Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

He hangs over the bucket again. He gasps for air and reaches his arms out to get it. He suffers but he won't stop talking.

Champion dancer she was, Frankie. Not skinny mind you but a feather in my arms and there was many a sorry man when she left Lim- erick. Can you dance, Frankie?

Ah, no, Mr. Clohessy.

Paddy says, He can, Dada. He had the lessons from Mrs. O'Connor and Cyril Benson.

Well, dance, Frankie. Round the house an' mind the dresser, Frankie. Lift the foot, lad.

I can't, Mr. Clohessy. I'm no good.

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No good? Angela's Sheehan's son? Dance, Frankie, or I'll get outa this bed an' wheel you round the house.

Frankie, Frankie, you're bringin' the cough on me.Will you dance for the love o' Jesus so I can remember me youth with your mother in the Wembley Hall.Take off the feckin' shoe, Frankie, an' dance.

I have to make up dances and tunes to go with them the way I did a long time ago when I was young. I dance around the room with one shoe because I forgot to take it off. I try to make up words, Oh,The Walls of Limerick are falling down, falling down, falling down, The Walls of Limerick falling down and the River Shannon kills us.

Mr. Clohessy is laughing in the bed. Oh, Jaysus, I never heard likes o' that on land or sea.That's a great leg for the dancing you have there, Frankie. Oh, Jaysus. He coughs and brings up ropes of green and yellow stuff. It makes me sick to look at it and I wonder if I should go home from all this sickness and this bucket and let my parents kill me if they want to.

Paddy lies down on a mattress by the window and I lie beside him. I keep my clothes on like everybody else and I even forget to take off my other shoe, which is wet and squishy and stinks. Paddy falls asleep right away and I look at his mother sitting by the bit of a fire smoking another cigarette. Paddy's father groans and coughs and spits into the bucket. He says, Feckin' blood, and she says,You'll have to go into the sanatorium sooner or later.

I will not.The day they put you in there is the end of you.

You could be givin'the consumption to the children.I could get the guards to take you away you're that much of a danger to the children.

If they were to get it they'd have it be now.

The fire dies and Mrs. Clohessy climbs over him into the bed. In a minute she's snoring even if he's still coughing and laughing about the days of his youth when he danced with Angela Sheehan light as a feather in the Wembley Hall.

It's cold in the room and I'm shivering in my wet clothes. Paddy is shivering too but he's asleep and he doesn't know he's cold.I don't know if I should stay here or get up and go home but who wants to be wan- dering the streets when a guard might ask you what you're doing out. It's my first time away from my family and I know I'd rather be in my own house with the smelly lavatory and stable next door. It's bad when

165 our kitchen is a lake and we have to go up to Italy but it's worse in the Clohessys' when you have to go down four flights to the lavatory and slip on shit all the way down. I'd be better off with four goats in a ditch.

I drift in and out of sleep but I have to wake up for good when Mrs. Clohessy goes around pulling at her family to get them up. They all went to bed with their clothes on so they don't have to get dressed and there's no fighting.They grumble and run out the door to get down- stairs to the backyard lavatory. I have to go too and I run down with Paddy but his sister Peggy is on the bowl and we have to piss against a wall. She says, I'll tell Ma what ye did, and Paddy says, Shurrup or I'll push you down into that feckin' lavatory. She jumps off the lavatory, pulls her drawers up and runs up the stairs crying, I'll tell, I'll tell, and when we get back to the room Mrs. Clohessy gives Paddy a belt on the head for what he did to his poor little sister. Paddy says nothing because Mrs. Clohessy is spooning porridge into mugs and jam jars and one bowl and telling us to eat up and go to school. She sits at the table eat- ing her porridge. Her hair is gray black and dirty. It dangles in the bowl and picks up bits of porridge and drops of milk.The children slurp the porridge and complain they didn't get enough, they're starving with the hunger. They have snotty noses and sore eyes and scabby knees. Mr. Clohessy coughs and squirms on the bed and brings up the great gobs of blood and I run out of the room and puke on the stairs where there's a step missing and there's a shower of porridge and bits of apple to the floor below where people go back and forth to the lavatory in the yard.Paddy comes down and says,Sure that's all right.Everywan gets sick an' shits on them stairs an' the whole feckin' place is falling down anyway.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. If I go back to school I'll be killed and why should I go back to school or go home to get killed when I can go out the road and live on milk and apples the rest of my life till I go to America. Paddy says, Come on. School is all a cod anyway an' the masters is all madmen.

There's a knock at the Clohessys'door and it's Mam holding my lit- tle brother, Michael, by the hand, and Guard Dennehy, who is in charge of school attendance. Mam sees me and says,What are you doing with one shoe on? and Guard Dennehy says,Ah, now, missus, I think a more important question would be,What are you doing with one shoe off, ha, ha.

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Michael runs to me. Mammy was crying. Mammy was crying for you, Frankie.

I was here.

You had me demented.Your father walked every street in Limerick looking for you.

Mr. Clohessy says,Who's at the door?

It's my mother, Mr. Clohessy.

God above, is that Angela?

'Tis, Mr. Clohessy.

He struggles up on his elbows.Well, for the love of God, will you come in,Angela. Don't you know me?

Mam looks puzzled. It's dark in the room and she tries to make out who is in the bed. He says, 'Tis me, Dennis Clohessy,Angela.

Ah, no.

Ah, no.

My mother has tears running down her face. She says,You were a great dancer yourself, Dennis Clohessy.

We could have won competitions,Angela. Fred and Ginger would have been lookin' over their shoulders but you had to run off to Amer- ica.Aw, Jaysus.

He has another coughing fit and we have to stand and watch him hang over the bucket again and bring up the bad stuff from his insides. Guard Dennehy says, I think, missus, we found the by an' I'll be going. He says to me, If you ever go on the mooch again, by, we'll have you in the jail above.Are you listenin' to me, by?

I am, Guard.

Don't be tormentin' your mother, by.That's wan thing the guards won't put up with, the tormentin' of mothers.

I won't, Guard. I won't torment her.

He leaves and Mam goes to the bed to take Mr. Clohessy's hand. His face is caved in all around his eyes and his hair is shiny black with the sweat running from the top of his head. His children stand around the bed looking at him and looking at Mam. Mrs. Clohessy sits by

167 the fire rattling the poker in the grate and pushing the baby away from the fire. She says, 'Tis his own bloody fault for not goin' into hos- pital, so 'tis.

Mr. Clohessy gasps, I'd be all right if I could live in a dry place. Angela, is America a dry place?

'Tis, Dennis.

The doctor told me go to Arizona. A funny man that doctor. Ari- zona how are you. I don't have the money to go around the corner for a pint.

Mam says,You'll be all right, Dennis. I'll light a candle for you.

Save your money,Angela. My dancin' days are done.

I have to go now, Dennis. My son has to go to school.

Before you go,Angela, will you do one thing for me?

I will, Dennis, if 'tis in my power.

Would you ever give us a verse of that song you sang the night before you went to America?

That's a hard song, Dennis. I wouldn't have the wind for it.

Ah, come on, Angela. I never hear a song anymore. There isn't a song in this house.The wife there doesn't have a note in her head an' no step in her foot.

Mam says,All right. I'll try. Oh, the nights of the Kerry dancing, Oh, the ring of the piper's tune, Oh, for one of those hours of gladness, gone, alas, like our youth too soon. When the boys began to gather in the glen of a Summer night, And the Kerry piper's tuning made us long with wild delight.

She stops and presses her hand to her chest, Oh, God, my wind is gone. Help me, Frank, with the song, and I sing along, Oh, to think of it, Oh, to dream of it, fills my heart with tears. Oh, the nights of the Kerry dancing, Oh, the ring of the piper's tune Oh, for one of those hours of gladness, gone, alas, like our youth too soon.

Mr. Clohessy tries to sing with us, gone, alas, like our youth too soon, but it brings on the cough. He shakes his head and cries, I wouldn't doubt you,Angela. It takes me back. God bless you.

God bless you, too, Dennis, and thanks, Mrs. Clohessy, for having Frankie here off the streets.

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'Twas no trouble, Mrs. McCourt. He's quiet enough.

Mam says, 'Tis hard to dance with one shoe, Dennis.

I know,Angela, but you'd wonder why he didn't take it off. Is he a bit strange?

Ah, sometimes he has the odd manner like his father.

Oh, yes. The father is from the North, Angela, and that would account for it.They'd think nothing of dancing with one shoe in the North.

We walk up Patrick Street and O'Connell Street, Paddy Clohessy and Mam and Michael and myself, and Mam sobs all the way. Michael says, Don't cry, Mammy. Frankie won't run away.

She lifts him up and hugs him. Oh, no, Michael, 'tisn't Frankie I'm crying about. 'Tis Dennis Clohessy and the dancing nights at the Wem- bley Hall and the fish and chips after.

She comes into the school with us. Mr. O'Neill looks cross and tells us sit down he'll be with us in a minute.He talks a long time at the door with my mother and when she leaves he walks between the seats and pats Paddy Clohessy on the head.

I'm very sorry for the Clohessys and all their troubles but I think they saved me from getting into trouble with my mother.

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170 land is a donkey's arse.Men have been dying for Ireland since the begin- ning of time and look at the state of the country.

It's bad enough that Dad loses jobs in the third week but now he drinks all the dole money once a month.Mam gets desperate and in the morning she has the bitter face and she won't talk to him. He has his tea and leaves the house early for the long walk into the country.When he returns in the evening she still won't talk to him and she won't make his tea. If the fire is dead for the want of coal or turf and there's no way of boiling water for the tea, he says, Och, aye, and drinks water out of a jam jar and smacks his lips the way he would with a pint of porter. He says good water is all a man needs and Mam makes a snorting sound.When she's not talking to him the house is heavy and cold and we know we're not supposed to talk to him either for fear she'll give us the bitter look.We know Dad has done the bad thing and we know you can make anyone suffer by not talking to him. Even little Michael knows that when Dad does the bad thing you don't talk to him from Friday to Monday and when he tries to lift you to his lap you run to Mam. I'm nine years old and I have a pal, Mickey Spellacy, whose relations are dropping one by one of the galloping consumption. I envy Mickey because every time someone dies in his family he gets a week off from school and his mother stitches a black diamond patch on his sleeve so that he can wander from lane to lane and street to street and people will know he has the grief and pat his head and give him money and sweets for his sorrow.

But this summer Mickey is worried. His sister, Brenda, is wasting away with the consumption and it's only August and if she dies before September he won't get his week off from school because you can't get a week off from school when there's no school. He comes to Billy Campbell and me to ask if we'll go around the corner to St. Joseph's Church and pray for Brenda to hang on till September.

What's in it for us, Mickey, if we go around the corner praying?

Well, if Brenda hangs on and I get me week off ye can come to the wake and have ham and cheese and cake and sherry and lemonade and everything and ye can listen to the songs and stories all night.

Who could say no to that? There's nothing like a wake for having a

171 good time.We trot around to the church where they have statues of St. Joseph himself as well as the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower. I pray to the Little Flower because she died of the consumption herself and she'd understand.

One of our prayers must have been powerful because Brenda stays alive and doesn't die till the second day of school.We tell Mickey we're sorry for his troubles but he's delighted with his week off and he gets the black diamond patch which will bring the money and sweets.

My mouth is watering at the thought of the feast at Brenda's wake. Billy knocks on the door and there's Mickey's aunt.Well?

We came to say a prayer for Brenda and Mickey said we could come to the wake.

She yells, Mickey!

What?

Come here. Did you tell this gang they could come to your sister's wake?

But, Mickey, you promised . . .

She slams the door in our faces.We don't know what to do till Billy Campbell says, We'll go back to St. Joseph's and pray that from now on everyone in Mickey Spellacy's family will die in the middle of the summer and he'll never get a day off from school for the rest of his life.One of our prayers is surely powerful because next summer Mickey himself is carried off by the galloping consumption and he doesn't get a day off from school and that will surely teach him a lesson.

Proddy Woddy ring the bell,

Not for heaven but for hell.

On Sunday mornings in Limerick I watch them go to church, the Protestants, and I feel sorry for them, especially the girls, who are so lovely, they have such beautiful white teeth. I feel sorry for the beauti- ful Protestant girls, they're doomed.That's what the priests tell us. Out- side the Catholic Church there is no salvation. Outside the Catholic Church there is nothing but doom.And I want to save them. Protestant girl, come with me to the True Church. You'll be saved and you won't have the doom.After Mass on Sunday I go with my friend Billy

172 Campbell to watch them play croquet on the lovely lawn beside their church on Barrington Street. Croquet is a Protestant game.They hit the ball with the mallet,pock and pock again,and laugh.I wonder how they can laugh or don't they even know they're doomed? I feel sorry for them and I say, Billy, what's the use of playing croquet when you're doomed?

He says, Frankie, what's the use of not playing croquet when you're doomed? Grandma says to Mam, Your brother Pat, bad leg an' all, was selling papers all over Limerick by the time he was eight and that Frank of yours is big and ugly enough to work.

But he's only nine and still in school.

School. 'Tis school that has him the way he is talkin' back an' goin' around with the sour puss an' the odd manner like his father. He could get out an' help poor Pat of a Friday night when the Limerick Leader is a ton weight. He could run up the long garden paths of the quality an' save Pat's poor legs an' earn a few pennies into the bargain.

He has to go to the Confraternity on Friday nights.

Never mind the Confraternity. There's nothin' in the catechism about confraternities.

I meet Uncle Pat at the Limerick Leader on Friday evening at five. The man handing out the papers says my arms are that skinny I'd be lucky to carry two stamps but Uncle Pat sticks eight papers under each arm.He tells me,I'll kill you if you drop 'em for 'tis raining abroad,pelt- ing out of the heavens. He tells me hug the walls going up O'Connell Street to keep the papers dry. I'm to run in where there's a deliv- ery, climb the outside steps, in the door, up the stairs, yell Paper, get the money they owe him for the week,down the stairs,give him the money and on to the next stop. Customers give him tips for his troubles and he keeps them for himself.

We make our way up O'Connell Avenue, out Ballinacurra, in by the South Circular Road, down Henry Street and back to the office for more papers. Uncle Pat wears a cap and a thing like a cowboy poncho to keep his papers dry but he complains his feet are killing him and we stop in a pub for a pint for his poor feet. Uncle Pa Keating is there all black and having a pint and he says to Uncle Pat, Ab, are you going

173 to let that boy stand there with his face hanging out for the want of a lemonade?

Uncle Pat says,Wha? and Uncle Pa Keating gets impatient. Christ, he's dragging your feckin' papers all over Limerick and you can't-Oh, never mind.Timmy, give the child a lemonade. Frankie, don't you have a raincoat at home?

No, Uncle Pa.

You're not supposed to be out in this weather. You're drenched entirely.Who sent you out in this muck?

Grandma said I had to help Uncle Pat because of his bad leg.

Course she did, the oul' bitch, but don't tell them I said that.

Uncle Pat is struggling off the seat and gathering up his papers. Come on, 'tis gettin' dark.

He hobbles along the streets calling, Anna Lie Sweets Lie, which doesn't sound a bit like Limerick Leader and it doesn't matter because everyone knows this is Ab Sheehan that was dropped on his head. Here, Ab, give us a Leader, how's your poor leg, keep the change an' get your- self a fag for 'tis an awful feckin' night to be out sellin' the feckin' papers.

Tanks, says Ab, my uncle.Tanks, tanks, tanks, and it's hard to keep up with him on the streets bad as his leg is.He says,How many Leaders have you under your oxter?

One, Uncle Pat.

Take that Leader in to Mr. Timoney. He owes me for a fortnight now. Get that money an' there's a tip. He's a good man for the tip an' don't be shovin' it in your pocket like your cousin Gerry. Shoved it in his pocket, the little bugger.

I bang on the door with the knocker and there's a great howl from a dog so big he makes the door shake.A man's voice says, Macushla, quit the bloody racket or I'll give you a good fong in the arse for yourself. The racket stops, the door opens and the man is there, white hair, thick glasses, white sweater, a stick in his hand. He says,Who is it? Who do we have?The paper,Mr.Timoney.

We don't have Ab Sheehan here, do we?

I'm his nephew, sir.

Is it Gerry Sheehan we have here?

No, sir. I'm Frank McCourt.

Another nephew? Does he make them? Is there a little nephew fac-

174 tory in the backyard? Here's the money for the fortnight and give me the paper or keep it. What's the use? I can't read anymore and Mrs. Minihan that's supposed to read to me didn't come. Legless with the sherry, that's what she is.What's your name?

Frank, sir.

Can you read?

I can, sir.

Do you want to earn a sixpence?

I do, sir.

Come here tomorrow.Your name is Francis, isn't it?

Frank, sir.

Your name is Francis. There was never a St. Frank. That's a name for gangsters and politicians. Come here tomorrow at eleven and read to me.

I will, sir.

Are you sure you can read?

I am, sir.

You can call me Mr.Timoney.

I will, Mr.Timoney.

Uncle Pat is mumbling at the gate, rubbing his leg. Where's me money an'you're not supposed to be chattin'with the customers an'me here with the leg destroyed be the rain. He has to stop at the pub at Punch's Cross to have a pint for the destroyed leg.After the pint he says he can't walk another inch and we get on a bus.The conductor says, Fares, please, fares, but Uncle Pat says, Go 'way an' don't be botherin' me, can't you see the state o' me leg?

Oh, all right,Ab, all right.

The bus stops at the O'Connell Monument and Uncle Pat goes to the Monument Fish and Chip Café where the smells are so delicious my stomach beats with the hunger. He gets a shilling's worth of fish and chips and my mouth is watering but when we get to Grandma's door he gives me a threepenny bit, tells me meet him again next Friday and go home now to my mother. The dog Macushla is lying outside Mr. Timoney's door and when I open the little garden gate to go up the path she rushes at me and knocks me back out on the pavement and she'd eat my face if Mr.Tim-

175 oney didn't come out and flail at her with his stick and yell, Come in out of it, ye hoor, ye overgrown man-eatin' bitch. Didn't you have your breakfast, you hoor? Are you all right, Francis? Come in. That dog is a right Hindu, so she is, and that's where I found her mother wandering around Bangalore. If ever you're getting a dog, Francis, make sure it's a Buddhist. Good-natured dogs, the Buddhists. Never, never get a Mahommedan.They'll eat you sleeping. Never a Catholic dog. They'll eat you every day including Fridays. Sit down and read to me.

The Limerick Leader, Mr.Timoney?

No, not the bloody Limerick Leader. I wouldn't wipe the hole of my arse with the Limerick Leader. There's a book over there on the table, Gulliver's Travels. That's not what I want you to read. Look in the back for another thing, A Modest Proposal. Read that to me. It begins, It is a melancholy object to those who walk . . . Do you have that? I have the whole bloody thing in my head but I still want you to read to me.

He stops me after two or three pages.You're a good reader. And what do you think of that, Francis, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled, eh? Macushla would love a dinner of a nice plump Irish infant, wouldn't you, you oul' hoor?