She shows me a letter from Paddy. Heas working in his uncle Anthonyas pub twelve hours a day, twenty-five shillings a week and every day soup and a sandwich. Heas delighted when the Germans come over with the bombs so that he can sleep while the pub is closed.
At night he sleeps on the floor of the hallway upstairs. He will send his mother two pounds every month and heas saving the rest to bring her and the family to England where theyall be much better off in one room in Cricklewood than ten rooms in Arthuras Quay. Sheall be able to get a job no bother.Youad have to be a sad case not to be able to get a job in a country thatas at war especially with Yanks pouring in and spending money right and left. Paddy himself is planning to get a job in the middle of London where Yanks leave tips big enough to feed an Irish family of six for a week.
Mrs. Clohessy says,We have enough money for food and shoes at last, thanks be to G.o.d and His Blessed Mother.Youall never guess who Paddy met over there in England fourteen years of age anaworkina like a man. Brendan Kiely, the one ye used to call Question.Workina he is ana savina so he can go ana join the Mounties ana ride all over Canada like Nelson Eddy singina Iall be callina you ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh.
If it wasnat for Hitler wead all be dead ana isnat that a terrible thing to say.
And howas your poor mother, Frankie?
Sheas grand, Mrs. Clohessy.
No, sheas not. I seen her in the Dispensary and she looks worse than my Dennis did in the bed. You have to mind your poor mother.You look desperate too, Frankie,with them two red eyes starina outa your head. Hereas a little tip for you.Thruppence. Buy yourself a sweet.MM I will, Mrs. Clohessy.
Do.
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At the end of the week Mrs. OaConnell hands me the first wages of my life, a pound, my first pound. I run down the stairs and up to OaConnell Street, the main street, where the lights are on and people are going home from work, people like me with wages in their pockets. I want them to know Iam like them, Iam a man, I have a pound. I walk up one side of OaConnell Street and down the other and hope theyall notice me.They donat. I want to wave my pound note at the world so theyall say,There he goes, Frankie McCourt the workingman, with a pound in his pocket.
Itas Friday night and I can do anything I like. I can have fish and chips and go to the Lyric Cinema. No, no more Lyric. I donat have to sit up in the G.o.ds anymore with people all around me cheering on the Indians killing General Custer and the Africans chasing Tarzan all over the jungle. I can go to the Savoy Cinema now, pay sixpence for a seat down front where thereas a better cla.s.s of people eating boxes of chocolates and covering their mouths when they laugh. After the film I can have tea and buns in the restaurant upstairs.
Michael is across the street calling me. Heas hungry and wonders if thereas any chance he could go to The Abbotas for a bit of bread and stay there for the night instead of going all the way to Laman Griffinas.
I tell him he doesnat have to worry about a bit of bread.Weall go to the Coliseum Caf and have fish and chips, all he wants, lemonade galore, and then weall go to see Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney and eat two big bars of chocolate. After the film we have tea and buns and we sing and dance like Cagney all the way to The Abbotas. Michael says it must be great to be in America where people have nothing else to do but sing and dance. Heas half asleep but he says heas going there some day to sing and dance and would I help him go and when heas asleep I start thinking about America and how I have to save money for my fare instead of squandering it on fish and chips and tea and buns. Iall have to save a few shillings from my pound because if I donat Iall be in Limerick forever. Iam fourteen now and if I save something every week surely I should be able to go to America by the time Iam twenty.
There are telegrams for offices, shops, factories where thereas no hope of a tip. Clerks take the telegrams without a look at you or a thank you. There are telegrams for the respectable people with maids along 314.
the Ennis Road and the North Circular Road where thereas no hope of a tip. Maids are like clerks, they donat look at you or say thank you.
There are telegrams for the houses of priests and nuns and they have maids, too, even if they say poverty is n.o.ble. If you waited for tips from priests or nuns youad die on their doorstep.There are telegrams for people miles outside the city, farmers with muddy yards and dogs who want to eat your legs.There are telegrams for rich people in big houses with gate lodges and miles of land surrounded by walls.The gatekeeper waves you in and you have to cycle for miles up long drives past lawns, flower beds, fountains to reach the big house. If the weather is fine people are playing croquet, the Protestant game, or strolling around, talking and laughing, all decked out in flowery dresses and blazers with crests and golden b.u.t.tons and youad never know there was a war on.There are Bentleys and Rolls-Royces parked outside the great front door where a maid tells you go around to the servantsa entrance donat you know any better.
People in the big houses have English accents and they donat tip telegram boys.
The best people for tips are widows, Protestant ministersa wives and the poor in general.Widows know when the telegram money order is due from the English government and they wait by the window.You have to be careful if they ask you in for a cup of tea because one of the temporary boys, Scrawby Luby, said an old widow of thirty-five had him in for tea and tried to take down his pants and he had to run out of the house though he was really tempted and had to go to confession the next Sat.u.r.day. He said it was very awkward hopping up on the bike with his thing sticking out but if you cycle very fast and think of the sufferings of the Virgin Mary youall go soft in no time.
Protestant ministersa wives would never carry on like Scrawby Lubyas old widow unless theyare widows themselves. Christy Wallace, who is a permanent telegram boy and ready to be a postman any day, says Protestants donat care what they do even if theyare ministersa wives.
Theyare doomed anyway, so what does it matter if they have a bit of a romp with a telegram boy. All the telegram boys like Protestant ministersa wives.They might have maids but they answer doors themselves and say, One moment, please, and give you sixpence. Iad like to talk to them and ask them how it feels to be doomed but they might get offended and take back the sixpence.
The Irishmen working in England send their telegram money 315.
orders on Friday nights and all day Sat.u.r.day and thatas when we get the good tips.The minute we deliver one batch weare out with another.
The worst lanes are in the Irishtown, off High Street or Mungret Street, worse than Roden Lane or OaKeeffeas Lane or any lane I lived in. There are lanes with channels running down the middle. Mothers stand at doors and yell gardyloo when they empty their slop buckets.
Children make paper boats or float matchboxes with little sails on the greasy water.
When you ride into a lane the children call out,Hereas the telegram boy, hereas the telegram boy.They run to you and the women wait at the door. If you give a small child a telegram for his mother heas the hero of the family. Little girls know theyare supposed to wait till the boys get their chance though they can get the telegram if they have no brothers.
Women at the door will call to you that they have no money now but if youare in this lane tomorrow knock on the door for your tip, G.o.d bless you ana all belongina to you.
Mrs. OaConnell and Miss Barry at the post office tell us every day our job is to deliver telegrams and nothing else.We are not to be doing things for people, going to the shop for groceries or any other kind of message.They donat care if people are dying in the bed.They donat care if people are legless, lunatic or crawling on the floor.We are to deliver the telegram and thatas all. Mrs. OaConnell says, I know everything ye do, everything, for the people of Limerick have their eye on ye and there are reports which I have here in my drawers.
A fine place to keep reports, says Toby Mackey under his breath.
But Mrs. OaConnell and Miss Barry donat know what itas like in the lane when you knock on a door and someone says come in and you go in and thereas no light and thereas a pile of rags on a bed in a corner the pile saying who is it and you say telegram and the pile of rags tells you would you ever go to the shop for me Iam starving with the hunger and Iad give me two eyes for a cup of tea and what are you going to do say Iam busy and ride off on your bike and leave the pile of rags there with a telegram money order thatas pure useless because the pile of rags is helpless to get out of the bed to go to the post office to cash the b.l.o.o.d.y money order.
What are you supposed to do?
316.
Youare told never never go to the post office to cash one of those money orders for anyone or youall lose your job forever. But what are you supposed to do when an old man that was in the Boer War hundreds of years ago says his legs are gone and head be forever grateful if youad go to Paddy Considine in the post office and tell him the situation and Paddy will surely cash the money order and keep two shillings for yourself grand boy that you are.Paddy Considine says no bother but donat tell anyone or Iad be out on my a.r.s.e and so would you, son.The old man from the Boer War says he knows you have telegrams to deliver now but would you ever come back tonight and maybe go to the shop for him for he doesnat have a thing in the house and heas freezing on top of it. He sits in an old armchair in the corner covered with bits of blankets and a bucket behind the chair that stinks enough to make you sick and when you look at that old man in the dark corner you want to get a hose with hot water and strip him and wash him down and give him a big feed of rashers and eggs and mashed potatoes with loads of b.u.t.ter salt and onions.
I want to take the man from the Boer War and the pile of rags in the bed and put them in a big sunny house in the country with birds chirping away outside the window and a stream gurgling.
Mrs. Spillane in Pump Lane off Careyas Road has two crippled twin children with big blond heads, small bodies, and bits of legs that dangle over the edges of the chairs. They look into the fire all day and say, Whereas Daddy? They speak English like everybody else but they babble away to one another in a language they made up,Hung sup tea tea sup hung. Mrs. Spillane says that means,When are we getting our supper? She tells me sheas lucky if her husband sends four pounds a month and sheas beside herself with the abuse she gets from the Dispensary over him being in England.The children are only four and theyare very bright even if they canat walk or take care of themselves. If they could walk, if they were any way normal, shead pack up and move to England out of this G.o.dforsaken country that fought so long for freedom and look at the state of us, De Valera in his mansion above in Dublin the dirty oula b.a.s.t.a.r.d and the rest of the politicians that can all go to h.e.l.l, G.o.d forgive me.The priests can go to h.e.l.l too and I wonat ask G.o.d to forgive me for saying the likes of that.There they are, the priests and the nuns telling us Jesus was poor and atis no shame, lorries driving up to their houses with crates and barrels of whiskey and wine, 317.
eggs galore and legs of ham and they telling us what we should give up for Lent. Lent,my a.r.s.e.What are we to give up when we have Lent all year long?
I want to take Mrs. Spillane and her two blond crippled children and put them in that house in the country with the pile of rags and the man from the Boer War and wash everyone and let them all sit in the sun with the birds singing and the streams gurgling.
I canat leave the pile of rags alone with a useless money order because the pile is an old woman, Mrs. Gertrude Daly, all twisted with every cla.s.s of disease you can get in a Limerick lane, arthritis, rheumatism, falling hair, a nostril half gone from her jabbing at it with her finger, and you wonder what kind of a world is it when this old woman sits up from the rags and smiles at you with teeth that gleam white in the dark, her own teeth and perfect.
Thatas right, she says, me own teeth, and when I rot in the grave theyall find me teeth a hundred years from now all white ana shiny ana Iall be declared a saint.
The telegram money order, three pounds, is from her son. It has a message, Happy Birthday, Mammy,Your fond son, Teddy. She says, A wonder he can spare it, the little s.h.i.t, trottina around with every tart in Piccadilly. She asks if Iad ever do her a favor and cash the money order and get her a little Baby Powers whiskey at the pub, a loaf of bread, a pound of lard, seven potatoes, one for each day of the week.Would I boil a potato for her, mash it up with a lump of lard, give her a cut of bread, bring her a drop of water to go with the whiskey? Would I go to OaConnor the chemist for ointment for her sores and while Iam at it bring some soap so she can give her body a good scrub and sheall be forever grateful and say a prayer for me and hereas a couple of shillings for all my troubles.
Ah, no thanks, maaam.
Take the money. Little tip.You did me great favors.
I couldnat, maaam, the way you are.
Take the money or Iall tell the post office youare not to deliver my telegram anymore.
Oh, all right, maaam.Thanks very much.
Good night, son. Be good to your mother.
Good night, Mrs. Daly.
318.
School starts in September and some days Michael stops at The Abbotas before the walk home to Laman Griffinas.On rainy days he says, Can I stay here tonight? and soon he doesnat want to go back to Laman Griffinas at all. Heas worn out and hungry with two miles out and two miles back.
When Mam comes looking for him I donat know what to say to her. I donat know how to look at her and I keep my eyes off to one side.
She says,Howas the job? as if nothing ever happened in Laman Griffinas and I say, Grand, as if nothing ever happened in Laman Griffinas. If the rain is too heavy for her to go home she stays in the small room upstairs with Alphie. She goes back to Lamanas the next day but Michael stays and soon sheas moving in herself bit by bit till she stops going to Lamanas altogether.
The Abbot pays the rent every week. Mam gets the relief and the food dockets till someone informs on her and sheas cut off from the Dispensary. Sheas told that if her son is bringing in a pound a week thatas more than some families get on the dole and she should be grateful he has a job.Now I have to hand over my wages. Mam says,A pound? Is that all you get for riding around in all kinds of weather? This would be four dollars in America. Four dollars.And you couldnat feed a cat for four dollars in New York. If you were delivering telegrams for Western Union in New York youad be earning twenty-five dollars a week and living in luxury. She always translates Irish money into American so that she wonat forget and tries to convince everyone times were better over there. Some weeks she lets me keep two shillings but if I go to a film or buy a secondhand book thereas nothing left, I wonat be able to save for my fare, and Iall be stuck in Limerick till Iam an old man of twenty-five.
Malachy writes from Dublin to say heas fed up and doesnat want to spend the rest of his life blowing a trumpet in the army band. Heas home in a week and complains when he has to share the big bed with Michael,Alphie and me. He had his own army cot up there in Dublin with sheets and blankets and a pillow.Now heas back to overcoats and a bolster that sends up a cloud of feathers when you touch it. Mam says, Pity about you. Iam sorry for your troubles. The Abbot has his own bed, and my mother has the small room.Weare all together again, no Laman tormenting us.We make tea and fried bread and sit on the kitchen floor. The Abbot says youare not supposed to be sitting on 319.
kitchen floors, what are tables and chairs for? He tells Mam that Frankie is not right in the head and Mam says weall all catch our death from the damp of the floor.We sit on the floor and sing and Mam and The Abbot sit on chairs. She sings aAre You Lonesome Tonight?a and the Abbot sings aThe Road to Rasheena and we still donat know what his song is about.We sit on the floor and tell stories about things that happened, things that never happened and things that will happen when we all go to America.
There are slow days at the post office and we sit on the bench and talk.
We can talk but we are not to laugh. Miss Barry says we should be grateful weare getting paid to sit there, bunch of idlers and streetboys that we are, and that there is to be no laughing. Getting paid for sitting and chatting is no laughing matter and the first t.i.tter out of any of us and out we go till we come to our senses and if the t.i.ttering continues weall be reported to the proper authorities.
The boys talk about her under their breath.Toby Mackey says,What that oula b.i.t.c.h needs is a good rub oa the relic, a good rub oa the brush.
Her mother was a streetwalking flaghopper and her father escaped from a lunatic asylum with bunions on his b.a.l.l.s and warts on his w.a.n.k.
There is laughing along the bench and Miss Barry calls to us, I warned ye against the laughing.Mackey, what is it youare prattling about over there?
I said wead all be better off out in the fresh air on this fine day delivering telegrams, Miss Barry.
Iam sure you did,Mackey.Your mouth is a lavatory. Did you hear me?
I did, Miss Barry.
You have been heard on the stairs, Mackey.
Yes, Miss Barry.
Shut up, Mackey.
I will, Miss Barry.
Not another word, Mackey.
No, Miss Barry.
I said shut up, Mackey.
All right, Miss Barry.
Thatas the end of it, Mackey. Donat try me.
I wonat, Miss Barry.
Mother oa G.o.d give me patience.
320.
Yes, Miss Barry.
Take the last word, Mackey.Take it, take it, take it.
I will, Miss Barry.
Toby Mackey is a temporary telegram boy like me. He saw a film called The Front Page and now he wants to go to America some day and be a tough newspaper reporter with a hat and a cigarette. He keeps a notebook in his pocket because a good reporter has to write down what happens. Facts. He has to write down facts not a lot of b.l.o.o.d.y poetry, which is all you hear in Limerick with men in pubs going on about our great sufferings under the English. Facts, Frankie. He writes down the number of telegrams he delivers and how far he travels.We sit on the bench making sure we donat laugh and he tells me that if we deliver forty telegrams a day thatas two hundred a week and thatas ten thousand a year and twenty thousand in our two years at the job. If we cycle one hundred and twenty-five miles in a week thatas thirteen thousand miles in two years and thatas halfway around the world, Frankie, and no wonder there isnat a sc.r.a.p of flesh on our a.r.s.es.
Toby says n.o.body knows Limerick like the telegram boy.We know every avenue, road, street, terrace, mews, place, close, lane. Jasus, says Toby, there isnat a door in Limerick we donat know.We knock on all kinds of doors, iron, oak, plywood.Twenty thousand doors, Frankie.We rap, kick, push.We ring and buzz bells.We shout and whistle,Telegram boy, telegram boy.We drop telegrams in letter boxes, shove them under doors, throw them over the transom.We climb in windows where people are bedridden.We fight off every dog who wants to turn us into dinner.
You never know whatas going to happen when you hand people their telegrams.They laugh and sing and dance and cry and scream and fall down in a weakness and you wonder if theyall wake up at all and give you the tip. Itas not a bit like delivering telegrams in America where Mickey Rooney rides around in a film called The Human Comedy and people are pleasant and falling over themselves to give you a tip, inviting you in, giving you a cup of tea and a bun.
Toby Mackey says he has facts galore in his notebook and he doesnat give a fiddleras fart about anything and thatas the way Iad like to be myself.
Mrs. OaConnell knows I like the country telegrams and if a day is sunny she gives me a batch of ten that will keep me away all morning and I donat have to return till after the dinner hour at noon.There are fine autumn days when the Shannon sparkles and the fields are green 321.
and glinting with silver morning dew. Smoke blows across fields and thereas the sweet smell of turf fires. Cows and sheep graze in the fields and I wonder if these are the beasts the priest was talking about. I wouldnat be surprised because thereas no end to the bulls climbing on cows, rams on sheep, stallions on mares, and they all have such big things it makes me break out in a sweat to look at them and I feel sorry for all the female creatures in the world who have to suffer like that though I wouldnat mind being a bull myself because they can do what they like and itas never a sin for an animal. I wouldnat mind going at myself here but you never know when a farmer might come along the road driving cows and sheep to a fair or to another field raising his stick and bidding you, Good day, young fella, grand morning, thank G.o.d and His Blessed Mother. A farmer that religious might be offended if he saw you breaking the Sixth Commandment forninst his field. Horses like to stick their heads over fences and hedges to see whatas pa.s.sing by and I stop and talk to them because they have big eyes and long noses that show how intelligent they are. Sometimes two birds will be singing to each other across a field and I have to stop and listen to them and if I stay long enough more birds will join till every tree and bush is alive with birdsong. If thereas a stream gurgling under a bridge on the road, birds singing and cows mooing and lambs baaing, thatas better than any band in a film. The smell of dinner bacon and cabbage wafting from a farmhouse makes me so weak with the hunger I climb into a field and stuff myself with blackberries for half an hour.
I stick my face into the stream and drink icy water thatas better than the lemonade in any fish and chip shop.
When Iam finished delivering the telegrams thereas enough time to go to the ancient monastery graveyard where my motheras relations are buried, the Guilfoyles and the Sheehans, where my mother wants to be buried. I can see from here the high ruins of Carrigogunnell Castle and thereas plenty of time to cycle there, sit up on the highest wall, look at the Shannon flowing out to the Atlantic on its way to America and dream of the day Iall be sailing off myself.
The boys at the post office tell me Iam lucky to get the Carmody family telegram, a shilling tip, one of the biggest tips youall ever get in Limerick.
So why am I getting it? Iam the junior boy. They say,Well, sometimes 322.
Theresa Carmody answers the door.She has the consumption and theyare afraid of catching it from her. Sheas seventeen, in and out of the sanatorium, and sheall never see eighteen.The boys at the post office say sick people like Theresa know thereas little time left and that makes them mad for love and romance and everything. Everything.Thatas what the consumption does to you, say the boys at the post office.
I cycle through wet November streets thinking of that shilling tip, and as I turn into the Carmody street the bicycle slides out from under me and I skid along the ground sc.r.a.ping my face and tearing open the back of my hand.Theresa Carmody opens the door. She has red hair.
She had green eyes like the fields beyond Limerick. Her cheeks are bright pink and her skin is a fierce white. She says, Oh, youare all wet and bleeding.
I skidded on my bike.
Come in and Iall put something on your cuts.
I wonder, Should I go in? I might get the consumption and that will be the end of me. I want to be alive when Iam fifteen and I want the shilling tip.
Come in.Youall perish standing there.
She puts on the kettle for the tea.Then she dabs iodine on my cuts and I try to be a man and not whimper. She says, Oh, youare a great bit of a man. Go into the parlor and dry yourself before the fire. Look,why donat you take off your pants and dry them on the screen of the fire?
Ah, no.
Ah, do.
I will.
I drape my pants over the screen. I sit there watching the steam rise and I watch myself rise and I worry she might come in and see me in my excitement.