My mother laughs, For myself? Lord above, if I didnt nurse her I
wouldnt be able to get near her the way he wants to be holding her day
and night.
Minnie says its lovely, all the same, to see a man so charmed with
his little girl for isnt everyone charmed with her?
Everyone.
The twins are able to stand and walk and they have accidents all the
time.Their bottoms are sore because theyre always wet and shitty.They
put dirty things in their mouths, bits of paper, feathers, shoelaces, and
they get sick.Mam says were all driving her crazy.She dresses the twins,
puts them in the pram, and Malachy and I take them to the playground.
The cold weather is gone and the trees have green leaves up and down
Classon Avenue.
We race the pram around the playground and the twins laugh and
make goo-goo sounds till they get hungry and start to cry. There are
two bottles in the pram filled with water and sugar and that keeps them
quiet for awhile till theyre hungry again and they cry so hard I dont
know what to do because theyre so small and I wish I could give them
all kinds of food so that theyd laugh and make the baby sounds.They
love the mushy food Mam makes in a pot, bread mashed up in milk and
water and sugar. Mam calls it bread and goody.
If I take the twins home now Mam will yell at me for giving her no
rest or for waking Margaret. We are to stay in the playground till she
sticks her head out the window and calls for us. I make funny faces for
the twins to stop their crying. I put a piece of paper on my head and let
it fall and they laugh and laugh. I push the pram over to Malachy play-
ing on the swings with Freddie Leibowitz. Malachy is trying to tell
Freddie all about the way Setanta became Cuchulain. I tell him stop
telling that story, its my story. He wont stop. I push him and he cries,
Waah, waah, Ill tell Mam. Freddie pushes me and everything turns dark
in my head and I run at him with fists and knees and feet till he yells,
Hey, stop, stop, and I wont because I cant, I dont know how, and if I
stop Malachy will go on taking my story from me. Freddie pushes me
away and runs off, yelling, Frankie tried to kill me. Frankie tried to kill
me. I dont know what to do because I never tried to kill anyone before
and now Malachy, on the swing, cries, Dont kill me, Frankie, and he
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