going and the Morse Code dit dit dit dot. I hear mandolins, guitars, Spanish bagpipes, the drums of Africa, boatmen wailing on the Nile. I see sailors on watch sipping mugs of hot cocoa. I see cathedrals, skysc.r.a.pers, cottages. I see Bedouins in the Sahara and the French Foreign Legion, cowboys on the American prairie. I see goats skipping along the rocky coast of Greece where the shepherds are blind because they married their mothers by mistake. I see people chatting in cafs, sipping wine, strolling on boulevards and avenues. I see night women in doorways, monks chanting vespers, and here is the great boom of Big Ben, This is the BBC Overseas Service and here is the news.
Mrs. Purcell says, Leave that on, Frankie, so weall know the state of the world.
After the news there is the American Armed Forces Network and itas lovely to hear the American voices easy and cool and here is the music, oh, man, the music of Duke Ellington himself telling me take the A train to where Billie Holiday sings only to me, I canat give you anything but love, baby.
Thatas the only thing Iave plenty of, baby.
Oh, Billie, Billie, I want to be in America with you and all that music, where no one has bad teeth, people leave food on their plates, every family has a lavatory, and everyone lives happily ever after.
And Mrs. Purcell says, Do you know what, Frankie?
What, Mrs. Purcell?
That Shakespeare is that good he must have been an Irishman.
The rent man is losing his patience. He tells Mam, Four weeks behind you are, missus. Thatas one pound two shillings. This has to stop for I have to go back to the office and report to Sir Vincent Nash that the McCourts are a month behind.Where am I then, missus? Out on my a.r.s.e jobless and a mother to support thatas ninety-two and a daily communicant in the Franciscan church.The rent man collects the rents, missus, or he loses the job. Iall be back next week and if you donat have the money, one pound eight shillings and sixpence total, atis out on the pavement youall be with the skies dripping on your furniture.
Mam comes back up to Italy and sits by the fire wondering where in G.o.das name sheall get the money for a weekas rent never mind the arrears.
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Shead love a cup of tea but thereas no way of boiling the water till Malachy pulls a loose board off the wall between the two upstairs rooms.Mam says, Well, atis off now and we might as well chop it up for the fire.We boil the water and use the rest of the wood for the morning tea but what about tonight and tomorrow and ever after? Mam says,One more board from that wall, one more and not another one. She says that for two weeks till thereas nothing left but the beam frame. She warns us we are not to touch the beams for they hold up the ceiling and the house itself.
Oh,wead never touch the beams.
She goes to see Grandma and itas so cold in the house I take the hatchet to one of the beams. Malachy cheers me on and Michael claps his hands with excitement. I pull on the beam, the ceiling groans and down on Mamas bed thereas a shower of plaster, slates, rain.Malachy says, Oh,G.o.d,weall all be killed, and Michael dances around singing, Frankie broke the house, Frankie broke the house.
We run through the rain to tell Mam the news. She looks puzzled with Michael chanting, Frankie broke the house, till I explain thereas a hole in the house and itas falling down. She says, Jesus, and runs through the streets with Grandma trying to keep up.
Mam sees her bed buried under plaster and slates and pulls at her hair,Whatall we do at all, at all? and screams at me for interfering with the beams. Grandma says, Iall go to the landlordas office and tell them fix this before ye are all drowned entirely.
Sheas back in no time with the rent man. He says, Great G.o.d in heaven, whereas the other room?
Grandma says,What room?
I rented ye two rooms up here and one is gone.Where is that room?
Mam says,What room?
There were two rooms up here and now thereas one.And what happened to the wall? There was a wall. Now thereas no wall. I distinctly remember a wall because I distinctly remember a room. Now where is that wall? Where is that room?
Grandma says, I donat remember a wall and if I donat remember a wall how can I remember a room?
Ye donat remember? Well, I remember.Forty years a landlordas agent and I never seen the likes of this. By G.o.d, atis a desperate situation altogether when you canat turn your back but tenants are not paying their rent and making walls and rooms disappear on top of it. I want to know where that wall is and what ye did with the room, so I do.
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Mam turns to us. Do any of ye remember a wall?
Michael pulls at her hand. Is that the wall we burned in the fire?
The rent man says,Dear G.o.d in heaven,this beats Banagher,this takes the b.l.o.o.d.y biscuit, this is goina beyond the beyonds. No rent and what am I to tell Sir Vincent below in the office? Out, missus, Iam puttina ye out.One week from today Iall knock on this door and I want to find n.o.body at home, everybody out never to return. Do you have me, missus?
Mamas face is tight. aTis a pity you werenat alive in the times when the English were evicting us and leaving us on the side of the road.
No lip, missus, or Iall send the men to put ye out tomorrow.
He goes out the door and leaves it open to show what he thinks of us. Mam says, I donat know in G.o.das name what Iam going to do.
Grandma says,Well, I donat have room for ye but your cousin, Gerard Griffin, is living out the Rosbrien Road in that little house of his motheras and head surely be able to take ye in till better times come. aTis all hours of the night but Iall go up and see what he says and Frank can come with me.
She tells me put on a coat but I donat have one and she says, I suppose thereas no use in asking if ye have an umbrella either. Come on.
She pulls the shawl over her head and I follow her out the door, up the lane, through the rain to Rosbrien Road nearly two miles away. She knocks on the door of a little cottage in a long row of little cottages.Are you there, Laman? I know youare in there. Open the door.
Grandma, why are you calling him Laman? Isnat his name Gerard?
How would I know? Do I know why the world calls your uncle Pat Ab? Everyone calls this fella Laman. Open the door.Weall go in. He might be working overtime.
She pushes the door. Itas dark and thereas a damp sweet smell in the room.This room looks like the kitchen and thereas a smaller room next to it.Thereas a little loft above the bedroom with a skylight where the rain is beating.There are boxes everywhere, newspapers, magazines, bits of food,mugs, empty tins.We can see two beds taking up all the s.p.a.ce in the bedroom, a great acre of a bed and a smaller one near the window.
Grandma pokes at a lump in the big bed. Laman, is that you? Get up, will you, get up.
What? What? What? What?
Thereas trouble. Angela is gettina evicted with the children ana atis delvina out of the heavens.They need a bit of shelter till they get on their feet ana I have no room for them.You can put them up in the loft if you 277.
like but that wouldnat do because the small ones wouldnat be able to climb and theyad fall down ana get killed so you go up there ana they can move in here.
All right, all right, all right, all right.
He hoists himself from the bed and thereas a whiskey smell. He goes to the kitchen and pulls the table to the wall for his climb to the loft.
Grandma says, Thatas fine now. Ye can move up here tonight ana ye wonat have the eviction men coming after ye.
Grandma tells Mam sheas going home. Sheas tired and drenched and sheas not twenty-five anymore. She says thereas no need to be taking beds or furniture with all the stuff thatas up in Laman Griffinas.We put Alphie in the pram and pile around him the pot, the pan, the kettle, the jam jars and mugs, the Pope, two bolsters and the coats from the beds.
We drape the coats over our heads and push the pram through the streets. Mam tells us be quiet going up the lane or the neighbors will know we got the eviction and there will be shame. The pram has a bockety wheel which tilts it and makes it go in different directions.We try to keep it straight and weare having a great time because it must be after midnight and surely Mam wonat make us go to school tomorrow.
Weare moving so far from Leamyas School now maybe weall never have to go again. Once we get away from the lane Alphie bangs on the pot with the spoon and Michael sings a song he heard in a film with Al Jolson, Swanee,how I love ya,how I love ya,my dear olaSwanee.He makes us laugh the way he tries to sing in a deep voice like Al Jolson.
Mam says sheas glad itas late and thereas no one on the streets to see our shame.
Once we get to the house we take Alphie and everything else from the pram so that Malachy and I can run back down to Roden Lane for the trunk. Mam says shead die if she lost that trunk and everything in it.
Malachy and I sleep at opposite ends of the small bed.Mam takes the big bed with Alphie beside her and Michael at the bottom. Everything is damp and musty and Laman Griffin snores over our heads.There are no stairs in this house and that means no angel ever on the seventh step.
But Iam twelve going on thirteen and I might be too old for angels.
Itas still dark when the alarm goes off in the morning and Laman Grif- fin snorts and blows his nose and hawks the stuff from his chest.
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The floor creaks under him and when he p.i.s.ses for ages into the chamber pot we have to stuff our mouths with coats to stop the laughing and Mam hisses at us to be quiet. He grumbles away above us before he climbs down to get his bicycle and bang his way out the door.Mam whispers, The coast is clear, go back to sleep.Ye can stay at home today.
We canat sleep.Weare in a new house, we have to pee and we want to explore.The lavatory is outside, about ten steps from the back door, our own lavatory, with a door you can close and a proper seat where you can sit and read squares of the Limerick Leader Laman Griffin left behind for wiping himself.There is a long backyard, a garden with tall gra.s.s and weeds, an old bicycle that must have belonged to a giant, tin cans galore, old papers and magazines rotting into the earth, a rusted sewing machine, a dead cat with a rope around his neck that somebody must have thrown over the fence.
Michael gets a notion in his head that this is Africa and keeps asking, Whereas Tarzan? Whereas Tarzan? He runs up and down the backyard with no pants on trying to imitate Tarzan yodeling from tree to tree. Malachy looks over the fences into the other yards and tells us, They have gardens.Theyare growing things.We can grow things.We can have our own spuds and everything.
Mam calls from the back door, See if ye can find anything to start the fire in here.
Thereas a wooden shed built against the back of the house. Itas collapsing and surely we could use some of the wood for the fire. Mam is disgusted with the wood we bring in. She says itas rotten and full of white maggots but beggars canat be choosers.The wood sizzles above the burning paper and we watch the white maggots try to escape.
Michael says he feels sorry for the white maggots but we know heas sorry for everything in the world.
Mam tells us this house used to be a shop, that Laman Griffinas mother sold groceries through the little window and thatas how she was able to send Laman away to Rockwell College so that he could wind up as an officer in the Royal Navy. Oh, he was, indeed.An officer in the Royal Navy, and hereas a picture of him with other officers all having dinner with a famous American film star Jean Harlow.He was never the same after he met Jean Harlow. He fell madly in love with her but what was the use? She was Jean Harlow and he was nothing but an officer in the Royal Navy and it drove him to drink and they threw him out of the Navy.Now look at him, a common laborer for the Electricity Sup- 279.
ply Board and a house thatas a disgrace.Youad look at this house and never know there was a human being living in it.You can see Laman never moved a thing since his mother died and now we have to clean up so that we can live in this place.
There are boxes packed with bottles of purple hair oil.While Mam is out in the lavatory we open a bottle and smear it on our heads. Malachy says the smell is gorgeous but when Mam comes back she says,Whatas that horrible stink? and wants to know why our heads are suddenly greasy.She makes us stick our heads under the tap outside and dry ourselves with an old towel pulled out from under a pile of magazines called The Ill.u.s.trated London News so old they have pictures of Queen Victoria and Prince Edward waving.There are bars of Pearas soap and a thick book called Pearas Encyclopedia, which keeps me up day and night because it tells you everything about everything and thatas all I want to know.
There are bottles of Sloanas Liniment, which Mam says will come in handy when we get cramps and pains from the damp. The bottles say, Hereas the pain, Whereas the Sloanas? There are boxes of safety pins and bags packed with womenas hats that crumble when you touch them. There are bags with corsets, garters, womenas high b.u.t.ton shoes and different laxatives that promise glowing cheeks, bright eyes and a curl in your hair. There are letters from General Eoin OaDuffy to Gerard Griffin, Esq., saying welcome to the ranks of the National Front, the Irish Blueshirts, that it is a privilege to know a man like Gerard Griffin is interested in the movement with his excellent education, his Royal Navy training, his reputation as a great rugby player on the Young Munster team that won the national championship, the Bateman Cup. General OaDuffy is forming an Irish Brigade that will soon sail off to Spain to fight with that great Catholic Generalissimo Franco himself, and Mr. Griffin would be a powerful addition to the Brigade.
Mam says Lamanas mother wouldnat let him go. She didnat spend all those years slaving away in a little shop to send him to college so that he could go gallivanting off to Spain for Franco so he stayed at home and got that job digging holes for the poles of the Electricity Supply Board along country roads and his mother was happy to have him home to herself every night but Friday when he drank his pint and moaned over Jean Harlow.
Mam is happy weall have loads of paper for lighting the fire though 280.
the wood we burn from that collapsing shed leaves a sickening smell and she worries the white maggots will escape and breed.
We work all day moving boxes and bags to the shed outside.Mam opens all the windows to air the house and let out the smell of the hair oil and the years of no air. She says itas a relief to be able to see the floor again and now we can sit down and have a nice cup of tea in peace, ease and comfort, and wonat it be lovely when the warm weather comes and we might be able to have a garden and sit outside with our tea the way the English do.
Laman Griffin comes home at six every night but Friday, has his tea and goes to bed till next morning. Sat.u.r.days he goes to bed at one in the afternoon and stays there till Monday morning. He pulls the kitchen table over to the wall under the loft, climbs up on a chair, pulls the chair up to the table, climbs up on the chair again, catches a leg of the bed, pulls himself up. If heas too drunk on Fridays he makes me climb up for his pillow and blankets and sleeps on the kitchen floor by the fire or falls into bed with me and my brothers and snores and farts all night.
When we first moved in he complained over how he gave up his room downstairs for the loft and heas worn out climbing up and down to go to the lavatory in the backyard. He calls down,Bring the table, the chair,Iam coming down, and we have to clear off the table and pull it to the wall.
Heas fed up, heas finished with the climbing, heas going to use his motheras lovely chamber pot. He lies in bed all day reading books from the library, smoking Gold Flake cigarettes and throwing Mam a few shillings to send one of us to the shop so that he can have scones with his tea or a nice bit of ham and sliced tomato.Then he calls to Mam, Angela, this chamber pot is full,and she drags chair and table to climb for the chamber pot,empty it in the lavatory outside, rinse it and climb back to the loft. Her face gets tight and she says, Is there anything else your lordship would like this day?
and he laughs,Womanas work,Angela,womanas work and free rent.
Laman throws down his library card from the loft and tells me get him two books, one on angling, one on gardening. He writes a note to the librarian to say his legs are killing him from digging holes for the Electricity Supply Board and from now on Frank McCourt will be getting his books. He knows the boy is only thirteen going on fourteen and he knows the rules are strict about allowing children into the adult part of the library but the boy will wash his hands and behave himself and do what heas told, thank you.
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The librarian reads the note and says atis an awful pity about Mr. Griffin, heas a true gentleman and a man of great learning, you wouldnat believe the books he reads, sometimes four a week, that one day he took home a book in French, French, if you donat mind, on the history of the rudder, the rudder, if you donat mind, shead give anything for a look inside his head for it must be packed with all sorts of learning, packed, if you donat mind.
She picks out a gorgeous book with colored pictures about English gardens. She says, I know what he likes in the fishing department, and chooses a book called In Search of the Irish Salmon by Brigadier General Hugh Colton. Oh, says the librarian, he reads hundreds of books about English officers fishing in Ireland. Iave read some myself out of pure curiosity and you can see why those officers are glad to be in Ireland after all they put up with in India and Africa and other desperate places.
At least the people here are polite.Weare known for that, the politeness, not running around throwing spears at people.
Laman lies in the bed, reads his books, talks down from the loft about the day his legs will heal and heall be out there in the back planting a garden which will be famous far and wide for color and beauty and when heas not gardening heall be roaming the rivers around Limerick and bringing home salmon that will make your mouth water.His mother left a recipe for salmon thatas a family secret and if he had the time and his legs werenat killing him head find it someplace in this house. He says now that Iam reliable I can get a book for myself every week but donat be bringing home filth. I want to know what the filth is but he wonat tell me so Iall have to find out for myself.
Mam says she wants to join the library too but itas a long walk from Lamanas house, two miles, and would I mind getting her a book every week, a romance by Charlotte M. Brame or any other nice writer. She doesnat want any books about English officers looking for salmon or books about people shooting each other.Thereas enough trouble in the world without reading about people bothering fish and each other.
Grandma caught a chill the night we had the trouble in the house in Roden Lane and the chill turned into pneumonia.They shifted her to the City Home Hospital and now sheas dead.
Her oldest son,my uncle Tom, thought head go to England to work 282.
like other men in the lanes of Limerick but his consumption got worse and he came back to Limerick and now heas dead.
His wife, Galway Jane, followed him, and four of their six children had to be put into orphanages. The oldest boy, Gerry, ran away and joined the Irish army, deserted and crossed to the English army.The oldest girl, Peggy,went to Aunt Aggie and lives in misery.
The Irish army is looking for boys who are musical and would like to train in the Army School of Music.They accept my brother,Malachy, and he goes off to Dublin to be a soldier and play the trumpet.
Now I have only two brothers at home and Mam says her family is disappearing before her very eyes.
XIII.
Boys from my cla.s.s at Leamyas School are going on a weekend cycling trip to Killaloe.They tell me I should borrow a bicycle and come. All I need is a blanket, a few spoons of tea and sugar and a few cuts of bread to keep me going. Iall learn to cycle on Laman Griffinas bicycle every night after he goes to bed and heall surely let me borrow it for the two days in Killaloe.
The best time to ask him for anything is Friday night when heas in a good mood after his night of drinking and his dinner. He brings home the same dinner in his overcoat pockets, a big steak dripping blood, four potatoes, an onion, a bottle of stout. Mam boils the potatoes and fries the steak with sliced onion. He keeps his overcoat on, sits at the table and eats the steak out of his hands.The grease and blood roll down his chin and on to the overcoat where he wipes his hands.
He drinks his stout and laughs that thereas nothing like a great b.l.o.o.d.y steak of a Friday night and if thatas the worst sin he ever commits heall float to heaven body and soul, ha ha ha.
Of course you can have my bike, he says.Boy should be able to get out and see the countryside. Of course. But you have to earn it.You canat be getting something for nothing, isnat that right?
aTis.
And I have a job for you.You donat mind doing a bit of a job, do you?
284.
I donat.
And youad like to help your mother?
I would.
Well, now, that very chamber pot is full since this morning. I want you to climb up and get it and take it to the lavatory and rinse it under the tap abroad and climb back up with it.
I donat want to empty his chamber pot but I dream of cycling miles on the road to Killaloe, fields and sky far from this house, a swim in the Shannon,a night sleeping in a barn. I pull the table and chair to the wall.
I climb up and under the bed thereas the plain white chamber pot streaked brown and yellow, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with p.i.s.s and s.h.i.t. I lay it gently at the edge of the loft so that it wonat spill, climb down to the chair, reach for the chamber pot, bring it down, turn my face away, hold it while I step down to the table, place it on the chair, step to the floor, take the chamber pot to the lavatory, empty it, and get sick behind the lavatory till I get used to this job.
Laman says Iam a good boy and the bike is mine anytime I want it as long as the chamber pot is empty and Iam there to run to the shop for his cigarettes, go to the library for books and do whatever else he wants. He says,You have a great way with a chamber pot. He laughs and Mam stares into the dead ashes in the fireplace.