Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

No, no matter what she can't bear the thought of putting us in the orphanage.That might be all right if you had the likes of Boys' Town in America with a nice priest like Spencer Tracy but you could never trust the Christian Brothers out in Glin who get their exercise beating boys and starving the life out of them.

Mam says there's nothing left but the Dispensary and the public assistance, the relief, and she's ashamed of her life to go and ask for it. It means you're at the end of your rope and maybe one level above tin- kers, knackers and street beggars in general. It means you have to crawl before Mr.Coffey and Mr.Kane and thank God the Dispensary is at the other end of Limerick so that people in our lane won't know we're get- ting the relief.

She knows from other women it's wise to be there early in the morning when Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane might be in a good mood. If you go late in the morning they're liable to be cranky after seeing hun- dreds of men women and children sick and asking for help.She will take us with her to prove she has four children to feed. She gets us up early

231 and tells us for once in our lives don't wash our faces, don't comb our hair, dress in any old rag. She tells me give my sore eyes a good rub and make them as red as I can for the worse you look at the Dispensary the more pity you get and the better your chances of getting the public assistance. She complains that Malachy Michael and Alphie look too healthy and you'd wonder why on this day of days they couldn't have their usual scabby knees or the odd cut bruise or black eye. If we meet anyone in the lane or the streets of Limerick we are not to tell them where we're going. She feels ashamed enough without telling the whole world and wait till her own mother hears.

There is a queue already outside the Dispensary.There are women like Mam with children in their arms, babies like Alphie, and children playing on the pavement.The women comfort the babies against the cold and scream at the ones playing in case they run into the street and get hit by a motor car or a bicycle.There are old men and women hud- dled against the wall talking to themselves or not talking at all. Mam warns us not to wander from her and we wait half an hour for the big door to open.A man tells us move inside in proper order and queue up before the platform, that Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane will be there in a minute when they finish their tea in the room beyond.A woman com- plains her children are freezing with the cold and couldn't Coffey and Kane bloody well hurry up with their tea.The man says she's a trou- blemaker but he won't take her name this time with the cold that's in the morning but if there's another word she'll be a sorry woman.

Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane get up on the platform and pay no atten- tion to the people. Mr. Kane puts on his glasses, takes them off, polishes them, puts them on, looks at the ceiling. Mr. Coffey reads papers, writes something, passes papers to Mr. Kane.They whisper to each other.They take their time.They don't look at us.

Then Mr. Kane calls the first old man to the platform.What's your name?

Timothy Creagh, sir.

Creagh, hah? A fine old Limerick name you have there.

I do, sir. Indeed I do.

And what do you want, Creagh?

Ah, sure, I do be havin' them pains in me stomach again an' I'd like to see Dr. Feeley.

Well, now, Creagh, are you sure it's not the pints of porter that are going against your stomach.

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There's great laziness in the world, Creagh. And Mr. Kane says to the people on the queue, Did ye hear that, ladies? Great laziness, isn't there?

And the women say, Oh, there is, indeed, Mr. Kane, great laziness.

Mr. Creagh gets his docket to see the doctor, the queue moves ahead and Mr. Kane is ready for Mam.

The public assistance, is that what you want, woman, the relief?

'Tis, Mr. Kane.

And where's your husband?

Oh, he's in England, but-

England, is it? And where is the weekly telegram, the big five pounds?

He didn't send us a penny in months, Mr. Kane.

Is that a fact? Well,we know why,don't we? We know what the men of Ireland are up to in England.We know there's the occasional Limer- ickman seen trotting around with a Piccadilly tart, don't we?

He looks out at the people on the queue and they know they're supposed to say,We do, Mr. Kane, and they know they're supposed to smile and laugh or things will go hard with them when they reach the platform.They know he might turn them over to Mr. Coffey and he's notorious for saying no to everything.

Mam tells Mr.Kane that Dad is in Coventry and nowhere near Pic- cadilly and Mr. Kane takes off his glasses and stares at her.What's this? Are we having a little contradiction here?

Oh, no, Mr. Kane, God no.

I want you to know, woman, that it is the policy here to give no relief to women with husbands in England. I want you to know you're taking the bread from the mouths of more deserving people who stayed in this country to do their bit.

Oh, yes, Mr. Kane.

And what's your name?

McCourt, sir.

That's not a Limerick name.Where did you get a name like that?

My husband, sir. He's from the North.

He's from the North and he leaves you here to get the relief from the Irish Free State. Is this what we fought for, is it?

I don't know, sir.

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Why don't you go up to Belfast and see what the Orangemen will do for you, ah?

You don't know. Of course you don't know.There's great ignorance in the world.

He looks out at the people, I said there's great ignorance in the world, and the people nod their heads and agree there's great igno- rance in the world.

He whispers to Mr. Coffey and they look at Mam, they look at us. He tells Mam at last that she can have the public assistance but if she gets a single penny from her husband she's to drop all claims and give the money back to the Dispensary. She promises she will and we leave.

We follow her to Kathleen O'Connell's shop to get tea and bread and a few sods of turf for the fire.We climb the stairs to Italy and get the fire going and it's cozy when we have our tea.We're all very quiet, even the baby Alphie, because we know what Mr. Kane did to our mother.

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The bed creaks all night with her twistings and turnings and she keeps us awake with her moaning for water. In the morning, she stays in bed, still shivering, and we keep quiet. If she sleeps long enough Malachy and I will be too late for school.Hours pass and still she makes no move and when I know it's well past school time I start the fire for the kettle. She stirs and calls for lemonade but I give her a jam jar of water. I ask her if she'd like some tea and she acts like a woman gone deaf.She looks flushed and it's odd she doesn't even mention cigarettes.

We sit quietly by the fire, Malachy, Michael, Alphie, myself. We drink our tea while Alphie chews the last bit of bread covered with sugar. He makes us laugh the way he smears the sugar all over his face and grins at us with his fat sticky cheeks. But we can't laugh too much or Mam will jump out of the bed and order Malachy and me off to school where we'll be killed for being late.We don't laugh long, there is

235 no more bread and we're hungry, the four of us.We can get no more credit at O'Connell's shop.We can't go near Grandma, either. She yells at us all the time because Dad is from the North and he never sends money home from England where he is working in a munitions factory. Grandma says we could starve to death for all he cares.That would teach Mam a lesson for marrying a man from the North with sallow skin, an odd manner and a look of the Presbyterian about him.

Still, I'll have to try Kathleen O'Connell once more. I'll tell her my mother is sick above in the bed, my brothers are starving and we'll all be dead for the want of bread.

I put on my shoes and run quickly through the streets of Limerick to keep myself warm against the February frost.You can look in peo- ple's windows and see how cozy it is in their kitchens with fires glow- ing or ranges black and hot everything bright in the electric light cups and saucers on the tables with plates of sliced bread pounds of butter jars of jam smells of fried eggs and rashers coming through the windows enough to make the water run in your mouth and families sitting there digging in all smiling the mother crisp and clean in her apron everyone washed and the Sacred Heart of Jesus looking down on them from the wall suffering and sad but still happy with all that food and light and good Catholics at their breakfast.

I try to find music in my own head but all I can find is my mother moaning for lemonade.

Lemonade. There's a van pulling away from South's pub leaving crates of beer and lemonade outside and there isn't a soul on the street. In a second I have two bottles of lemonade up under my jersey and I saunter away trying to look innocent.

There's a bread van outside Kathleen O'Connell's shop.The back door is open on shelves of steaming newly baked bread.The van driver is inside the shop having tea and a bun with Kathleen and it's no trou- ble for me to help myself to a loaf of bread. It's wrong to steal from Kathleen with the way she's always good to us but if I go in and ask her for bread she'll be annoyed and tell me I'm ruining her morning cup of tea, which she'd like to have in peace ease and comfort thank you. It's easier to stick the bread up under my jersey with the lemonade and promise to tell everything in confession.

My brothers are back in bed playing games under the overcoats but they jump when they see the bread.We tear at the loaf because we're too hungry to slice it and we make tea from this morning's leaves.When

236 my mother stirs Malachy holds the lemonade bottle to her lips and she gasps till she finishes it. If she likes it that much I'll have to find more lemonade.

We put the last of the coal on the fire and sit around telling stories which we make up the way Dad did.I tell my brothers about my adven- tures with the lemonade and bread and I make up stories about how I was chased by pub owners and shopkeepers and how I ran into St. Joseph's Church where no one can follow you if you're a criminal, not even if you killed your own mother.Malachy and Michael look shocked over the way I got the bread and lemonade but then Malachy says it was only what Robin Hood would have done, rob the rich and give to the poor. Michael says I'm an outlaw and if they catch me they'll hang me from the highest tree in the People's Park the way outlaws are hanged in films at the Lyric Cinema. Malachy says I should make sure I'm in a state of grace because it might be hard to find a priest to come to my hanging. I tell him a priest would have to come to the hanging.That's what priests are for. Roddy McCorley had a priest and so did Kevin Barry. Malachy says there were no priests at the hanging of Roddy McCorley and Kevin Barry because they're not mentioned in the songs and he starts singing the songs to prove it till my mother groans in the bed and says shut up.

Alphie the baby is asleep on the floor by the fire.We put him into the bed with Mam so that he'll be warm though we don't want him to catch her disease and die. If she wakes up and finds him dead in the bed beside her there will be no end to the lamentations and she'll blame me on top of it.

The three of us get back into our own bed, huddling under the overcoats and trying not to roll into the hole in the mattress. It's pleas- ant there till Michael starts to worry over Alphie getting Mam's disease and me getting hanged for an outlaw. He says it isn't fair because that would leave him with only one brother and everyone in the world has brothers galore. He falls asleep from the worry and soon Malachy drifts off and I lie there thinking of jam.Wouldn't it be lovely to have another loaf of bread and a jar of strawberry jam or any kind of jam. I can't remember ever seeing a jam van making a delivery and I wouldn't want to be like Jesse James blasting my way into a shop demanding jam.That would surely lead to a hanging.

There's a cold sun coming through the window and I'm sure it must be warmer outside and wouldn't my brothers be surprised if they

237 woke and found me there with more bread and jam. They'd gobble everything and then go on about my sins and the hanging.

Mam is still asleep though her face is red and there's a strangling sound when she snores.

I have to be careful going through the street because it's a school day and if Guard Dennehy sees me he'll drag me off to school and Mr. O'Halloran will knock me all over the classroom.The guard is in charge of school attendance and he loves chasing you on his bicycle and drag- ging you off to school by the ear.

There's a box sitting outside the door of one of the big houses on Barrington Street. I pretend to knock on the door so that I can see what's in the box, a bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, cheese, tomatoes and, oh, God, a jar of marmalade. I can't shove all that under my jersey. Oh, God. Should I take the whole box? The people passing by pay me no attention.I might as well take the whole box.My mother would say you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.I lift the box and try to look like a messenger boy making a delivery and no one says a word.

Malachy and Michael are beside themselves when they see what's in the box and they're soon gobbling thick cuts of bread slathered with golden marmalade.Alphie has the marmalade all over his face and hair and a good bit on his legs and belly.We wash down the food with cold tea because we have no fire to heat it.

Mam mumbles again for lemonade and I give her half the second bottle to keep her quiet. She calls for more and I mix it with water to stretch it because I can't be spending my life running around lifting lemonade from pubs.We're having a fine time of it till Mam begins to rave in the bed about her lovely little daughter taken from her and her twin boys gone before they were three and why couldn't God take the rich for a change and is there any lemonade in the house? Michael wants to know if Mam will die and Malachy tells him you can't die till a priest comes.Then Michael wonders if we'll ever have a fire and hot tea again because he's freezing in the bed even with the overcoats left over from olden times. Malachy says we should go from house to house asking for turf and coal and wood and we could use Alphie's pram to carry the load.We should take Alphie with us because he's small and he smiles and people will see him and feel sorry for him and us.We try to wash all the dirt and lint and feathers and sticky marmalade but when we touch him with water he howls. Michael says he'll only get dirty

238 again in the pram so what's the use of washing him.Michael is small but he's always saying remarkable things like that.

We push the pram out to the rich avenues and roads but when we knock on the doors the maids tell us go away or they'll call the proper authorities and it's a disgrace to be dragging a baby around in a wreck of a pram that smells to the heavens a filthy contraption that you wouldn't use to haul a pig to the slaughterhouse and this is a Catholic country where babies should be cherished and kept alive to hand down the faith from generation to generation. Malachy tells one maid to kiss his arse and she gives him such a clout the tears leap to his eyes and he says he'll never in his life ask the rich for anything again. He says there's no use asking anymore, that we should go around the backs of the houses and climb over the walls and take what we want. Michael can ring the front doorbells to keep the maids busy and Malachy and I can throw coal and turf over the walls and fill the pram all around Alphie.

We collect that way from three houses but then Malachy throws a piece of coal over a wall and hits Alphie and he starts screaming and we have to run forgetting Michael, still ringing doorbells and getting abuse from maids. Malachy says we should take the pram home first and then go back for Michael.We can't stop now with Alphie bawling and peo- ple giving us dirty looks and telling us we're a disgrace to our mother and Ireland in general.

When we're back home it takes a while to dig Alphie out from under the load of coal and turf and he won't stop screaming till I give him bread and marmalade. I'm afraid Mam will leap from her bed but she only mumbles on about Dad and drink and babies dead.

Malachy is back with Michael, with stories of his adventures ring- ing doorbells. One rich woman answered the door herself and invited him into the kitchen for cake and milk and bread and jam. She asked him all about his family and he told her his father had a big job in England but his mother is in the bed with a desperate disease and calling for lemonade morning noon and night. The rich woman wanted to know who was taking care of us and Michael bragged we were taking care of ourselves, that there was no shortage of bread and marmalade. The rich woman wrote down Michael's name and address and told him be a good boy and go home to his brothers and his mother in the bed.

Malachy barks at Michael for being such a fool as to tell a rich woman

239 anything. She'll go now and tell on us and before we know it we'll have the priests of the world banging on the door and disturbing us.

There's the banging on the door already. But it isn't a priest, it's Guard Dennehy. He calls up, Hello, hello, is anybody home? Are you there, Mrs. McCourt?

Michael knocks on the window and waves at the guard. I give him a good kick for himself and Malachy thumps him on the head and he yells, I'll tell the guard. I'll tell the guard. They're killing me, guard. They're thumping and kicking.

He won't shut up and Guard Dennehy shouts at us to open the door. I call out the window and tell him I can't open the door because my mother is in bed with a terrible disease.

Where's your father?

He's in England.

Well, I'm coming in to talk to your mother.

You can't.You can't. She has the disease.We all have the disease. It might be the typhoid. It might be the galloping consumption. We're getting spots already.The baby has a lump. It could kill.

He pushes in the door and climbs the stairs to Italy just as Alphie crawls out from under the bed covered with marmalade and dirt. He looks at him and my mother and us, takes off his cap and scratches his head. He says, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this is a desperate situation. How did your mother get sick like that?

I tell him he shouldn't go near her and when Malachy says we might not be able to go to school for ages the guard says we'll go to school no matter what, that we're on the earth to go to school the way he's on the earth to make sure we go to school. He wants to know if we have any relations and he sends me off to tell Grandma and Aunt Aggie to come to our house.

They scream at me and tell me I'm filthy. I try to explain that Mam has the disease and I'm worn out trying to make ends meet, keeping the home fires burning, getting lemonade for Mam and bread for my brothers.There's no use telling them about the marmalade for they'll only scream again. There's no use telling them about the nastiness of rich people and their maids.

They push me all the way back to the lane, barking at me and dis- gracing me on the streets of Limerick. Guard Dennehy is still scratch- ing his poll. He says, Look at this, a disgrace.You wouldn't see the likes of this in Bombay or the Bowery of New York itself.

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My mother runs her tongue over her dry lips and gasps for more lemonade.

She wants lemonade, says Michael, and we got it for her and bread and marmalade and we're all outlaws now. Frankie was the first outlaw till we went raiding for coal all over Limerick.

Guard Dennehy looks interested and takes Michael downstairs by the hand and in a few minutes we hear him laughing.Aunt Aggie says that's a disgraceful way to behave with my mother sick in the bed.The guard comes back and tells her go for a doctor. He keeps covering his face with his cap whenever he looks at me or my brothers.Desperadoes, he says, desperadoes.

The doctor comes with Aunt Aggie in his motor car and he has to rush my mother to the hospital with her pneumonia.We'd all like to go riding in the doctor's car but Aunt Aggie says, No, ye are all coming to my house till yeer mother comes home from the hospital.

I tell her not to bother. I'm eleven and I can easily look after my brothers. I'd be glad to stay at home from school and make sure every- one is fed and washed. But Grandma screams I will do no such a thing and Aunt Aggie gives me a thump for myself. Guard Dennehy says I'm too young yet to be an outlaw and a father but I have a promising future in both departments.

Get your clothes, says Aunt Aggie, ye are coming to my house till yeer mother is out of the hospital. Jesus above, that baby is a disgrace.

She finds a rag and ties it around Alphie's bottom for fear he might shit all over the pram.Then she looks at us and wants to know why we're standing there with our faces hanging out after she told us get our clothes. I'm afraid she'll hit me or yell at me when I tell her it's all right, we have our clothes, they're on us. She stares at me and shakes her head. Here, she says, put some sugar and water in the child's bottle. She tells me I have to push Alphie through the streets, she can't manage the pram with that bockety wheel that makes it rock back and forth and besides 'tis a disgraceful-looking object she'd be ashamed to put a mangy dog in. She takes the three old coats from our bed and piles them on the pram till you can hardly see Alphie at all.

Grandma comes with us and barks at me all the way from Roden Lane to Aunt Aggie's flat in Windmill Street. Can't you push that pram properly? Jesus, you're going to kill that child. Stop goin' from side to

241 side or I'll give you a good clitther on the gob. She won't come into Aunt Aggie's flat. She can't stand the sight of us one more minute. She's fed up with the whole McCourt clan from the days when she had to send six fares to bring us all back from America, dishing out more money for funerals for dead children, giving us food every time our father drank the dole or the wages, helping Angela carry on while that blaguard from the North drinks his wages all over England. Oh, she's fed up, so she is, and off she goes across Henry Street with her black shawl pulled up around her white head, limping along in her black high-laced boots.

When you're eleven and your brothers are ten, five and one, you don't know what to do when you go to someone's house even if she's your mother's sister.You're told to leave the pram in the hall and bring the baby into the kitchen but if it's not your house you don't know what to do once you get into the kitchen for fear the aunt will yell at you or hit you on the skull. She takes off her coat and takes it to the bedroom and you stand with the baby in your arms waiting to be told. If you take one step forward or one step to the side she might come out and say where are you going and you don't know what to answer because you don't know yourself. If you say anything to your brothers she might say who do you think you're talking to in my kitchen? We have to stand and be quiet and that's hard when there's a tinkling sound from the bed- room and we know she's on the chamber pot peeing away. I don't want to look at Malachy. If I do I'll smile and he'll smile and Michael will smile and there's danger we'll start laughing and if we do we won't be able to stop for days at the picture in our heads of Aunt Aggie's big white bum perched on a flowery little chamber pot. I'm able to control myself. I won't laugh. Malachy and Michael won't laugh and it's easy to see we're all proud of ourselves for not laughing and getting into trou- ble with Aunt Aggie till Alphie in my arms smiles and says Goo goo and that sets us off.The three of us burst out laughing and Alphie grins with his dirty face and says Goo goo again till we're helpless and Aunt Aggie roars out of the room pulling her dress down and gives me a thump on the head that sends me against the wall baby and all. She hits Malachy too and she tries to hit Michael but he runs to the other side of her round table and she can't get at him. Come over here, she says, and I'll wipe that grin off your puss, but Michael keeps running around the table and she's too fat to catch him. I'll get you later, she says, I'll warm your arse, and you, Lord Muck, she says to me, put that child down on