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Chip Chop Cherry

by Ray Cranley

275 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-1979; ISBN 1-4120-1602-9; US$23.50, C$27.52, EUR19.50, £13.50

A haunting, hilarious, warts and all account of growing up in a small rural community near the seaside town of Bray, County Wicklow, in the vanished Ireland of the 1950's.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpts or Table of Contents      catalogue info

About the Book A haunting and often hilarious warts and all account of growing up in a small rural community near the seaside town of Bray, County Wicklow in the days before television; of sheep's brains for Sunday dinner and senna pods every Saturday to keep you 'regular'; of the curious goings-on in the winter of 1953/54 during a seven month stay a Dublin hospital; of the excitement among the young at the arrival of the sensational new music called Rock-n-Roll, and the comically desperate measures taken to keep adolescent hormones in harness. A wonderfully evocative trip into 1950s Ireland. Praise for Wicklow Gold: "I loved this book...The author is to be congratulated. This is a thoroughly enjoyable novel." Anna Cooke, BOOKS IRELAND

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About the Author Ray Cranley was born in 1944 at Windgates, between the two seaside towns of Bray and Greystones in County Wicklow, Ireland. A few years later he moved with his parents to Ballywaltrim at the other side of Little Sugarloaf Mountain, where he spent most of his childhood. In 1979 he returned to the old family home at Windgates where he continues to live with his wife, Jacinta, and their children. He is a founder member of the Bray Cualann Historical Society and has contributed articles on local history to the society's journals. His novel, "Wicklow Gold", was published in 1999.

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Sample Excerpts or Table of Contents

from Chapter 3

Kitty was never a fashion victim and she arrived one sweltering August day dressed in a big woolly overcoat tied at the waist with an old broken belt which had been put together again with the help of a couple of huge safety pins, while a third pin stood in for a buckle. Not to upset the balance of her outfit, her feet were ensconced in a pair of sturdy wellies, and the ensemble was topped off with a tightfitting blue beret pulled onto her head. She stood in the kitchen doorway.

'Heh-heh. Good afternoon all. I've arrived! How are yeh, Lulu. Wait'll I tell yeh how lucky I was,' and she proceeded to tell Ma about the nice man who had given her a lift, and how she had explained who she was and that the man said he knew Ma.

'Oh my God,' Ma said, horrified, 'Yeh don't mean to tell me yeh got into somebody's car in that state.'

'Sure didn't he stop for me!'

'Even if he did, yeh didn't have to go an' tell him who yeh were for Christ sake, makin' a bloody show of me.'

'Heh-heh, I'm your sister, aren't I?' Kitty's voice was low and hesitant.

'Sister me arse. You're mad, that's what you are, do yeh know that?'

'Ah now Lulu...'

'Mad!' Ma interrupted. 'Who else, I ask yeh, but a feckin' lunatic would go out in the middle of summer in a get-up like that? Yeh should be locked up in Grangefuckin'gorman.'

'Well, this is a nice welcome, I must say.' Kitty sounded hurt.

'What the hell do yeh expect? God only knows who that man was,' Ma groaned. 'I can't hold me head up anywhere with yeh, comin' out here like Johnny Fortyfuckincoats an' the sun splittin' the trees.'

'He seemed like a nice man.'

'A-course he did. Jack the shaggin' Ripper would seem nice to you if he gave yeh a lift. Don't yeh know that all these people are only laughin' up their cuffs at yeh, an' you spoutin' all your business at them.'

'It's Noel, yeh see,' kitty explained. 'I'd be able to look after myself a bit better if I didn't have Noel.'

Ma let a shriek of mock laughter out of her.

'Jaysus, that's the best one I've ever heard. Talk about the pot callin' the kettle black-arse! If you were a proper sister Noel would be all right.'

'No, Lulu, I tell yeh he's the mad one.'

'Rubbish! Bloody balderdash! And then the state yiz have the house in out there. Lord God, I'd be ashamed of me life if anything happened to either of yiz an' a doctor had to be called in.'

Kitty's hackles began to show signs of rising.

'How I keep my home is my own business. If you had the likes of Noel to contend with...'

'Oh, laziness, have I ever offended thee?' Ma asked the ceiling. 'An' the cats. What do yeh want all them rotten cats for? Pissin' an' shitin' all over the place. Why don't yeh get ridda them?'

Kitty's face brightened a little.

'Ah, sure wait'll I tell yeh, Lulu, aren't there only six left now. Poor Frisky got killed by a car last week.'

'Oh Christ!'

'Yes,' Kitty continued, 'Noel was coming home from Belmont Wood with a brassna of sticks an' here didn't he find the poor thing on the road with her head all crushed an' guts everywhere, God bless us! He came home an' got the shovel to lift her off the road. We buried her in a biscuit tin in the front garden, a nice spot under the laurels'.

Ma stared at her incredulously.

'An' yeh try to tell me you're not stark starin' bonkers! Yeh think it's normal to be talkin' about curse-a- God cats as if they were Christians? I suppose the next thing is you'll be goin' to the bloody priest - God forgive me - to have a Mass said for the repose of the soul of the late departed pussy!'

Ma turned away to hide the fact that she was tickled by her own joke, and began clearing some delph from the table, muttering to herself:

'Sure she can't help it, the poor thing. The oul' mind's gone, God love her.'

Kitty had taken enough.

She whipped the old beret from her head and ran at Ma, lashing her about the head and shoulders with it. Ma, built like a whippet, scampered around the table, Kitty hot on her heels yelling: 'Yeh oul' bitch! Yeh bloody oul' rip!' and swiping away with the beret, sending kids scattering in all directions like startled squawking chickens.

Despite all their rows Ma and Kitty never fell out with each other to the point where they were not on speaking terms, and this was due in no small part to Dad's way with Kitty. She could be as cross as two sticks and he would have her laughing in minutes, and so by the time she was leaving that evening she and Ma were the best of friends again.

'Ho-ho bejapers! Will yeh look what the cat dragged in,' he greeted her as he arrived in from work.

'Hello Jamie, heh-heh.' Her pet name for him. 'An' how are yeh keeping?'

'None the better of seein' you anyway. Can't yeh see I'm on me last legs?'

'There now, I don't think you're quite ready for planting in St. Peter's yet'.

'Yis I am, an' won't it be ease to me feet an' them that are lookin' at me?'

'Heh-heh, you're a caution Jamie, so y'are.'

'Never mind your oul' slootherin' now, have yeh left me e'er a bit t'ate at all?' Dad enquired, mischief glinting in his eye.'

'Ah now, I'm sure Lulu won't let you go hungry.'

'She mightn't have much choice if you've cleared the place out. Oh, an' I want a look in that bag of yours before yeh go too,' he waved a warning finger at her, 'in case yeh have tomorrow's dinner in it for the cats.'

Kitty went into a kink.

'Heh-heh-heh, ooh-heh-haa-haargh.'

'You're a quare eel, Kitty, but yeh can't cod me. I bet yeh have the press full of grub out there an' still yeh come over here atin' the bit outa my mouth'.

'Ha-haargh! Sure Noel eats two whole loaves every day. It's like feedin' a horse, God bless us!'

'Gerrawayouradat! Yeh probably have the poor divil half starved. Do yeh get up an' make his breakfast itself?'

'Of course I do. Doesn't he get a grand hard-boiled egg every morning. He doesn't know how lucky he is to have a sister like me.'

'An' tell us this, what time do yeh crawl outa bed at?'

'I suppose it's near enough to twelve usually, except for Tuesdays when I go to the Dispensary in Delgany, an' Sundays I go to Mass.'

'Twelve! Sure that's not mornin' at all. Yeh should have a good half day's work behind yeh be then.'

'Sure mark,' Kitty affected a 'quality' accent. 'I'm a lady of leisure, my good man. One lies in one's chamber until the call of the teapot galvanises one into action.'

'Yeh lazy oul'slag.'

'Heh-Heh-haargh!'

from Chapter 11

In the late night stillness Nurse Blakely's footsteps echoed down the veranda as she left the office and walked along by the beds, pausing to glance at each sleeping occupant as she passed.

Ray was awake. He was glad Nurse Blakely was on duty tonight; she was very friendly and often chatted with him for what seemed like hours but in reality was probably much less, until he fell asleep. She was tall and slim with a luxuriant crop of black hair that billowed out from under her nurse's cap.

She couldn't have been more different from Nurse West who had been on duty the night before. Nurse West was about four feet two tall and of similar girth, and Jimmy had once rather picturesquely remarked:

'I'd say that one 'id walk away from a quare shite!'

Whenever she was on nights Ray pretended to be asleep because she hadn't been too pleased when she came around on a couple of occasions and found him awake.

He looked up and smiled as Nurse Blakely came up to his bed.

'So,' she said quietly, 'naughty Raymond's awake again. Dreaming of this wonderful Bray place of his, no doubt.'

She laughed and sat herself down on the side of the bed. As they talked he became aware that she seemed different somehow to-night, her remarks as he prattled on seeming to be vague and having no relevance to what he was saying, as if her mind was off somewhere else.

Then, for no reason he could think of, she leaned over him, her hair tickling his face, and kissed his forehead. 'You're a lovely boy, aren't you?' she whispered.

He didn't reply and it didn't seem to matter to her.

'Are you my boy? Do you think I'm nice?'

She was breathing all funny. He nodded into her hair.

She moved herself around until she was lying full length on the bed. As slender as she was she felt heavy on his skinny ten-year-old frame. She began rotating the lower half of her body against his bony pelvis, her chest level with his face.

He turned his head sideways so he could breathe.

What the flames was she doing? Was there something the matter with her? What could have come over her all of a slap?

And she kept talking quare, all yes, yes, and beautiful, beautiful and stuff like that. He was fecked if he could see anything that could be the cause of such breathless excitement, although he thought she smelled lovely in her crispy-fresh uniform.

She was pounding her body hard against him now, each thump driven home with a guttural 'Jesus!' He became a little alarmed. This was nice Nurse Blakely, always so friendly and happy. What was happening to her at all?

She plunged her face into the pillow above his head to stifle her cries, nearly smothering him against her chest. Suddenly the truth, what had to be the truth, flashed upon him.

She's dying!

Of course! That was it! That's why she kept saying Jesus. Didn't Mr. Donegan tell the class at school a while back that they should endeavour to let their last dying word be Jesus, so that they would go to meet their Maker with the Saviour's name on their lips?

Oh Godjesusmammy help me she's dying. She'll die on top of me and smother me.

He could feel as well as hear the strange convulsions in her throat as she gasped her weird strangled cries into the pillow. He thought she was going to drive him through the bed as her lower body slammed against him frenziedly, then he felt her go all floppy and still.

She's dead! Mammy get me outa here, she's... He was about to let a panic-stricken yell out of him when he realized she was still breathing.

'There now, it's all right, lovey. It's all right now.' She lifted her head and her face was flushed as if she had been crying.

'Off you go to sleep now, Raymond. I'll come and chat to you tomorrow night again.'

He was flabbergasted. Holy God almighty, here she was talking to him in her usual kindly way as if that terrible attack she had just gone through had never happened. It was the quarest thing he had ever come across.

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