An English Game

The Man In The Moon stared down over damp grass as Liam hammered his stumps in with the heel of a shoe. Not that anyone worth his salt across the water would call them such. Stumps they were not. Instead, these were reasonably-lengthed, reasonably straight, branches tapered to a point at one end with a kitchen knife, but once set in the earth they did the trick.

He’d have loved to have one of those Turfix sets he’d seen in the comics – mounted plastic, grooves for bails – that left the turf undisturbed. But you could hardly pass it off as a mini javelin or something for a game of cowboys.

No, a thing like that’s its own thing. And if a thing’s to be kept secret, you don’t pay for its postage and packing.

The Kelly brothers had set up the game on a nod and a wink. Words were unnecessary: they all knew what they were doing. A fella could stick his boot in The Moonman’s face – hadn’t they seen Neil Armstrong do it only last month? – but couldn’t crack willow against leather and still play hurling for the county.

That was verboten. Funny how the German sprung to mind. War comics. Not toirmiscthe. He wondered if he’d learned the Gaelige properly whether he wouldn’t be thinking differently. Maybe he’d be satisfied with camán and sliotar. Maybe they wouldn’t be italics in his head.

The gash beneath Liam’s thumb was still pink from two weeks back when Ned Moody sliced him with his tin. It protects the bas, they say. Strengthens the ash. Maybe it does but if you’re a halfwit like Ned you don’t bother smoothing out its shards and end up wielding a sporting mace. Still the lad could run and bounce, no one would deny it. Couldn’t score for toffee but such was Liam’s part. An eye for the ball and a wrist for the goal. Whatever that was in Irish.

They were a team, him and Ned. When they weren’t gouging each other with jagged metal.

How Liam had ended up keeper of the stumps was a mystery beyond religion. Didn’t he have the most to lose? Then again, that made him the perfect foil. A lad with his future? He wouldn’t dare breach the ban. Plus it was nothing to see him on the pitch this time of night. Before the others showed. He was the canary in the coalmine, so the English would have it.

It was their game. He might as well use their phrases.

Eventually the rest arrived. Michael and Eamonn and Jojo and Kevin and all. Patrick brought the bat, “left behind” by the cousins from Birmingham. Christ alone knew where Martin fetched up with the ball.

An eye for the bowl and a wrist for the strike.

Liam aimed his first swipe at the sky. At Armstrong’s footprint. One small six for a lad, one giant boundary for Ireland.

In your eye, Moonie. In your eye.