X It’s cold and wet down in Ireland but we’re up in Italy. Mam says we should bring the poor Pope up to hang on the wall opposite the win- dow.After all he’s a friend of the workingman, he’s Italian, and they’re a warm weather people. Mam sits by the fire, shivering, and we know something is wrong when she makes no move for a cigarette. She says she feels a cold coming and she’d love to have a tarty drink, a lemon- ade.But there’s no money in the house,not even for bread in the morn- ing. She drinks tea and goes to bed. The bed creaks all night with her twistings and turnings and she keeps us awake with her moaning for water. In the morning, she stays in bed, still shivering, and we keep quiet. If she sleeps long enough Malachy and I will be too late for school. Hours pass and still she makes no move and when I know it’s well past school time I start the fire for the kettle. She stirs and calls for lemonade but I give her a jam jar of water. I ask her if she’d like some tea and she acts like a woman gone deaf. She looks flushed and it’s odd she doesn’t even mention cigarettes. We  sit  quietly  by  the  fire,  Malachy,  Michael, Alphie,  myself. We drink our tea while Alphie chews the last bit of bread covered with sugar. He makes us laugh the way he smears the sugar all over his face and grins at us with his fat sticky cheeks. But we can’t laugh too much or Mam will jump out of the bed and order Malachy and me off to school where we’ll be killed for being late.We don’t laugh long, there is 235