Angela's ashes: a memoir by Frank McCourt

Author:Frank McCourt [McCourt, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ireland, Autobiography, Irish Americans
ISBN: 9780684874357
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 1999-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

Happy Christmas to yourself, missus, and a Happy New Year, too. Mind yourself on that ladder, young fella. Help your mother. Thank you very much, sir.

We wait again on the platform while the train rumbles into the station. Carriage doors open and a few men with suitcases step to the platform and hurry toward the gate. There is a clanking of milk cans dropped to the platform. A man and two boys are unloading newspapers and magazines. There is no sign of my father. Mam says he might be asleep in one of the carriages but we know he hardly sleeps even in his own bed. She says the boat from Holyhead might have been late and that would make him miss the train.The Irish Sea is desperate at this time of the year. He’s not coming, Mam. He doesn’t care about us. He’s just drunk over there in England.

Don’t talk about your father like that.

I say no more to her. I don’t tell her I wish I had a father like the man in the signal tower who gives you sandwiches and cocoa. Next day Dad walks in the door. His top teeth are missing and there’s a bruise under his left eye. He says the Irish Sea was rough and when he leaned over the side his teeth dropped out. Mam says, It wouldn’t be the drink, would it? It wouldn’t be a fight?

Och, no, Angela.

Michael says,You said you’d have something for us, Dad. Oh, I do.

He takes a box of chocolates from his suitcase and hands it to Mam. 269

She opens the box and shows us the inside where half the chocolates are gone.

Could you spare it? she says.

She shuts the box and puts it on the mantelpiece.We’ll have chocolates after our Christmas dinner tomorrow. Mam asks him if he brought any money. He tells her times are hard, jobs are scarce, and she says, Is it coddin’ me you are? There’s a war on and there’s nothing but jobs in England. You drank the money, didn’t you?

You drank the money, Dad.

You drank the money, Dad.

You drank the money, Dad.

We’re shouting so loud Alphie begins to cry. Dad says, Och, boys, now boys. Respect for your father.

He puts on his cap. He has to see a man. Mam says, Go see your man but don’t come drunk to this house tonight singing Roddy McCorley or anything else.

He comes home drunk but he’s quiet and passes out on the floor next to Mam’s bed.

We have a Christmas dinner next day because of the food voucher Mam got from the St.Vincent de Paul Society. We have sheep’s head, cabbage, floury white potatoes, and a bottle of cider because it’s Christmas. Dad says he’s not hungry, he’ll have tea, borrows a cigarette from Mam. She says, Eat something. It’s Christmas.

He tells her again he’s not hungry but if no one else wants them he’ll eat the sheep’s eyes. He says there’s great nourishment in the eye and we all make sounds of disgust.

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