Patsy McGarry: In a Word

I was never any good at cards, playing cards that is. Which is surprising, because I grew up in a house where there was murder every Sunday night over games of 25. Rows were regular and, once or twice, a disgruntled player would upend the table when trumped.

(Please note the small “t”! No one would have imagined in those more innocent days of a different millennium that the word “trump” might assume a more grotesque meaning).

Worse than being hit by a trump card was having to contend with a bad player. Such could provoke torrents of expletive-ridden abuse, insults, and finally bitterly expressed humiliation. This was usually followed by a heavy silence as tension dominated while all awaited the offender’s response. It could go any way.

It might be remorse and an expression of sorrow, or could compound the injury by adding to it. The latter was usually followed by the poor player’s dramatic exit, trailing recrimination as the other turned on the offender and a curtain was brought down on that Sunday game for another week.

In such ways was the Sabbath kept holy in our house as we kids struggled to sleep against a background cacophony of arrhythmic sound which was every bit as discordant as any symphony by the early Shostakovich.

Maybe it’s why I had never any interest in cards.

There was also the unpalatable fact that we kids were put to bed that bit earlier on Sunday nights as we had school the next morning (official explanation) and the card players were due (real reason).

It meant we missed the excitement of those grand fallings-out, details of which we could glean only through what we might hear. Occasionally we would hug the room door, the better to pick up what was going on, only then to be given away by Ranger our dog who would leave his spot in the kitchen to betray us with a lick, as he sought our closer acquaintance through the keyhole.

This was always our signal to rush back to bed because, surely as cards meant a row, one or other of our parents would come to chastise us for not being asleep. It wasn’t easy being us.

Card from Middle French carte, from Latin charta meaning "a leaf of paper" and Greek khartes, "a layer of papyrus".

inaword@irishtimes.com