Читать книгу The Boys of '93. Derry’s All-Ireland Kings онлайн

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After the initial terror, the family machine flicks to ‘on’, through the chemo and the sickness, the waiting and then the reprieve. He takes a holiday to the US and gets engaged to his partner Colette.

‘Engaged’, I congratulate him, ‘at your age, you fuckin’ eejit?’

‘I’m only fifty-eight. I’m thinking I might adopt a child.’ Turn of the head, not quite a flash but he’s still there with that brilliant grin.

Six months later, he feels lumps in his neck. ‘Stem cell treatment’, urge the doctors.

‘What if it doesn’t work?’ asks Mae but I shush her in irritation. It’s devastating what he’s had to go through but it’s not like he’s going to die.

On a perfect June GAA Sunday, I go to Casement to watch our team. At half time the announcer asks us to pray for ‘a great Derryman and Gael’. He’s in the City Hospital just down the road where I’m heading after the game. I tell his partner, his children and his sisters how they chanted his name around the ground but none of it really matters now, and the following day he dies.