“But she’s so quiet, Teddy,” Mam attempted to coax. “So shy. She’ll never manage it. She’s already struggling to cope with primary school.”
“She’ll have to get over it,” Dad replied, not batting an eye. “She’s no better than the rest of them. I won’t have her sent to private school when the boys are in public.”
“I can take extra shifts at work,” Mam hurried to say. “I don’t mind. I will pay for it myself —“
“I said no,” Dad barked. “It’s not happening. Get it out of your head.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, walking into the kitchen.
“Your mother thinks your sister needs to go to private school next year when she finishes up primary,” Dad, who was sober for a change, told me. “Thinks she’s too sensitive for BCS.”
She was.
Shannon had a hard time fitting in with people, a very fucking hard time, and I often wondered what would happen to her when she eventually started secondary school.
To be honest, it was a thought that terrified me to my core, so I tried not to think about it.
Because they kept her back in baby infants, Shannon was three years below me at school, so when we went our separate ways at the school gates of BCS next year, with her as a first year and me as a fourth year, she wouldn’t have anyone to look out for her – something that she badly needed.
The girls in her class at primary school were septic, and had given her hell since baby infants, and those were pubescent girls.
The teenage girls she would face when she started secondary school would be a different kettle of fish to handle.
My sister did have a couple of friends – one nice girl called Claire, I remembered in particular, who, would, no doubt, be heading off to Tommen College after primary school to join her rugby-head brother, Hughie.
Unfortunately for Shannon, she would be heading for BCS with me.
There wasn’t much I could do for her, besides get myself suspended defending her honor, which I had no doubt would happen.
One of these days, my sister was going to have to fight back.
“How much is Tommen?” I asked, raiding the fridge for a packet of ham.
“Several thousand a year,” Mam replied. “But it looks to be a fantastic school. And I have an entire year to save up for the tuition. She’s only finishing fifth class now, so I have plenty of time to make it work. I really think it would be the best place for her—”
“There’s nothing wrong with the local community school,” Dad rebuffed with a snort. “It’s free and we both went there, Marie. And would ya look at Joey. He’s doing just grand there. He’s flying road with the hurling. He’s already training with the underage team and didn’t need a fancy fucking education from Tommen to get there, either.”
“Yes,” Mam said carefully. “But Shannon isn’t Joey.”
“Thank Christ for that,” Dad muttered.
I tensed, unsettled by the rare compliment, before finishing preparing a ham sandwich and grabbing a can of coke from the fridge.
I tried to keep a cool head, a calm disposition, and a handle on my temper. It never came easy to me, though, and was growing more impossible with every extra second that I spent in his company.
It didn’t sit well with me when my father complimented me or spoke like a civilized human being.
In a messed-up way, I preferred his drunken slurs and angry slaps.
At least I knew where I stood with those.
He’d been on the dry for three weeks now, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he fell off the wagon.
Because my father was an alcoholic.
Addiction ruled his life.
That was the pattern his life had taken, and I hated him for it.
But not as much as I hated myself for following in his footsteps.
A smoke to sleep, a line to function, and whatever else I could get my hands on to escape.
It had been my mantra for a long time now.
I knew I was too young to be walking this particular line, but in all honesty, I didn’t have any other options available to me.
In my head it was die or get high.
And I had too many people depending on me not to die.
Fuck.
Pushing all thoughts of self-loathing out of my head before I snapped and did something reckless, I turned to my parents and said, “I think ye should send her.”
“To Tommen?” Mam asked, tone hopeful.
“Yeah.” I nodded, chewing down a mouthful of my sandwich. “It’d be good for her. You’re right, Mam. Shannon will get swallowed up at BCS.”
“And how do you propose we fund this ‘several thousand euro each year’ private school?” Dad demanded, turning his glare on me.
“Gee, I don’t know,” I shot back, gesturing to my oil-stained overalls. “Maybe by getting off your hole and getting a job like the rest of us.”
“Oh, Joey,” Mam sighed, dropping her head in her hands, as my father jerked to his feet so fast it caused the chair that he’d been sitting on to slide across the kitchen tiles.
“The fuck did you say to me, ya little bastard?”
“Do you need a hearing aid? I said get off your hole and get a job.” Unwilling or just plain unable to keep my mouth shut, I continued to sign my own death certificate. “Believe it or not, there’s plenty of them out there. Granted, I’m yet to hear of one that pays well for your qualifications. I suppose, in your defense, it won’t be easy to find a pub that’ll pay you to prop up their bar – expert that you are and all that.”
I didn’t duck or try to avoid the fist that crushed into my jaw.
There was no point.
He wouldn’t stop until he got his pound of flesh.
It was either take my beating now or later.
I chose to get it over with now.
I did, however, regret not putting my can of coke down first as it flew out of my hand across the kitchen.
That shit was expensive.
My head snapped back from the force, the pain from his knuckles took the air clean out of my lungs, but I didn’t let him see it. I would rather die than expose an ounce of vulnerability to the man I had the misfortune of calling my father.
Breathing hard and fast, I quickly ran my tongue over my teeth, assessing the damage, as the familiar tangy taste of blood filled my mouth.
My body was a map of cuts and bruises, scars and distortion. Nothing would change. Nobody would ask and I wouldn’t – couldn’t – tell.
Taking it on the chin seemed to be the norm for me. Besides, if I took the brunt of his bad mood, it meant that they were spared – that she was spared.
My father was a powerful man, and there was a hell of a lot of force behind those punches he threw. They were hard enough to knock me sideways, but not enough to shut me up.
“Is that it?” Like a suicidal masochist, I laughed into his face. “You’re getting soft, old man.”
“Teddy, don’t,” Mam begged, rushing over to intercept her husband’s arm before he could rear back once more. “He’s only a boy.”
“Don’t do me any favors,” I sneered, hating her for defending me. She didn’t fucking love me. She thought I was the same as him. “I don’t need you to do shit for me.”