Agnes Owens by Agnes Owens Page A

one.’
    â€˜Don’t gie me that fork,’ I instructed when she placed some chips and egg on the table. ‘It’s a’ rust.’
    She studied the fork. ‘Nothin’ wrang wi’ it. It must be great tae have servants.’
    â€˜It must be great tae have cutlery.’
    â€˜Anyway, I think it’s terrible,’ she said.
    â€˜Ye mean this fork?’
    â€˜I mean it’s terrible that McCluskie’s oot.’
    â€˜I thought ye were pally wi’ his auld wife.’
    â€˜I feel sorry for her right enough havin’ a son like that, but I’ve nae time for him.’
    â€˜I’m sure he’s worried.’
    â€˜Well, worried or no’, I hear folks are gettin’ up a petition tae put the McCluskies oot their hoose.’
    â€˜The trouble wi’ folk,’ I informed her, ‘is that they should mind their ain business, including yersel.’
    â€˜Oh sure, everybody should mind their ain business, then we could a’ get murdered in oor beds.’
    â€˜As far as I can remember the verdict was manslaughter.’
    â€˜It was murder. The poor auld soul had his heid caved in.’
    â€˜Well, if your heid banged aff the pavement it might cave in. Anyway, shut up. I want tae read the paper.’
    I propped the paper up against the milk bottle, but I was really thinking fancy McCluskie getting out. I was sure he would have been put away for eight years. In fact I was hoping he would have been put away for eight years. Not that I gave a damn about Muncie.
    At one time McCluskie had been my one and only pal – a long time ago – when we were at school. In those days we had very fine ideas about our future. He was going to be a fireman and I was going to be a veterinary surgeon. I liked the sound of that. But things didn’t work out. He got a job in the distillery and I got started as an apprentice brickie. There had been nothing sensational about him then. He was a short, beefy, fair-haired lad with the scrubbed look that blond folk have. ‘A nice boy,’ was my mother’s comment. ‘I wish you looked half as tidy as him. That hair o’ yours is always hingin’ ower yer eyes.’ Our main pastime had been to go to the pictures as often as we could afford it and throw apple stumps at the heads in front of us. In the fine weather we would read dirty magazines whilst sunning ourselves on top of the bin lids. But we became fed up with the pictures and dirty magazines and took to drinking. This was mainly because of McCluskie’s easy access to the stuff. On Fridays he would come along for me carrying a lemonade bottle filled with undiluted spirits sneaked from the distillery. We would drink this in an old washhouse, and finish up rolling about the floor and being violently sick more often than not. We stayed out as late as possible so I could stagger to bed undetected while my mother was involved in the television, as she was even in these days. We enjoyed theexcitement of this illicit drinking even if we never felt well. My mother would remark on how puky I looked but she was never suspicious. Maybe she thought it was a stage I was going through.
    It all came to a head one Friday night when my mother was gossiping outside the close with a neighbour. Being drunker earlier than usual we had misjudged the time. The two of us were hitting off the fence as we rolled along the road. I must have been getting to the chronic stage because I couldn’t see very well.
    â€˜Stop that stupid carry on,’ she said abstractedly in the middle of her discussion. McCluskie rolled on by heedlessly but I collapsed over the fence.
    â€˜The boy looks right bad,’ the neighbour said.
    â€˜In the name o’ God whit’s up wi’ ye?’ said my mother.
    â€˜I canny see!’ I gasped out, then sank to the pavement.
    â€˜Looks like he’s got meningitis,’ said the neighbour.
    â€˜Get me a doctor,