The lice are disgusting, worse than rats. Theyre in our heads and
ears and they sit in the hollows of our collarbones.They dig into our
skin.They get into the seams of our clothes and theyre everywhere in
the coats we use as blankets.We have to search every inch of Alphies
body because hes a baby and helpless.
The lice are worse than the fleas. Lice squat and suck and we can
see our blood through their skins. Fleas jump and bite and theyre clean
and we prefer them.Things that jump are cleaner than things that squat.
We all agree there will be no more stray women and children, dogs
and old men.We dont want any more diseases and infections.
Michael cries.
Grandmas next-door neighbor, Mrs. Purcell, has the only wireless in her
lane.The government gave it to her because shes old and blind. I want
a radio. My grandmother is old but shes not blind and whats the use of
having a grandmother who wont go blind and get a government radio?
Sunday nights I sit outside on the pavement under Mrs. Purcells
window listening to plays on the BBC and Radio Eireann, the Irish sta-
tion.You can hear plays by OCasey, Shaw, Ibsen and Shakespeare him-
self, the best of all, even if he is English. Shakespeare is like mashed
potatoes, you can never get enough of him. And you can hear strange
plays about Greeks plucking out their eyes because they married their
mothers by mistake.
One night Im sitting under Mrs.Purcells window listening to Mac-
beth. Her daughter, Kathleen, sticks her head out the door. Come in,
Frankie. My mother says youll catch the consumption sitting on the
ground in this weather.
Ah, no, Kathleen. Its all right.
No. Come in.
They give me tea and a grand cut of bread slathered with black-
berry jam. Mrs. Purcell says, Do you like the Shakespeare, Frankie?
I love the Shakespeare, Mrs. Purcell.
Oh, hes music, Frankie, and he has the best stories in the world. I
dont know what Id do with meself of a Sunday night if I didnt have
the Shakespeare.
When the play finishes she lets me fiddle with the knob on the
radio and I roam the dial for distant sounds on the shortwave band,
strange whispering and hissing, the whoosh of the ocean coming and
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