A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle Page A

and tried to call me Henry. He brought us up to our room. He pretended that his wife saw him, pretended that his son’s rage was an infant’s fun.
    —There there, there there.
    He put us to bed and sat on the chair. He took off his leg. I screamed and he threw the leg at the fireplace. It bounced back out like a skittle and rolled along the floor and stopped at his foot, like a dog wanting to be petted. He put the leg back on, picked me up and tried to sing to me. Oh the bridge it broke down . I heard the gulps that broke the song’s back. He stopped and dropped big tears onto my head.
    He put me back into the bed beside my mother. He moved gently around the room while we slept. He waited for things to get back to normal, the return of that wonderful week. He waited for it all to come back. Every day. He never slept. He guarded us all day and waited. And he went to work every evening, at ten to six. He kissed my mother. He kissed me. He patted his coat, then left us. He sat on the landing floor outside and put on his leg. Then he was gone.
    Off to his work.
    And then the violence and hurt poured out of him. He raged and whacked. He roared and blew. The few who still braved the steps walked into the shadow of my father’s towering anger. He defended the steps so efficiently that there was one night when no one at all got past him. No one even tried to. And one of the girls opened the door a chink and called him in.
    —Herself wants you.
    And he went inside. Into the smells and hints that men paid for. The darkness and promises. He went up the stairs to Dolly Oblong’s room. Up the carpeted stairs, where his tap tap carried no threat. It was quiet. No grunts or laughter, braces snapping, beds protesting. Only the piano downstairs, some tune that Henry didn’t know or like, some plonky-plonky thing that you had to be drunk to feel. He hadn’t been drunk in years, since the day he met Melody. He was nervous now. He made his way down the dark red corridor; behind each shut door a lonely girl.
    He was there. He knocked on Dolly Oblong’s door. It was a good, thick door; his knock was a small thing on it.
    —Come in.
    He opened the door.
    —Come in.
    He stepped into Dolly Oblong’s room for the first time. It was dark. He saw a line of light where the closed curtains didn’t quite meet and the strict shapes of furniture.
    —Shut the door.
    He heard the door’s canvas cover settling back into place. He stood there in the dark and waited. He could hear no breathing. A sideboard, a chair. He began to know the room. There were no colours yet. He was standing on a rug that rubbed his ankle.
    Now he heard a neat cough.
    —What is the weather like?
    —Grand, said Henry.—Not too bad.
    —And how is your family?
    —Grand, said Henry.
    He could see more chairs now, big armchairs, and there was a large, high bed right in front of him but he couldn’t find the woman who was talking to him.
    —The baby?
    —Grand, he said.—Gameball.
    The bed creaked.
    —The baby has both the legs?
    —Yes.
    —Good. And a brain?
    —Yes.
    —Good. But you must not be the father. A fool like you could not produce such a baby.
    The bed groaned again and a black mountain grew in front of Henry. A head took shape, and shoulders. A head that was made huge by hair that would have been plenty for five women. It was a wig, Henry knew. It was one of the things he knew about his employer: she was bald. One of the very few things he knew.
    —What kind of a nincompoop are you? she said.
    He took the question seriously. He stayed quiet. He began to see her, not just her outline. She was sitting up now. The wig was massive and brown. She was wearing a red gown, or something. She shifted, and powder quickly reached Henry’s nose.
    —Well? she said.
    Another thing he knew about her: she was twenty-five. She looked and moved like a monument but she was younger than he was. It had been her brothel since he’d been the bouncer; she couldn’t have been