n. Go. Pray for me.
He blesses me in Latin, talks to himself in English and I wonder what I did to him.
I wish I could find my father so I could say to Mam, Here he is and he has three pounds left in his pocket. I'm not hungry now so I can go up one side of O'Connell Street and down the other and search pubs on the side streets and there he is in Gleeson's, how could I miss him with his singing,
'Tis alone my concern if the grandest surprise
Would be shining at me out of somebody's eyes.
'Tis my private affair what my feelings would be
While the Green Glens of Antrim were welcoming me.
My heart is banging away in my chest and I don't know what to do because I know I'm raging inside like my mother by the fire and all I can think of doing is running in and giving him a good kick in the leg and running out again but I don't because we have the mornings by the fire when he tells me about Cuchulain and De Valera and Roosevelt and if he's there drunk and buying pints with the baby's money he has that look in his eyes Eugene had when he searched for Oliver and I might as well go home and tell my mother a lie that I never saw him couldn't find him.
She's in the bed with the baby. Malachy and Michael are up in Italy asleep. I know I don't have to tell Mam anything, that soon when the pubs close he'll be home singing and offering us a penny to die for Ireland and it will be different now because it's bad enough to drink the dole or the wages but a man that drinks the money for a new baby is gone beyond the beyonds as my mother would say.
VIII
I'm ten years old and ready to go to St. Joseph's Church for my Confirmation. In school the master, Mr. O'Dea, prepares us. We have to know all about Sanctifying Grace, a pearl of great price, bought for us by Jesus in His dying. Mr. O'Dea's eyes roll in his head when he tells us that with Confirmation we will become part of Divinity. We will have the Gifts of the Holy Ghost: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, the Fear of the Lord. Priests and masters tell us Confirmation means you're a true soldier of the Church and that entitles you to die and be a martyr in case we're invaded by Protestants or Mahommedans or any other class of a heathen. More dying. I want to tell them I won't be able to die for the Faith because I'm already booked to die for Ireland.
Mikey Molloy says, Is it jokin' you are? That thing about dying for the Faith is all a cod. 'Tis only a saying they made up to frighten you. Ireland too. No one dies for anything anymore. All the dying is done. I wouldn't die for Ireland or the Faith. I might die for my mother but that's all.
Mikey knows everything. He's going on fourteen. He gets the fits. He has visions.
The grown-ups tell us it's a glorious thing to die for the Faith, only we're not ready for that yet because Confirmation day is like First Communion day, you make the rounds of lanes and back streets and you get cakes and sweets and money, The Collection.
That's where poor Peter Dooley comes in. We call him Quasimodo because he has a hump on his back like the one on the hunchback of Notre Dame, whose real name we know is Charles Laughton.
Quasimodo has nine sisters and it is said his mother never wanted him but that was what the angel brought her and it's a sin to question what's sent. Quasimodo is old, he's fifteen. His red hair sticks up in all directions. He has green eyes and one rolls around in his head so much he's constantly tapping his temple to keep it where it's supposed to be. His right leg is short and twisted and when he walks he does a little twirly dance and you never know when he'll fall. That's when you're surprised. He curses his leg, he curses the world, but he curses in a lovely English accent which he got from the radio, the BBC. Before he leaves his house he always sticks his head out the door and tells the lane, Here's me head, me arse is coming. When he was twelve Quasimodo decided that with the way he looked and the way the world looked at him the best thing would be to prepare for a job where he could be heard and not seen and what better than sitting behind a microphone at the BBC in London reading the news?
But you can't get to London without money and that's why he hobbles up to us that Friday, the day before Confirmation. He has an idea for Billy and me. He knows the next day we'll be getting Confirmation money and if we promise to pay him a shilling each he'll let us climb up the rainspout behind his house this very night to look in the window and see his sisters' naked bodies when they take their weekly wash. I sign right away. Billy says, I have my own sister. Why should I pay to see your naked sisters?
Quasimodo says that looking at your own sister's naked body is the worst sin of all and he's not sure if there's a priest in the world can forgive you, that you might have to go to the bishop, who everyone knows is a holy terror.
Billy signs.
Friday night we climb the wall of Quasimodo's backyard. It's a lovely night with the June moon floating high over Limerick and you can feel a warm breeze off the Shannon River. Quasimodo is about to let Billy up the spout and who comes clambering over the wall but Mikey Molloy the Fit himself hissing at Quasimodo, Here's a shilling, Quasimodo. Let me up the spout. Mikey is fourteen now, bigger than any of us and strong from his job delivering coal. He's black from the coal like Uncle Pa Keating and all you can see are the whites of his eyes and the white froth on his lower lip, which means he could have the fit anytime.
Quasimodo says, Wait, Mikey. They're first. Wait, my arse, says Mikey, and he's away up the spout. Billy complains but Quasimodo shakes his head, I can't help it. He comes every week with the shilling. I have to let him up the spout or he'll beat me up and tell my mother and the next thing she locks me in the coal hole all day with the rats. The Fit is up hanging on to the spout with one hand. The other hand is in his pocket moving, moving and when the spout itself starts to move and creak Quasimodo hisses, Molloy, there's to be no whankin' up the spout. He hops around the yard cackling. His BBC accent is gone and he's pure Limerick. Jaysus, Molloy, come down off that spout or I'll tell me mother. Mikey's hand goes faster in his pocket, so fast the spout gives a lurch and collapses and Mikey is rolling on the ground yelping, I'm dead. I'm destroyed. Oh, God. You can see the froth on his lips and the blood that comes from biting his tongue.
Quasimodo's mother comes screaming through the door, What in the name of Jesus! and the kitchen light fills the yard. The sisters are squawking from the window above. Billy tries to escape and she drags him off the wall. She tells him run to O'Connor the chemist around the corner to ring up an ambulance or a doctor or something for Mikey. She screams at us to get into the kitchen. She kicks Quasimodo into the hall. He's on his hands and knees and she drags him to the coal hole under the stairs and locks him in. Stay there till you come to your senses.
He's crying and calling to her in a pure Limerick accent. Ah, Mamma, Mamma, let me out. The rats is here. I only want to go to the BBC, Mamma. Aw, Jasus, Mamma, Jasus. I'll never let anyone up the spout again. I'll send money from London, Mamma. Mamma!
Mikey is still on his back, jerking and twisting around the yard. The ambulance takes him off to the hospital with a broken shoulder and his tongue in ribbons.
Our mothers are there in no time. Mrs. Dooley says, I'm disgraced, so I am, disgraced. My daughters can't wash theirselves of a Friday night without the whole world gawking in the window and them boys there are in a state of sin and should be taken to the priest for confession before their Confirmation tomorrow.
But Mam says, I don't know about the rest of the world but I saved a whole year for Frank's Confirmation suit and I'm not going to the priest to have him tell me my son is not fit for Confirmation so that I'll have to wait another year when he grows out of this suit and all because he climbed a spout for an innocent gawk at the scrawny arse of Mona Dooley
She drags me home by the ear and makes me kneel before the Pope. Swear, she says, swear to that Pope that you didn't look at Mona Dooley in her pelt.
I swear.
If you're lying you won't be in a state of grace for Confirmation tomorrow and that's the worst kind of sacrilege.
I swear.
Only the bishop himself could forgive a sacrilege like that.
I swear.
All right. Go to bed and from this day out stay far away from that misfortunate Quasimodo Dooley.
We are all confirmed the next day. The bishop asks me a catechism question, What is the Fourth Commandment? and I tell him, Honor thy father and thy mother. He pats my cheek and that makes me a soldier of the True Church. I kneel in the pew and think of Quasimodo locked in the coal hole under the stairs and I wonder, Should I give him the shilling anyway for his career at the BBC?
But I forget all about Quasimodo because my nose starts bleeding and I feel dizzy. Confirmation boys and girls are outside St. Joseph's with their parents and there is hugging and kissing in the bright sun and I don't care. My father is working and I don't care. My mother kisses me and I don't care. The boys talk about The Collection and I don't care. My nose won't stop and Mam is worried I'll ruin my suit. She runs into the church to see if Stephen Carey, the sacristan, would spare her a rag and he gives her some kind of canvas cloth that makes my nose sore. She says, Do you want to make your collection? and I tell her I don't care. Malachy says, Do, do, Frankie, and he's sad because I promised I'd take him to the Lyric Cinema to see the film and stuff ourselves with sweets. I want to lie down. I could lie down there on the steps of St. Joseph's and sleep forever. Mam says, Grandma is making a nice breakfast, and the mention of food makes me so sick I run to the edge of the pavement to throw up and the whole world is looking at me and I don't care. Mam says she'd better take me home and put me to bed and my pals look surprised that anyone can go to bed when there's a collection to be made.
She helps me take off my Confirmation suit and puts me to bed. She wets a rag and places it under my neck and after awhile the bleeding stops. She brings tea but the look of it makes me sick and I have to throw up in the bucket. Mrs. Hannon comes in from next door and I can hear her say that's a very sick child and he should have a doctor. Mam says it's Saturday, the Dispensary is closed and where would you get a doctor?
Dad comes home from his job at Rank's Flour Mills and tells Mam I'm going through a stage, growing pains. Grandma comes up and says the same thing. She says when boys go from the one number year, which is nine, to the two number year, which is ten, they're changing and prone to the nosebleed. She says I might have too much blood in me anyway and a good cleaning out wouldn't do me one bit of harm.
The day passes and I'm in and out of sleep. Malachy and Michael come into the bed at night and I can hear Malachy say, Frankie is very hot. Michael says, He's bleeding on my leg. Mam puts the wet rag on my nose and a key on my neck but it won't stop the bleeding. On Sunday morning there's blood on my chest and all around me. Mam tells Dad I'm bleeding through my bottom and he says I might have a case of the runs, which is common with the growing pains.
Dr. Troy is our doctor but he's away on holiday and the man that comes to see me on Monday has a smell of whiskey on him. He examines me and tells my mother I have a bad cold and keep me in bed. Days pass and I sleep and bleed. Mam makes tea and beef tea and I don't want it. She even brings ice cream and the look of it makes me sick. Mrs. Hannon comes in again and says that doctor doesn't know what he's talking about, see if Dr. Troy is back.
Mam comes with Dr. Troy. He feels my forehead, rolls up my eyelids, turns me over to see my back, picks me up and runs to his motor car. Mam runs after him and he tells her I have typhoid fever. Mam cries, Oh, God, oh, God, am I to lose the whole family? Will it ever end? She gets into the car, holds me in her lap and moans all the way to the Fever Hospital at the City Home.
The bed has cool white sheets. The nurses have clean white uniforms and the nun, Sister Rita, is all in white. Dr. Humphrey and Dr. Campbell have white coats and things hanging from their necks which they stick against my chest and all over. I sleep and sleep but I'm awake when they bring in jars of bright red stuff that hang from tall poles above my bed and they stick tubes into my ankles and the back of my right hand. Sister Rita says, You're getting blood, Francis. Soldier's blood from the Sarsfield Barracks.
Mam is sitting by the bed and the nurse is saying, You know, missus, this is very unusual. No one is ever allowed into the Fever Hospital for fear they'd catch something but they made an exception for you with his crisis coming. If he gets over this he'll surely recover.
I fall asleep. Mam is gone when I wake but there's movement in the room and it's the priest, Father Gorey, from the Confraternity saying Mass at a table in the corner. I drift off again and now they're waking me and pulling down the bedclothes. Father Gorey is touching me with oil and praying in Latin. I know it's Extreme Unction and that means I'm going to die and I don't care. They wake me again to receive Communion. I don't want it, I'm afraid I might get sick. I keep the wafer on my tongue and fall asleep and when I wake up again it's gone.
It's dark and Dr. Campbell is sitting by my bed. He's holding my wrist and looking at his watch. He has red hair and glasses and he always smiles when he talks to me. He sits now and hums and looks out the window. His eyes close and he snores a little. He tilts over on the chair and farts and smiles to himself and I know now I'm going to get better because a doctor would never fart in the presence of a dying boy.
Sister Rita's white habit is bright in the sun that comes in the window. She's holding my wrist, looking at her watch, smiling. Oh, she says, we're awake, are we? Well, Francis, I think we've come through the worst. Our prayers are answered and all the prayers of those hundreds of little boys at the Confraternity. Can you imagine that? Hundreds of boys saying the rosary for you and offering up their communion.
My ankles and the back of my hand are throbbing from the tubes bringing in the blood and I don't care about boys praying for me. I can hear the swish of Sister Rita's habit and the click of her rosary beads when she leaves the room. I fall asleep and when I wake it's dark and Dad is sitting by the bed with his hand on mine.
Son, are you awake?
I try to talk but I'm dry, nothing will come out and I point to my mouth. He holds a glass of water to my lips and it's sweet and cool. He presses my hand and says I'm a great old soldier and why wouldn't I? Don't I have the soldier's blood in me?
The tubes are not in me anymore and the glass jars are gone.
Sister Rita comes in and tells Dad he has to go. I don't want him to go because he looks sad. He's like Paddy Clohessy the day I gave him the raisin. When he looks sad it's the worst thing in the world and I start crying. Now what's this? says Sister Rita. Crying with all that soldier blood in you? There's a big surprise for you tomorrow, Francis. You'll never guess. Well, I'll tell you, we're bringing you a nice biscuit with your tea in the morning. Isn't that a treat? And your father will be back in a day or two, won't you, Mr. McCourt?
Dad nods and puts his hand on mine again. He looks at me, steps away, stops, comes back, kisses me on the forehead for the first time in my life and I'm so happy I feel like floating out of the bed.
The other two beds in my room are empty. The nurse says I'm the only typhoid patient and I'm a miracle for getting over the crisis.
The room next to me is empty till one morning a girl's voice says, Yoo hoo, who's there?
I'm not sure if she's talking to me or someone in the room beyond.
Yoo hoo, boy with the typhoid, are you awake?
I am.
Are you better?
I am.
Well, why are you here?
I don't know. I'm still in the bed. They stick needles in me and give me medicine.
What do you look like?
I wonder, What kind of a question is that? I don't know what to tell her.
Yoo hoo, are you there, typhoid boy?
I am.
What's your name?
Frank.
That's a good name. My name is Patricia Madigan. How old are you?
Ten.
Oh. She sounds disappointed.
But I'll be eleven in August, next month.
Well, that's better than ten. I'll be fourteen in September. Do you want to know why I'm in the Fever Hospital?
I do.
I have diphtheria and something else.
What's something else?
They don't know. They think I have a disease from foreign parts because my father used to be in Africa. I nearly died. Are you going to tell me what you look like?
I have black hair.
You and millions.
I have brown eyes with bits of green that's called hazel.
You and thousands.
I have stitches on the back of my right hand and my two feet where they put in the soldier's blood.
Oh, God, did they?
They did.
You won't be able to stop marching and saluting.
There's a swish of habit and click of beads and then Sister Rita's voice. Now, now, what's this? There's to be no talking between two rooms especially when it's a boy and a girl. Do you hear me, Patricia?
I do, Sister.
Do you hear me, Francis?
I do, Sister.
You could be giving thanks for your two remarkable recoveries. You could be saying the rosary. You could be reading The Little Messenger of the Sacred Heart that's beside your beds. Don't let me come back and find you talking.
She comes into my room and wags her finger at me. Especially you, Francis, after thousands of boys prayed for you at the Confraternity. Give thanks, Francis, give thanks.
She leaves and there's silence for awhile. Then Patricia whispers, Give thanks, Francis, give thanks, and say your rosary, Francis, and I laugh so hard a nurse runs in to see if I'm all right. She's a very stern nurse from the County Kerry and she frightens me. What's this, Francis? Laughing? What is there to laugh about? Are you and that Madigan girl talking? I'll report you to Sister Rita. There's to be no laughing for you could be doing serious damage to your internal apparatus.
She plods out and Patricia whispers again in a heavy Kerry accent, No laughing, Francis, you could be doin' serious damage to your internal apparatus. Say your rosary, Francis, and pray for your internal apparatus.
Mam visits me on Thursdays. I'd lik