THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
ʻOne of the best books I have read about the complexities of povertyʼ
GUARDIAN
ʻPowerful –Katriona is a legendʼ
BARRY KEOGHANʻRaw, passionate and resolutely honest –Iʼll never forget itʼ
ANNIE MAC
Katriona O’Sullivan
Poor
‘Should be read by every single person who believes in an “us and them” hierarchy in society. It should be read by everyone – because there’s not one person on this planet who hasn’t hit rock bottom at one point in their lives. This book was a true beacon of hope – focusing on the importance of resilience and the belief that you are capable of anything. This will be a permanent fixture on my bookshelf’ A Troy, Goodreads five-star review
‘Read it in two days – I couldn’t put it down. This book is phenomenal. It’s raw and honest and deeply moving. Everyone should read it!’ Alexandria Ní Fearghail, Goodreads five-star review
‘Wow! Where do I begin? What a story! Katriona, you took my breath away. I felt shocked, moved and totally inspired by your story, which deeply resonated with me . . To pick yourself up and rise from life’s injustices, and make something of yourself, is the most inspiring thing that I’ve ever read’ All the mice love me, Amazon five-star review
‘Katriona writes in such a conversational way that really demonstrates she is a regular woman, like you and me. She just went through more than any person ever should. At no point is she judgemental . . . At its core this is a cautionary tale about the effects of austerity, the class system in the UK and the horrifying generational impact of addiction. I’ve found a new role model in Katriona’ Angela, Goodreads five-star review
‘My 83-year-old Dad has lost the sight in his left eye since December . . . when I told him I was hooked on your book he asked my brother to put the audiobook on! He finished before me . . . we both just loved loved loved it’ Annemarie Twomey @twomeyam, X/Twitter
‘An absolutely incredible read. Though much of it is heartbreaking and lots of it is inspirational, what will stay with me is the love @katrionaos expresses throughout – for her parents and family, the care shown to her by those who made her feel capable’ Aoife Bairéad @AoifeBairéad, X/Twitter
‘I devoured this in the space of a day. A beautifully narrated biographic . . . Katriona O’S ullivan broke my heart, ripped it out, then bandaged it and lovingly put it back in. Will be encouraging all my teacher friends to read. Such an important insight into the importance of breaking cycles’ Aoife Carew, Goodreads five-star review
‘Amazing! This is a fascinating story that will change your view of society and education. It is the incredibly well written account of growing up in poverty with parents who are addicts. It is pacy and compelling, while also being moving and inspirational. Can’t recommend highly enough. As good as Educated by Tara Westover, if not better’ BookWorm, Amazon five-star review
‘Thank you for sharing your experience, strength and hope. A must-read for everyone involved in education’ Bronagh O’Neill (Fellow Chartered College of Teaching) @bronaghmoneill, X/Twitter
‘Empowering, honest, raw and very moving. Be prepared to have a lump in your throat on one page, and laugh through snot and tears the next. I love this book’ Conor Moynihan, Goodreads five-star review
‘A fabulous read. It’s harrowing, thought-provoking and truly inspiring. It breaks my heart to think of children being brought up in those circumstances. It also let me check my own unconscious bias, especially around “gymslip mums”.
I have, I am ashamed to say, rolled my eyes or made assumptions about them. Highly recommend’ Donna A, Goodreads five-star review
‘Wow. Thank you @katrionaos for sharing your story. As someone who often feels like I straddle two worlds but belong in neither, so much of this resonated with me. I feel seen and understood. A must-read’ Donna Leamy @donnaleamy, X/Twitter
‘The most important book I have read in years . . @katrionaos is a truly inspiring person’ Eimear Glancy @eimearglancy, X/Twitter
‘This book touched my soul and reignited my passion for teaching’ Emma, Goodreads five-star review
‘Phenomenal. I cried, cursed and laughed a lot. I didn’t climb out of the trench myself; I was pulled out. I connected with a few parts of your story @katrionaos, in particular the guilt and shame that comes up in the process of “saving yourself” . . . thank you for writing this book’ Emma Hickey @emmhickey, X/Twitter
‘Incredible, gut-wrenching, punch-in-the-air story. Everyone needs to read this!’ Emily Carruthers, Goodreads fivestar review
‘@katrionaos your book has taken my breath away. I’m halfway through (reading it slowly, absorbing every word) and I already know it’s one of the most impactful books I’ve read. I’m changed by it’ Enida Friel @enida_friel, X/Twitter
‘A fantastic read. I never leave reviews, but this book absolutely deserves one. A story of true courage and self-belief’ Erica Nolan, Amazon five-star review
‘Truly wonderful! Wow! Truly. Thank you Katriona for getting this down, for your bravery and your insight. I learnt things about my own story from what you shared. And I’m grateful. Especially for the last part. We deserve better. All of us’ Felicia Semple, Goodreads five-star review
‘Just finished reading this remarkable book. If it doesn’t make you see and think about the world differently that’s on you’ Fionadennehy @fionadennehy1, X/Twitter
‘Read your book in three hours. Didn’t move even to the loo . . . pitied you, admired you and wanted so much to
be taught by you. It was a great read’ Geraldine Jackman @gswanepoel1, X/Twitter
‘Difficult to put down, many powerful messages: the hidden challenges that children might face but teachers can’t see; the impact that teachers can make through kindness and belief; limitations through circumstance; unfairness’ Gurdeep Singh @TheTeacherWins, X/Twitter
‘I have been moved, touched and motivated by many books in my years of reading but Katriona O’S ullivan’s story did that and so much more. I was shook to my absolute core and at other times I was smiling like an idiot in the brief moments of sunlight she spoke of in her life. I couldn’t recommend this book more’ Hayley, Goodreads five-star review
‘One of those books you can’t help but consume in one sitting and deeply wish the policymakers and educators who need to read it most will do so (even if I can’t quite believe they will). Thank you for being so intensely vulnerable and sharing your story @katrionaos’ Holly Law @hlawresearch, X/Twitter
‘An incredibly moving and emotional read, made all the more so by the realization that stories like hers are still happening today. There are very few books that I would say everyone should read . . . this is one’ Jacki, Goodreads five-star review
‘An honest and open true story of pure bravery, bold resilience and sheer determination . . . Katriona’s story also shines a light on how a few people in children’s and young adults’ lives can help to bolster their self-esteem and provide little glimmers of light, open doors slightly and give someone that hope and selfbelief – the match that lights the fire – to help them find a route out . . . Everybody should read this story to understand what our society is really like, to understand themselves and to help change people’s attitudes and ensure that everyone has a chance in life . . . I am in awe and full of admiration’ Jenny T, Amazon five-star review
‘Absolutely loved the honesty, the bravery and the insight into a life of chaos. So well written. It highlights important global issues that need to be understood, not ignored. Would love to see it on @Oprah book club list’ Jo Kelly @jojokel, X/Twitter
‘I think in my entire Twitter history I have commented maybe three times ever, but I can’t stay silent about this book. It is utterly superb, inspirational, heartbreaking, thought-provoking. Every single person I have recommended it to or gifted has said “ WOW, what a book!” ’ Jo LB @JoLB89815526, X/Twitter
‘So powerful, so beautifully told, heartbreaking, confronting in a way I didn’t know I needed. Told so many family and friends to read it. I wish everyone could read it, we’d all be better for it’ Joanne Leahy @joleahy, X/Twitter
‘Such a tale of resilience and hope in the face of adversity and childhood trauma. Everyone who works with children and young people should read this. The power of “one good adult” shines through’ Kate Stoica @kate_stoica, X/Twitter
‘Incredibly well written, heartbreaking, and captivating. The way she details the dichotomy of both loving her parents and hating them for the horrible things that happened to her family is genuine and honest. She deserves all the praise and more for not only changing her own destiny but also working to empower and uplift young girls and boys who may be in a similar situation’ Katie Muh, Goodreads five-star review
‘A riveting book for teachers, public health professionals, policy thinkers. Never give up on a child and a person. One kind gesture can save lives. Be that one’ Keerty Nakray, PhD @KNakray, X/Twitter
‘A wonderful read that I could not put down and finished in twenty-four hours. It is a powerful story of hope and courage by Katriona who grew up in poverty and was able to escape
with the help of many. It is both moving and funny and a mustread. Katriona is a born storyteller’ Kerrie G, Amazon five-star review
‘One of the best books I have ever read. Her experiences, strength and tenacity are humbling. There aren’t words to describe how amazing @katrionaos is’ Laura Jasper @lauraRjasper, X/Twitter
‘I read Poor in one sitting last night . . . literally could not put it down (I did try!). This book is a must-read for any educators but particularly those in disadvantaged schools. A beautiful and important book’ Laura Sloyan @laura_sloyan, X/Twitter
‘One of the best books I’ve read in years. Katriona’s story is empowering, heartbreaking, compelling and deeply moving. I found it so inspiring. I felt myself drawing parallels to Educated by Tara Westover. Poor resonated with me on many levels. I think it will for many, but particularly if you’ve come from a working-class background. I really found myself rooting for the best for her throughout, and it’s so important that she’s shared her story’ Lucky, Goodreads five-star review
‘Honest and raw yet beautifully written. I laughed and cried but there is a very serious message here about young children in desperate circumstances and of the people who helped and those that did not. Katriona O’S ullivan is an extraordinary, inspiring woman. Book of the year for me!’ Lynne Watson, Amazon five-star review
‘This is the first book I have read cover to cover in two sittings. It would have been one, but I was encouraged to get some sleep late last night. @katrionaos you are amazing. Nothing I can say here can do your story justice. Everyone should read this book’ Mark Kavanagh @mrkavanagh, X/Twitter
‘If you only read one book this year make sure it’s Poor by @katrionaos. It’s a rollercoaster of every possible emotion but most of all you’ll come away from it feeling immense pride in
the little girl who eventually believed she was worthy of her hopes and dreams coming true’ Mark Smyth @psychpolis, X/Twitter
‘Stunning in the original sense of the word. As a teacher in a deprived area here’s the book I’ve been waiting for. Someone telling the story as lived experience’ Mary Mc, Goodreads five-star review
‘Deeply moving and accomplished writing. It helps us all if not to understand then to at least empathize with families struggling with addiction. An instant modern classic’ Michael Farrell @MichaelFarrellIE, X/Twitter
‘A stunning, vulnerable memoir and a stark reminder that being “poor” eats into you beyond the breadline’ Mubina Ahmed @supernova2gold, X/Twitter
‘Poor! Wow! The title intrigued me as someone who also grew up without money or splendour. My parents were not addicts but hard-working folk, but many scenarios described in this book really resonated with me. What a struggle the author’s life was. What true grit and fight she had. I am forever amazed by such strong women and forever in awe of them. I feel all young women need to read this book. If their life is just a fraction of the struggle, to see a woman get herself out of such circumstances is just life-changing. I am so happy that I have read this book and will treasure it for my granddaughters to come. To show them true fight and anything is possible’ Neeta Noo, Amazon five-star review
‘Totally in awe of Katriona O’S ullivan! This book will make you aware of the privilege that most of us were brought up with and took for granted, even joked about: mothers interrupting play and calling us home for a hot dinner every day, enduring a weekly bath and being sent to school in starched clean clothes, having a routine and a quiet house to sleep in at night . . . and not wake up in a drug den with a stranger on the couch. So
much of what happened to Katriona O’S ullivan should NOT have happened, but it did. She is a real-life Shuggie Bain . . . Katriona writes how things should be changed to level the playing field in her gloves-off epilogue. Sometimes poverty itself is the trap and the system keeps you there. We need to stop children from falling through the cracks.This is a book that will stay with you’ Nicky, Amazon five-star review
‘After hearing so many positive reactions to this book, I couldn’t help but buy as an early birthday present to myself. I am absolutely hooked!’ Olivia Murray @MissMurray26, X/Twitter
‘What a powerful book. Read it, listen to it or stop me in the streets and I’ll bang on about it’ Paul Coleman @pcolemanchester, X/Twitter
‘[ Poor is] absolutely blowing my mind. It’s the most candid and enlightening account of childhood poverty I have ever read . . . should be read by policymakers and politicians’ Pauline Scanlon, Irish News
‘Amazing book, with really powerful insights about the class system in the UK and Ireland; who has opportunity and who doesn’t; and the shame that is’ Rachel Begley, Goodreads five-star review
‘Simply one of the best books I have ever read. It is one of the single most authentic and heart-wrenching accounts of poverty I have ever read. It also gives painful insight into the far-reaching, all-encompassing damage that undiagnosed mental health [issues] and consequent addiction can cause. And yet, in the midst of the chaos and devastation lives a spirited, kind, brave and incredibly intelligent little girl. Katriona O’S ullivan, despite a lifetime of trauma, possessed within her a belief that she was destined to climb out of the “trenches” through sheer grit, a refusal to continue the cycle and through the benevolence of those few special people who could recognize her worth.
While this memoir is hugely inspirational, it makes me want to weep that other Katrionas are entrenched in a non-equitable system that makes fulfilling one’s potential nigh on impossible. I commend Dr O’Sullivan being a force for change but, above all else, I am so very happy that she is now surrounded by the love she deserves’ RCM888, Amazon five-star review
‘Literally couldn’t put it down. A remarkable story of pain, neglect, love, true grit and determination. Her tenacity evident every step of her journey’ Senator Regina Doherty (Deputy Leader of Seanad Éireann) @ReginaDo, X/Twitter
‘The epilogue to Poor summarizes everything wrong with The System, and an affirmation of why I work in education. May your work and writing continue to keep those fires of injustice burning bright for everyone to see . . and hopefully take notice!’ Rob Mann @robmann80959245, X/Twitter
‘I don’t know how if I’m crying because I’ve finished reading this beautiful story, or because of the story itself, or the surge of emotion I felt in those last lines. Or maybe it’s all of the above’ Sandie Noonan @sandie_noonan, X/Twitter
‘Devoured this amazing book. Saw a clip of an interview with the author on Instagram and was intrigued so bought the book. Just read it – she’s awesome – thank me later’ Sharon, Goodreads five-star review
‘Amazing book! As a secondary school teacher it really made me reflect on my own teaching and to make sure that everyone, regardless of background deserves encouragement, support and a high-quality education. I have recommended this book to so many people’ Sinead Brady, Goodreads five-star review
‘I would encourage all parents, educators and teens to read. It speaks of the evil/kindness in the human condition, but also how falling and rising again is so important’ Steve Daly @DalySportspsych, X/Twitter
‘One of the most powerful books I’ve read and a must for anyone working in education. @katrionaos reminds us of the influence we as teachers have on our students; we are the ones who can lift them up, foster their strengths and talents and empower them to realize their potential!’
Tara McGowan @taramcgowan84, X/Twitter
‘You deserve to be at number one forever’ Valerie Kirby @ralhal72, X/Twitter
‘I’ve just devoured Poor and I’m in awe of your resilience and strength in the face of adversity. Love your attitude and beliefs and know you could put the government straight on a lot of things’
Yvonne O’Donnell @yvonne_odonnell, X/Twitter
Selected as one of the 2023 Books of the Year: Irish Times; Irish Examiner; Business Post; RSVP magazine; Today with Claire Byrne, RTÉ Radio 1; The Last Word, Today FM
Listeners’ choice for 2023 Book of the Year: The Ian Dempsey Breakfast Show, Today FM
Poor
Grit, courage, and the life-changing value of self-belief
Katriona O’Sullivan
PENGUIN BOOK S
PENGUIN BOOKS
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia India | New Zealand | South Africa
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published by Sandycove 2023
Published in Penguin Books 2024 001
Copyright © Katriona O’S ullivan, 2023
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Typeset by Jouve (UK ), Milton Keynes Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
The authorized representative in the EEA is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D 0 2 YH 68
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN : 978–0–241–99676–8
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Penguin Random Hous e is committed to a sustainable future for our business , our readers and our planet. is book is made from Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper
To me, aged seven. I’ve got you.
Author’s Note
To protect people’s privacy a number of names in this book have been changed, including those of my siblings. I have also changed some identifying details. At the back of the book there is a list of all names that are pseudonyms.
xv vii
Prologue
I heard what the doctor said and so did my dad. But by the time we went down the two ights of stairs and out into the portico, my father had reshu ed the cards.
‘If you give up smoking now, Tony,’ the oncologist had said, ‘you’ve a good chance of beating this.’
Dad pulled out a cigarette as soon as our feet got over the entrance. He lit up, pushed the lighter back among the cigarettes in the box of Bensons and put it back into the pocket of his shirt. He always wore shortsleeved check shirts, my dad.
I stared at him in disbelief. He noticed and lifted his chin, put his shoulders back, dragged on his cigarette and blew the smoke out through his nose.
‘Dad . . .’
He switched his grip, changed the cigarette from between two ngers to his nger and thumb. He broadened his shoulders again, straightened up. He was not a tall man so this was how he got height between you when he was defensive.
‘The doctor said you’ve to give up smoking, Dad,’ I said.
1
But he shook his head, pressed his mouth into a line. He looked away.
‘No, that’s not what he said.’ My father was well spoken. ‘I’ve to cut back a bit, that’s all.’
Jesus Christ.
Tony O’Sullivan, my dad, was gone in less than a year. But I lost him right there. Standing right there outside the hospital in his cloud of smoke and denial, for me, it was all over. I could say I snapped, but that’s not the truth. I unfurled, in the way those huge cables that hold up bridges do during an earthquake. The thousands of wires, all the little connections I had made to this man, they quietly snapped one by one.
All the people I had ever been, the three-year-old, the seven-year-old, the fteen-year-old me. We all stood there staring, nally realizing, nally getting it.
He doesn’t care.
We are unloved, he doesn’t care.
Nothing mattered to Tony O’Sullivan. I didn’t, standing in front of the hospital heartbroken at the news that my father was so ill, realizing that his plan was to smoke himself to death. Nobody mattered to him and never had. Not us kids, not my mother, not our childhood or the struggle, none of it. At that moment, nothing mattered to Tony except that smoke in his hand. He knew it; I knew it. Everything we had ever been through meant – fuck’s sake – nothing to him. None of it, none of us.
2 Poor
Katriona O’Sullivan
My dad was an addict.
And as all those dreamed-up attachments I had made through wishful thinking twisted and fell away, I was left standing on the far side, the furthest I had ever been from this impossible man, this waste of brains and spirit. This man I had spent my whole life desperately loving. He lived for his addictions. Those cigarettes, like his heroin, booze and women – my dad’s addictions were him.
He icked his cigarette ash and it landed on the ground between us. I looked at it. There was not going to be a eureka moment, not for Tony. He would free-fall into this re until the end. There was nothing I could do about it. He was not going to rise from the ashes.
All of this, all of it, had been for nothing. I was the only phoenix, the only one of the two of us who would make it out of this mess. The changes, the lessons, the climb out of the stinking trench I was born into, that was just for me. Just me.
Just me.
And that is the saddest thing I ever knew.
3
There are memories I want to keep. Memories I am happy to talk about. Sitting in the rear seat of my dad’s green Cortina in the summer, looking at the back of his head, his mop of curls, window down, his brown arm resting on the door with a cigarette between his ngers. The way the rushing air hits my face like a fan, and my hair whips against my cheeks. My dad’s tapes are playing, my whole family are singing. My dad’s gold ring tapping against the metal.
And there are memories I want to let go of, ones I nd it hard to talk about. Memories that weigh me down. I want to tell you about those too, so I can leave them here and move on from them.
Standing, aged six, at the door to my parents’ bedroom looking in. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the light, not quite, so I couldn’t gure out what I was looking at.
Then I could.
My dad was on his bed at an angle. His jeans were half o , and I could see his tummy and his underwear. There were black rings all over his skin and one purple bruise spreading across his thigh with a plastic
5 1
syringe – the type he put in his arm – stuck in the middle of it. The tube part of it lolled downwards, pinned by the needle.
I stood looking. The bed he lay on was stained yellow with piss and one beam of sunlight crossed the oor through the old curtains that were pulled shut and across his body, lighting him up. Dust oated in the light.
His face was turned to me.
Dead?
Did I say it out loud? Dead? I think I called it out, but I didn’t know. The sound looped around, and I couldn’t place my own voice over the loud beat of my heart.
I must have been calling out, looking back, because my dad’s friend John Bean clattered through the house, taking the stairs three at a time to the top, pulling on a jumper as he careered down the landing. He pushed me behind him and crossed the bedroom, saying my dad’s name over and over.
‘Hey, Tony, hey hey, Tony . . .’
‘Is Dad dead?’ I said.
John Bean rushed past me, down the stairs and into the street.
My dad, Tony O’Sullivan, was born in Ireland. The rst ve years of his life are unknown. We just know he was handed in to the infamous Goldenbridge industrial school by his mother and stayed there until he was ve. He was
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Katriona O’Sullivan
adopted by Jim and May O’Sullivan and taken to live in their home in Clontarf. They had no other children. My grandfather Jim was a civil servant, though he had studied medicine in UCD. He had a strong faith, went to Mass every day and always read the Irish Times from cover to cover.
My dad told us that when Jim was dying he asked him for information about his origins. Jim told him that his aunt, Sister Francis Xavier (Jim’s sister), was his mother. Tony had known this aunt through his childhood, through family get-togethers that would happen once a year. She had been generous with gifts for him on those days, and yet he said their interactions would always leave him feeling upset and stressed.
The story he was told, at the end of it all, was that she became pregnant at forty-two, in the convent where she lived in Cork, and so the baby was brought to the Goldenbridge in Dublin by another of Jim’s sisters, also a nun. Tony was adopted, at what age or for how long we don’t know, and then returned there. When he was ve his uncle, Jim, took him home.
My dad took that story very badly.
But Tony made it all up. As I was completing work on this book I took a DNA test. It revealed that I have no genetic connection with the O’S ullivans. God knows why he came up with that yarn but by the time Jim died stories about the abuse of children in Goldenbridge had
7
come out. Maybe Tony could not take the idea that he was one of those kids and, with his father no longer around to contradict him, he made up this fairy tale of being protected by the nuns.
We don’t know what happened to Tony in the rst ve years of his life, but as more stories come out about Catholic-run charity organizations in the fties and sixties, it’s not hard to imagine.
But we do know that in that time, before he got his lovely middle-class family, his civil-servant father and his stay- at- home mother, Tony lost something.
And he never got it back.
Tony used to tell us kids that his rst memories were of a re. He told us he was standing up in a cot crying as re raged all around him.
‘I don’t know where I came from,’ he would say, ‘but I know I was in a re.’
I used to run that image through my head a lot as a kid, that baby in a re. Standing on his feet in a cot, watching everything fall apart and burn to the ground, and not able to help himself.
Whether it was the truth or something else my dad made up, well, we will never know. He probably made it up; he made up a lot of stu .
As a teenager Tony was a free spirit who rebelled against the middle-class life his parents wanted for him. They gave him everything he needed to make it, but he
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Katriona O’Sullivan
didn’t want it. They lived in a peaceful home on the coast. He attended a private boys’ school in the middle of Dublin, Belvedere College, where he was a tennis champion. He was o ered a place in Trinity College, but he rejected it and went to England instead to sell paintings door to door and do drugs.
My dad told me that when he was a boy he would cycle from his house to Dollymount Strand, and he would lie in the grass, smoking and reading his books. He said that was his favourite thing to do. I think he told me that story because that was the real him, the real Tony, there on the beach with his head resting on an upturned saddle. I like to think of him there, in Dublin Bay, with gulls sur ng above him calling to one another. I can see him in my mind’s eye, shielding his eyes from the sun with his book. That was Tony before he got caught up in a spiral of addiction, running from whatever it was he lost in those rst ve years. Maybe the quiet on that beach got too quiet, maybe he had to get out of his head because of what haunted him in there. Who knows? Before long he met my mother at a bus stop in Coventry and not long after that they had ve children and addictions they couldn’t handle and a life of the grimmest misery you could ever imagine. When he arrived in England, Tony had only ever dabbled in drugs. But by the time I was six years old and standing in the doorway looking across at his lifeless
9
body, half on and half o the bed, he was a heroin addict.
Tony was middle class and an educated man. He was well spoken, charismatic and carried himself well. He was also a career criminal, an alcoholic and a junkie. And he was my dad.
John Bean had gone for help. My dad had overdosed and was dying, lying on a bed covered in piss and vomit. This was the way of our house. The ambulance men came in and they didn’t hurry.They were bored of this, it seemed. They took the steps with the urgency of men heading to bed, one step at a time, hu ng and pu ng. They looked at my dad in the room and shifted around, looking at each other with sideways glances and raised eyebrows.
I knew that code, the language of the scornful. I knew how to read that language already, at six years of age. My dad was lying there dying and, even though it was their job to care, they didn’t think he was worth saving. They were rough with him. ‘Up you get, fella,’ one of them said as if he had just taken a tumble. They pulled him by his legs and arms and swung him on to the stretcher sideways, awkwardly, so he lay on it with one arm under his ribs. One of them shoved his leg up and his shoe fell o . That man rolled his eyes and kicked the shoe under the bed. He mumbled something and the other man rolled his eyes too.
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Katriona O’Sullivan
They didn’t want to help. They didn’t want to help my dad.
I shook my head back and forth at the scene in front of me and I was crying, but I didn’t say anything. I wanted to shout at them to save my dad, help him. But I didn’t. I just wiped the tears o my chin with my sleeve. It was soaking wet.
John paced around. ‘Is he all right?’ he said to one of the paramedics and was ignored. It was as if he wasn’t there.
‘Is my dad dead?’ I asked the other man. He ignored me.
The stretcher with my dad on it was brought past me and down the stairs. It felt like I was watching it all play out, but it wasn’t real. I thought over and over, Dead?
He looked dead. His skin was grey and taut, and his eyes were sunk back into the bones of his skull. He was so pale I could see the red hairs of his moustache as if individually, and the details of his skin, the blue fading veins in his hands, his little nger with his sovereign ring.
‘Dad . . .’ I said.
They got him out of the house. And then he was gone, the ambulance was gone. They didn’t ash the lights or put the siren on.
I thought about the marks on my dad’s legs, the blue and purple blotches on his white skin. The black and grey rings. I knew they were from the needles.
John Bean went down the stairs. I followed.
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‘Don’t worry, K,’ he said, and I nodded.
‘Is Dad dead?’ I said.
‘No, no, just a bit rough,’ John said. He pushed his trainers o with a toe into each heel and sat down. ‘Your dad will be all right, don’t be worrying. Tilly will be back soon as well so . . .’
He patted the couch beside him. But I didn’t sit. I went back up the stairs and looked at the bed where my dad had been.
If Dad was dead, who would drive us in the car?
Tony didn’t die. He came back later that day and pretended to everyone that he was ne, though you could see the wear and tear behind his eyes. When he sat down on the couch I ran and got him a lighter and his cigarettes from where they had fallen on the oor upstairs.
‘Ah thanks, my Katriona,’ he said.
He always said that to me.
We were glad to see him. He shook John Bean’s hand and they gassed back and forth between the two of them.
‘Thought you were nished, Tone,’ John said.
‘Not me, John,’ Dad said, smiling through the smoke he was exhaling. He pulled extra hard on the cigarette for the next drag.
The day after, the sun was shining and my dad let me sit in the car and pretend to drive it. He rolled down the windows and shut me in and stood back, smoking,
12 Poor
Katriona O’Sullivan
while I strained my neck to look in the rear-view mirror, sliding my hands round the leather wheel. I pulled the gear stick back and forth and bounced on the seat.
Sunlight lled the car and I felt as though I was being fed by it. My dad closed his eyes and tilted his face towards the light, and I watched him breathe in and out. Then he looked at me and his face creased into a smile.
‘Want some music?’ He leaned in and put the key into the ignition and turned the tape player on. The tape was Fleetwood Mac, the song was ‘Go Your Own Way’. This was our song.
When he was like that I loved my dad more than anyone in the whole world.
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