IT WAS THE TOWN HALL, COMMUNITY CENTRE, entertainment complex and political debating arena, all rolled into one. To the sixteen thousand or so population of The Jarro, Foley’s Select Lounge and Bar was the centre of the universe. The Foleys themselves were a country family. PJ Foley had spent his childhood on his father’s dairy farm in County Meath. He and his brother JJ grew up with the smell of manure and the carbolic soap they used to wash the animals’ udders before the milking, implanted in their sinuses. Their father, old PJ, was known throughout the county as the ‘horniest whore to ever draw breath’. Everybody was surprised when Dolly Flannigan married him, but nobody was surprised when she started to walk like John Wayne. The entire village were speculating as to how long it would be before Dolly was walking like John Wayne’s horse.
But fate is a peculiar thing, and Dolly Foley, née Flanagan, had always had her fair share of luck. Shortly after Dolly gave birth to her second son JJ, old PJ was to find himself standing in the wrong place as one of his forty-strong dairy herd let fly with a back kick that would do Bruce Lee justice. In the operation that followed, old PJ lost both testicles and the use of his penis for anything other than relieving his bladder. Dolly described him, when stripped naked, as looking like ‘a woman minding a piece of chewing gum for someone’. Old PJ took to the drink, and Dolly and the boys ran the dairy farm. It was obvious to all that the younger boy, JJ, was a natural farmer and although PJ pulled his weight, his heart wasn’t in it. Five days after PJ’s twenty-second birthday, his father was found frozen to death in the middle of the pasture. He was stripped naked from the waist down and neighbours reported hearing cries during the night of ‘Is that a prick or what?’ as he ran through the herd of kicking cows. Foul play was not suspected!
The farm passed to Dolly and her sons, and both PJ and JJ were happy with the arrangement that JJ should take over the farm and PJ would receive the sum of £10,000 as full and final settlement. So, with those immortal words ‘Fuck that, I’m off!’ PJ Foley boarded a bus to Dublin in 1958, in search of his fortune. He purchased the run-down premises on James Larkin Street in The Jarro for £4,500, spent another £1,500 on the furniture and new linoleum, and watched with pride as the painter put the finishing touches to the sign which read ‘PJ Foley – Select Lounge & Bar’. Over the following twelve years neither the custom nor the decor changed much. PJ Foley, thanks to the steady trade provided by the locals, prospered. His brother JJ went on to pioneer the Artificial Insemination Programme of the sixties and had such a keen eye for quality donor bulls that he became renowned as ‘the best bull-wanker in the country’ – a title his castrated father would have been proud of.
As well as a successful business, PJ Foley also found the love of his life in The Jarro – Monica Fitzsimons, a fiery, red-haired, befreckled girl from Limerick city. They courted for three years and married in Limerick. Among the locals that travelled down for the wedding were Agnes Browne and Marion Monks. Agnes was fond of both PJ and Monica, though a little wary of PJ. She wasn’t sure that he hadn’t inherited some of his father’s prowess, and was very careful not to encourage him.
Agnes would drop into Foley’s bar maybe three or four times a week, and always on a Friday night, when she and Marion would down a couple after the Bingo. PJ would pull and serve the first round each Friday night and this one was always on the house. This particular Friday was no exception.
‘Now, girls, a bottle of cider and a glass of Guinness with blackcurrant,’ he announced as he placed the glasses on the table in the snug.
‘God bless yeh, Mr Foley,’ Marion answered.
‘Well, any luck tonight?’ he asked.
‘Not a bit of it,’ Agnes cried. ‘If it was rainin’ soup, Mr Foley, I’d be the one out there with a fork!’
All three laughed.
‘Still, I suppose youse only go for the crack, eh?’
‘Me shite we do,’ Agnes answered, and again they all burst into laughter. PJ wiped the table, from habit rather than to clean it, and left the two woman to their chat.
The Friday night chats were important to the women. The subjects were many and varied, ranging from how Agnes’s children were progressing in school to who was bonking whom in the area. Tonight they began with a discussion as to whether or not the priests down in St Anthony’s Hall were fiddling the Bingo. After some probing statements, the women decided that they were just having a run of bad luck.
‘So much for your morning ritual,’ Agnes said.
‘Whatcha mean?’
‘You … every morning shoutin’ in the church doors … “Good mornin’, God, it’s me, Marion”,’ Agnes moaned.
‘Ah now, Agnes, that’s nothing to do with Bingo.’
‘Still, you’d think with you shoutin’ to Him every mornin’, He’d give you the odd full house!’
‘Ah now, Agnes, God has much more important things to be doin’ than worryin’ about my Bingo numbers.’
‘Ah I know, Marion, I’m only jokin’ yeh!’
There was a lull in the conversation. Both women took a sup of drink and glanced around the bar. Marion produced two cigarettes and they lit up. Agnes spotted a couple of lads from the fish market and gave them a wave.
‘Who are they?’ Marion asked.
‘Nipper and Herrin’ from the fisher,’ Agnes replied.
‘Seem nice enough,’ Marion commented.
‘Ah they are. Nice lads – a bit wild, but all right.’
‘Do none of them ever ask you out?’
‘Will yeh go away with yourself, Marion, do you want me to be charged with baby snatchin’?’
‘I don’t mean them … any of the fellas down there.’
‘Some of them do … but Jaysus, Marion, I wouldn’t be bothered, I wouldn’t.’
‘Well, you’re mad. For God’s sake, Agnes, you’re only young. You could marry again – you should.’
‘Marion, would you feck off. What hero would take on seven childer? And anyway, I’m not sure I’d want to. Lord rest him, but I swear I’ve had a better life since Redser died, I have!’
‘Ah, yeh need a man.’
‘I don’t!’
‘We all do.’
‘Well I don’t – organisms or no organisms, I don’t!’
That statement brought another lull to the conversation. It was Agnes who broke the silence.
‘Did you have any more?’
‘I knew you were goin’ to ask me that. I shouldn’t have told yeh.’
‘I’m only askin’. I don’t want the sordid details of your love life. I was … interested, that’s all.’
There followed another lull, a puff on a fag, a glance around, a sup of drink, and then Agnes looked into Marion’s face.
‘Well, did yeh?’
‘No. I’m giving them up.’
‘After two? Why?’
‘I’m not feeling well since I had them … and I’m after gettin’ a lump.’
‘A lump? What kind of a lump? Where?’
Marion blushed slightly. She glanced around the room furtively, to check that nobody was paying any undue attention to their table. When she was sure, she opened her coat and placed her left finger on a spot between her right breast and her armpit.
‘Just there.’
She closed her coat quickly, picked up her glass of stout, and as she supped it she glanced around the room again to be sure nobody was watching.
‘On your diddy?’ Agnes was aghast.
‘Shhh, for fuck’s sake, Agnes, do yeh want to take an advert in the bleedin’ paper?’
‘Sorry … on your diddy?’ Agnes’s voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper.
‘Yep.’
‘What did Dr Clegg say it was?’
‘I didn’t go yet.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because if this lump is caused by me havin’ them organisms … I’d be scarlet, that’s the why.’
‘Don’t be stupid, he’s a doctor, he knows all about organisms. It wouldn’t bother him.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I’m sure of it. We’ll get Fat Annie to mind the two stalls, and I’ll go down with yeh.’
‘Would yeh, Agnes? Ah, you’re a pal! I’ll tell yeh, it’s sore. Some days I can hardly lift me arm.’
‘It’s probably a cyst – that’s it!’ Agnes sounded sure.
‘Yeh, probably.’ Marion was relieved.