flowing back so she’s happy to let Mam have credit for tea, milk, sugar, bread, butter and an egg. An egg. Mam says,This egg is for your father. He needs the nourishment for the long journey before him. It’s a hard-boiled egg and Dad peels off the shell. He slices the egg five ways and gives each of us a bit to put on our bread.Mam says,Don’t be such a fool. Dad says,What would a man be doing with a whole egg to himself? Mam has tears on her eyelashes. She pulls her chair over to the fireplace.We all eat our bread and egg and watch her cry till she says, What are ye gawkin’ at? and turns  away to  look into the ashes. Her bread and egg are still on the table and I wonder if she has any plans for them. They look delicious and I’m still hungry but Dad gets up and brings them to her with the tea.She shakes her head but he presses them on her and she eats and drinks,snuffling and crying.He sits opposite her a while, silent, till she looks up at the clock and says, ’Tis time to go. He puts on his cap and picks up his bag. Mam wraps Alphie in an old blan- ket and we set off through the streets of Limerick. There are other families in the streets.The going-away fathers walk ahead, the mothers carry babies or push prams.A mother with a pram will say to other mothers, God above, missus, you must be fagged out carrying that child. Sure, why don’t you stick him into the pram here and rest your poor arms. Prams  might  be  packed  with  four  or  five  babies  squalling  away because the prams are old and the wheels bockety and the babies are rocked till they get sick and throw up their goody. The men call to each other. Grand day, Mick. Lovely day for the journey, Joe. ’Tis, indeed, Mick. Arrah, we might as well have a pint before we go, Joe.We might as well, Mick. Might as well be drunk as the way we are, Joe. They laugh and the women behind them are teary-eyed and red-nosed. In the pubs around the railway station the men are packed in drink- ing the money the agents gave them for travel food.They’re having the last pint, the last drop of whiskey on Irish soil, For God knows it might be the last we’ll ever have, Mick, the way the Jerries are bombing the bejesus outa England and not a minute too soon after what they did to us and isn’t it a tragic thing entirely the way we have to go over there and save the arse of the ancient foe. 219