By Don­al McLaugh­lin — No harm to Lizzy or any­one else, but it wasn’t the Queen they wait­ed up for but: it was the late-night hor­ror film. DON’T WATCH ALONE was the name of it, not that there was a hope in hell o’ that in the O’Donnells’ house — not wi’ a house­ful of weans lik yon, there wasn’t.

The cra­ic them Sat­ur­day nights was some­thing else, right enough. They’d all be sit­ting there, sure, watch­ing it in the dark — wee Orla and Cahal would’ve been cud­dled up against their moth­er or father or some of the big­ger ones — and there wouldn’t’ve been a cheep out of them, not a sin­gle one of them — until, that is, every time Drac­u­la was about to bite neck, and their da would free him­self from who­ev­er he was sit­ting beside and creep up behind the set­tee that was pulled up in front of the fire, and drop his falsers out of his mouth and down the back of some of their necks. Ye want to have heard the screams out of them! Half the sus­pense would’ve been won­der­ing which of them their da would go for next; and he would do it to ye even if he’d promised FAITH­ful­ly nev­er to do it to ye again. Cia­ra, say, would be sit­ting there think­ing she was safe, think­ing he would keep his promise — she, after all, had been theone­tomake­hi­ma­mu­goftea-andthenext thing she knew his slab­bery oul false teeth would be tum­bling down the back of her wee frock. Then

THE END

would come up — and it was strange going from that to the pho­to of Lizzy on her horse and

GOD -

                          SAVE —

                                                                OUR —

They nev­er got past OUR- in the O’Donnell house- hold. It wasn’t even as if the Queen got zapped with the remote con­trol, either. Naw, we’re talk­ing the days before remote con­trols here, when you had to get up off your back­side, cross the room, and press but­tons or turn a dial. Not that the O’Donnell weans let that stop them but:

NO WAY!

No mat­ter how tired they were, sure -
No mat­ter how late it was -
No mat­ter how many o’ the wee bug­gers had dozed off on the floor or set­tee, claim­ing they were rest­ing their eyes and refus­ing to go to bed -
Even if they were out for the bloody count, for God­sake -
Or if the wee-est ones were past their sleep and grumpy as hell -
I’m not jokin ye: when it came to the band strik­ing up GOD SAVE LIZZY, the whole bloody clan of them would come back to life and race from what­ev­er cor­ner of the liv­in­groom they were in and descend upon the poor tele­vi­sion set, each des­per­ate to be the one to reach the ON-OFF but­ton first. ‘CHRIST SAKE, WEANS!’ Brid­get would scream out of her as — yet again — holy hell broke loose. She’d visions every time of the TV set com­ing off the top of the trol­ley and down on top of one of them. No mat­ter how much she looked at thon hus­band of hers for sup­port but, he would only laugh — pleased to see he was suc­ceed­ing in rear­ing his weans up prop­er­ly.

In the ear­ly days, when the race to turn the Queen off was begin­ning to be a reg­u­lar occur­rence, one of the Big Ones would nor­mal­ly have beat­en the Wee Ones to the but­ton. Ye could nor­mal­ly have put mon­ey on Annette who was as deter­mined and as swift as she was shy and qui­et. Liam, the eldest, might’ve had a good head on him, he was no ath­lete but, no mat­ter how much it hurt his pride not to win the race.

The same boy — ye have to hand it to him — could cer­tain­ly pro­duce the odd stroke of genius but. Even his father had to laugh the night the wee bug­ger sat with­in easy reach of the plug and — cool as you like — just whipped the thing out as the rest closed in on the set. Lousy shite: when the oth­ers realised what had hap­pened and turned to face him, he’d his head back, laugh­ing, was gloat­ing and goad­ing them: twirling the plug above his head, the bug­ger was, lik it was Mick Jagger’s mike. Anoth­er night, — Annette, hop­ing he wouldn’t notice, had already installed wee Orla and Cia­ra to defend the sock­ets — he stood up and left the room as the anthem was about to start. To look at him, ye’d’ve thought he wasn’t goney com­pete; that he’d decid­ed the whole bloody thing was beneath him. Turns out he was on his way to the fuse-box under the stairs. The looks on the faces descend­ing on the tel­ly were a pic­ture, appar­ent­ly.

Rest of them were demand­ing re-writes of the rule book thon night, so they were. The wee cho­rus of ‘and se-ent them home-ward, to think a‑gain’ from beneath the stairs was the final bloody straw. ‘Dad­dy, tell Liam he’s not allowed to do that, Dad­dy!’ ‘Mum, tell Liam that’s not fair, Mum!’ they cho­rused. ‘Think you’re a smart arse, do ye?’ was all Annette said when Liam re-appeared, look­ing pleased with him­self.

Aye, Annette and Liam cer­tain­ly had their moments of glo­ry, no doubt about it. If ye study the form over the months and years this car­ry-on went on but, it was Sean — Brid­get and Liam’s sec­ond boy and the reserve goal­keep­er in the school team — who stopped Lizzy in her tracks most. The young fel­la could be flat out on his back on the mat in front of the fire — and he’d still man­age to turn and glide through the air, fin­ger and thumb extend­ed to steal the moment of glo­ry from whichev­er of his broth­ers and sis­ters might have been ahead of the pack this time. ‘Bonet­ti the Cat’ or ‘Pat Jen­nings the Sec­ond’ his father would call him, laugh­ing as the young fel­la avoid­ed the trol­ley and com­plet­ed his vic­to­ry roll in the kitchen, return­ing gulp­ing from a pint glass of water, stop­ping only to hold it aloft. Ye had to mar­vel at the wee bugger’s agili­ty; his courage. It’s a won­der, in fact, he nev­er got hurt, the way the rest of them crashed down on top of him. Still, it was good prac­tice for the penal­ty area on Sat­ur­day morn­ings, his father sup­posed.

Naw, there wasn’t oncet, not a sin­gle once, the young fel­la shed a tear, no mat­ter how often or what way the rest of the mahoods land­ed on him. Naw, if it end­ed in tears, it was more like­ly to be one of the Wee Ones, incon­solable at not being the one who’d turned the TV off. Some­times, to paci­fy them, their moth­er or father would’ve had to turn it back on again for wee Cahal or Orla to switch off — and ye’d get a snatch of REIGN — O‑VER — US before Lizzy was cut off in her prime again. Their moth­er or father inter­ven­ing would put an end to the water­works, alright, nor­mal­ly; ye could see deep down, but, that even wee Cahal and Orla, God love them, knew that their moth­er or father set­ting it up for them wasn’t the same as get­ting to the set first in the first place.

It didn’t help, of course, that one night, Cia­ra, the wee bitch, spelled it out to Cahal who she was in a huff wi’ at the time: ‘Don’t know what you’re look­ing so hap­py about, ya wee cry-baby,’ she’d sneered. ‘Jist cos your dad­dy turned it back on for you to turn off again doesn’t mean you stopped the Queen first. It was still Sean first, even if you got to do it, too!’ That had start­ed Cahal bub­bling again so Cia­ra got a cuff round the ear, was sent to bed, and was told in no uncer­tain terms it would be a long bloody buckin time before she’d get stay­ing up long enough to see the Queen again.

It was a dif­fer­ent sto­ry, of course, when they were lis­ten­ing to Radio Eire­ann and the Soldier’s Song came on. The fact the recep­tion was rot­ten on their tin­ny wee tran­ny was nei­ther here nor there. Their da had picked the thing up for some­thing like 20 new p. at the school jum­ble-sale, and it stood on the mantle­piece with the aer­i­al ful­ly extend­ed. Big Liam, who­ev­er saw him, would’ve been footer­ing about all night with it, try­ing to get decent recep­tion: try­ing tricks like hav­ing the aer­i­al lean­ing against the clock or touch­ing the mir­ror. ‘Ye wouldn’t think it was just across the Irish Sea -’ was what he usu­al­ly said. ‘God’s my judge: we got bet­ter bloody recep­tion the night the Tic played Ujpest Dosza in buckin Hun­gary!’

Rot­ten recep­tion or not, the Irish nation­al anthem was allowed to play right through. It was rous­ing stuff, wi’ bits where ye could join in. All ye had to do was sing ‘God — bless — them!’ between the lines some­times — as if it was a rug­by or a foot­ball song. Not that Wee Liam, for exam­ple, did, but. Not bloody like­ly! Even at that age, the young fel­la was aller­gic, sure. No way could he’ve lis­tened and, in his own mind, seen, say, foot­ballers lined up, chew­ing gum and hav­ing a good scratch to them­selves. Naw, even at that age, visions of raised rifles and men’s heads in bal­a­clavas would’ve got in the way.

The sur­pris­ing thing is that the young fel­la can’t mind the words no more. What he does mind is his da always get­ting to his feet in his tea-stained vest: he’d still’ve had his mug of tea in his left hand and a fag in his right, and he would’ve pestered the rest of them to get up off their ars­es, too. ‘Show some bloody respect, would yis!’ he’d say, tug­ging at their sleeves. There was some­thing com­i­cal, right enough, about their da stand­ing there, salut­ing the tran­ny, and try­ing to drag Liam or Sean up to do the same. Some­times, but, he’d total­ly lose his tem­per and claim they’d a buckin cheek call­ing them­selves Irish­men — or even Celtic sup­port­ers! ‘The mac­a­roon bars and spearmint chew­ing-gum — that’s all yis bloody go for! That’s the only rea­son yis bloody go. Buckin mac­a­roon bars and spearmint chew­ing-gum! Don’t think I don’t know!’

There was hard­ly a night they were up late, nev­er­the­less, passed, but, with­out the odd one or two of them join­ing in — for the final cho­rus, if no- thing else. The Wee Ones didn’t know any bet­ter, and even they could recog­nise when the orches­tra was com­ing to the end. The big­ger ones would or wouldn’t’ve, depend­ing on the mood they were in. Annette or one of the oth­er girls might’ve, I sup­pose, — if only to please their dad­dy. Cer­tain­ly, if any of them had got into trou­ble dur­ing the day, it was well- known that join­ing in — or offer­ing to make him a cup of tea — was a short-cut back into the good books. As for their moth­er: there was no way on this earth ye would’ve got Brid­get O’Donnell singing. She was total­ly browned off wi’ the whole thing, was past find­ing it fun­ny, and nor­mal­ly just dis­ap­peared into the scullery. Not that it mat­tered, right enough: sure when it came to the last line, it didn’t mat­ter how many were singing: they always took the roof off with that one.

There came a time, of course, when the old­er ones would’ve joined their moth­er. The fact their father cast it up to her, call­ing her a trai­tor and claim­ing she’d spent too long in Eng­land as a wean, wouldn’t’ve stopped them.

Liam was in there, exchang­ing looks with her, the night the police turned up at the door. It was the night North­ern Ire­land beat Scot­land one-nil in

a friend­ly at Ham­p­den, wi’ George Best scor­ing the only goal. It was their mother’s first-ever foot­ball match, and her and their father had gone along wi’ anoth­er cou­ple — from Limavady, orig­i­nal­ly. Brid­get had been so busy talk­ing to the oth­er woman but, she missed the bloody goal. ‘Nev­er mind, sure I’ll see the replay!’ she’d said, as Georgie and the rest of the boyos danced their way back to their own half. Their da had loved telling the weans that one. ‘Nev­er mind, sure I’ll see the replay!’ he kept repeat­ing, tears of laugh­ter flood­ing out of him.

Any­way, thon was the night the police turned up at the door, and the O’Donnells were still so over the moon at North­ern Ire­land beat­ing Scot­land, ye’d’ve heard them back in Der­ry. No way were they goney set­tle for singing the Soldier’s Song just once that night: naw, even as it was play­ing on Radio Eire­ann, sure, their da looked a sin­gle out which had it on the B‑side — and he kept the arm back on the record play­er so as it would play over and over again. Wee Sean — trust him! — was killing him­self when he realised, and turned it up full blast, the ras­cal.

It’s not a bit of won­der they didn’t hear the bloody police! Liam and his moth­er wouldn’t’ve heard them, for chris­sake, if they hadn’t been in the kitchen. Say­ing that, the two of them weren’t even sure it was a knock, so Brid­get had asked Wee Liam to go to the door with her. She near­ly bloody passed out when she saw the two police­men — man­aged to say ‘Go and get your Dad­dy, son’ before they said any­thing but. Strange thing was: the police had actu­al­ly wait­ed for the man of the house. Must’ve seen the shock writ­ten all over the poor woman’s face.

It was pan­de­mo­ni­um, of course, when Liam opened the liv­in­groom door. He’d to shout ‘THE POLICE WANT YE, DA!’ twice, for God­sake, before the rest of them began to calm down. His da said, ‘What?’ and Liam repeat­ed it again. ‘They’re at the front door wi’ Mum,’ he said, then marched over to inter­rupt the record. There was a ter­ri­ble scratch­ing kin­da sound the way he did it; not that his da said any­thing.

The weans watched in silence as their da pulled his shirt on, quick. He was on the verge of leav­ing the room, when he stopped to put his tie on after all, and used the mir­ror above the fire­place to straight­en it. Only oncet he was sat­is­fied did he go out to face the music. The poor young­sters could only look at each oth­er, ter­ri­fied. Final­ly, wee Orla, God love her, couldn’t take it no more and burst­ed into tears, think­ing her mam­my and dad­dy were going to be arrest­ed. Annette had to com­fort her.

Ye could’ve heard a bloody pin drop. Not a word was spo­ken as they tried to hear what was hap­pen­ing. All they were able to make out, but, was their dad­dy using his polite voice to do the apol­o­gis­ing and explain­ing. ‘I can assure you two gen­tle­men it won’t hap­pen again,’ he said, then a police­man said, ‘That’s fine then, Sir. Good night then, Sir’, and they heard the front door shut­ting.

Their moth­er and father came back into the room.

‘Bloody buckin bitch next door!’ was all their father said.

‘May she roast in buckin Hell!’ he added, after a minute.

He was rag­ing, cry­ing, near­ly, and was still shak­ing his head as he sat down, so livid was he at what had hap­pened. Cia­ra, her wee eyes fill­ing up, God love her, was on her way over to fling her arms round him when sud­den­ly he looked up and start­ed giv­ing the woman next door the vicky. Cia­ra stopped in total shock: She couldn’t believe her dad­dy would do a thing like that. Michael Duffy had got four of the belt at school, sure, four sore ones, for doing that. She looked over at Annette; Annette just shrugged like she was help­less, but.

‘One-nil, ye bitch ye,’ their da was jeer­ing.

The more he did it, the more the colour was dis­ap­pear­ing out of Annette, the qui­et one’s face. Her dad­dy was just mak­ing things worse by curs­ing. That was two sins on his soul.

There was no stop­ping him, but. Their moth­er couldn’t do noth­ing either. The stu­pid big lump was wav­ing his fin­gers at the divid­ing wall, and he just kept doing it — with both hands, too — until his two arms tired.

‘Buckin-one-buckin-nil!’ he hissed, final­ly. Brid­get saw her chance.

‘That’s enough of that, Liam O’Donnell, in front of the weans!’ she said.

Their da didn’t take her on.

She turned to them instead. ‘Right, folks, BED!’, she said. ‘NOW!’

It was only after the last of them had left to go upstairs, with their moth­er fol­low­ing after them, that their da noticed the cack­le and hiss of Radio Eire­ann after close-down. He was damned if he was going to stand up but and go over and turn it off.

‘Knock that off for me, love, would ye?’ he said when Brid­get came back down.

Donal McLaughlin

Don­al McLaughlin’s short sto­ries fre­quent­ly draw on Irish-Scot­tish expe­ri­ence. His ‚Liam O’Donnell’ sto­ries cov­er a peri­od of about twen­ty years, move between the West of Scot­land & North­ern Ire­land, and use the lan­guages & voic­es of both these places. Back­ground mate­r­i­al on ‚An Aller­gic Reac­tion to Nation­al Anthems’, pro­duced by the British Coun­cil, can be found online: www2.britishcouncil.org/slovenia (see ‚OUR PREVIOUS TEXTS AND AUTHORS’ under ‚READING GROUP’)

© Don­al McLaugh­lin
Bild: Mar­tin Zel­me­nis, Riga
ensuite, Mai 2004