The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle (Penguin 1996)

I missed the 80s. I haven't a clue. It's just a mush. I hear a song on the radio from the 60s or 70s and I can remember something that happened to me; it has nothing to do with liking the song, Song Sung Blue - I'm doing my homework, listening to Radio Luxemburg , the chart show on Monday night, with Carmel and Denise. I'm drawing a map of Ireland, the rivers of Ireland. My blue marker is nearly wasted and I haven't got to Ulster yet. Lily The Pink - I'm sitting on my mother's knee, watching my Uncle Martin singing Delilah; I have a toothache. Somebody else sang Lily The Pink before or after him; I can't remember who - one of my cousins. All The Young Dudes - I'm watching Charlo washing himself at the sink. He still has some of his summer tan. But I don't know any songs from the 80s; they mean nothing - and the radio was on all the time. What did I do in the 80s? I walked into doors. I got up off the floor. I became an alcoholic. I discovered that I was poor, that I'd no right to the hope I'd started with. I was going nowhere, straight there. Trapped in a house that would never be mine. With a husband who fed on my pain. Watching my children going nowhere with me; the cruellest thing of the lot. No hope to give them. They saw him throw me across the kitchen. They saw him put a knife to my throat. Their father; my husband.