The next Friday Declan Collopy from the Confraternity sees me on the street delivering the papers with my uncle Pat Sheehan. Hoi, Frankie McCourt, what are you doin' with Ab Sheehan?
He's my uncle.
You're supposed to be at the Confraternity.
I'm working, Declan.
You're not supposed to be working. You're not even ten and you're destroyin' the perfect attendance in our section. If you're not there next Friday I'll give you a good thump in the gob, do you hear me?
Uncle Pat says, Go 'way, go 'way, or I'll walk on you.
Ah, shut up, Mr. Stupid that was dropped on your head. He pushes Uncle Pat on the shoulder and knocks him back against the wall. I drop the papers and run at him but he steps aside and punches me on the back of the neck and my forehead is rammed into the wall and it puts me in such a rage I can't see him anymore. I go at him with arms and legs and if I could tear his face off with my teeth I would but he has long arms like a gorilla and he just keeps pushing me away so that I can't touch him. He says, You mad feckin' eejit. I'll destroy you in the Confraternity, and he runs away.
Uncle Pat says, You shouldn't be fightin' like that an' you dropped all me papers an' some o' them is wet an' how am I supposed to sell wet papers, and I wanted to jump on him too and hit him for talking about papers after I stood up to Declan Collopy.
At the end of the night he gives me three chips from his bag and sixpence instead of threepence. He complains it's too much money and it's all my mother's fault for going on to Grandma about the low pay.
Mam is delighted I'm getting sixpence on Fridays from Uncle Pat and sixpence on Saturdays from Mr. Timoney. A shilling a week makes a big difference and she gives me tuppence to see the Dead End Kids at the Lyric after I'm finished the reading.
Next morning Mr. Timoney says, Wait till we get to Gulliver, Francis. You'll know Jonathan Swift is the greatest Irish writer that ever lived, no, the greatest man to put pen to parchment. A giant of a man, Francis. He laughs all through A Modest Proposal and you'd wonder what he's laughing at when it's all about cooking Irish babies. He says, You'll laugh when you grow up, Francis.
You're not supposed to talk back to grown-ups but Mr. Timoney is different and he doesn't mind when I say, Mr. Timoney, big people are always telling us that. Oh, you'll laugh when you grow up. You'll understand when you grow up. Everything will come when you grow up.
He lets out such a roar of a laugh I think he's going to collapse. Oh, Mother o' God, Francis. You're a treasure. What's up with you? Do you have a bee up your arse? Tell me what's up.
Nothing, Mr. Timoney.
I think you have the long puss, Francis, and I wish I could see it. Go over to the mirror on the wall, Snow White, and tell me if you have the long puss. Never mind. Just tell me what's up.
Declan Collopy was at me last night and I got into a fight.
He makes me tell him about the Confraternity and Declan and my uncle Pat Sheehan, who was dropped on his head, and then he tells me he knows my uncle Pa Keating, who was gassed in the war and works in the gas works. He says, Pa Keating is a jewel of a man. And I'll tell you what I'll do, Francis. I'll talk to Pa Keating and we'll go to the crawthumpers at the Confraternity. I'm a Buddhist myself and I don't hold with fighting but I haven't lost it. They're not going to interfere with my little reader, oh, by Jesus, no.
Mr. Timoney is an old man but he talks like a friend and I can say what I feel. Dad would never talk to me like Mr. Timoney. He'd say, Och, aye, and go for a long walk.
Uncle Pat Sheehan tells Grandma he doesn't want me to help with the papers anymore, he can get another boy much cheaper and he thinks I should be giving him some of my Saturday morning sixpence anyway since I'd never have the reading job without him.
A woman next door to Mr. Timoney tells me I'm wasting my time knocking on the door, Macushla bit the postman, the milkman and a passing nun on the same day and Mr. Timoney couldn't stop laughing though he cried when the dog was taken away to be put down. You can bite postmen and milkmen all you like but the case of the passing nun goes all the way to the bishop and he takes steps especially if the owner of the dog is a known Buddhist and a danger to good Catholics around him. Mr. Timoney was told this and cried and laughed so hard the doctor came and said he was gone beyond recall so they carted him off to the City Home, where they keep old people who are helpless or demented.
That's the end of my Saturday sixpence but I'll read to Mr. Timoney money or no money. I wait down the street till the woman next door goes in, I climb in Mr. Timoney's window for Gulliver's Travels and walk miles to the City Home so that he won't miss his reading. The man at the gate says, What? You want to come in an' read to an oul' man? Is it coddin' me you are? Get outa here before I call the guards.
Could I leave the book for someone else to read to Mr. Timoney?
Leave it. Leave it for Jaysus sake an' don't be botherin' me. I'll send it up to him.
And he laughs.
Mam says, What's up with you? Why are you moping? And I tell her how Uncle Pat doesn't want me anymore and how they put Mr. Timoney in the City Home for laughing just because Macushla bit the postman, the milkman and a passing nun. She laughs too and I'm sure the world is gone mad. Then she says, Ah, I'm sorry and it's a pity you lost two jobs. You might as well start going to the Confraternity again to keep The Posse away and, worse, the director, Father Gorey.
Declan tells me sit in front of him and if there's any blaguarding he'll break my feckin' neck for he'll be watching me as long as he's prefect and no little shit like me is going to keep him from a life in linoleum.
Mam says she has trouble climbing the stairs and she's moving her bed to the kitchen. She laughs, I'll come back up to Sorrento when the walls are damp and the rain runs under the door. School is over and she can stay in bed in the kitchen as long as she likes because she doesn't have to get up for us. Dad lights the fire, makes the tea, cuts the bread, makes sure we wash our faces and tells us go out and play. He lets us stay in bed if we like but you never want to stay in bed when there's no school. We're ready to run out and play in the lane the minute we wake.
Then one day in July he says we can't go downstairs. We have to stay up here and play.
Why, Dad?
Never mind. Play here with Malachy and Michael and you can go down later when I tell you.
He stands at the door in case we might get a notion to wander down the stairs . We push our blanket up in the air with our feet and pretend we're in a tent, Robin Hood and his Merry Men. We hunt fleas and squash them between our thumbnails.
Then there's a baby's cry and Malachy says, Dad, did Mam get a new baby?
Och, aye, son.
I'm older so I tell Malachy the bed is in the kitchen so that the angel can fly down and leave the baby on the seventh step but Malachy doesn't understand because he's only eight going on nine and I'll be ten next month.
Mam is in the bed with the new baby. He has a big fat face and he's red all over. There's a woman in the kitchen in a nurse's uniform and we know she's there to wash new babies who are always dirty from the long journey with the angel. We want to tickle the baby but she says, No, no, ye can look at him but don't lay a finger.
Don't lay a finger. That's the way nurses talk.
We sit at the table with our tea and bread looking at our new brother but he won't even open his eyes to look back at us so we go out and play.
In a few days Mam is out of the bed holding the baby on her lap by the fire. His eyes are open and when we tickle him he makes a gurgling sound, his belly shakes and that makes us laugh. Dad tickles him and sings a Scottish song,
Oh, oh, stop your tickliri, Jock,
Stop your tickling Jock.
Stop your ticklin',
Ickle ickle icklin
Stop your ticklin', Jock.
Dad has a job so Bridey Hannon is able to visit Mam and the baby any time she likes and for once Mam doesn't tell us go out and play so they can talk about secret things.
They sit by the fire smoking and talking about names. Mam says she likes the names Kevin and Sean but Bridey says, Ah, no, there's too many of them in Limerick. Jesus, Angela, if you stuck your head out the door and called, Kevin or Sean, come in for your tea, you'd have half o' Limerick running to your door.
Bridey says if she had a son which please God she will some day she'll call him Ronald because she's mad about Ronald Colman that you see in the Coliseum Cinema. Or Errol, now that's another lovely name, Errol Flynn.
Mam says, Will you go way outa that, Bridey. I'd never be able to stick my head out the door and say, Errol, Errol, come in for your tea. Sure the poor child would be a laughingstock.
Ronald, says Bridey, Ronald. He's gorgeous.
No, says Mam, it has to be Irish. Isn't that what we fought for all these years? What's the use of fighting the English for centuries if we're going to call our children Ronald?
Jesus, Angela, you're starting to talk like himself with his Irish this and his English that.
Still an' all, Bridey, he's right.
Suddenly Bridey is gasping, Jesus, Angela, there's something wrong with that child.
Mam is out of the chair, hugging the child, moaning. Oh, Jesus, Bridey, he's choking.
Bridey says, I'll run for my mother, and she's back in a minute with Mrs. Hannon. Castor oil, says Mrs. Hannon. Do you have it? Any oil. Cod liver oil? That'll do.
She pours the oil into the baby's mouth, turns him over, presses on his back, turns him back over, sticks a spoon down his throat and brings up a white ball. That's it now, she says. The milk. It collects and gets hard in their little throats so you have to ease it with any class of an oil.
Mam is crying, Jesus, I nearly lost him. Oh, I'd die so I would.
She's clutching the baby and crying and trying to thank Mrs. Hannon.
Yerra, don't mention it, missus. Take the child and get back into that bed for the two o' ye had a great shock.
While Bridey and Mrs. Hannon are helping Mam to the bed I notice spots of blood on her chair. Is my mother bleeding to death? Is it all right to say, Look, there's blood on Mam's chair? No, you can't say anything because they always have secrets. I know if you say anything the grown-up people will tell you, Never mind, you're always gawking, none of your business, go out and play.
I have to keep it inside or I can talk to the angel. Mrs. Hannon and Bridey leave and I sit on the seventh step. I try to tell the angel Mam is bleeding to death. I want him to tell me, Fear not, but the step is cold and there's no light, no voice. I'm sure he's gone forever and I wonder if that happens when you go from nine to ten.
Mam doesn't bleed to death. She's out of the bed next day getting the baby ready for baptism, telling Bridey she could never forgive herself if the baby died and went to Limbo, a place for unbaptized babies, where it may be nice and warm but, still, dark forever and no hope of escape even on the Judgment Day.
Grandma is there to help and she says, That's right, no hope in heaven for the infant that's not baptized.
Bridey says it would be a hard God that would do the likes of that.
He has to be hard, says Grandma, otherwise you'd have all kinds of babies clamorin' to get into heaven, Protestants an' everything, an' why should they get in after what they did to us for eight hundred years?
The babies didn't do it, says Bridey. They're too small.
They would if they got the chance, says Grandma. They're trained for it.
They dress the baby in the Limerick lace dress we were all baptized in. Mam says we can all go to St. Joseph's and we're excited because there will be lemonade and buns after.
Malachy says, Mam, what's the baby's name?
Alphonsus Joseph.
The words fly out of my mouth, That's a stupid name. It's not even Irish.
Grandma glares at me with her old red eyes. She says, That fella needs a good clitther on the gob. Mam slaps me across the face and sends me flying across the kitchen. My heart is pounding and I want to cry but I can't because my father isn't there and I'm the man of the family. Mam says, You go upstairs with your big mouth and don't move from that room.
I stop at the seventh step but it's still cold, no light, no voice.
The house is quiet with everyone gone to the chapel. I sit and wait upstairs, knocking the fleas off my arms and legs, wishing I had Dad here, thinking of my little brother and his foreign name, Alphonsus, an affliction of a name.
In awhile there are voices downstairs and there is talk of tea, sherry, lemonade, buns, and isn't that child the loveliest little fella in the world, little Alphie, foreign name but still an' all still an' all not a sound outa him the whole time he's that good-natured God bless him sure he'll live forever with the sweetness that's in him the little dote spittin' image of his mother his father his grandma his little brothers dead an' gone.
Mam calls from the bottom of the stairs, Frank, come down and have lemonade and a bun.
I don't want it. You can keep it.
I said come down this minute for if I have to climb these stairs I'll warm your behind and you'll rue the day.
Rue? What's rue?
Never mind what's rue. Come down here at once.
Her voice is sharp and rue sounds dangerous. I'll go down.
In the kitchen Grandma says, Look at the long puss on him. You'd think he'd be happy for his little brother except that a boy that's going from nine to ten is always a right pain in the arse an' I know for didn't I have two of 'em.
The lemonade and bun are delicious and Alphie the new baby is chirping away enjoying his baptism day too innocent to know his name is an affliction.
Grandpa in the North sends a telegram money order for five pounds for the baby Alphie. Mam wants to cash it but she can't go far from the bed. Dad says he'll cash it at the post office. She tells Malachy and me to go with him. He cashes it and tells us, All right, boys, go home and tell your mother I'll be home in a few minutes.
Malachy says, Dad, you're not to go to the pub. Mam said you're to bring home the money. You're not to drink the pint.
Now, now, son. Go home to your mother.
Dad, give us the money. That money is for the baby.
Now, Francis, don't be a bad boy. Do what your father tells you.
He walks away from us and into South's pub.
Mam is sitting by the fireplace with Alphie in her arms. She shakes her head. He went to the pub, didn't he?
He did.
I want ye to go back down to that pub and read him out of it. I want ye to stand in the middle of the pub and tell every man your father is drinking the money for the baby. Ye are to tell the world there isn't a scrap of food in this house, not a lump of coal to start the fire, not a drop of milk for the baby's bottle.
We walk through the streets and Malachy practices his speech at the top of his voice, Dad, Dad, that five pounds is for the new baby. That's not for the drink. The child is above in the bed bawling and roaring for his milk and you're drinking the pint.
He's gone from South's pub. Malachy still wants to stand and make his speech but I tell him we have to hurry and look in other pubs before Dad drinks the whole five pounds. We can't find him in other pubs either. He knows Mam would come for him or send us and there are so many pubs at this end of Limerick and beyond we could be looking for a month. We have to tell Mam there's no sign of him and she tells us we're pure useless. Oh, Jesus, I wish I had my strength and I'd search every pub in Limerick. I'd tear the mouth out of his head, so I would. Go on, go back down and try all the pubs around the railway station and try Naughton's fish and chip shop.
I have to go by myself because Malachy has the runs and can't stray far from the bucket. I search all the pubs on Parnell Street and around. I look into the snugs where the women drink and in all the men's lavatories. I'm hungry but I'm afraid to go home till I find my father. He's not in Naughton's fish and chip shop but there's a drunken man asleep at a table in the corner and his fish and chips are on the floor in their Limerick Leade
r wrapping and if I don't get them the cat will so I shove them under my jersey and I'm out the door and up the street to sit on the steps at the railway station eat my fish and chips watch the drunken soldiers pass by with the girls that giggle thank the drunken man in my mind for drowning the fish and chips in vinegar and smothering them in salt and then remember that if I die tonight I'm in a state of sin for stealing and I could go straight to hell stuffed with fish and chips but it's Saturday and if the priests are still in the confession boxes I can clear my soul after my feed.
The Dominican church is just up Glentworth Street.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it's a fortnight since my last confession. I tell him the usual sins and then, I stole fish and chips from a drunken man.
Why, my child?
I was hungry, Father.
And why were you hungry?
There was nothing in my belly, Father.
He says nothing and even though it's dark I know he's shaking his head. My dear child, why can't you go home and ask your mother for something?
Because she sent me out looking for my father in the pubs, Father, and I couldn't find him and she hasn't a scrap in the house because he's drinking the five pounds Grandpa sent from the North for the new baby and she's raging by the fire because I can't find my father.
I wonder if this priest is asleep because he's very quiet till he says, My child, I sit here. I hear the sins of the poor. I assign the penance. I bestow absolution. I should be on my knees washing their feet. Do you understand me, my child?
I tell him I do but I don't.
Go home, child. Pray for me.
No penance, Father?
No, my child.
I stole the fish and chips. I'm doomed.
You're forgiven. Go. Pray for me.