By Valerie Muriel Mckinley
Published: August 31, 2008
Updated: September 4, 2008 PrintEmail
I went to the little tearoom across the street from the courthouse after the sentencing. I was in desperate need of a cuppa, I thought I would treat myself to a scone with strawberry jam and fresh cream. I really needed some instant energy after all the trauma of the last months, not sleeping, wondering how on earth I would tell the kids. Telling them would take all the emotional energy I could muster tonight.
I had a quick look around the door before going in to order, I had a nasty vision of the others sitting there swigging tea back, chatting away like old friends. They weren’t, thank heavens.
Energy, huh! he had had plenty of that, I never kept him short, we always made up for the lost time he spent driving that bloody lorry from one end of the country to the other… He must have had the energy of a bull elephant and then some.
Randy, yeh! That should have been his bleeding name, not Howard, my God, definitely not Howard. I remember when I was expecting our Tommy, I bought this little book of names and their meanings, I looked Howard up, I’d smiled as I read it, thinking how true… that’s exactly what he is.
‘The guardian of the home.’
Yeh! I’m not kidding.
Some chuffing guardian he turned out to be…
Though when you think about it, he was that in a way wasn’t he? Only not just one home but three buggers and another three kids! greedy sod.
…Well, huh, he won’t have to bother guarding his next home will he eh? they’ll be plenty of those where he’s going…
