KINGDOM 1


The night before Confi rmation day, Miss McCann handed over the suit to my mother, and kissed me, and said not to bother thanking her. She would do more than that for me, and she and my grandmother cried and had a drink on the strength of my having grown to be a big fellow, in the space of twelve years, which they didn’t seem to consider a great deal of time. My father said to my mother, and I getting bathed before the fi re, that since I was born Miss McCann thought the world of me. When my mother was in hospital, she took me into her place till my mother came out, and it near broke her heart to give me back.


In the morning I got up, and Mrs Rooney in the next room shouted in to my mother that her Liam was still stalling, and not making any move to get out of it, and she thought she was cursed; Christmas or Easter, Communion or Confi rmation, it would drive a body into Riddleys, which is the mad part of Grangegorman, and she wondered she wasn’t driven out of her mind, and above in the puzzle factory years ago. So she shouted again at Liam to get up, and washed and dressed. And my mother shouted at me, though I was already knotting my tie, but you might as well be out of the world, as out of fashion, and they kept it up like a pair of mad women, until at last Liam and I were ready and he came in to show my mother his clothes. She hanselled him a tanner, which he put in his pocket and Mrs Rooney called me in to show her my clothes. I just stood at her door, and didn’t open my coat, but just grabbed the sixpence out of her hand, and ran up the stairs like the hammers of hell. She shouted at me to hold on a minute, she hadn’t seen my suit, but I muttered something about it not being lucky to keep a Bishop waiting, and ran on.


The Church was crowded, boys on one side and the girls on the other, and the altar ablaze with lights and fl owers, and a throne for the Bishop to sit on when he wasn’t confi rming. There was a cheering crowd outside, drums rolled, trumpeters from Jim Larkin’s band sounded the Salute. The Bishop came in and the doors were shut. In short order I joined the queue to the rails, knelt and was whispered over, and touched on the cheek. I had my overcoat on the whole time, though it was warm, and I was in a lather of sweat waiting for the hymns and the sermon.


The lights grew brighter and I got warmer, was carried out fainting. But though I didn’t mind them loosening my tie, I clenched fi rmly my overcoat, and nobody saw the jacket with the big buttons and the little lapels. When I went home, I got into bed, and my father said I went into a sickness just as the Bishop was giving us the pledge. He said this was a master stroke, and showed real presence of mind.


Sunday after Sunday, my mother fought over the suit. She said I was liar and a hypocrite, putting it on for a few minutes every week, and running into Miss McCann’s and out again, letting her think I wore it every week-end. In a passionate temper my mother said she would show me up, and tell Miss McCann, and up like a shot with her, for my mother was always slim, and light on her feet as a feather, and in next door. When she came back she said nothing, but sat at the fi re looking into it. I didn’t really believe she


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