I have no shoulders and I know the whole world admires shoulders. When a man dies in Limerick the women always say, Grand man he was, shoulders that big and wide he wouldn't come in the door for you, had to come in sideways. When I die they'll say, Poor little divil, died without a sign of a shoulder. I wish I had some sign of a shoulder so that people would know I was at least fourteen years of age. All the boys in Leamy's had shoulders except for Pintan Slattery and I don't want to be like him with no shoulders and knees worn away from prayer. If I had any money left I'd light a candle to St. Francis and ask him if there's any chance God could be persuaded to perform a miracle on my shoulders. Or if I had a stamp I could write to Joe Louis and say, Dear Joe, Is there any chance you could tell me where you got your powerful shoulders even though you were poor?
I have to look decent for my job so I take off all my clothes and stand naked in the backyard washing them under the tap with a bar of carbolic soap. I hang them on Grandma's clothesline, shirt, gansey, pants, stockings, and pray to God it won't rain, pray they'll be dry for tomorrow, which is the start of my life.
I can't go anywhere in my pelt so I stay in bed all day reading old newspapers, getting excited with the girls in the News of the World and thanking God for the drying sun. The Abbot comes home at five and makes tea downstairs and even though I'm hungry I know he'll grumble if I ask him for anything. He knows the one thing that worries me is he might go to Aunt Aggie and complain I'm staying in Grandma's house and sleeping in her bed and if Aunt Aggie hears that she'll come over and throw me into the street.
He hides the bread when he's finished and I can never find it. You would think that one who was never dropped on his head would be able to find the hidden bread of one who was dropped on his head. Then I realize if the bread is not in the house he must take it with him in the pocket of the overcoat he wears winter and summer. The minute I hear him clumping from the kitchen to the backyard lavatory I run downstairs, pull the loaf from the pocket, cut off a thick slice, back into the pocket, up the stairs and into bed. He can never say a word, never accuse me. You'd have to be a thief of the worst class to steal one slice of bread and no one would ever believe him, not even Aunt Aggie. Besides, she'd bark at him and say, What are you doing anyway going around with a loaf of bread in your pocket? That's no place for a loaf of bread.
I chew the bread slowly. One mouthful every fifteen minutes will make it last and if I wash it down with water the bread will swell in my belly and give me the full feeling.
I look out the back window to make sure the evening sun is drying my clothes. Other backyards have lines with clothes that are bright and colorful and dance in the wind. Mine hang from the line like dead dogs.
The sun is bright but it's cold and damp in the house and I wish I had something to wear in the bed. I have no other clothes and if I touch anything of The Abbot's he'll surely run to Aunt Aggie. All I can find in the wardrobe is Grandma's old black woolen dress. You're not supposed to wear your Grandmother's old dress when she's dead and you're a boy but what does it matter if it keeps you warm and you're in bed under the blankets where no one will ever know. The dress has the smell of old dead grandmother and I worry she might rise from the grave and curse me before the whole family and all assembled. I pray to St. Francis, ask him to keep her in the grave where she belongs, promise him a candle when I start my job, remind him the robe he wore himself wasn't too far from a dress and no one ever tormented him over it and fall asleep with the image of his face in my dream.
The worst thing in the world is to be sleeping in your dead grandmother's bed wearing her black dress when your uncle The Abbot falls on his arse outside South's pub after a night of drinking pints and people who can't mind their own business rush to Aunt Aggie's house to tell her so that she gets Uncle Pa Keating to help her carry The Abbot home and upstairs to where you're sleeping and she barks at you, What are you doin' in this house, in that bed? Get up and put on the kettle for tea for your poor uncle Pat that fell down, and when you don't move she pulls the blankets and falls backward like one seeing a ghost and yelling Mother o'God what are you doin' in me dead mother's dress?
That's the worst thing of all because it's hard to explain that you're getting ready for the big job in your life, that you washed your clothes, they're drying abroad on the line, and it was so cold you had to wear the only thing you could find in the house, and it's even harder to talk to Aunt Aggie when The Abbot is groaning in the bed, Me feet is like a fire, put water on me feet, and Uncle Pa Keating is covering his mouth with his hand and collapsing against the wall laughing and telling you that you look gorgeous and black suits you and would you ever straighten your hem. You don't know what to do when Aunt Aggie tells you, Get out of that bed and put the kettle on downstairs for tea for your poor uncle. Should you take off the dress and put on a blanket or should you go as you are? One minute she's screaming, What are you doin' in me poor mother's dress? the next she's telling you put on that bloody kettle. I tell her I washed my clothes for the big job.
What big job?
Telegram boy at the post office.
She says if the post office is hiring the likes of you they must be in a desperate way altogether, go down and put on that kettle.
The next worse thing is to be out in the backyard filling the kettle from the tap with the moon beaming away and Kathleen Purcell from next door perched up on the wall looking for her cat. God, Frankie McCourt, what are you doin' in your grandmother's dress? and you have to stand there in the dress with the kettle in your hand and explain how you washed your clothes which are hanging there on the line for all to see and you were so cold in the bed you put on your grandmothers dress and your uncle Pat, The Abbot, fell down and was brought home by Aunt Aggie and her husband, Pa Keating, and she drove you into the backyard to fill this kettle and you'll take off this dress as soon as ever your clothes are dry because you never had any desire to go through life in your dead grandmother's dress.
Now Kathleen Purcell lets out a scream, falls off the wall, forgets the cat, and you can hear her giggling into her blind mother, Mammy, Mammy, wait till I tell you about Frankie McCourt abroad in the backyard in his dead grandmother's dress. You know that once Kathleen Purcell gets a bit of scandal the whole lane will know it before morning and you might as well stick your head out the window and make a general announcement about yourself and the dress problem.
By the time the kettle boils The Abbot is asleep from the drink and Aunt Aggie says she and Uncle Pa will have a drop of tea themselves and she doesn't mind if I have a drop myself. Uncle Pa says on second thought the black dress could be the cassock of a Dominican priest and he goes down on his knees and says, Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Aunt Aggie says, Get up, you oul' eejit, and stop makin' a feck of religion. Then she says, And you what are you doin' in this house?
I can't tell her about Mam and Laman Griffin and the excitement in the loft. I tell her I was thinking of staying here a while because of the great distance from Laman Griffin's house to the post office and as soon as I get on my feet we'll surely find a decent place and we'll all move on, my mother and brothers and all.
Well, she says, that's more than your father would do.
XV
It's hard to sleep when you know the next day you're fourteen and starting your first job as a man. The Abbot wakes at dawn moaning. Would I ever make him some tay and if I do I can have a big cut of bread from the half loaf in his pocket which he was keeping there out of the way of the odd rat and if I look in Grandma's gramophone where she used to keep the records I'll find a jar of jam.
He can't read, he can't write, but he knows where to hide the jam.
I bring The Abbot his tea and bread and make some for myself. I put on my damp clothes and get into the bed hoping that if I stay there the clothes will dry from my own heat before I go to work. Mam always says it's the damp clothes that give you the consumption and an early grave. The Abbot is sitting up telling me he has a terrible pain i
n his head from a dream where I was wearing his poor mother's black dress and she flying around screaming, Sin, sin, 'tis a sin. He finishes his tea and falls into a snore sleep and I wait for his clock to say half-past eight, time to get up and be at the post office at nine even if the clothes are still damp on my skin.
On my way out I wonder why Aunt Aggie is coming down the lane. She must be coming to see if The Abbot is dead or needing a doctor. She says, What time do you have to be at that job?
Nine.
All right.
She turns and walks with me to the post office on Henry Street. She doesn't say a word and I wonder if she's going to the post office to denounce me for sleeping in my grandmother's bed and wearing her black dress. She says, Go up and tell them your aunt is down here waiting for you and you'll be an hour late. If they want to argue I'll go up and argue.
Why do I have to be an hour late?
Do what you're bloody well told.
There are telegram boys sitting on a bench along a wall. There are two women at a desk, one fat, one thin. The thin one says, Yes?
My name is Frank McCourt, miss, and I'm here to start work.
What kind of work would that be now?
Telegram boy, miss.
The thin one cackles, Oh, God, I thought you were here to clean the lavatories.
No, miss. My mother brought a note from the priest, Dr. Cowpar, and there's supposed to be a job.
Oh, there is, is there? And do you know what day this is?
I do, miss. 'Tis my birthday. I'm fourteen.
Isn't that grand, says the fat woman.
Today is Thursday, says the thin woman. Your job starts on Monday. Go away and wash yourself and come back then.
The telegram boys along the wall are laughing. I don't know why but I feel my face turning hot. I tell the women, Thank you, and on the way out I hear the thin one, Jesus above, Maureen, who dragged in that specimen? and they laugh along with the telegram boys.
Aunt Aggie says, Well? and I tell her I don't start till Monday. She says my clothes are a disgrace and what did I wash them in.
Carbolic soap.
They smell like dead pigeons and you're making a laughingstock of the whole family.
She takes me to Roche's Stores and buys me a shirt, a gansey, a pair of short pants, two pairs of stockings and a pair of summer shoes on sale. She gives me two shillings to have tea and a bun for my birthday. She gets on the bus to go back up O'Connell Street too fat and lazy to walk. Fat and lazy, no son of her own, and still she buys me the clothes for my new job.
I turn toward Arthur's Quay with the package of new clothes under my arm and I have to stand at the edge of the River Shannon so that the whole world won't see the tears of a man the day he's fourteen.
Monday morning I'm up early to wash my face and flatten my hair with water and spit. The Abbot sees me in my new clothes. Jaysus, he says, is it gettin' married you are? and goes back to sleep.
Mrs. O'Connell, the fat woman, says, Well, well, aren't we the height of fashion, and the thin one, Miss Barry, says, Did you rob a bank on the weekend? and there's a great laugh from the telegram boys sitting on the bench along the wall.
I'm told to sit at the end of the bench and wait for my turn to go out with telegrams. Some telegram boys in uniforms are the permanent ones who took the exam. They can stay in the post office forever if they like, take the next exam for postman and then the one for clerk that lets them work inside selling stamps and money orders behind the counter downstairs. The post office gives permanent boys big waterproof capes for the bad weather and they get two weeks holiday every year. Everyone says these are good jobs, steady and pensionable and respectable, and if you get a job like this you never have to worry again in your whole life, so you don't.
Temporary telegram boys are not allowed to stay in the job beyond the age of sixteen. There are no uniforms, no holidays, the pay is less, and if you stay out sick a day you can be fired. No excuses. There are no waterproof capes. Bring your own raincoat or dodge the raindrops.
Mrs. O'Connell calls me to her desk to give me a black leather belt and pouch. She says there's a great shortage of bicycles so I'll have to walk my first batch of telegrams. I'm to go to the farthest address first, work my way back, and don't take all day. She's long enough in the post office to know how long it takes to deliver six telegrams even by foot. I'm not to be stopping in pubs or bookies or even home for a cup of tea and if I do I'll be found out. I'm not to be stopping in chapels to say a prayer. If I have to pray do it on the hoof or on the bicycle. If it rains pay no attention. Deliver the telegrams and don't be a sissy.
One telegram is addressed to Mrs. Clohessy of Arthur's Quay and that couldn't be anyone but Paddy's mother.
Is that you, Frankie McCourt? she says. God, I wouldn't know you you're that big. Come in, will you.
She's wearing a bright frock with flowers all over and shiny new shoes. There are two children on the floor playing with a toy train. On the table there is a teapot, cups with saucers, a bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, butter, jam. There are two beds over by the window where there were none before. The big bed in the corner is empty and she must know what I'm wondering. He's gone, she says, but he's not dead. Gone t' England with Paddy. Have a cup o' tay an' a bit o' bread. You need it, God help us. You look like one left over from the Famine itself. Ate that bread an' jam an' build yourself up. Paddy always talked about you and Dennis, my poor husband that was in the bed, never got over the day your mother came an' sang the song about the Kerry dancing. He's over in England now making sandwiches in a canteen and sending me a few bob every week. You'd wonder what the English are thinking about when they take a man that has the consumption and give him a job making sandwiches. Paddy has a grand job in a pub in Cricklewood, which is in England. Dennis would still be here if it wasn't for Paddy climbin' the wall for the tongue.
Tongue?
Dennis had the craving, so he did, for a nice sheep's head with a bit of cabbage and a spud so up with me to Barry the butcher with the last few shillings I had. I boiled that head an' sick an' all as he was Dennis couldn't wait for it to be done. He was a demon there in the bed callin' for the head an' when I gave it to him on the plate he was delighted with himself suckin' the marrow outa every inch of that head. Then he finishes an' he says, Mary, where is the tongue?
What tongue? says I.
The tongue of this sheep. Every sheep is born with a tongue that lets him go ba ba ba and there's a great lack of tongue in this head. Go up to Barry the butcher and demand it.
So up with me to Barry the butcher and he said, That bloody sheep came in here bleatin' an' cryin' so much we cut the tongue from her and thrun it to the dog who gobbled it up and ever since ba bas like a sheep and if he doesn't quit I'll cut his tongue and throw it to the cat.
Back I go to Dennis and he gets frantic in the bed. I want that tongue, he says. All the nourishment is in the tongue. And what do you think happens next but my Paddy, that was your friend, goes up to Barry the butcher after dark, climbs the wall, cuts the tongue of a sheep's head that's on a hook on the wall and brings it back to his poor father in the bed. Of course I have to boil that tongue with salt galore and Dennis, God love him, ates it, lies back in the bed a minute, throws back the blanket and stands out on his two feet announcing to the world that consumption or no consumption, he's not going to die in that bed, if he's going to die at all it might as well be under a German bomb with him making a few pounds for his family instead of whining in the bed there beyond.
She shows me a letter from Paddy. He's working in his uncle Anthony's pub twelve hours a day, twenty-five shillings a week and every day soup and a sandwich. He's delighted when the Germans come over with the bombs so that he can sleep while the pub is closed. At night he sleeps on the floor of the hallway upstairs. He will send his mother two pounds every month and he's saving the rest to bring her and the family to England where they'll be much better off in one room in Cricklewood than ten roo
ms in Arthur's Quay. She'll be able to get a job no bother. You'd have to be a sad case not to be able to get a job in a country that's at war especially with Yanks pouring in and spending money right and left. Paddy himself is planning to get a job in the middle of London where Yanks leave tips big enough to feed an Irish family of six for a week.
Mrs. Clohessy says, We have enough money for food and shoes at last, thanks be to God and His Blessed Mother. You'll never guess who Paddy met over there in England fourteen years of age an' workin' like a man. Brendan Kiely, the one ye used to call Question. Workin' he is an' savin' so he can go an' join the Mounties an' ride all over Canada like Nelson Eddy singin' I'll be callin' you ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh. If it wasn't for Hitler we'd all be dead an' isn't that a terrible thing to say. And how's your poor mother, Frankie?
She's grand, Mrs. Clohessy.
No, she's not. I seen her in the Dispensary and she looks worse than my Dennis did in the bed. You have to mind your poor mother. You look desperate too, Frankie, with them two red eyes starin' outa your head. Here's a little tip for you. Thruppence. Buy yourself a sweet.
I will, Mrs. Clohessy.
Do.
*
At the end of the week Mrs. O'Connell hands me the first wages of my life, a pound, my first pound. I run down the stairs and up to O'Connell Street, the main street, where the lights are on and people are going home from work, people like me with wages in their pockets. I want them to know I'm like them, I'm a man, I have a pound. I walk up one side of O'Connell Street and down the other and hope they'll notice me. They don't. I want to wave my pound note at the world so they'll say, There he goes, Frankie McCourt the workingman, with a pound in his pocket.
It's Friday night and I can do anything I like. I can have fish and chips and go to the Lyric Cinema. No, no more Lyric. I don't have to sit up in the gods anymore with people all around me cheering on the Indians killing General Custer and the Africans chasing Tarzan all over the jungle. I can go to the Savoy Cinema now, pay sixpence for a seat down front where there's a better class of people eating boxes of chocolates and covering their mouths when they laugh. After the film I can have tea and buns in the restaurant upstairs.