Breakfast on Pluto

Braden indicates that Irwin will be murdered later in the story. He shares that Terence wondered why Braden did not feel more empathy for Father Bernard and his suffering because Braden’s callousness was evident in his dirty letters and the scandal he caused in his small town.

All Braden ever wanted from Father Bernard was for the man to acknowledge him, and he confesses he has never bothered to think about the shame the priest might feel. Braden learns from his foster-sister Caroline (who always tried to be kind to him) that the priest provided additional money to their foster mother for his upkeep, and in a rage, Braden runs to Whiskers’ house to berate her for “cheating him” out of his inheritance. He wrecks the kitchen in front of Caroline’s new boyfriend, Frank, and even shouts at the neighbor O’Hare through the open window. He leaves Whiskers in tears, hugs Caroline, and takes 20 pounds from Frank, telling him he is a lucky man.

Still lightheaded from the argument, Braden goes to the church and into the confessional, expecting Father Bernard. When he realizes an unknown young priest is hearing confessions, he saunters out of the building, looking askance at the figure of Jesus on the cross.

After arriving in London, Braden becomes lost many times until he finds Piccadilly Circus, where he begins prostituting.

One of Braden’s first customers is Silky String, a suave elderly man who is clean and polite, as opposed to his other clients. He drives the car to a disused lot and, after Braden takes his clothes off, the man pulls out a ligature and attempts to strangle Braden while masturbating. Nearly losing consciousness, Braden manages to bite Silky String’s ear and scratch his face before running away. For months afterward, he suffers from trauma and fears other men. Despite his trepidation and frequent police raids, Braden continues to ply his trade. He can barely survive, and he notices he smells while sitting in an all-night café.

Braden obsesses over finding his birth mother in London and mistakes many women for her, trying to guess what she might look like 18 years later. In one of the cafes, he meets Bertie Wooster.

Bertie Wooster wears yellow clothes and performs music every Sunday morning at the Wheatsheaf Hotel. Braden believes he is not completely sane, but he likes Bertie anyway. He invites Braden to live with him: “Please say you will—Louise won’t mind!” (73). Without knowing who Louise is, Braden agrees, having tired of his life as an escort.

In Ireland, Charlie fights with Irwin about his involvement with the IRA, which he negates. However, after a man “came sailing down the river roped to a mattress with a six-inch nail hammered into his head” (75), two men recruit Irwin to go and kill two men in retaliation. A police officer soon unearths Irwin’s role in the plot and threatens him by targeting Charlie. Irwin finds himself stuck between the need to protect Charlie and the understanding that the IRA will kill him if he betrays them.

Charlie enters the National College of Art and Design and informs Braden over the phone.

A cockney voice narrates an evening out in a restaurant: People who waited all week to go out are enjoying their meals and drinks, but when an Irish bomb explodes, they are left wounded or dead. 

Braden joins Bertie at the Wheatsheaf Hotel, performing in women’s clothes and singing songs by Dusty Springfield, The Supremes, and Lulu. The crowd goes crazy, and Braden enjoys the moments in the spotlight. After the gigs, Bertie and Braden drink and have sex.

Louise, it turns out, is Bertie’s landlady, a woman whose young son was hit by a bus and died. Soon after Braden starts living with Bertie, Louise persuades Braden to wear the boy’s clothes, sit on her knee, and pretend to be her son. Braden agrees because she buys him cosmetics and does his hair, but also because he misses his own mother and likes to envision her in Louise.

One day, Bertie catches them in their role-play and is very hurt, exclaiming, “He’s not a schoolboy! He’s my girl and you have no right to be doing this to him!” (85). He leaves the house, and Braden never sees him again. Braden continues to role-play with Louise, but a tiny voice asks him why he would do that when his mother is more special.

Braden begins to roam the streets, thinking every woman in a housecoat or a headscarf is his mother, Eily Bergin. He cannot help his obsession.

Terence is Braden’s psychiatrist in a mental hospital. Braden misses him and his insights—for example, when he suggested Braden wants to become his mother because then she would always be around. When Terence left the hospital, Braden never connected with any of the other doctors.

Braden tells a story which may or may not be true (“You don’t believe me? Well, I’m sorry about that!” (89-90)): Terence visits him for a week one Christmas, and they “loved one another like any man and woman should.” A song by Laurel and Hardy disturbs Braden, who remembers it from his time in foster care.

On a warm night in Belfast, soldiers go out to a bar and meet a couple of local girls. They become inebriated, and the girls offer to continue drinking at a private party. In someone’s living room, four men kill the trapped soldiers and dump their bodies in a waste ground.

Terence used to tell Braden that he overthinks things. Yet Braden cannot help but ponder the unfairness of creating life, then not remaining to offer love and support. He misses his mother terribly and cannot find a way to fully exist without her.

Braden is back in Ireland in 1975 and wears a dress without regard to reactions. He has not been feeling well, but he claims he is not crazy. Braden is worried about Charlie, who is in a deep depression after Irwin’s death. She has left college, and she drinks vodka and never sleeps, so Braden takes care of her. Two men murdered Irwin after “everybody decided he had given enough information” (95). Braden mentions a girl named Martina and an incident.