ply Board and a house thats a disgrace.Youd look at this house and
never know there was a human being living in it.You can see Laman
never moved a thing since his mother died and now we have to clean
up so that we can live in this place.
There are boxes packed with bottles of purple hair oil.While Mam is
out in the lavatory we open a bottle and smear it on our heads. Malachy
says the smell is gorgeous but when Mam comes back she says,Whats that
horrible stink? and wants to know why our heads are suddenly greasy.She
makes us stick our heads under the tap outside and dry ourselves with an
old towel pulled out from under a pile of magazines called The Illustrated
London News so old they have pictures of Queen Victoria and Prince
Edward waving.There are bars of Pears soap and a thick book called Pears
Encyclopedia, which keeps me up day and night because it tells you every-
thing about everything and thats all I want to know.
There are bottles of Sloans Liniment, which Mam says will come
in handy when we get cramps and pains from the damp. The bottles
say, Heres the pain, Wheres the Sloans? There are boxes of
safety pins and bags packed with womens hats that crumble when
you touch them. There are bags with corsets, garters, womens high
button shoes and different laxatives that promise glowing cheeks, bright
eyes and a curl in your hair. There are letters from General Eoin
ODuffy to Gerard Griffin, Esq., saying welcome to the ranks of the
National Front, the Irish Blueshirts, that it is a privilege to know a man
like Gerard Griffin is interested in the movement with his excellent
education, his Royal Navy training, his reputation as a great rugby
player on the Young Munster team that won the national champi-
onship, the Bateman Cup. General ODuffy is forming an Irish
Brigade that will soon sail off to Spain to fight with that great Catholic
Generalissimo Franco himself, and Mr. Griffin would be a powerful
addition to the Brigade.
Mam says Lamans mother wouldnt let him go. She didnt spend all
those years slaving away in a little shop to send him to college so that
he could go gallivanting off to Spain for Franco so he stayed at home
and got that job digging holes for the poles of the Electricity Supply
Board along country roads and his mother was happy to have him home
to herself every night but Friday when he drank his pint and moaned
over Jean Harlow.
Mam is happy well have loads of paper for lighting the fire though
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