pocket of his shorts. A sin big enough even for the Pope, he told himself while the sweat turned icy cold on his back.
‘Tell me Brendan,’ Sister Zofia asked when the other kids started climbing back onto the bus. Have you been practicing our song at all? Her eyes had that dangerous twinkle and she laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘With that lovely voice of yours, I’m sure you can sing it all by heart now.’ The other kids turned towards them and made expectant faces.
‘Would love to, Sister.’ The last of the sherbet went all gloopy in his throat. ‘But I’m not feeling so good right now.’
By the time Brendan got on, the only free seat was next to Shona – no-one wants to sit beside a Roscommoner. She didn’t even look at Brendan once. They’d all sung together while rolling homewards, with Sister Zofia strumming on the guitar with small, strong hands. Her lips sculpted the Os and As just like the opera singers Mam liked to watch on the telly. Her voice had a way of filling space and scooping you up.
During the instrumental break in the song, Shona whispered ‘I saw what you did,’ into Brendan’s ear, but still wouldn’t look at him or say anything more for the rest of the trip. Brendan’s stomach heaved at every turn in the road. Shortly before Dunmore, it got so bad he had to ask the driver to stop in the bend. He made it off the bus just in time to get sick under a gorse bush. It left him exhausted, but slightly better. When he pulled himself back up into the familiar metal and wood interior of the school bus, he’d already made up his mind to slip the fiver back as soon as they’d get to St. Enda’s. But when he checked, the money was gone from his back pocket and nowhere to be found.
Bits of all this flash through his mind as he fixes his eyes on Margaret and fumbles in his trouser pockets. Her mud-crusted snout crinkles as she savours his smell. Excitement runs through Brendan like a warm buzz when he finds a half-eaten honeycomb Yorkie. He pulls it out and offers it up to Margaret. She gives it a good sniff, trots a few more paces towards him.
‘G’wan, pig whisperer, show us your tricks!’
There’s some rowdiness in the crowd, but soon things calm down in anticipation. Brendan kneels in the mud with his Yorkie and keeps perfectly still, whispering the Pope’s song to Margaret. Her short whiskers quiver in the drizzle. Brendan allows himself one peek at the crowd – and his stomach clenches. Shona is leaning far over the banister and watching his every move. Margaret makes a high-pitched grunt – she’s almost close enough to touch now, but Brendan keeps himself still, singing under his breath,
O Margaret,
It is you who has found me,
I’ll leave my boat on the shore now,
And go fishin’ with you.
Nice one! The piglet halts about a foot and a half away from Brendan.
‘One minute to go!’ Niall’s voice booms.
Startled by the noise, Margaret winces. She sinks her spiky teeth into Brendan’s hand with a little grunt – and gallops off with the Yorkie, Brendan at her heels. The crowd roars, mud splatters, they manage two rounds of the pen before Brendan gets that sliding-on-slick feeling again and splashes backwards into the muck. When he opens his eyes, the sky hangs low and blotchy like an old duvet and he can feel Shona watching his humiliation. By the time he’s on his legs again, Niall is clanging the bell:
‘Game over, time’s up, ladies and gentlemen! Margaret Thatcher, our very own Slippery Pig, prevails yet again!’
The spectators are clapping and jeering, they egg each other on to have the next go or drift off out of the rain. Brendan holds back hot tears; even Da’s having a laugh and is shaking hands with Niall. The boy makes his way to the paddock gate, head hung, but all of a sudden Da pulls him out of the crowd and hugs him tight. He cannot be a cry-baby, not in front of Da and Shona, so he presses his face into Da’s jacket that smells of stable and swears to himself he’ll still put everything right somehow. He’s a few days left to confess, come up with the five quid and face Sister Zofia. Da puts him down next to their own cattle. One of their Kerry blacks, Ashling, has won something this morning, a blue rosette sits behind her ear.
‘That didn’t go so well, bucko?’
Ashling puts her wet, liver-coloured snout over the mesh and breathes into Brendan’s face. Da, all badger-grey and stern-faced, brushes the muck off his jacket.
‘No, Da.’
‘Not to worry, Bren, takes practice that sort of thing. Go on and buy yourself some Gobstoppers, you deserve some after all that effort,’ he presses a note into Brendan’s palm.
Ten punt!
‘But why …?’
Da fondly slaps Ashling onto her neck as he makes to go. ‘Had me money on the pig all along, sure.’ He turns back to Brendan: ‘You’ll get plenty more sport out of her – just bought her off Niall to keep that daft orphan calf company. Now off with you and don’t spend it all at once.’
‘Thanks Da …’ But his dad’s already squelching towards a bunch of men from their town who are sheltering in the cauliflower show tent.
Brendan tries to give it a manly swagger on the way over towards the Snack Shack. He can afford a few treats now to bring home for himself and Finn and still make good his Dilemma. He eyes the penny jellies and Highland toffees that are piled in glass jars.
‘At least you didn’t hurt the pig,’ Shona leans her elbows onto the counter beside him. Where did she just appear from? ‘That’s all that matters,’ she stresses.
‘Yea thanks. And sorry … about Tuam.’ He glues his eyes to the chocolate bars. There’s no Yorkies, tragically.
‘What’ll you with the cash?’ she asks.
‘I’ve got a debt to pay back.’ He rubs the red dots where Margaret pinched his knuckles. ‘Plus I was just going to get Margaret some Highland toffees … Would you like to give them to her?’
‘Sure …’ There is some hesitation in Shona’s voice. Her finger follows the grooves in the wooden counter. ‘Our Aunt Mabel is bringing us to get holy water in Knock after the fair,’ she goes on. ‘Wanna come?’
Brendan feels a sweet and scary tug in his tummy, at the same time he can see himself from above: coated in muck, rained on, but ten punt richer and soon rid of his dilemma – as long as he avoids hanging any laundry with Mam!
He lifts up his face to meet Shona’s grey eyes, which right now are speckled with gold. His neck goes hot in a flash.
‘Yea, sound. I’ll be going with you.’
The word count is a bit over 3,000 words and I am happy to comment on the same length of a piece by anyone else. If you don't have time to read this much, I totally understand.
The Slippery Pig
‘If you catch wee Margaret within the ten minutes – that’s a fiver for ya,’ Niall Hogan splutters into Brendan’s ears. The usual whiff of stale coffee and pig comes off him. He takes the boy’s hands up in his big paws and greases them with lard, rolls his blood-shot eyes around the crowd. Five punt for catching the Slippery Pig? How hard can it be? Brendan is thrilled and freaked out all at once. Niall gives the boy a lopsided smile. ‘Mind that hog’s a feckin’ comet, so you better be quick.
Swallowing hard, Brendan takes in his audience round the pen. It’s mostly men in wellies and fleece jackets, fags in mouth, slouched onto the paddock fence same as when their sheep get shorn. Brendan rubs his lardy hands against each other, then down the corduroy pants that he got for his 10th birthday. Mam’ll go spare – but Da was all for it, sure. It was he that suggested Brendan try and catch the Slippery Pig to begin with. The pen’s the size of the Junior Infants classroom and all muck, the sky rain-heavy and low. In the far corner, Margaret digs with her trotters, ignoring him. Sticking a greasy index finger and thumb into his mouth, Niall gives a sharp whistle. The piglet’s head shoots up, black with flared, bat-like ears; the rest of her body glistens white and hairy.
Brendan’s gut sinks.
It all tumbles in on him now: the smell of manure, animals in fear, damp cigarette smoke. The wind whooshes through the tarpaulin covers of the show tents; someone slaps a cow’s haunches so it gives a yelp. It is 25 September 1979 and Mart Day at the Ag Show, with all the riff raff of the county carted up, that’s what Da says anyways, and it’s Brendan’s one big chance to turn around his luck. You better be quick. He’ll do this and he’ll be sound. Grab the cash and sort out his Dilemma on Monday.
‘Off ye go,’ a bell sounds, and with a jab in the back, Brendan tumbles into the pigpen.
‘Grab the fucker! Geter by the trotters!’ A racket of jeering and whistling erupts around him. Money changes hands as the on-lookers make their bets, including Da.
Brendan hunkers down as you’d do for a sprint. Margaret is busy rubbing her mucky shoulder against a pole.
O Paaaaanie, for no good reason the Pope’s song starts playing in his head.
O Panie, I heard you call my name, Brendan tells his brain to shut up. He does what Coach always tells him, breathes into his stomach only. And yes, for at least a few seconds everything inside and outside him goes quiet. He crouches lower, tenses his legs, then charges at Margaret – she didn’t see that coming! Mud splatters around them, Margaret’s little ringlet of a tail bobs as she lurches off, he’ll slam down on her like it’s the All Ireland Finals. But the ground under him turns to slick and jerks his feet the other way – Brendan lands face down in the sludge, all air whacked out of his lungs.
‘You thought you’d geter in your sleep, didya?’ A cackle of laughter explodes above Brendan.
Feckin’ runners. Brendan wishes he’d put on his wellies with proper grip like Mam had told him in the morning. He wipes the muck off his eyes and sees Margaret swishing her ringlet tail about as if to taunt him. Just behind her, he sees Shona Cassidy squeeze toward the front of the crowd in a jeans jacket, strawberry-blonde hair whipping in the wind. With craned neck, she takes stock of the muddle he’s in. She’ll be delighted to see him fail, no doubt.
The jukebox in his head puts on O Panie again, Sister Zofia has been drilling the Pope’s favourite song into them. Sister Zofia is their form teacher at St. Enda’s. She is short and Polish and her tight apron makes her look like a pepper mill. She also has a mighty temper and plays the guitar real good, so they’re all trying to please her, but because she’s from Poland they sometimes have to sing in the Pope’s language and it’s torture. She’s also the reason for Brendan’s Dilemma. The song’s refrain plays in a loop while he’s getting up out of the muck.
O Panie, I heard you call my name.
I’ll leave my boat on the shore now,
And go fishing with you.
From the corner of his eyes he sees Da with a hard-set mouth, not laughing or joking at all. He can’t let Da down in front of everyone. The piglet is ignoring Brendan in the other far corner of the pen now. Margaret, just stay where you are, he pleads. She starts sniffing the outstretched hands of some kids in the crowd, then parades past them in all her glistening glory as if she’s never done anything else. Maybe she hasn’t.
Hope surges again inside Brendan. All he needs to put things right again are the five quid and a good moment with Sister Zofia. He only ever did the real bad thing for John Paul and he’s very sorry now and he’ll make up for it.
He puts his greasy, mucky hands behind his back and slowly strolls in the direction of Margaret, pretending not to look at her. It works, not even her flappy bat ears prick up in his direction.
It had all started at Tuam Cathedral the previous week when Sister Zofia took them on the firth excursion of 5th year. It had been a scorching hot September day, their thighs were sticking to the plastic seats on the bus. When they arrived in Tuam, the square stone cathedral looked like an ancient spaceship with lots of spikes on top that could have been laser guns.
Inside, it was more like a fairy-tale forest, cool with a tall green vaulted roof and white branches in it. Shona Cassidy wore her patent leather shoes that were shiny and clickedee-clacked on the ground and the girls said she was a show-off. In any case, being from County Roscommon made her an enemy. He snuck up to her and just as Shona looked up, he got hold of her ginger braids, holding her head well back. Brendan thought he was being hilarious until Shona rammed her heel backward into his foot and clacked off – it hurt something bad. Sister Zofia told them to shush it: ‘Your soul won’t be saved if you terrorise the lassies, Brendan Creevy.’ They’d all padded on in silence after Sister Zofia to the sacristy for confession practice with Father McGivney .
‘Your sins have to be real sins,’ he’d explained to them as they sat round him in a circle, ‘just admitting you didn’t say your evening prayers is not enough. You have to confess that of course!’ Brendan had felt goose bumps prick up on his bare arms. The Father’s eyes looked huge through his glasses and his short, stroppy eye lashes seemed to be pointing inwards, towards his nose. He went on:
‘What God most wants to hear are your worst sins. Especially before our great shepherd, John Paul comes to visit. Can anyone among you name a really bad sin?’ His voiced sounded soft, but as his glance slid around the circle, all the children looked elsewhere, nobody made to speak. Until Brendan’s hand shot up.
‘Yes, my boy?’
Twenty pairs of eyes flocked to Brendan. He was thinking about Sister Zofia’s recent lecture on “feminine decency” and how awkward it felt now to be hanging the laundry with Mam.
‘Is it sinful, Father,’ he asked, ‘to touch a woman’s knickers?’
Clearly it was. Brendan was ordered to weed the cemetery for the rest of confession practice, while the rest of them took turns kneeling in the dark confessional and telling Father McGivney a real bad sin. Because that’s what they’d have to do before the Pope’s visit. Otherwise all their singing and praying would be for nothing. Because they’d be blemished.
Brendan got to go last into the beeswax-smelling box of sins and confessed pulling Shona’s hair as well as everything awful he ever did to his younger brother, Finn. The Father only gave him Holy Marys to say, which wasn’t too bad. It was almost pleasant to sit in the cool gloom of a pew, forehead on the well-worn backrest of the next pew, turning the prayer into one long babbling brook, andblessedbethefruitofthywooooombjesus. It was only when he lifted his head after the final Holy Mary, squinting at the golden glare that oozed through a stained-glass Jesus Christ, that Brendan realised he was now completely wiped out of sins for the Pope.
And here he is, faced with that greasy piglet, a drizzle is just settling in and Niall Hogan bellows ‘Three minutes to go!’ The slow strolling method works till he gets into actual reach of Margaret. After that, any further step makes her scuttle off. If he dashes after her, she flings her hind trotters into the air, buckles, gallops round the pen a few times until she runs out of steam and falls into a bouncing trot. She seems to enjoy letting him close, but never close enough. He has to get her hind-trotters, he’s seen Da hold pigs like that, their front legs frantically scraping the ground. But even if he got near enough to launch himself onto her, he’d only slip again in the muck.
Then, the unexpected happens: Margaret turns around and gazes directly at him. Tiny eyes gleam under a fringe of white lashes. She lifts her electric socket snout and wrinkles it as she smells the air. This pulls back the skin from her teeth – and it almost looks as though she were smiling. In slow motion, Brendan lowers himself into a crouching position.
O Paaaanie, to Ty na mnie spojrzaaaaales,
Twoje usta dzis wyrzekly me imiiiie.
It’s roaring through him now, he can sing every single word in his mind, in Polish, with Sister Zofia’s perfect pronunciation and he is almost convinced Margaret can hear them, too. There. She takes a tentative step towards him. He is winning her trust! Brendan can feel the crowd around him hold their breath.
He had done it before they went back home from Tuam. After mass and sandwiches they’d parked the bus beside Musgrave’s stores. They were all allowed to get sherbet powder at the store, even Brendan. Sister Zofia exited the store right in front of him; he could see a black fringe of hair stick out at her nape from under her headpiece. Nuns have to cut their hair short, that he knew, but he’d never actually seen one without her white headpiece on. Sister Zofia held on to her change, the fierce midday sun caught in the ruby ring on her pinky, her wedding-band with Christ as she’d once explained to them. Then she took off her cardie, stuffed the change into its pocket and flung it over an iron fence.
They all hung around the street corner then, dipping their sticks into the powder and licking it off. The other kids were messing, but it was as if Brendan were watching them in a movie. The sherbet made his mouth sticky and he felt sweat trickle down his back. His hand shot forth by itself towards the Sister’s cardie and into the pocket. That was also in the movie. It was scarily easy, just like snatching Shona’s braids. The fiver felt soft and damp as he stuffed it into the back pocket of his shorts. A sin big enough even for the Pope, he told himself while the sweat turned icy cold on his back.
‘Tell me Brendan,’ Sister Zofia asked when the other kids started climbing back onto the bus. Have you been practicing our song at all? Her eyes had that dangerous twinkle and she laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘With that lovely voice of yours, I’m sure you can sing it all by heart now.’ The other kids turned towards them and made expectant faces.
‘Would love to, Sister.’ The last of the sherbet went all gloopy in his throat. ‘But I’m not feeling so good right now.’
By the time Brendan got on, the only free seat was next to Shona – no-one wants to sit beside a Roscommoner. She didn’t even look at Brendan once. They’d all sung together while rolling homewards, with Sister Zofia strumming on the guitar with small, strong hands. Her lips sculpted the Os and As just like the opera singers Mam liked to watch on the telly. Her voice had a way of filling space and scooping you up.
During the instrumental break in the song, Shona whispered ‘I saw what you did,’ into Brendan’s ear, but still wouldn’t look at him or say anything more for the rest of the trip. Brendan’s stomach heaved at every turn in the road. Shortly before Dunmore, it got so bad he had to ask the driver to stop in the bend. He made it off the bus just in time to get sick under a gorse bush. It left him exhausted, but slightly better. When he pulled himself back up into the familiar metal and wood interior of the school bus, he’d already made up his mind to slip the fiver back as soon as they’d get to St. Enda’s. But when he checked, the money was gone from his back pocket and nowhere to be found.
Bits of all this flash through his mind as he fixes his eyes on Margaret and fumbles in his trouser pockets. Her mud-crusted snout crinkles as she savours his smell. Excitement runs through Brendan like a warm buzz when he finds a half-eaten honeycomb Yorkie. He pulls it out and offers it up to Margaret. She gives it a good sniff, trots a few more paces towards him.
‘G’wan, pig whisperer, show us your tricks!’
There’s some rowdiness in the crowd, but soon things calm down in anticipation. Brendan kneels in the mud with his Yorkie and keeps perfectly still, whispering the Pope’s song to Margaret. Her short whiskers quiver in the drizzle. Brendan allows himself one peek at the crowd – and his stomach clenches. Shona is leaning far over the banister and watching his every move. Margaret makes a high-pitched grunt – she’s almost close enough to touch now, but Brendan keeps himself still, singing under his breath,
O Margaret,
It is you who has found me,
I’ll leave my boat on the shore now,
And go fishin’ with you.
Nice one! The piglet halts about a foot and a half away from Brendan.
‘One minute to go!’ Niall’s voice booms.
Startled by the noise, Margaret winces. She sinks her spiky teeth into Brendan’s hand with a little grunt – and gallops off with the Yorkie, Brendan at her heels. The crowd roars, mud splatters, they manage two rounds of the pen before Brendan gets that sliding-on-slick feeling again and splashes backwards into the muck. When he opens his eyes, the sky hangs low and blotchy like an old duvet and he can feel Shona watching his humiliation. By the time he’s on his legs again, Niall is clanging the bell:
‘Game over, time’s up, ladies and gentlemen! Margaret Thatcher, our very own Slippery Pig, prevails yet again!’
The spectators are clapping and jeering, they egg each other on to have the next go or drift off out of the rain. Brendan holds back hot tears; even Da’s having a laugh and is shaking hands with Niall. The boy makes his way to the paddock gate, head hung, but all of a sudden Da pulls him out of the crowd and hugs him tight. He cannot be a cry-baby, not in front of Da and Shona, so he presses his face into Da’s jacket that smells of stable and swears to himself he’ll still put everything right somehow. He’s a few days left to confess, come up with the five quid and face Sister Zofia. Da puts him down next to their own cattle. One of their Kerry blacks, Ashling, has won something this morning, a blue rosette sits behind her ear.
‘That didn’t go so well, bucko?’
Ashling puts her wet, liver-coloured snout over the mesh and breathes into Brendan’s face. Da, all badger-grey and stern-faced, brushes the muck off his jacket.
‘No, Da.’
‘Not to worry, Bren, takes practice that sort of thing. Go on and buy yourself some Gobstoppers, you deserve some after all that effort,’ he presses a note into Brendan’s palm.
Ten punt!
‘But why …?’
Da fondly slaps Ashling onto her neck as he makes to go. ‘Had me money on the pig all along, sure.’ He turns back to Brendan: ‘You’ll get plenty more sport out of her – just bought her off Niall to keep that daft orphan calf company. Now off with you and don’t spend it all at once.’
‘Thanks Da …’ But his dad’s already squelching towards a bunch of men from their town who are sheltering in the cauliflower show tent.
Brendan tries to give it a manly swagger on the way over towards the Snack Shack. He can afford a few treats now to bring home for himself and Finn and still make good his Dilemma. He eyes the penny jellies and Highland toffees that are piled in glass jars.
‘At least you didn’t hurt the pig,’ Shona leans her elbows onto the counter beside him. Where did she just appear from? ‘That’s all that matters,’ she stresses.
‘Yea thanks. And sorry … about Tuam.’ He glues his eyes to the chocolate bars. There’s no Yorkies, tragically.
‘What’ll you with the cash?’ she asks.
‘I’ve got a debt to pay back.’ He rubs the red dots where Margaret pinched his knuckles. ‘Plus I was just going to get Margaret some Highland toffees … Would you like to give them to her?’
‘Sure …’ There is some hesitation in Shona’s voice. Her finger follows the grooves in the wooden counter. ‘Our Aunt Mabel is bringing us to get holy water in Knock after the fair,’ she goes on. ‘Wanna come?’
Brendan feels a sweet and scary tug in his tummy, at the same time he can see himself from above: coated in muck, rained on, but ten punt richer and soon rid of his dilemma – as long as he avoids hanging any laundry with Mam!
He lifts up his face to meet Shona’s grey eyes, which right now are speckled with gold. His neck goes hot in a flash.
‘Yea, sound. I’ll be going with you.’
