Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt

  That's the way I'd like to be in the world, a gas man, not giving a fiddler's fart, and that's what I tell the Angel on the Seventh Step till I remember you're not supposed to say fart in the presence of an angel.

  Uncle Tom and Galway Jane have children but we're not supposed to talk to them because our parents are not talking. They have a son and daughter, Gerry and Peggy, and Mam will yell at us for talking to them but we don't know how not to talk to our cousins.

  People in families in the lanes of Limerick have their ways of not talking to each other and it takes years of practice. There are people who don't talk to each other because their fathers were on opposite sides in the Civil War in 1922. If a man goes off and joins the English army his family might as well move to another part of Limerick where there are families with men in the English army. If anyone in your family was the least way friendly to the English in the last eight hundred years it will be brought up and thrown in your face and you might as well move to Dublin where no one cares. There are families that are ashamed of themselves because their forefathers gave up their religion for the sake of a bowl of Protestant soup during the Famine and those families are known ever after as soupers. It's a terrible thing to be a souper because you're doomed forever to the souper part of hell. It's even worse to be an informer. The master at school said that everytime the Irish were about to demolish the English in a fair fight a filthy informer betrayed them. A man who's discovered to be an informer deserves to be hanged or, even worse, to have no one talk to him for if no one talks to you you're better off hanging at the end of a rope.

  In every lane there's always someone not talking to someone or everyone not talking to someone or someone not talking to everyone. You can always tell when people are not talking by the way they pass each other. The women hoist their noses, tighten their mouths and turn their faces away. If the woman is wearing a shawl she takes a corner and flings it over her shoulder as if to say, One word or look from you, you ma-faced bitch, and I'll tear the countenance from the front of your head.

  It's bad when Grandma won't talk to us because we can't run to her when we need to borrow sugar or tea or milk. There's no use going to Aunt Aggie. She'll only bite your head off. Go home, she'll say, and tell your father to get off his northern arse and get a job like the decent men of Limerick.

  They say she's always angry because she has red hair or she has red hair because she's always angry.

  Mam is friendly with Bridey Hannon, who lives next door with her mother and father. Mam and Bridey talk all the time. When my father goes for his long walk Bridey comes in and she and Mam sit by the fire drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. If Mam has nothing in the house Bridey brings tea, sugar and milk. Sometimes they use the same tea leaves over and over and Mam says the tea is stewed, coddled and boiled.

  Mam and Bridey sit so close to the fire their shins turn red and purple and blue. They talk for hours and they whisper and laugh over secret things. We're not supposed to hear the secret things so we're told go out and play I often sit on the seventh step listening and they have no notion I'm there. It might be lashing rain out but Mam says, Rain or no, out you go, and she'll tell us, If you see your father coming, run in and tell me. Mam says to Bridey, Did you ever hear that poem that someone must have made up about me and him?

  What poem, Angela?

  'Tis called "The Man from the North." I got this poem from Minnie MacAdorey in America.

  I never heard that poem. Say it for me.

  Mam says the poem but she laughs all through it and I don't know why,

  He came from the North so his words were few

  But his voice was kind and his heart was true.

  And I knew by his eyes that no guile had he,

  So I married my man from the North Country.

  Oh, Garryowen may be more gay

  Than this quiet man from beside Lough Neagh

  And I know that the sun shines softly down

  On the river that runs through my native town.

  But there's not--and I say it with joy and with pride

  A better man in all Munster wide

  And Limerick town has no happier hearth

  Than mine has been with my man from the North.

  I wish that in Limerick they only knew

  The kind kind neighbors I came unto.

  Small hate or scorn would there ever be

  Between the South and the North Country.

  She always repeats the third verse and laughs so hard she's crying and I don't know why. She goes into hysterics when she says,

  And Limerick town has no happier hearth

  Than mine has been with my man from the North.

  If he comes back early and sees Bridey in the kitchen the man from the North says, Gossip, gossip, gossip, and stands there with his cap on till she leaves.

  Bridey's mother and other people in our lane and lanes beyond will come to the door to ask Dad if he'll write a letter to the government or a relation in a distant place. He sits at the table with his pen and bottle of ink and when the people tell him what to write he says, Och, no, that's not what you want to say, and he writes what he feels like writing. The people tell him that's what they wanted to say in the first place, that he has a lovely way with the English language and a fine fist for the writing. They offer him sixpence for his trouble but he waves it away and they hand it to Mam because he's too grand to be taking sixpence. When the people leave he takes the sixpence and sends me to Kathleen O'Connell's shop for cigarettes.

  Grandma sleeps in a big bed upstairs with a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus over her head and a statue of the Sacred Heart on the mantelpiece. She wants to switch from gaslight to electric light someday so that she'll have a little red light under the statue forever. Her devotion to the Sacred Heart is known up and down the lane and in lanes beyond.

  Uncle Pat sleeps in a small bed in a corner of the same room where Grandma can make sure he comes in at a proper hour and kneels by the bed to say his prayers. He might have been dropped on his head, he may not know how to read and write, he may drink one pint too many, but there's no excuse for not saying his prayers before he goes to sleep.

  Uncle Pat tells Grandma he met a man who is looking for a place to stay that will let him wash himself morning and night and give him two meals a day, dinner and tea. His name is Bill Galvin and he has a good job down at the lime kiln. He's covered all the time with white lime dust but surely that's better than coal dust.

  Grandma will have to give up her bed and move into the small room. She'll take the Sacred Heart picture and leave the statue to watch over the two men. Besides, she has no place for a statue in her little room.

  Bill Galvin comes after work to see the place. He's small, all white, and he snuffles like a dog. He asks Grandma if she'd mind taking down that statue because he's a Protestant and he wouldn't be able to sleep. Grandma barks at Uncle Pat for not telling her he was dragging a Protestant into the house. Jesus, she says, there will be gossip up and down the lane and beyond.

  Uncle Pat says he didn't know Bill Galvin was a Protestant. You could never tell by looking at him especially the way he's covered with lime. He looks like an ordinary Catholic and you'd never imagine a Protestant would be shoveling lime.

  Bill Galvin says his poor wife that just died was a Catholic and she had the walls covered with pictures of the Sacred Heart and the Virgin Mary showing their hearts. He's not against the Sacred Heart himself, it's just that seeing the statue will remind him of his poor wife and give him the heartache.

  Grandma says, Ah, God help us, why didn't you tell me that in the first place? Sure I can put the statue on the windowsill in my room and your heart won't be tormented at the sight of it.

  Every morning Grandma cooks Bill's dinner and takes it to him at the lime kiln. Mam wonders why he can't take it with him in the morning and Grandma says, Do you expect me to get up at dawn and boil cabbage and pig's toes for his lordship to take in his dinner can?

&n
bsp; Mam tells her, In another week school will be over and if you give Frank sixpence a week he'll surely be glad to take Bill Galvin his dinner.

  I don't want to go to Grandma's every day. I don't want to take Bill Galvin his dinner all the way down the Dock Road, but Mam says that's sixpence we could use and if I don't do it I'm going nowhere else.

  You're staying in the house, she says You're not playing with your pals.

  Grandma warns me to take the dinner can directly and not be meandering, looking this way and that, kicking canisters and ruining the toes of my shoes. This dinner is hot and that's the way Bill Galvin wants it.

  There's a lovely smell from the dinner can, boiled bacon and cabbage and two big floury white potatoes. Surely he won't notice if I try half a potato. He won't complain to Grandma because he hardly ever talks outside of a snuffle or two.

  It's better if I eat the other half potato so that he won't be asking why he got a half. I might as well try the bacon and cabbage too and if I eat the other potato he'll surely think she didn't send one at all.

  The second potato melts in my mouth and I'll have to try another bit of cabbage, another morsel of bacon. There isn't much left now and he'll be very suspicious so I might as well finish off the rest.

  What am I going to do now? Grandma will destroy me, Mam will keep me in for a year. Bill Galvin will bury me in lime. I'll tell him I was attacked by a dog on the Dock Road and he ate the whole dinner and I'm lucky I escaped without being eaten myself.

  Oh, is that so? says Bill Galvin. And what's that bit of cabbage hanging on your gansey? Did the dog lick you wit his cabbagey gob? Go home and tell your grandmother you ate me whole dinner and I'm falling down with the hunger here in this lime kiln.

  She'll kill me.

  Tell her don't kill you till she sends me some class of a dinner and if you don't go to her now and get me a dinner I'll kill you and throw your body into the lime there and there won't be much left for your mother to moan over.

  Grandma says, What are you doin' back with that can? He could bring that back by himself.

  He wants more dinner.

  What do you mean more dinner? Jesus above, is it a hole he has in his leg?

  He's falling down with the hunger below in the lime kiln.

  Is it coddin' me you are?

  He says send him any class of a dinner.

  I will not. I sent him his dinner. He didn't get it.

  He didn't? Why not?

  I ate it.

  What?

  I was hungry and I tasted it and I couldn't stop.

  Jesus, Mary and holy St. Joseph.

  She gives me a clout on the head that brings tears to my eyes. She screams at me like a banshee and jumps around the kitchen and threatens to drag me to the priest, the bishop, the Pope himself if he lived around the corner. She cuts bread and waves the knife at me and makes sandwiches of brawn and cold potatoes.

  Take these sandwiches to Bill Galvin and if you even look crosseyed at them I'll skin your hide.

  Of course she runs to Mam and they agree the only way I can make up for my terrible sin is to deliver Bill Galvin's dinner for a fortnight without pay. I'm to bring back the can every day and that means I have to sit watching him stuff the food into his gob and he's not one that would ever ask you if you had a mouth in your head.

  Every day I take the can back Grandma makes me kneel to the statue of the Sacred Heart and tell Him I'm sorry and all this over Bill Galvin, a Protestant.

  Mam says, I'm a martyr for the fags and so is your father.

  There may be a lack of tea or bread in the house but Mam and Dad always manage to get the fags, the Wild Woodbines. They have to have the Woodbines in the morning and anytime they drink tea. They tell us every day we should never smoke, it's bad for your lungs, it's bad for your chest, it stunts your growth, and they sit by the fire puffing away. Mam says, If'tis a thing I ever see you with a fag in your gob I'll break your face. They tell us the cigarettes rot your teeth and you can see they're not lying. The teeth turn brown and black in their heads and fall out one by one. Dad says he has holes in his teeth big enough for a sparrow to raise a family. He has a few left but he gets them pulled at the clinic and applies for a false set. When he comes home with the new teeth he shows his big new white smile that makes him look like an American and whenever he tells us a ghost story by the fire he pushes the lower teeth up beyond his lip to his nose and frightens the life out of us. Mam's teeth are so bad she has to go to Barrington's Hospital to have them all pulled at the same time and when she comes home she's holding at her mouth a rag bright with blood. She has to sit up all night by the fire because you can't lie down when your gums are pumping blood or you'll choke in your sleep. She says she'll give up smoking entirely when this bleeding stops but she needs one puff of a fag this minute for the comfort that's in it. She tells Malachy go to Kathleen O'Connell's shop and ask her would she ever let her have five Woodbines till Dad collects the dole on Thursday. If anyone can get the fags out of Kathleen, Malachy can. Mam says he has the charm, and she tells me, There's no use sending you with your long puss and your father's odd manner.

  When the bleeding stops and Mam's gums heal she goes to the clinic for her false teeth. She says she'll give up the smoking when her new teeth are in but she never does. The new teeth rub on her gums and make them sore and the smoke of the Woodbines eases them. She and Dad sit by the fire when we have one and smoke their cigarettes and when they talk their teeth clack. They try to stop the clacking by moving their jaws back and forth but that only makes it worse and they curse the dentists and the people above in Dublin who made the teeth and while they curse they clack. Dad claims these teeth were made for rich people in Dublin and didn't fit so they were passed on to the poor of Limerick who don't care because you don't have much to chew when you're poor anyway and you're grateful you have any class of a tooth in your head. If they talk too long their gums get sore and the teeth have to come out. Then they sit talking by the fire with their faces collapsed. Every night they leave the teeth in the kitchen in jam jars filled with water. Malachy wants to know why and Dad tells him it cleans them. Mam says, No, you can't have teeth in your head while you're sleeping for they'll slip and choke you to death entirely.

  The teeth are the cause of Malachy going to Barrington's Hospital and me having an operation. Malachy whispers to me in the middle of the night, Do you want to go downstairs and see if we can wear the teeth?

  The teeth are so big we have trouble getting them into our mouths but Malachy won't give up. He forces Dad's upper teeth into his mouth and can't get them out again. His lips are drawn back and the teeth make a big grin. He looks like a monster in a film and it makes me laugh but he pulls at them and grunts, Uck, uck, and tears come to his eyes. The more he goes Uck, uck, the harder I laugh till Dad calls from upstairs, What are you boys doing? Malachy runs from me, up the stairs, and now I hear Dad and Mam laughing till they see he can choke on the teeth. They both stick their fingers in to pull out the teeth but Malachy gets frightened and makes desperate uck uck sounds. Mam says, We'll have to take him to the hospital, and Dad says he'll take him. He makes me go in case the doctor has questions because I'm older than Malachy and that means I must have started all the trouble. Dad rushes through the streets with Malachy in his arms and I try to keep up. I feel sorry for Malachy up there on Dad's shoulder, looking back at me, tears on his cheeks and Dad's teeth bulging in his mouth. The doctor at Barrington's Hospital says, No bother. He pours oil into Malachy's mouth and has the teeth out in a minute. Then he looks at me and says to Dad, Why is that child standing there with his mouth hanging open?

  Dad says, That's a habit he has, standing with his mouth open.

  The doctor says, Come here to me. He looks up my nose, in my ears, down my throat, and feels my neck.

  The tonsils, he says. The adenoids. They have to come out. The sooner the better or he'll look like an idiot when he grows up with that gob wide as a boot.

  Nex
t day Malachy gets a big piece of toffee as a reward for sticking in teeth he can't get out and I have to go to the hospital to have an operation that will close my mouth.

  On a Saturday morning Mam finishes her tea and says, You're going to dance.

  Dance? Why?

  You're seven years old, you made your First Communion, and now 'tis time for the dancing. I'm taking you down to Catherine Street to Mrs. O'Connor's Irish dancing classes. You'll go there every Saturday morning and that'll keep you off the streets. That'll keep you from wandering around Limerick with hooligans.

  She tells me wash my face not forgetting ears and neck, comb my hair, blow my nose, take the look off my face, what look? never mind, just take it off, put on my stockings and my First Communion shoes which, she says, are destroyed because I can't pass a canister or a rock without kicking it. She's worn out standing in the queue at the St. Vincent de Paul Society begging for boots for me and Malachy so that we can wear out the toes with the kicking. Your father says it's never too early to learn the songs and dances of your ancestors.

  What's ancestors?

  Never mind, she says, you're going to dance.

  I wonder how I can die for Ireland if I have to sing and dance for Ireland, too. I wonder why they never say, You can eat sweets and stay home from school and go swimming for Ireland.

  Mam says, Don't get smart or I'll warm your ear.

  Cyril Benson dances. He has medals hanging from his shoulders to his kneecaps. He wins contests all over Ireland and he looks lovely in his saffron kilt. He's a credit to his mother and he gets his name in the paper all the time and you can be sure he brings home the odd few pounds. You don't see him roaming the streets kicking everything in sight till the toes hang out of his boots, oh, no, he's a good boy, dancing for his poor mother.

  Mam wets an old towel and scrubs my face till it stings, she wraps the towel around her finger and sticks it in my ears and claims there's enough wax there to grow potatoes, she wets my hair to make it lie down, she tells me shut up and stop the whinging, that these dancing lessons will cost her sixpence every Saturday, which I could have earned bringing Bill Galvin his dinner and God knows she can barely afford it. I try to tell her, Ah, Mam, sure you don't have to send me to dancing school when you could be smoking a nice Woodbine and having a cup of tea, but she says, Oh, aren't you clever. You're going to dance if I have to give up the fags forever.