A Time to Dream by Kevin Penny (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📕

nose and skewed up into his left eyeball, almost ripping his eye out of its socket.
O’Flaherty jumped back and screamed. ‘Awrrrrrr...’ Instinctively, both hands went up to cover his eye. The knife fell with a clatter onto the cobble stoned floor of the alley.
Without wasting a second, Shaun scooped up both the knife and the bread. He ran from the alley as fast as his legs would take him.
O’Flaherty screamed after him.
‘You stupid bastard, I’ll kill you.’

***

Almost a year had passed since the unfortunate incident in the alley. Shaun knelt down beside his friend. His face looked pale and he refused to eat. He complained to Shaun about the cold.
‘You must try to eat, Dennis. You need to keep up your strength.’
The teenager shook his head. Shaun placed his hand on Dennis’s forehead; he was burning hot. Without doubt, his friend was gravely ill. Shaun knew he must do something quickly or Dennis could die. They were now into summer and Shaun pleaded with Dennis’s cousin, to take the young man home to his parents.
Shaun was finally on his own and desperately hungry. In a dead end alley, foraging in a garbage bin behind a respectable eating house, he was hoping to find something edible.
‘What might you be doing at that bin, young man?’
Shaun turned to find the chef observing him. His hand dived into the pocket containing the flick knife and he backed away from the bin. The chef was blocking his way out, his only escape route.
‘Would you like something to eat?’
Shaun was apprehensive, but nodded. His hand was still in his pocket.
‘Come inside with me, we’ll see what we can find for you.’
The chef produced a plate of left-overs. He pointed to a chair at the rear of the kitchen. ‘This should fill the empty spots. When you’ve finished, let’s talk about working for your meals, proper meals.’
Shaun wolfed down the food.
‘When I finish my shift, providing you’re interested, I will take you home with me where you can bathe and try on some of my son’s clean clothing. The owner will not allow you to work in the kitchen unless you are spotless. You can work as a dishwasher, three hours a day helping the kitchen hand. What do you say?’
‘That’s fine by me, I don’t mind a bit of work.’
Within weeks, the chef knew he had made a good choice. He provided Shaun with a bed at the back of his garage. For the next month, for regular meals, Shaun worked hard. He was eager to repay the man who had befriended him.
One Wednesday, the kitchen hand, Matthew O’Rielly, went on a drinking spree and failed to show for work.
‘Can you work his shift for me, Shaun?’ The chef asked.
It was a long day for Shaun but he worked with gusto, wanting to make an impression. For the next three days, Shaun took over for O’Rielly.
On Saturday night, at the end of the shift, Shaun received the appropriate pay. The desire for Africa still burnt bright in his mind and Shaun thought about the money he could save if he was the kitchen hand. Unfortunately, O’Rielly was back at work the next Monday morning.
Formulating in Shaun’s mind was a plan to dispose of O’Rielly. If only he could make that happen.
Purchasing a scarf, a cap and a pair of gloves from a charity clothing store, Shaun followed O’Rielly home after work each evening. Pulling the cap down close to his eyes and keeping the scarf high up on his neck, he remained well back so O’Rielly would not become suspicious. He soon got to know the kitchen hand’s every move.
For three nights in a row, Shaun got close to his intended victim; however, he couldn’t go through with his plan. On Friday evening, after work, Shaun lost sight of his prey when O’Rielly went into a nearby pub. Unsure, Shaun went in to check.
Never in his life had he stepped inside such an establishment. It was noisy and crowded. A group of men and women were over in one corner, singing to the accompaniment of an old out of tune squeeze box, in the hands of a bearded man. Shaun looked at the three sided bar thinking it was something out of the arc.
With his eyes wide open in awe, he watched a barman pour several glasses of ale and slosh them down in front of some patrons. Huge amounts of foam splashed onto the bar increasing the smell of alcohol and tobacco smoke. Badly in need of repair with nail heads exposed, the wooden pub floor was filthy. The air was oppressive. Overwhelmed, Shaun wanted out of there. He looked around and saw O’Rielly, drinking with another man at one end of the bar.
He was glad to be back outside and waited in a darkened doorway. It was almost closing time before O’Rielly left. Shaun followed close behind. Flushed with excitement, thinking of the life he could have in Africa, Shaun decided it was now or never.
Before O’Rielly reached his front stairs, Shaun removed the knife from his pocket and exposed the blade. Suddenly, his knees went weak. Fighting the urge to vomit, he stopped and leant against a street light pole, watching O’Rielly disappear into his house. Shaun was annoyed at himself for being weak and he slunk away into the night.

***

Shaun was happy several weeks’ later when good fortune smiled. O’Rielly disappeared and Shaun was offered the kitchen hand’s job, permanently.
Shaun saved his money and through hard work and diligence, he repaid the faith shown in him by the chef. The seasons passed and Shaun prospered. Shortly after his eighteenth birthday, he informed the chef of his desire to live and work in Africa. With the chef’s blessing and a beaming reference, Shaun applied at the Mariner’s Office for a job on a ship as a galley hand. He supplied the officer with his name and work experience.
‘Any ship plying the waters between Dublin and Africa,’ he informed the officer.
Shaun started training a replacement. Weeks passed before he was informed he had a job on a ship leaving the next day. One of the crew had suddenly taken sick. On a Thursday morning in midsummer, Shaun hurried down to the Mariner’s office to finalise the paperwork.
‘Be here no later than eighteen hundred hours,’ he was told. ‘You will be shown to your quarters, supplied with a work roster and briefed regarding your duties. The ship is docked down at pier six, ‘The Alistair,’ it sails tonight, at midnight.’
Shaun gathered his belongings from the rear of the chef’s garage, went for his last meal in Dublin, and caught a tramcar down to the dock.
Overcome by a burning desire to see his mother one last time before leaving, so he could tell her he would come back for her when he was settled in Africa, Shaun decided to go home. He remembered Thursday was her day off work. ‘I will visit her this afternoon, with plenty of time left to be back on board for the briefings.’
To save time, because it was a long walk to the old house, he caught a tramcar from the dock. He approached via the alley at the back of the house. The area was filthy. Garbage was scattered everywhere, blowing about in the breeze. Trash cans were out on the walkway behind the houses, ready for emptying. Most of them were full and overflowing. Some of them had already spewed their foul contents onto the ground, encouraging rats. Shaun smiled and shook his head. ‘It’s just as I remember.’
Unsure if his mother still lived there, Shaun stood in the alley for some time looking up at the house. Is she in good health? Is she sick? Has the drunken slob she married driven her to an early grave? He felt a pang of regret; to have made no contact with her in all this time was remiss of him. A burning desire to see her one more time before he departed, forced him to move.
Like a nervous soldier entering a minefield, Shaun walked up the few steps to the back door. It was unlocked.
He entered the house. There was no sign of his mother or stepfather. In the kitchen, empty bottles of beer were scattered on the table. The house looked filthy.
Walking down the hallway toward the front of the house, he heard the familiar creaking of floorboards with each step taken. Something was different from what he remembered; then it hit him, the offensive odour. Inside his mother’s bedroom, he saw an old photograph of her on the bureau, taken sometime before he was born. Picking up the old battered bronze frame, he studied the photo carefully. There was evidence of an attractive woman when she was younger. On impulse, he removed from its frame, the small photo, and stuffed it in his pocket.
Shaun heard the back door slam and the scraping of a chair on the floor. He walked back down the hallway toward the kitchen, hoping to see his mother.
In the kitchen, Arnold was sitting at the table, a fresh carton of beer in front of him. Smothered in grime, his clothes in disarray and decisively filthy, he was about to pour himself a drink. His face was red and like the house, he reeked of alcohol and cigarette tobacco.
‘Where’s my mother, Arnold?’
Arnold placed the bottle back on the table. He looked up at his stepson standing in the doorway.
‘Well, well, look who’s here? You’re too bloody late, she kicked it months ago.’
‘You - you - Jesus, are you saying my mother is dead?’
‘You’re bloody right she is you miserable little bastard.’
‘How did she die?’
‘Who cares?’
‘Where do you get money to live here and buy alcohol?’
There was a sneer on Arnold’s face.
‘You don’t know, do you?’
‘I don’t know what?’
‘About the money she saved.’
‘Huh? Waddya mean? Mum never got the chance to save money.’
‘Bullshit, she was saving for years to take you to Africa, that’s what she told me.’
Shaun’s jaw dropped.
‘How-how the hell did you get your hands on her savings?’
‘When she was dying, she told me to pay for her funeral and then give the rest of the money to you. She made me promise to look for you, before she would tell me where the money was hidden.’ Arnold smirked. ‘Can you believe that? I wouldn’t give you shit!’
Stunned and humiliated, Shaun became enraged. Without thinking, the knife was in his hand with the blade exposed.
He could see immediately the sight of the knife angered Arnold. Shaun was unprepared for what happened next. He watched Arnold push the chair backward and jump up. Grasping the neck of an empty beer bottle, fear gripped Shaun when Arnold smashed it against the side of the table, scattering glass over the floor. He pointed the sharp jagged edge of the bottle at his stepson.
‘Come on then you little shit. Let’s see how good you are.’ Arnold shouted, before lunging at his stepson.
Like a sprinter out of the blocks, Shaun moved