pipe that leads to the tap has to be held to the wall by a piece of twine
looped around a nail. Everything around the tap is damp, the floor, the
wall, the chair the basin sits on.The water from the tap is icy and our
fingers turn numb. Dad says this is good for us, it will make men of us.
He throws the icy water on his face and neck and chest to show theres
nothing to fear.We hold our hands to the fire for the heat thats in it but
we cant stay there long because we have to drink our tea and eat our
bread and go to school. Dad makes us say grace before meals and grace
after meals and he tells us be good boys at school because God is watch-
ing every move and the slightest disobedience will send us straight to
hell where well never have to worry about the cold again.
And he smiles.
Two weeks before Christmas Malachy and I come home from
school in a heavy rain and when we push in the door we find the
kitchen empty.The table and chairs and trunk are gone and the fire is
dead in the grate. The Pope is still there and that means we havent
moved again. Dad would never move without the Pope. The kitchen
floor is wet, little pools of water all around, and the walls are twinkling
with the damp.Theres a noise upstairs and when we go up we find Dad
and Mam and the missing furniture. Its nice and warm there with a fire
blazing in the grate, Mam sitting in the bed, and Dad reading The Irish
Press and smoking a cigarette by the fire. Mam tells us there was a ter-
rible flood, that the rain came down the lane and poured in under our
door.They tried to stop it with rags but they only turned sopping wet
and let the rain in. People emptying their buckets made it worse and
there was a sickening stink in the kitchen. She thinks we should stay
upstairs as long as there is rain. Well be warm through the winter
months and then we can go downstairs in the springtime if there is any
sign of a dryness in the walls or the floor. Dad says its like going away
on our holidays to a warm foreign place like Italy.Thats what well call
the upstairs from now on, Italy. Malachy says the Pope is still on the wall
downstairs and hes going to be all cold and couldnt we bring him up?
but Mam says, No, hes going to stay where he is because I dont want
him on the wall glaring at me in the bed.Isnt it enough that we dragged
him all the way from Brooklyn to Belfast to Dublin to Limerick? All I
want now is a little peace, ease and comfort.
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