The Blessed Pest

Uncle Francie came up to me at my first
Communion and smiled at me with his mad
sparkling gobstopper eyes. I clung to my
mother's skirts. I was all dressed up. New
suit, new shoes, new haircut slicked back
with Da's brilliantine, new shirt, new
everything, including a big prayer book held
in my two hands like I had seen the big
people do on a Sunday.
"Give me a look at that," ordered
Francie, and then he pulled it out of my
hands. He held the lovely purple marker
ribbon up to the light coming through the
stained glass window and sniffed it. Then he
sniffed the book.
"New ink," he exhaled. "The smell of
new ink is the sound of new ideas." I hid
further behind my mother.
Uncle Francie was wearing one of his
many suits - and a new pair of red brogues.
It was a green tweed suit and he was
carrying a silver topped cane. He looked a

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bit like a farmer to me - though where he
lived in the Loney Area of Belfast there
wasn't a blade of grass for over a mile. He
was wearing a green satin tie with a knot on
it which would have tied up an aircraft
carrier. He flipped quickly through the
prayer book - stopping every now and then to
sniff the way he did when he farted. He
handed it back to me.
"Who made the world?" he asked me.
"God made the world," I replied.
"How long did it take?"
"Seven days and seven nights."
"When was His day off?"
"God rested on a Sunday, Uncle
Francie."
"So He did, so He did," said Uncle
Francie delightedly - and he began to rattle
coins in his trouser pocket. My greedy
little ears pricked up.
"How many Gods are there in the one
God?"

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