I improved very little with my letters over the years despite everyone’s efforts, especially Tony’s. I spent most days with my head fuzzy, not able to catch up or understand the things on the board or on the page. Numbers weren’t so bad. They made some sense. I could add and subtract and, in time, multiply. Tony saw my progress and pushed me on. All the way to school and all the way home, we’d practise. He’d make a game of it, making sure I knew my money and the time, so that Mam and Dad and Master Duggan might let me be. He tried with the words too:
‘Think of a “b”, like it’s a stick man holding a ball in front of him. And a “d” is a dumbo hiding the ball behind him.’
I’d try to hold that in my head, ‘ball, in front, dumbo behind’. And it worked, when the letters were on their own and not in the middle of words or at the end. That’s when everything started to swim around on the blackboard or on the page and I couldn’t order them or the sounds in the right place.
I punched Tony once on our way home when he wouldn’t let up pushing me to get it right.
‘Would you give over saying you’re stupid, Big Man, you’re as able as the next fella.’
‘Go ’way,’ I yelled, as he doubled over. ‘I am so stupid,’ I called back as I ran off into the bit of a forest that, back then, stood at the front of our house.
I’ll admit that behind my tears, I was impressed that I’d managed to floor him. But as I ran, weaving my way through the trees, trampling on the fallen leaves and branches, the shame of it crept up on me. My exhausted body finally came to a stop at a clearing that faced west out across the Dollards’ land. There, I screamed out my fury so loudly that I was sure its power reached over those fields, up the hills and down as far as Duncashel.
It was dark by the time I headed home that evening. My stomach told me it was about six o’clock when I walked through the door and heard the clatter of the tea things. My family’s chat quietened as I slipped on to the end of the bench at the table. But my mother continued to fill the teacups like there was nothing untoward at all. I didn’t dare lift my head, hoping they might all have the decency to ignore me. As I concentrated on my hands twisting in my lap, I heard my knife rattle against my plate. I looked up to find a slice of soda bread newly landed there. Tony. I didn’t need to look to know, but still I raised my eyes to find his smile and wink.
Master Duggan wasn’t the worst, I have to give him his due. When I hear the stories now of what kids endured back in those days, I’m lucky I wasn’t beaten black and blue or worse. As the years went on it was like we came to an understanding, him and me, that he’d leave me alone when it came to asking questions, if I never made trouble. He never pushed or embarrassed me. Never stuck me in the corner or once called me lazy. I believe he simply didn’t know what to do with me. We were together on that. Most of the time I asked if I could be excused to go to the toilet. Not that we had toilets, but it became our code, when he knew I needed a break. I roamed around the back of the school, over the wall in the fields, wandering up and down, looking out on the countryside below, seeing the neighbours at work. I’d go back after a good long stint out in the fresh Meath air, to listen and watch the others succeed and belong.
There was this one lunchtime, I must’ve been about seven, when I decided I’d had enough. Three years I’d been trying at that stage. By then, Tony had only a couple of months left in school. He was twelve and once June came he was leaving to work the land full-time with our father. The football had been particularly good that day. I had been brilliant. In my memory, I had scored every goal, made every deciding tackle, even getting the ball from Tony once or twice. I was a genius. And then the master called a halt to proceedings to get us back inside. I knew then, at that moment, that I couldn’t. It felt like a weight had been planted on my head, not allowing me to move. I sat on the low wall that marked the school boundary, breathing heavily, watching the fallen-down socks and bruised legs of the others scurry and kick their way through the door. I could see the master looking at me. But he didn’t move; instead he called Tony and whispered something in his ear. I watched them watching me, before the master headed on inside and Tony trotted over.
‘Alright, Big Man? Come on, we have to go in.’
‘I want to go home,’ I said.
‘You can’t be doing that. Come on, the master will be waiting,’ he said, heading on again.
I said nothing, not moving an inch.
‘Listen,’ he said, returning, his hand now between my shoulder blades, pushing me off the wall and ahead of him with some strength, ‘the day’s nearly over. We’ll be out of here before you know it.’
I near fell in the door of the classroom, with the force of his pushes. I walked slowly by each table, my finger trailing along every one, to get to my seat, where I stayed for the long afternoon with a big sulky head on me.
‘I hate it,’ I repeated, over and over on our way home.
‘It’ll get better.’
‘Yeah, right. Well how come I’m still as stupid as the day I started, then.’
I ran ahead of him, like it was his fault. Ran all the way back into the house. Flew in through the kitchen, ignoring my mother’s gaping mouth and was down with the dust balls under the bed before she had time to stop me. Refused to come out. Lay there, picking at the threadbare rug that half-covered the cold concrete floor, listening to the muffled talk seeping through the slats of the latched wooden door.
‘What happened, Tony?’ Mam asked, when he eventually landed in.
‘Nothing. Seriously. Nothing happened. I don’t know what’s got into him. I’ll sort him.’
Tony sat down by the bed bringing me the glass of milk and buttered soda bread my mother always produced after the school day was over and before we headed off to find our father and the work he had lined up for us. Tony placed his plate beside mine. When there was no sign of me coming out he pushed mine in under a little further. I ignored the food for as long as my stomach let me, then I reached to take bits of the bread. Eventually I pushed them and myself back out and sat beside Tony. We said nothing. Just ate and looked at my sisters’ bed opposite. Made to perfection, not a pillow or blanket out of place, the crochet-knitted cover, made by Jenny and May over the previous winter, that gave weight and warmth at night, spread smoothly on top.
‘Do you think we should make one of them?’ Tony said. ‘One of those crochet covers?’ I looked at him like he’d gone mad. ‘Like I know women are good at all that kind of stuff but I don’t see why we couldn’t do it. It’d be fierce warm in the winter.’
‘I’m not taking up knitting so people can laugh at me even more.’
‘Hold on, Big Man, that’s not what I meant.’
‘Yes it is, you think all I’m good for is women’s work.’
‘Ah now, Maurice, that isn’t what I was saying at all. And no one is laughing at you, either.’
‘Oh yes they are. Joe Brady called me a dumbo yesterday when I got the spelling wrong.’
‘So that’s why you hit him,’ he laughed, impressed. ‘He’s no feckin’ genius anyway. He can’t even tie his laces for feck sake. And have you seen the state of his ears? I mean no man with ears that stick out like that has a right to call anyone a dumbo.’
Despite myself, I smiled.
‘Come on, Big Man. We’ll figure this out, OK? Me and you, right. Me and you against the world, yeah?’ He got me in the gentlest headlock and ruffled my hair. ‘You’ll be grand.’
But I wasn’t. And every morning after, they had to pull me kicking and screaming from my bed. My father was pushed to limits that were not naturally him.