scrap of food in this house,not a lump of coal to start the fire,not a drop of milk for the baby’s bottle. We walk through the streets and Malachy practices his speech at the top of his voice, Dad, Dad, that five pounds is for the new baby.That’s not for the drink.The child is above in the bed bawling and roaring for his milk and you’re drinking the pint. He’s gone from South’s pub. Malachy still wants to stand and make his speech but I tell him we have to hurry and look in other pubs before Dad drinks the whole five pounds. We can’t find him in other pubs either. He knows Mam would come for him or send us and there are so many pubs at this end of Limerick and beyond we could be looking for a month.We have to tell Mam there’s no sign of him and she tells us we’re pure useless. Oh, Jesus, I wish I had my strength and I’d search every pub in Limerick. I’d tear the mouth out of his head, so I would. Go on, go back down and try all the pubs around the railway station and try Naughton’s fish and chip shop. I have to go by myself because Malachy has the runs and can’t stray far from the bucket. I search all the pubs on Parnell Street and around. I look into the snugs where the women drink and in all the men’s lava- tories. I’m hungry but I’m afraid to go home till I find my father. He’s not in Naughton’s fish and chip shop but there’s a drunken man asleep at a table in the corner and his fish and chips are on the floor in their Limerick Leader wrapping and if I don’t get them the cat will so I shove them under my jersey and I’m out the door and up the street to sit on the steps at the railway station eat my fish and chips watch the drunken soldiers pass by with the girls that giggle thank the drunken man in my mind for drowning the fish and chips in vinegar and smothering them in salt and then remember that if I die tonight I’m in a state of sin for stealing and I could go straight to hell stuffed with fish and chips but it’s Saturday and if the priests are still in the confession boxes I can clear my soul after my feed. The Dominican church is just up Glentworth Street. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it’s a fortnight since my last con- fession. I tell him the usual sins and then, I stole fish and chips from a drunken man. Why, my child? I was hungry, Father. And why were you hungry? There was nothing in my belly, Father. 184