Frank leaves Laman Griffin’s house after being beaten

Frank’s departure from Laman Griffin’s house after being beaten is a decisive break in the household that has been sheltering him and his family. The immediate cause is a broken bargain over a bicycle: after Frank has spent weeks doing chores in expectation of borrowing it, Laman refuses to lend it, then attacks him when Frank insists that Laman had promised. Frank leaves that night for Ab Sheehan’s house and, even after his mother offers a route back, says he will never return.

Causes and the broken bargain

The conflict comes to a head on the night before Frank is due to go to Killaloe. Laman comes home drunk, eats fish and chips, and demands that Frank fetch turf and kindling because there is no coal or turf in the house. Frank does not want to go: he resents the way Laman treats his mother, but fears that objecting could cost him the bicycle he has waited three weeks to borrow. He has performed chores, including emptying the chamber pot and running errands, in return for Laman’s promise.

When Frank reminds Laman about the bicycle, Laman says Frank has failed to keep his side of the bargain. Frank’s mother explains that Frank could not do the required task because he had been at school and had to see a doctor about his eyes. Laman dismisses her intervention and tells her to be quiet. Frank repeats that he kept his part of the agreement. What began as an argument about a bicycle becomes a confrontation over whether his work and Laman’s promise count for anything.

Assault and departure

Laman gets up from the table and turns on Frank. Frank’s mother tries to intervene, but Laman pushes the confrontation into the bedroom and continues to strike him. Frank keeps repeating that Laman promised him the bicycle. His mother pleads that he is only a boy and tries to draw Laman’s attention back to his meal. Afterward, she goes to the loft and asks Laman to recognize that Frank is a child troubled by his eyes; Laman instead says that he wants Frank out of the house.

Once Laman and Frank’s brothers are asleep, Frank decides that he cannot stay: he fears another attack and says that, if Laman comes at him again, he may take a knife to him. He leaves without knowing where he will go. Walking through the streets from Sarsfield Barracks toward the Monument Café, he imagines a future in which he will go to America, meet Joe Louis, and learn to fight. The fantasy of returning stronger gives shape to his anger, but it is not an immediate plan of action; for the night, he has to find shelter and food.

Refuge with Ab Sheehan

Frank looks for food in the streets, hoping to find fish and chips dropped by drunken soldiers. He also considers seeking out his uncle, Ab Sheehan, whom he now calls Ab or the Abbot. At thirteen, he no longer uses the earlier name Uncle Pat. He hopes Ab might give him food or a place to sleep, and imagines telling him that he will soon deliver telegrams and earn tips at the post office.

Ab is already home, eating fish and chips wrapped in a copy of the Limerick Leader. Seeing Frank’s swollen face and red eyes, he asks whether Frank fell. Frank says that he did, because he believes Ab would not understand if he told him what had happened. Ab lets him sleep in his mother’s bed rather than walk the streets. There is no food in the house, and when Ab falls asleep Frank eats the grease from the newspaper wrapping, licking its advertisements, headlines, war reports, obituaries, sports pages, and market prices. The episode makes the refuge real but precarious: Ab offers a bed and later a small amount of help, not a secure household or ample provisions.

In the morning Ab gives Frank money to buy bread, margarine, tea, and milk. He boils water on the gas ring and shares tea and bread, cautioning Frank to use little sugar and not cut the bread too thick. The exchange is a modest act of care, sharply different from the previous night’s conflict over what Frank is owed. Frank meanwhile knows that school is over and expects to start delivering telegrams in a few weeks. He imagines spending the idle interval walking around Limerick, reading newspapers, or going to the Lyric Cinema if he had money.

Refusal to return

Frank’s mother sends Michael to Ab’s house with warm tea, bread spread with dripping, and a note saying that Laman is no longer angry and Frank can come back. Michael asks him to return. Frank refuses, telling his younger brother that he lives there now and will never go back. The refusal is repeated: even after Michael explains that he has no older brother at home, Frank says he cannot return, though Michael may visit him.

The final exchange leaves two losses side by side. Frank asserts a new independence from Laman’s household, but Michael’s appeal shows what that choice costs the younger brother, who misses the older boys and has only Alphie, not yet four and unable to speak properly. Frank’s departure is therefore not a clean escape into safety. It is a refusal to resume life under Laman after violence, made while Frank is still dependent on relatives and waiting to begin paid work. The promised bicycle, which first kept him silent and then became the point on which he insisted, marks how an ordinary object and a domestic bargain have become the occasion for a lasting separation.