Colm watched his little brother Padraig who sat with the book in his hands, alook stuck to the youngsters pale hangdog face, vacuous with a gawking jaw. The younger boy took his face from the book and offered it to the window as if it the reflection would be able to answer the question in his mind, then he offered that bewildered look to the kitchen beyond his brother.

'Da!' 

He read from the page again.

'. . . moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo . . . '  The boy looked utterly perplexed.

'Da!'

There was only a still silence that came back to him. It turned the look on his face into a resentful frown. Colm had to speak up.

'What's yer problem?'

'Is it going to sound mental like this all the way through?'

'You wanted to read it?'

Padraig looked irate now. 'Only cause da says I should read more of the classics.'

'Ya don't have to start with him. Why don't you read Dracula or something?'

'He says I should read something Irish, instead of Dan Dare and all dat.'

Colm sighed and put his head back into his textbook.

'Dracula is Irish.'

Padraig let his head flop back and laughed.

'Oi want to suck yer blood!' he said, giving the count a thick Dublin brogue and laughing fiercely at his own joke.

'Not the book you gobshite, the writer . . . Bram Stoker.'

'What type of name is that, Bram?' Padraig shook his head.

Their father came in the back door and closed it gently. The sagging overall pocket full of coins, bolts, washers, God knows what else, collided against his leg with each large stride across the kitchen. As he sauntered around in that way that dad's do, he wiped motor-oil off his hands with an already sodden rag. Colm studied him as he put dishwashing liquid all over his hands and ran them under the tap.

The sons watched the whole operation as if it were something out of the ordinary, until the show was interrupted by the radio.

'This is RTE 1 six p.m. news . Twenty-five year old prisoner Francis Hughes of the Maze Prison, County Antrim, has become the second hunger striker to die since Bobby Sands, whose life ended on the fifth of May. Both men were striking in protest for political prisoner status and a range of improved . . .'

Their father turned off the radio and Colm frowned.

'Why did you do that? I was listening to that.'

Their father sat down and immediately the smell of petroleum products hit Colm.

Their da breathed before he began talking.

'Yous know we need to visit grandpa tonight.'

Colm nodded while Padraig roll his head back in exasperation.

'Da! I hate that place! It smells of old people smell and Magnum's on tonight . . . oh da come on! We'll go tomorrow night  promise da! He's not even your da.'

'That's right . . . Grandpa Eddie's gone so its all the more reason to spend some time with this one while yes can!'