dECLAN'S sISTER, wENDY*

Declan Lamasery wore lift-shoes with braces and bundle-straps, to prevent him from caroming to one side. His father had gamey-legs, passing on the recessive gene to his son; and a split lip from excessive chewing. Declan smoke Cameo cigarettes and liked nothing better than a cheese sandwich with pat-butter and onion. He salted everything he ate, carrots, rutabaga, parsnips and calf’s liver, and preferred everything boiled in the same pot, ladling the simmer from the top with the cup of his tongue, feet shuffling beneath the bells of his trousers, an eye on the clock in case his mother was afoot. Declan’s sister, Wendy, ate cardboard and mock chicken, and chewed elastic bands and tubing, and chased the cat around the house, the bells of her pants cuffed with nip. Mr Lamasery drove his blue sedan into a lamppost, taking out a newspaper box, a stray and the man who made the ice at the outdoor rink. He exclaimed to the policeman, ‘I’ve got gamey-legs, for Christ’s sake, what’d you expect of me?’ Declan’s sister bundled the cat in a burlap shopping sac and buried it in the backyard under the juniper hedge.