My Little Green Psyche

 As I've recently discovered I'm pretty much 100% Irish. On a DNA level, at least. I'm made of Irish, and probably more so than your average Irish. My lot never left the Auld Sod until my parents did in the sixties, and I betrayed their youthful hopes and dreams by returning. My moving here THIRTEEN YEARS AGO turned out to be a homecoming. And yet, you've met me. I'm pretty fucking English. How does one  resolve this Anglo/Hibernian dichotomy? 

Well, last night my sub-conscience had a go. 

I'd been out shopping and, in the shopping centre, a tall, kindly Irishman held the door open for me. Double denim. Freddie Boswell hair. His family all trailed out with their shopping and, as we were going the same way, we formed an orderly crocodile: me and the patriarch at the head, the mum and kids following on behind. At one point the mum's bag became too heavy for her, and I took it off her, even though the double denim dad was carrying nothing. "His back," she hissed. 

I ended up escorting them back to their house, and the dad invited me in for a drink and, as it's a weakness of my race, I readily agreed. He disappeared into the house. I was about to follow, when I noticed my watch (I don't have a watch) and realised I was late for dinner with Susan, so I told the wife I'd have to take a rain-check, an expression she'd never heard before. 

"He'll be awful disappointed." she said. 

"No. He won't, will he?" 

"He will. He thought he'd made a friend. He's been awful low, lately."

"I'm sorry..."

"Would you write him a wee note, just?" She hands me a bookie's pen and a scrap of paper, and I hand her the shopping bags, and scratch down a message about how pleasant it was to see him. He appears in the doorway, beaming, and I shyly hand him the paper. He beams. Tears roll down his rosy cheeks, and I say goodbye. I look round for my shopping bag. 

"Where's my shopping?" I say. 

"I wouldn't know about that, now," he says, "where did you last have it?" 

"Just now. I gave it to your wife to hold."

"You gave me my shopping. Remember? You carried it for me."

"I gave you mine as well."

"No."

"Perhaps the kids have it," he says, as my cheeks pink and my stomach lurches. I'm sensing I've been shaken down. "KIDS!"

They traipse, with a slovenly coolness, from the house, lining along the garden wall, as though this is a well practiced drill. It's the first time I've seen them properly.

 Every one of them has my face.

Well now, Dr Freud, pick the bones out of that one. One thing, though, seems certain - I've watched The Twilight Zone before. Rod O' Serling would be all over this shit.