It's a delicate and dangerous situation. My eldest daughter's hovering, offering help. Wife has made no secret of her hunger. Mother and daughter are Spanish, food connoisseurs and a tough audience. My shepherd’s pie is fortified with anxiety. The phone rings, I dive, find the cable, reel it in, answer. The silence was there for our newborn to sleep in. I fear wrath. "Hello," I say to the lunatic who shattered our routine evening calm. The voice is weak and distant, "Roddy?"
"Mum, I'll call you straight back."

My mother does not call me. Scenarios are flashing across my mind's screen. I'm trying to anticipate what the problem is. I dial the thirteen digits rapidly and in Dublin, a phone starts to ring. I am the one who calls my mother, mainly for financial reasons but also because she doesn’t want to be a bother, to intrude. We have our own lives now, she says, and she keeps herself busy, she says and she's grand. The third ring. Sometimes when I call her she says, 'if you didn't ring me I think I'd forget how to talk!' Then she laughs. Five rings becomes seven. Come on woman, you knew I was calling back. The light tightness in my chest is now outdone by the churning of my lower stomach. I move some CD's and sit on the kitchen bench. It’s cluttered with plastic bags, cushions, an ashtray and a pile of correspondence to be gone through when there’s time.

She answers. "Mum, what's wrong?"
"Oh God,” she pauses, I hear her adjust and compose. “Well, I was out in the front garden, it was sunny and I thought 'I'm gonna go out now, it's good for the arthritis.' So I was clipping the grass along the flower bed because I noticed it was awful rough lookin'." My jaws begin locking together. "And I had a funny feeling, so I just checked that I'd locked the car. I said to myself "now Anne, don't be silly, the Lord's protecting you, so I just said a wee prayer." The word summary is unknown to my mother. "And it was funny because Siran next door was only saying at the weekend, 'you’re great Anne to be living on your own' and I said to her, ' sure stop, you just get on with it!" I’m now grinding my teeth. "Mum, what happened?" Instead of cutting the superfluous she speeds up to squeeze it in.

"I went into the house to get a fag and I thought I saw someone coming up the drive out the corner of me eye - no - I heard the gate open and I turned and saw a shadow pass the window – that’s it. So I thought it was the local paper delivery or somethin'.” She can speak while she inhales. “I don't know what possessed me but I thought, ‘check the kitchen Anne’. So I went in and wasn’t the back door open and a man standing there!" My right hand shoots to forehead. "And Roddy I just screamed 'Oh my God.'” She pauses for affect. “He ran off, thanks be to God."

I’m stuck by guilt with the ferocity of a kick in the bollix. "Oh Jesus. Mum I'm sorry. Are you okay?" I live abroad; if I’d been there …"I'm fine now, just a bit shaken up. But at the time, Jaysus, Mary and Joseph, I nearly died. As Siran said, I could have been killed." The guilty dagger is turned in my side. It emerges that she called the Gardai. "And when they asked me if anything was missing that's when I found the bag was gone."
"Oh Ma, did you have much in it?" She'd just been to get cash for bills and shopping, over a hundred Euros in total. I tell her I'll send the money (the brother has already sorted it). I ask if she got a look at the guy, she confirms my fears, "It was the same face I saw in the window."

The face in the window popped up one night. It was a freckled face belonging to a man in his early twenties. The face saw my mother in her kitchen and legged it. He came back even though she could recognise him, describe him. That meant he didn't care about getting caught. He'd done well cash-wise. He’d come back because she was a soft target and now he thought her a lucrative one. She nervously reassures me. She says she’s fine. She celebrates her neighbours who keep an eye out. We stay on the phone until her speech slows and sleep seems possible for her.

I call my brother immediately. He's seen 'Goodfellas' over a dozen times. I know he's pointing at the mirror, weaving threats and bravado into a speech. He'll be planning to go over there and 'sort' the burglar. Afterwards he'll need to say something cool, something to repeat down the pub. He'll know who did the robbery. People talk in my hometown. I don't share my brother's faith in his ability to 'sort' and successfully intimidate. In fact, I’m no fan of intimidation as a behaviour adjustment tool. Even if he does succeed, I'm sure the guy has family too. I visualise big brothers, fathers, uncles, reprisals, a feud, Palestine. Sure enough, when I call my brother's preparing for Jihad.

He knows the guys name - Wayne Clark. The Clarks, it seems, are pariahs in a town of undesirables. I manage to talk my brother down. I use our father as an anti-example. I explain our need to be calm, to put Mum's security above our bruised egos. Finally, I resort to emotional blackmail - he’s still trying to make amends for recent history. We hang up on relatively good terms. Wayne will definitely visit my mother again. What can I do about it? I call the Man.

“Hello.” His tone says ‘who’s askin’?’
“Mr. Hincy,“ the ice melts, I hear his chuckle, high-pitched compared with spoken baritone, “Mr. Lyons! How the devil are ya?” We ask after families, he wonders if I’ve seen Cheney and Kealy. Normally, I have a couple of anecdotes ready to make him laugh and show my life’s still interesting. Today, I deviate: “I’ve got a bit of a situation.” His tone changes back to suspicious business man, “oh yeah?”

Suddenly, I'm Marlow giving a case summary: "Me Ma's had a unexpected visitor - broad daylight - snatched her bag. He's visited before – the purse contained quite a bit of candy - I'm expecting a comeback." There are a few moments of silence. I hear bristling near the receiver, I can almost see him scratch his goatee. "Do we know the visitor?"
"Yeah. I should be able to procure an address to go with a name - but I need to do it subtly - my source can't know I'm interested - in case he rides in to save the day."
"We’re talkin’ about the brother?"
"Indeed," I begin to listen to myself.
"I understand your reservations."
"We can't risk reprisals." I realise I'm enjoying this role, doing what I’d rebuked my brother for. "Look Sean," we never use Christian names, "The ‘fuck ‘em or fight ‘em’ days are behind us. We’ve got kids now. I don’t wanna gangsta up here. I'm worried about me Ma. If I thought the cops would scare this lad off, I'd have called already. I'm coming back for a few days, beyond that I know nothing. Me Ma's afraid, Sean. It's no way to live." I stop, realising I rarely speak to the Man with my own voice. There’s a silence before he speaks. "Listen, whatever's gonna be done, it’ll be done for the best. Call me when you’re in town. Until then, peace in your household Mr. Lyons."

I ring the low fares airline for a last minute ticket. They charge me a fortune. Three days later I touch down in Dublin, my baggage awaits me. My brother was to meet me, but is nowhere to be seen. I decide to search for him in the bar. The first pint in the airport bar is a personal tradition. Though the Guinness is better in real pubs, this is the initial anointing. It's special despite the quality, like a first kiss. My brother sits in the bar - a pint is waiting for me - a fine portent for the trip. First the obligatory half-handshake, half-hug, then to business.

The first gulp is instant intoxication. The bitterness is tempered by body. It is cream, not water, I remember why it's called stout. With each first pint I forget the begruders, the insincerity and consider moving back from London. My brother is framed by the main décor feature, a wall of green light which suits his pale complexion. I inspect him during darting glances. He hasn't so much aged as merged with the Irish Building Class. His face has become more circular. The jaw, which narrows to a point, has turned stubble grey. His head is topped by a wholly hat - dark and light blue - Dublin's colours. Gnarled fingers display hammer hits, saw snags, each obtained with a shouted obscenity. He is a man now, and more then that, an Irish Working Man.

“Christ that’s good,” I exhale, lowering the glass.
“Taking the Lord’s name in vain,” says my brother, pointing his finger but not risking backing the admonition with eye contact. He’s recently re-found religion. There’s more rejoicing in heaven over the recovered soul then the ninety-nine sorted ones, but does that apply to repeat offenders? My brother’s been saved and resaved like a word processor document.

“Sorry about the delay,” I offer.
“No probs, I got to have my first quiet pint in four years. I nearly didn’t recognise ya, that’s some yoke you’re wearin.’” He touches my long denim coat (which I love). “And you could do with an aul haircut, you’re startin’ to look me Ma.”
“How is she?”
“Shittin’ herself. I’m trying to make it over every couple of days. I appreciated what you said about not going through with that thing. It’s probably best to leave it alone but when I first heard I just wanted to…” His chest pumps up with wind. He exhales and takes a fierce gulp of black stuff.

“On the bright side, I’m making time to see her now. Normally I just get caught up in me days. I get the kids ready for school and have to shout them out the door, then I go to work and get shouted at for being late.” His right hand dances with his words. “The evenings are just a blur. Ideally she’d come over to us, but you know me Ma.”
“I know me Ma.”
“I get to take Gavin to football on Wednesdays. I’m still helpin’ out with the coaching.” I nod, he doesn’t get interrupted. He glances, sees I’m still looking at him, listening to him. He looks towards the bar as he continues. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s busy and mad but I love it. Everything’s changed.”
“Ma’s been telling me how you’re working. She says your being a great Dad. Fair play to ya.” He shifts in his seat, rubs the outside of his glass. The silence weighs heavier on him than the compliment. My family avoids talking by chatting. So today we chat about the neutral ground of being fathers.

“They’re cheeky little fuckers, especially herself.” I smile at the reference to his wife. “I had to laugh yesterday. Gav’s been wetting the bed, which isn’t on at nine years old, and then a few weeks ago, he stopped. We’d said to him that if he wanted a bike for his birthday then he’d have to be a good boy and go in the toilet. So he just stopped. Three weeks and no problem. We were all, ‘good man Gav, you’re being a big boy now.’ Then yesterday I was getting ready for work and I caught him emptying a glass into the toilet.”
“He’d pissed in it?”
“Yeah. Karen was like,” his voice becomes nasal and caustic to imitate his wife, “‘I’ll kill the little bastard’, but I couldn’t say anything, I was worse at his age. I used glasses, cups, bowls, whatever came to hand. One time, when we lived in Laurel Avenue, I didn’t have anything. I was burstin’ in the middle of the night and the light was off in the hall. There was no way I was going downstairs in the dark - so I used the only thing I could find…do you remember that Child of Prague statue we had? It was hollow, so I thought I could turn it upside down, use it and then pour the piss out the window. But didn’t it only have a hole in the top? I had to sling the lad out the window mid-flow. I was praying no one would see me.”
“Not to the Child of Prague I hope.”
“I cleaned it up with one of your socks.” We laugh. Then there’s another silence. He shifts in his seat like his caste doesn’t allow him to be in here. He nurses his second pint while I have a third.

He drives us towards my mother’s playing an Elvis CD for my benefit. We pass through a modern European city. I left only five years ago yet I feel like a foreigner today. We bypass Blackrock, drive through Dun Laoghaire. Our Father, who art incommunicado, jumped the boat to London here, aged twelve. His father saw no reason to pursue him - there were many children to feed in the house. I don’t think of me Da often, it’s been several years since we’ve spoken. We drive up the noggin hill past the Deer Hunter pub (I wonder if the second ‘e’ in the sign is still broken, but it’s not lit up yet). Soon we drive along a row of large semi-detached houses facing a green space. The palm tree and red brick wall I helped my father build mark my mother’s house.

We pull up. I’m already dreading leaving. She will become used to my being there, ‘I have no problem sleeping when you’re here,’ she’ll say. She’s out of the house before I’ve gotten my bag. Here she is, running down the short drive, her head heavy with hair. She still tints it ash brown. If her hairs a lie then her face is the truth. The skin looks like it was made for a head two sizes bigger, like it shrunk from all the washing. She’s running, propelled by enthusiasm, dentures fanned in broad smile, heavy eyelids peeled back. She running like a child towards a generous uncle. I was received like this every weekend when I came home from college. Before I’d arrive I’d fear the time of departure - the weight of the last few hours. I’d make conversation, distract her. She’d suppress tears, I’d promise to ring. Embraces, restraint. I’d walk down the green to the bus stop. I’d turn, each time hoping that she’d have moved away from the window – but she’d still be there, waving, teasing out the moment of sorrow. She’d wave, like the lights were being turned off and only re-lit upon my return. And worse, given the financial position, I suspect this was the case.

She runs and I find myself making a face I use with my baby. We hug. She’s lingers in the embrace. “It’s so good that you’re here. It’s been so long.”
“Let’s get inside.” I say, picking up my bag, turning her. She hardly notices my brother leaving. The arch of her back has grown. She now stoops from her shoulder blades under the weight of steel wool brown hair. Frosted rectangles have appeared at the bottom of her glasses. She wears a budgie-yellow jumper and grey tracksuit bottoms. “Are you hungry son?”
“A little,” her question’s superfluous, eating is inevitable.
“The Southern fried chicken is in the oven. We’ll have it with potato wedges and some stir-fried veg?” The freezer provideth. A current of tea begins to ebb and flow (as always).
“So how’s the little one?” I wonder if me Ma will grasp my daughter’s name before her first step.
“She’s growing like mad, smiling lots, trying to eat her toes.”
“Ah brilliant. Thanks a million for the pictures. Speaking of pictures…” she drops her head and chases it towards the door, disappearing into the dining room. She returns with a framed picture. Herself, my brothers and their families smile at me. “That was the sixtieth.”
“Oh lovely…sorry I couldn’t be there mum.”
"That's no problem, you have your own life now.” She turns to the oven. “I think now, in-the-name-of-God, that chicken needs another few minutes - I'm gonna run to the loo."

I didn't travel back for her last birthday. I didn’t know it was her sixtieth. Perhaps she mentioned it months before during the medical-card-renewal-drama. I seem to remember that now. Everything in the large kitchen is in its place. The yellow walls and oak-finished kitchen gleam hygienically. I, however, know that the small mats on lino floor conceal cigarette burns.

I had cobbled together a birthday present. It happened that I sent it late. Perhaps I should simply say 'I sent it late.' Her large white fridge-freezer is occupied by rows of novelty magnets, presents from her family’s holidays. I recall her vexation at an infant nephew playing with them lest they scratched the surface. On the day of her birthday I’d been busy. I didn't ring 'till four in the afternoon. ‘I'm going over to your brother's house,’ she said, ‘and because you hadn't rang I was expecting you to be there and surprise me.’

The dishwasher hasn’t worked in years, but it would leave an ugly gap, so it remains a plumbed-in cupboard. I realise now that I boycotted her birthday. My baby's almost six months old and Mother's only seen her once. She wants my whole family to move to her. We have jobs, baby routines and no money. She has her car and her garden. I realise that I’ve been angry with her. Looking at the festivities in the photo that anger is overpowered by guilt. I stand to look out the window – concrete slabs, gnome-heavy decorative pond and a multi-coloured orgy of plants. It’s the window in which the freckled face appeared. She returns from the loo and lights up. Through a cloud of Silkcut smoke the chat continues.

We eat, I refuse a yogurt, accept tea. I've been followed all day by a warm odor of T-shirt that's been left in the washing machine overnight. It's the smell of rain after days of sun with a touch of used socks thrown in. “Ma, I could do with a shower.”
”No problem, I’ve the heating on.” This is part of the fattened calf treatment, I suspect she economically freezes on her own. “I’ve left a towel out for you, the blue one.” I remember the pink towel with the sad clown’s face - draped over the towel rail for aesthetic purposes only. I walk up creaking stairs that I used to devour four-at-a-time. We moved here twenty years ago from a three-story corporation house (which still stands under the threat of demotion as it did then). We were part of the working-and-signing-on class. We brought our ways with us to semidetached suburbia.

The bathroom’s décor pounced, threatening migraine. The turquoise bathroom suite was there when we moved in. It’s now complemented by light pink walls. A doll wearing pink hides a toilet roll under her dress. The medicine cabinet above the sink has a reflection in it. Over the years a similar reflection had responded to my stares. Here I’d soliloquized, acted out scenarios, practiced chat up lines, given interviews, squeezed spots and cock into the sink. I undress, conscious of my slight form. I used to be beefy from lifting weights. I think about this. Maybe I no longer feel the need for meat mass for defensive purposes? My wife says I did it to get women and I don’t make the effort for her. After showering I meticulously clean and dry the tiles to my mother’s specification (which I remember from the old days). Hours pass and the kettle seldom cools. I call Hincy, we arrange to meet in Town. As I leave, walking down the green space towards the bus stop, Ma stays at the window waving until I’m out of sight.