endymion

Evening at the Chateau.

The mighty Heelers is in the hall.

He is engaged in an unaccustomed activity.

Cleaning.

If you look closely you can see he is scrubbing the ancient stonework with a cloth and soapy water.

There is a look of intense suffering on his handsome features.

A series of brown splotches are evenly spaced along the wall about waist high from the ground.

There is an unmistakeable trace of bitterness on the face of Ireland's greatest living poet.

The Mammy passes up the hall in search of a room with a television in it.

"What are you at?" quoth she in passing.

"Cleaning shite off the walls," answers her son pleasantly.

"You're joking me," sez the Mammy.

"Would I joke about a serious thing like that?" expostulateth the son.

"I don't know, would you?" persisteth she.

"Well do you think I'd be cleaning the walls for any other reason?" demandeth me.

The Mammy stared.

"Which of the little b------s did it?" she enquired after a moment.

The noble Heelers paused from his labours to contemplate.

"It might have been the baby," I mused. "Only the daubs are a bit high up. And look. They're evenly spaced. Whoever did this had an artistic streak.  The number one suspect would have been young Donald Coggins the neighbour's kid. He's got a finely honed sense of fun coupled to a taste for anarchism. Only he definitely wasn't here today. And I definitely would have noticed this if it was done yesterday. It's not the nieces. Little girls wouldn't do this. Erin's more into stealing perfume and Freya restrics her mischief to throwing my cups and CDs in the bin. That leaves the nephews. Any one of them would do it if they took the notion. Except John, the oldest. He'd level the place with a Star Wars blaster but he's gone past this sort of thing. I can't eliminate either of the other two on moral grounds. That is to say I don't think either of them would be morally opposed to splashing pooh on a wall. So take your pick. It was one or other of them."

The Mammy turned away.

"There's more up this end," she called. "Be sure not to miss it."

I was left alone.

"No greater love hath any man," I muttered bitterly, "than that he would clean pooh off a wall for his mother."