The Street and other stories by Gerry Adams Read Free Book Online

prepared.
    “That’s for me to know,” she teased him, “and for you to find out. You oul’ fellas are all the same; youse need to know everything. Well, for nearly thirty years you’ve been feeding us and for the last three days I’ve been feeding us, and I feel good about it.”
    He looked at her in amazement.
    “Ach, love, I’m only joking,” she laughed. “You never could take a slagging. I got the food down in St Paul’s. We set up a coordinating committee in the school to look after the refugees and to distribute food, especially baby food and the like. That’s what happens when you get arrested, you see. I go mad for the want of you.”
    She put down her tray and lunged towards him in mock attack. He retreated to the door in embarrassment.
    “The whole place has gone mad,” he said again. “It’s time you were up, woman.”
    She chuckled at his discomfiture. “I wonder how he gave me all those children,” she thought cheerfully.
    “My oul’ fella never worked,” Mrs Sharpe said to Margaret. “You’re lucky. Yours is never idle. I used to say my man put on his working clothes when he was going to bed.”
    They were sitting together after the meeting.
    “It’s funny about men,” Margaret said; “they are all bound up in wee images of themselves. You know: they’re the providers, they take the decisions. They decide everything.”
    “Or they think they do,” Mrs Sharpe said.
    “I know, I know,”Margaret agreed, “and as long as we let them think that it’s fine and dandy. But as soon as we start to let them see that we can take decisions, too, and, make choices, then their worlds become shaky and their images get tarnished. They, even the best of them, like to keep us in our places.”
    “Blame their mothers.”
    “Nawh, that’s too simple.”
    “But it’s true.”
    “I don’t know. Young ones nowadays have a better notion of things. I’m no different from my mother, but our ones are different from me.”
    “You’re no different from your mother?”Mrs Sharpe looked at her. “Who’re you kidding? Could you see your mother round here doin’ what we’re doing?”
    “No,” Margaret replied. “But then she never got the chance: a year ago I couldn’t even see myself doing what we’re doing.”
    She got slowly to her feet. “And now I suppose we better get back to our oul’ lads. Mine’s only started to get used to being married to me. And,” she looked at Mrs Sharpe with a smile in her eyes, “he ain’t seen nothing yet.”
    They laughed together as they locked up the school for the night. Outside, people were gathered at barricades and street corners. They all greeted Margaret and Mrs Sharpe as they passed.At Mrs Sharpe’s the two women parted and Margaret walked slowly up the street. She was tired, middle-aged and cheerful as she made her way home to liberate her husband.

The Mountains of Mourne
    Geordie Mayne lived in Urney Street, one of a network of narrow streets which stretched from Cupar Street, in the shadow of Clonard Monastery, to the Shankill Road. I don’t know where Geordie is now or even if he’s living or dead, but I think of him often. Though I knew him only for a short time many years ago, Geordie is one of those characters who might come into your life briefly but never really leave you afterwards.
    Urney Street is probably gone now. I haven’t been there in twenty years, and all that side of the Shankill has disappeared since then as part of the redevelopment of the area. Part of the infamous Peace Line follows the route that Cupar Street used to take. Before the Peace Line was erected, Lawnbrook Avenue joined Cupar Street to the Shankill Road. Cupar Street used to run from the Falls Road up until it met Lawnbrook Avenue, then it swung left and ran on to the Springfield Road. Only as I try to place the old streets do I realise how much the place has changed this last twenty years, and how little distance there really is between the Falls and