Mikeys father, Peter, is a great champion. He wins bets in the pubs
by drinking more pints than anyone. All he has to do is go out to the
jakes, stick his finger down his throat and bring it all up so that he can
start another round. Peter is such a champion he can stand in the jakes
and throw up without using his finger.Hes such a champion they could
chop off his fingers and hed carry on regardless. He wins all that money
but doesnt bring it home. Sometimes hes like my father and drinks the
dole itself and thats why Nora Molloy is often carted off to the lunatic
asylum demented with worry over her hungry famishing family. She
knows as long as youre in the asylum youre safe from the world and its
torments, theres nothing you can do, youre protected, and whats the
use of worrying. Its well known that all the lunatics in the asylum have
to be dragged in but shes the only one that has to be dragged out, back
to her five children and the champion of all pint drinkers.
You can tell when Nora Molloy is ready for the asylum when you
see her children running around white with flour from poll to toe.That
happens when Peter drinks the dole money and leaves her desperate
and she knows the men will come to take her away.You know shes
inside frantic with the baking. She wants to make sure the children
wont starve while shes gone and she roams Limerick begging for flour.
She goes to priests, nuns, Protestants, Quakers. She goes to Ranks Flour
Mills and begs for the sweepings from the floor. She bakes day and
night. Peter begs her to stop but she screams, This is what comes of
drinking the dole. He tells her the bread will only go stale.Theres no
use talking to her. Bake bake bake. If she had the money shed bake all
the flour in Limerick and regions beyond. If the men didnt come from
the lunatic asylum to take her away shed bake till she fell to the floor.
The children stuff themselves with so much bread people in the
lane say theyre looking like loaves. Still the bread goes stale and Mikey
is so bothered by the waste he talks to a rich woman with a cookbook
and she tells him make bread pudding. He boils the hard bread in water
and sour milk and throws in a cup of sugar and his brother loves it even
if thats all they have the fortnight their mother is in the lunatic asylum.
My father says, Do they take her away because shes gone mad bak-
ing bread or does she go mad baking bread because theyre taking her
away?
Nora comes home calm as if she had been at the seaside. She always
says,Wheres Mikey? Is he alive? She worries over Mikey because hes
115