I wonder why you'd want to eat your dinner off the floor when you had a table and a chair.
Delia says something has to be done about Angela and these children for they are a disgrace, so they are, enough to make you ashamed to be related. A letter has to be written to Angela's mother. Philomena will write it because a teacher in Limerick told her once she had a fine fist. Delia has to tell Mrs. Leibowitz that a fine fist means good handwriting.
Mrs. Leibowitz goes down the hall to borrow her husband's fountain pen, paper and an envelope. The four women sit at the table and make up a letter to send to my mother's mother:
Dear Aunt Margaret,
I take pen in hand to write you this letter and hope this finds you as it leaves us in the best of health. My husband Tommy is in fine form working away and Delia's husband Jimmy is in fine form working away and we hope this finds you in fine form. I am very sorry to tell you that Angela is not in fine form as the baby died, the little girl that was called Margaret after yourself, and Angela has not been the same since lying in the bed with her face to the wall. To make matters worser we think she's expecting again and that's too much altogether. The minute she losses one child there is another one on the way. We don't know how she does it. She's married four years, five children and another on the way. That shows you what can happen when you marry someone from the North for they have no control over themselves up there a bunch of Protestands that they are. He goes out for work every day but we know he spends all his time in the saloons and gets a few dollars for sweeping floors and lifting barrels and spends the money right back on the drink. It's terrible, Aunt Margaret, and we all think Angela and the children would be better off in her native land. We don't have the money to buy the tickets ourselves for times is hard but you might be able to see your way. Hopping this finds you in fine form as it leaves us thank God and His Blessed Mother.
I remain your loving neice
Philomena Flynn (what was MacNamara)
and last but not least your neice
Delia Fortune (what was MacNamara, too, ha ha ha)
Grandma Sheehan sent money to Philomena and Delia. They bought the tickets, found a steamer trunk at the St. Vincent de Paul Society, hired a van to take us to the pier in Manhattan, put us on the ship, said Good-bye and good riddance, and went away.
The ship pulled away from the dock. Mam said, That's the Statue of Liberty and that's Ellis Island where all the immigrants came in. Then she leaned over the side and vomited and the wind from the Atlantic blew it all over us and other happy people admiring the view. Passengers cursed and ran, seagulls came from all over the harbor and Mam hung limp and pale on the ship's rail.
II
In a week we arrived at Moville, County Donegal, where we took a bus to Belfast and from there another bus to Toome in County Antrim. We left the trunk in a shop and set out to walk the two miles up the road to Grandpa McCourt's house. It was dark on the road, the dawn barely stirring on the hills beyond.
Dad carried the twins in his arms and they took turns crying with the hunger. Mam stopped every few minutes to sit and rest on the stone wall along the road. We sat with her and watched the sky turn red and then blue. Birds started to chirp and sing in the trees and as the dawn came up we saw strange creatures in the fields, standing, looking at us. Malachy said, What are they, Dad?
Cows, son.
What are cows, Dad?
Cows are cows, son.
We walked farther along the brightening road and there were other creatures in the fields, white furry creatures.
Malachy said, What are they, Dad?
Sheep, son.
What are sheep, Dad?
My father barked at him, Is there any end to your questions? Sheep are sheep, cows are cows, and that over there is a goat. A goat is a goat. The goat gives milk, the sheep gives wool, the cow gives everything. What else in God's name do you want to know?
And Malachy yelped with fright because Dad never talked like that, never spoke sharply to us. He might get us up in the middle of the night and make us promise to die for Ireland but he never barked like this. Malachy ran to Mam and she said, There, there, love, don't cry. Your father is just worn out carrying the twins and 'tis hard answering all those questions when you're carting twins through the world.
Dad set the twins on the road and held out his arms to Malachy. Now the twins started to cry and Malachy clung to Mam, sobbing. The cows mooed, the sheep maaed, the goat ehehed, the birds twittered in the trees, and the beep beep of a motor car cut through everything. A man called from the motor car, Good Lord, what are you people doing on this road at this hour of an Easter Sunday morning?
Dad said, Good morning, Father.
Father? I said. Dad, is that your father?
Mam said, Don't ask him any questions.
Dad said, No, no, this is a priest.
Malachy said, What's a--? but Mam put her hand over his mouth.
The priest had white hair and a white collar. He said, Where are you going?
Dad said, Up the road to McCourts of Moneyglass, and the priest took us in his motor car. He said he knew the McCourts, a fine family, good Catholics, some daily communicants, and he hoped he'd see us all at Mass, especially the little Yankees who didn't know what a priest was, God help us.
At the house my mother reaches for the gate latch. Dad says, No, no, not that way. Not the front gate. They use the front door only for visits from the priest or funerals.
We make our way around the house to the kitchen door. Dad pushes in the door and there's Grandpa McCourt drinking tea from a big mug and Grandma McCourt frying something.
Och, says Grandpa, you're here.
Och, we are, says Dad. He points to my mother. This is Angela, he says. Grandpa says, Och, you must be worn out, Angela. Grandma says nothing, she turns back to the frying pan. Grandpa leads us through the kitchen to a large room with a long table and chairs. He says, Sit down and have some tea. Would you like boxty?
Malachy says, What's boxty?
Dad laughs. Pancakes, son. Pancakes made with potatoes.
Grandpa says, We have eggs. It's Easter Sunday and you can have all the eggs you can hold.
We have tea and boxty and boiled eggs and we all fall asleep. I wake up in a bed with Malachy and the twins. My parents are in another bed over by the window. Where am I? It's getting dark. This is not the ship. Mam snores hink, Dad snores honk. I get up and poke at Dad. I have to pee. He says, Use the chamber pot.
What?
Under the bed, son. The chamber pot. It has roses on it and maidens cavorting in the glen. Pee in that, son.
I want to ask him what he's talking about for even if I'm bursting I feel strange peeing into a pot with roses and maidens cavorting, whatever they are. We had nothing like this in Classon Avenue where Mrs. Leibowitz sang in the lavatory while we clutched ourselves in the hall.
Now Malachy has to use the chamber pot but he wants to sit on it. Dad says, No, you can't do that, son. You have to go outside. When he says that I have to go, too, to sit. He leads us downstairs and through the big room where Grandpa is sitting reading by the fire and Grandma is dozing in her chair. It's dark outside, though the moon is bright enough for us to see where we're going. Dad opens the door of a little house that has a seat with a hole in it. He shows Malachy and me how to sit on the hole and how to wipe ourselves with squares of newspaper stuck on a nail. Then he tells us wait while he goes inside, closes the door and grunts. The moon is so bright I can look down the field and see the things called cows and sheep and I wonder why they don't go home.
In the house there are other people in the room with my grandparents. Dad says, These are your aunts: Emily, Nora, Maggie, Vera. Your aunt Eva is in Ballymena with children like you. My aunts are not like Mrs. Leibowitz and Minnie MacAdorey, they nod their heads but they don't hug us or smile. Mam comes into the room with the twins and when Dad tells his sisters, This is Angela and these are the twins, they just nod again.
Grandma goes to the kitchen and soon we have bread and sausages and tea. The only one who speaks at the table is Malachy. He points his spoon at the aunts and asks their names again. When Mam tells him eat his sausage and be quiet his eyes fill with tears and Aunt Nora reaches over to comfort him. She says, There, there, and I wonder why everyone says there there when Malachy cries. I wonder what there there means.
It's quiet at the table till Dad says, Things are terrible in America. Grandma says, Och, aye. I read it in the paper. But they say Mr. Roosevelt is a good man and if you stayed you might have work by now.
Dad shakes his head and Grandma says, I don't know what you're going to do, Malachy. Things are worse here than they are in America. No work here and, God knows, we don't have room in this house for six more people.
Dad says, I thought I might get work on some of the farms. We could get a small place.
Where would you stay in the meantime? says Grandma. And how would you support yourself and your family?
Och, I could go on the dole, I suppose.
You can't get off a ship from America and go on the dole, says Grandpa. They make you wait a while and what would you do while you're waiting?
Dad says nothing and Mam looks straight ahead at the wall.
You'd be better off in the Free State, says Grandma. Dublin is big and surely there's work there or in the farms around.
You're entitled to money from the IRA, too, says Grandpa. You did your bit and they've been handing out money to men all over the Free State. You could go to Dublin and ask for help. We can loan you the bus fare to Dublin. The twins can sit on your lap and you won't have to pay for them.
Dad says, Och, aye, and Mam stares at the wall with tears in her eyes.
After we ate we went back to bed and next morning, all the grown-ups sat around looking sad. Soon a man came in a motor car and took us back down the road to the shop which had our trunk. They lifted the trunk up on the roof of a bus and we got into the bus. Dad said we were going to Dublin. Malachy said, What's Dublin? but no one answered him. Dad held Eugene on his lap and Mam held Oliver. Dad looked out at the fields and told me this is where Cuchulain liked to go for a walk. I asked him where Cuchulain hit the ball into the dog's mouth and he said a few miles away.
Malachy said, Look, look, and we looked. It was a great silvery sheet of water and Dad said it was Lough Neagh, the largest lake in Ireland, the lake where Cuchulain used to swim after his great battles. Cuchulain would get so hot that when he jumped into Lough Neagh it boiled over and warmed the surrounding countryside for days. Some day we'd all come back and go swimming like Cuchulain himself. We'd fish for eels and fry them in a pan not like Cuchulain, who would pluck them from the lough and swallow them, wriggling, because there's great power in an eel.
Is that right, Dad?
'Tis.
Mam didn't look out the window at Lough Neagh. Her cheek rested on top of Oliver's head and she stared at the floor of the bus.
Soon the bus is rolling into a place where there are big houses, motor cars, horses pulling carts, people on bicycles and hundreds walking. Malachy is excited. Dad, Dad, where's the playground, the swings? I want to see Freddie Leibowitz.
Och, son, you're in Dublin now, far from Classon Avenue. You're in Ireland, a long way from New York.
When the bus stops the trunk is lifted down and set on the floor of the bus station. Dad tells Mam she can sit on a bench in the station while he goes to see the IRA man in a place called Terenure. He says there are lavatories in the station for the boys, he won't be long, he'll have money when he returns and we'll all have food. He tells me go with him and Mam says, No, I need him to help. But when Dad says, I'll need help carrying all that money, she laughs and says, All right, go with your Pop.
Your Pop. That means she's in a good mood. If she says your father it means she's in a bad mood.
Dad holds my hand as I trot along beside him. He's a fast walker, it's a long way to Terenure and I'm hoping he'll stop and carry me the way he did with the twins in Toome. But he lopes along and says nothing except to ask people where Terenure is. In awhile he says we're in Terenure and now we have to find Mr. Charles Heggarty of the IRA. A man with a pink patch on his eye tells us we're on the right street, Charlie Heggarty lives at number fourteen, God blast him. The man tells Dad, I can see you're a man that did his bit. Dad says, Och, I did my bit, and the man says, I did me bit, too, and what did it get me but one eye less and a pension that wouldn't feed a canary.
But Ireland is free, says Dad, and that's a grand thing.
Free, my arse, the man says. I think we were better off under the English. Good luck to you anyway, mister, for I think I know what you're here for.
A woman opens the door at number fourteen. I'm afraid, she says, that Mr. Heggarty is busy. Dad tells her he just walked all the way from the middle of Dublin with his small son, that he left wife and three children waiting for him at the bus place, and if Mr. Heggarty is that busy then we'll wait for him on the doorstep.
The woman is back in a minute to say Mr. Heggarty has a little time to spare and would you come this way. Mr. Heggarty is sitting at a desk near a glowing fire. He says, What can I do for you? Dad stands before the desk and says, I have just returned from America with wife and four children. We have nothing. I fought with a Flying Column during the Troubles and I'm hoping you can help me now in the time of need.
Mr. Heggarty takes Dad's name and turns the pages of a big book on his desk. He shakes his head, No, no record of your service here.
Dad makes a long speech. He tells Mr. Heggarty how he fought, where, when, how he had to be smuggled out of Ireland because of the price on his head, how he was raising his sons to love Ireland.
Mr. Heggarty says he's sorry but he can't be handing out money to every man who wanders in claiming he did his bit. Dad says to me, Remember this, Francis. This is the new Ireland. Little men in little chairs with little bits of paper. This is the Ireland men died for.
Mr. Heggarty says he'll look into Dad's claim and he'll be sure to let him know what turns up. He'll let us have money to take the bus back into the city. Dad looks at the coins in Mr. Heggarty's hand and says, You could add to that and make the price of a pint.
Oh, it's the drink you want, is it?
One pint is hardly drink.
You'd walk the miles back and make the boy walk because you want a pint, wouldn't you?
Walking never killed anyone.
I want you to leave this house, says Mr. Heggarty, or I'll call a guard, and you can be sure you'll never hear from me again. We're not handing out money to support the Guinness family.
Night falls along the streets of Dublin. Children laugh and play under streetlights, mothers call from doorways, smells of cooking come at us all the way, through windows we see people around tables, eating. I'm tired and hungry and I want Dad to carry me but I know there's no use asking him now the way his face is tight and set. I let him hold my hand and I run to keep up with him till we reach the bus place where Mam is waiting with my brothers.
They're all asleep on the bench, my mother and three brothers. When Dad tells Mam there's no money she shakes her head and sobs, Oh, Jesus, what are we going to do? A man in a blue uniform comes over and asks her, What's up, missus? Dad tells him we're stranded there at the bus station, we have no money and no place to stay and the children are hungry. The man says he's going off duty now, he'll take us to the police barracks where he has to report anyway, and they'll see what can be done.
The man in uniform tells us we can call him guard. That's what you call policemen in Ireland. He asks us what you call policemen in America and Malachy says, cop. The guard pats him on the head and tells him he's a clever little Yankee.
At the police barracks the sergeant tells us we can spend the night. He's sorry but all he can offer is the floor. It's Thursday and the cells are filled with men who drank their dole money and wouldn't leave the pubs.
The guards give us hot sweet tea
and thick slices of bread slathered with butter and jam and we're so happy we run around the barracks, playing. The guards say we're a great bunch of little Yanks and they'd like to take us home but I say, No, Malachy says, No, the twins say, No, No, and all the guards laugh. Men in cells reach out and pat our heads, they smell like Dad when he comes home singing about Kevin Barry and Roddy McCorley going to die. The men say, Jasus, will ye listen to them. They sound like bloody fillum stars. Did yez fall outa the sky or what? Women in cells at the other end tell Malachy he's gorgeous and the twins are dotes. One woman talks to me. C'mere, love, would you like a sweet? I nod, and she says, All right, put your hand out. She takes something sticky from her mouth and puts it on my hand. There you are now, she says, a nice bit of butterscotch. Put that in your mouth. I don't want to put it in my mouth because it's sticky and wet from her mouth but I don't know what you're supposed to do when a woman in a cell offers you sticky butterscotch and I'm about to put it in my mouth when a guard comes, takes the butterscotch and throws it back at the woman. You drunken hoor, he says, leave the child alone, and all the women laugh.
The sergeant gives my mother a blanket and she sleeps stretched out on a bench. The rest of us lie on the floor. Dad sits with his back to the wall, his eyes open under the peak of his cap, and he smokes when the guards give him cigarettes. The guard who threw the butterscotch at the woman says he's from Ballymena in the north and he talks with Dad about people they know there and in other places like Cushendall and Toome. The guard says he'll have a pension some day and he'll live on the shores of Lough Neagh and fish his days away. Eels, he says, eels galore. Jasus, I love a fried eel. I ask Dad, Is this Cuchulain? and the guard laughs till his face turns red. Ah, Mother o' God, did yez hear this? The lad wants to know if I'm Cuchulain. A little Yank and he knows all about Cuchulain.
Dad says, No, he's not Cuchulain but he's a fine man who will live on the shores of Lough Neagh and fish his days away.
Dad is shaking me. Up, Francis, up. It is noisy in the barracks. A boy mopping the floor is singing,