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Extracted from Home to Derry by Tomás Ó Canainn, published by Appletree Press
Chapter One - part 2
They heard the clip-clop of horse’s hooves from Duncreggan Road and the constant crunch of cartwheels on the tarmacadam. There was no mistaking the milk-cart, even at this distance, and you could hear the clanging of the small can which hung from the brass tap on the big creamery can and swung furiously to and fro as the pony trotted.
Even as he listened it became obvious to him that the animal which had passed this way earlier must have been one of the big dray horses, pulling heavy loads from the docks. That would explain everything: sorting out the problem satisfactorily in his mind made him feel good, but the most important thing of all was that it meant a half-bucketful of dung for his mother. Maybe the milk-horse would do them a similar favour now.
They hid bucket, shovel and stick around the corner in the back lane of the Richmond Crescent houses and stood hopefully watching the pony as it approached them. The milkman pulled at his pipe, flicked the reins and nodded to them as he passed. But they were concentrating on the pony. Half-way down Meadowbank it lifted its tail and it seemed that God was on their side.
‘Look at that – look!’ Jenny caught his arm in her excitement. It was only a false alarm, though, and their dreams of a nearly full bucket vanished with the dropping tail. They did not need to walk on down Meadowbank to know that it was dungless. One acquired a certain skill in these matters, and spotting material from fifty yards was no problem.
‘Let’s go over to the far field where the donkey is.’
Sean led the way across Richmond Crescent. There were houses on one side only and the ‘near-field’ lay on their left. He was glad they were both wearing sandals, which made no noise on the pavement. This was dangerous territory. Most of his friends lived in the Crescent: while the drawn blinds meant that they were probably still in bed, one could never be absolutely certain of not being spied upon. A number of them were the sons of RUC men and the Law always liked to know who was doing what and where and when and why.
The sad-looking donkey was tethered to a stake by a long rope. Sean could see the mark of the cross on his back and thought of the story he had learned at school about all donkeys bearing the same dark-brown cross on their backs as a mark of special favour, for having carried Our Lord triumphantly into Jerusalem. Jenny thought it was because a donkey had carried Mary to Bethlehem just before Jesus was born. Wasn’t there a donkey involved in the Flight into Egypt as well? He seemed to remember a picture of it somewhere. There was another donkey-image troubling him and he tried to put it out of his mind. There was nothing biblical about it: it concerned this very donkey in front of them. The animal regularly demonstrated a monster of an erection, which was entirely at odds with the docile image of the carrier of the Saviour of the world.
They had been playing football the first day the phenomenon made its appearance from the donkey’s belly. The game was forgotten as they watched, fascinated, but filled with guilt. The unholy size of it was completely unexpected on that first showing. It was not so breath-taking an experience after that, when it began to happen regularly, but Sean couldn’t help watching, even though it confused him more than a little.
But there was a practical job to be done now and plenty of dung in the vicinity. That was the great advantage of tethering, though the poor donkey probably did not appreciate that. Sean began to fill the bucket.
‘It’s not the same,’ said Jenny, looking critically at what he had collected. ‘Mum won’t take that stuff – she said horse-manure and that’s what she meant.’
But the bucket was nearly full now and it was easy stuff to shovel-up from the grass.
‘Come on, Jenny, let’s go.’
They started back towards the Crescent, carrying the bucket between them. Only another five minutes and they’d be safely home. They could see Sergeant Clements wheeling his bicycle out the front gate of his house: it must be later than they had thought, if he was going on duty already. His bicycle was one of those big ‘bedsteads’, for he was a heavy man. Sean could almost feel the shock to the bicycle’s system as that fourteen stone of law-abiding body came relentlessly down on it. They hid the bucket in the grass and stood in front of it, waiting for him to pass.
‘We can’t go back the way we came,’ said Sean. ‘It’s too late now: we’ll be seen.’
They decided on the detour down by Catherwood’s bus-garage and along the Strand Road, passing the full length of Bryce and Weston’s shirt factory. It meant that they avoided the Crescent and most of Meadowbank Avenue. Even though the Strand Road, which was a main thoroughfare, would be getting busy by this time, going that way was infinitely preferable to taking the risk of someone peeping at them from behind a bedroom curtain in Richmond Crescent. They raced all the way along the Strand, the bucket swinging awkwardly between them, and went up Meadowbank as far as the bottom lane. Only once were they in danger of being spotted, when Mr Douglas, who drove the street-cleaning lorry, came down Meadowbank with circular brushes whirring. The factory door was their refuge, before the final fifty-yard dash up the lane and in the back gate, slamming it gratefully behind them.
‘That’s my last time ever: I don’t care what anybody says,’ panted Jenny, when she got her breath back.
She watched her brother taking the bucket into the middle of the tiny garden. She herself was so winded that she had to stay leaning against the back gate. Before anyone from the house had a chance to come out and inspect the contents of the bucket, Sean had up-ended it on the garden so that, as far as the untrained eye could see, a goodly pile of fresh horse-dung had just been delivered. The secret of the donkey-dung was safe.
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