Mam can't come to visit every day, it's a long way out, she doesn't always have the money for the bus and the walk is hard on her corns. She thinks my eyes look better though you can't tell with all that brown stuff, which looks and smells like iodine and if it's anything like iodine it must burn. Still, they say the bitterer the medicine the quicker the cure. She gets permission to take me for a walk around the grounds when the weather clears and there's a strange sight, Mr. Timoney standing against the wall where the old people are with his eyes raised to the sky. I want to talk to him and I have to ask Mam because you never know what's right or wrong in a hospital.
Mr. Timoney.
Who is it? Who do we have?
Frank McCourt, sir.
Francis, ah, Francis.
Mam says, I'm his mother, Mr. Timoney.
Well, then, the two of ye are blessed. I have neither kith nor kin nor Macushla my dog. And what are you doing in this place, Francis?
I have an infection in my eyes.
Ah, Jesus, Francis, not the eyes, not the eyes. Mother of Christ, you're too young for that.
Mr. Timoney, would you like me to read to you?
With them eyes, Francis? Ah, no, son, Save the eyes. I'm beyond reading. In my head I have everything I need. I was smart enough to put things in my head in my youth and now I have a library in my head. The English shot my wife. The Irish put down my poor innocent Macushla. Isn't it a joke of a world?
Mam says, Terrible world but God is good.
Indeed, missus. God made the world, it's a terrible world, but God is good. Good-bye, Francis. Rest your eyes and then read till they fall out of your head. We had good times with old Jonathan Swift, didn't we, Francis?
We did, Mr. Timoney.
Mam takes me back to the eye ward. She tells me, Don't be crying over Mr. Timoney, he's not even your father. Besides you'll be ruining your eyes.
Seamus comes to the ward three times a week and brings new poems in his head. He says, You made Patricia sad, Frankie, when you didn't like the one about the owl and the pussycat.
I'm sorry, Seamus.
I have it in my head, Frankie, and I'll say it for you if you don't say 'tis foolish.
I won't, Seamus.
He says the poem and everyone in the ward loves it. They want the words and he says it three more times till the whole ward is saying,
The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat.
They took some honey, and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are,
You are.
What a beautiful Pussy you are.
They say it along with Seamus now and when it's finished they cheer and clap and Seamus laughs, delighted with himself. When he's gone with his mop and bucket you can hear them at all hours of the day and night
O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are.
What a beautiful Pussy you are.
Then Seamus comes with no mop and no bucket and I'm afraid he's sacked over the poetry but he's smiling and telling me he's off to England to work in a factory and earn decent wages for a change. He'll work for two months and bring the wife over and God might be pleased to send them children for he has to do something with all the poems in his head and what better than saying them to small ones in memory of that sweet Patricia Madigan dead of the dipteria.
Good-bye, Francis. If I had the right fist I'd write to you but I'll get the wife to write when she comes over. I might even learn to read and write myself so that the child that comes won't have a fool for a father.
I want to cry but you can't cry in the eye ward with brown stuff in your eyes and nurses saying, What's this what's this be a man, and nuns going on, Offer it up, think of the sufferings of Our Lord on the cross, the crown of thorns, the lance in the side, the hands and feet torn to bits with nails.
I'm a month in the hospital and the doctor says I can go home even if there's still a bit of infection but if I keep the eyes clean with soap and clean towels and build up my health with nourishing food plenty of beef and eggs I'll have a pair of sparkling eyes in no time ha ha.
Mr. Downes across the way comes back from England for his mother's funeral. He tells Mrs. Downes about my father. She tells Bridey Hannon and Bridey tells my mother. Mr. Downes says that Malachy McCourt is gone pure mad with the drink, that he squanders his wages in pubs all over Coventry, that he sings Irish rebel songs which the English don't mind because they're used to the way the Irish carry on about the hundreds of years of suffering, but they won't put up with any man that stands up in a pub and insults the King and Queen of England, their two lovely daughters and the Queen Mother herself. Insulting the Queen Mother is going beyond the beyonds. What did she ever do to anyone, that poor old lady? Time after time Malachy drinks away his rent money and winds up sleeping in parks when the landlord throws him out. He's a regular disgrace, so he is, and Mr. Downes is glad McCourt is not a Limerickman bringing shame to this ancient city. The magistrates in Coventry are losing their patience and if Malachy McCourt doesn't stop the bloody nonsense he'll be kicked out of the country entirely.
Mam tells Bridey she doesn't know what she's going to do with these stories from England, she never felt so desperate in her life. She can see Kathleen O'Connell doesn't want to give any more credit at the shop and her own mother barks at her if she asks for the loan of a shilling and the St. Vincent de Paul Society want to know when she'll stop asking for charity especially with a husband in England. She's ashamed of the way we look with the dirty old torn shirts, raggedy ganseys, broken shoes, holes in our stockings. She lies awake at night thinking the most merciful thing of all would be to put the four boys in an orphanage so that she could go to England herself and find some type of work where she could bring us all over in a year for the better life. There might be bombs but she'd prefer bombs anytime to the shame of begging from this one and that one.
No, no matter what she can't bear the thought of putting us in the orphanage. That might be all right if you had the likes of Boys' Town in America with a nice priest like Spencer Tracy but you could never trust the Christian Brothers out in Glin who get their exercise beating boys and starving the life out of them.
Mam says there's nothing left but the Dispensary and the public assistance, the relief, and she's ashamed of her life to go and ask for it. It means you're at the end of your rope and maybe one level above tinkers, knackers and street beggars in general. It means you have to crawl before Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane and thank God the Dispensary is at the other end of Limerick so that people in our lane won't know we're getting the relief.
She knows from other women it's wise to be there early in the morning when Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane might be in a good mood. If you go late in the morning they're liable to be cranky after seeing hundreds of men women and children sick and asking for help. She will take us with her to prove she has four children to feed. She gets us up early and tells us for once in our lives don't wash our faces, don't comb our hair, dress in any old rag. She tells me give my sore eyes a good rub and make them as red as I can for the worse you look at the Dispensary the more pity you get and the better your chances of getting the public assistance. She complains that Malachy Michael and Alphie look too healthy and you'd wonder why on this day of days they couldn't have their usual scabby knees or the odd cut bruise or black eye. If we meet anyone in the lane or the streets of Limerick we are not to tell them where we're going. She feels ashamed enough without telling the whole world and wait till her own mother hears.
There is a queue already outside the Dispensary. There are women like Mam with children in their arms, babies like Alphie, and children playing on the pavement. The women comfort the babie
s against the cold and scream at the ones playing in case they run into the street and get hit by a motor car or a bicycle. There are old men and women huddled against the wall talking to themselves or not talking at all. Mam warns us not to wander from her and we wait half an hour for the big door to open. A man tells us move inside in proper order and queue up before the platform, that Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane will be there in a minute when they finish their tea in the room beyond. A woman complains her children are freezing with the cold and couldn't Coffey and Kane bloody well hurry up with their tea. The man says she's a troublemaker but he won't take her name this time with the cold that's in the morning but if there's another word she'll be a sorry woman.
Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane get up on the platform and pay no attention to the people. Mr. Kane puts on his glasses, takes them off, polishes them, puts them on, looks at the ceiling. Mr. Coffey reads papers, writes something, passes papers to Mr. Kane. They whisper to each other. They take their time. They don't look at us.
Then Mr. Kane calls the first old man to the platform. What's your name?
Timothy Creagh, sir.
Creagh, hah? A fine old Limerick name you have there.
I do, sir. Indeed I do.
And what do you want, Creagh?
Ah, sure, I do be havin' them pains in me stomach again an' I'd like to see Dr. Feeley.
Well, now, Creagh, are you sure it's not the pints of porter that are going against your stomach.
Ah, no, indeed, sir. Sure I hardly touch the pint at all with the pains. My wife is home in the bed and I have to take care of her too.
There's great laziness in the world, Creagh. And Mr. Kane says to the people on the queue, Did ye hear that, ladies? Great laziness, isn't there?
And the women say, Oh, there is, indeed, Mr. Kane, great laziness.
Mr. Creagh gets his docket to see the doctor, the queue moves ahead and Mr. Kane is ready for Mam.
The public assistance, is that what you want, woman, the relief?
'Tis, Mr. Kane.
And where's your husband?
Oh, he's in England, but--
England, is it? And where is the weekly telegram, the big five pounds?
He didn't send us a penny in months, Mr. Kane.
Is that a fact? Well, we know why, don't we? We know what the men of Ireland are up to in England. We know there's the occasional Limerickman seen trotting around with a Piccadilly tart, don't we?
He looks out at the people on the queue and they know they're supposed to say, We do, Mr. Kane, and they know they're supposed to smile and laugh or things will go hard with them when they reach the platform. They know he might turn them over to Mr. Coffey and he's notorious for saying no to everything.
Mam tells Mr. Kane that Dad is in Coventry and nowhere near Piccadilly and Mr. Kane takes off his glasses and stares at her. What's this? Are we having a little contradiction here?
Oh, no, Mr. Kane, God no.
I want you to know, woman, that it is the policy here to give no relief to women with husbands in England. I want you to know you're taking the bread from the mouths of more deserving people who stayed in this country to do their bit.
Oh, yes, Mr. Kane.
And what's your name?
McCourt, sir.
That's not a Limerick name. Where did you get a name like that?
My husband, sir. He's from the North.
He's from the North and he leaves you here to get the relief from the Irish Free State. Is this what we fought for, is it?
I don't know, sir.
Why don't you go up to Belfast and see what the Orangemen will do for you, ah?
I don't know, sir.
You don't know. Of course you don't know. There's great ignorance in the world.
He looks out at the people, I said there's great ignorance in the world, and the people nod their heads and agree there's great ignorance in the world.
He whispers to Mr. Coffey and they look at Mam, they look at us. He tells Mam at last that she can have the public assistance but if she gets a single penny from her husband she's to drop all claims and give the money back to the Dispensary. She promises she will and we leave.
We follow her to Kathleen O'Connell's shop to get tea and bread and a few sods of turf for the fire. We climb the stairs to Italy and get the fire going and it's cozy when we have our tea. We're all very quiet, even the baby Alphie, because we know what Mr. Kane did to our mother.
X
It's cold and wet down in Ireland but we're up in Italy. Mam says we should bring the poor Pope up to hang on the wall opposite the window. After all he's a friend of the workingman, he's Italian, and they're a warm weather people. Mam sits by the fire, shivering, and we know something is wrong when she makes no move for a cigarette. She says she feels a cold coming and she'd love to have a tarty drink, a lemonade. But there's no money in the house, not even for bread in the morning. She drinks tea and goes to bed.
The bed creaks all night with her twistings and turnings and she keeps us awake with her moaning for water. In the morning, she stays in bed, still shivering, and we keep quiet. If she sleeps long enough Malachy and I will be too late for school. Hours pass and still she makes no move and when I know it's well past school time I start the fire for the kettle. She stirs and calls for lemonade but I give her a jam jar of water. I ask her if she'd like some tea and she acts like a woman gone deaf. She looks flushed and it's odd she doesn't even mention cigarettes.
We sit quietly by the fire, Malachy, Michael, Alphie, myself. We drink our tea while Alphie chews the last bit of bread covered with sugar. He makes us laugh the way he smears the sugar all over his face and grins at us with his fat sticky cheeks. But we can't laugh too much or Mam will jump out of the bed and order Malachy and me off to school where we'll be killed for being late. We don't laugh long, there is no more bread and we're hungry, the four of us. We can get no more credit at O'Connell's shop. We can't go near Grandma, either. She yells at us all the time because Dad is from the North and he never sends money home from England where he is working in a munitions factory. Grandma says we could starve to death for all he cares. That would teach Mam a lesson for marrying a man from the North with sallow skin, an odd manner and a look of the Presbyterian about him.
Still, I'll have to try Kathleen O'Connell once more. I'll tell her my mother is sick above in the bed, my brothers are starving and we'll all be dead for the want of bread.
I put on my shoes and run quickly through the streets of Limerick to keep myself warm against the February frost. You can look in people's windows and see how cozy it is in their kitchens with fires glowing or ranges black and hot everything bright in the electric light cups and saucers on the tables with plates of sliced bread pounds of butter jars of jam smells of fried eggs and rashers coming through the windows enough to make the water run in your mouth and families sitting there digging in all smiling the mother crisp and clean in her apron everyone washed and the Sacred Heart of Jesus looking down on them from the wall suffering and sad but still happy with all that food and light and good Catholics at their breakfast.
I try to find music in my own head but all I can find is my mother moaning for lemonade.
Lemonade. There's a van pulling away from South's pub leaving crates of beer and lemonade outside and there isn't a soul on the street. In a second I have two bottles of lemonade up under my jersey and I saunter away trying to look innocent.
There's a bread van outside Kathleen O'Connells shop. The back door is open on shelves of steaming newly baked bread. The van driver is inside the shop having tea and a bun with Kathleen and it's no trouble for me to help myself to a loaf of bread. It's wrong to steal from Kathleen with the way she's always good to us but if I go in and ask her for bread she'll be annoyed and tell me I'm ruining her morning cup of tea, which she'd like to have in peace ease and comfort thank you. It's easier to stick the bread up under my jersey with the lemonade and promise to tell everything in confession.
&nb
sp; My brothers are back in bed playing games under the overcoats but they jump when they see the bread. We tear at the loaf because we're too hungry to slice it and we make tea from this morning's leaves. When my mother stirs Malachy holds the lemonade bottle to her lips and she gasps till she finishes it. If she likes it that much I'll have to find more lemonade.
We put the last of the coal on the fire and sit around telling stories which we make up the way Dad did. I tell my brothers about my adventures with the lemonade and bread and I make up stories about how I was chased by pub owners and shopkeepers and how I ran into St. Joseph's Church where no one can follow you if you're a criminal, not even if you killed your own mother. Malachy and Michael look shocked over the way I got the bread and lemonade but then Malachy says it was only what Robin Hood would have done, rob the rich and give to the poor. Michael says I'm an outlaw and if they catch me they'll hang me from the highest tree in the People's Park the way outlaws are hanged in films at the Lyric Cinema. Malachy says I should make sure I'm in a state of grace because it might be hard to find a priest to come to my hanging. I tell him a priest would have to come to the hanging. That's what priests are for. Roddy McCorley had a priest and so did Kevin Barry. Malachy says there were no priests at the hanging of Roddy McCorley and Kevin Barry because they're not mentioned in the songs and he starts singing the songs to prove it till my mother groans in the bed and says shut up.
Alphie the baby is asleep on the floor by the fire. We put him into the bed with Mam so that he'll be warm though we don't want him to catch her disease and die. If she wakes up and finds him dead in the bed beside her there will be no end to the lamentations and she'll blame me on top of it.
The three of us get back into our own bed, huddling under the overcoats and trying not to roll into the hole in the mattress. It's pleasant there till Michael starts to worry over Alphie getting Mam's disease and me getting hanged for an outlaw. He says it isn't fair because that would leave him with only one brother and everyone in the world has brothers galore. He falls asleep from the worry and soon Malachy drifts off and I lie there thinking of jam. Wouldn't it be lovely to have another loaf of bread and a jar of strawberry jam or any kind of jam. I can't remember ever seeing a jam van making a delivery and I wouldn't want to be like Jesse James blasting my way into a shop demanding jam. That would surely lead to a hanging.