Summary: Chapter IX
Mam turns toward the dead ashes in the
fire.... Michael who is only five . . . wants to know if we’re having
fish and chips tonight because he’s hungry. Mam says, Next week,
love, and he goes back out to play in the lane.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Angela announces that she’s done having children. Because
birth control was not commonly used at that time in households such
as the McCourts’, this is tantamount to refusing sex. Malachy is annoyed
that she will not perform her “wifely duties.”
Families up and down the lane are getting richer because
the fathers are off in England, fighting in World War II. After
Angela threatens to go to England herself to find work, Frank’s
father decides to leave for England and find work in a munitions
factory. The family sees Malachy off at the station, and Angela
promises the boys one egg apiece on Sunday mornings once their father’s
money starts coming. An egg a week seems an unimaginable luxury
to Frank. Angela tells Bridey Hannon that with the money Malachy will
send she wants to get a new house, electric lighting, coats and boots
for the boys, and food. However, Malachy fails to send any money.
Every Friday, families up and down the lane get money orders from
England, but the McCourt family never gets anything.
Angela learns from Bridey that the Meagher family receives
public assistance from the Dispensary, which Frank’s mother considers a
terrible shame. She says getting public assistance is far worse
than the dole or the St. Vincent de Paul Society, because it means
you are one step away from putting your children in an orphanage
and begging on the street.
Frank gets an infection in his eyes, which Grandma blames
on his constant reading, and Angela has to take him to the Dispensary
to see the doctor. The doctor says Frank has the worst case of conjunctivitis
he has ever seen, and sends Frank to the hospital.
In the hospital, Frank sees both Seamus and Mr. Timoney,
who seems to have aged greatly—Timoney is muted, not his old vivacious
self, although he tells Frank to rest his eyes and then “read till they
fall out of your head.” Seamus visits Frank three times a week and
recites poetry to him, but soon leaves to work in an English factory.
When Frank returns home, he discovers that his father
has “gone pure mad with the drink,” spending all of his money in
bars. Angela becomes desperate and decides to go to the Dispensary
for public assistance. Once there, she is humiliated by a sanctimonious
official called Mr. Kane, who accuses her of claiming aid her family
does not deserve.
