sick all the time, Dad takes longer and longer walks into the country, and we play outside as much as we can and far from the lavatory. Dad doesn’t complain about the River Shannon anymore. He knows now the lavatory is worse and he takes me with him to the Town Hall to complain.The man there says, Mister, all I can tell you is you can move. Dad says we can’t afford to move and the man says there’s nothing he can do. Dad says,This is not India.This is a Christian country.The lane needs more lavatories.The man says, Do you expect Limerick to start building lavatories in houses that are falling down anyway, that will be demolished after the war? Dad says that lavatory could kill us all.The man says we live in dangerous times. Mam says it’s hard enough keeping a fire going to cook the Christmas dinner but if I’m going to Christmas dinner at the hospital I’ll have to wash myself from top to bottom. She wouldn’t give it to Sister Rita to say I was neglected or ripe for another disease. She boils a pot of water early in the morning before Mass and nearly scalds the scalp off me. She scours my ears and scrubs my skin so hard it tingles. She can afford tup- pence for the bus out to the hospital but I’ll have to walk back and that will be good for me because I’ll be stuffed with food and now she has to get the fire going again for the pig’s head and cabbage and floury white potatoes which she got once again through the kindness of the St.Vincent de Paul Society and she’s determined this will be the last time we celebrate the birth of Our Lord with pig’s head.Next year we’ll have a goose or a nice ham and why wouldn’t we,isn’t Limerick famous the world over for the ham? Sister Rita says, Now would you look at this, our little soldier look- ing so healthy. No meat on the bones but still. Now tell me, did you go to Mass this morning? I did, Sister. And did you receive? I did, Sister. She takes me into an empty ward and tells me sit there on that chair it won’t be long now till I get my dinner. She leaves and I won- der if I’ll be eating with nuns and nurses or will I be in a ward with chil- dren having their Christmas dinner. In awhile my dinner is brought in by the girl in the blue dress who brought me the books. She places the tray on the side of a bed and I pull up a chair. She frowns at me and 212