mother, straight home, oh, he doesn’t know about the excitement in the loft or the excitement on the green sofa or me in such a state of doom that if I died now I’d be in hell in a wink. Uncle Pa goes back to his pint. I’m out on O’Connell Street and why shouldn’t I take the few steps to the Jesuits and tell all my sins this last night I’ll be fifteen.I ring the bell at the priests’house and a big man answers,Yes? I tell him, I want to go to confession, Father. He says, I’m not a priest. Don’t call me father. I’m a brother. All right, Brother. I want to go to confession before I’m sixteen tomorrow. State o’ grace on my birthday. He says, Go away.You’re drunk. Child like you drunk as a lord ring- ing for a priest at this hour. Go away or I’ll call the guards. Ah, don’t.Ah, don’t. I only want to go to confession. I’m doomed. You’re drunk and you’re not in a proper spirit of repentance. He closes the door in my face.Another door closed in the face, but I’m sixteen tomorrow and I ring again. The brother opens the door, swings me around, kicks my arse and sends me tripping down the steps. He says, Ring this bell again and I’ll break your hand. Jesuit brothers are not supposed to talk like that.They’re supposed to be like Our Lord, not walking the world threatening people’s hands. I’m dizzy. I’ll go home to bed. I hold on to railings along Barring- ton Street and keep to the wall going down the lane. Mam is by the fire smoking a Woodbine, my brothers upstairs in the bed. She says,That’s a nice state to come home in. It’s hard to talk but I tell her I had my first pint with Uncle Pa. No father to get me the first pint. Your Uncle Pa should know better. I stagger to a chair and she says, Just like your father. I try to control the way my tongue moves in my mouth. I’d rather be, I’d rather, rather be like my father than Laman Griffin. She turns away from me and looks into the ashes in the range but I won’t leave her alone because I had my pint, two pints, and I’m sixteen tomorrow, a man. Did you hear me? I’d rather be like my father than Laman Griffin. She stands up and faces me. Mind your tongue, she says. Mind your own bloody tongue. Don’t talk to me like that. I’m your mother. I’ll talk to you any bloody way I like. You have a mouth like a messenger boy. 340