I am the Trumpet of the Graveyard. Hearken unto my voice to my voice. You must hearken to what I have to say …
For I am the voice that was, that is, and that ever will be. I was the first voice in the shapelessness of the universe. I am the last voice that will be heard in the scattering of the ultimate destruction. I was the gurgling voice in the first pregnancy in the first womb. When the corn is gathered in the barn, my voice will call the last harvester home from the Field of Time. For I am the son of the ancestor of Time and of Life and the governor of their household. I am the harvester, the stacker and the flail of Time. I am the keeper, the custodian and the key holder of Life. Listen to my voice! You have to listen …
There is neither time nor life in the Graveyard. Neither brightness nor darkness. There the sun does not go down, neither do floods roar, nor winds blow nor change bite. The day does not stretch out, nor are the Pleiades being hunted by Orion; neither does the living thing dress itself in the garb of Congratulations and Celebration. The glinting eyes of the child are not found there. Nor the simple blush of youth. Nor the rosy cheeks of the young girl. Nor the kind voice of the educated woman. Nor the innocent smile of the old person. Eyes, and blushes, and cheeks, and grins all get mashed into the one undifferentiated alembic mush of the clay. The flush of life does not have a voice there, nor does the voice have the flush of life, because there is neither flush nor life nor voice in the disinterested chemistry of the grave. There are only bones withering, flesh rotting and body parts that were once alive now putrefying. There is only this earthen cupboard and the tattered suit of life to be gnawed by moths …
But above the ground there is the light and lively lissom lap of air. The full tide is begotten with gusto in the pulse of the shore. The grass of the meadow is like unto that which had a vessel of fresh milk poured upon it. Every bush and clump and field is like a royal serving girl gently practising her curtsey before she came into the presence of the King. The bird gives voice to his soft melancholy music in the garden. The eyes of the children are magicked by the toys that fall out of the wondrous garden of innocence. The torch of the revival of hope appears in the cheeks of the courageous young. The foxgloves which could be picked in the meadows of eternity light up in the shy cheeks of the young girls. The singular flower of the bright bush blooms in the gentle face of the mother. The youngsters with their ringing laughter are playing hide and go seek in the barnyards, while their high-pitched joy seeks to reach the summit of Jacob’s ladder and return by it from Paradise. And the muttering murmur of lovers seeps out from the corners of the backroads like the waiflike whinnying of the wind through flower beds of cowslips in the land of youth.
But the shake of the old man is taking its toll. The young man’s bones are stiffening. The grey wisps are blending with the gold in the hair of the woman. A paleness like of serpent’s slime is invading the clarity of the child’s eye. Questions and querulousness nibble at joy and the carefree spirit. Weakness is beginning to banish strength. Despair is overwhelming love. The shroud is being woven by the baby blanket, and the grave is being prepared instead of the cradle. Life is paying its dues to death …
I am the Trumpet of the Graveyard. Hearken unto my voice! You must hearken to what I have to say …
—… Hoora! Who is that? Who are you? Are you my son’s wife? Didn’t I tell you she’d be here at her next birth? …
—John Willy, no less—unless they have to christen me again in this dive—that’s what they called me in the place I came from. The heart …
—John Willy. Oh my God. They’re putting you down in the wrong grave, Johnny. This is Caitriona Paudeen’s grave …
—Isn’t that how it is in this graveyard, my dear Caitriona. But, I can’t talk to the living. There’s something at me. My heart …
—What kind of funeral did I have, John Willy?
—Funeral? The heart, Caitriona! The heart! I was going to get the pension. I didn’t hear a whisper. I drank a sup of tea. I toddled down to the Common Field to get a basket of potatoes. When I was letting them down when I got home the strap ripped and it came down arseways. It gave me a jolt in my side. I was left completely breathless …
—What kind of funeral did I have, is what I’m asking?
—The heart, may God help us! The heart was weak, Caitriona. I had a dodgy heart …
—Fuck you and your heart! You have to forget about that shite here …
—I know but the heart is a poor thing Caitriona. We were making a new pen for the colt that we bought just after Christmas. We were nearly finished except for the last bit. I myself wasn’t able to give that much help to the youngfella, but nonetheless, he’d appreciate it. You wouldn’t give a damn, only the weather was great for the last while …
—Weather! Last while! They’re two things you won’t have to worry about here, John Willy. You were always a bit of a lazy layabout. Tell me this much! Why are you not taking a blind bit of notice of me? Did I have a big funeral? …
—A fine big funeral!
—A fine big funeral, John Willy, did you say? …
—A fine big funeral. The heart …
—Listen, get stuffed and forget your heart unless it was going to do you some good. Do you hear me? You have to give up that old guff. Nobody will listen to that kind of crap here. How was my altar?
—A fine big funeral …
—I know that, but what about the altar? …
—A fine big altar …
—What altar, I’m asking. Don’t be such a dour puss all the time. What altar?
—Peter the Publican had a big altar, and Huckster Joan, and Maggie Frances, and Kitty …
Don’t I know it! And that’s what I’m asking you. Wasn’t I aboveground myself that time? But what altar did I have, me, Caitriona Paudeen? Altar! Seventeen pounds, or sixteen pounds, or fourteen pounds? …
—Ten pounds twelve.
—Ten pounds! Ten pounds! Now Johnny, are you certain it was ten pounds, not eleven pounds, or twelve pounds, or …
—Ten pounds, Caitriona! Ten pounds! A fine big altar, by God. Not a word of a lie, it was a fine big altar. Everyone said it was. I was talking to your sister Nell: “Caitriona had a fine big altar,” she says. “I never thought she’d come as much as two or three pounds close to it, or four either.” The heart …
—Bugger and blast your heart! Give it over, Johnny, for chrissake! … Were the Hillbillies there? …
—I’m telling you, that’s what she said: “I never thought she’d come as much as two or three …”
—The Hillbillies weren’t there?
—The Hillbillies! They heard nothing about it. Paddy was to tell them about it: “Ara,” Nell says, “why would you be dragging them making them walk all the way down here, the poor creatures.” I swear that’s what she said. The heart. A dicey heart …
—Isn’t it a terrible pity that your heart wasn’t a poison lump stuck in Nell’s gob! Were the Glen Booley crowd there? …
—Not as much as a toe of them.
—The people from Derry Lough?
—Huckster Joan’s cousin was being brought to the church the other day … You wouldn’t mind only we have that weather now for quite a while, and we were working away on the pen …
—Chalky Steven wasn’t there, then? …
—We bought a foal after Christmas …
—May God be good to you, Johnny, but don’t let the people buried here think you haven’t a smidgen of sense more than that! … Was Chalky Steven there or not?
—Not a bit of him, but Paddy said he was talking to him on the fair day, and he said to him: “Most certainly, Paddy Lydon,” he said, “I would have burst my gut to go to the funeral. I wouldn’t let it be said …”
—“‘That I didn’t go to Caitriona Paudeen’s funeral, even if I had to crawl there on my two knees. But I never heard a hint of it until the night she was buried. A foal with …’”
Chalky Steven, he’s a total crap artist! … What was my coffin like?
—Ten pounds, Caitriona. A fine big altar.
—Are you gabbling on about the coffin or the altar? Why don’t you just listen! … What price was my coffin? A coffin of …
—The very best coffin from Tim’s place, three half-barrels of stout, and poteen flowing. Twice as much booze as was needed. Nell said that to him, but there was no talking to him, he had to have the three half-barrels. We were swimming in the stuff. Even if I was the oldfella there, I drank twelve mugs of it that night, not to mention the amount I had the night you were brought to the church, and the day of the funeral. To tell you the whole truth, Caitriona, despite all the respect and affection I have for you, there’s no way I would have drunk all that much if I knew that the heart was a bit dicey …
—You didn’t hear that Patrick said anything about burying me somewhere else in the cemetery?
—I got a little dart in my side, and it clean took my breath away. It was the heart, God help me …
—You can keep that to yourself, Johnny. Listen to me. You didn’t hear that Patrick said anything about burying me …
—You’d have been buried anyway, Caitriona, it didn’t matter how much was drunk. Even if I was the one with the dicey heart …
—You are the most useless codger ever since Adam took a bite out of the apple. Did you or did you not hear that Patrick said anything at all about me being buried somewhere else in the cemetery?
—Paddy was going to bury you in the Pound Place, but Nell said that the Fifteen Shilling Place was good enough for anyone, and that it was a real pity for a poor person to go into debt.
—The harridan! She would say that, wouldn’t she! She was in the house, then?
—A fine handsome foal we bought after Christmas. Ten pounds …
—Did you pay ten pounds for the foal? You already said that ten pounds was paid for my altar …
—Your altar got ten pounds certainly, Caitriona. Ten pounds, twelve shillings. That was it exactly. Blotchy Brian turned up just as the funeral was turning at the top of the road, and he was trying to give Paddy a shilling, but he wouldn’t take it. That would have been ten pounds thirteen, if he had taken it …
—He was trying to stuff it down his craw. Blotchy Brian! If the ugly old duffer was looking for a woman, he wouldn’t be so slow … But listen to me, John Willy, listen to me … Good man! Was Nell at the house?
—She didn’t leave it from the time you died until the time you went to the church. She was serving the women in the house the day of the funeral. I went into the back room to fill a few pipes of tobacco for the shower from Gort Ribbuck, they were far too wary to come in from the road. Myself and Nell started to talk:
“Caitriona’s a lovely corpse, may God have mercy on her soul,” I says myself. “And you laid her out so beautifully …”
Nell shoved me into the corner out of the way: “I don’t really want to say anything,” she said. “After all, she was my sister …”
I swear, that’s what she said.
—But what did she say? Spit it out …
—When I was lowering it down going through the town, I got a little dart in my side. Took my breath away, didn’t have a puff left. Not even a puff! The heart …
—Sweet Jesus help us! Yourself and Nell were ensconced in the corner and she said something like: “I wouldn’t really like to say anything, John Willy. After all, she was my sister …”
—I swear that’s what she said. May I never leave this place if that is not what she said: “Caitriona was some whore of a worker,” she said, “but she wasn’t really as clean, may God have mercy on her soul, as everybody else. If she was, she would have been laid out beautifully. Just see how dirty this shroud now is, Johnny. Look at the smudges on it. Aren’t they a disgrace. Wouldn’t you think she could have had her laying out clothes scrubbed and ready, and set aside. If she had been laid up for a long time, I wouldn’t mind. Everyone is noticing those splotches on the shroud. Cleanliness is very important, Johnny …”
—Glory be to God! Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I left them as clean as crystal in the corner of the coffin. My daughter-in-law or the boys mucked it up. Or the gang who laid me out. Who laid me out anyway, Johnny?
—Nora Johnny’s one and Nell. They looked for Little Kitty, but she wouldn’t come … The heart, God help us all …
—Some heart! Wasn’t it her back that was bugging her? Do you think, just because your own heart was fucked, that everyone else’s heart was fucked too? Why in God’s name could Little Kitty not come? …
—Paddy sent his eldest daughter to get her. I can’t remember what her name is. I should remember, I should. But I went too fast. The heart …
—She’s called Maureen.
—That’s it. Maureen. Maureen certainly …
—Patrick sent Maureen to get Little Kitty, is that it? And what did she say? …
—“I won’t go next nor near that town land ever again,” she said. “I’m done with it. The journey is far too long now, considering my heart …”
—It wasn’t her heart, it was her back I’m telling you. Who keened me?
—The pen was ready apart from the roof. Even if I wasn’t able to give much help to the youngfella …
—You won’t be able to give him that much anyway from now on … But listen now Johnny. Good man! Who keened me? …
—Everyone said it was a great pity that Biddy Sarah didn’t come, because when she got her gut full of porter …
—Holy cow! Shag that for a game of soldiers! Why the fuck was Biddy Sarah not there to keen me?
—The heart.
—The heart! Why was it the heart? The kidneys, it was Biddy Sarah’s kidneys were bollixed, like my own. Why didn’t she come? …
—When somebody went looking for her she said: “No way, not across the sludge. I keened my eyes out for them, and what do they think of me? I’ll tell you: ‘Biddy Sarah is always on the bum. On the bum scrounging for something to drink. I swear you won’t hear a bleep or a squeal out of her until she is stuffed up to the oxter. She’ll keen sweetly then like the choirs of hell.’ They can keen her away now, for all I care. I’ll keen who I choose from now on.” I swear, that’s what she said …
—A bitch down to her bum, that’s Biddy Sarah. She’ll know all about it when she gets here … Was Nell cosying up to the priest at the funeral?
—The priest wasn’t there at all. He was off at a funeral for some cousin of Huckster Joan, as she was very near him. But he lit eight candles …
—There were never that many on any corpse before this, Johnny.
—Only that one of them went out, Caitriona. It was just smouldering …
—Smoulder my arse!
—And he said no end of prayers and he threw holy water five times on the coffin, something that was never seen before … Nell said that he was actually blessing the two corpses together, but I don’t really believe that …
—Ara, Johnny, and why would that be? God love him and give him health. That would just suit Nell down to the ground. How is her son, Peter? …
—Miserable enough. Miserable enough. The heart …
—Ara, get away out of that! Why are you blabbing on about his heart? Wasn’t it his hip that was bugging him. Or did it get him in the heart in the meantime? That would be even better …
—The hip, Caitriona, certainly. The hip. They say it will be in court in Dublin in the autumn. Everyone says it will be thrown out, and Nell won’t be left with as much as a tosser, nor Blotchy Brian’s one neither …
—So be it! With God’s help … What did you say about Fireside Tom?
—Just after I went to get the pension, I had a sup of tea, and I moseyed down to the Common Field …
—Don’t worry about it. You’ll never go there again with your spindly legs … Listen! Listen to me! Fireside Tom.
—Fireside Tom. Wheezing away. His hovel was about to cave in, no roof. Nell wasn’t long getting on to your Paddy:
“It’s a holy disgrace to leave that old man get soaked with rain,” she said. “If it wasn’t for what happened to my Peter …”
—But the poxy runt gave in to that cute hoor …
—He was busy, but he said he’d throw a few straws over the worst bits until he got a chance to do the whole lot … The heart …
—True for you. The heart. Patrick has a good heart. Too good … Did you hear anything about the cross they were to put over me?
—A fine new clean cross of the best Connemara marble, Caitriona …
—Recently?
—Recently, certainly …
—And my daughter-in-law? …
—My daughter-in-law? … My son isn’t married at all, Caitriona. I told him that when the colt’s pen was ready, that the best thing a fine strapping lad like him could do would be …
—To go to the doctor about his heart, Johnny, in case he took the weakness from you. My daughter-in-law? My son, Patrick. Nora Johnny’s One. Do you get it now? …
—Oh, I do. Nora Johnny’s One. A bit sick. The heart …
—You’re a filthy liar. It’s not her heart, just sick …
—Go away with yourself! I knew that much already. I thought she’d be throwing shapes to get into this place. She’ll be here at her next birth, certainly. Did you hear anything about Baba?
—Your crowd’s Baba, in America? She wrote to Paddy sympathising with him about your death. She sent him a fiver. She hasn’t made a will yet. He told me that the eldest one he has—what’s that her name is? I forget. I should remember it, but I went too quickly …
—Patrick’s eldest one. Maureen.
—That’s it, Maureen. There’s a shower of nuns down the country somewhere want to take her away and turn her into a schoolteacher, just as soon as she has enough learning …
—Maureen is going to be a schoolteacher! Good luck to her! She was always gawping at the books. That’ll be one up on Nell anyway …
—… The joint candidate we have in this Election …
—Jesus, come down from the cross! Don’t tell me, Caitriona, that there are elections here also. There was one above just the other day.
—How did our people vote …
—I got a little stitch in my side. The heart …
—He’s away with the fairies again. Shut up! How did our people vote? …
—Same as ever. What did you expect? Everyone in the town land voted exactly the same way as always, except for Nell’s family. Her whole crowd went over to this new gang …
—Bad luck to her, the strap! They would, wouldn’t they? She’d always stab you in the back …
—They say that this new gang promised her a new road up to the house … To hell with it anyway, there’s no flies on her anyway. She’s getting younger. I never saw her looking better in all my life than the day you were buried, Caitriona …
—You can go and fuck off, you old bags. No one of yours ever had a good word to say, ever … Shag off, this is not your grave anyway … The graveyard must be all over the bleedin’ gaff if they put you into the same grave as me. Shag off to the Half Guinea Place. That’s where you should be. Did you hear about the altar I had? Did you hear what the priest said about me? Your coffin never went beyond five pounds. You can go and fuck off. Yourself and your old heart. You have a cheek! … No one of your lot ever had a good word to say. Fuck off as fast as you can! …
… So I only had ten miserable pounds worth of an altar, despite the fact that I shitted bricks chasing every old skanger and scum bucket putting money on their altars. It’s not anybody’s time, dead or alive … And the Hillbillies didn’t come to my funeral … Or the shower from Glen Booley or Derry Lough … And Chalky Steven didn’t come, the gobshite. They’ll get their comeuppance someday. They’ll come here too …
What chance had any of them to come to my funeral when that old tramp Nell was worming her way into Patrick’s confidence, and she insisting that nobody should be told that I died. And there she was, laying me out, and dispensing and doling out drink at my funeral. She heard I wasn’t alive, she heard that much. The dead can do nothing at all about it …
Who would give a toss, only for Little Kitty and Biddy Sarah. They’ll get it rough yet. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if Nell put it in their heads and suggested they didn’t go near the house, one way or the other. She’d do it, the old bag! Any woman who’d say that I didn’t have my clothes properly laid out to be buried in … May not one other corpse come to the grave before her! …
But Baba sent a fiver to Patrick. He’s certainly worth that much. He’ll surely hook up now with that slag, Nora Johnny’s daughter. She won’t be able to say then that she is not responsible for my cross. But that’s not a bad sign either. Baba is writing to us … If I had only lived for another few years so that she, the wrinkly whore Nell, was buried before me …
That’s great news that Maureen is going to be a schoolteacher. That’ll really piss Nell off and Blotchy Brian’s Maggie: we’ll have a schoolteacher in our family, and they’ll have no schoolteacher at all in theirs. A schoolmistress makes a lot, I believe. I’ll have to ask the Old Master what did his wife get. Who knows, maybe Maureen might get a job as a schoolteacher in our own school, especially if the Old Master’s wife fecked off, or if anything happened to her? Then Nell would know all about it. Think about it, Maureen strutting up through the church every Sunday in her hat and gloves and parasol, her prayer book as big as a creel of turf tucked neatly under her oxter, strolling with the priest’s sister as far as the gallery, and playing the piano. Nell and Blotchy Brian’s Maggie would have been gobsmacked—if they were alive. Anyway, they say it’s the priest who fixes up the schoolmistresses. If that’s the case, I haven’t a clue what my best guess would be, as Nell is very friendly with him … And who knows what that’s about? Maybe he might be transferred soon, or he might even die …
And that wench of a wife of Patrick’s is still a bit sick … It’s a feckin’ wonder that she’s still alive. But, no doubt about it, she will be here at the next birth …
Isn’t it an awful pity I didn’t ask John Willy about the turf, and the planting, the pigs, the calves, and what’s up with the fox these days? It was the only thing that was bugging me, if the truth be told … But what chance has anyone saying anything to him while he was yapping away about his old heart? It should be easy to get a chance to talk to him in a while. He was stuffed down here right next to me …
—Patience, Coley, patience. Listen to me. I am a writer …
—Wait now, my good man, wait ’til I finish my story:
“… ‘Ho-row, the chancer!’ Fionn said. ‘There was no way that he was going to leave Niamh of the Golden Locks with his poor father, even if he was on his own every night since that fast thing Grania the daughter of Cormac Quinn eloped with Muckey More Dooley from the Wild Woods of the Fianna’ …”
—… The most awkward and cunning person I ever had to deal with about insurance, was the Old Master. I tried every trick in the book. I came at him from behind and from the front and from every angle. I sailed towards him on sunny seas and from the frozen wastes. From the eye of the storm and on the flat of the plain. I came at him in a pincers movement, encircled him, pummelled him, jabbed him and atom bombed him. I was a fawning dog, and a thief in the night. I filled him with the fleets of human charity and jeered him with the jibes of satire. I flooded him with invitations to the princess of Peter’s Pub. I fed him with cigarettes for sweet fanny all, and fobbed him off with rides in the car for nothing. I followed him with the sweetest gossip about the intentions of inspectors, and the latest news about the rows between the Master and the Schoolmistress from Barna Townee. I told him fancy stories about young women …
But it was completely useless. He thought if he bought an insurance policy from me it would be the worst thing he could do. Even as the head of a family he wouldn’t part with a bean …
—But I did …
—You did, and me too. Hang on a minute. He was the biggest miser in creation. He was so mean he could steal mice at a crossroads, as they say. He never splashed out except that one time when he went to London, the time the teachers got the raise …
—That’s when he was in the nightclub.
—That was it. He spent the rest of his life telling me all about it, and warning me never to open my big mouth. “If the priest or the Schoolmistress heard about it,” he’d say …
He married her: the Schoolmistress.
“Maybe,” I said to myself, “I might be able to find his weak spot now. The Schoolmistress would be a great help, if I could soft-soap her. And you can always soft-soap her …”
There isn’t a woman alive who doesn’t fancy herself, but she needs to be told. I didn’t spend years messing with insurance without learning that much.
—I know that much, too. It’s much easier to flog things to women than to men, only to have enough cop on …
—I had to give him a while until the novelty of being married wore off. But I couldn’t leave it too long, either, in case her influence began to wane, when her magic was fading away. Insurance people know all about that …
—I gave him three weeks … It was a Sunday. Himself and herself, the pair of them, were outside sitting on the front of the house just after dinner.
—“I’m coming to get you, you muppet,” I said, “I swear by my balls I’ll get you today! … You have your week’s work all laid out, and those notes you are always going on about, they’re all ready. You’re stuffed up to the gills, and if your wife is anyway pleasant at all, it’ll be easier to get you than ever …”
We chatted a bit about politics. I said I was in a bit of a hurry. “Sunday is the same as any other day to me,” I said, “always on the lookout ‘to see whom I can gobble up.’ Now that you’re married, Master, the Mistress should encourage you to take out a life insurance policy. You’re better off now than ever. You have a spouse to look after … My opinion is,” I said to his wife, “that he doesn’t really love you at all, that he’s only out to get what he wants from you, and if you weren’t around he’d be off chasing another straight away.”
The two of them laughed. “And,” I said, “as an insurance man I have to tell you that if he pops off, there is no provision made for you. Now, if there was ‘a gilt-edged guarantee’ like you there …”
She pulled a bit of a face. “That’s it,” she said to the Master, half serious and wholly in earnest, “if anything happened to you, we’d all be in a proper mess …”
“What could happen to me?” he said, grouchily.
“You know not the day nor the hour,” I said, “it’s the duty of an insurance man to say that kind of thing all the time.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Of course, I hope nothing would ever happen. God forbid that it would! If it did, I couldn’t live without you. We pray that nothing would ever happen, but if you died, and if I didn’t die at the same time … How would I be fixed then? You have a duty …”
And do you know what, he took out a life insurance policy! Fifteen hundred pounds worth. He had only paid up four or five instalments—big fat ones too. She made him take out another two hundred and fifty when he paid the last bit.
“He won’t last long,” she said jokingly, and winked at me.
True for her. He snuffed it soon after that …
I’ll tell you about another coup of mine. It wasn’t half as good as the one I put over on the Old Master.
You played the Old Master just as sharp as Nell Paudeen played Caitriona about Jack the Lad …
—Aboo boona, boona! I’m going to burst! I will burst! I’ll burst! Burst …
Hey, Margaret! Hey Margaret! … Do you hear me?
… They were dumping John Willy in on top of me, I swear they were, Margaret … May God help your head, Margaret! Why would I let him into the same grave as myself? I never collected periwinkles to hock. Didn’t he and his whole family live on periwinkles, and I’d soon tell him that. Even though I was only talking to him for a small bit, he nearly drove me nuts yacking on about his old heart … That’s true, too, Margaret. If they had the cross up over me, it would be much easier for them to recognise the grave. But it won’t be long now, Margaret. John Willy told me that much. A cross of the best Connemara marble just like Peter the Publican’s … My daughter-in-law, is it? John Willy told me she’d be here at her next birth, no doubt about it …
Do you remember, Margaret, do you remember our Patrick’s eldest girl? … That’s her. Maureen … That’s right. She’d be fourteen years old now … You got it there. She was only a little strip of a thing when you died. She’s in secondary school now. John Willy told me … she’s going to be a schoolteacher! What else! You don’t think, do you, Margaret, that they’d be sending her to secondary school to learn how to boil potatoes or to cook mackerel, or to make beds, or sweep the floor? That might be all right for that bag job of a mother she has, if any such school existed …
Maureen also took a fancy to school. She has a great head for learning, for a girl as young as that. She was far better than the Mistress—that is, the Old Master’s wife—before he himself died. There’s not one in the school who can hold a candle to her, John Willy tells me.
“She’s way beyond them all at learning,” he said. “She’ll be qualified a year before anyone else.”
I swear he said that, Margaret … Ah come on now, Margaret, there’s no need to be talking like that. It’s no surprise at all. Why do you say that it is a surprise? My family always had brains and intelligence to burn, not because I say so …
—… But that’s not what I asked you, Johnny.
—Ah, Master, it was my heart! My heart, for God’s sake! I was going for the pension. I didn’t hear a whisper … Now, come on, Master, no need to be so pissed off. I couldn’t help it. I was humping along with a basket of spuds. When I was letting them down … But, Master, I am telling you nothing now, apart from the whole truth. But, sure, I haven’t a clue, apart from what people say to me. There were other things on my mind. The basket came down skewways. It happened … What were people saying then, Master? But, of course, we couldn’t say anything, or even hear anything. We were making a new pen for the colt …
So, what were people saying then, Master? You know the way it is—somebody like you who has so much education, God bless you—there are bags of people out there who wouldn’t be alive if they couldn’t gossip. But then, someone with a dicey heart … Amn’t I telling you what they were saying, Master, but just back off and don’t be so crappy with me. It wouldn’t have mattered, but we had great weather when we were building the pen … It’s just people, the way they are, Master. They have a lot more on their minds apart from prayers. But the guy with the dicey heart, God help us! …
You were asking about the Mistress? I never saw her so beautiful, God bless her. She’s getting younger, no doubt about it. She must have a very healthy heart … Ah, sure, people used to be talking. That’s the way they are. I swear, myself and the youngfella were caught up with the pen … Ah, come on, don’t be so pissed off with me. Don’t you know, that everyone said that Billy the Postman wouldn’t leave that house of yours, no matter what.
It was a fine big colt, Master … What good is it for you to be pissed off with me? I couldn’t do anything about the lot of you. There was something bugging me, God help me … He’s often in the house, is that it? I’m telling you, that’s the way it is, Master. But you wouldn’t mind, only the school. He moseys into the school every day, gives the letters to the kids, and then, himself and the Mistress toddle off into the hall for a chat. Ara, God help your sense, Master! You haven’t a clue. There was something bugging me. I hadn’t a breath left. The heart …
—… But, Coley, Coley …
—Let me finish my story, my good man:
“‘There’s absolutely nobody who could instruct me in this case now,’ said Daniel O’Connell, ‘except one person only—Biddy Early—and she is seven hundred miles removed from here muttering charms for poteenmakers whose moonshine is being stolen by the fairies in a big town called Horse Bones in County Galway back in Ireland. Get ready and saddle up my best horse in the stable so that I will take her as a pillion rider behind me to London in England …’
“We went. ‘Miss Debonair,’ he said to her … ‘Why would any son of a bitch insult me like that? …’”
—… Ah come on now, Huckster Joan! Whoring after votes for Peter the Publican! And why wouldn’t you? Your son is married to his daughter aboveground. And even if they weren’t, yourself and Peter would be as thick as the greatest two thieves ever …
—That’s all the thanks I get. You’d have been dead long ago only I cut you some slack. Running in scrounging and begging every day: “For the love of God and Mary his mother, lend me a grain of meal or something until I can sell the pigs …”
—I paid dearly and sorely for that grain, Joan, you miserable shite! All I ever heard was: “Huckster Joan is a lovely person, kind and charitable. She trusts you.” Trust, yea, sure thing, because you knew, Joan, that you would be paid, and for every one person who didn’t pay you back there would be another hundred who would …
—That is precisely the same principle that obtains in insurance …
—I’d get a bag of grain for a pound, if I paid on the button. But if I waited for the fairday, or if I was a sharp shark, then sixty. If I couldn’t pay for another six or nine months, then seventy. You were kind and sweet and pleasant with the bigwig hard chaw. You were mean and stingy and tighter than a cow’s arse during fly season with the guy who didn’t have the ready penny. Thanks be to God that we don’t have to give a crap about you and that you can’t throw it up in our faces anymore …
—Listen, Joan, you sly bitch—a sly supporter of those who had money anyway—Joan, you sly bitch, you done for me eighty years before my time. Without fags … I saw you slipping them to the sergeant, a guy you had no dealings with, except in the Fancy City. I saw you giving them to a man in a lorry, you hadn’t a clue where he was from, and you didn’t get a penny’s profit from him. You had them down under the counter.
“Just one,” I says, “I could do with one now, and maybe there’ll be more tomorrow, the beginning of the month …”
“Where would I get fags?” you said. “You don’t think that I’m making them! …”
“If I was rich enough to give you four or five shillings for a box,” I said … “You can stuff them …”
I went home.
“You’d better spread out that sweep of seaweed you left behind on the field beyond,” my mother said.
“Seaweed,” I says, “I’m finished with the stuff, with seaweed, mother.”
I spat out a glob. It was as stiff as a hard-on. May I never leave here if I’m not telling the truth. There was a little kitten by the fireplace. He started slobbering up the snot. He started to choke with a cough. May I never leave here if he didn’t!
“That’s no way to be,” I says. I took to the bed. Never got up again. No fags. You killed me, you sly bitch—always arselicking people with money …
—And my death too. It was the clogs you sold me that finished me off, you old wretch. I gave you forty-five shillings straight up into your fist. It was in the depths of winter and we were hacking out the road to Bally Donough. I was hauling the barrow in the wet muck down below. Fuck that place anyway, and everything about it! That was the spot where I died. I put the clogs on my feet. They wouldn’t keep out a drop after two days …
I let down the barrow.
“What’s up with you?” says one of the guys.
“Everything,” I said. I sat down smack bang in the guts of the barrow, and I pulled my pants up from around my ankles. My ankle was as purple as Gut Bucket’s nose. I swear it was.
“What’s up with you?” the big boss asks when he comes along.
“Everything,” I says.
“Everything is right, I’m afraid,” he says.
“Huckster Joan’s clogs,” I say.
“Fuck them clogs, and everything to do with them!” he says. “If she lasts much longer I swear that I won’t have any salesman on the road who won’t be buried in the grave.”
I went home. Lay down on the bed. The doctor was called that night.
“You’ve had it,” he said. “The feet …”
“I’ve had it for sure,” I says, “The feet … the clogs …”
“Huckster Joan’s clogs, certainly,” he said. “If she survives, I won’t be alive …”
The priest was called the next morning.
“You’ve had it,” he said. “The feet …”
“Had it for sure,” I said. “The feet … clogs …”
“Huckster Joan’s clogs, certainly,” he said. “If she survives, I won’t be alive. But you’re a goner anyway …”
And by Jaysus he was right. I was on crutches a week from then. It was your clogs, Joan, you old wretch. You killed me …
You killed me too, Joan, you hag! Your coffee. Your piss-like coffee! Your jam, yes, your shitty jam, you hag you. Your coffee instead of tea: your jam instead of butter.
That was the fateful day for me—not that I could do anything about it—the day I left you my ration cards, you old cow:
“There’s no tea this week. I don’t know why they didn’t send me any.”
“So, no tea came so, Joan?”
“Not a bit.”
“So, nobody has any tea this week, is that it?”
“No, I swear to you. But you’ll get enough for a fortnight next week.”
“But you always say that, Joan, and we were never compensated for the weeks it never came … For the love of God almighty, just one pinch of tea, please, Joan. Just a smell of it … Just a nail shaving’s worth … I’m sick with the coffee …”
“Don’t you know that I can’t make tea. If you don’t like it, you can give your ration cards to somebody else …”
And Joan, you old wretch, you knew full well that I couldn’t. There you were hoarding the tea for those who could pay three times as much: the houses that took in learners of Irish, tourists, the big shots, and so on. I saw you with my own two eyes giving some to the priest’s girl, and you gave a quarter of a pound to the sergeant’s wife. You were hoping the priest wouldn’t denounce you from the altar for your underhand dealings, and were trying to bribe the sergeant from squealing on you in court …
I toddled off home with my coffee. The wife brewed some.
“I won’t drink a drop of it,” I said, “God bless you anyway …”
“You’ll have to have something soon,” she said. “You had nothing since yesterday morning.”
“So be it,” I said. I glugged up another lump of gunge. It was as tough as leather, if the graveyard permits me to say so. The dog started snuffling around me. Didn’t stay long. Fecked off and wasn’t seen for two days.
“The lining of my guts is not as it should be,” I said. “Wouldn’t I be better off dying straightaway? I’ll die if I drink that bilge of coffee, and I’ll die if I don’t drink it …”
And I did. I couldn’t speak a word now, only I spat it out in a sweat when I was laid out. It was your coffee killed me, Joan, you old wretch. You killed me …
—And you killed me!
—And me!
—And me!
—… I won’t vote for you, Peter. You allowed a dirty heretic to insult the church in your own premises. You were a bloodless watery wimp. If that had been me …
—You were a complete crook, Peter the Publican. You charged me four bits of coins for a half one of whiskey, and I was so innocent that I didn’t know what I should pay …
—Your wife would know all about it. She finished off lots of half ones in my place. But I suppose you never knew anything about that either, until now …
—You were a crook, Peter the Publican. You were watering down the whiskey …
—I was not.
—I’m telling you, you were. Myself and Fireside Tom went into you one Friday after drawing the pension. This was before the war. Whiskey was flowing like tap water everywhere. As soon as you knew that Tom was pissed, you started on at him about women:
“Isn’t it a crying shame that you wouldn’t get married, Tom,” you said, “a man like you with a nice bit of land …”
“You never said a truer word,” Tom says. “You may as well hand over the daughter now.”
“By cripes, she’s there alright, and I’m not keeping her from you …” you says … There was a time when, Peter. Don’t deny it …
Your daughter came into the pub as luck would have it. She took a crock of jam down from the shelf. Do you think I don’t remember it? …
“That’s neither here nor there now,” you says, “She can make up her own mind …”
“Will you marry me?” Tom says, pressing up against her.
“Why wouldn’t I, Tom?” she says. “You have a nice bit of land, and a half guinea pension …”
We were a little while riding away like that, but Tom was half joking, half in earnest. Your daughter was messing around and fiddling with the tie around his neck … I’m telling you Peter, that was the day. Don’t deny it …
Your daughter went down to the kitchen. Tom went after her, to light his pipe. She kept him down there. But she was back fast enough to get another shot of whiskey for him.
“That old bollocks will be pissed soon, and then we’ll have him,” she said.
You grabbed the glass from her. You half filled it with water from the jug. Then you put whiskey in on top of that … That was the day, Peter …
Do you think I didn’t see you do it? Oh, yes, I noticed right well the jiggery-pokery that you and your daughter were up to behind the counter. Do you think I didn’t hear you muttering. Your daughter kept plying Fireside Tom with a concoction of water and whiskey right through the day. And he paid the same amount for the water as he did for the whiskey, after all that … Your daughter spent the day teasing him. She even started calling for whiskey for herself, but it was only water all the time. He’d have been killed by a lorry on the way home, only that Nell Paudeen, Jack the Lad’s wife, came in to get him … That was the day, I’m telling you, Peter. No point in denying it. You were a robber …
You robbed me too, Peter the Publican. Your daughter lured me into the parlour, pretending that she had the hots for me. She plumped herself down on my lap. A shower of smart asses came in from the Fancy City, and they were ushered down to the parlour along with me, and this eejit was standing drinks for them all evening. The following day, she was up the same tricks. But there was no smart ass from the city there that day. Instead of that, she hauled a crowd of spongers in from the corner, and into the parlour, and this eejit had to call for drinks …
—Oh, I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …
—Until I hadn’t enough that would make a tinkle on a tin. That was part of your robbery, Peter: your daughter letting on that she fancied every dog’s body that you thought had a few bob, until they were milked dry …
—You robbed me too, Peter the Publican. I was home on holidays from England. I had sixty hard-earned pounds down in my pocket. Your daughter lured me into the parlour. She sat on my lap. Something was slipped into my drink. When I woke up from my stupor I had nothing at all in the whole wide world except two shillings and a few miserable half pennies …
—You robbed me also, Peter the Publican. I had thirty-six quid which I got for three lorries of turf that evening. I dropped into you to celebrate. At half ten or eleven I was on my own in the place. You held your ground. That was another part of your slyness: pretending that you never noticed anything. Went down to the parlour with your daughter. Plonked herself on my lap. Put her arms around me and gave me a big hug. Something went wrong with my drink. When I came to I only had the change from a pound I had before, and that was in my trouser pocket …
—You robbed me as well, Peter the Publican. No wonder your daughter had a big fat dowry when she married Huckster Joan’s son. I won’t be voting for you, I will in my mebs, Peter …
—I had intended conducting this Election properly on behalf of the Pound Party. But since you lot, the Fifteen Shilling Party have brought unsavoury personal issues into the contest—things I thought would never have been imputed except by the Half Guinea Party—I will disclose certain information about your own candidate, Nora Johnny. She was a friend of mine, Nora Johnny. Despite the fact that I am against her politically, that doesn’t mean that I don’t respect her and we can’t have a pleasant relationship. That is why I really hate having to say this. It eats into me. I despise it. It disgusts me. But you lot started stirring the shit, you Fifteen Shilling crowd. Don’t blame me if I hoisted you with your own petard. You can lie in the bed you made for yourselves. Yes, I was a publican aboveground. Nobody only a filthy liar could say that it wasn’t a respectable pub. You are very proud of your joint candidate. She was better than anybody in charm, generosity, and virtue, if what you say is true. But Nora Johnny was a drunk. Do you lot know that hardly a day passed but she wasn’t in the door to me–especially on a Friday, when Fireside Tom would be here—and she’d put away four or five pints of stout in the snug behind the shop?
—It’s not true! It’s not true!
—You’re lying, Peter, you are lying …
—You’re spouting rubbish! It’s not true! …
—It is true! Not only was she drinking, she was also on the bum. I often gave her drink on tic. But she rarely paid for it …
—She never touched a drop …
—It’s a brazen lie …
—It’s not true, Peter the Publican …
—It’s all true, my Fellow Corpses! Nora Johnny was drinking on the sly! Usually when she had no other business in any other shop in the village, she’d hop along the lane, sneak down past the trees, and in through the back door. And she’d come every day of the week, and after closing time at night, and before opening in the morning.
—It’s not true! It’s not true! Not true …
—Three cheers for Nora Johnny! …
—Three cheers for the Fifteen Shilling Party!
—Nora Johnny for ever! For ever! …
—Good health to you, Peter the Publican! Give it to her up the arse! O, my God Almighty! And I never knew that the bitch was a secret toper! What else would you expect from her? Hanging around with sailors …
—… The heart! The heart, God help us all! …
—… God save us all for ever! … My friends and my close relations might come, they might genuflect on my grave, warm hearts might catch fire with the explosion of light, sympathetic mouths might murmur prayers. The dead soil might reply to the live one, the dead heart might be warmed in the love of the live one, and the dead mouth might understand the pressing words of the living tongue …
Friendly hands may repair my grave, friendly hands may raise my monument and friendly voices may sing out my requiem hymn. Temple Brandon’s clay is the clay of my people! The sacred clay of my Zion …
But there isn’t a Kelly to be found in Gallagh, nor a Mannion in Menlo, or any one of the McGraths to be found anywhere, otherwise my heap of bones would not be left rotting in the unwelcoming clay of granite, in the unfriendly clay of hill and harbour, in the ungenerous clay of rock and rubble, in the unfertile clay of bindweed and seaweed, in the unconformable clay of my Babylon …
—She gets very bad when the madness hits her …
—Hang on there now, you, wait ’til I finish my story …
—“The speckled hen started croaking along the street as loud as her voice would carry: ‘I laid an egg! I laid an egg! Fresh hot on the dung heap …’ ‘Go away out of that, and don’t bother us with your scutty little egg,’ clucked one tough old hen who was listening. ‘I’ve had nine generations, four clutches, six second clutches, sixty stolen eggs, and a hundred and one shell-less eggs since the first day I started crowing on the dung heap. I was done five hundred and forty six times …’”
—It’s a real shame that I wasn’t there, Peter! You shouldn’t let any dirty heretic insult your religion …
—I drank forty-two pints one after the other. You know that much, Peter the Publican …
—I’m telling you, there were no flies on Fireside Tom …
—Are you trying to tell me I don’t know that …
—You have your glue with your rubbishy romancing. And I hadn’t a clue at this time that your one wouldn’t gift the fat land to the eldest son and to the daughter of Tim Top of the Road …
—… “Big Martin John had a daughter …”
—… The murdering bastard gave me a bad bottle …
—O Holy God, as you’d say …
—I am the old man of the graveyard. Let me speak …
—Qu’est-ce qu’il veut dire: “let me speak? …”
—I was just putting my hand in my pocket and emptying it out …
—It was your clogs, Joan, you piece of crap …
—… O, Dotie, my darling, I am really worn out by this election. Quarrelling and quibbling all the time. Votes! Votes! Votes! Do you know, Dotie, that an election isn’t a bit as cultured as I thought it would be. Honest, I didn’t. The language is awful. And insulting. Honest! And full of lies. Honest! Did you hear what Peter the Publican was saying about me? That I used to drink four or five pints every day aboveground. Honest! Stout! If he had even said whiskey. But not stout! The most uncultured drink you could find. Agh! But you don’t really believe that I drank stout, Dotie. Agh! Stout, Dotie! It’s a lie! Dirty filthy yucky uncultured stout. It’s a lie, Dotie! What else. Honest Injun …
And that I got drinks on the never never … It’s a disgrace, Dotie. A disgrace. And that I was on the bum. Agh! All lies and rubbish, Dotie. Who would ever have thought it of Peter the Publican to say such things? I was well got with him, Dotie. There were cultured people in and out to see him … Throwing dirt, that’s what cultured people call it. The natural thug that’s hidden in the corners of our thuggishness—“the old man,” as Saint Paul calls him—he can be forgotten about during elections … I feel that my own culture is melting away since I took up with those plebs …
Fireside Tom, Dotie? Peter said that also. He said that there’d be no problem going to see him except when Fireside Tom would be there with him. It’s easily seen what he was trying to say about me … Honest, Dotie, I had no need to go after Fireside Tom. It was he who came after me. Honest. There are people, Dotie, who are destined to be romantic. Did you hear what Kinks said to Bliksin in The Purple Kiss? “Cupid made you, you sweety pie …”
There was never a time when men didn’t plague me and have the hots for me. When I was young in the Fancy City, as a widow in Gort Ribbuck, and now right here, I am involved in an affaire de coeur, as he calls it, with the Old Master. But there’s no harm in it: it’s Platonic, and cultured …
Dotie! The sentimentality! Forget the bright fields of the Fair Meadows. You should really get this in a way that you dumped every prejudice and preconceived notion out of your noggin. It is the first step on the road of culture, Dotie … I was a young widow, Dotie. I married young also. The romantic bug again, Dotie. Fireside Tom didn’t give a fiddler’s fuck for me when I was widowed:
“I’ll tell you one thing for nothing,” he’d say, “but I have a nice warm cottage. Not a truer word, and land to go with it. Cows and sheep. I’m still hale and hearty. But it’s hard for me to do everything: cattle, sowing, thatching. The place is going to ruin for want of a good woman … You’re a widow, Nora Johnny, and your son is settled in the house, what good is it for you to be in Gort Ribbuck now? By all that’s holy, marry me …”
“De grâce, Fireside Tom,” I’d say. But there was no point in saying “de grâce” to him, Dotie. He was following me everywhere like a lap dog. As Pips puts it in The Hot Kiss: “The pangs of unrequited love have no borders.”
He’d be stalking me and then crawling up to me in the village trying to cajole me in for a drink. Honest! “De grâce,” I’d say, “a drop of drink never passed my lips …”
Honest, never, Dotie … and the things he would sing to me about love, Dotie …
“I’ll marry you my Nora Johnny …
You’re my star of sunshine, my autumn sun,
My golden treasure ’til kingdom come …”
Honest, Dotie, he’d sing that. But I knew full well that it was only the fine summer of our romance that was talking, and I’d say:
“O moon, O small moon of Scotland, you will be heartbroken tonight, and tomorrow night, and for countless nights after that, strolling the lonesome sky beyond Glen Lay, seeking the loving haunt of Naoise and Deirdre, the lovers …”
He came over to Gort Ribbuck three weeks before I died with a bottle of whiskey. Honestly, he did. He was like a donkey in heat. I might even have encouraged him, Dotie, if it wasn’t for the pangs of unrequited love. It was then I said to him:
“The little moon of Scotland will never discover our loving haunt,” I said. “It is not written that Naoise and Deirdre will ever again encounter one another in a loving haunt, or taste the sweet joys of passion on the gentle rocks of Glen Lay of the lovers.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he said.
“The pangs of unrequited love,” I says. “Other people get what they want, but I and my true love are separated for ever. We will never have a lovers’ haunt except the lovers’ haunt of the graveyard. But we will live out the sweet joys of true passion there, for ever and ever …”
It nearly broke my heart to say that to him, Dotie. But it was God’s truth. Honest, God’s honest truth. Caitriona Paudeen came between me and my true love. Small bitchy things. She never wanted to see anybody else darken Fireside Tom’s door. She was looking for his land for herself. She didn’t leave one thing the sun shone on for him. Honest …
—You’re lying, you old hag! I never robbed nor swiped anything from Fireside Tom, or from anybody else. You thundering bitch! Secretly supping and deviously drinking in Peter the Publican’s snug. Drinking on the sly! … Drinking on the sly. Don’t believe her, Dotie! Don’t believe her! …
Hi Margaret! … Do you hear me Margaret! … Hey, Margaret! … Did you hear what the old shrew had to say about me? … I’m going to burst! I’m going to burst! I’m going to burst! …