Jesus and Billy Are Off to Barcelona. Deirdre Purcell

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      CHAPTER ONE

       The Cast

      Our hero is Billy O’Connor from Finglas. A fair-haired schoolboy of sixteen years of age and of normal talent. He is a wee bit small for his age. And rather young-looking. He is very annoyed about this. He has long conversations with his pals about the women he has had. He fights a lot with his very irritating sister, Doreen.

      Jesus Martinez, from Barcelona, is aged seventeen. He looks, dresses and acts a lot older. He is beautiful, with skin as velvety as a peach, curly brown hair and dark grey eyes with lashes that Liz Hurley would kill for. His parents have money, lots of money. Jesus, who has lovely manners, never talks about this.

      Doreen O’Connor, who is eighteen, spends most of her life worrying about being fat. Her best friend, Betty Fagan, is always telling her she is not fat. Doreen thinks that Betty, who is as thin as a lollipop stick, is only saying that. Doreen is feeling grim at the moment because she feels life is passing her by in the matter of boyfriends. She’s never had one. Betty has had a boyfriend for a year now and this has put their relationship under strain. Doreen’s also fed up with her parents because they’re fixing it for Billy to go to Barcelona. A chance she never got.

      Jimmy O’Connor, thirty-nine years of age, the father of Billy and Doreen, works in Premier Dairies. He is a cheerful sort, happy with small joys. Likes the odd pint. He is proud of his family, proud of his little house. Proud that, with his own hands, he can keep the old family banger on the road. The only fly in the ointment is that his wife, Janet, keeps nagging at him to do courses so he can get a better job. Jimmy is glad to have the job he has. No hassle, no stress.

      Janet O’Connor, Jimmy’s wife, loves her children. She loves Jimmy too, but is at an age where suddenly none of that seems enough. She finds herself looking at holiday programmes on the telly. Janet’s main question now is: why can’t Jimmy O’Connor get up off his arse and get himself a better job? She has great plans for her children and has taken on extra ironing shifts down at ValuKleen, the local laundromat.

      Granny Teresa, who is seventy, is Jimmy’s mother. She lives with the O’Connors in a little granny flat stuck on to the side of the house. She is a terrific granny, warm, wise, motherly.

      No one can guess the age of Amanda O’Connor (no relation) because she keeps herself so well. The gym, tennis, the odd facial – well, you have to, don’t you? Amanda lives with Hugo, her husband, on the south side of the city in a keyhole cul-de-sac of lovely houses. All with different shapes. Amanda has high ambitions for her only son, William. She doesn’t want him to be a dull old accountant like Hugo, who works all the hours God sends. William has always been good with his hands so maybe he would be a surgeon.

      There are other people in this story, such as Billy’s uncle Dick, who also lives with the Finglas O’Connors and who is sozzled most weekends.

      But finally – the person without whom we wouldn’t not have a story at all.

      Sharon Byrne is twenty-two and has lovely hair. She also has lovely nails and lovely ankles and a heavy DART accent. Her Daddy always said that Sharon was good with people so she did a PR diploma at a private college. Unfortunately, PR didn’t work out for her, so when she saw a summer job advertised in Irlanda Exchange, she thought she’d give it a whirl.

      Sharon has been with The Agency for all of six weeks when the trouble she has to face on that August Bank Holiday weekend makes her think yet again about her line of work . . .

      CHAPTER TWO

       Billy Prepares to Meet Jesus

      The jury was still out on Billy O’Connor’s family. Billy sometimes thought they were not too bad. Like on certain Sundays when his Uncle Dick was too sick to come downstairs. His mother, who always saw this as a blessing, would behave like a real mother. Like the mothers you see on the telly. Jolly. The kind of mother who cracks jokes about the burnt corned beef and is so relaxed about it that everyone is allowed to laugh.

      Sometimes, on the other hand, Billy thought he was going to die of shame because he was forced to live on the same planet as these people. Not to speak of in the same house on the same street.

      At the moment, he was in between.

      On the good side, it was very good of his parents to go to all the trouble and expense of arranging this student exchange with the bloke from Barcelona. Billy’s scholarship covered only half the cost, so to pay for the rest of it, his Da had done lots of overtime. He had also borrowed from the Credit Union. His Ma had taken on extra work down at ValuKleen.

      On the bad side, they never let Billy forget their goodness. Billy only had to do one thing. One small tiny thing (like forgetting to put out the milk bottles on one single night) and they were all off. He was an ungrateful little pup who had no idea what the real world was like. He didn’t have to wear the same pair of laddered tights for a month. He didn’t have to suck up to that shagger Moreno down at the plant in order to scrounge a few bloody hours of extra work on a Saturday night.

      When they first told him about the trip, about three months ago, he had been excited. But СКАЧАТЬ