法蘭克的祖父因酒醉﹐在逗著一歲的小孩玩時把小孩摔慘了﹐因懼怕太太的憤怒﹐


逃到墨爾本﹐從此沒再返家。





法蘭克的舅舅因被摔了頭部﹐從此異於常人﹐走路時左腳向一邊身體卻往另一邊。


這個舅舅從八歲起賣報紙﹐算錢算得比誰都精。





法蘭克的母親的麻煩從出生那個夜晚就開始了。她的出生不是很順利﹐在除夕夜﹐


來接生的產婆穿著好衣裳準備去參加慶祝新年的派對﹐可是安琪拉卻遲遲到了新年


才到這個世間。安琪拉的母親生產的辛苦和接生婆因嬰兒遲遲不肯到這世間而怕耽


誤她去新年派對的焦急心情﹐這段文字真是描寫得生動有趣。





(2007-02-15)                        














【附錄原文】





Grandpa stands his ground like a man. I have a right, he says, to stay in me 


own house.





She runs at him and he melts before this whirling dervish with a damaged child 


in her arms and a healthy one stirring inside. He stumbles from the house, up 


the lane, and doesn’t stop till he reaches Melbourne in Australia.





Little Pat, my uncle, was never the same after. He grew up soft in the head 


with a left leg that went one way, his body the other. He never learned to 


read or write but God blessed him in another way. When he started to sell 


newspapers at the age of eight he could count money better than the 


Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. No one knew why he was called Ab 


Sheehan, The Abbot, but all Limerick loved him.





My mother’s troubles began the night she was born. There is my g


randmother in the bed heaving and gasping with the labor pains, praying to 


St. Gerard Majella, patron saint of expectant mothers. There is Nurse 


O’Halloran, the midwife, all dressed up in her finery. It’s New Year’s Eve and 


Mrs. O’Halloran is anxious for this child to be born so that she can rush off 


to the parties and celebrations. She tells my grandmother: Will you push, 


will you, push. Jesus, Mary and holy St. Joseph, if you don’t hurry with this 


child it won’t be born till the New Year and what good is that to me with me 


new dress? Never mind St. Gerard Majella. What can a man do for a woman 


at a time like this even if he is a saint? St. Gerard Majella my arse.





My grandmother switches her prayers to St. Ann, patron saint of difficult labor. 


But the child won’t come. Nurse O’Halloran tells my grandmother, Pray to St. 


Jude, patron saint of desperate cases.





St. Jude, patron of desperate cases, help me. I’m desperate. She grunts and 


pushes and the infant’s head appears, only the head, my mother, and it’s the 


stroke of midnight, the New Year. Limerick City erupts with whistles, horns, 


sirens, brass bands, people calling and singing, Happy New Year. Should auld 


acquaintance be forgot, and church bells all over ring out the Angelus and 


Nurse O’Halloran weeps for the waste of a dress, that child still in there and 


me in me finery. Will you come out, child, will you? Grandma gives a great 


push and the child is in the world, a lovely girl with black curly hair and sad 


blue eyes.





Ah, Lord above, says Nurse O’Hallroan, this child is a time straddler, born 


with her head in the New Year and her arse in the Old or was it her head in 


the Old Year and her arse in the New. You’ll have to write to the Pope, 


missus, to find out what year this child was born in and I’ll save this dress 


for next year.