THE TROUBLES WITH US

One Belfast girl on boys, bombs and finding her way

Alix O’Neill

Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

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HarperCollinsPublishers

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Dublin 4, Ireland

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2021

Copyright © Alix O’Neill 2021

Map © Micky O’Neill 2021

Alix O’Neill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Some names and other features have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals featured in this book

Quote from ‘Mmmbop’ by Hanson: Words & Music by Isaac Hanson, Taylor Hanson & Zachary Hanson. © Copyright 1997 Jam ‘N’ Bread Music; All Rights Administered by Kobalt Music Publishing Limited; All Rights Reserved International Copyright Secured; Used by permission of Hal Leonard Europe Limited.

Cover design by Emma Pidsley

Cover photograph © Photoshot/Getty

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008393700

Ebook Edition © June 2021 ISBN: 9780008393724

Version: 2021-04-01

Dedication

For Daddy D

Epigraph

Hold on to the ones who really care, in the end they’ll be the only ones there

Hanson

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Map

Who’s who

Author’s note

Part One: Us

Prologue

1. Beginnings

2. Five go bus-burning

3. The man who hid

4. Give us this day our daily bap

5. The mad woman of Andytown

6. The ugly game

7. Michael Flatley’s magic legs

8. Bill and the British bastard

9. My father, the ’RA man

10. Smells like teen spirit

11. The Cres

12. Rides and prejudice

13. Don’t mess with our fake tan

14. Revelations and a fish supper

15. Endings

16. 2001: A sex odyssey?

Part Two: Them

1. The outsider

2. Way harsh, Tai

3. You’re not Coolio

4. The greening of the east

5. Say nothing

6. Flegs

7. Uncle Kevin

8. The Half-Bloods

9. Homecoming

Afterword

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Map

Who’s who
(it gets fierce confusing)

My family

Mummy (Anne)

Daddy (Micky)

Toni, my sister

Mummy’s ones

Daddy Devlin (also known as ‘Jimmy’ – if you’re talking to a Protestant – or ‘Pat’ for the Catholics in the room), Mummy’s daddy

Mummy Devlin (Mary), Mummy’s mummy

Gogi (Tony), Mummy’s brother. The eldest in the family

John, Mummy’s youngest brother

Gerry, Mummy’s middle brother

Hil, Mummy’s middle sister

Bernie, Mummy’s youngest sister

Liz, John’s wife

Brendan, Hil’s husband

Daddy’s ones

Grandma (also Mary), Daddy’s mummy

Papa, Daddy’s daddy

Roseleen, Grandma’s sister

Lily, Grandma’s sister

Jacqueline, Daddy’s sister

Teresa, Daddy’s sister

Ted, Daddy’s brother

David, Jacqueline’s husband

The Girls

Nat

Mel

Niamh

Jennifer

St Dominic’s classmates

Aisling

Colleen

Kelly

Pauline

Boys

Anto, First kiss

Laurie, Teenage obsession

Ryan, Flame-haired dream lover

Yer Man Jamie, Ryan’s friend

Sammy, Jennifer’s boyfriend

Johnny, Niamh’s boyfriend

Dan, University crush

Mr G, Kind of a big deal

The Half-Bloods

Maggie

Liam

Kevin

Erin

Nora

The rest of ’em

Moira, Mummy’s best friend

Saoirse, Moira’s daughter

Big Sean, Daddy’s best friend

Angela, Gogi’s girlfriend

Greig, Daddy’s friend

Laura, Family friend

Danielle, Best friend at primary school

Podge, Homeless man living at the bottom of our garden

Jimmy, Bouncer at the Cres

Author’s note

This is a work of creative non-fiction. All the events and people in this story are real, portrayed to the best of my mother’s memory and mine. Occasionally, the chronology has been changed, some conversations have been recreated and/or supplemented and I have made two people into one. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals (and to avoid my knees being capped).

PART ONE:

Prologue
Belfast, Christmas 1994

It started with Santa. That was the first whopper in our family. The first I knew about anyway. Most parents have the courtesy to deal their children this devastating blow before they hit adolescence. Or they assume they’ll figure it out for themselves.

I was never the kind of kid who figured stuff out.

Mummy should have realised this the day I came home from school, aged nine, and asked whether we were Catholics or Protestants. After five years of being educated by nuns in Belfast, a city where walls were literally built to separate the two.

Still, I have to hand it to the woman, she knew how to do Christmas. On 10 December every year, the day after my sister Toni’s birthday, out would come bowls of cinnamon-scented acorns, felt mice dressed as choristers and a hand-knitted tableau of snowmen representing each member of the family. Daddy’s been on at her for years to remove his snowman’s earring, a painful reminder of his Bono phase.

In the run-up to the big day, Toni and I would find letters from Santa on our bedroom windowsills. He’d praise, in my case, what few scholastic achievements had occurred that year and call out behavioural abnormalities:

Dear Alix,

You’ve been such a good girl this year and I’m pleased you’re doing well at school (though Sister Blanad has suggested you consider directing plays at break time and not during her maths lessons). However, I’m troubled to hear you’ve been making your sister wear a loincloth and taking her for walks around the area in a wheelbarrow. This is not on. Please stop, or I’ll have to put you on the Naughty List.

Love ya!

Santa

It was an effective disciplinary strategy. Any time Mummy invoked one of the Holy Trinity – Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny – I’d ease up on the ritualistic humiliation of my younger sibling for a few weeks. It wasn’t just the threat of a Christmas without presents or a carob-free Easter (because what child doesn’t enjoy the caffeine-free and calcium-rich alternative to chocolate?) that kept me in line. You see, as long as Santa and his ilk existed, you got to be a child. You didn’t have to deal with grown-up faffs like work and lodging cheques and extracting cocktail sausages from the VHS player (Daddy’s yet to see the funny side) – and periods.

When I was 11, Mummy gave me the lowdown on menstruation during the school run.

‘Women have a monthly cycle. It’s perfectly natural, no need for a fuss. Come to me for sanitary towels. We don’t do tampons in this family – they can kill you. Have a great day, love!’

She couldn’t understand why people felt the need to talk about basic bodily functions, and so the ‘P’ word was banned in our house. This was odd, considering the colourful lexicon of profanities that frequently poured out of her mouth – ‘ass face’ and ‘dick features’ and ‘holy fuck’ and – a particular favourite – ‘their hole’s open’, to describe a person of pecuniary meanness.

The real injustice of adulthood, however, was getting old itself. Daddy’s mummy spent her retirement on the sofa, saying the rosary and watching daytime TV, while my maternal grandmother died before I was born. As I could see no advantages to the ageing process, I decided not to participate. When friends with older siblings who had cruelly relieved them of their childish notions attempted to enlighten me with the truth about Santa, I refused to listen. Sacrilege! Slander! A pox on your houses!

Yet the evidence was mounting. First, there was the Christmas Eve I caught Daddy putting together the toy petrol station I’d asked for (it was the nineties – oil was sexy). He told me he’d been in the bathroom and had heard a noise. When he went to investigate, he found a half-assembled gas pump by the tree. Assuming he’d scared off Santa, he decided to finish the job for him. The following year, I stumbled across a GeoSafari at the bottom of my uncle Tony’s wardrobe while examining his stack of Playboys. As it happened, the interactive educational toy was number one on my Christmas list.

The year I turn twelve the penny finally drops. Or rather, it’s hurled right between my eyes with spectacular force. I’m in my second year of an all-girls convent grammar school on the Falls Road. My classmates believe in many things: a united Ireland, a free Palestine and, despite the denouement of their relationship years earlier when she dumped him for Michael Hutchence, the enduring love between Kylie and Jason. They also believe that a man who invites you to sit on his lap and call him Father Christmas is asking for a kneecapping.

It’s a Monday in early December. Our form tutor asks us what we got up to over the weekend, so I fill my peers in on our day trip to Lapland. We flew out to Finland on the Saturday morning, went on a reindeer sleigh ride, met the elves, hung out with the big man and were back in time for Stars in Their Eyes. I await the sighs of envy. WHACK. A swift, sharp smack across the back of my head. The blow is administered by Aisling, the good-natured hard-ass everyone is keen to get on the right side of.

‘Are you wise in the head, wee girl? There is no Santa.’

She starts laughing, her gold hoops bouncing around her cheeks like planetary orbs. The rest of the class join in, but there’s no malice in Aisling’s teasing. Ever since our mothers met at the school gate on our first day and insisted we walk to assembly together, Aisling has had my back. While we aren’t exactly friends, she tolerates my eccentricities and has never threatened to beat me up after school. Which is always nice.

She shuffles towards me now and speaks softly. ‘Seriously, Alix, your ma and da buy you presents. Everyone knows that. Just ask them.’

Aisling has always been upfront with me in the past. She was the one to tell me that snacking on scrunched-up pieces of file paper is ‘fuckin’ weird’ and that my attempts to form an appreciation society for the Irish talk show host Gay Byrne were unlikely to succeed.

I decide to bite the bullet later that week at Daddy Devlin’s house. (That’s Mummy’s daddy. We spend every day after school here, so Mummy can make him his tea.) My father is having dinner in front of the news. Something called the Bosnian peace deal has just been signed, which I guess is a big deal, because Daddy doesn’t appear to hear me when I spring it on him, the three words I’ve been dreading to ask.

‘What’s that, love?’ His eyes remain glued to the screen.

‘I said, “Does Santa exist?”’

Daddy freezes, a forkful of Findus Crispy Pancake suspended over Slobodan Milošević’s head. He puts down his cutlery and starts rooting around the pockets of his jeans for a cigarette. A classic stalling tactic.

‘I … ummm … I’m just going to see if there’s any brown sauce. Back in a minute, love.’

The man can’t get out the door fast enough. I follow him into the hallway and hover outside the kitchen.

Mummy’s at the cooker, attempting to liberate a boil-in-the-bag cod. ‘For Christ’s sake, Micky, I can’t deal with this right now. Where are the scissors?’

She stabs the packet vigorously with a bread knife, parsley butter exploding all over her Benetton jumper. ‘Just go back in and tell her of course Santa exists.’ Mummy plonks Daddy Devlin’s tea in front of him and licks her sleeve. Her father eyes it suspiciously.

‘Okay, well, give me some brown sauce then,’ says Daddy.

‘What?’

‘I told her I was off to get brown sauce. If I go back without it, she’ll know something’s up.’

‘There’s no brown sauce left, Micky!’ Mummy sounding fraught now. ‘Here, take some vinegar.’

‘Who puts vinegar on a crispy pancake?’

‘For fook’s sake!’ ‘Fook’ is as close as my grandfather gets to losing his rag. ‘Just tell the child, Anne. She’s almost a teenager.’ His tuppenceworth dispensed, he goes back to sifting through his plate for pieces of buttery plastic.

‘Alright, I’ll do it. But if you think I’m going in there alone, you can forget it.’

I leg it back into the living room and pretend to be engrossed in the news. Gerry Adams is on now. It’s still a novelty hearing the Sinn Féin leader’s voice. For years, the British government banned the broadcasting of key members of the party, so every time you’d see Adams on the TV, he was dubbed by an actor. Not that I ever paid much attention to anything the man said. Unlike my peers, I have little interest in the goings-on of the resistance. How could I when there are greater issues at play? Like my parents lying to me my entire life.

Mummy pops her head around the door. ‘Have you got a second, love?’ Something’s up. She’s never this conciliatory. ‘Your daddy says you were asking about Santa. We need to have a wee talk.’

I. Will. Not. Cry.

‘He’s not real, is he?’

‘Of course he is.’

Daddy elbows Mummy, but stays silent, clearly intent on letting his wife take the hit.

‘He’s … er … just more of an idea, a symbol rather than an actual person, y’know? It’s what Santa represents that matters – kindness and goodwill and that sort of thing. Isn’t that right, Micky?’

‘What a load of ballix.’ A head of Brylcreemed curls appears behind my dad. It’s Uncle Gogi. (It’s actually Tony, but my sister, named after her godfather, has been calling him Gogi since she was a baby.) He lights up a Dunhill and sits down beside me, extending a consoling arm around my shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about it, kiddo. You’ll get extra presents this year to make up for it.’

I feel bereft, the victim of fraud, a gross injustice. ‘What about the others?’ I demand. ‘No Tooth Fairy? Easter Bunny? I suppose you’re going to tell me leprechauns are made up too?’

‘Jesus, kid, how have you survived this long?’ Gogi stubs out his cigarette, helps himself to the remnants of Daddy’s dinner and lights up another fag.

I can’t believe it. My whole family is in on it.

I turn to Mummy. Somehow, I know she’s the one behind this charade. Closed doors, whispers in the kitchen – my life has been a series of untruths and cover-ups.

‘I shall never lie to my children the way you’ve lied to me.’ I say the words slowly and purposefully, being sure to maintain eye contact with my mother throughout. Then I run out of the room, slamming the door behind me. I saw Tamera do this after a row with her dad on Sister, Sister and have been waiting for the right moment to inflict some pre-teen angst on my parents.

It took a while to come round, but Gogi was right about the presents. Keen to ensure my silence and hide the awful truth from my sister (turns out she’d copped on long before I did, but didn’t want to burst my bubble), Mummy and Daddy went to town that year. Santa managed to find every item of Take That memorabilia in existence, even though Mummy had strong objections to ‘those lads in that video with their holes out’.

Christmas was never the same, though. The certainties of childhood were over. Who knew what other horrors lay around the corner? But the Great Santa Conspiracy taught me two important life lessons: being a grown-up can be messy, and parents have secrets too.

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