The Dancer Nagels
By Ed Walsh
It’s twenty-eight years I’ve lived here on Aphra Street. Twenty-eight, coming up twenty-nine. I moved here on November 22, 1963, a Friday. Maybe I wouldn’t have remembered the date so precisely had it had not been the day that Oswald shot Kennedy, that was all people seemed to be talking about that day and for days afterwards. I’d been staying at the Melmoth on Cools Boulevard before that. I had a suite there, had room service, and views out across the river and toward the mountains. But after six months or so, and with my money running out of road, it was just getting too much. So, it seemed a bit of a come-down when I came here.
Apart from the Kennedy business, I remember the day because we had had a heatwave for a fortnight or so previous, and I had spent most of that time out on the balcony of the hotel, having cold beers brought up. But on the day of my move it was raining and the rain gave Aphra Street a desperate look, made it look like the sort of street where no one could live a civilised life; wet cobbles, wet bricks, wet people and not many of them. Mine was number 35 in the Benjamin Building, on the fifth floor, the fifth of eight. I remember thinking what the hell am I doing here; just what in the name of god; I’m making a big mistake. But everything was a big mistake then, everything I did, everything I touched; virtually everything I thought. My life was wrong.
I came up alone in the lift. When I turned the key, the place sounded like a jail, or like I imagined a jail might sound like, never having been in one. There was no furniture – I was waiting for it to be delivered through that week – and the place made an echo of every sound I made. With each move I made I could hear myself; so I was conscious of myself in that big empty room, on a street I didn’t know, in a different part of town from the ones I was used to.
I was from the Dempster district originally, about twelve miles over on the east. I was born and brought up there, although I hadn’t lived there for years, not since everything went crazy.
And my imagination went wild those first few days, when I was mainly alone; the people who thought I was good company when I lived at the Melmoth apparently changed their minds when I moved into Aphra Street; they couldn’t manage those extra miles. So, with not much else to distract me, I pictured the previous people, I mean the people who lived here previously. I don’t know why I say people, it might have been just one person, like me. You just imagine families, I suppose; they’re easier to imagine; too much to think about with just one person, there is a sadness attached to that picture.
This family I imagined eating at a big wooden table in the centre of the kitchen, or maybe in front of the television; that habit was just catching on then and people were saying it marked the end of civilisation. And I thought I even heard their voices; sometimes murmuring, sometimes loud. And I saw them. He usually had black hair, heavily oiled, and crazy eyes set deep into his head. He was thin through living on his nerves. He had some high-flying job but was always scared of losing it. She was a small busy woman who was concerned about their social status, and who complained about him smoking so much. I couldn’t get the kids focussed, I heard them in the background but they didn’t form any shape to me. Kids? Maybe they just had one; maybe they had several, all crowded into one bedroom. Anyway, when the furniture started to arrive, the previous people got crowded out, otherwise I could have ended up in the nuthouse. I was beginning to dislike the father, so I was glad when they went.
Now it’s different. The street has become popular and the place is worth at least ten times what I paid. There are cafes and small bars and people have moved here from the middle of
the city, those who can afford it. It’s a busy little area, and I like it like that. I cannot imagine living anywhere else now; this is home. Now, I know people. I don’t know people well; I don’t go to their places, and they don’t come to mine, I’m not that pally with anyone. But I know people well enough to pass the time. I don’t think anybody knows who I was; or they don’t say so if they do. Or maybe they do know and don’t care. Either way, I’m left to myself, and I like it that way. I like to have a few words with my neighbours on the street or on the stair, it reminds me I’m still alive, otherwise who else are they talking to?
From my window I can see The Dancer Nagels at the bottom end of the street. It’s a thirties-style corner bar, with windows looking out onto Cordwainer Low Road and Aphra. The regulars all have their times, I see them coming and going: there’s the afternoon drinkers, the lonely and habitual for whom the whole ritual seems like work not pleasure, they never look happy, solitary men at their duty. Then there are the after-work people - they come in from the offices and the industrial units off German Lane. They usually look happier, their day done and families to go back to; I’m guessing that, I don’t know. Then there are the mid-evening people, in just before or after dinner; some couples, but it’s not what you might think of as a couples type of place; it’s not rough, but it’s not what passes for elegant around here.
Two or three nights a week, I’m one of the late shift. I still have a pretty strict regime; I guess I still have habits from my training days. Up at six, a hundred press-ups, sixty sit-ups, a few weights. I use my spare room for all this activity, the one that is not my bedroom. It’s not so grand it can be called a gym, but it is big and it suits my purposes. I’ve got a bench and a treadmill, I don't bother with the bags now. I’m still in good shape for someone of my age, and it is sometimes commented on. The paper gets delivered between seven and half-past, and I read it, the sport mainly, while I have my breakfast which is always coffee and toast. Then I go out. I can't stand to stay in, no matter how the weather’s doing.
Aphra is on a south-north slope from the municipal park at the top end, down toward the port area, and I live roughly halfway, on the right as you go down. I like to go uphill first, up to the park. And even there I have a routine. I buy seed at the gate and walk round to the lake, about half-a-mile in. I feed the ducks and then wander past the bowling green and the tennis-courts – usually unused at that time – and then come out through the east gate onto Jamaica Drive. Then it's a two-mile walk down to the river, a right turn, and a walk along toward the docks. Once a week, at the junction of Jamaica and Cordwainers, I step into St. Barnabas and light candles, one each for my parents, both long gone, and one for Belmont Leroy Shapes. I don't have much in the way of beliefs but I like to sit there awhile and take it all in. I'm always there just after the service is done, when the incense is still in the air, and people are milling about, some still praying, others looking at the stuff on the walls, and women fussing about the altar. I like to sit in a place where things never change, because outside they seem to change too quick.
Then I come along Cordwainers toward the cranes and the docks. I like the atmosphere down there, the feeling of things happening, people going places even if I'm not. And I always call into Ford Fibb’s for a coffee. I have known Ford from my teenage years, we trained in the same gym, although he didn't have my ability and always stayed amateur. He still has a framed photo of himself on the back wall, though; peeking through his gloves in that old pose that I always refused to do. I couldn't stand that cliché and never posed like that, not when it became apparent that the people wanting me to do it needed me more than I needed them, and that was early on. And then on a mile or so and a right again onto Aphra at The Dancer Nagels. About two hours on average, more if the weather is warm – which here it usually is – less if it’s cold. The routine is pretty much the same even when Claudia is staying with me, one difference being that the dishes are done and the place is tidy when I go back. But Claudia sometimes has spells back with her husband. We aren't a permanent couple.
Anyway, to get to the main point, I’m the Nagels, as in Dancer Nagels – or was. I started as Francis Nagelman, then I became Frankie Nagels, Now I’m back to Francis Nagelman. In truth, I was always Francis Nagelman; only to people I didn’t really know was I Frankie Nagels. My family didn’t like it, and I wasn’t too fond myself. My family didn’t like what I did under Nagels. I was a boxer. Not only was I a boxer, I was a world champion, welterweight. For those who don't know the technical details of this sort of thing, there's no need to know. I was a world champion at a time when the was only one from each weight division. It meant something then.
The thing is, I come from a respectable family. We weren't rich, but we weren't poor, not like most of the people I got in the ring with; most of those boys came up in great poverty and could barely string two words together; they went back poverty when it was all over, too. My father, Horace Nagelman was a teacher, taught science at Cobham High. My mother, Dorothy Basie as she was before marrying, was a secretary there, that's how they met. She stopped working when she had my sister, Carmel, then came my brother, Alex. And then me, roughly two years between us all. Then my mother went back to work at the school when my dad died. I was ten at that time, so we were all in the same school, which made things easier from a practical point of view. And my dad, being an intelligent man, and knowing from his own family history that he might not last the distance, had made provision. So, even though he was gone, we didn't go without. It shook my mother up, though. Looking back on it, I don't think she ever got the joy back in her life, and me going into boxing didn't help.
Education was always the priority, which wasn't the case for some of the families around us. They were nice people for the most part, but the boys, my pals, were all going to follow their fathers into the docks or the munitions factory – they were the town's big employers. The girls would go into Mendelson's Cheeses or one of the shops until they got married, which was usually pretty quick. And it seemed as if it was all pretty much settled before they were born. That was not going to be the case for the Nagelman kids. My brother, Alex, is a high-flyer in the environment department; three kids and lives in an expensive place to the west. Carmel also went into teaching at Cobham, also science, until she married, which was only recently. She has one child. They both married solid people.
I was no slouch either when it came to schoolwork; the only things I wasn't good at were English and languages. I could rarely fathom out what was going on there. Compared to my brother though, I was a kid without ambition, or at least without any idea of what to do with my education once I got the grades. Alex knew the type of thing he wanted to do, and he did it. Maybe it was because of the fact that my dad died before he could have any great influence in that way, but when they used to ask me at school – what do you want to do, I had no idea and didn't know what to say. Or be, that was the one always baffled me – be. What do you want to be? It didn’t seem like the right kind of question somehow. I thought I was anyway. I could never think of anything, so I’d say lawyer or teacher or civil servant, all of which I could have been. But in truth, I had no idea. I just knew I wanted to stay away from the docks and the munitions factory.
That all changed – everything changed – the first time I put the gloves on and started hitting the bag. I was fourteen and had gone to James Loach’s Gym on Moore Street. I went there with my pal, Kester Lean, just to keep him company; he had been there for a couple of months and I just went out of curiosity, just to see what he was doing there. As soon as I walked in, I wanted to be involved. The place just seemed to be so busy, so full of purpose. There were things going on everywhere; kids were punching big leather bags hanging from the roof, they were rattling speedballs – although I didn't know then what they were called – they were skipping and dancing. Two kids were sparring in the big ring – I didn't even know it was called sparring then – and men were shouting encouragement and giving bits of esoteric advice. The strange thing was, there didn't seem to be any hint of violence in the place. I just saw dancing and skipping and took in the odour of oils. Then someone said did I want to give it a go, and I did. And that was it.
After a couple of visits – my family knew nothing about it at first, so long as my schoolwork was done my mother was pretty liberal - it become apparent to the people in the know that I had something; it wasn't strength, it wasn't a punch, but it was something to do with speed and movement and reflexes. The main man, James Loach, who himself had been a journeyman pro, took me under his wing, and after a couple of months it became obvious even to me that I had something. The first time I sparred was against a bigger and older kid. I’d watched him before and he had a punch that could hurt even through the headguard. But he couldn't get near me and I got a great thrill dancing around him and picking him off with left jabs. When we were told to stop, I could tell by the way James Loach and his trainers looked at each other that something might be happening here.
‘Boxing?’ My mother was far from happy when I told her where I'd been going on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. ‘You can forget that immediately, Francis. Not in this house. Can you imagine what your father would have said?’ I guess she had a picture in her head of imbeciles and thugs, of which there are a few, and a further picture of a bad end, of which there are also some. And yes, I could imagine what my father would have said; but the fact was, he wasn't around to say it, or to do anything about it, although I didn't refer to that fact of course. My brother and sister – Carmel was already at teacher-training college by then – also weighed in, although Alex thought it hilarious more than serious. But they talked my mother round and it was agreed that, so long as my schoolwork wasn't affected, I could go to the gym until I got tired of the whole thing, which they were sure would happen sooner rather than later. But it didn't happen, not for a long time, not until I regained the title.
And the fact was it didn't affect my schoolwork; I got good grades and could have gone on to university. But by that time I was winning amateur fights against fellows older than me. My mother was appalled; not only would she not come to any of the fights, she didn't want to know anything about them, wouldn't have any reference to boxing in the house. She would just give me a quick look up and down when I got back to make sure I was in one piece. The atmosphere got so bad that at nineteen I moved in with James Loach and his family, that being his wife, Lorrie, and their young kid. They were nice people and they lived in the same area, so it wasn't so much of a wrench; I would rather it hadn't happened but looking back, it could have been worse. I still kept in touch with everybody, and Lorrie tried to be like a mother to me. I still bump into her now and then.
So, life became a routine that revolved around the gym, and I loved it. And at eighteen I turned pro; signed a contract with a fellow called Ash Markey – a contact of James Loach. Mr Markey was a businessman who operated mainly in the clothing trade. But it seems he had a great interest in boxing and he had taken to signing up and promoting young kids who showed any promise in that direction. So, on James’s advice I signed up with him; I got a weekly wage and half of any winnings. Ash Markey took quite a cut in those early days, until I had the confidence to assert myself and renegotiate the deal more in my favour. But he seemed ok, although my direct dealings with him were few and far between. I certainly came across far worse people in the boxing business.
And it was just after signing the contract that I met Harlene, Harlene being Harlene Deiter. We had known each other at school, not particularly well but well enough to pass the time of day. So when we ran into each other at a dance we didn’t need any introduction. By then she was just finishing college and about to start medical training, she wanted to work as a paediatrician. She didn't believe me at first when I told her I was a boxer, in fact I could barely believe it myself when I said it. And things moved quickly between me and her, and we fell in love. Although she hated the idea of me boxing, by the time of my first pro fight, we were engaged to be married. She didn't come to the fight.
It was just before that that Markey and James got together and suggested that I change my name to Frankie Nagels. Apparently, they couldn’t see a Francis Nagelman winning titles, but they could see a Frankie Nagels. I had some doubts, for one thing I knew what my family would say, and they did say things. But I was more impressionable then and took more notice of the boxing people. So Frankie Nagels I became, although I never really felt like Frankie Nagels, to me it was a stage name. James called me Frankie in the gym and at fights. At other times it was Francis.
Over the space of the next two years, Frankie Nagels had fifteen fights and won them all, eight on unanimous decisions, one split decision, and six stoppages. And one thing we learned in that time, apart from the fact that I was very quick, was that I couldn’t take a punch. I was put down once, and twice I was caught and was rocking. It was nothing personal, some people seem able to take a punch and brush it off, others it goes straight to their legs and they are all over the place, and that was me. So, the tactic for me was not to get hit with anything big, one problem in that regard being that I didn’t like to keep my arms up. I don’t know what it was but it just didn’t feel right to have my gloves up around my face in that clichéd fashion; I liked to keep my hands up around my chest but no higher unless absolutely necessary, it was just too tiring to keep them up there. James and the boys would scream at me, Get your hands up, for Christ’s sake, Frankie, protect yourself. And at first I tried to comply but I just couldn’t get the hang of it. Besides which, I liked to dance around the ring, get my opponent to come after me, tire himself out. I knew I had a style which was different to anyone else I’d fought or seen. This was before Clay came along.
Another thing in those two years was that Harlene and I got married and I moved out of James and Lorrie’s house. And it was odd, Harlene loved me, I was sure of that, but she hated what I did. She wanted me to stop, and I kept saying I would when I made us enough money; she had started medical training by then, and we didn’t have a lot. Our families helped a bit, but they weren’t exactly rolling in it either. So my aim was to make as much as possible in a short time and emerge without my brains being minced.
Ash Markey was well known in the game and had contacts. When I was twenty-one and unbeaten in twenty-three bouts, he got me a crack at the American, Kelly Juppe; the winner to get a crack at the defending champion, Belmont Leroy Shapes. They called Juppe ‘The Ambulance’ because of the number of opponents he had sent to the hospital. I never liked that sort of thing, the nicknames which suggested extreme violence, the thing was dangerous enough without making it worse. And we – me, James and the corner-men - watched footage of Juppe from his previous three bouts. He was always at the top of the weight limit and was strong and had a frightening punch when it landed; he had won most of his fights on knock-outs or stoppages and seemed to have his opponents beat before they stepped into the ring. But we knew that if I could stay away from his right hand, I had a good chance. And that was the way it turned out.
We went out to a camp a month before the fight and that in itself was a new one for me. A camp, The Camp – a big converted barn with a motel-like arrangement around two sides – was at Lake Sevenhoe, about forty miles out of town. I had barely been more than ten miles from the place I was born, and Doe Park in Dempster was the nearest I got to rural. So to wake up each morning to those country sounds was quite something; in my rest time I'd sit on a bench by the lake and watch squirrels, and birds on the water, the names of which I had no idea about. And to be the focus of such attention was also quite something. There were seventeen people staying out there besides me and James Loach – trainers, a nutritionist, three sparring partners, two cooks, a lawyer, a doctor, people to clean and run around after me. What a lawyer was doing out there, I didn't bother asking. I was eating five meals day, chicken and fish and rice. I must have got through fifty tubs of chocolate ice-cream. And come the day of the fight, I felt like superman.
The fight itself was at a small stadium about another fifty miles on. We went down in an entourage, which made me feel even more important. There were four-thousand people there, including my brother, Alex. My mother was pretty ill at that stage and my sister was too nervous – neither of them ever saw me fight, which was a pity, because I danced to victory that night. Juppe came pounding around trying to fix me with haymakers and get the thing over early. But he rarely got anywhere near. I was too quick for him. When his headshots failed, he tried body shots, but I was always a step ahead. He was tiring by the fourth, and the longer it went on, the more desperate he became. It was easy to pick him off with jabs. I didn’t need to go near him. By the eighth, he was bleeding so badly from his left eye that the referee had to stop it.
James and the boys went berserk, but I took it easy, I had known by the end of the first that I would win, and was pretty sure by the end that I would win the title. So I was quite calm about the whole thing. The air of that evening still comes back to me at unexpected times; it is sweetened by honeysuckle. Other fights it was probably embrocation and hot dog relish. But that win over Juppe, it was honeysuckle at the end, and the cheers of the crowd.
It was after that fight that the papers started to write about me and, because of my style, started referring to me as Dancer Nagels. And that was quite something, to see that name in the back-page headlines; it wasn't my name, but it was me. I don't know what my mother thought of it, she died between me beating Juppe and fighting Shapes. I loved her very much and, despite our differences, I know she loved me. I went down to the funeral, spent a couple of hours with Harlene, who was by then pregnant, and then straight back to Camp to prepare for Shapes.
Shapes was good, he had to be, he was the world champion and back then that meant something. And he was confident; he was thirty and had a lot more experience than me, beaten only once and that was in his early days. He was also taller and heavier than me, although I never took much consideration of that kind of thing. You could tell at the weigh-in, though, that he thought he was going to have an easy night of it. He looked at me kind of disdainfully, but I just smiled at him and said good luck. Looking back, I don't know how I could have been so confident, but I was, I knew I could beat him.
And I did. He was different class to Juppe, had more of a strategy, didn't just swing for the head and hope for the best. He tried to crowd me out, cut off the corners and get in close. But I was too quick for him every time, could always dance my way out when he was trying to pin me on the ropes. It went the distance but for the last three rounds he was dead on his feet; his corner was screaming at him to land one, but even if he could hear them, he didn't have the strength. Although he still went through the routine of holding his arms up at the bell, I knew I had won and so did he. It was unanimous. I - Francis Nagelman, or Frankie Nagels, if we must - was welterweight champion of the world.
After the dressing room had calmed down, I rang Harlene and she congratulated me, although her tone had no joy in it. I told her that I’d be home the next day and, on the money I’d won, we would start looking for a good place to live. She said, ‘Does this mean you can stop now?’ I said ‘No, I have to defend the title. I have to give him the chance to win it back.’
‘And then you stop?’
‘Can’t we just enjoy this for a while, Harl? I don’t have a mark on me. Didn’t you watch it on TV?’
‘We have a baby on the way, Francis.’
‘I know that. Why do you think I’m doing this?’
But we both knew that wasn’t the reason I was doing this.
On the proceeds of the Shapes fight, we moved from our one-bedroomed place in Palatine Square over to three bedrooms in the Mannion area. It was set back off the street, had a big garden and Harlene was happy with it. And by the time of the Shapes rematch we had a daughter, who we called Dorothy after my mother.
And there is no getting away from the fact that in the fourteen months between the winning of the title and the defending of it, I lost the straight way, as Dante had put it; my dad had been big on Dante. I was news, and everybody seemed to know me. Temptations were put in front of me and I made little effort to resist them. And when I say temptations, I mean mainly women and drink; in fact, that’s all I mean. To put it crudely, I was a jerk. People bought me drinks, I drank them; women made themselves available to me, I availed myself of their availability. I was either at the gym, at the camp, or in a club. I spent so little time at home, my daughter cried whenever I went to pick her up. We rowed; Harlene saw pictures in the paper and didn’t like what she saw. It got so bad, she gave me an ultimatum – make the Shapes rematch the last, regardless of the result, or we come to some other arrangement. That was the way she put it – some other arrangement. So I said ok. I didn’t want to lose her.
In the six weeks before the rematch, I started taking things seriously and got down to real work. We knew that Shapes would be better prepared this time and would know what he was up against. We moved out to the camp and, in order to lose the few pounds I’d put on, we did a lot of roadwork and weights. Then it was sparring with people who could imitate the way Shapes fought. And the more we did it, the more confident I became that I would win again. I didn’t mention to anyone that, if I was to keep my word to my wife, this would be my last fight.
And up to the seventh round, everything was going according to the plan. He was quicker than in the first fight and was thinking about things more; he wasn’t wasting energy trying to put me away early. But, although I didn’t cut him, my jabs were winning points, and I knew I’d be ahead on the scorecards. My corner just kept telling me to keep doing what I was doing and to keep out of his way.
And then in the eighth it all changed. One moment I was jabbing and moving, jabbing and moving, the next I had no idea where I was. I was sitting and shouting up at James Loach and one of our corner men; I was shouting I'm ok, I'm ok. They were saying, You're not ok, kid. You're beat. He got you. I've seen the pictures since, I'm sitting on the canvas looking up at them, as if we're just having a chat in the park. It's not one of those dramatic shots where the man is lying on his back in that clichéd fashion, with his arms. But me, I was just sat on the canvas, and in the background, Shape’s team were holding him up and he had his arms raised and the crowd was going wild. I didn’t even feel any pain, then or later, except the pain of losing the title at the first defence.
So I went home to Mannion, and Harlene looked after me. Even though she hated the sport and understood nothing other than its violence, she knew I was wounded. She took good care of me, and my daughter started to be comfortable around me. I had made a lot of money from the fight, so we didn’t have to think too far into the future. It was nice, we spent time in the parks, cooked together, played with Dorothy. Harlene planned to go back to her training at some point, and that was fine by me.
Then after six weeks or so, I got a call from James, he wanted to know when we would be getting back into training. For what? I said. The rematch, he said. They will give you a rematch. They want a decider. He told me how much money was on offer and it was a lot, even more than the previous fight, and even though I was now the challenger. It should have been a dilemma, but it wasn’t. It caused problems. I told Harlene that, win lose or draw, this would definitely be the last, but she wasn’t interested; said I’d almost got killed last time, besides which, I’d already made a promise. So, I moved into the Melmoth for a few weeks before moving out to the Camp; no drink, no women, no temptations.
It was big news. We had TV crews at the camp at all hours, wanting to film me and wanting interviews. But I never liked that side of things, it all seemed unnecessary, I was a boxer, not a public speaker. Nowadays, everybody and his uncle seems to be on TV giving their opinions about the world. I got a reputation then as being arrogant, which wasn’t the case. I just had nothing to say to anybody.
Anyway, when the fight came around, I felt superhuman; I was fit beyond necessity and, although I knew it wouldn’t be a walkover, I was confident. I rang Harlene the night before and she wished me luck and I had a few words with Dorothy, none of which she could understand, but by then she knew my voice at least.
And as in the first two fights, things were going according to plan. I was dancing around him, picking him off with headshots, and he was trying to make the angles to land one. My corner was sounding confident. Then in the sixth, I jabbed him above the eye with my left, and his head rocked back for a brief moment; then it sprung forward as I was sending a right. It caught him on the up at the left side of his chin. At the instant of that impact, I knew that something of importance was being communicated through my glove, up my arm and into my heart. And that something was the end of Belmont Leroy Shape’s life.
I knew he was dead before he landed. His back hit the canvas first, then he bounced over and onto his right side. Blood spilled from his mouth and nose and spread along the canvas, and he was making no sound or movement. The referee didn’t bother to count, he just pushed me away and gestured for Shape’s team to come into the ring. They clambered in and slapped him around and gave him salts, but they knew what I had known as soon as that punch connected; their man was gone and he wasn't coming back. As we returned to the dressing-room, the place sounded like a church. Everybody knew something big had happened, and it wasn’t me regaining the title.
So that was it. I didn’t fight again. But nobody seemed to blame me. People who were against boxing blamed boxing, but they didn’t seem to blame me. Shape’s team and his family – he had two young kids – said it was nobody’s fault and that it could just as easily have happened the other way round, in fact was more likely given how different we were.
That was 1961, before I moved to Aphra. I was world champion, but my marriage was ended and I’d killed someone; accidentally maybe, but he remained dead. It was heavily featured in the news for a couple of days, but it was around the time of the Bay of Pigs, and Algeria, and the Eichmann Trial, so people had more important things to think about. Me and Harlene divorced soon after, and me and my daughter grew distant, although I always supported her financially. Harlene got married to a doctor and they themselves have two kids. And I am a grandfather – Dorothy also had a daughter. I go round to Harlene’s – she stayed at the place in Mannion – at Christmas and on the occasions of my granddaughter’s birthday. I’m always pleased to see her, and it’s all friendly enough, but it isn’t what you would call easy. My granddaughter calls me Francis, and so does my daughter. I don't feel like a relative of anybody there. It’s nice of them to ask me though, and I always take something round.
And I see my brother and sister now and again, nice people. But I suppose seeing my family is not part of my routine. I was yanked out of the normal rhythms of family life early and somehow haven’t been able to find a way back in. But that’s ok by me. My routines are as I have described. And in the Dancer Nagels, there is a framed picture of Frankie Nagels on one of the walls. But in there, if they call me anything, they call me Mr Nagelman. I don't suppose anyone in there knows who that Frankie Nagels is in the photograph. I suppose I’m one of them.
Ed Walsh is a writer of short fiction. He lives in the north-east of England.
