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They went up the flat steps. Stopped, watching gulls and swans. Mary took Sebastian's arm.

"It's a lovely view."

"Quite."

"All the seagulls."

"Yes."

"I like to do this sort of thing."

"Do you?"

"Yes. It gives me a nice feeling."

"True."

"As if you were floating or something."

"Yes, floating."

"What's the matter. don't you like it?"

"Love it, Mary."

"You just go on and on and then you get a queer notion and don't say much."

It was the meal at the Grafton Cinema that took my mind i76 away. Because the waitress was so kind. A plate full of fine, fat sausages, lashings of rashers and a mountain of golden chips. I heard the waitress saying down the hatch would they ever hurry up because this fine gentleman was starving. And the tea was so good that I'd giggle with the impossible joy of it all. And a gentle Grafton Street breeze, tempting me to stay alive forever. But I know when to be pushing up the mushrooms, flavorful and frequent And just as I was laying knife to a sausage there was a scream. The pantry curtain flew open. The waitress scurrying out, a white plate breaking on her head, and chased by a steamy faced girl, her hair, congealed tresses scattered round her head. She was yelling that she would commit murder, that she couldn't stand it any more in this hot hole. Crying and telling them all to leave her alone. She went on breaking dishes. And selfishly, I worried for fear she would destroy my sweet I did feel that my supper had been ruined with the indignity that was in it But she calmed down and they gave her five minutes off to be getting this rebellion out of her head. Only for my meal, I was all tenderness for her working skin and the red blotches on her legs. But there must be discipline. However, I'm all for that moment of reverie at time of crackup.

Sebastian leaned on Mary's blunt shoulder, kissing the corner of her mouth as she twisted away.

"Don't do it where everybody can see us. Let's go look in the window of the woolen shop."

They crossed the bridge, holding hands. They looked at the pieces of cloth. Mary said she was saving to have a suit for Spring. She said her father would never let her buy any new clothes and accused her of wanting to wear them to dances.

She told Sebastian she had friends who colored photographs and some of the pictures weren't very nice. Perhaps she would do that soon because her uncle might be able to take her brothers and then she would be free. The only thing she didn't like about living in Phibsboro was that Mountjoy prison. Coming by one day she saw a man hanging between the bars and he had a funny beard and he asked me to bring him some champagne and smoked salmon. I just ran away and it's just the same with that Grangegorman, the lot of them running around in there without a brain in their heads.

They walked along the old torn houses of Dominick Street Mary showed him a house where she lived before they moved up the Cabra Road. Saying it was an awful street with drink and them beating each other to death with bicycle chains. She was frightened out of her wits to go out at night. But in Cabra she walked in the Botanic Gardens and liked to read all the funny names in Latin on the plants, and along the Tolka, a nice river.

"I live here."

They stood in front of a red brick house.

"When can I see you again, Mary?"

"I don't know. Talk quiet and we can go in the hall. We live upstairs."

"You're a nice girl, Mary."

"You tell them all that."

"Let me kiss your hand."

"All right, if you want."

"Lovely green eyes, and black hair."

"You think I'm too fat?"

"Not at all. Are you mad, Mary?"

"Well, I'm going on a diet."

"Let me feel you. O not at all, just makes you ripe. This, just the way you want them."

"O you really are bold."

Her back against the wall, standing in front of her, arms cocked, holding her by the elbows in her plum colored coat. He kissed her and she bent her head back.

"Do you like it, Mary ?"

"I shouldn't tell you that."

"You can tell me."

"But you don't kiss like