We are, son.

Alphie is back in the pram with the three old coats and coal and wood for the fire. Aunt Aggie stands at her door and tells us be good boys, come back for tea anytime, and thereas a bad word for her in my head, Oula b.i.t.c.h. Itas in my head and I canat help it and Iall have to tell the priest in confession.

Malachy isnat in a ditch, heas there in our own house eating fish and chips a drunken soldier dropped at the gate of the Sarsfield Barracks.

Mam comes home in two days. Sheas weak and white and walks slowly. She says,The doctor told me keep warm, have plenty of rest and nourishing food, meat and eggs three times a week. G.o.d help us, those poor doctors donat have a notion of not having.Dad makes tea and toasts bread for her on the fire. He fries bread for the rest of us and we have a lovely night up in Italy where itas warm. He says he canat stay forever, he 248.

has to go back to work in Coventry. Mam wonders how heall get to Coventry without a penny in his pocket. Heas up early on Holy Sat.u.r.day and I have tea with him by the fire. He fries four cuts of bread and wraps them in pages of the Limerick Chronicle, two cuts in each coat pocket. Mam is still in bed and he calls to her from the bottom of the stairs, Iam going now. She says,All right.Write when you land. My father is going to England and she wonat even get out of the bed. I ask if I can go with him to the railway station. No, heas not going there. Heas going to the Dublin road to see if he can get a lift. He pats my head, tells me take care of my mother and brothers and goes out the door. I watch him go up the lane till he turns the corner. I run up the lane to see him go down Barrack Hill and down St. Josephas Street. I run down the hill and follow him as far as I can. He must know Iam following him because he turns and calls to me, Go home, Francis. Go home to your mother.

In a week thereas a letter to say he arrived safely, that we are to be good boys, attend to our religious duties and above all obey our mother.

In another week thereas a telegram money order for three pounds and weare in heaven.Weall be rich, there will be fish and chips, jelly and custard, films every Sat.u.r.day at the Lyric, the Coliseum, the Carlton, the Atheneum, the Central and the fanciest of all, the Savoy.We might even wind up having tea and cakes at the Savoy Caf with the n.o.bs and toffs of Limerick.Weall be sure to hold our teacups with our little fingers sticking out.

The next Sat.u.r.day thereas no telegram nor the Sat.u.r.day after nor any Sat.u.r.day forever.Mam begs again at the St.Vincent de Paul Society and smiles at the Dispensary when Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane have their bit of a joke about Dad having a tart in Piccadilly. Michael wants to know what a tart is and she tells him itas something you have with tea.

She spends most of the day by the fire with Bridey Hannon puffing on her Woodlbines, drinking weak tea.The bread crumbs from the morning are always on the table when we come home from school. She never washes the jam jars or mugs and there are flies in the sugar and wherever there is sweetness.

She says Malachy and I have to take turns looking after Alphie, taking him out in the pram for a bit of fresh air.The child canat be kept in Italy from October to April. If we tell her we want to play with our pals she might let fly with a right cross to the head that stings the ears.

We play games with Alphie and the pram. I stand at the top of Barrack Hill and Malachy is at the bottom.When I give the pram a push 249.

down the hill Malachy is supposed to stop it but heas looking at a pal on roller skates and it speeds by him across the street and through the doors of Lenistonas pub where men are having a peaceful pint and not expecting a pram with a dirty-faced child saying Goo goo goo goo.The barman shouts this is a disgrace, there must be a law against this cla.s.s of behavior, babies roaring through the door in bockety prams, heall call the guards on us, and Alphie waves at him and smiles and he says, all right, all right, the child can have a sweet and a lemonade, the brothers can have lemonade too, that raggedy pair, and G.o.d above, atis a hard world, the minute you think youare getting ahead a pram comes crashing through the door and youare dishing out sweets and lemonade right and left, the two of ye take that child and go home to yeer mother.

Malachy has another powerful idea, that we could go around Limerick like tinkers pushing Alphie in his pram into pubs for the sweets and lemonade, but I donat want Mam finding out and hitting me with her right cross. Malachy says Iam not a sport and runs off. I push the pram over to Henry Street and up by the Redemptorist church. Itas a gray day, the church is gray and the small crowd of people outside the door of the priestsa house is gray.Theyare waiting to beg for any food left over from the priestsa dinner.

There in the middle of the crowd in her dirty gray coat is my mother.

This is my own mother, begging.This is worse than the dole, the St.

Vincent de Paul Society, the Dispensary. Itas the worst kind of shame, almost as bad as begging on the streets where the tinkers hold up their scabby children, Give us a penny for the poor child, mister, the poor child is hungry, missus.

My mother is a beggar now and if anyone from the lane or my school sees her the family will be disgraced entirely.My pals will make up new names and torment me in the schoolyard and I know what theyall say, Frankie McCourt beggar womanas boy scabby-eyed dancing blubber-gob j.a.p 250.

The door of the priestsa house swings open and the people rush with their hands out. I can hear them, Brother, brother, here, brother, ah, for the love oa G.o.d, brother.Five children at home, brother. I can see my own mother pushed along. I can see the tightness of her mouth when she s.n.a.t.c.hes at a bag and turns from the door and I push the pram up the street before she can see me.

I donat want to go home anymore. I push the pram down to the Dock Road, out to Corkanree where all the dust and garbage of Limerick is dumped and burned. I stand a while and look at boys chase rats.

I donat know why they have to torture rats that are not in their houses.

Iad keep going on into the country forever if I didnat have Alphie bawling with the hunger, kicking his chubby legs,waving his empty bottle.

Mam has the fire going and something boiling in a pot. Malachy smiles and says she brought home corned beef and a few spuds from Kathleen OaConnellas shop.He wouldnat be so happy if he knew he was the son of a beggar. She calls us in from the lane and when we sit at the table itas hard for me to look at my mother the beggar. She lifts the pot to the table, spoons out the potatoes one each and uses a fork to lift out the corned beef.

It isnat corned beef at all. Itas a great lump of quivering gray fat and the only sign of corned beef is a little nipple of red meat on top.We stare at that bit of meat and wonder who will get it. Mam says, Thatas for Alphie. Heas a baby, heas growing fast, he needs it. She puts it on a saucer in front of him. He pushes it away with his finger, then pulls it back.He lifts it to his mouth, looks around the kitchen, sees Lucky the dog and throws it to him.

Thereas no use saying anything.The meat is gone.We eat our potatoes with plenty of salt and I eat my fat and pretend itas that nipple of red meat.

XI.

Mam warns us,Ye are to keep yeer paws out of that trunk for thereas nothing in there thatas of the slightest interest or any of yeer business.

All she has in that trunk is a lot of papers, certificates of birth and baptism, her Irish pa.s.sport, Dadas English pa.s.sport from Belfast, our American pa.s.sports and her bright red flapper dress with spangles and black frills she brought all the way from America. She wants to keep that dress forever to remind herself she was young and dancing.

I donat care what she has in the trunk till I start a football team with Billy Campbell and Malachy.We canat afford uniforms or boots and Billy says,How will the world know who we are? We donat even have a name.

I remember the red dress and a name comes to me,The Red Hearts of Limerick. Mam never opens the trunk so what does it matter if I cut off a piece of the dress to make seven red hearts we can stick on our chests? What you donat know wonat bother you, she always says herself.

The dress is buried under the papers. I look at my pa.s.sport picture when I was small and I can see why they call me j.a.p.Thereas a paper that says Marriage Certificate, that Malachy McCourt and Angela Sheehan were joined in Holy Matrimony on the twenty-eighth of March, 1930. How could that be? I was born on the nineteenth of August and Billy Campbell told me the father and mother have to be 252.

married nine months before thereas a sign of a child. Here I am born into the world in half the time.That means I must be a miracle and I might grow up to be a saint with people celebrating the feast of St.

Francis of Limerick.

Iall have to ask Mikey Molloy, still the expert on Girlsa Bodies and Dirty Things in General.

Billy says if weare to be great soccer players we have to practice and weare to meet over in the park.The boys complain when I hand out the hearts and I tell them if they donat like it they can go home and cut up their own motheras dresses and blouses.

We have no money for a proper ball so one of the boys brings a sheepas bladder stuffed with rags.We kick the bladder up and down the meadow till there are holes and rags start falling out and we get fed up kicking a bladder thatas hardly there anymore. Billy says weare to meet tomorrow morning which is Sat.u.r.day and go out Ballinacurra to see if we can challenge rich Crescent College boys to a proper game, seven a side. He says weare to pin our red hearts to our shirts even if theyare red rags.

Malachy is going home for tea but I canat go because I have to see Mikey Molloy and find out why I was born in half the time. Mikey is coming out of his house with his father, Peter. Itas Mikeyas sixteenth birthday and his father is taking him to Bowlesas pub for his first pint.

Nora Molloy is inside screeching after Peter that if they go they can stay gone, sheas done baking bread, sheas never going to the lunatic asylum again, if he brings that child home drunk sheall go to Scotland and disappear from the face of the earth.

Peter tells Mikey, Pay no attention to her, Cyclops.The mothers of Ireland are always enemies of the first pint.My own mother tried to kill my father with a frying pan when he took me for the first pint.

Mikey asks Peter if I can come with them and have a lemonade.

Peter tells everyone in the pub that Mikey is there for his first pint and when all the men want to stand Mikey a pint Peter says,Ah, no, atwould be a terrible thing if he had too much and turned against it entirely.

The pints are drawn and we sit against the wall, the Molloys with their pints and I with my lemonade.The men wish Mikey all the best in the life to come and wasnat it a gift from G.o.d that he fell off that spout years ago and never had the fit since and wasnat it a great pity 253.

about that poor little b.u.g.g.e.r, Quasimodo Dooley, carried off with the consumption after all his trouble talking for years like an Englishman so he could be on the BBC which is no fit place for an Irishman anyway.

Peter is talking to the men and Mikey, sipping his first pint, whispers to me, I donat think I like it, but donat tell my father.Then he tells me how he practices the English accent in secret so that he can be a BBC announcer, Quasimodoas dream. He tells me I can have Cuchulain back, that heas no use to you when youare reading the news on the BBC.Now that heas sixteen he wants to go to England and if ever I get a wireless that will be him on the BBC Home Service.

I tell him about the marriage certificate, how Billy Campbell said it has to be nine months but I was born in half the time and would he know if I was some cla.s.s of a miracle.

Naw, he says, naw.Youare a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.Youare doomed.

You donat have to be cursing me,Mikey.

Iam not. Thatas what they call people who arenat born inside the nine months of the marriage, people conceived beyond the blanket.

Whatas that?

Whatas what?

Conceived.

Thatas when the sperm hits the egg and it grows and there you are nine months later.

I donat know what youare talking about.

He whispers,The thing between your legs is the excitement. I donat like the other names, the dong, the p.r.i.c.k, the d.i.c.k, the langer. So your father shoves his excitement into your mother and thereas a spurt and these little germs go up into your mother where thereas an egg and that grows into you.

Iam not an egg.

You are an egg. Everyone was an egg once.

Why am I doomed? aTisnat my fault Iam a b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

All b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are doomed.Theyare like babies that werenat baptized.

Theyare sent to Limbo for eternity and thereas no way out and itas not their fault. It makes you wonder about G.o.d up there on His throne with no mercy for the little unbaptized babies. Thatas why I donat go near the chapel anymore. Anyway, youare doomed. Your father and mother had the excitement and they werenat married so youare not in a state of grace.

What am I going to do?

254.

Nothing.Youare doomed.

Canat I light a candle or something.

You could try the Blessed Virgin. Sheas in charge of the doom.

But I donat have a penny for the candle.

All right, all right, hereas a penny.You can give it back when you get a job a million years from now. aTis costing me a fortune to be the expert on Girlsa Bodies and Dirty Things in General.

The barman is doing a crossword puzzle and he says to Peter,Whatas the opposite of advance?

Retreat, says Peter.

Thatas it, says the barman. Everything has an opposite.

Mother oa G.o.d, says Peter.

Whatas up with you, Peter? says the barman.

What was that you said before,Tommy?

Everything has an opposite.

Mother oa G.o.d.

Are you all right, Peter? Is the pint all right?

The pint is grand, Tommy, and Iam the champion of all pint drinkers, amnat I?

BeG.o.d ana you are, Peter. No denyina that to you.

That means I could be the champion in the opposite department.

What are you talking about, Peter?

I could be the champion of no pints at all.

Ah, now, Peter, I think youare going a bit far. Is the wife all right at home?

Tommy, take this pint away from me. Iam the champion of no pints at all.

Peter turns and takes the gla.s.s from Mikey.Weare going home to your mother,Mikey.

You didnat call me Cyclops, Dad.

Youare Mikey.Youare Michael.Weare going to England. No more pints for me, no pints for you, no more bread baking for your mother.

Come on.

Weare leaving the pub and Tommy the barman calls after us,You know what atis, Peter. aTis all them b.l.o.o.d.y books youare reading.They have your head destroyed.

Peter and Mikey turn to go home. I have to go to St. Josephas to light the candle that will save me from the doom but I look in the window of Counihanas shop and there in the middle is a great slab of 255.

Cleevesa toffee and a sign, two pieces for a penny. I know Iam doomed but the water is running along the sides of my tongue and when I put my penny on the counter for Miss Counihan I promise the Virgin Mary the next penny I get Iall be lighting a candle and would she please talk to her Son and delay the doom for awhile.

A pennaorth of Cleevesa toffee doesnat last forever and when itas gone I have to think of going home to a mother who let my father push his excitement into her so that I could be born in half the time and grow up to be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. If she ever says a word about the red dress or anything Iall tell her I know all about the excitement and sheall be shocked.

Sat.u.r.day morning I meet The Red Hearts of Limerick and we wander out the road looking for a football challenge. The boys are still grousing that the bits of red dress donat look like hearts till Billy tells them if they donat want to play football go home and play with their sistersa dolls.

There are boys playing football in a field in Ballinacurra and Billy challenges them.They have eight players and we have only seven but we donat mind because one of them has one eye and Billy tells us stay on his blind side. Besides, he says, Frankie McCourt is nearly blind with his two bad eyes and thatas worse.Theyare all togged out in blue and white jerseys and white shorts and proper football boots. One of them says we look like something the cat brought in and Malachy has to be held back from fighting them.We agree to play half an hour because the Ballinacurra boys say they have to go to lunch. Lunch.The whole world has dinner in the middle of the day but they have lunch. If no one scores in half an hour itas a draw.We play back and forth till Billy gets the ball and goes speeding and dancing up the sideline so fast no one can catch him and in goes the ball for a goal.The half hour is nearly up but the Ballinacurra boys want another half hour and they manage to score well into the second half hour.Then the ball goes over the line for touch. Itas our ball. Billy stands on the touch line with the ball over his head. He pretends to look at Malachy but throws the ball to me. It comes to me as if itas the only thing that exists in the whole world. It comes straight to my foot and all I have to do is swivel to the left and swing that ball straight into the goal.Thereas a whiteness in my head and I feel like a boy in heaven. Iam floating over the whole field till The Red Hearts of Limerick clap me on the back and tell me that was a great goal, Frankie, you too, Billy.

256.

We walk back along OaConnell Avenue and I keep thinking of the way the ball came to my foot and surely it was sent by G.o.d or the Blessed Virgin Mary who would never send such a blessing to one doomed for being born in half the time and I know as long as I live Iall never forget that ball coming from Billy Campbell, that goal.

Mam meets Bridey Hannon and her mother going up the lane and they tell her about Mr.Hannonas poor legs. Poor John, itas a trial for him to cycle home every night after delivering coal and turf all day on the great float for the coal merchants on the Dock Road. Heas paid from eight in the morning till half five in the evening though he has to get the horse ready well before eight and settle him for the night well after half five.

Heas up and down on that float all day hoisting bags of coal and turf, desperate to keep the bandages in place on his legs so the dirt wonat get into the open sores. The bandages are forever sticking and have to be ripped away and when he comes home she washes the sores with warm water and soap, covers them with ointment and wraps them in clean bandages.They canat afford new bandages every day so she keeps washing the old ones over and over till theyare gray.

Mam says Mr. Hannon should see the doctor and Mrs. Hannon says, Sure, he seen the doctor a dozen times and the doctor says he has to stay off them legs.Thatas all. Stay off them legs. Sure how can he stay off them legs? He has to work. What would we live on if he didnat work?

Mam says maybe Bridey could get some kind of a job herself and Bridey is offended.Donat you know I have a weak chest, Angela? Donat you know I had rheumatic fever ana I could go at any time? I have to be careful.

Mam often talks about Bridey and her rheumatic fever and weak chest. She says, That one is able to sit here by the hour and complain about her ailments but it doesnat stop her from puffing away on the Woodbines.