Angela's Ashes: an extract (October 2012)

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?

Dad can’t get a work. 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 Limerick man instead. That’s what he tells mam by the fire and when she says:

-       Why don’t you dress like a proper workingman?

And 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.

Mam takes Malachy and me to the St. Vincent de Paul society to stand in the queue and see if there’s any chance of getting something for the Christmas dinner; a goose or a ham, but the man says everyone in Limerick is desperate this Christmas.

-       No goose, says the butcher, no ham. No fancy items when you bring the docket from the St. Vincent de Paul. What you can have now, missus, is black pudding and tripe or a sheep’s head or a nice pig’s head. No harm in a pig’s head, missus, plenty of meat and children love it. Slice that cheek, slather it with mustard and you’re in heaven.

Mam says the pig’s head isn’t tight for Christmas and he says:

‘Tis more than the Holy Family had in that cold stable in Bethlehem long ago. You wouldn’t find them complaining if someone offered them a nice fat pig’s head.

-       No, they wouldn’t complain, says mam, but they’d never eat the pig’s head. They were Jewish.

-       And what does that have to do with it? A pig’s head is a pig’s head.

-       And a Jew is a Jew and ‘tis against their religion and I don’t blame them.

-       Are you a bit of an expert, the butcher says, missus, on the Jews and the pig?

-       I am not, says mam, but there was a Jewish woman, Mrs Leibowitz, in New York, and I don’t know what we would have done without her.

The butcher takes the pig’s head off a shelf and when Malachy says:

-       Ooh, look at the dead dog!

The butcher and mam burst out laughing.

He wraps the head in newspaper, hands it to mam and says:

-       Happy Christmas.

Then he wraps up some sausages and tells her:

-       Take these sausages for your breakfast on Christmas Day.

-       Oh I can’t afford sausages, mam says.

-       - Am I asking you for money, he says, Am I? Take these sausages. They might help make up for the lack of goose or a ham.

     - Sure you don’t have to do that, says mam.

-       - I know that, missus. If I had to do it, I wouldn’t.

Mam says she has a pain in her back, that I’ll have to carry the pig’s head. I hold it against my chest but it’s damp and when the newspaper begins to fall away everyone can see the head.

Boys from Leamy’s National School see me and they point and laugh.

- Aw, Gawd, look at Frankie McCourt an’ his pig’s snout. Is that what the Yanks ate for Christmas dinner, Frankie?

I. Reading Comprehension. Answer the following questions:

1. What's the name of Frank McCourt's mother?
2. Where were the McCourts living?
3. Where did the McCourts come from?
4. What did the McCourt family have for Christmas dinner?

II. Vocabulary. From this extract of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, complete the following definitions with the proper answer. Tip: look between the underlined words on the extract.

1. A small unit of money in the UK
2. An insulting word for someone from the US
3. Abbreviation for half.
4. Something intended to impress.
5. A written form of pronunciation of the word “God”, used humorously to express surprise, fear or shock.
6. A line of people waiting for something.
7. A document that gives information about what is inside something such as a package.
8. Another person’s wife (humorous expression).
9. A place where people went to get help to find a job.
10. A contraction for “it is”.
11. A narrow road, especially in the countryside. 
12. To feel or show great sadness.
13. A short form for “mother”.
14. Abbreviation for “and”.
15. A small unit of money used in the UK until 1971.
16. A toilet or a room that contains a toilet.

Bibliography. McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes. Copyright © 1996, by Frank McCourt. Scribner.