You were asking for it. If I hadn’t stabbed you, somebody else would have stabbed you, and isn’t the fool and his lackey all the same? As you were going to be stabbed anyway, wasn’t it better to be stabbed by a neighbour than by a stranger? The stranger would be buried miles away, maybe, over on the flat plains of the Smooth Meadow, or up in Dublin, or the arsehole of the country somewhere, and what would you do then? Look at the satisfaction you get chewing me up here. And if the stranger was lying next to you, you would be at a loss to know what to throw up in his face, as you would know nothing about his seed, breed, and generation. Cop yourself on, you knacker. You wouldn’t mind, but I stabbed you cleanly …
—The Dog Eared Lot often stabbed cleanly! …
—… A white-headed mare … She was gorgeous …
—… I swear, Huckster Joan, I swear by the oak of this coffin, that I gave her the pound, Caitriona Paudeen …
—… That’s the way it was. Went up to the Bookie’s around three o’clock. “‘The Golden Apple,’” I said. “She better win,” I said, sticking my hands in my pockets and turning on my heels out the door. I didn’t have a brass farthing …
Won the three o’clock. The race was over. “The Golden Apple” at a hundred to one. Went to collect my fiver. The wench smiled at me again: a sweet innocent smile from a pure heart. It meant a lot more to me than a fiver: “I’ll get you sweets, or I’ll bring you to the pictures, or to a dance … Or would you prefer … ?” I was mortified. I didn’t finish what I was saying.
“I’ll meet you outside the Plaza at a quarter past seven,” I said.
Go home. Shave, shower, shite, shampoo, slap on the slime, get ready. Didn’t even drink a drop for good luck. I had far too much time for that innocent smile from a pure heart …
To the Plaza for seven. Put a hole in my fiver buying her chocolates. The chocolates would really melt her young pure heart, and the glint of the beauty of the rose would appear in her smile like the first rays of the breaking morning. Wasn’t I the eejit who had spent so much …
—Hang on now ’til I read you the Proclamation that Eamon de Valera put before the people of Ireland:
“Irish men and Irish women …”
—Wait now, until I read the Proclamation that Arthur Griffith put before the people of Ireland:
“Irish men and Irish women …”
—… I drank forty-two pints that night one after the other. And I walked home after that as straight as a reed … as straight as a reed, I’m telling you. I delivered a calf from the brindle cow, which was in labour for two hours already. I drove the old donkey out from Curran’s oats … and I tied up Tommy. I had just taken off my shoes and about to go on my knees to say a bit of a prayer, when the young one comes in. Her breath was totally shagged. “My Mam says to go over straight away,” she said “Dad is doing his thing again.”
—“I don’t give a toss about him doing his thing if it’s not the right time,” I said, “just as I was about to say my prayers. What’s bugging him now?”
“Downing poteen like water,” she said.
Off I went. He was out of his tree and nobody in the house was able to hold him down. You couldn’t say they weren’t a bunch of wimps …
“Here, grab this,” I said. “Take a hold of this rope, like, right now, before he goes for the axe. Can’t you see he’s eyeing it …”
—I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …
—We won the match.
—Not a bit of it. If the mine hadn’t destroyed the house …
—… “I washed my face in the dew of the morning,
And combed my hair with the wind of my hand …”
It’s not right yet, Curran. There’s a stray bit still there. Hang on a minute now:
“I washed my face in the dew of the morning …” That bit is just dandy, Curran. I already used it in The Golden Stars. Hang on a minute now … Listen to this, Curran:
“I washed my face in the dew of the morning,
And combed my hair with the wind of my hand …”
That’s just perfect. Curran, I knew I’d get it in the end … Are you listening now?
“I washed my face in the dew of the morning,
And combed my hair with the wind of my hand …
My shoelaces were as the sparkle of the rainbow …”
Hang on now, Curran … Wait a second … Eureka … “And the Pleiades were holding up my pants …” I knew I’d get it, Curran. Listen to the whole verse now …
—Will you go and get lost, and don’t be driving everyone around the twist. My mind is numb for the last two years listening to your nonsense verse. I have worse things on my mind, God forgive me: my eldest boy knocking around with the floozie from Up the Way, and the boss of the house all ready to hand the place over to him. And on top of that, I have no idea is it old Gut Bucket’s donkeys, or Tim Top of the Road’s beasts who are guzzling my corn …
—You’re dead right about that, Curran. They should have stuffed the piece of shit in the eastern graveyard. Mike O’Donnell is there, the guy who wrote “The Song of the Turnip,” and “The War of the Hen with the Grain of Corn” …
—And Big Mike Connolly who made up the “Ballad of Caitríona” and “Fireside Tom’s Song” …
—And “The Psalm of the Cat.” That’s a fantastic piece of work, “The Psalm of the Cat.” I’d never be able to do that, never …
—… Eight sixes forty-eight; eight sevens fifty-four … You’re not listening at all, Master. You’re not with it at all, these days, … I’m not making one bit of progress … Is that what you said, Master? Hardly surprising, Master, and the way you have been neglecting me … Answer me this … How many tables are there anyway, Master? … Is that all? Well, fuck me pink if that’s it! I thought that there were at least a hundred … or up to a thousand … up to a million … up to a quadrillion … we have so much time to be lying in the grave, that’s what they say. He who made time, made tons of it …
—God help us! Isn’t it a tragedy that they didn’t transport my mortal bones beyond the Fancy City and to lay me down in Brandon’s Temple on the white bleached plains of the Smooth Meadow amongst my own people! There, the clay is gentle and welcoming; there, the clay is soft and silken; there, the clay is quiet and loving; there, the clay is protective and snug. Decay there is not the decay of the graveyard; corruption there is not the corruption of the flesh. But clay will cling to clay; clay will hug and kiss clay; clay will inter-breed with clay …
—She’s gone all sloppy again …
—You’d never see anyone as crazy mad as her, only when this stupidity gets her …
—It’s the way she is, God help us! Caitriona’s far worse when she starts going on about Nell and Nora Johnny …
—Caitriona’s gone over the top altogether. Blotchy Brian was right when he called her a jennet …
—Blotchy Brian wasn’t right. Honestly, he wasn’t …
—What’s up with you? Are you against that arsehole too, Nora?
—Honest, he wasn’t right. The jennet is a very cultured beast. Honest, it is. The Rooters in Bally Donough used to have a jennet when I was going to school, years ago. And it would eat raisin bread from the palm of my hand …
—Going to school years ago! Toejam Nora going to school! Raisin bread in Gort Ribbuck! O holy cow and mother of Jesus! Margaret … Margaret, did you hear what Toejam Nora Johnny Robin of the Stinky Soles said? O, O, I’m going to burst …
… Nora Johnny … Nora Johnny … Toejam Nora Stinky Soles … You weren’t happy to leave your lying ways aboveground, but you had to bring it down here too. The whole graveyard knows the devil himself—keep him far away!—gave you a loan of his tongue when you were just a slip of a thing, and you used it so well that he never asked for it back …
One hundred and twenty pounds dowry for that trollop of a daughter of yours … My goodness me … A woman that didn’t have a stitch of clothes to put on her the day she got married, only I bought her an outfit … Toejam Nora had sixty pounds … There wasn’t sixty pounds ever in all of Gort Ribbuck end to end. Gort Ribbuck of the Puddles. I suppose you’re too snobby now to milk the ducks … A hundred and twenty pounds … A hundred and twenty fleas! No, six thousand fleas. They were by far the commonest creatures that the Toejam Crowd ever had. I’m telling you, if fleas had to give dowries, then that eejit who married your daughter, Noreen, would have enough to make him a knight in a castle nine times over. The two of them had plenty between them coming into my house …
That was the disastrous day, Noreen, the first day yourself or your daughter ever darkened the door of my house … The little hussy that she is. Certainly, Nora, she is a credit to you: one who can’t put a patch on her child, or make her husband’s bed, or throw out the wasted ashes every week, or to comb her own clump of hair … It was she had me buried twenty years before my time. She’ll bury my son too, and before too long, if she doesn’t come here soon to keep you company and keep you in gossip at her next delivery …
Oh, your little yackity mouth is in great form today, Noreen … “We’ll be …” How’s that you put it? … “We’ll be OK then.” … “OK”: that’s your catch phrase, Noreen … “We’ll be OK then. You’ll have your son, and I’ll have my daughter, and we’ll be together again down here just as we were aboveground …” The devil’s plaything is in great mocking form altogether in your little yackity mouth today, Noreen …
That time you were in the Fancy City … You’re telling me I’m lying. It’s you’re the filthy liar, Toejam Noreen …
—Witch!
—Harridan!
—Hag!
—Toejam Crowd … Duck milkers! …
—Do you remember the night Nell was sitting in Jack the Lad’s lap? “We’ll leave Blotchy Brian to you, Caitriona …”
—I never sat in a sailor’s lap anyway, thanks be to God Almighty …
—You never got the chance, Caitriona … I don’t take a devil’s blind bit of notice of you. Your endless bitching and lies doesn’t leave a scratch on me. I’m far more respected in this cemetery than you are. There’s a fine upright cross on my grave, which is more than can be said for yours, Caitriona. Smashing! Honest! …
—… Well, even if there is, it didn’t cost you anything. You can thank that fool of a brother of yours who stuck it up when he was home from America. You’d be a long time getting the money for a cross from milking the ducks in Gort Ribbuck … What’s that you’re saying, Nora? … Spit it out. You haven’t the guts to say it to my face … I have no culture? … I have no culture, Noreen? … I have no culture, imagine that! … Too true for you Noreen. I often saw maggots and crawlies on the Toejam Crowd …
What’s that you’re saying, Noreen? … You don’t have the time to be yacking with me … You’re wasting your time yacking with me. For the love of God! You don’t have the time to be yacking with me … You have something else to do, yea! … Now what’s that you’re saying? You have to listen to another episode of … What’s that she called it, Master? … Master … He doesn’t hear me. He’s totally lost it since he heard about his wife … That’s it, got it … Novelette … This is the time that the Master reads a bit of the … novelette to you every day … If the Master paid any attention to me … Oh, Mary Mother of God! … A novelette in Gort Ribbuck … The Toejam thickos with a novelette … Margaret! Hey, Margaret! Can you hear me? The Toejammy Crowd with a novelette … I’m going to burst! I’ll burst! …
—… I swear, Gut Bucket, by the oak of this coffin, I gave her the pound, I gave Caitriona the pound …
—… God save us all! … My death would not be like death to me there: for I would lie in the soft warm clay of the plain; the potent clay which can afford to be kind with its own brute strength; the proud clay whose treasures do not decay, nor rot, nor wither in its fertile womb; the seasonal clay which finds it easy to dispense its gifts generously; the renewing clay which takes all its nourishment of food and drink making it fruitful again without waste, deformity, or metamorphosis … It would recognise its own …
The gentle buttercup, the moist mossy sward, the pleasant primrose and the creeping grass would grow upon my grave there …
The sweet warbling of the birds would sing above me instead of the chatter of the waves or the clatter of the waterfall or the sigh of the sedge or the shriek of the cormorant as she plunges with lust upon the small sprats of the sea. O clay of the plain, wouldn’t it be good to settle beneath your mantle …
—She’s gone all soppy again …
—… Pearse said, O’Donovan Rossa said, Wolfe Tone said, that Eamon de Valera was right …
—Terence McSwiney said, James Connolly, John O’Leary, John O’Mahony, James Fintan Lawlor, Davitt, Emmet, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Sarsfield himself, they all said that Arthur Griffith was right …
—Owen Roe O’Neill said that Eamon de Valera was right …
—Red Hugh O’Donnell said that Arthur Griffith was right …
—Art McMorrough Kavanagh said that Eamon de Valera was right …
—Brian Boru, Malachy, Cormac mac Airt, Niall of the Nine Hostages, the two Patricks, Brigid, Colm Cille, and all the Irish saints wherever they are—on land, sea, or sky, and all the Irish martyrs from Dunkirk to Belgrade, and Finn McCool, Oisin, Conan, Caoilte, Deirdre, Gráinne, the Great Professor of Ireland, and Gael Glas all said that Arthur Griffith was right …
—I’m telling you, you’re a liar. The truth hurts …
—You treacherously murdered me when I was fighting for the Republic …
—You had it coming. Neither God’s law nor that of the Church allows the overthrow of a legitimate Government by force …
—I have no interest in politics, but I have some regard for the old IRA …
—You coward, you were skulking under the bed when Eamon de Valera was fighting for the Republic …
—You old bag, you were under the bed when Arthur Griffith was …
—… “And he went off to market for courting …”
—… Wait now, my good man, wait ’til I finish my story:
“… Now send out to me John James
And I’ll be for ever without him.
“The fairy lover captured John James in the magic palace and there was no escape for him. Just then, all the waters of the grey green Isle of Ireland, including those around its islands and about its shores, dried up, all except for two bottles of Portuguese aerated water that was thrown up on the Blaskets, and a cask of holy water from Spain that a fishing trawler swapped for some fifty potatoes from the Island of Hens’ Eggs …
“The maid of the sweet brown ringlets was in Dublin at exactly that time …”
—The version I heard from old people around here, Coley, was that it was a nurse in the Fancy City …
—A woman in a bookie’s shop, I heard …
—Oh, so what? It was up in Dublin, anyway. What else? “‘I have an arrow,’ she said, ‘that will rescue John James if he promises me a hundred and one large barrels, a hundred and one large casks, and a hundred and one of the best hogsheads as a dowry …’”
—Now, you old Gut Bucket, where are your forty-two pints now? …
—Coley, hang on a moment. This is how I would have ended that matter if I hadn’t died …
—… If Hitler gets as far as England, he’ll have them living on dead cats …
—I’m telling you things weren’t as bad until then. You’d hardly get a penny for a cow or a calf. God help the poor man if the cattle get any cheaper. I have a bit of land up on the top of the town, and there’s no telling what it costs to look after the beasts. It’ll go to waste, as there’s not a tosser to be earned on cattle …
—“There’s no point in rearing cattle!” Take the crap land in your place. Let two rabbits loose, let them at it, and after five years there would still only be two rabbits, even if that many …
—You were a gutless pansy, Peter. If it had been me! I swear to Jaysus, I’d have given him what not. If I had a pub, Peter, if I had a pub and dirty heretics coming in through the doors insulting my religion like that …
—… We,—The Cadavers of the Half Guinea—we are putting forward a joint candidate in this election also. Just like the others—The Cadavers of the Pound Place and the Cadavers of the Fifteen Shillings—we have absolutely nothing to offer to our fellow cadavers. However, we are taking part in this Interred Election because we have a policy—the Half Guinea Party—we have a policy also. If those aboveground can have an election, those of us underground can have one also. There is no democracy without an election. Us, we, here, in the cemetery clay, we are the democrats.
The Pound Cadavers are the party of the rich, of the Conservatives, of the Big Cheese, of the Reactionaries, of what they call Stability. The Cadavers of the Fifteen Shillings are the party of commerce and of merchants, of the professional class, the bourgeoisie, the middle class, property and capital. But we, and us here, my fellow Cadavers, we are the party of the working class, of the proletariat, the peasants, the wage slaves, the nothing nobodies, the utter dependents, the party of the completely dispossessed: the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. We are absolutely bound to stand up for our rights as did the men of old (knocking of skulls and gnashing of teeth clearly heard from the Half Guinea Place) …
—…
—… Our candidate, our joint applicant—our own candidate if you like, the Fifteen Shillings—she’s a woman. Don’t let that bother you. Her husband was never a Teachta Dála, a Member of Parliament. She made a name for herself by her own ability and cop on. When she came down into the dirty dust three years ago she knew as little as any of the windbags that are spouting rubbish down in the Half Guinea Place. But despite what the Half Guinea crowd say, there are absolutely equal rights and opportunities in this graveyard (more knocking and clapping of skulls). Our candidate is the living proof of that. She is cultured and wise. Let me introduce her to you … Nora Johnny! (Even more knocking and clapping of skulls.)
—Toejam Nora! The whore. Milking the ducks … Hey, Margaret! … Hey Margaret! … Nora Johnny … I’m about to burst! … I’m going to burst! …
… Toejam Nora standing for election! Jesus Christ Almighty, they have no respect left for themselves in this cemetery, especially if they can’t put up anyone else only Fleabag Nora from Gort Ribbuck … She won’t get elected … But who knows? … Kitty, Dotie, and Margaret talk to her, and Peter the Publican, and Huckster Joan sometimes. As for the Old Master, it’s a total disgrace the kind of things he tells her every day … He says they’re all in the book, but I can’t imagine myself that propriety would allow those kinds of things to be printed:
“Your curling tresses fair
Your eye sparkling like the dew
Your smooth and pointed breasts
Set my soul ablaze anew.”
… That’s lovely talk altogether for a schoolmaster. The Mistress and Billy the Postman are being driven mad. If he wasn’t a bit nuts himself, of course, he wouldn’t be praising Nora Johnny: “Her mind has really improved,” he said. “She has acquired some culture now …”
Wasn’t she very quick to remind me about the cross over her grave. “I have a fine big cross,” she said, “something you haven’t got, Caitriona.” She’d only have a small scutty little cross if it wasn’t for what that fool of a brother spent on her, something I told her straight up. She’d be down in the Half Guinea place without a plaque or a headstone, in among those gangsters from Clogher Savvy and Derry Lough, and that’s where she should be, if the truth be told. That’s what they were going to do anyway, until she died. When did anyone ever have a good word to say about any of her lot? Never, I’m telling you. Never ever. Never happened. A useless shower …
Having a cross here is like having a big slate house aboveground, a house with a name over the door—The Fox’s View, Heavenly Haven, The Fairy Throne, Lovers’ Way, Sun Spot, All Saints Grove, Leprechaun Green—and a cement border around it, trees and flowers to the edge of the garden, an iron gate with a bowered arch overhanging it, security and money in the bank … The railings on the grave are just the same as the fancy borders around the Earl’s house. I never really peeped into the Earl’s place without a flutter in my heart. I always thought I would see something miraculous. The Earl and his Lady having descended on their wings from heaven after their dinner. Either that, or St. Peter accompanying them to a table underneath a shady bower; he was carrying a net, having fished on the Earl’s Lake; and in it a big golden salmon; his great keys rattling away; and then, he opening his Big Book and inquiring of the Earl which of the people of his district should be allowed into heaven. I always thought that to be in good standing in the Earl’s book was the same as to be in good standing in heaven …
That shower aboveground are very innocent. “What good will it do them to have a cross over their graves?” they ask. “Not the smell of an oil rag! Those crosses are only snobbery and one-upmanship and a waste of money.” If they only knew! But they never get it until they are buried, and then it is far too late. If they knew up there that a cross here earns respect even for the Toejammers, I don’t think they’d be dawdling around as they are …
I wonder how long will it take to put my cross up? Patrick would never delay that much? He promised me faithfully:
“You’ll have it within a year, or even before that,” he said. “It’s the least we could do for you …”
A cross of Connemara marble, and the inscription in Irish … It’s all the rage to have Irish on your headstone these days … and lovely flowers …
I often warned Patrick:
“I raised you with love and care, Patrick,” I said. “I kept a good house always. God knows that wasn’t always easy. I never told you how I suffered after your father died. I never asked anything of anybody because of that. I often felt like buying a strip of pork to give some taste to the head of cabbage; or a fistful of raisins to chuck into the cake; or to hop into Peter’s Pub when I felt my throat parched from dust and cleaning, just to ask him for one of those golden bottles that smiled at me every time I went past his place …
“But, Patrick, my precious, I didn’t. I saved every brass farthing. I hate to give Nell or Blotchy Brian’s Maggie the satisfaction now that I wasn’t buried properly. Get me a plot in the Pound Place. Put a cross of Connemara marble over me. Have it up a year after I’m buried, at the latest. I know that it will cost a bit, but God will reward you …
“Don’t give in to your wife if she’s nagging you about money. She might be your wife, but I brought you into the world. I never bothered you for anything, only this. You’ll be finished with me then. Whatever you do, don’t give Nell the satisfaction …”
He didn’t bury me in the Pound Place after all that. His wife … or his wife and that other piece of shit, Nell. Although, Patrick can be sharp enough himself when he wants to. He promised me the cross …
I wonder what kind of a funeral I had? I won’t know that until the next corpse comes. Biddy Sarah was fading away. But I’d say there’s nothing wrong with her yet. And then there’s Guzzeye Martin, Black Bandy Bartley, and Breed Terry, and of course, that old gobshite himself, Blotchy Brian, keep his bag of bones away from us! … Fireside Tom should be dead already with the rain through his roof … If Patrick did what I told him, his shack would have fallen down by now …
My son’s wife will be here, she has to be, at her next birth. Nell is a bit flattened since Peter got injured, and she has rheumatism, the old snotbag. That isn’t likely to kill her, though. She was dead a few times, according to herself, but the seven plagues of Egypt wouldn’t kill some people. May nobody else come to the cemetery before her! …
I haven’t a notion if any letter has come from America since. I’m really afraid that Nell will have it all her own way about Baba’s will. If I only lived another few years …
Baba was very fond of me more than anyone else. When we used to be messing around as young girls in the Hedge Field … Wouldn’t you think she could put up a cross over me just as Nora Johnny’s brother did for Nora …
—… Does anyone know is this war “The War of the Two Foreigners”? …
—It’s only when you are expecting some real peace and quiet that these chattering gossips really get going. Isn’t what they say up above a real joke: “She’s at home now. She can rest in peace now, and can forget all the troubles of life in the cemetery clay” … Peace! Peace! Peace! …
—… If you elect me I promise you I’ll burst my gut as good as any man—I mean any woman—for culture’s sake, and for the sake of enlightened and progressive public opinion …
—Margaret! Margaret! Hey Margaret! … Did you hear what Nora Johnny just said? … “If you elect me” … I’m going to burst! I swear I’m going to burst! …
—… “Fireside Tom was dying to get ma-arried,
As he always wa-as when pla-astered drunk …”
—… It’s really hilarious, isn’t it Dotie? … Everyone calls him Fireside Tom … He lives in a hole of a dump of a place up on the top of the town land. He never married. He has no living relations—not in Ireland anyhow—except for Caitriona and Nell Paudeen. I couldn’t really tell you, unless I was to give you a very short answer, what exact relation he is to Nell and Caitriona, and not because I haven’t heard it often enough …
We were first cousins once removed, Margaret. Young Paudeen, Caitriona’s father, and Fireside Tom were cousins …
—… “I’ve a small bit of land and a nice little shack …”
—Fireside Tom’s bit of land is rubbing up beside Nell’s, and there’s a lot more gab about hers than Caitriona’s, because hers is farther away, and she has plenty of it anyway …
—… “And I know two who can pay my rent …”
—Caitriona was always crawling her way up to Fireside Tom’s place trying to coax him down to her own, not entirely because of his land, but just to spite Nell …
—But hang on, Margaret, wasn’t she driving Paddy totally nuts …
—If he was up to his balls in work she’d be bugging him to go on and help Fireside Tom, anyway …
—Paddy Caitriona is a decent guy …
—A great neighbour, to tell the truth …
—He never had his eye on Fireside Tom’s land …
—He never felt much like toddling up to help him, but just for the sake of peace …
—… “And Nell is gre-eat at digging di-itches …”
—I rarely got so much fun out of anything, I’d say …
—I’d say you never got as much fun out of anything, true …
—But you didn’t see the half of it …
—I saw enough …
—If you were in the same town land …
—I was near enough to them. What I didn’t see, I heard. Wasn’t the whole country talking about them? …
—There wasn’t a single soul in the whole town land that wasn’t weak with the laughter from morning to night. You wouldn’t believe half of it, even if I told you …
—Of course, I’d believe it. Nearly every Friday when we drew the pension myself and Fireside Tom would toddle into Peter’s Pub for a couple of scoops, and he’d go through it all backwards and forwards …
—Careful now. Do you know that Caitriona Paudeen’s buried here a little while—in the Fifteen Shilling Place. Maybe she’d hear you …
—Let her for all I care. And everyone else in the Fifteen Shilling Place also, if they want to. Yea, like, I’m really worried about them. Themselves and their airs and graces. You’d think we were only muck and garbage …
—All the same I wouldn’t want Caitriona to hear me. I was in the same spot as her all her life, and she was a good neighbour, except that she seriously had it in for her sister Nell. Fireside Tom was the only one who really gained in any way from all the spite …
—He often told me that when we were having the few scoops …
—You’d see Caitriona heading out in the morning driving the cows to the top of the fields. She’d deliberately take the long way round home in order to go by Thomas’s hovel:
“How’s the form today, Tom? … I see those two turf creels you have there are on their last legs. Do you know what, I think I have two of them sitting at home somewhere, and they’re not needed at all as Patrick was out weaving baskets only the other day, and he made himself two new ones …”
Tom would get the baskets.
Caitriona would hardly have vanished over the brow of the meadow when Nell would be down quicker than shit through a goose:
“How’s the form today, Tom? … Do you know, I think that those trousers of yours aren’t that good. They could do with a few patches … But I don’t know if they’d be worth it. They’re totally in shreds. As it happens, we have a pair at home and they’re as good as new for all the wear they got. They were made for Jack, but the legs were too thin, and he didn’t wear them twice …”
Tom would get the trousers.
—Didn’t he tell me as much? …
—Another day then Caitriona would be there again:
“How’s the form today, Tom? … Didn’t I just notice that the fences on the field over there are completely flattened … The donkeys in this town land are a terrible curse, Tom. God’s honest truth. They’re a terrible curse when they’re not kept locked up in their own outhouse. Gut Bucket’s old donkey, and the one that Top of the Road has are bad enough, but the nastiest of all are the ones over there”—she meant Nell—“and she lets them run wild … Of course an elderly man like yourself can’t be expected to go around driving out donkeys. You have enough to be thinking about. I’ll have to tell Pat that the fences are down …”
The fences would be repaired for Fireside Tom …
—But of course, didn’t he tell me himself …
—Nell would pop down:
“How’s the form today, Tom … There’s nothing done in this field, God bless you. Nothing sown, only in a tiny little corner. You only have about a fortnight more. But it’s hard to do a decent stroke of work if you’re all on your own. It’s a bit late for sowing spuds now. Isn’t the best of May over and done with already! … It’s a disgrace that that other crowd”—meaning Caitriona’s family—“wouldn’t give you a day’s help, and they’re already finished a fortnight ago … I’ll have to tell Peter to drop around tomorrow. Nothing better would suit the two of us for the rest of our lives, Tom, but to be on both sides of the fire together …”
The field of potatoes would be dug for Fireside Tom …
—What makes you think he didn’t tell me that often enough? …
—Nobody would really have the least clue that was going on after that, apart from those from the same place … Caitriona was always trying nonstop to rope him in and to have him all to herself, alone. But listen to me now, by the burnt balls of the morning! I’m telling you that Tom was no slouch, despite the way everyone was trying to take him for a ride …
—Do you actually think that I don’t know this? …
—Nobody would really know anything, apart from the closest neighbours … Tom was as fond of that wreck of a hovel as a king would be of his palace. If he hooked up with one sister, then sure as hell, the other would disown him. And neither of them would have the least time for him if he let go of his grubby patch of land. But he didn’t. Fireside Tom was a class of a cute hoor and certainly didn’t come down in the last shower.
—Do you think I hadn’t a clue about all of this already? …
—No, you hadn’t a clue, no more than anyone else who were not their neighbours … But it was when he got really stocious—on a fair day, or a Friday, or whatever—that’s when we heard the real fun. That’s when he got horny to get married.
—For the love of God, do you think that I didn’t often see him scuttered in Peter’s Pub? …
—I saw him there once, and to tell you the truth, he was a howl. That’s not more than five years ago: the year just before I died:
“I’m up for it to get married,” he said. “I have a nice patch of land, a pension of half a guinea, and I’m as fit as a spring chicken. I swear to Jaysus, I’ll get married. I’m telling you truthfully, I’ll get married yet … Give me that bottle of whisky, Peter”—Peter was alive then—“only the best now. I swear to Jaysus I’m off on the hunt.”
—I remember that day really well. That’s when I twisted my ankle …
—Just then Caitriona’s in the door and whispering in his ear:
“Come on away home with me now, Tom, and our Patrick will go out looking for a woman for you, but just put your heads together about it …”
Then Nell comes in and starts whispering in his other ear. “Come on away home with me, Tom my darling. I have a strip of steak and some whisky. As soon as you’ve had a bite to eat Peter will be off looking for a woman for you …”
Tom hightailed it off to Nora Johnny’s joint in Gort Ribbuck. “Despite the fact that she’s a widow,” he says to Nell and to Caitriona, “I’m telling you truthfully, there’re no flies on her. She’s young in spirit. Her daughter, the one married to your son Paddy, Caitriona, she’s hardly thirty-two or thirty-three. No doubt about it, the daughter is a fine strapping young one as far as I’m concerned …” He said that, no lie. Did you know that? …
—It’s ridiculous that you think I didn’t know …
—How would you have the least clue, as you’re not in the same place as they are? … It was just as well for them that Tom only had a kip of a dive or they’d be totally ruined, no other house under God’s sky got thatched more often. Paddy Caitriona covered the north side from end to end one year. He was an excellent thatcher. He slapped some straw on it. Not the worst of it either. That lovely roof never would have to be covered for another fourteen or fifteen years. The following year Nell’s Peter comes along with his hammer and his mallet. Up he goes on the north side. What do you think he did to the roof that Paddy had put up just a year before? He gutted it all out from the roots and chucked it down on to the road. May I not leave this spot if I am telling you a word of a lie. There wasn’t as much as a pick of Pat’s thatch from end to end that he didn’t yank out from the roots.
“That wouldn’t have been long dripping down on you, Tom,” he said. I swear by all that’s holy that I was listening to him! “The cover that went on last year was totally useless. I’m only surprised that it stopped any drop coming down. Half of it was only that soft heathery stuff. All the signs on it, anyway. Jaysus, he didn’t cause himself too much hassle gathering it up, always avoiding anything that might cause a bit of effort. If you want to gather that stuff you have to go out into the deep sodden sedgy slobber and get your feet wet. Look at what I have, from out there in the middle of Aska Roe …”
He did the two sides of the house, but even so, ’twas a bit of a botched job. Actually, a really botched job! It didn’t even last three years. It was a real pain …
—You’d think the way you’re talking you didn’t know that I knew all this …
—Nobody would have a clue about it, except those in the same place, neighbours …
Another time I saw the two of them at the house at the same time: Paddy Caitriona and Peter Nell. Paddy was up on the north side with his ladder, his mallet and his strip of straw. Peter on the south of the house, with his ladder, his mallet, and his own strip of straw. You never saw work like it in your whole life: they were really at it. Fireside Tom lounging on his butt on the big boulder at the east end, puffing away at his pipe, and talking to the two of them at the same time. He was in exactly the right spot between the two ends of the house. I came along. I sat down on the boulder beside Tom. You couldn’t hear yourself think because of the banging of the two mallets.
“Why don’t you,” says I, “why doesn’t one of you drop the thatching for a while and help the other, as Tom isn’t helping either of you. Either that, or why don’t you take turns helping and thatching …”
“Shut your mouth,” Tom said. “Can’t you see that they’re flying ahead one as good as the other now, God bless them! They’re brilliant thatchers. I reckon that neither one of them is a hair’s breadth or a nail shaving better than the other …”
—Easy to tell that you don’t know that I realise all about it …
—But you don’t know, you haven’t the least clue …
—… “Nell knows all about building fences,
And Cathy’s an expert on thatch and felt …”
—… “Fireside Tom was smirking broadly
At Cathy Paudeen who paid the rent …”
—No, she wasn’t! I wasn’t! It’s not true, Margaret! Oh, Margaret! I’m going to burst! I’m going to burst! …
—… The Grave Ghoul! He is as big an eejit as you ever saw …
—It’s a total disgrace, Caitriona, if he has the map, that he couldn’t tell one grave from another …
—God help you and your stupid map! His stupid map makes as much sense as Eddie East Boss dividing up the land with a tongs, when they were divvying it up in strips long ago …
—For all that, Caitriona, I kept that stretch at the top of the fields despite your best efforts, seeing as there wasn’t one of you who didn’t want it. You couldn’t do better than it to fatten up the cattle …
—Ho! Do you hear the cricket chirping again? …
—It’s a disgrace, Caitriona, if the corpses are being put in the wrong graves that someone wouldn’t charge him with treason: let the Government know, or at least tell the priest, or the Foxy Policeman …
—Ara, God bless the Government! Some Government, since Griffith’s crowd were thrown out …
—You lied …
—You told a big black …
—Isn’t that just what Blotchy Brian said: they are being chucked into any old hole in the graveyard now, just as if they were fish guts or leftover limpets …
—Oh, the dirty fucker! …
—If you don’t have a proper cross on your grave now, and it well-marked, who knows what day it wouldn’t be opened up …
—I’ll have a cross on me shortly. A cross of the best Connemara marble just like Peter the Publican and Joan …
—A cross of Connemara marble, Caitriona …
—Wouldn’t they let them put up a wooden cross, Caitriona?
—They’d be dumped out on the road the following day …
—Isn’t that because of the people who make the other crosses? …
—Of course, what else? Everyone feathering his own nest. If you were allowed stick up wooden crosses or cement crosses, nobody would bother with their own. Everyone then could just make their own cross …
—I’d much prefer no cross at all than one made of wood or cement …
—True for you. I’d die of shame …
—It’s this Government’s fault. They get a tax on all the other crosses …
—You’re a liar. That was the law before this Government …
—It’s a terrible thing to dump one of your own down beside a stranger …
—The apple never falls far from the tree …
—That’s the Government for you …
—You’re a liar …
—I heard that they stuffed Tuney Mickle Tuney down on top of Tom the Tailor’s son last year …
—Oh, didn’t I up and kick off the murderer from on top of me! It was the other half of the treacherous Dog Eared mob who stabbed me …
—I was at Jude’s funeral, Jude from our own place, last year. She was shagged down on top of Donal Weaver from Clogher Savvy. They never knew they were digging the wrong grave until they hit the coffin. The dogs on the street know that it’s true, I was there, exactly there …
—Entirely true. Don’t we know you’re telling the truth. They dug four graves for the Poet, and in the end he was left down snug on top of Curran …
—The devil screw him! I’m driven demented with his trivial waffle. He can go and fuck himself as he didn’t stay alive long enough until they put a cross on me …
—The little scut …
—It wouldn’t matter only I had things on my mind, and I didn’t realise it was my big farm of land that your one at home gave to the eldest son …
—What do you think of Michael Kitty from Bally Donough being clapped in on top of Huckster Joan? Joan didn’t even have a cross that time …
—Ah, poor Joan …
—Poor Joan, you must have been totally in distress …
—I told her straight up to her puss without a word of a lie to leave me in the Half Guinea or the Fifteen Shilling place. The last thing I wanted was for that twit to be buried above me. She’d drive me into the next life with the stink of nettles …
—Didn’t they try to stuff someone in on top of you also, Kitty? …
—Some little wretch from Clogher Savvy that I never knew, nor knew anything about her family. By the oak of this coffin, I swear, I got rid of her with a flea in her ear. “I’m really in a bad way if I’m laid out with the beggars of Clogher Savvy in the cemetery clay,” I said …
—Honest. They had dug my grave also. Some old woman from Shanakill. “Ugh,” I said, “to put that rough diamond from Shanakill down in the same place as me! I wouldn’t mind if she had some culture! …”
—Hoora! Do you hear that slattern from Gort Ribbuck of the puddles throwing insults as Shanakill? Listen to me! I’m going to burst! …
—… Fell from a haystack …
—… God help us all! It’s a disaster they didn’t bring my bones east of the Fancy City … Sunset would not slink slidingly down there. Morning would not break like a strange gypsy woman wandering the byroads of hill and the cliff paths ashamed to face the first begging of the day. The moon itself would not have to shine on innumerable stocks of stone, and ribs of rock, and cursed coves when she chose to come to kiss me. The broad expanse of meadow would be spread before her in a multicoloured tapestry. Rain would not arrive suddenly like the sudden bullet of a sneaky sniper from a smudgy spot, but rather like unto the glorious and majestic appearance of a queen bringing laws and prosperity to her people …
—Dotie! Sentimentality!
—That girlish stupidity again …
—… Look at me, the murderer gave me a lousy bottle …
—… Went to the Plaza at seven … She comes along … That lovely smile again. Takes the chocolates. A film … There was a film in the Plaza—she had seen all the films in the town already. Go for a walk or go to a dance … She had been on her feet in the betting office all day … Tea … She had only just had one. The Western Hotel … Certainly, a short break would do her no harm …
“Wine,” I said to the waiter.
“Whiskey,” she said.
“Two double whiskeys,” I said …
“Two more double whiskeys,” I said …
“I have no more whiskey,” the waiter said. “Do you know how much whiskey you have already drunk since seven o’clock: twelve double whiskeys each! Whiskey is scarce …”
“Stout,” I said.
“Brandy,” she said.
“Two large brandies,” I said …
“Do you not realise,” said the waiter, “that it’s well past one o’clock, and even if this is The Western Hotel you still have to be careful. A police raid, maybe …”
“I’ll walk you home, as far as your door,” I said, just as the waiter was closing the door of the hotel after us.
“You walk me home to my door!” she said, “The way you are it looks more likely that I have to walk you home. Straighten up a bit or you’ll fall through that window. You can’t hold your drink, can you? I have my head together, despite the fact I have guzzled more brandy than you! You wouldn’t know I touched a drop … Watch that pole for chrissake … Walk straight. I’ll hold your arm, and I’ll take you as far as your door. Maybe we’d get another few scoops in Simon Halloran’s place on the way up. It’s an all-night joint, and never closes ’til morning …”
I managed to cadge a look at her in the dim street light. She had a broad smirk on her face. But when I stuck my hand in my pocket and emptied it out, I discovered I only had one shilling left.
—You airhead …
—… My God almighty, as you say yourself …
—… I’m telling you God’s honest truth, Peter the Publican. Caitriona Paudeen came in to see me. I remember it well. Sometime around November. That was the year when we really gave Garry Abbey’s field a proper going over. Mickle was spreading seaweed the same day. I was expecting the kids home from school any minute and I had just turned over the potatoes in the embers for them. Then I sat down in the corner mending the heel of a sock.
“God bless all her,” she said. “Same to you,” I said. “You’re very welcome Caitriona, sit yourself down.”
“I can’t really stay,” she said. “I have my work cut out getting ready for the priest. He’ll be in on top of me in about nine or ten days. There’s no point in me beating about the bush, Kitty. You sold the pigs at the last fair. Ours won’t be ready until St. Brigid’s Day, if God spares them … I know it’s a big favour to ask, Kitty, but I wonder could you loan me a pound until next St. Brigid’s Day fair, I would be really extremely grateful to you if you could give me that pound. I have to do something about the chimney, and I’ve decided to buy a round table for the priest’s breakfast. I have two pounds myself …”
“A round table, Caitriona?” I says. “But sure, nobody has a round table around here apart from rich people. Why wouldn’t he just eat from an Irish table just the same as every other priest we ever had?”
“The last time he was up with Nell,” she says, “she had a silver teapot that Blotchy Brian’s Maggie got in America. I’ll get a loan of a silver teapot from Huckster Joan, as I want to be every bit as good as her, and better as well. The uppity slut!”
I gave her the pound. She bought the round table. Things were cheap that time. She laid out the priest’s breakfast on it, and served tea in the silver teapot she got from Huckster Joan.
—By the oak of this coffin, I swear, Peter the Publican, that I gave Caitriona the pound, and I never saw one glimpse of it until the day I died, whatever Huckster Joan did with her teapot …
—You lied, you witch of the piddling potatoes. Don’t believe her, my dear Peter. I stuffed every brass farthing of it back into her fist when I sold the pigs at the next St. Brigid’s Day fair … What would you do with her? Your mother didn’t often tell the truth either … I died as pure as the crystal, thanks be to God … Let it never be said that Caitriona Paudeen went to her grave owing as much as a red cent to anybody. Not like you, stingy Kitty of the pissy piddling potatoes. Your family left a heap of debts stringing after them everywhere. Who are you to talk! You killed yourself and your family with your piddling pissy potatoes … Don’t believe her, Peter … Don’t believe her … I gave her every brass farthing into the palm of her hand …
I didn’t, you witch? … I didn’t, is that it? …
Hoora, Margaret! … Margaret… . Did you hear what Kitty said? I’ll burst! I’m going to burst! …