‘He’s a cousin of yours, y'know" said his father that morning. “Who's that Dad?” The boy asked. His voice was muffled, it being stuffed with cornflakes .“Sean Bourke of course!” Answered his father. "And don't speak with your mouth full." The boy looked down at his bowl. "If I hadn't said a word he would've gotten narky over that. I can't win," he sighed. He lifted his head in time to hear his father say, “he's after helping a Russian spy to escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison in England. He seems to have gotten away with it too! " Is he from Limerick, Dad?" Johnny asked. “Yes", his father grunted from behind the paper. Then, after a long pause, "he's from Bengal Terrace, opposite the Graveyard”.
“Didja hear about the fella that got the Russian spy out of prison in England lads?" Willy asked in the yard at Eleven o'clock break. Before anyone could agree or disagree, Johnny piped up, “he’s my cousin”. "Sure” said John Fitz, sneering down at him through his glasses. “He is!” Johnny answered angrily. "My Dad said so this morning at breakfast . He's a distant cousin on Dad's side of the family”. The other tallish member of their gang (on whom so much depended when they were engaged in deadly battle against the boys in the class ahead, every Wednesday) said smiling "I'd say he's fairly distant all the same, eh?" “Well, kind of," Johnny agreed without much enthusiasm . Father Farquharson blew his whistle and the boys, chivvied by prefects, grudgingly formed lines to go into class. As he stood in his line, Johnny was lost in a world of his own, a habit that had made it's way onto several of his report cards. He was oblivious of his schoolmates roughly jostling each other. "I don't care," he said to himself. "I don't give a damn what anyone says. He's still my cousin."
Some years passed and Johnny, still in primary school, was busily developing a keen interest in sport. Rugby was his particular favorite, it being the school sport, and his older brother's forte (an important recommendation for anything as far as Johnny was concerned). The school’s rugby grounds were situated a mile or two outside the city and the boys would cycle out to them along a narrow country road chock-full of bends. This road was feared by local motorists because of the boys' erratic, high-spirited progress towards their beloved pitches (this crazy, fast and reckless cycle race was known to all and sundry as 'The Crescent Charge’).
Johnny was late leaving the school, which was to be found on the main street in the middle of town. He had been kept back for half an hour and made to write out lines for having talked in class. As he cycled slowly away from the school Johnny was not in a good mood. His leg still hurt from a knock he got in the match a few days beforehand and he was anticipating a chilly reception from the coach Father Hugo. "On the hand" he thought, "it could be a warm one. Too warm! I'll bet he makes me run around all the pitches an extra time for being late."
However, Johnny wasn't the type of lad to stay in a bad mood for very long. Boys of his age seldom are, and today's enemies become tomorrow's friends with amazing ease. Neasa Slattery waved hello to him as he went up O'Connell Avenue. He waved at her and roared "HOWIYA!" loudly, 'cos' he knew she would blush. He swerved wildly across the road in an effort to avoid Pompey, a huge white Pyrenean Mountain Sheepdog that belonged to one of the neighbours and was getting old. "Why don't people keep their dogs off the footpath" he thought as he navigated his way back from the centre of the road, trying all the while to ignore the irate drivers' shouts and hornblasts. He continued on his way, his spirits lifting with the exhiliration of a lively freewheel down Rosbrien Hill, and flashing past the last rows of houses before the country.
On turning the corner after the railway crossing Johnny looked up to see a fine, hefty sort of man with a stick and a dog walking towards him on the same side of the road. The boy smiled hello as he passed them, and then his gearbag fell off the back carrier. Johnny swore, managed to halt some yards up the road, and turned the bike around, hopping on one leg as he did so to keep his balance. The man had picked up his bag and walked towards him with an amused grin. "The spring on your carrier must be weak," he said pleasantly.
"Yerra 'tis a shitty carrier anyway." Johnny tried to hide his embarrasment by sounding tough as he jumped off the bike. The man's smile grew broader and his dog jumped up on it's hind legs, playfully pawing the boy's thigh. Johnny bent down and began to pat the dog's head and tickle it behind the ear. "He's nice and friendly," he said, looking up at the man towering over him. "He's never friendly to strangers," the man's voice sounded surprised. "I like animals. I get on well with them, unless they're in a bad mood. Then they bite you. I suppose it's their way of showing that they're pissed off," said Johnny matter-of-factly. "Do you live around here?" he asked the man. "Yes, in the cottage back there on the right," he pointed in the direction from which Johnny had just come. "What brings you out this road?" the man asked. "I play rugby in the grounds up the road," Johnny answered. " I'm on the school Under-10 Team," he added proudly, and then: "God, I'm late for practice . I'll be shot!" He jumped on the bike and tore off, steering with one hand and holding his kitbag with the other. "I'll be seeing you again so," the man called after him as he wobbled down the road. "Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we train," Johnny yelled back over his shoulder .
From then on Johnny would stop and chat for a little while with the man, if he saw him on his way to the Rugby grounds. He took to leaving school as early as possible in order to chat longer. They talked only of important things, such as the local soccer team's progress, the Spurs V Arsenal match next Saturday, how Johnny's Rugby team was doing, and the ways of dogs, cats and other animals; things that a small boy and a tired man felt they had in common. Never swapping names, they just chatted.
This acquaintanceship continued, barring holidays and the like for a year or so, until Johnny was old enough to go to Secondary school, which turned out to be the recently built comprehensive. It was an ultra-modern place with it's own Rugby pitches encircling the school.
Johnny was driving through town with his father on a rainy February day during his first year at the comprehensive. He hadn't seen the man since June of the previous year, when he and some friends had gone out to the Rugby grounds to play some soccer after their last end-of-term exam. The two of them had sat on a grassy ditch by the side of the road, drinking in the sunshine and gazing at the occasional passing car without too much curiosity as they chatted. After a while one of Johnny's friends, a lad with an English accent by the name of Niall, came back for him to tell him to hurry up as the game had started. As he said good luck to the man and was cycling off in pursuit, Johnny noticed that the man was staring thoughtfully at Niall's fast receding back.
A long line of cars was stopped at the traffic lights, like a shiny wet worm glistening darkly in the grey February light. In the front car Johnny's father turned to him smiling and said "aren't I a fierce,terrible driver?" Grinning at this old family joke, Johnny was about to contest the point but stopped as his eye was caught by a large figure in a raincoat standing at the traffic lights, apparently waiting for the lights to turn so that he could cross. "Dad," he cried excitedly, when he realized who it was. "That's the man I was telling you about. The fella I meet on the way to Rugby practice." The lights changed in his father's favour just then and the car surged forward. His father glanced to he left at the man as they passed by, thought for a moment, then stated: "That's Sean Bourke!" Johnny looked back through the wet windscreen, thinking that the water running down the glass made the diminishing figure look as though
it was melting. "So that's him. Sean Bourke. I knew that there was something about him, something different, special," he thought to himself.
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