No good? Angelas Sheehans son? Dance, Frankie, or Ill get outa
this bed an wheel you round the house.
My shoe is broken, Mr. Clohessy.
Frankie, Frankie, youre bringin the cough on me.Will you dance
for the love o Jesus so I can remember me youth with your mother in
the Wembley Hall.Take off the feckin shoe, Frankie, an dance.
I have to make up dances and tunes to go with them the way I did
a long time ago when I was young. I dance around the room with one
shoe because I forgot to take it off. I try to make up words, Oh,The
Walls of Limerick are falling down, falling down, falling down, The
Walls of Limerick falling down and the River Shannon kills us.
Mr. Clohessy is laughing in the bed. Oh, Jaysus, I never heard likes
o that on land or sea.Thats a great leg for the dancing you have there,
Frankie. Oh, Jaysus. He coughs and brings up ropes of green and yellow
stuff. It makes me sick to look at it and I wonder if I should go home
from all this sickness and this bucket and let my parents kill me if they
want to.
Paddy lies down on a mattress by the window and I lie beside him.
I keep my clothes on like everybody else and I even forget to take off
my other shoe, which is wet and squishy and stinks. Paddy falls asleep
right away and I look at his mother sitting by the bit of a fire smoking
another cigarette. Paddys father groans and coughs and spits into the
bucket. He says, Feckin blood, and she says,Youll have to go into the
sanatorium sooner or later.
I will not.The day they put you in there is the end of you.
You could be givinthe consumption to the children.I could get the
guards to take you away youre that much of a danger to the children.
If they were to get it theyd have it be now.
The fire dies and Mrs. Clohessy climbs over him into the bed. In a
minute shes snoring even if hes still coughing and laughing about the
days of his youth when he danced with Angela Sheehan light as a
feather in the Wembley Hall.
Its cold in the room and Im shivering in my wet clothes. Paddy is
shivering too but hes asleep and he doesnt know hes cold.I dont know
if I should stay here or get up and go home but who wants to be wan-
dering the streets when a guard might ask you what youre doing out.
Its my first time away from my family and I know Id rather be in my
own house with the smelly lavatory and stable next door. Its bad when
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