my mother stirs Malachy holds the lemonade bottle to her lips and she gasps till she finishes it. If she likes it that much I’ll have to find more lemonade. We put the last of the coal on the fire and sit around telling stories which we make up the way Dad did.I tell my brothers about my adven- tures with the lemonade and bread and I make up stories about how I was  chased  by  pub  owners  and  shopkeepers  and  how  I  ran  into  St. Joseph’s Church where no one can follow you if you’re a criminal, not even if you killed your own mother.Malachy and Michael look shocked over the way I got the bread and lemonade but then Malachy says it was only what Robin Hood would have done, rob the rich and give to the poor. Michael says I’m an outlaw and if they catch me they’ll hang me from the highest tree in the People’s Park the way outlaws are hanged in films at the Lyric Cinema. Malachy says I should make sure I’m in a state of grace because it might be hard to find a priest to come to my hanging. I tell him a priest would have to come to the hanging.That’s what priests are for. Roddy McCorley had a priest and so did Kevin Barry. Malachy  says  there  were  no  priests  at  the  hanging  of  Roddy McCorley and Kevin Barry because they’re not mentioned in the songs and he starts singing the songs to prove it till my mother groans in the bed and says shut up. Alphie the baby is asleep on the floor by the fire.We put him into the bed with Mam so that he’ll be warm though we don’t want him to catch her disease and die. If she wakes up and finds him dead in the bed beside her there will be no end to the lamentations and she’ll blame me on top of it. The three of us get back into our own bed, huddling under the overcoats and trying not to roll into the hole in the mattress. It’s pleas- ant there till Michael starts to worry over Alphie getting Mam’s disease and me getting hanged for an outlaw. He says it isn’t fair because that would leave him with only one brother and everyone in the world has brothers galore. He falls asleep from the worry and soon Malachy drifts off and I lie there thinking of jam.Wouldn’t it be lovely to have another loaf of bread and a jar of strawberry jam or any kind of jam. I can’t remember ever seeing a jam van making a delivery and I wouldn’t want to be like Jesse James blasting my way into a shop demanding jam.That would surely lead to a hanging. There’s a cold sun coming through the window and I’m sure it must be warmer outside and wouldn’t my brothers be surprised if they 237