Lamb by Bernard Maclaverty Page B

climbing trips around the cliffs and rocky coves to smash the eggs of black-backs. Dropped, they broke on the rocks far below with a moist click.
    â€˜They’re a curse,’ said his father. ‘They do more damage than enough. They’ll peck the eyes out a lamb before the ewe can get her born – aye, and the tongue too. They’ll leave it in such a state that there’s nothing left to do but kill it.’
    He was a perfect father, yet Michael was sure that never once had he thought of his role as a father. It came so naturally to him to communicate his enthusiasms, his warmth. When he was with his father he felt safe. Nothing could touch him. His grip of iron as he helped his son across rocks. Wearing full-length waders he could still lift Michael bodily across white water.
    â€˜Stiff elbows,’ he would say and Michael would hold his elbows stiff and tight by his sides and feel himself hoisted into the air by his father’s cupped hands. This was the way they had got into football matches. In the rush at the turnstiles Michael’s father would swing him up with the warning, ‘Mind your head,’ then pay for himself and push through after his son.
    â€˜Two for the price of one,’ he would chuckle on the terrace.
    He had once taken Michael to an All-Ireland Semi-final at Croke Park. For Michael, the yellow jerseys of Antrim, the crowds, the excitement – everything was ruined by the return journey on the train.
    Everyone except his father seemed to be drunk. Michael was put in a window seat and his father half shielded him from the crowds passing up and down. They couldn’t get a seat in a compartment but had to make do with the open carriage. At the station, before they even left, there had been a fight and the Guards had led a man away with snot and blood coming from his nose. The men on the train wore yellow and white paper hats and rosettes. They staggered and fell as they tried to walk the train. People were singing and shouting and women were screaming. Once Michael had to go to the toilet and his father walked close behind him, a large hand on each shoulder. The place, when they got there, was covered in sick. The aisles of the train were black and wet with spilled bottles. They rattled about as the train swayed. His father, all the time, seemed terribly angry and kept looking at his watch. When they got back from the toilet he said,
    â€˜Try and get some sleep, son.’
    He covered him with his coat but Michael could not sleep. His eyes darted with nervousness, watching the procession of staggering men. Then two men started to fight just opposite them.
    â€˜Then you’re no fuckin’ Irishman,’ screamed one of them. He had a bottle in his hand and smashed it against the metal edge of the seat, leaving a dagger of brown glass in his hand. Michael’s father leapt to his feet and walked over to them. Michael flung off the coat but still sat huddled on the seat. The one with the bottle turned on his father and made an upper cut at him with the broken bottle. His father stopped the blow and twisted the man’s wrist behind his back.
    â€˜A fine example of Irish manhood you are,’ he said. He made the man drop the bottle. He talked closely into his ear. Finally he let go of him and the man turned and put his arms around him.
    â€˜No offence, nofence meant. Nofence, nofence, pal.’ The man was crying. Michael’s father guided him out of the carriage and looked at his watch once again. He was white around the mouth.
    â€˜Try to get some sleep, son.’
    But Michael couldn’t. Even now as he twisted on the bed sleep would not come to him.
    One day he remembered well when his father had taken him in to Ballycastle to fish from the pier. His father crouched, a small blackened tin box at his feet, sorting through the hooks with a careful finger. He had just lost another hook in the thick leathery seaweed to the left. It had been