off to sleep knowing there will be a breakfast of eggs, fried tomatoes
and fried bread, tea with lashings of sugar and milk and, later in the
day, a big dinner of mashed potatoes, peas and ham, and a trifle Mam
makes, layers of fruit and warm delicious custard on a cake soaked in
sherry.
When Dad brings home the first weeks wages and the weather is
fine Mam takes us to the playground. She sits on a bench and talks to
Minnie MacAdorey. She tells Minnie stories about characters in Limer-
ick and Minnie tells her about characters in Belfast and they laugh
because there are funny people in Ireland, North and South.Then they
teach each other sad songs and Malachy and I leave the swings and see-
saws to sit with them on the bench and sing,
A group of young soldiers one night in a camp
Were talking of sweethearts they had.
All seemed so merry except one young lad,
And he was downhearted and sad.
Come and join us, said one of the boys,
Surely theres someone for you.
But Ned shook his head and proudly he said
I am in love with two, Each like a mother to me,
From neither of them shall I part.
For one is my mother, God bless her and love her,
The other is my sweetheart.
Malachy and I sing that song and Mam and Minnie laugh till they
cry at the way Malachy takes a deep bow and holds his arms out to
Mam at the end. Dan MacAdorey comes along on his way home from
work and says Rudy Vallee better start worrying about the competition.
When we go home Mam makes tea and bread and jam or mashed
potatoes with butter and salt. Dad drinks the tea and eats nothing. Mam
says, God above, How can you work all day and not eat? He says,The
tea is enough. She says, Youll ruin your health, and he tells her again
that food is a shock to the system. He drinks his tea and tells us stories
and shows us letters and words in the Daily News or he smokes a ciga-
rette, stares at the wall, runs his tongue over his lips.
When Dads job goes into the third week he does not bring home
the wages. On Friday night we wait for him and Mam gives us bread
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