The Valparaiso Voyage

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Dermot Bolger. The Valparaiso Voyage

The Valparaiso Voyage. Dermot Bolger

Table of Contents

Introductions

I SATURDAY

II SUNDAY

III MONDAY

IV TUESDAY, A.M

V TUESDAY, DAWN

VI WEDNESDAY, 2 A.M

VII WEDNESDAY, 9 A.M

About the Author

Praise

By the same author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Отрывок из книги

Bernadette

Scaoileadh téad a seol sa chuan;

.....

I was happy when nobody came to collect me after school. I walked alone through the square, which shone by now although the stink still lingered from the drains. I didn’t know if anyone would be at home. On my third knock Phyllis opened the door. Her bags were gone from the hall. Cormac was watching television with an empty lemonade bottle beside him. Upstairs, his coloured quilt lay on my bed, his teddies peering through the brass bars at the end. My pillow rested on the smaller camp-bed in the corner. Two empty fertilizer bags lay beside the door, filled to the brim with shredded wallpaper. Scraps of yellowing roses, stems and thorns. On the bare plaster faded adult writing in black ink that I couldn’t read had been uncovered. I changed the beds back to the way they should have been. Then I locked the bedroom door, determined to keep it shut until my father returned home to this sacrilege.

I don’t know how long it took Phyllis to notice that I had not come down for my dinner. Furtively I played with Cormac’s teddies, then stood by the window, watching children outside playing hopscotch and skipping. I didn’t hear her footsteps, just a sudden twist of the handle. She pushed against the door with all her weight. There was the briefest pause before her first tentative knock. Almost immediately a furious banging commenced.

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