Paddy and I leave together. I'm bursting and run behind a garage to pee. Paddy is waiting for me and as we walk along Hartstonge Street he says, That was a powerful sangwidge, Frankie, an' him an' his mother is very holy but I wouldn't want to go to Fintan's flat anymore because he's very odd, isn't he, Frankie?
He is, Paddy.
The way he looks at it when you take it out, that's odd, isn't it, Frankie?
'Tis, Paddy.
A few days later Paddy whispers, Fintan Slattery said we could come to his flat at lunchtime. His mother won't be there and she leaves his lunch for him. He might give us some too and he has lovely milk. Will we go?
Fintan sits two rows from us. He knows what Paddy is saying to me and he moves his eyebrows up and down as if to say, Will you come? I whisper yes to Paddy and he nods to Fintan and the master barks at us to stop waggling our eyebrows and our lips or the ash plant will sing across our backsides.
Boys in the schoolyard see the three of us walk out and they pass remarks. Oh, Gawd, look at Fintan and his ingles. Paddy says, Fintan, what's an ingle? and Fintan says it's just a boy from olden times who sits in a corner, that's all. He tells us sit at the table in his kitchen and we can read his comic books if we like, Film Fun, the Beano, the Dandy, or the religious magazines or his mother's romance magazines, the Miracle and the Oracle, which always have stories about factory girls who are poor but beautiful in love with sons of earls and vice versa and the factory girl ends up throwing herself into the Thames with the hopelessness only to be rescued by a passing carpenter who is poor but honest and will love the factory girl for her own humble self though it turns out the passing carpenter is really the son of a duke, which is much higher than an earl, so that now the poor factory girl is a duchess and can look down her nose at the earl who spurned her because she's happy tending her roses on her twelve-thousand-acre estate in Shropshire and being kind to her poor old mother, who refuses to leave her humble little cottage for all the money in the world.
Paddy says, I don't want to read nothing, it's all a cod, all them stories. Fintan removes the cloth covering his sandwich and glass of milk. The milk looks creamy and cool and delicious and the sandwich bread is almost as white. Paddy says, Is that a ham sangwidge? and Fintan says, 'Tis. Paddy says, That's a lovely looking sangwidge and is there mustard on it? Fintan nods and slices the sandwich in two. Mustard seeps out. He licks it off his fingers and takes a nice mouthful of milk. He cuts the sandwich again into quarters, eighths, sixteenths, takes The Little Messenger of the Sacred Heart from the pile of magazines and reads while he eats his sandwich bits and drinks his milk and Paddy and I look at him and I know Paddy is wondering what we're doing here at all, at all, because that's what I'm wondering myself hoping Fintan will pass over the plate to us but he doesn't, he finishes the milk, leaves bits of sandwich on the plate, covers it with the cloth and wipes his lips in his dainty way, lowers his head, blesses himself and says grace after meals and, God, we'll be late for school, and blesses himself again on the way out with holy water from the little china font hanging by the door with the little image of the Virgin Mary showing her heart and pointing at it with two fingers as if we couldn't make it out for ourselves.
It's too late for Paddy and me to run and get the bun and milk from Nellie Ahearn and I don't know how I'm going to last from now till I can run home after school and get a piece of bread. Paddy stops at the school gate. He says, I can't go in there starving with the hunger. I'd fall asleep and Dotty'd kill me.
Fintan is anxious. Come on, come on, we'll be late. Come on, Francis, hurry up.
I'm not going in, Fintan. You had your lunch. We had nothing.
Paddy explodes You're a feckin' chancer, Fintan. That's what you are an' a feckin' begrudger too with your feckin' sangwidge an' your feckin' Sacred Heart of Jesus on the wall an' your feckin' holy water. You can kiss my arse, Fintan.
Oh, Patrick.
Oh, Patrick my feckin' arse, Fintan. Come on, Frankie.
Fintan runs into school and Paddy and I make our way to an orchard in Ballinacurra. We climb a wall and a fierce dog comes at us till Paddy talks to him and tells him he's a good dog and we're hungry and go home to your mother. The dog licks Paddy's face and trots away waving his tail and Paddy is delighted with himself. We stuff apples into our shirts till we can barely get back over the wall to run into a long field and sit under a hedge eating the apples till we can't swallow another bit and we stick our faces into a stream for the lovely cool water. Then we run to opposite ends of a ditch to shit and wipe ourselves with grass and thick leaves. Paddy is squatting and saying, There's nothing in the world like a good feed of apples, a drink of water and a good shit, better than any sangwidge of cheese and mustard and Dotty O'Neill can shove his apple up his arse.
There are three cows in a field with their heads over a stone wall and they say moo to us. Paddy says, Bejasus, 'tis milkin' time, and he's over the wall, stretched on his back under a cow with her big udder hanging into his face. He pulls on a teat and squirts milk into his mouth. He stops squirting and says, Come on, Frankie, fresh milk. 'Tis lovely. Get that other cow, they're all ready for the milkin'.
I get under the cow and pull on a teat but she kicks and moves and I'm sure she's going to kill me. Paddy comes over and shows me how to do it, pull hard and straight and the milk comes out in a powerful stream. The two of us lie under the one cow and we're having a great time filling ourselves with milk when there's a roar and there's a man with a stick charging across the field. We're over the wall in a minute and he can't follow us because of his rubber boots. He stands at the wall and shakes his stick and shouts that if he ever catches us we'll have the length of his boot up our arses and we laugh because we're out of harm's way and I'm wondering why anyone should be hungry in a world full of milk and apples.
It's all right for Paddy to say Dotty can shove the apple up his arse but I don't want to rob orchards and milk cows forever and I'll always try to win Dotty's apple peel so that I can go home and tell Dad how I answered the hard questions.
We're walking back through Ballinacurra. There's rain and lightning and we run but it's hard for me with the sole of my shoe flapping and threatening to trip me. Paddy can run all he wants in his long bare feet and you hear them slapping on the pavement. My shoes and stockings are soaked and they make their own sound, squish, squish. Paddy notices that and we make a song from our two sounds, slap slap, squish, squish, slap squish, squish slap. We laugh so hard over our song we have to hold on to one another. The rain gets heavier and we know we can't stand under a tree or we'll be fried entirely so we stand by a door which is opened in a minute by a big fat maid in a little white hat and a black dress with a little white apron who tells us get away from this door we're a disgrace. We run from the door and Paddy calls back, Mullingar heifer, beef to the heels, and he laughs till he chokes and has to lean against a wall with the weakness. There's no sense in standing in from the rain anymore, we're soaked to the skin, so we take our time down O'Connell Avenue. Paddy says he learned that Mullingar heifer thing from his uncle Peter, the one that was in India in the English army and they have a photo of him standing with a group of soldiers with their helmets and guns and bandoliers around their chests and there are dark men in uniform who are Indians and loyal to the King. Uncle Peter had a great time for himself in a place called Kashmir, which is lovelier than Killarney that they're always bragging about and singing. Paddy goes on again about running away and winding up in India in a silken tent with the girl with the red dot and the curry and the figs and he's making me hungry even if I'm stuffed with apples and milk.
The rain is clearing and there are birds honking over our heads. Paddy says they're ducks or geese or something on their way to Africa where it's nice and warm. The birds have more sense than the Irish. They come to the Shannon for their holidays and then they go back to the warm places, maybe even India. He says he'll write me a letter when he's over there and I can come to India and have my own girl
with a red dot.
What's that dot for, Paddy?
It shows they're high class, the quality.
But, Paddy, would the quality in India talk to you if they knew you were from a lane in Limerick and had no shoes?
Course they would, but the English quality wouldn't. The English quality wouldn't give you the steam of their piss.
Steam of their piss? God, Paddy, did you think of that yourself?
Naw, naw, that's what my father says below in the bed when he's coughin' up the gobs and blamin' the English for everything.
And I think, Steam of their piss. I'll keep that for myself. I'll go around Limerick saying it, Steam of their piss, Steam of their piss, and when I go to America some day I'll be the only one who knows it.
Question Quigley is wobbling toward us on a big woman's bicycle and calls to me, Hoi, Frankie McCourt, you're going to be killed. Dotty O'Neill sent a note to your house and said you didn't come back to school after lunch, that you went on the mooch with Paddy Clohessy. Your mother is going to kill you. Your father is out looking for you and he's going to kill you, too.
Oh, God, I feel cold and empty and I wish I could be in India where it's nice and warm and there's no school and my father could never find me to kill me. Paddy tells the Question, He didn't go on the mooch and I didn't either. Fintan Slattery starved us to death and we were too late for the bun and the milk. Then Paddy says to me, Don't mind 'em, Frankie, 'tis all a cod. They're always sendin' notes to our house and we wipe our arses with them.
My mother and father would never wipe their arses with a note from the master and I'm afraid now to go home. The Question rides off on the bicycle, laughing, and I don't know why because he once ran away from home and slept in a ditch with four goats and that's worse than mooching from school half a day anytime.
I could turn up the Barrack Road now and go home and tell my parents I'm sorry I went on the mooch and I did it because of the hunger but Paddy says, Come on, we'll go down the Dock Road and throw rocks in the Shannon.
We throw rocks in the river and we swing on the iron chains along the bank. It's getting dark and I don't know where I'm going to sleep. I might have to stay there by the Shannon or find a door or I might have to go back out the country and find a ditch like Brendan Quigley with four goats. Paddy says I can go home with him, I can sleep on the floor and I'll dry out.
Paddy lives in one of the tall houses on Arthur's Quay looking at the river. Everyone in Limerick knows these houses are old and might fall down at any minute. Mam often says, I don't want any of ye going down to Arthur's Quay and if I find ye there I'll break yeer faces. The people down there are wild and ye could get robbed and killed.
It's raining again and small children are playing in the hallway and up the stairs. Paddy says, Mind yourself, because some of the steps are missing and there is shit on the ones that are still there. He says that's because there's only one privy and it's in the backyard and children don't get down the stairs in time to put their little arses on the bowl, God help us.
There's a woman with a shawl sitting on the fourth flight smoking a cigarette. She says, Is that you, Paddy?
'Tis, Mammy.
I'm fagged out, Paddy. Them steps is killin' me. Did you have your tea?
I didn't.
Well, I don't know if there's any bread left. Go up an' see.
Paddy's family live in one big room with a high ceiling and a small fireplace. There are two tall windows and you can see out to the Shannon. His father is in a bed in the corner, groaning and spitting into a bucket. Paddy's brothers and sisters are on mattresses on the floor, sleeping, talking, looking at the ceiling. There's a baby with no clothes crawling over to Paddy's father's bucket and Paddy pulls him away. His mother comes in, gasping, from the stairs. Jesus, I'm dead, she says.
She finds some bread and makes weak tea for Paddy and me. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. They don't say anything. They don't say what are you doing here or go home or anything till Mr. Clohessy says, Who's that? and Paddy tells him, 'Tis Frankie McCourt.
Mr. Clohessy says, McCourt? What class of a name is that?
My father is from the North, Mr. Clohessy.
And what's your mother's name?
Angela, Mr. Clohessy.
Ah, Jaysus, 'twouldn't be Angela Sheehan, would it?
'Twould, Mr. Clohessy.
Ah, Jaysus, he says, and he has a coughing fit which brings up all kinds of stuff from his insides and has him hanging over the bucket. When the cough passes he falls back on the pillow. Ah, Frankie, I knew your mother well. Danced with her, Mother o' Christ, I'm dying inside, danced with her I did below in the Wembley Hall and a champion dancer she was too.
He hangs over the bucket again. He gasps for air and reaches his arms out to get it. He suffers but he won't stop talking.
Champion dancer she was, Frankie. Not skinny mind you but a feather in my arms and there was many a sorry man when she left Limerick. Can you dance, Frankie?
Ah, no, Mr. Clohessy.
Paddy says, He can, Dada. He had the lessons from Mrs. O'Connor and Cyril Benson.
Well, dance, Frankie. Round the house an' mind the dresser, Frankie. Lift the foot, lad.
I can't, Mr. Clohessy. I'm no good.
No good? Angela's Sheehan's son? Dance, Frankie, or I'll get outa this bed an' wheel you round the house.
My shoe is broken, Mr. Clohessy.
Frankie, Frankie, you're bringin' the cough on me. Will you dance for the love o'Jesus so I can remember me youth with your mother in the Wembley Hall. Take off the feckin' shoe, Frankie, an' dance.
I have to make up dances and tunes to go with them the way I did a long time ago when I was young. I dance around the room with one shoe because I forgot to take it off. I try to make up words, Oh, The Walls of Limerick are falling down, falling down, falling down, The Walls of Limerick falling down and the River Shannon kills us.
Mr. Clohessy is laughing in the bed. Oh, Jaysus, I never heard likes o' that on land or sea. That's a great leg for the dancing you have there, Frankie. Oh, Jaysus. He coughs and brings up ropes of green and yellow stuff. It makes me sick to look at it and I wonder if I should go home from all this sickness and this bucket and let my parents kill me if they want to.
Paddy lies down on a mattress by the window and I lie beside him. I keep my clothes on like everybody else and I even forget to take off my other shoe, which is wet and squishy and stinks. Paddy falls asleep right away and I look at his mother sitting by the bit of a fire smoking another cigarette. Paddy's father groans and coughs and spits into the bucket. He says, Feckin' blood, and she says, You'll have to go into the sanatorium sooner or later.
I will not. The day they put you in there is the end of you.
You could be givin' the consumption to the children. I could get the guards to take you away you're that much of a danger to the children.
If they were to get it they'd have it be now.
The fire dies and Mrs. Clohessy climbs over him into the bed. In a minute she's snoring even if he's still coughing and laughing about the days of his youth when he danced with Angela Sheehan light as a feather in the Wembley Hall.
It's cold in the room and I'm shivering in my wet clothes. Paddy is shivering too but he's asleep and he doesn't know he's cold. I don't know if I should stay here or get up and go home but who wants to be wandering the streets when a guard might ask you what you're doing out. It's my first time away from my family and I know I'd rather be in my own house with the smelly lavatory and stable next door. It's bad when our kitchen is a lake and we have to go up to Italy but it's worse in the Clohessys' when you have to go down four flights to the lavatory and slip on shit all the way down. I'd be better off with four goats in a ditch.
I drift in and out of sleep but I have to wake up for good when Mrs. Clohessy goes around pulling at her family to get them up. They all went to bed with their clothes on so they don't have to get dressed and there's no fighting. They grumble an
d run out the door to get downstairs to the backyard lavatory. I have to go too and I run down with Paddy but his sister Peggy is on the bowl and we have to piss against a wall. She says, I'll tell Ma what ye did, and Paddy says, Shurrup or I'll push you down into that feckin' lavatory. She jumps off the lavatory, pulls her drawers up and runs up the stairs crying, I'll tell, I'll tell, and when we get back to the room Mrs. Clohessy gives Paddy a belt on the head for what he did to his poor little sister. Paddy says nothing because Mrs. Clohessy is spooning porridge into mugs and jam jars and one bowl and telling us to eat up and go to school. She sits at the table eating her porridge. Her hair is gray black and dirty. It dangles in the bowl and picks up bits of porridge and drops of milk. The children slurp the porridge and complain they didn't get enough, they're starving with the hunger. They have snotty noses and sore eyes and scabby knees. Mr. Clohessy coughs and squirms on the bed and brings up the great gobs of blood and I run out of the room and puke on the stairs where there's a step missing and there's a shower of porridge and bits of apple to the floor below where people go back and forth to the lavatory in the yard. Paddy comes down and says, Sure that's all right. Everywan gets sick an' shits on them stairs an' the whole feckin' place is falling down anyway.
I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. If I go back to school I'll be killed and why should I go back to school or go home to get killed when I can go out the road and live on milk and apples the rest of my life till I go to America. Paddy says, Come on. School is all a cod anyway an' the masters is all madmen.
There's a knock at the Clohessys' door and it's Mam holding my little brother, Michael, by the hand, and Guard Dennehy, who is in charge of school attendance. Mam sees me and says, What are you doing with one shoe on? and Guard Dennehy says, Ah, now, missus, I think a more important question would be, What are you doing with one shoe off, ha, ha.
Michael runs to me. Mammy was crying. Mammy was crying for you, Frankie.
She says, Where were you all night?
I was here.
You had me demented. Your father walked every street in Limerick looking for you.