IX
Mam says, Alphie is enough. Im worn out.Thats the end of it. No
more children.
Dad says, The good Catholic woman must perform her wifely
duties and submit to her husband or face eternal damnation.
Mam says, As long as there are no more children eternal damnation
sounds attractive enough to me.
What is Dad to do? Theres a war on. English agents are recruiting
Irishmen to work in their munitions factories,the pay is good,there are
no jobs in Ireland,and if the wife turns her back to you theres no short-
age of women in England where the able men are off fighting Hitler and
Mussolini and you can do anything you like as long as you remember
youre Irish and lower class and dont try to rise above your station.
Families up and down the lane are getting telegram money orders
from their fathers in England.They rush to the post office to cash the
money orders so they can shop and show the world their good fortune
on Saturday night and Sunday morning.The boys get their hair cut on
Saturdays, the women curl their hair with iron tongs hot from the fire.
Theyre very grand now the way they pay sixpence or even a shilling
for seats at the Savoy Cinema where youll meet a better class of peo-
ple than the lower classes who fill the tuppenny seats in the gods at the
Lyric Cinema and are never done shouting at the screen,the kind of peo-
ple if you dont mind who are liable to cheer on the Africans when they
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