The Van Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  FOR THE BEST IN PAPERBACKS, LOOK FOR THE

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  THE VAN

  Roddy Doyle is an internationally bestselling writer. His first three novels—The Commitments, The Snapper, and 1991 Booker Prize finalist The Van—are available both singly and in one volume as The Barrytown Trilogy, published by Penguin. He is also the author of the novels Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993 Booker Prize winner), The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, A Star Called Henry, and Oh, Play That Thing; the short story collection The Deportees; and a nonfiction book about his parents, Rory & Ita. Doyle has also written for the stage and the screen: the plays Brownbread, War, Guess Who’s Coming for the Dinner, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, and The Playboy of the Western World (as cowriter); the film adaptations of The Commitments (as cowriter), The Snapper, and The Van; When Brendan Met Trudy (an original screen-play) ; the four-part television series Family for the BBC; and the television play Hell for Leather. Roddy Doyle has also written the children’s books The Giggler Treatment, Rover Saves Christmas, and The Meanwhile Adventures; the young adult novel Wilderness; and contributed to a variety of publications including The New Yorker and McSweeney’s, the anthology Speaking with the Angel (edited by Nick Hornby), the serial novel Yeats Is Dead! (edited by Joseph O’Conner), and the young adult serial novel Click. He lives in Dublin.

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in Great Britain by Martin Seeker & Warburg 1991

  First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,

  a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1992

  Published in Penguin Books 1993

  Copyright © Roddy Doyle, 1991

  All rights reserved

  Let’s Twist Again (Mann/Appell) used by permission of Kal Mann Music. Barbara Ann (Fassert) © Cousins Music. Hippy Hippy Shake (Chan Romero) © 1959, Jonware Music Corp, Desert Pack Songs, Not My Music. California Girls (Brian Wilson) © Irving Music Inc. Used by permission of Rondor Music (London) Ltd. Give It A Lash, Jack used by permission of GOAL.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  eISBN : 978-0-140-17191-4

  I. Title.

  PR6054.095V36 1992

  823’.914—dc20 92-19539

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This book is dedicated to

  John Sutton

  Thanks to

  Brian McGinn and Will Moore

  for their help, advice and recipe for batter

  Jimmy Rabbitte Sr had the kitchen to himself. He felt a draught and looked up and Darren, one of his sons, was at the door, looking for somewhere to do his homework.

  —Oh—, said Darren, and he turned to go back into the hall.

  —D’yeh need the table, Darren? said Jimmy Sr.

  —Eh—

  —No, come on. Fire away.

  Jimmy Sr stood up. His arse had gone numb on him.

  —Jesus—!

  He straightened up and grinned at Darren.

  —I’ll go somewhere else, he said.

  —Thanks, said Darren.

  —Not at all, said Jimmy Sr.

  Jimmy Sr left Darren in the kitchen and went out to the front step and sat on it. Christ, the step was cold; he’d end up with piles or the flu or something. But there was nowhere else to go until after the dinner. All the rooms in the house were occupied. He rubbed his hands; it wasn’t too bad. He tried to finish the article in the Press he’d been reading, about how people suffered after they got out of jail, with photographs of the Guildford Four.

  A car went by. Jimmy Sr didn’t know the driver. The sun was down the road now, going behind the school gym. He put the paper down beside him on the step and then he put his hands in under the sleeves of his jumper.

  He was tempted to have a bash at the garden but the grass was nearly all gone, he’d been cutting it so often. He’d have looked like a right gobshite bringing the lawn-mower for a walk around a baldy garden, in the middle of November. There were weeds in under the hedge, but they could stay there. Anyway, he liked them; they made the garden look more natural. He’d painted the gate and the railings a few months back; red, and a bit of white, the Liverpool colours, but Darren didn’t seem to care about that sort of thing any more.

  —Look, Darren. Your colours.

  —Oh yeah.

  Jimmy Sr’d noticed small patches where some dust and bits of stuff had got stuck to the wet paint. He’d go over it again, but not today. It was a bit late.

  The car went by again, the other way this time. He got a better look at the driver but he still didn’t know him. He looked as if he was searching for a house he didn’t know. He was only looking at the even numbers across the way. He might have been the police. That would’ve been good, watching the guards going in and arresting Frano Traynor again. It had been great gas the last time they’d done it, especially when Chrissie, Frano’s mot, started flinging toys down at them from the bedroom window and she hit Frano with Barbie’s Ferrari.

  —Jesus; sorry, love!

  —You’re alrigh’, said Frano back, searching his hair for blood.

  That would have killed the time till the dinner.

  But the car was gone.

  There was nothing else happening, no kids on the street even. He could hear some though, around the corner, and a Mr Whippy van, but it sounded a good bit away, maybe not even in Barrytown. He took his change out of his pocket and counted it: a pound and sevenpence. He looked at his watch; the dinner’d be ready soon.

  Darren read the question he’d just written at the top of his page.

  —Complexity of thought and novelty in the use of language sometimes create an apparent obscurity in the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Discuss this view, supporting the points you make by quotations from or references to the poems by Hopkins on your course.

  Then he tore out the page and wrote the question out again, in red. He read it again.

  Starting was the hard bit. He brought the poetry book in closer to him. He wrote Complexity, Language and Obscurity in the margin.
r />   He could never start questions, even in tests; he’d sit there till the teacher said Ten minutes left and then he’d fly. And he always did alright. It was still a bit of a fuckin’ drag though, starting.

  He read the question again.

  His ma would come in to make the dinner in a minute and then he’d have to find somewhere else.

  He read one of the poems, That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire.

  Darren didn’t know when Tippex had been invented but Gerrah Manley Hopkins had definitely been sniffing something. He couldn’t write that in his answer though.

  Down to business.

  —Right, he whispered.—Come on. Complexity.

  He started.

  —In my opinion the work of the poet and priest—

  He crossed out And Priest.

  —Gerard Manley Hopkins is—

  Then he stopped.

  —Fuck it.

  He’d just remembered; he shouldn’t have written In My Opinion. It was banned. Crosbie, their English teacher, wouldn’t let them use it.

  He tore out the page.

  Upstairs in her bedroom Veronica, Darren’s mother, was doing her homework as well.

  The door was locked.

  —You’re not even inhalin’ properly, said Linda.

  —I am so, Linda; fuck off.

  Tracy took another drag, held the smoke in her mouth for a bit, then blew it out, in behind the couch. She couldn’t blow it out the window cos her daddy was out there sitting on the step. Linda grabbed the Major from her and took a drag, a real one, and held it much longer than Tracy had—and got rid of it when they heard the stairs creaking. She threw the fag into her Zubes tin and shut it and nearly took the skin off her fingers. They beat the air with their copy books.

  They waited. They looked at the door.

  But it didn’t open.

  —Get it before it goes ou’, Tracy whispered.

  Linda giggled, and so did Tracy. They shushed each other. Linda opened the tin.

  —Jesus, she said.—I’ve crushed it.

  —Let’s see.

  It was their last one.

  —Ah Jesus, said Linda.—I’m gaspin’!

  —So am I, said Tracy.

  —Yeh can’t be. You don’t even inhale.

  —I do, Linda.

  —Yeh don’t. Your smoke comes ou’ too puffy.

  —That’s just the way I do it. It is, Linda.—God, I’m gaspin’.

  —Yeah, said Linda.—Does tha’ look like Mammy’s writin’?

  Tracy looked at the writing on the inside cover of one of Linda’s copies.

  —Yeah, she said.—Sort of—

  —Look it, said Linda.

  She took the copy from Tracy and showed her the other inside cover.

  —That’s wha’ it was like when I started, she told Tracy. She turned back to the first cover.

  —This’s much better, isn’t it?

  —Yeah, said Tracy, and she meant it.

  She read it; Please Excuse, about ten times down the page, getting smaller and closer near the bottom, not like her mammy’s yet but not like Linda’s usual writing either, much smaller, hardly any holes in the letters.

  —She’ll kill yeh, Tracy told Linda.

  —Why will she? said Linda.—I haven’t done annythin’. I’m only experimentin’.

  She wrote Please.

  —Is tha’ like it?

  —Yeah, said Tracy.

  They’d forgotten that they were gasping. Tracy crossed out History in her homework journal. She’d just finished it, five questions about the pyramids.

  —Jesus, she said, reading what was next on the list. —Wha’ Irish story are yeh doin’, Linda?

  —I’m not doin’ anny, said Linda.

  She showed Tracy another Please and a new Excuse.

  —Is tha’ like it?

  —No.

  —Ah but, Mammy—

  —No, I said.

  —Daddy—?

  —Yeh heard your mammy, said Jimmy Sr.

  —But—

  —No buts.

  The twins, Linda doing all of the talking, had just asked if they could get a new video for Christmas. They’d had none in the house since Jimmy Jr, the eldest, had taken his with him when he’d moved out a few months ago.

  —No buts, said Jimmy Sr.—We can’t afford it, an’ that’s that. And, we’ve no place to put it—

  —With the telly—

  —Don’t interrupt me, righ’!

  He was really angry, before he knew it; nearly out of his seat. It was happening a lot these days. He’d have to be careful. He stopped pointing at Linda.

  —We’re not gettin’ one; end o’ story. Now I want to enjoy me dinner. For a change.

  Linda raised her eyes to heaven and shifted a bit in her chair, and thought about walking out of the kitchen in protest, but she stayed. She was hungry.

  So was Gina, Sharon’s little young one.

  —Shut up, Sharon told her.—Wait.

  She put the chips in front of Gina, then lifted them away.

  —Now, if yeh throw them around, Sharon warned her, —I’ll take them back off yeh, d’yeh hear me?

  Gina screamed.

  —An’ Grandad’ll eat them on yeh. Isn’t tha’ righ’, Grandad?

  —Wha’? said Jimmy Sr.—Chips, is it? Come here, I’ll eat them now.

  He leaned over to Gina’s chair.

  —Give us them here. Lovely.

  Gina screamed, and grabbed the plate. Sharon managed to keep the chips on the plate but got ketchup on her hand.

  —Ah, bloody—

  —Buddy! said Gina.

  Sharon wiped her hand on Gina’s bib.

  The Rabbittes got dug into their dinners.

  —Lovely, said Jimmy Sr.

  Tracy had an announcement.

  —There’s a piece o’ paper hangin’ up in the toilet an’ yis are all to put a tick on it every time yis flush the toilet.

  —Wha’? said Jimmy Sr.

  Darren came in.

  —Good man, Darren, said Jimmy Sr.—Were yeh watchin’ abou’ the Berlin Wall there?

  —Yeah, said Darren as he sat down.

  —Terrific, isn’t it? said Jimmy Sr.

  —Yeah, said Darren.

  Jimmy Sr wondered, again, why Darren wouldn’t talk to him properly any more.

  —Darren, said Tracy.—Every time yeh flush the toilet you’re to put a tick on the paper hangin’ up on the wall.

  —What’s this abou’? Jimmy Sr still wanted to know.

  —There’s a biro for yeh to do it in the glass with the toothbrushes, Tracy told them.

  —Okay, said Darren.

  —Hang on, said Jimmy Sr.—What are we to do? Exactly. Tracy raised her eyes.

  —Jesus, she said to Linda.

  —Don’t Jesus me, you, said Jimmy Sr.—An’ anyway, that’s a curse. Swearbox.

  —It’s not a curse, said Tracy.—It’s a name.

  —Not the way you said it, said Jimmy Sr.

  He picked up the marmalade jar with the slit in its lid and rattled it in front of her. The swearbox had been his idea, to force him to clean up his act in front of the baby.

  —Come on, he said.

  —I haven’t anny money, said Tracy.

  —Yeh have so, said Linda.

  —Fuck—

  —Ah ah! said Jimmy Sr.—Double.

  Veronica took over.

  —That’s the last time you’ll use language like that in this house, she told Tracy.—D’you hear me? And you as well, she told Linda.

  —I didn’t say ann‘thin’! said Linda.

  —You know what I mean, said Veronica.—It’s disgraceful; I’m not having it. In front of Gina.

  Gina was busy with her chips.

  —That’s righ‘, said Jimmy Sr.—Yis know how quickly she’s pickin’ up things.

  —I on’y said Jesus, said Tracy very quietly, standing up for her rights.

  —I didn’t say ann‘thin’
, said Linda.

  —You’re becoming a right pair of—

  Veronica didn’t finish. She stared at them, then looked away.

  —Bitches, said Sharon.—If Gina starts usin’ dirty language I’ll kill yis.

  —I didn’t say ann‘thin’, Linda told her plate.

  Jimmy Sr studied the piece of burger on his fork.

  —Eh, he said.—Should it be this colour?

  —Yes! said Veronica.

  —Fair enough, said Jimmy Sr.—Just askin’.

  He chewed and swallowed.

  —Second time we’ve had these yokes this week, he said, sort of to himself.

  Veronica let her knife and fork rattle off her plate. Jimmy Sr didn’t look at her.

  —Anyway, he asked Tracy,—why am I to put a tick on this piece o’ paper when I go to the jacks?

  —It’s for school, said Tracy, as if he was some sort of a thick.—Geog’aphy.

  —Wha‘ has goin’ to the jacks got to do with geography?

  —I don’t know, said Tracy.—Somethin’ to do with water. Miss Eliot says we’re to do it.

  —Why does Miss Eliot want to know how often I have a—

  —Swearbox! said Linda.

  —Starebock! said Gina.

  —I didn’t say it, said Jimmy Sr.

  He turned back to Tracy.

  —Why does she want to know how often I use the toilet facilities?

  —Not just you, said Tracy.—All of us have to.

  —Why?

  —Geog’aphy.

  —It’s to see how much water all the class uses, Linda told him.

  —Why? Darren asked.

  —I don’t know! said Linda.—It’s thick. She’s useless. Tracy’s to do the toilet an’ I’m to do the sink an’ the washin’ machine but I’m not goin’ to. It’s thick.

  —Is that your homework? said Veronica.

  —Yeah, said Linda.

  —Then you’re to do it.

  Linda said nothing.

  —I’d still like to know wha’ Miss Eliot wants with all this information, said Jimmy Sr.—She might blackmail us; wha’, Darren?

  —Yeah.—Yeah.

  —The Rabbittes go to the jacks twice as much as everyone else, wha’. She’ll want to know how often we change our underwear next; wait an’ see.