Friday, April 02, 2010

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.

1 comment:

mikeovswinton said...

The Scaffold, eh? (Lily the Pink). Saw 'em live at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton. Was it the late 60s or the early 70s? They were actually forerunners of the comedy boom of the 80s in a way because their gig was mainly comedy, with a few poems and the odd song.