I cant go back. Im never going back.You can come here any time
you like.
His eyes glint with tears and that gives me such a pain in my heart
I want to say,All right, Ill come with you. Im only saying that. I know
Ill never be able to face Laman Griffin again and I dont know if I can
look at my mother. I watch Michael go up the lane with the sole of his
shoe broken and clacking along the pavement.When I start that job at
the post office Ill buy him shoes so I will. Ill give him an egg and take
him to the Lyric Cinema for the film and the sweets and then well go
to Naughtons and eat fish and chips till our bellies are sticking out a
mile.Ill get money some day for a house or a flat with electric light and
a lavatory and beds with sheets blankets pillows like the rest of the
world.Well have breakfast in a bright kitchen with flowers dancing in
a garden beyond,delicate cups and saucers,eggcups,eggs soft in the yolk
and ready to melt the rich creamery butter, a teapot with a cozy on it,
toast with butter and marmalade galore.Well take our time and listen
to music from the BBC or the American Armed Forces Network. Ill
buy proper clothes for the whole family so our arses wont be hanging
out of our pants and we wont have the shame. The thought of the
shame brings a pain in my heart and starts me sniffling.The Abbot says,
Whats up with you? Didnt you have your bread? Didnt you have your
tay? What more do you want? Tis an egg youll be lookin for next.
Theres no use talking to someone who was dropped on his head
and sells papers for a living.
He complains he cant be feeding me forever and Ill have to get my
own bread and tea. He doesnt want to come home and find me read-
ing in the kitchen with the electric lightbulb blazing away. He can read
numbers so he can and when he goes out to sell papers he reads the
electric meter so hell know how much I used and if I dont stop turn-
ing on that light hell take the fuse out and carry it in his pocket and if
I put another fuse in hell have the electricity pulled out altogether and
go back to gas, which was good enough for his poor dead mother and
will surely suit him for all he does is sit up in the bed to eat his fish
and chips and count his money before he goes to sleep.
I get up early like Dad and go on long walks into the country.I walk
around the graveyard in the old abbey at Mungret where my mothers
relations are buried and I go up the boreen to the Norman castle at
Carrigogunnell where Dad brought me twice. I climb to the top and
Ireland is spread out before me, the Shannon shining its way to the
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