Sunday
The road seemed to go downhill for miles, polished in sunlight,
between the long terraces of houses. Beyond it the next hill
towered; half-way up I could see Bucknall church among its
trees. That was near where we lived.
Apart from a man on a bicycle, wobbling wearily uphill, the
road was empty. He must be hot, I thought. Two children crossed
by the closed and shuttered butcher's shop. A dog wandered
senselessly from pavement to road, then back again; finally
flopped in the gutter, pink tongue hanging.
Sunday, mid-afternoon and we stood by the bus stop. No sign of
the bus, any bus. The ice-cream we were eating was so cooling in
the August heat. The ice-cream shop must have been the only one
open in Hanley on that Sunday afternoon in the mid-1930's.
Suddenly, in all that somnolent silence, Mother spoke. “I feel
so sinful,” she said, gazing at her ice-cream cornet.
You see we never bought anything, not even a newspaper, on
Sunday. Sunday was God's special day, a day for chapel, morning
and evening, for Sunday school morning and early afternoon.
And I had nagged and grizzled until she had gone into the ice-
cream shop.
I was eight. I felt guilty.
I still do.
Copyright © Bernard Gilhooly - All Rights Reserved
The road seemed to go downhill for miles, polished in sunlight,
between the long terraces of houses. Beyond it the next hill
towered; half-way up I could see Bucknall church among its
trees. That was near where we lived.
Apart from a man on a bicycle, wobbling wearily uphill, the
road was empty. He must be hot, I thought. Two children crossed
by the closed and shuttered butcher's shop. A dog wandered
senselessly from pavement to road, then back again; finally
flopped in the gutter, pink tongue hanging.
Sunday, mid-afternoon and we stood by the bus stop. No sign of
the bus, any bus. The ice-cream we were eating was so cooling in
the August heat. The ice-cream shop must have been the only one
open in Hanley on that Sunday afternoon in the mid-1930's.
Suddenly, in all that somnolent silence, Mother spoke. “I feel
so sinful,” she said, gazing at her ice-cream cornet.
You see we never bought anything, not even a newspaper, on
Sunday. Sunday was God's special day, a day for chapel, morning
and evening, for Sunday school morning and early afternoon.
And I had nagged and grizzled until she had gone into the ice-
cream shop.
I was eight. I felt guilty.
I still do.
Copyright © Bernard Gilhooly - All Rights Reserved
