or a beer. Sometimes he brings home bits of the free lunch, rye bread,
corned beef, pickles. He puts the food on the table and drinks tea him-
self. He says food is a shock to the system and he doesnt know where
we get our appetites. Mam says,They get their appetites because theyre
starving half the time.
When Dad gets a job Mam is cheerful and she sings,
Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss,
It had to be and the reason is this
Could it be true, someone like you
Could love me, love me?
When Dad brings home the first weeks wages Mam is delighted
she can pay the lovely Italian man in the grocery shop and she can hold
her head up again because theres nothing worse in the world than to
owe and be beholden to anyone. She cleans the kitchen, washes the
mugs and plates, brushes crumbs and bits of food from the table, cleans
out the icebox and orders a fresh block of ice from another Italian. She
buys toilet paper that we can take down the hall to the lavatory and that,
she says, is better than having the headlines from the Daily News black-
ening your arse. She boils water on the stove and spends a day at a great
tin tub washing our shirts and socks, diapers for the twins, our two
sheets, our three towels. She hangs everything out on the clotheslines
behind the apartment house and we can watch the clothes dance in
wind and sun. She says you wouldnt want the neighbors to know what
you have in the way of a wash but theres nothing like the sweetness of
clothes dried by the sun.
When Dad brings home the first weeks wages on a Friday night we
know the weekend will be wonderful.On Saturday night Mam will boil
water on the stove and wash us in the great tin tub and Dad will dry us.
Malachy will turn around and show his behind. Dad will pretend to be
shocked and well all laugh. Mam will make hot cocoa and well be able
to stay up while Dad tells us a story out of his head.All we have to do
is say a name, Mr. MacAdorey or Mr. Leibowitz down the hall, and Dad
will have the two of them rowing up a river in Brazil chased by Indians
with green noses and puce shoulders. On nights like that we can drift
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