God knows I’ve tried to shut this stuff out. But it’s a losing battle.
I must be eight or nine. It’s the middle of the night and he’s home roaring the house down after match day. I’ve a brother now, baby Michael. He’s crying in his mother’s arms, but I stay quiet in my bed.
My father roars, ‘Gus, raise yourself.’
There’s the noise of furniture being moved about, knocked over. Then there’s the sound of my father’s heavy boots and curses chasing round the house.
‘I told you to get out of that fucking bed.’
I’m lifted by my hair from beneath the blankets. I’m terrified. My father’s face is scarlet, his hair wet to his brow.
‘Down them stairs,’ he shouts at me.
In the living room there’s scarcely a stick of furniture or picture on the walls that isn’t disturbed. Then I see the cause of the ruckus flash before me like a ghost.
My father’s earned another gift from one of the men in the Steamboat pub. He’s always being given things, says it’s a great advertisement to have the mighty Cannis Dury as a fan of your tyres or your shoes or your bacon.
This time the gift is a lively young lamb. It’s come home with a rope round its neck, but is none too happy to see it tightened.
‘Grab it up, boy,’ yells my father. There’s no need. It jumps into my arms the moment it sees me.
The rope is wrapped round its little snout. When I loosen it, the lamb grabs for breath.
Cannis is rolling drunk, knocking a lampshade about face. ‘Good — now follow me, we have a job of work to be done.’
I follow him to the kitchen. He steadies himself over the sink, reaches for his razor strop. The sight of the strop being taken makes my heart gallop. But not for myself, I’ve felt its lashes too many times, I’m wondering what my father plans for the lamb.
The little creature seems to sense it too. It squirms in my arms.
‘Hold that bastard steady,’ roars my father.
‘What’ll you do? What’ll you do to it?’ I say.
‘I’ll cut its throat, what d’ye think?’ He grabs the lamb and hangs it over the sink by its back legs. It struggles and squeals. My father has to use both hands to keep from losing it again. All the while the lamb looks at me. Great black eyes, staring.
‘Angus, boy, get my razor, you’ll have to do it!’
‘No.’ I say. I don’t believe I’ve uttered the word.
‘What do you mean, no? You will do it. The razor now, cut this bastard’s throat before it has me on my back.’
I look at the lamb, upturned and struggling in my father’s great hands. Its black eyes plead again. He takes down the razor, hands it to me, and then there’s an almighty struggle as though the lamb knows it’s on its own. The squeals are the sound of terror. I feel them reaching into me.
‘Cut its throat, hear me, cut it! Cut it, now!’
I stand with my father’s razor in my hand. I’m motionless. I know I’m disobeying and what that means. But I can’t harm the animal.
The razor slips to the floor; there’s a sharp pain in the front of my head when it falls. I realise I’ve been struck by my father. I lie on the floor beside the razor and when I see him reach for it I fill with panic.
As I get up I feel the cold flap of skin where his knuckle struck bone. There’s blood running from my head, going into my eyes and mouth.
I feel no pain as I watch my father run the open steel across the lamb’s throat. The squealing reaches a higher pitch for a second and then blood chokes its mouth and spills over its flesh into the sink.
I watch the blood pour from the dying animal. Its black eyes are still staring into the heart of me. As I watch the blood flowing, I feel like it’s mine, like the blood I can taste in my mouth from the wound my father made.