They say it along with Seamus now and when it’s finished they cheer and clap and Seamus laughs, delighted with himself.When he’s gone with his mop and bucket you can hear them at all hours of the day and night O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are. What a beautiful Pussy you are. Then Seamus comes with no mop and no bucket and I’m afraid he’s sacked over the poetry but he’s smiling and telling me he’s off to En- gland to work in a factory and earn decent wages for a change. He’ll work  for  two  months  and  bring  the  wife  over  and  God  might  be pleased to send them children for he has to do something with all the poems in his head and what better than saying them to small ones in memory of that sweet Patricia Madigan dead of the dipteria. Good-bye, Francis. If I had the right fist I’d write to you but I’ll get the wife to write when she comes over. I might even learn to read and write myself so that the child that comes won’t have a fool for a father. I want to cry but you can’t cry in the eye ward with brown stuff in your eyes and nurses saying,What’s this what’s this be a man, and nuns going on, Offer it up, think of the sufferings of Our Lord on the cross, the crown of thorns, the lance in the side, the hands and feet torn to bits with nails. I’m a month in the hospital and the doctor says I can go home even if there’s still a bit of infection but if I keep the eyes clean with soap and clean towels and build up my health with nourishing food plenty of beef and eggs I’ll have a pair of sparkling eyes in no time ha ha. Mr. Downes across the way comes back from England for his mother’s funeral.He tells Mrs.Downes about my father.She tells Bridey Hannon and Bridey tells my mother. Mr. Downes says that Malachy McCourt is gone pure mad with the drink, that he squanders his wages in pubs all over Coventry, that he sings Irish rebel songs which the English don’t mind  because  they’re  used  to  the  way  the  Irish  carry  on  about the hundreds of years of suffering, but they won’t put up with any man 230