The other man says, By Jesus, if that was my son I’d kick his arse from here to the County Kerry. He have no right to be talkin’ to his father in that manner on a sorrowful day. If a man can’t have a pint the day of a funeral what’s the use of livin’ at all, at all. Dad says,All right.We’ll go. They finish their pints and wipe the wet brown stains off the coffin with their sleeves.The man climbs up to the driver’s seat of the carriage and Dad and I ride inside. He has the coffin on his lap and he presses it against his chest. At home our room is filled with big people, Mam, Grandma, Aunt Aggie, her husband, Pa Keating, Uncle Pat Sheehan, Uncle Tom Sheehan, who is Mam’s oldest brother and who never came near  us  before  because  he  hates  people  from  the  North  of  Ireland. Uncle Tom has his wife, Jane, with him. She’s from Galway and people say she has the look of a Spaniard and that’s why no one in the family talks to her. The man takes the coffin from Dad and when he brings it into the room Mam moans, Oh, no, oh, God, no.The man tells Grandma he’ll be back in awhile to take us to the graveyard. Grandma tells him he’d better not come back to this house in a drunken state because this child that’s going to the graveyard suffered greatly and deserves a bit of dig- nity and she won’t put up with a driver that’s drunk and ready to fall out of the high seat. The man says, Missus, I drove dozens o’ children to the graveyard an’ never once fell out of any seat, high or low. The men are drinking stout from bottles again and the women are sip- ping sherry from jam jars. Uncle Pat Sheehan tells everyone,This is my stout, this is my stout, and Grandma says, ’Tis all right, Pat. No one will take your stout.Then he says he wants to sing “The Road to Rasheen” till Pa Keating says, No, Pat, you can’t sing on the day of a funeral.You can sing the night before. But Uncle Pat keeps saying,This is my stout and I want to sing “The Road to Rasheen,” and everyone knows he talks like that because he was dropped on his head. He starts to sing his song but stops when Grandma takes the lid off the coffin and Mam sobs, Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, will it ever stop? Will I be left with one child? Mam  is  sitting  on  a  chair  at  the  head  of  the  bed.  She’s  stroking Eugene’s hair and face and hands. She tells him that of all the children 87