than five shillings. I asked him if he was joking. No, he wasn’t. Every- one in Limerick is talking about this page and they’re dying to get their hands on it. Five shillings or nothing, Frankie. If they’re rich charge more but that’s what I’m charging so don’t be going around on your bicycle and puttin’ me out of business with low prices.We have to give Peter some- thing or he’ll be running to McCaffrey and spilling the beans. Some people are willing to pay seven shillings and sixpence and I’m rich in two days with over ten pounds in my pocket minus one for Peter the snake, who would betray us to McCaffrey. I put eight pounds in the post office for my fare to America and that night we have a big supper of ham, tomatoes, bread, butter, jam. Mam wants to know if I won the sweepstakes and I tell her people give me tips. She’s not happy I’m a messenger boy because that’s the lowest you can drop in Limerick but if it brings in ham like this we should light a candle in gratitude. She doesn’t know the money for my fare is growing in the post office and she’d  die  if  she  knew  what  I  was  earning  from  writing  threatening letters. Malachy has a new job in the stockroom of a garage handing out parts to mechanics and Mam herself is taking care of an old man, Mr. Sliney, out in the South Circular Road while his two daughters go off to work every day. She tells me if I’m delivering papers out there to come to the house for tea and a sandwich. The daughters will never know and the old man won’t mind because he’s only half conscious most of the time worn out from all his years in the English army in India. She looks peaceful in the kitchen of this house in her spotless apron, everything clean and polished around her, flowers bobbing in the gar- den  beyond, birds  chirping  away, music  from  Radio  Eireann  on  the wireless. She sits at the table with a pot of tea, cups and saucers, plenty of bread, butter, cold meats of all kinds. I can have any class of a sand- wich but all I know is ham and brawn. She doesn’t have any brawn because that’s the kind of thing you’d find people eating in lanes not in a house on the South Circular Road. She says the rich won’t eat brawn because it’s what they scoop off floors and counters in bacon factories and you never know what you’re getting.The rich are very particular about what they stick between two slices of bread. Over in America brawn is called head cheese and she doesn’t know why. 350