Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt

  Mam is sitting on a chair at the head of the bed. She's stroking Eugene's hair and face and hands. She tells him that of all the children in the world he was the sweetest and the most delicate and loving. She tells him 'tis a terrible thing to lose him but isn't he in heaven now with his brother and his sister and isn't that a comfort to us, knowing Oliver is no longer lonesome for his twin. Still, she puts her head down next to Eugene and cries so hard all the women in the room cry with her. She cries till Pa Keating tells her we have to go before the darkness falls, that we can't be in graveyards in the dark.

  Grandma whispers to Aunt Aggie, Who'll put the child in the coffin? and Aunt Aggie whispers, I won't. That's the job for the mother.

  Uncle Pat hears them. I'll put the child in the coffin, he says. He limps to the bed and places his arms around Mam's shoulders. She looks up at him and her face is drenched. He says, I'll put the child in the coffin, Angela.

  Oh, Pat, she says. Pat.

  I can do it, he says. Sure he's only a small child an' I never lifted a small child before in my life. I never had a small child in me arms. I won't drop him, Angela. I won't. Honest to God, I won't.

  I know you won't, Pat. I know you won't.

  I'll lift him an' I won't be singin'"The Road to Rasheen."

  I know you won't, Pat, Mam says.

  Pat pulls down the blanket Mam put there to keep Eugene warm. Eugene's feet are white and bright with little blue veins. Pat bends over, picks up Eugene and holds him against his chest. He kisses Eugene's forehead and then everyone in the room kisses Eugene. He places Eugene in the coffin and steps back. We are all gathered around looking at Eugene for the last time.

  Uncle Pat says, See, I didn't drop him, Angela, and she touches his face.

  Aunt Aggie goes to the pub for the driver. He puts the lid on the coffin and screws it down. He says, Who's comin' in the carriage? and takes the coffin to the carriage. There's room only for Mam and Dad, Malachy and me. Grandma says, Ye go ahead to the graveyard and we'll wait here.

  I don't know why we can't keep Eugene. I don't know why they have to send him away with that man who puts his pint on the white coffin. I don't know why they had to send Margaret away and Oliver. It is a bad thing to put my sister and my brothers in a box and I wish I could say something to someone.

  *

  The horse clop-clopped through the streets of Limerick. Malachy said, Are we going to see Oliver? and Dad said, No, Oliver is in heaven and don't ask me what heaven is because I don't know.

  Mam said, Heaven is a place where Oliver and Eugene and Margaret are happy and warm and we'll see them there some day.

  Malachy said, The horse did his doodoo on the street and there was a smell, and Mam and Dad had to smile.

  At the graveyard the driver climbs down and opens the door of the carriage. Gimme that coffin, he says, an' I'll carry it up to the grave. He yanks at the coffin and stumbles. Mam says, You're not carrying my child in the condition you're in. She turns to Dad. You carry him, she says.

  Do what you like, says the driver. Do what you bloody well like, and he climbs up to his seat.

  It's getting dark now and the coffin seems whiter than ever in Dad's arms. Mam takes our hands and we follow Dad through the graves. The jackdaws are quiet in the trees because their day is nearly over and they have to rest so that they can get up early in the morning and feed their babies.

  Two men with shovels are waiting by a small open grave. One man says, Ye are very late. Good thing this is a small job or we'd be gone. He climbs into the grave. Hand it to me, he says, and Dad hands him the coffin.

  The man sprinkles some straw and grass on the coffin and as he climbs out the other man shovels in the earth. Mam lets out a long cry, Oh, Jesus, Jesus, and a jackdaw croaks in a tree. I wish I had a rock to hit that jackdaw. When the men finish shoveling in the earth they wipe their foreheads and wait. One says, Ah, well, now, there's usually a little something for the thirst that's in it.

  Dad says, Oh, yes, yes, and gives them money. They say, Sorry for your troubles, and they leave.

  We make our way back to the carriage at the graveyard gate but the carriage is gone. Dad looks around in the darkness and comes back shaking his head. Mam says, That driver is nothing but a dirty old drunkard, God forgive me.

  It's a long walk from the graveyard to our room. Mam tells Dad, These children need some nourishment and you have money left from the dole this morning. If you're thinking of going to the pubs tonight you can forget it. We're taking them to Naughton's and they can have fish and chips and lemonade for 'tisn't every day they bury a brother.

  The fish and chips are delicious with vinegar and salt and the lemonade is tart in our throats.

  When we get home the room is empty. There are empty stout bottles on the table and the fire is out. Dad lights the paraffin oil lamp and you can see the hollow left in the pillow by Eugene's head. You expect to hear him and see him toddling across the room, climbing up on the bed to look out the window for Oliver.

  Dad tells Mam he's going out for a walk. She says no. She knows what he's up to, that he can't wait to spend his last few shillings in the pubs. All right, he says. He lights the fire and Mam makes tea and soon we're in bed.

  Malachy and I are back in the bed where Eugene died. I hope he's not cold in that white coffin in the graveyard though I know he's not there anymore because angels come to the graveyard and open the coffin and he's far from the Shannon dampness that kills, up in the sky in heaven with Oliver and Margaret where they have plenty of fish and chips and toffee and no aunts to bother you, where all the fathers bring home the money from the Labour Exchange and you don't have to be running around to pubs to find them.

  III

  Mam says she can't spend another minute in that room on Hartstonge Street. She sees Eugene morning, noon and night. She sees him climbing the bed to look out at the street for Oliver and sometimes she sees Oliver outside and Eugene inside, the two of them chatting away. She's happy they're chatting like that but she doesn't want to be seeing and hearing them the rest of her life. It's a shame to move when we're so near Leamy's National School but if she doesn't move soon she'll go out of her mind and wind up in the lunatic asylum.

  We move to Roden Lane on top of a place called Barrack Hill. There are six houses on one side of the lane, one on the opposite side. The houses are called two up, two down, two rooms on top, two on the bottom. Our house is at the end of the lane, the last of the six. Next to our door is a small shed, a lavatory, and next to that a stable.

  Mam goes to the St. Vincent de Paul Society to see if there's any chance of getting furniture. The man says he'll give us a docket for a table, two chairs, and two beds. He says we'll have to go to a secondhand furniture shop down in the Irishtown and haul the furniture home ourselves. Mam says we can use the pram she had for the twins and when she says that she cries. She wipes her eyes on her sleeves and asks the man if the beds we're getting are secondhand. He says of course they are, and she says she's very worried about sleeping in beds someone might have died in, especially if they had the consumption. The man says, I'm very sorry, but beggars can't be choosers.

  It takes us all day to haul the furniture on the pram from one end of Limerick to the other. There are four wheels on the pram but one is bockety, it wants to go in a different direction. We have two beds, one sideboard with a mirror, a table and two chairs. We're happy with the house. We can walk from room to room and up and down the stairs. You feel very rich when you can go up and down the stairs all day as much as you please. Dad lights the fire and Mam makes the tea. He sits at the table on one chair, she sits on the other and Malachy and I sit on the trunk we brought from America. While we're drinking our tea an old man passes our door with a bucket in his hand. He empties the bucket into the lavatory and flushes and there's a powerful stink in our kitchen. Mam goes to the door and says, Why are you emptying your bucket in our lavatory? He raises his cap to her. Your lavatory, missus? Ah, no. You're making a bit
of a mistake there, ha, ha. This is not your lavatory. Sure, isn't this the lavatory for the whole lane. You'll see passing your door here the buckets of eleven families and I can tell you it gets very powerful here in the warm weather, very powerful altogether. 'Tis December now, thank God, with a chill in the air and Christmas around the corner and the lavatory isn't that bad, but the day will come when you'll be calling for a gas mask. So, good night to you, missus, and I hope you'll be happy in your house.

  Mam says, Wait a minute, sir. Could you tell me who cleans this lavatory?

  Cleans? Ah, Jasus, that's a good one. Cleans, she says. Is it joking you are? These houses were built in the time of Queen Victoria herself and if this lavatory was ever cleaned it must have been done by someone in the middle of the night when no one was lookin'.

  And he shuffles up the lane laughing away to himself.

  Mam comes back to her chair and her tea. We can't stay here, she says. That lavatory will kill us with all diseases.

  Dad says, We can't move again. Where will we get a house for six shillings a week? We'll keep the lavatory clean ourselves. We'll boil buckets of water and throw them in there.

  Oh, will we? says Mam, and where will we get the coal or turf or blocks to be boiling water?

  Dad says nothing. He finishes his tea and looks for a nail to hang our one picture. The man in the picture has a thin face. He wears a yellow skullcap and a black robe with a cross on his chest. Dad says he was a Pope, Leo the Thirteenth, a great friend of the workingman. He brought this picture all the way from America where he found it thrown out by someone who had no time for the workingman. Mam says he's talking a lot of bloody nonsense and he says she shouldn't say bloody in front of the children. Dad finds a nail but wonders how he's going to get it into the wall without a hammer. Mam says he could go borrow one from the people next door but he says you don't go around borrowing from people you don't know. He leans the picture against the wall and drives the nail with the bottom of a jam jar. The jam jar breaks and cuts his hand and a blob of blood falls on the Pope's head. He wraps his hand in the dish rag and tells Mam, Quick, quick, wipe the blood off the Pope before it dries. She tries to wipe the blood away with her sleeve but it's wool and spreads the blood till the whole side of the Pope's face is smeared. Dad says, Lord above, Angela, you've destroyed the Pope entirely, and she says, Arrah, stop your whining, we'll get some paint and go over his face some day, and Dad says, He's the only Pope that was ever a friend to the workingman and what are we to say if someone from the St.Vincent de Paul Society comes in and sees blood all over him? Mam says, I don't know. It's your blood and 'tis a sad thing when a man can't even drive a nail straight. It just goes to show how useless you are. You'd be better off digging fields and anyway I don't care. I have pain in my back and I'm going to bed.

  Och, what am I going to do? Dad says.

  Take down the Pope and hide him in the coal hole under the stairs where he won't be seen and he'll be out of harm's way.

  I can't, says Dad. It would be bad luck. Coal hole is no place for a Pope. When the Pope is up, he's up.

  Suit yourself, says Mam.

  I will, says Dad.

  This is our first Christmas in Limerick and the girls are out in the lane, skipping rope and singing,

  Christmas is coming

  And the goose is getting fat,

  Please put a penny

  In the old man's hat.

  If you haven't a penny

  A ha'penny will do

  And if you haven't a ha'penny

  God bless you.

  Boys tease the girls and call out,

  May your mother have an accident

  Abroad in the loo.

  Mam says she'd like to have a nice Christmas dinner but what can you do when the Labour Exchange reduces the dole to sixteen shillings after Oliver and Eugene died? You pay the rent of six shillings, you have ten shillings left, and what use is that to four people?

  Dad can't get any work. He gets up early on weekdays, lights the fire, boils water for the tea and his shaving mug. He puts on a shirt and attaches a collar with studs. He puts on his tie and his cap and goes to the Labour Exchange to sign for the dole. He will never leave the house without collar and tie. A man without collar and tie is a man with no respect for himself. You never know when the clerk at the Labour Exchange might tell you there's a job going at Rank's Flour Mills or the Limerick Cement Company, and even if it's a laboring job what will they think if you appear without collar and tie?

  Bosses and foremen always show him respect and say they're ready to hire him, but when he opens his mouth and they hear the North of Ireland accent, they take a Limerickman instead. That's what he tells Mam by the fire and when she says, Why don't you dress like a proper workingman? he says he'll never give an inch, never let them know, and when she says, Why can't you try to talk like a Limerickman? he says he'll never sink that low and the greatest sorrow of his life is that his sons are now afflicted with the Limerick accent. She says, Sorry for your troubles and I hope that's all you'll ever have, and he says that some day, with God's help, we'll get out of Limerick and far from the Shannon that kills.

  I ask Dad what afflicted means and he says, Sickness, son, and things that don't fit.

  When he's not looking for work Dad goes for long walks, miles into the country. He asks farmers if they need any help, that he grew up on a farm and can do anything. If they hire him he goes to work right away with his cap on and his collar and tie. He works so hard and long the farmers have to tell him to stop. They wonder how a man can work through a long hot day with no thought of food or drink. Dad smiles. He never brings home the money he earns on farms. That money seems to be different from the dole, which is supposed to be brought home. He takes the farm money to the pub and drinks it. If he's not home when the Angelus rings at six o'clock Mam knows he had a day of work. She hopes he might think of his family and pass the pub even once, but he never does. She hopes he might bring home something from the farm, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, carrots, but he'll never bring home anything because he'd never stoop so low as to ask a farmer for anything. Mam says 'tis all right for her to be begging at the St.Vincent de Paul Society for a docket for food but he can't stick a few spuds in his pocket. He says it's different for a man. You have to keep the dignity. Wear your collar and tie, keep up the appearance, and never ask for anything. Mam says, I hope it keeps fine for you.

  When the farm money is gone he rolls home singing and crying over Ireland and his dead children, mostly about Ireland. If he sings Roddy McCorley, it means he had only the price of a pint or two. If he sings Kevin Barry, it means he had a good day, that he is now falling down drunk and ready to get us out of bed, line us up and make us promise to die for Ireland, unless Mam tells him leave us alone or she'll brain him with the poker.

  You wouldn't do that, Angela.

  I would and more. You better stop the nonsense and go to bed.

  Bed, bed, bed. What's the use of going to bed? If I go to bed I'll only have to get up again and I can't sleep in a place where there's a river sending poison to us in mist and fog.

  He goes to bed, pounds the wall with his fist, sings a woeful song, falls asleep. He's up at daylight because no one should sleep beyond the dawn. He wakes Malachy and me and we're tired from being kept up the night before with his talking and singing. We complain and say we're sick, we're tired, but he pulls back the overcoats that cover us and forces us out on the floor. It's December and it's freezing and we can see our breath. We pee into the bucket by the bedroom door and run down stairs for the warmth of the fire Dad has already started. We wash our faces and hands in a basin that sits under the water tap by the door. The pipe that leads to the tap has to be held to the wall by a piece of twine looped around a nail. Everything around the tap is damp, the floor, the wall, the chair the basin sits on. The water from the tap is icy and our fingers turn numb. Dad says this is good for us, it will make men of us. He throws the icy water on his face and ne
ck and chest to show there's nothing to fear. We hold our hands to the fire for the heat that's in it but we can't stay there long because we have to drink our tea and eat our bread and go to school. Dad makes us say grace before meals and grace after meals and he tells us be good boys at school because God is watching every move and the slightest disobedience will send us straight to hell where we'll never have to worry about the cold again.

  And he smiles.

  Two weeks before Christmas Malachy and I come home from school in a heavy rain and when we push in the door we find the kitchen empty. The table and chairs and trunk are gone and the fire is dead in the grate. The Pope is still there and that means we haven't moved again. Dad would never move without the Pope. The kitchen floor is wet, little pools of water all around, and the walls are twinkling with the damp. There's a noise upstairs and when we go up we find Dad and Mam and the missing furniture. It's nice and warm there with a fire blazing in the grate, Mam sitting in the bed, and Dad reading The Irish Press and smoking a cigarette by the fire. Mam tells us there was a terrible flood, that the rain came down the lane and poured in under our door. They tried to stop it with rags but they only turned sopping wet and let the rain in. People emptying their buckets made it worse and there was a sickening stink in the kitchen. She thinks we should stay upstairs as long as there is rain. We'll be warm through the winter months and then we can go downstairs in the springtime if there is any sign of a dryness in the walls or the floor. Dad says it's like going away on our holidays to a warm foreign place like Italy. That's what we'll call the upstairs from now on, Italy. Malachy says the Pope is still on the wall downstairs and he's going to be all cold and couldn't we bring him up? but Mam says, No, he's going to stay where he is because I don't want him on the wall glaring at me in the bed. Isn't it enough that we dragged him all the way from Brooklyn to Belfast to Dublin to Limerick? All I want now is a little peace, ease and comfort.