Frank’s departure from Laman Griffin’s house is a turning point in his adolescence: a broken promise over a bicycle escalates into violence, and Frank leaves rather than risk another attack. His escape initially means a night on the streets and refuge with Ab Sheehan; over the following months, his refusal to return helps draw his mother and brother Michael away from Laman’s home as well.

The broken bargain

The immediate conflict comes on the night before Frank is due to go to Killaloe. Laman returns drunk, eats fish and chips, and demands that Frank fetch fuel after Angela says there is no coal or turf. Frank resents the way Laman treats his mother, but he also fears that speaking up will cost him the bicycle Laman promised to lend him. Frank has waited three weeks for it, having emptied the chamber pot and run errands as part of their bargain.

Once the fire is lit, Frank reminds Laman of the promised bicycle. Laman says the bargain is over because Frank has not fulfilled his part; Angela interjects that Frank could not have done the task. Laman silences her, and she goes quiet by the fire. Frank repeats that he kept his side of the bargain, but Laman orders him to bed. Frank answers that Laman is not his father and has no right to dismiss him after making the promise. The argument is therefore about more than the bicycle: it pits Frank’s insistence on an explicit agreement against Laman’s control of the household and his power to withdraw what he offered.

The beating and departure

Laman approaches Frank and strikes him, escalating the assault when Frank continues to insist that the bicycle was promised. Angela tries to pull Laman away, but he drives Frank into the bedroom and continues hitting him. She pleads that Frank is only a child, while Laman says he wants him out of the house. After Laman goes to the loft, Angela follows him and continues pleading; the episode ends with the adults together upstairs, while Frank is left below with his brothers.

When the household is quiet, Frank decides he cannot stay: he fears that if Laman attacks him again, he will take a knife to him. He does not yet know where to go. He leaves and walks through the dark streets from Sarsfield Barracks toward the Monument Café. His imagined revenge—training with Joe Louis in America and confronting Laman—shows anger given an elaborate future shape, but it does not alter the immediate fact that Frank is alone and looking for somewhere safe to sleep.

Seeking shelter and refusing to return

Frank considers finding his uncle, Ab Sheehan, and learns at the café that Ab has already come and gone. He then goes to his grandmother’s house, hoping for bread and perhaps a place to stay. Ab sees that Frank’s face is swollen and his eyes are red, but Frank says he fell, deciding that Ab would not understand the truth. Ab lets him sleep in his mother’s bed. In the morning he gives Frank money for bread, margarine, tea, and milk, and makes tea for him.

Frank’s immediate prospects are uncertain but not entirely without direction. School is over for good, and in a few weeks he expects to begin delivering telegrams at the post office. While waiting, he can walk around Limerick, read newspapers Ab brings home, or use library cards belonging to Laman and Angela. Angela sends Michael to him with warm tea, bread spread with dripping, and a note saying that Laman is no longer angry and Frank can come home. Frank answers no. Michael urges him to return, but the refusal marks a clear break: the promise of reconciliation does not outweigh Frank’s unwillingness to go back into Laman’s household.

A gradual separation

The first departure does not immediately settle where the family will live. When school starts in September, Michael sometimes stops at Ab’s before walking home to Laman’s. On rainy days he asks to stay, and soon he no longer wants to make the two-mile walk each way. His repeated stays turn Ab’s home from a temporary refuge for Frank into a place where Michael, too, can remain.

Angela later comes looking for Michael. Frank does not know what to say or how to look at her; she asks about his job as if nothing had happened at Laman’s, and he answers in the same manner. When heavy rain makes it difficult for her to go home, she stays in the upstairs room with Alphie. She returns to Laman’s the next day, but Michael stays with Ab. Gradually Angela begins staying too, until she stops going back to Laman’s altogether. The movement away from Laman’s is thus incremental: Frank leaves in the night, Michael’s stays become habitual, and Angela eventually joins them.

Work, money, and the meaning of home

Ab pays the rent, while Angela receives relief and food dockets until someone reports that Frank is earning a pound a week. Officials tell her that this is more than some families receive on the dole and that she should be grateful her son has work. Frank is consequently expected to hand over his wages. Angela compares the pound with American earnings, imagining what Frank might make delivering telegrams for Western Union in New York and translating Irish money into dollars so that she will not forget the better times she associates with America.

The job offers Frank some prospect of supporting himself, but it does not quickly provide an escape: if he spends his small remainder on a film or a secondhand book, he has nothing left to save for his fare. The episode’s consequences therefore extend beyond the night of the beating. Frank’s refusal to return marks a change in where he and his family can live, while wages and relief shape the practical limits of that change. The bicycle that triggered the confrontation is never described as the cause of a simple quarrel alone; the broken bargain exposes Frank’s dependence within Laman’s household, and leaving becomes the first step toward a different, still precarious arrangement.