My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress by Christina McKenna Page A

suspect that he secretly enjoyed all the attention he commanded in those moments when we stood around speechless, our eyes like saucers. He’d largely ignore us, not speaking until our parents appeared on the step. After handshakes and greetings he’d follow them into the house, creaking in his leathers, and we were left to inspect the bike. We smelt the petrol fumes and made faces in the reflecting belly of the tank, fighting for possession of the saddle as we took imaginary journeys with our very own vroomvroom sound effects.
    These yearly visits served Eddie’s twin objectives of seeing mother and pursuing the salmon that teemed in the Moyola river. I say ‘pursue’ because, for all his fishing expeditions, Eddie never seemed to catch anything. He would squeak back to the house after threehours or so, empty-handed. We’d learn that he’d caught ‘one or two wee tiddlers like’, that he’d tossed back in again.
    While he was engaged in this fruitless exercise, mother would be away at the shop frantically buying an assortment of ‘sweet stuff’ for his tea. There was no getting away from the fact that Eddie had a very sweet tooth; he had the belly and dentures to prove it. So a sugary mess – a dentist’s nightmare – was laid on for his return. There were Mr Kipling’s French Fancies, Battenburg cake, jam tarts, Swiss roll, chocolate biscuits, custard creams, chocolate eclairs, the whole gooey lot assembled for his ‘highly refined’ palate. I would have loved one tenth of what was on that table, but mother was adamant that nothing would be touched until our guest had had his share. She was unstinting when it came to Eddie; after all, he’d come a long distance on that dangerous contraption, from the great hell-hole that was Belfast, just to see her.
    We children were exiled to the yard while he feasted and would take turns to go and sneak a look round the parlour door to see how he was faring. We lived in the vain hope that he’d leave a few morsels behind. He rarely did; maybe a half-eaten custard cream that his stomach had rejected in a final act of rebellion and good sense. We loved the ‘Yankee’ visits more than Eddie’s, with very good reason.
    After the binge he’d ease his ample little frame into a chair by the fire and place a lighted John Player in the corner of his mouth. There the cigarette remained, joggling up and down as he talked, the ash falling casually and unnoticed onto his lap. He’d sit there regaling the parents about the awful happenings in Belfast, his eyes watering and forehead pleating with the effort of his testimony.
    Eddie drew the dreadful pictures and my parents coloured them in. They were astonished at his obvious skill in dodging the bullets and bombs on a daily basis. My father would wonder how he’d managed to survive thus far without a mark on him. Eddie put it all down to the speed of his legs and a keen sense of detecting danger, though when you looked at his fat belly and short legs you did question his ability to walk fast, let alone run.
    His departure held for us as much fascination as his arrival. We all gathered in the yard to watch him get into the protective clothing. He now had difficulty buttoning the leather jacket. Then he’d don the helmet and gloves, and revert to the mysterious being from another world.
    My parents’ parting words included warnings. ‘Look after yourself in that wild place,’ mother would say, ‘and safe home, Eddie.’ And with that he’d trot with the bike a bit, before jumping astride it and away they’d go, farting blue smoke and playing merry hell with the gravel and dust. We’d remain standing in the yard to hear the last of that roaring farewell.
    â€˜God, that could be the last time we see wee Eddie,’ my mother, ever the optimist, would say, ‘what with all that bother in the city.’
    Yet