The God Squad by Paddy Doyle Page A

when I got down to the kitchen that I discovered what the smells were. My aunt’s hair was neatly pinned in a bun again as she cooked breakfast. I stood beside her for a moment and watched.
    ‘What are they?’ I asked. She looked at me.
    ‘Do you not know?’ she asked.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Rasher, sausage and egg,’ she said. ‘Now go over to the table and get yourself some cornflakes.’ From a box on the table I spilled some into a bowl and began to eat them.
    ‘Why didn’t you put some milk and sugar on them?’ she asked as she poured some from a white jug with a blue line around the neck of it.
    ‘I never had these before,’ I said. She took little notice of what I said. I had difficulty trying to eat the fry as I had never used a knife or fork before. Everything I had eaten up to now was taken off a spoon. My aunt offered me tea which I took out of curiosity, before deciding I didn’t like it. She gave me a glass of milk instead. As we walked to church she told me that every morning for twenty years, since her husband died, she had gone to Mass, no matter how bad the weather was. She didn’t always go to communion because she found the long fast beforehand ‘a bit much’. She was dressed in a heavy black coat and hat with a huge pin through it. She explained to people she met that I was an orphan staying with her for a fortnight’s holidays. They patted my head and remarked that I was a great boy all the same.
    After Mass she did her shopping, calling to the butcher’s first and asking him for a ‘nice piece of bacon’. He wrapped it in brown paper, tied it with string, then handed it to me. I was glad to get out of the shop. I felt sick at the sight of carcasses of cows and pigs hanging from hooks on tubular steel bars, and the bloodstained aprons of the men serving behind the counter. Next we went to the greengrocers where she spent a long time talking to another woman about me. Every few seconds the women looked down and when my aunt realized I was listening, she reprimanded me. The woman asked her what my parents died from and she replied that my mother had died of a heart attack and my father the same way shortly afterwards.
    This was the first time I heard how my parents died, and though it seemed to have great significance for the woman it made no impact on me.
    In the newsagents my aunt was greeted by name. Without having to ask for anything, the girl behind the counter handed her a copy of the
Wexford People
with her name written in biro in the top right hand corner. A woman who noticed me looking through the comics asked me to pick one.
    My aunt interrupted saying, ‘Pat doesn’t mind what he gets.’
    The lady pressed me again to choose a comic.
    ‘
The Eagle
,’ I said.
    ‘Did he say thanks?’ my aunt asked.
    ‘Of course he did.’
    There was a steep hill from the town up to my aunt’s house, and she had great difficulty in walking up. Every few minutes she stopped to catch her breath. I became worried at one point because she seemed to be a long time holding on to a railing and my anxiety must have registered with her because she said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s just that I’m not as young as I used to be.’ I was carrying all the messages but I didn’t mind. I would have done anything to ensure that nothing happened to her while I was there. When we got back to the cul-de-sac where she lived she told me to go and play with the rest of the children who lived on the street. I was reluctant and, pretending I didn’t hear her, opened the gate leading to the house and walked quickly up the narrow concrete path. I waited for her to open the hall door.
    ‘You go out and play,’ she said again. ‘I’m going in to have a rest and I’ll call you when dinner is ready.’
    I watched the other children. A boy on a tricycle was racing a girl on a scooter. There was a lot of noise as the boys cheered for the boy and the girls for the girl. When therace was over and they had crossed the