Every Time a Bell Rings. Carmel Harrington

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       4

       If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.

      Winnie the Pooh

      May 1988

      ‘You’re the only black person I’ve ever known,’ Jim says, hoisting himself up on his pillow. We’re in our den, eating chocolate that we’ve nicked from Tess’s secret stash.

      ‘Well, you’re the only red-haired boy I know,’ I say, sticking my tongue out at him and he laughs in response.

      ‘What’s it like being black?’ he asks.

      ‘What’s it like being an eejit?’ I reply and throw a packet of cheese-and-onion Tayto crisps his way.

      But I don’t mind his questions in the slightest. Within a few weeks of arriving, Jim became my very best friend. Just like I asked Santa for Christmas.

      ‘Thanks for today,’ I say to him.

      He shrugs off my praise. ‘Shut them up anyhow.’

      ‘Sure did,’ I say.

      Joyce O’Connor and her cronies had shoved past me so I fell down and then started pointing and laughing at me. I’ve got one of those faces, it seems.

      ‘What you looking at?’ Jim shouted at them, standing on his feet.

      ‘What are you looking at?’ Joyce mimicked and her friends laughed some more.

      ‘Not much, from where I’m standing,’ Jim replied.

      ‘Where’s your friend from? Bongo-bongo land?’ she shouted.

      ‘I told you, I’m from Dublin, just like you,’ I said and started to pick up my lunch stuff. I just wanted to get away. I could feel myself getting angry and when that happens, I usually end up in a fight and that never ends well for me.

      ‘Liar,’ Another one shouted at me and then they all started to chant ‘Bongo, Bongo, Bongo,’ over and over.

      ‘Take that back. She is not a liar and that’s not nice.’ Jim clenched his fists and walked towards them.

      ‘Oh. I’m shaking,’ Joyce, the obvious ringleader, said.

      ‘Wagons the lot of them. If they weren’t girls, I’d give them a slap,’ Jim said.

      ‘It’s no big deal,’ I replied. I pretended to yawn and hoped he didn’t look too closely at my eyes, which I knew must be shiny with unshed tears.

      Then Jim stood up and sauntered over to them, his hands in his pockets. ‘You know who she is? That girl over there, that you’re picking on?’ He pointed in my direction.

      ‘Who?’ Joyce sneered. ‘The Queen of Sheba.’

      ‘You know who Paul McGrath is?’ He said, and of course they all nodded. Everyone in Ireland knows who he is. He’s our most famous footballer and a hero to practically the whole nation.

      ‘Well, Belle is his niece. I’d be nice to her if I were you. Because I don’t think he’d like it if he heard kids were picking on his favourite girl.’ He walked away, leaving them all gawping at me with their mouths wide open.

      ‘Jim,’ I said. ‘I’m not. …’

      He winked at me as he replied, ‘Sure, how do you know? You could be. You said yourself that you don’t know who your father is.’

      ‘You know, I didn’t know I was black until I was four.’ I tell him. ‘I hadn’t noticed that I was any different to anyone else.’

      ‘What do mean?’ he asks. ‘Surely you’d looked in the mirror? Sure you couldn’t miss that ugly mug.’

      I look around for something else to throw at him, but as he’s tucking into my crisps now, I realise that he’s only deliberately baiting me, just to rob my treats.

      ‘I know your game,’ I tell him and slowly open my bar of Cadbury’s Tiffin. I know it’s his favourite and pop a piece in my mouth. That will teach him. I was СКАЧАТЬ