RODDY DOYLE

NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS

Roddy Doyle is the author of The Commitments

(1987), The Snapper (1990), The Van, shortlisted for
the Booker Prize in 1991, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha,
winner of the Booker Prize in 1993, and The Woman
Who Walked into Doors (1996). His latest novel is
A Star Called Henry (1999). He co-wrote the
screenplay for The Commitments, and wrote the
screenplays for The Snapper and The Van, and the
television series Family. He has also written two
plays, Brownbread (1987) and War (1989).

Open Door
NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS
First published by GemmaMedia in 2009.

GemmaMedia
230 Commercial Street
Boston MA 02109 USA
617 938 9833
www.gemmamedia.com

Copyright © 1999, 2009 Roddy Doyle.

This edition of Not Just for Christmas is published by arrangement with

New Island Books Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Cover design by Artmark

12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5

ISBN: 978-1-934848-02-9

Library of Congress Preassigned Control Number (PCN) applied for

OPEN DOOR SERIES

Patricia Scanlan
Series Editor
 C H A P TE R O N E

Danny Murphy was going to meet his

brother.
He wrote in his notebook: “Meeting
my brother at 8 o’clock.” He knew it
looked silly. “My brother” instead of
“Jimmy”, his brother’s name.
When he spoke to Jimmy on the
phone, two days ago, Jimmy had called
himself “Jim”. And their mother still
called him James. Jimmy or Jim or James.
Danny didn’t know what to call him.
He hadn’t seen or heard from Jimmy
in twenty years. More. Twenty-one years.
But then, two days ago, the phone rang.

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“Dad?”
His son, Little Dan, shouted from the
hall downstairs.
“Yes?” said Danny.
He was upstairs, shaving.
“Jim wants you,” said Little Dan.
Danny wiped his face with a towel as
he went down the stairs. He knew a few
men called Jim. So he didn’t know who
he’d be talking to when he picked up the
phone.
“Hello?”
“Danny?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Jim.”
Danny waited for more. He didn’t
know the voice.
“Jim, your brother.”
“Oh.”
That was all. “Oh.” Danny could think
of nothing else to say. No other words
came to him.
His brother spoke again.

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“How are you?” he asked.

“Fine,” said Danny. “Yourself?”
“Grand.”
“Good,” said Danny.
“So. Do you want to meet?”
“OK,” said Danny.
“For a pint or something.”
“OK.”
And now, here he was. It was two days
later and he was on his way to meet
Jimmy. His long-lost brother.
The bus was coming up to his parents’
house. It was the house he had grown up
in.
It was the house Danny and Jimmy
Murphy had grown up in.

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 C HA P T E R TW O

They were never apart, the Murphy

brothers. Jimmy was a year older than
Danny, so they weren’t twins. But they
were like twins. Everybody said it. Their
parents, their sisters, the neighbours.
They all said it. Even the O’Connor
sisters down the road said it, and they
were twins.
It wasn’t just because they were always
together. There was more to it than that.
They didn’t have to speak to each other.
That was it. One brother always knew
what the other one wanted or needed.
Danny would pass the salt to Jimmy just

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before Jimmy put his hand out for it.

Danny would pass the ball to Jimmy
without having to look first.
Once, a teacher was just about to
smack Jimmy for not having a red biro.
Then there was a knock on the classroom
door. And Danny walked in – with a red
biro. Most of the boys in the class clapped
but one or two started crying.
They were never apart. Through
primary school and secondary school,
they were always side by side. Games,
gangs, football, girls, Guinness – they
discovered them all together. They both
got Lego from Santa. They both got their
first kiss from the same girl. (Mind you,
so did every other boy in the parish.)
They got drunk together the first time.
They shared the same hangover the next
morning. They shared their money. They
shared their clothes. They shared their
lives.
They shared the same bed.

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“Go to sleep!” their mother shouted.

The kitchen was under the bedroom.
Her voice came through the floor-boards.
This happened when Jimmy was ten
and Danny was nine.
They put their heads under the
blankets so their mother wouldn’t hear
them laughing. And they met the smell
that had made them laugh in the first
place.
Jimmy’s farts were famous.
“Oh, God!”
Danny tried to get his head out from
under the blanket. But Jimmy wouldn’t let
him. He held Danny’s head down on the
mattress. Danny kicked and tried to get
away from Jimmy’s grip.
He could hear their mother.
“If I have to come up to you, there will
be two sorry boys in the Murphy house!”
Danny pushed and pulled but he
couldn’t move Jimmy. His neck was sore.
He couldn’t breathe. He had stopped

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laughing a long time ago. Jimmy’s fingers

were hurting his neck.
He tried to yell for his mother.