The book tells me all about King Alfred and William the Conqueror and all the kings and queens down to Edward, who had to wait forever for his mother,Victoria, to die before he could be king. The book has the first bit of Shakespeare I ever read.
I do believe, induced by potent circ.u.mstances That thou art mine enemy.
The history writer says this is what Catherine, who is a wife of Henry the Eighth, says to Cardinal Wolsey, who is trying to have her head cut off. I donat know what it means and I donat care because itas Shakespeare and itas like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words. If I had a whole book of Shakespeare they could keep me in the hospital for a year.
Patricia says she doesnat know what induced means or potent circ.u.mstances and she doesnat care about Shakespeare, she has her poetry book and she reads to me from beyond the wall a poem about an owl and a p.u.s.s.ycat that went to sea in a green boat with honey and money and it makes no sense and when I say that Patricia gets huffy and says thatas the last poem sheall ever read to me. She says Iam always reciting the lines from Shakespeare and they make no sense either. Seamus stops mopping again and tells us we shouldnat be fighting over poetry because weall have enough to fight about when we grow up and get married.
Patricia says sheas sorry and Iam sorry too so she reads me part of another poem which I have to remember so I can say it back to her early in the morning or late at night when there are no nuns or nurses about, The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding Riding riding The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
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Head a French c.o.c.ked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin, A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin, They fitted with never a wrinkle, his boots were up to the thigh.
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, His pistol b.u.t.ts a-twinkle, His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
Every day I canat wait for the doctors and nurses to leave me alone so I can learn a new verse from Patricia and find out whatas happening to the highwayman and the landlordas red-lipped daughter. I love the poem because itas exciting and almost as good as my two lines of Shakespeare.The redcoats are after the highwayman because they know he told her, Iall come to thee by moonlight, though h.e.l.l should bar the way.
Iad love to do that myself, come by moonlight for Patricia in the next room not giving a fiddleras fart though h.e.l.l should bar the way.
Sheas ready to read the last few verses when in comes the nurse from Kerry shouting at her, shouting at me, I told ye there was to be no talking between rooms. Dipthteria is never allowed to talk to typhoid and visa versa. I warned ye.And she calls out, Seamus, take this one.Take the by. Sister Rita said one more word out of him and upstairs with him.
We gave ye a warning to stop the blathering but ye wouldnat.Take the by, Seamus, take him.
Ah, now, nurse, sure isnat he harmless. aTis only a bit oa poetry.
Take that by, Seamus, take him at once.
He bends over me and whispers,Ah, G.o.d, Iam sorry, Frankie.Hereas your English history book. He slips the book under my shirt and lifts me from the bed. He whispers that Iam a feather. I try to see Patricia when we pa.s.s through her room but all I can make out is a blur of dark head on a pillow.
Sister Rita stops us in the hall to tell me Iam a great disappointment to her, that she expected me to be a good boy after what G.o.d had done for me, after all the prayers said by hundreds of boys at the Confraternity, after all the care from the nuns and nurses of the Fever Hospital, after the way they let my mother and father in to see me, a thing rarely allowed, and this is how I repaid them lying in the bed reciting silly poetry back and forth with Patricia Madigan knowing very well there was a ban on all talk between typhoid and diphtheria. She says Iall have 197.
plenty of time to reflect on my sins in the big ward upstairs and I should beg G.o.das forgiveness for my disobedience reciting a pagan English poem about a thief on a horse and a maiden with red lips who commits a terrible sin when I could have been praying or reading the life of a saint. She made it her business to read that poem so she did and Iad be well advised to tell the priest in confession.
The Kerry nurse follows us upstairs gasping and holding on to the banister. She tells me I better not get the notion sheall be running up to this part of the world every time I have a little pain or a twinge.
There are twenty beds in the ward, all white, all empty.The nurse tells Seamus put me at the far end of the ward against the wall to make sure I donat talk to anyone who might be pa.s.sing the door, which is very unlikely since there isnat another soul on this whole floor. She tells Seamus this was the fever ward during the Great Famine long ago and only G.o.d knows how many died here brought in too late for anything but a wash before they were buried and there are stories of cries and moans in the far reaches of the night. She says atwould break your heart to think of what the English did to us, that if they didnat put the blight on the potato they didnat do much to take it off. No pity. No feeling at all for the people that died in this very ward, children suffering and dying here while the English feasted on roast beef and guzzled the best of wine in their big houses, little children with their mouths all green from trying to eat the gra.s.s in the fields beyond, G.o.d bless us and save us and guard us from future famines.
Seamus says atwas a terrible thing indeed and he wouldnat want to be walking these halls in the dark with all the little green mouths gaping at him.The nurse takes my temperature, aTis up a bit, have a good sleep for yourself now that youare away from the chatter with Patricia Madigan below who will never know a gray hair.
She shakes her head at Seamus and he gives her a sad shake back.
Nurses and nuns never think you know what theyare talking about.
If youare ten going on eleven youare supposed to be simple like my uncle Pat Sheehan who was dropped on his head.You canat ask questions.You canat show you understand what the nurse said about Patricia Madigan, that sheas going to die, and you canat show you want to cry over this girl who taught you a lovely poem which the nun says is bad.
The nurse tells Seamus she has to go and heas to sweep the lint from under my bed and mop up a bit around the ward. Seamus tells me sheas a right oula b.i.t.c.h for running to Sister Rita and complaining about the 198.
poem going between the two rooms, that you canat catch a disease from a poem unless itas love ha ha and thatas not b.l.o.o.d.y likely when youare what? ten going on eleven? He never heard the likes of it, a little fella shifted upstairs for saying a poem and he has a good mind to go to the Limerick Leader and tell them print the whole thing except he has this job and head lose it if ever Sister Rita found out.Anyway, Frankie, youall be outa here one of these fine days and you can read all the poetry you want though I donat know about Patricia below, I donat know about Patricia, G.o.d help us.
He knows about Patricia in two days because she got out of the bed to go to the lavatory when she was supposed to use a bedpan and collapsed and died in the lavatory. Seamus is mopping the floor and there are tears on his cheeks and heas saying, aTis a dirty rotten thing to die in a lavatory when youare lovely in yourself. She told me she was sorry she had you reciting that poem and getting you shifted from the room, Frankie. She said atwas all her fault.
It wasnat, Seamus.
I know and didnat I tell her that.
Patricia is gone and Iall never know what happened to the highwayman and Bess, the landlordas daughter. I ask Seamus but he doesnat know any poetry at all especially English poetry. He knew an Irish poem once but it was about fairies and had no sign of a highwayman in it. Still heall ask the men in his local pub where thereas always someone reciting something and heall bring it back to me.Wonat I be busy meanwhile reading my short history of England and finding out all about their perfidy.Thatas what Seamus says, perfidy, and I donat know what it means and he doesnat know what it means but if itas something the English do it must be terrible.
He comes three times a week to mop the floor and the nurse is there every morning to take my temperature and pulse. The doctor listens to my chest with the thing hanging from his neck.They all say, And howas our little soldier today? A girl with a blue dress brings meals three times a day and never talks to me. Seamus says sheas not right in the head so donat say a word to her.
The July days are long and I fear the dark.There are only two ceiling lights in the ward and theyare switched off when the tea tray is taken away and the nurse gives me pills.The nurse tells me go to sleep but I canat because I see people in the nineteen beds in the ward all dying and green around their mouths where they tried to eat gra.s.s and moaning 199.
for soup Protestant soup any soup and I cover my face with the pillow hoping they wonat come and stand around the bed clawing at me and howling for bits of the chocolate bar my mother brought last week.
No, she didnat bring it. She had to send it in because I canat have any more visitors. Sister Rita tells me a visit to the Fever Hospital is a privilege and after my bad behavior with Patricia Madigan and that poem I canat have the privilege anymore. She says Iall be going home in a few weeks and my job is to concentrate on getting better and learn to walk again after being in bed for six weeks and I can get out of bed tomorrow after breakfast. I donat know why she says I have to learn how to walk when Iave been walking since I was a baby but when the nurse stands me by the side of the bed I fall to the floor and the nurse laughs, See, youare a baby again.
I practice walking from bed to bed back and forth back and forth.
I donat want to be a baby. I donat want to be in this empty ward with no Patricia and no highwayman and no red-lipped landlordas daughter.
I donat want the ghosts of children with green mouths pointing bony fingers at me and clamoring for bits of my chocolate bar.
Seamus says a man in his pub knew all the verses of the highwayman poem and it has a very sad end.Would I like him to say it because he never learned how to read and he had to carry the poem in his head?
He stands in the middle of the ward leaning on his mop and recites, Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment, she drew one last deep breath, Then her finger moved in the moonlight, Her musket shattered the moonlight, Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned hima"with her death.
He hears the shot and escapes but when he learns at dawn how Bess died he goes into a rage and returns for revenge only to be shot down by the redcoats.
Blood-red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat, When they shot him down on the highway, Down like a dog on the highway, And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.
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Seamus wipes his sleeve across his face and sniffles. He says,There was no call at all to shift you up here away from Patricia when you didnat even know what happened to the highwayman and Bess. aTis a very sad story and when I said it to my wife she wouldnat stop crying the whole night till we went to bed. She said there was no call for them redcoats to shoot that highwayman, they are responsible for half the troubles of the world and they never had any pity on the Irish, either.
Now if you want to know any more poems, Frankie, tell me and Iall get them from the pub and bring aem back in my head.
The girl with the blue dress whoas not right in the head suddenly says one day,Would you like a book for to read? and she brings me The Amazing Quest of Mr.Ernest Bliss by E. Phillips Oppenheim, which is all about an Englishman who is fed up and doesnat know what to do with himself every day even though heas so rich he canat count his money.
His manservant brings him the morning paper the tea the egg the toast and marmalade and he says,Take it away, life is empty. He canat read his paper, he canat eat his egg, and he pines away. His doctor tells him go and live among the poor in the East End of London and heall learn to love life, which he does and falls in love with a girl who is poor but honest and very intelligent and they get married and move into his house in the West End which is the rich part because itas easier to help the poor and not be fed up when youare nice and comfortable.
Seamus likes me to tell him what Iam reading. He says that story about Mr. Ernest Bliss is a made-up story because no one in his right mind would have to go to a doctor over having too much money and not eating his egg though you never know. It might be like that in England.
Youad never find the likes of that in Ireland. If you didnat eat your egg here youad be carted off to the lunatic asylum or reported to the bishop.
I canat wait to go home and tell Malachy about this man who wonat eat his egg. Malachy will fall down on the floor laughing because such a thing could never happen. Heall say Iam making it up but when I tell him this story is about an Englishman heall understand.
I canat tell the girl in the blue dress that this story was silly because she might have a fit. She says if youare finished with that book Iall bring you another one because thereas a whole box of books left behind by patients from the old days. She brings me a book called Tom Brownas School-Days, which is hard to read, and no end of books by P.G.Wode- 201.
house, who makes me laugh over Ukridge and Bertie Wooster and Jeeves and all the Mulliners. Bertie Wooster is rich but he eats his egg every morning for fear of what Jeeves might say. I wish I could talk to the girl in the blue dress or anyone about the books but Iam afraid the Kerry nurse or Sister Rita might find out and theyad move me to a bigger ward upstairs with fifty empty beds and Famine ghosts galore with green mouths and bony fingers pointing.At night I lie in bed thinking about Tom Brown and his adventures at Rugby School and all the characters in P. G.Wodehouse. I can dream about the red-lipped landlordas daughter and the highwayman, and the nurses and nuns can do nothing about it. Itas lovely to know the world canat interfere with the inside of your head.
Itas August and Iam eleven. Iave been in this hospital for two months and I wonder if theyall let me out for Christmas.The Kerry nurse tells me I should get down on my two knees and thank G.o.d Iam alive at all at all and not be complaining.
Iam not complaining, nurse, Iam only wondering if Iall be home for Christmas.
She wonat answer me. She tells me behave myself or sheall send Sister Rita up to me and then Iall behave myself.
Mam comes to the hospital on my birthday and sends up a package with two chocolate bars and a note with names of people in the lane telling me get better and come home and youare a great soldier, Frankie.
The nurse lets me talk to her through the window and itas hard because the windows are high and I have to stand on Seamusas shoulders. I tell Mam I want to go home but she says Iam a bit too weak and surely Iall be out in no time. Seamus says, aTis a grand thing to be eleven because any day now youall be a man shaving and all and ready to get out and get a job and drink your pint good as any man.
After fourteen weeks Sister Rita tells me I can go home and arenat I a lucky boy that the day will be the feast of St. Francis of a.s.sisi. She tells me I was a very good patient, except for that little problem with the poem and Patricia Madigan, G.o.d rest her, and Iam invited to come back and have a big Christmas dinner in the hospital. Mam comes for me and with my weak legs it takes us a long time to walk to the bus at Union Cross. She says,Take your time.After three and a half months we can spare an hour.
People are at their doors on Barrack Road and Roden Lane telling me itas grand to see me back, that Iam a great soldier, a credit to my 202.
father and mother.Malachy and Michael run up to me in the lane and say, G.o.d, youare walking very slow. Canat you run anymore?
Itas a bright day and Iam happy till I see Dad sitting in the kitchen with Alphie on his lap and thereas an empty feeling in my heart because I know heas out of work again. All along I was sure he had a job, Mam told me he did, and I thought there would be no shortage of food and shoes. He smiles at me and tells Alphie, Och, thereas your big brother home from the hospital.
Mam tells him what the doctor said, that Iam to have plenty of nourishing food and rest.The doctor said beef would be the right thing for building me up again. Dad nods. Mam makes beef tea from a cube and Malachy and Mike watch me drink it.They say theyad like some too but Mam says go away, ye didnat have the typhoid. She says the doctor wants me to go to bed early. She tried to get rid of the fleas but theyare worse than ever with the warm weather weare having. Besides, she says, they wonat get much out of you all bones and little skin.
I lie in bed and think of the hospital where the white sheets were changed every day and there wasnat a sign of a flea.There was a lavatory where you could sit and read your book till someone asked if you were dead.There was a bath where you could sit in hot water as long as you liked and say, I do believe, Induced by potent circ.u.mstances That thou art mine enemy, And saying that helps me fall asleep.
When Malachy and Michael get up for school in the morning Mam tells me I can stay in bed. Malachy is in fifth cla.s.s now with Mr.OaDea and he likes to tell everyone heas learning the big red catechism for Con- firmation and Mr. OaDea is telling them all about state of grace and Euclid and how the English tormented the Irish for eight hundred long years.
I donat want to stay in bed anymore.The October days are lovely and I want to sit outside looking up the lane at the way the sun slants along the wall opposite our house. Mikey Moloney brings me P. G.
Wodehouse books his father gets from the library and I have great days with Ukridge and Bertie Wooster and all the Mulliners. Dad lets me 203.
read his favorite book, John Mitchelas Jail Journal, which is all about a great Irish rebel the English condemned to exile in Van Diemenas land in Australia.The English tell John Mitchel heas free to come and go as he pleases all over Van Diemenas land if he gives his word of honor as a gentleman he wonat try to escape. He gives his word till a ship comes to help him escape and he goes to the office of the English magistrate and says, Iam escaping, jumps on his horse and winds up in New York. Dad says he doesnat mind if I read silly English books by P.G.Wodehouse as long as I donat forget the men who did their bit and gave their lives for Ireland.
I canat stay at home forever and Mam takes me back to Leamyas School in November. The new headmaster, Mr. OaHalloran, says heas sorry, Iave missed over two months of school and I have to be put back in fifth cla.s.s. Mam says surely Iam ready for sixth cla.s.s.After all, she says, heas missed only a few weeks. Mr. OaHalloran says heas sorry, take the boy next door to Mr.OaDea.
We walk along the hallway and I tell Mam I donat want to be in fifth cla.s.s. Malachy is in that cla.s.s and I donat want to be in a cla.s.s with my brother who is a year younger. I made my Confirmation last year. He didnat. Iam older. Iam not bigger anymore because of the typhoid but Iam older.
Mam says, It wonat kill you.
She doesnat care and Iam put into that cla.s.s with Malachy and I know all his friends are there sneering at me because I was put back.
Mr. OaDea makes me sit in the front and tells me get that sour look off my puss or Iall feel the end of his ash plant.
Then a miracle happens and itas all because of St. Francis of a.s.sisi, my favorite saint, and Our Lord Himself. I find a penny in the street that first day back at school and I want to run to Kathleen OaConnellas for a big square of Cleevesa toffee but I canat run because my legs are still weak from the typhoid and sometimes I have to hold on to a wall. Iam desperate for the Cleevesa toffee but Iam also desperate to get out of fifth cla.s.s.
I know I have to go to the statue of St. Francis of a.s.sisi. Heas the only one who will listen but heas at the other end of Limerick and it takes me an hour to walk there, sitting on steps, holding on to walls. Itas a penny to light a candle and I wonder if I should just light the candle and keep the penny. No, St. Francis would know. He loves the bird in 204.
the air and the fish in the stream but heas not a fool. I light the candle, I kneel at his statue and beg him to get me out of fifth cla.s.s where Iam stuck with my brother, who is probably going around the lane now bragging that his big brother was kept back. St. Francis doesnat say a word but I know heas listening and I know heall get me out of that cla.s.s.
Itas the least he could do after all my trouble coming to his statue, sitting on steps, holding on to walls, when I could have gone to St. Josephas Church and lit a candle to the Little Flower or the Sacred Heart of Jesus Himself.Whatas the use of being named after him if heas going to desert me in my hour of need?
I have to sit in Mr. OaDeaas cla.s.s listening to the catechism and all the other stuff he taught last year. Iad like to raise my hand and give the answers but he says, Be quiet, let your brother answer. He gives them tests in arithmetic and makes me sit there and correct them. He dictates to them in Irish and makes me correct what theyave written.Then he gives me special compositions to write and makes me read them to the cla.s.s because of all I learned from him last year. He tells the cla.s.s, Frank McCourt is going to show you how well he learned to write in this cla.s.s last year. Heas going to write a composition on Our Lord, arenat you, McCourt? Heas going to tell us what it would be like if Our Lord had grown up in Limerick which has the Arch Confraternity of the Holy Family and is the holiest city in Ireland.We know that if Our Lord had grown up in Limerick He would never have been crucified because the people of Limerick were always good Catholics and not given to crucifixion.
So,McCourt, you are to go home and write that composition and bring it in tomorrow.
Dad says Mr. OaDea has a great imagination but didnat Our Lord suffer enough on the cross without sticking Him in Limerick on top of it with the damp from the River Shannon. He puts on his cap and goes for a long walk and I have to think about Our Lord by myself and wonder what Iam going to write tomorrow.
The next day Mr. OaDea says, All right, McCourt, read your composition to the cla.s.s.
The name of my composition isa"
The t.i.tle,McCourt, the t.i.tle.
The t.i.tle of my composition is,aJesus and the Weather.a What?
aJesus and the Weather.a 205.
All right, read it.
This is my composition. I donat think Jesus Who is Our Lord would have liked the weather in Limerick because itas always raining and the Shannon keeps the whole city damp. My father says the Shannon is a killer river because it killed my two brothers.When you look at pictures of Jesus Heas always wandering around ancient Israel in a sheet. It never rains there and you never hear of anyone coughing or getting consumption or anything like that and no one has a job there because all they do is stand around and eat manna and shake their fists and go to crucifixions.
Anytime Jesus got hungry all He had to do was walk up the road to a fig tree or an orange tree and have His fill. If He wanted a pint He could wave His hand over a big gla.s.s and there was the pint. Or He could visit Mary Magdalene and her sister,Martha, and theyad give Him His dinner no questions asked and Head get his feet washed and dried with Mary Magdaleneas hair while Martha washed the dishes, which I donat think is fair.Why should she have to wash the dishes while her sister sits out there chatting away with Our Lord? Itas a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick head catch the consumption and be dead in a month and there wouldnat be any Catholic Church and there wouldnat be any Communion or Confirmation and we wouldnat have to learn the catechism and write compositions about Him.The End.
Mr. OaDea is quiet and gives me a strange look and Iam worried because when heas quiet like that it means someone is going to suffer.
He says,McCourt, who wrote that composition?
I did, sir.
Did your father write that composition?
He didnat, sir.
Come here, McCourt.
I follow him out the door, along the hall to the headmasteras room.
Mr. OaDea shows him my composition and Mr. OaHalloran gives me the strange look, too.Did you write this composition?
I did, sir.
Iam taken out of the fifth cla.s.s and put into Mr.OaHalloranas sixth cla.s.s with all the boys I know, Paddy Clohessy, Fintan Slattery, The Question Quigley, and when school is over that day I have to go back down to the statue of St. Francis of a.s.sisi to thank him even if my legs 206.
are still weak from the typhoid and I have to sit on steps and hold on to walls and I wonder was it something good I said in that composition or something bad.
Mr.Thomas L. OaHalloran teaches three cla.s.ses in one room, sixth, seventh, eighth. He has a head like President Roosevelt and he wears gold gla.s.ses. He wears suits, navy blue or gray, and thereas a gold watch chain that hangs across his belly from pocket to pocket in his waistcoat.
We call him Hoppy because he has a short leg and hops when he walks.