McMANUS, suddenly, felt young. His age. Unencumbered. He laughed and wanted to laugh. Delight danced in his blood. It was quadrangle delight, campus delight, immediate, levitating.
He kept hold of her hand and forgot he had lately forgotten her name. “Brendine Healy of Boston,” he said, “I’ve got to talk to you. I’ve got to apologize . . .” He guided her away from the ticket counter.
“Our tickets . . . ?”
“In a minute. There’s a coffee place upstairs,” he trundled her along. She was laughing.
“You were awfully sick,” she was still laughing.
“Yes. Yes, I was. God, I’m glad to see you.” He didn’t know why. There was no need to know why. She was young. His own age. Another port. Not touched by . . . but put that out of mind. . . . “Sit down here. I’ll fetch the coffee.”
She watched him at the cafeteria counter, full of her own delight. Company. Somebody about her own age. She remembered how he had needed her. His beard was more like a beard now. It made him look younger. He was a nice-looking boy too. . . .
He brought the coffee. “Sugar?” Attentive.
“No. Figure. You know.” They laughed at that too. With her figure, who would worry?
“Look.” The going was a little harder here. He stirred his coffee. “Look. I feel bad . . . very badly . . . I’m . . .” He laid the spoon in his saucer “I’m going to tell you something. It’s terrible. I’ll explain. I want to apologize.” He needed to tell. When up from the depths you arise, you need to tell, to talk, to shed bad blood like bad dreams.
“Tell me,” she said. “I looked for you, you know.”
“Thank you. I wish you’d found me.”
He told her. Almost everything, from the beginning. “I meant well,” he said at the end.
She stirred her sugarless coffee, looking into its little whirlpool. “Where are they now?”
“Still in West Cork, still searching for me, I suppose. But I’ve lost them now.” Get thee behind me, Satan; I am out.
“We know it all, don’t we? When we’re young, I mean.”
“I did. There were reasons, mind you. Don’t think there weren’t. But I’m a fool. God, the suffering I’ve caused. Such terrible trouble . . . . My sister, my parents . . . other people. . . .” like Mrs. Burke, and the doctor, and his wife . . . Mrs. Burke warmed his mind. . . .
“Don’t think about it. It’s over, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Yes,” he said, thinking of Mrs. Burke, looking at Brendine Healy of Boston.
Young lives, in need of young laughter.
She dipped her head, and tossed it and smiled shyly and said, “I never even heard your name.”
“Johnny McManus.”
“You wouldn’t make a good gunman, Johnny. I don’t think you’re the kind.” She sounded wisely immature, playing at maturity.
“No. No.” It was known. “You agree with all the people I love.”
“Look.” She glanced about quickly, as if to make sure the coast was clear, and laid her hand on his. “Why don’t we go by boat? I mean, the car ferry?”
“I haven’t a car.”
“We can hire one.” She tightened her hold on his hand. “Why don’t we? Come on.” Little adventures; young laughter. The summer was almost over and there hadn’t been much to show for it. In a week or two she’d have to fly back to Boston and in another week she’d be slogging away at Boston U. There’d been something for the mind, but very little laughter. She could get an essay out of it; she couldn’t curl up under the electric blanket and smile herself to sleep, remembering. “We were . . . you remember . . . we were going to. . . .”
“I have this house to go to,” he said. “Mrs. Burke gave me a letter.” He passed it to her. “You mean, drive to East Grinstead? All the way across Wales and southern England?”
“Why don’t we?” Summer’s dying, winter’s coming.
“If we go halves on it.”
“It’ll be great fun. Gosh,” she said, very young. “Gosh, I’m glad I was here when you walked in. I was over there, just sitting . . . you looked so cross . . . I’m real glad I saw you. . . .” Eager and young. “Halves. I’ll get the car ferry. You get the . . . meals . . . gas. Petrol.” She hop-skipped beside him to her baggage. The car ferry would cost more. It wasn’t halves, but he probably didn’t have much money and Daddy wouldn’t know the difference . . . children at play . . . they hired a bright blue two-door Opel from Cahill’s on her international driver’s license and she made the ferry reservations, happy little mother with something to do with somebody her own age and the car ferry didn’t leave till eight and the day was bright and cool and glorious, and they had to spend it.
They spent it at Old Head of Kinsale, the button-head on a little peninsula jutting out into the ocean. They went down through soft Cork pastoral land of pale green and yellow in the summer’s end. Not like the harsh stained-rock glory of West Cork, not gold and orange and red and white and rose and purple and brown, full of power, the crash of angry water on stubborn rock, the gang cries of sea birds, the lyrics of the wood pigeon, the crass squawk of the crow, the wind’s howl; not the gorse and fern and thistle plucking spitefully at the legs. . . . Here, soft land and the flat and endless glaring ocean.
They ran barefoot on the beach, bought sandwiches at the hotel, and threw bread to the gulls that were tame people-hangers waiting to be fed; beach bums on wings. Not like the wild things in the western coves. Brendine lay on the shore, playing with the sand—young, gentle, slender, safe, without spot or blemish, without past or present. Sane. Sane. Sane. Not like Kate Burke—hard, severe, plain, full of power and lust and fear and courage and some great wild beauty. Crazy. Go away, Kate. Out of my head, you devouring old whore. . . .
Lying in the sand, on their backs, fingers woven, faces under the sun, eyes closed against the glare, “What will you do, Johnny?”
“I don’t know. I can’t go home. I can’t stay in Ireland at all.”
“Do you care?”
“Oh yes. Oh yes.”
She looked quickly at him, at the tightness of his lips, of his eyes.
He pulled his hand free and turned on his face. “Oh yes. She’s the whore we never leave,” he said, his eyes shut tight to filter tears. “No matter where we go we’re always here. Somebody called her the old sow that eats her farrow. . . .”
“What does that mean?”
Christ! Kate Burke knows. “An old pig that eats her litter.”
“I see,” she said, and, in a small voice of apology. “I don’t really.”
She was very young; honest; not one of us. But we understand. Ourselves alone. “We talk at her and about her all the time,” he said. “Did you do Austin Clarke in that Irish literature course you told me about?”
“I haven’t met that name,” she said solemnly, a Litt. One student for a sterile moment. Why do I have to read that stuff at all, she wondered? I like arranging things, helping out. I’m good at helping out, I’m not good at that stuff, really.
“He’s a bitter man, an anti-clerical man, a poet,” he said. “I wish I could be a poet. I’d write the poems Austin Clarke wrote, and this one most of all. . . .” He dug his fingers into the sand to grip and grind it.
Then he said, his eyes tight, his voice tight,
“Come on. Time to go,” he said, so that she might not speak, and sprang up and hauled her to her feet. “We’re off to Philadelphia in the mornin.” Get out of my guts and my groin, Kate, you old whore.
“Ours?” he said, leaning against the berth.
“I thought it would be cheaper,” she said. “It’s a nine-hour sea trip from Cork to Swansea. It’s in my name. I wouldn’t see you for hours if we were in separate cabins. You know? You should have company, Johnny.” Little mother.
“I’ll toss you for the bottom berth.”
She won. They climbed to the top berth and sat with their backs to the bulkheads, their legs out, their hocks mingling. “We’re off to Philadelphia in the evenin,” she said, pleased about something. “What will you do, Johnny?” Still with the same questions. Persistent.
“Find work,” he said. “In ‘the building,’ likely.”
“What building?”
“The building trade. That’s what Irish immigrants call laboring in the English construction industry. It’ll keep me alive till I can find a decent job.”
“Johnny.”
“Yes.”
“I was thinking.”
“What about?”
“Why don’t you come to the States?”
“Four reasons. The fare, a job, a sponsor, the quota. They all add up to no visa.”
“I could get Daddy to help.”
“What does . . .” he almost said Daddy “. . . he do?”
“He has companies.”
Ah. People have companies. Rich people have companies. Rich people have power. Except a grain of wheat fall and is watered in fertile ground it cannot grow?
“They have subsidiaries in Canada. Sometimes when he wants to bring people to the States, he gets them jobs in the companies in Canada and then has them transferred to the States. It’s quick and easy that way, he says.”
“I’d never really thought of going anywhere till this happened. . . . Let’s go up and watch her leave.”
They were through the channel, cutting the long swell. There she was, lying on her back, the cool evening air nibbling at her green paps. Piteous Jesus, Kate, call me. Sleight of voice. Sleight of mind. He lashed at his heart. “D’you know what Kavanagh said about us and that old whore over there?” It was almost a shout, a whip in the tongue to beat the past out of the head.
“Who is Kavanagh?”
“Another poet. They’re the hardest working men in Ireland. He said, ‘It would never be spring, always autumn.’ In Ireland, you know. Us, you know? The way we talk. The way we think and feel. . . .
“Who’s Brendan?”
“A seafaring monk. They say he discovered America.”
Sleight of voice. Sleight of mind. There’s the word. America. “Why would you want me to go to America, Brendine?”
She took his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder and said nothing. Then she said, “It’s cold. Let’s go down.”
Sleight of voice. Sleight of mind. He turned without looking again at her green paps, and they went below. America. Time future. No skull of Irish bard, no thigh of Irish chief there, no young sprout cursed for being in the way; time future. Tears to laughter.
“Do you think your father might?” God, that would be something! Leap from death to life. Leap from sorrow to joy. Leap from goal to goal. Leap from foot to foot. He closed the cabin door. “D’you think . . . ?”
“He would. His family came over on a coffin ship in the famine. I’ll tell him what he has to know. They never forget. . . .” Little mother.
“I could kiss you.”
“Why don’t you, Johnny?”
He took her face in his hands and put his mouth gently to hers. Her mouth was sweet and soft. Smaller than Kate’s. Not consuming like Kate’s. Get out of my head, Kate.
“Johnny?”
“What?”
“Brendine Healy of Boston, are you a virgin? Remember?”
“Yes.”
“I am.” She kissed him, her arms round his waist. “Are you?” He kept his mouth on hers, wondering. “No,” he said.
“Many girls?”
“No.” Exorcise Kate. “Mrs. Burke,” he said. “She taught me.” He nibbled her lips.
“Johnny?”
“Yes.”
“Teach me.”
“Yes.”
Naked and a little shy, they went to bed in the bottom berth. The way you taught me, Kate. Yesterday was a long day, full of consuming anger and anxiety. Last night was a long night, full of Cleery’s vengeance and Kate’s consuming lust. Today was a long day, full of sleight of mind, sleight of voice.
“Johnny?”
He was asleep.
Very early in the morning, while it was yet dark, off Port Eynon Point on the run home into Swansea Bay, they stirred.
“Johnny? Now?” she whispered. “Please.”
“Yes.”
He was slow and gentle and careful.
She was not Kate. These were not Kate’s strong cunning thighs, Kate’s hips not these little hips were for lustful, luxurious wallowing, this little belly was not Kate’s warm hungry belly, these little breasts . . . this was not Kate. Get out of my head, Kate. Let me go, Kate.
“Johnny? Did I please you?”
He lay on her belly. “Yes. Oh, yes.” Make the voice right. Be kind.
“Johnny? Why don’t we drive to the house today? Not stop anywhere. Tonight I’ll be better. You tell me what you like. Tell me what to do. Yes?”
“Yes.”
But it was a happy drive and a happy day. Leap from past to future, from land to land, from skull of bard and thigh of chief to daughter company to mother company, leap from foot to foot, from old to young, woman to woman. Leaping transitions, instant transitions. The day’s laughter grew. Kate was distance. Brendine was presence. His warmth for her grew. On the phone the estate agent said, “Yes, well, bring Mrs. Burke’s letter to my house and let me see. I have a key here.”
At eleven, they turned the key in the door and filled the house with light. Yes, it would be better this time. Joy in their genitals, anticipation warm in their eyes.
“Do we eat first?”
“There’s another floor up there.”
“Leave it. Pick the bed you want to sleep in.”
“You slept last night.” Laughter. Kiss me. Hold me. Touch me. “Let’s not sleep much tonight.”
“Look, there’s ham and milk and bananas in this fridge. . . .”
They ate in the little kitchen. Lashings of ham, sliced bread, bananas, coffee. “We’ll wash up later.”
He undressed her slowly, scorched her with counseling words, flooded her with tenderness, loved her with passion, laughed with her jubilant thanks. Triumph. She held him hard for a long time. Then she said, “Let’s wash the dishes and come back to bed.” Loving little mother.
In a closet she found a large fat woman’s dressing gown and paraded in it like a little girl dressing up. He put on his trousers. They washed the dishes, talking, laughing, full of young joy.
She said, believing it, “I’ve been in love with you, Johnny, since the day I met you. Daddy’ll help. . . .”
Times past are past. Times to come are on the doorstep.
The pain was back wild and gnawing.
Powers groped in the dark for the black bag on the floor by the bed. He groped in it for another needle. An attic light in this house would shine out across the town like a beacon. He cursed his shoulder and felt sick and blind with pain. The needle went in clumsily and he moaned to stifle the screaming in his head. Laughing too. He could hear laughter in his head. I’m gain out of my fuckin mind.
Kneeling, head on the bed, he moaned away agony, waiting for relief. The laughter in his head troubled him. What he imagined it could mean troubled him. When relief came he lay down again, moaning now with sweet ease that grew steadily sweeter. But the laughter stayed in his head. He listened to it.
Not in my fuckin head at all. Downstairs. He’s here. And he brought a piece of cunt with him. The gun, under the pillow. The doctor was right. The widow-woman sent him here. He apologized to the doctor and walked softly to the head of the attic stairs. Holy Jasus, washin the dishes! And her laughin.
Her laughter started the music in his head. It sang down into his throat, high sweet music down into his chest, through his belly into his groin. The swelling started. The pleasure of it! He could wait now. He knew how to do it. Wait till they finish the dishes. He stood back from the top of the stairs looking down into the lobby below. The little kitchen was off the lobby. They’d come out, cross the lobby into them big rooms. Then he’d go down. Quiet. McManus had a gun. But he knew how to do it.
The dishes were done. There was silence. Then soft laughter. They came across the lobby, arms around waists. No shirt, by God, and her in some big blue tent. He’s been up her already and me sleepin! The door across the hall from the kitchen closed. He stood a while thinking of it. The pleasure of it.
Then he went down, testing every step.
They were not in the big drawing room. There were no voices, no sounds in it. He put the gun in his sling and turned the handle with herculean patience. It struck him for the first time—there were three doors into this big room. All of them were closed. And there were voices behind the one straight ahead. Soft laughin. Getting her up for a night’s good fuckin.
Wackadoo wackadoo wackadoo.
Won’t fuckin McManus be surprised. The music was exquisite; higher, sweeter; his groin harder.
What’s better, Pat, killin or fuckin?
They’re both about the same.
He crossed the room on the thickest carpet he had ever walked on. He took the gun from his sling. He stood outside the door. They were still laughin, soft-like, cuddlin laughin.
Knock or throw it open? They were good locks. Thon one in the door from the lobby opened like it was oiled every day. The hinges had no sound in them. He put the gun back in the sling. No knock. McManus had a gun. He’d have it close. He’d reach it before a knock died. But thon cuddlin would fill his head. Open the door and watch them. Who hears any thin when a woman has her fingers on your cock?
Slowly. Slower than before. It turned almost without movement. Push the door an inch, to clear the catch. Get the gun back in your fist. They’re still cuddle-Iaughin. He pushed the door. It opened slowly, smoothly, silently; wide.
They were lying across the edge of the bed, their feet trailing to the floor. McManus’s trousers were about his ankles. Brendine’s voluminous splendor was pulled up to her thighs and McManus’s hand was out of sight in the ample, bundled folds.
“Will you want to do this when I’m fifty, Johnny?” she asked him.
“There y’are, are ye, Johnny?” Powers said.
They shot off the bed, onto their feet, like figures in a Chaplin comedy. She stood frozen, terrified and lost in the smothering folds of a fat woman’s dressing gown. McManus stood gawk-mouthed, paralyzed, his trousers about his ankles, to face his executioner.
“Never saw a cock go softer faster,” Powers said.
“I have to inform you,” he said with instant ludicrous formality and some difficulty, “that you, John McManus, has been lawfully condemned t’death by a proper court of the Irish Republican Army and I am here to carry out the sentence forthwith.” He felt a certain pride. This was a formal action, an official act, for and on behalf of a greater power. He was an em . . . an emminisery.
The girl’s scream hurt his head. He shot her through the face.
The bullet knocked her back onto the bed, her arms askew, her legs apart, her feet flat on the floor, a rag doll.
“The widow-woman told me I could get y’here, McManus.”
“Piteous Jesus Kate no no no not you Kate,” like the crying of a beaten dog.
Powers shot him through the heart. The bullet knocked him back onto the bed, splayed out beside Brendine. His face was deformed by an ancient anguish.
That was that.
Powers lifted the girl’s skirt and dropped it. “Skinanbone,” he said. He had done his duty. They said don’t come back till y’kill him. And there he was, lookin a right bloody eejit w’his trousers round his shins. What way would he look? He never was anythin. “Y’was niver the kind,” Powers said with contempt, and dismissed a life. The girl didn’t come into this. “In war there’s always people gettin kilt that shoulda been some other place,” Clune always said. Fuck Clune too.
What else?
He looked about the room like a housewife finishing for the night. Aye, there was McManus’s gun. The capture of enemy arms is a military virtue. It wasn’t under the pillow where it shoulda been. Eejit. It wasn’t anywhere obvious where it shoulda been. Right y’are, right y’are, Johnny, boyo. He took the clasp knife from his pocket and opened it with his teeth. The pillows first. He hacked at them with rising glee. There was no gun. He wasn’t looking for any gun. There wasn’t any gun. There was an ignorant eejit that didn’t know his arse from his elbow. Hack for the hell of it, hack hack hack every fuckin thing in sight. The bed covers, the mattress them two was spread out on, the chairs . . . fuckin gold coverin . . . hack hack hack . . . what’s in the closets? Rip rip rip. At the end of it, he sweated freely. That’d cost them somethin. He went upstairs to gather his things. Time to go. Taxi back to London. Find a hoore house and have as good a belt as the shoulder would let him. That’s what he needed. Not the dead skinanbones down there, a livin fat fuck. . . .
The lights of a car far below touched the maid’s room. He looked down onto the graveled drive. Polis. Polis? More of them, in cars, pourin out.
He sat down to watch them, coldly. Polis, like midgets, skitterin about down there. With rifles, some of them, by Jasus. Lights, by Jasus. Settin them up on the lawns and back there among the roses. They wanted to fight, by Jasus.
It struck him suddenly. Who told them? Kiernan? Not Kiernan. Sorahan? Maybe Sorahan, maybe the doctor, maybe his yatterin wife, maybe the fuckin widow-woman, maybe the Bantry men, maybe . . . Jasus, there was bloody dozens coulda informed. Somebody told them. Right y’are, right y’are, that’d wait. But it was likely the widow-woman . . . than oul hoore.
Well, it was late in the day to get at her. But she’d get taken care of. Look at them. Thirty or forty of them. You’d think, by Jasus, there was twenty men in here, w’automatic rifles. There’s only me, he said, smiling down at the policemen positioning themselves beyond the lights. They think I can’t see them, he said, looking out over the lights focused on the ground floor. Bloody midgets. Midget heads.
Right y’are, right y’are, write a song for Patrick Powers. He died for Ireland fightin fuckin Forty to One . . . there was forty, anyway. Write a song for Patrick Powers. Forty to One? Anyway. There’d be Twenty before they carried him out. The Big Fella’s way.
He stood up and said solemnly, “This I was born for.”
But do it right. Big Mike Collins would do it right. Check the roof. Where’s the trapdoor? He ran through the attic rooms, switching on lights, scanning ceilings, and found it on the landing, with a folding ladder pulled down by a chain. He went up to the roof. He could keep the fuckin forty all night, holed up on this roof . . . wee nests, golops of cover . . . leave the ladder down.
He ran down to the ground floor and found a long broom. Switch on every fuckin light in the house. Smash the bulbs. With system, he worked his way upstairs, up to the attic again. Smashing lights. They’d have to use lights to winkle him out. Lights make nice targets.
He waited in the drawing room, watching the preparations for his destruction and a thought dealt his head a heavy blow. He scrambled to the attic.
There were no cars in the road beyond. No polis controllin curious crowds. Polis motors only, on the gravel below. No crowd over the road in the cricket field. One in the morning, for Jasus sake. Dirty English bastards. No reporters?
Then who will tell the story? Some policeman at a cornorer’s inquest? “On August 29, at approximately midnight, I proceeded. . . .” Not bloody likely!
Y’needed reporters in this warfare. Half your armament is reporters. No television, no reporters, and all you’ve got is half a bloody war and anonymous death.
He opened an attic window and yelled, “Where’s your fuckin reporters?”
The police went quietly about their business. He didn’t even see one lookin up.
“Where’s the fuckin BBC?” he yelled.
Y’might as well talk to a cartloada monkeys.
He sat down to consider these dishonest English tactics. He thought also of checking his gun. Four in the clip. Reload. Where the . . . ? Holy Jasus, he had four bullets. All the rest, two boxes, were in the dashboard pocket of the car and it was bashed up in the doctor’s front yard! Four bullets! Four polis! W’rifles.
The Song died.
The bullhorn outside called to him. “Patrick Powers. We know you are inside. We know you have a gun. We know you have no extra ammunition.”
There y’are, by Christ. It was the doctor. He called the Garda. They called the English. Fuckin informers. Fuckin traitors! They found the ammunition. “We don’t think he has more than one clip.” He could hear the craven bastards tellin it. “Come down and open the front door and throw out the gun. Then come out with your hands above your head.”
He yelled out the window, “I’m a soldier of the IRA. I’m not comin out w’my hands up.”
A bored voice said on the bullhorn. “I don’t care if you come out sliding on your arse, chum. Just come on out and let’s all get some sleep.”
He heard the polis laughin all over the gravel and the grass.
Mockery mockery mockery mockery mockery fuckin English mockery doesn’t every Irish schoolboy know the English think we’re trash? Don’t we learn that in school?
“Righty’are, righty’are.”
Leap!
Leap from Death unto Life. Leap from the Dungeon to the Sky. Leap from Goal to Goal. Hop from Foot to Foot. He lashed himself with a compensating thought. Instant transitions.
Escape! Aren’t we the greatest escapers there ever was in the world? Was the jail ever made that could hold us? Aren’t we the darin, dashin, darlin boys? The world sits on the edge of its chair waitin for news that another one’s out and the English can’t hold us. The pages of glory. Escapers’ glory.
Write a Song. “The Great Escape of Patrick Powers.”
He threw his gun out the window and watched it turn in the air till it hit the gravel. It discharged and polis all over the place scuttled.
“Stick it up your arses,” he yelled. “I’m comin out.”
For a wee while. He lashed his spirit. It rose, soarin, on the wings of fuckin eagles.
They handcuffed him to a bald and portly bobby. The Black Maria came up the drive. Two of the polis got in with him.
“Where we goin?”
“London.”
“Scrubs?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll not be long there.” No reply. “Why d’they call this thing the Black Maria?”
“Who cares?”
“D’ye know why the Yanks calls theirs the Paddy Wagon? Because they used it t’round up the Paddies us, us, us, the bloody Irish and throw us in jail. Y’know what we done? Us! The Paddies? We took over the fuckin States! We took over the fuckin White House. Kennedy. Y’heard the name? That’s us! Put us down. Put your foot on our necks. Y’know what we do? We eat your fuckin leg off.”
Perhaps the bobbies weren’t listening. His was the only voice. The tires whistled. The engine purred. Powers lashed his spirit.
“Y’ever heara Jimmy Steele, Paddy Donnelly, Eddie Maguire, Liam Graham, Jimmy O’Hagan? Yes, y’hearda them. Y’couldn’t hold them in Crumlin Jail or Derry. McAteer? Y’couldn’t hold him. Patrick Powers? Y’can’t hold him! Y’can’t hold us! Y’ever hear what Jimmy Steele wrote in jail? A poem. Y’ever hear it? Your fuckin Shakespeare! Jimmy Steele’s your man. . . .”
His own song leaped into his head, full grown, ringin w’glory. He said it in his head,
Tell the bastards. Tell the words t’them.
They were gone. They came, whole. They went, whole. The head is a treacherous friend.
Tell them what Jimmy Steele wrote in Crumlin Jail.
“Listen,” he said. “Listen. Here’s what Jimmy Steele wrote in Crumlin Jail. Hear it, y’fuckin English cunts, and then try keepin your feet on our necks. Listen to it. . . .
He laid his head back against the wall of the Black Maria. “Y’can’t hold me. Y’can’t beat the Sacred Heart of Jasus, boyo. And we have it.”
Softly, the portly bobby said, “Was it the Sacred Heart killed the two in the house back there, Powers?”
Powers sighed desperately. “Jasus, y’can’t talk to them. Y’can’t talk to the fuckin English. . . .” His head was beating.
McManus was in his head, stand in there w’his soft cock hangin and his face twisted, lookin like an eejit, and the widow-woman was with him and the doctor and his yatterin wife and Sorahan and one-eyed Clune and Kiernan and Mary Connors and a great cloud of witnesses and McManus was shoutin,
“Pietous Jesus Kate no no no not you Kate. . . .” . .
Powers held the top of his beating head with his one good hand. The pain was shrieking in his shoulder. His nerves marched like an army with drummers. He screamed, “Get out of my head, McManus!”