XV It’s hard to sleep when you know the next day you’re fourteen and starting your first job as a man. The Abbot wakes at dawn moaning. Would I ever make him some tay and if I do I can have a big cut of bread from the half loaf in his pocket which he was keeping there out of the way of the odd rat and if I look in Grandma’s gramophone where she used to keep the records I’ll find a jar of jam. He can’t read, he can’t write, but he knows where to hide the jam. I bring The Abbot his tea and bread and make some for myself. I put on my damp clothes and get into the bed hoping that if I stay there the  clothes  will  dry  from  my  own  heat  before  I  go  to  work. Mam always says it’s the damp clothes that give you the consumption and an early grave.The Abbot is sitting up telling me he has a terrible pain in his head from a dream where I was wearing his poor mother’s black dress and she flying around screaming, Sin, sin, ’tis a sin. He finishes his tea and falls into a snore sleep and I wait for his clock to say half-past eight, time to get up and be at the post office at nine even if the clothes are still damp on my skin. On my way out I wonder why Aunt Aggie is coming down the lane. She must be coming to see if  The Abbot is dead or needing a doctor. She says,What time do you have to be at that job? Nine. All right. 309