That summer of war, in one of those rituals that fortify young men, boys with psychopathic tendencies steal incendiary nail varnish remover to pour over a model Tiger Tank.
As flames ignite the door of an outside lavatory, the plastic killing machine and its Nazi crew melt into oblivion.
Corporal punishment sends them to their rooms without any tea.
They play ‘Escape from Colditz’ and know what to do.
Construct a hide overlooking a piece of waste ground, from where they watch older youths prosecute unjust war with pellet guns, mudslingers and bows and arrows.
A wall brick lands on a non-combatant’s head and a fragile peace is negotiated.
During the preparations, not in the heat of battle, one of the boys’ lives is changed forever when his sausage fingered friend squeezes the trigger of what he believes to be an unloaded pellet rifle. Surgeons are unable to save his eye.
On Bonfire night rival groups conduct ‘raids,’ on each other’s territory, a Molotov cocktail is thrown, conflict reignites.
At a teatime induced lull in the fighting, a girl inspecting ‘the battlefield’ trips and falls into embers. A neighbour expertly tends her burns with a pink greasy foul-smelling ointment and bandages.
My Mother, with her long memory for honourable deeds, and a longer unforgiving one for bad, refers to the good Samaritan as “a true gentleman.”
“The only one who stood up for us against the bastards who tried to drive us out.”
“We had bricks and fireworks through the windows the first week, ’Fuck the IRA’ painted on the door the second, and dog shit through the letterbox the third. The Priest said it would soon blow over.”
“They only learned to leave us alone after we fought them in the street.”
To live in fear, to live amongst persecution, is to be caught in a web of interlocking signs, nuanced knowing looks, a prisoner of enemies conspiring everywhere.
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