I am the Trumpet of the Graveyard. Hearken to what I have to say! You must hearken unto my voice …
Here in the grave the spool is for ever spinning; turning the brightness dark, making the beautiful ugly, and imbricating the alluring golden ringlets of hair with a shading of scum, a wisp of mildew, a hint of rot, a sliver of slime, and a grey haunting of mizzle. The vespertine veil of indifference and forgetfulness is being woven from the golden filaments of the setting sun, from the silver web of moonlight, from the resplendent cloak of fame, and from the departing wafture of fugacious remembrance. For this weaver’s material is none other than the malleable and kneadful clay. His loom is the rickety rack on which he who attached his chariot to the most effulgent star in the firmament climbed with his dreams, or that other who snatched a bunch of the forbidden fruits from the dark of the dubious deep. This old masterweaver has webbed them all: the purr of passing ambition, the ostentation of transient beauty, the desires of unrequited dreams.
Aboveground everything is bedecked in the garments of everlasting youth. Every shower of rain creates a multitude of mushrooms miraculously in the grass. The opium flowers are like unto the dreams of the goddess of plenty laid upon meadow and field. The ear of corn is imbued with a tinge of yellow from the constant kisses of the sun. The somnolent susurrus of the waterfall sloshes silently through the lithe lips of the salmon. The elder wren is happy as he hops amongst the large leaves observing his young nestlings at their pecking play. The forager is going to sea with a tune on his lips bearing the effervescence of the elements, the tide, wind, and sun. The young woman is seeking the pearlescent purse of promise so that she may clothe herself with lustrous splendour, and wear the precious stones of serenity that her heart so desires as she floats upon the dew in the morning …
But some evil warlock has singed the green canopy of the trees with his accursed wand. The golden tresses of the rainbow have been clipped by the nip of the east wind. A tubercular tinge has crept into the crepuscular sky. Milk is indurating in the udders of the cow while she seeks shelter in the inglenook of the ditch. The voice of the young swain who tends the sheep on the hills is suffused with a sadness which cannot be silenced. The stack-maker is beating his arms as he comes down from his covered rick of corn, because bad boils of threatening terrors are gathering in the northern sky and a cackling cloud of grizzled geese are hurrying away to the south …
Since the living must pay its dues to the graveyard …
I am the Trumpet of the Graveyard. Hearken to what I have to say! You must hearken unto my voice, listen …
… Who are you? … What kind of an old cadaver are they trying to shove down on top of me at all? … My daughter-in-law, certainly, this time. Oh, no you’re not. You’re a man. You’re not one of the Lydons anyway. You’re a blondie. None of the Lydons were ever blondies. They were all black. Black as the sloe. Nor none of my own people either, apart from Nell, that old trollop of a tramp! …
You’re related to Paddy Lawrence. I should know you. Are you Paddy Lawrence’s second or third son? … The third one … Only nineteen years of age … Young enough to start on this caper, I’m telling you … You were three months failing … TB. That’s the real bitch. This graveyard is stuffed full of them …
You were going to go to England only this shit hit you … You said you were all packed up and ready to go … All the youth of Bally Donough went last week … And the ghouls from Gort Ribbuck! May they never come back! … That’s true, too true, my boy. You can make bags of money there …
You said you heard nothing about them putting a cross on me. Nobody’s saying nothing about it now … Not a whisper, even, you say … He brought it up when he was in visiting you. What did he say? … Don’t be ashamed to tell me, youngfella. You should know by now that I had no time at all for Blotchy Brian … All of Clogher Savvy have upped and awayed to England too. Sure, don’t you know, that that crowd were always just navvies and wage slaves … If you hadn’t got sick, you’d be there too … to earn money. It’s a bit late now to be going on about earning money … But what did Blotchy Brian say? Weren’t you always arselicking him anyway? … “That old bitch doesn’t deserve a cross,” he said. “Far from crosses they were reared. A man who couldn’t feed his own children—Patrick Caitriona—talking about putting up a cross of the best Connemara marble!” He said that! He still hates my guts …
You said that Blotchy Brian was up in Dublin. In Dublin! … That prick in Dublin! … He saw the guy stuck up on the top of the Pillar! It’s a pity he, and all that concrete didn’t fall down on top of his knob, the scum bucket! … There were great pints there, he said! I hope it chokes up his snotty nose! … Lashers of women in Dublin too. It’s a pity he didn’t go there years ago after I had to refuse him, twice. The Dublin women would really fancy his gammy leg and his hunched back … He saw the wild animals! There was no wilder or uglier animal than himself, not to put too fine a point in it! … And the judge praised him to the skies! … He must have been a really thick judge so! … “You are really a wonderful old gentleman to come all this way, considering your age, in order to assist the court,” he said. Oh, he must have been a really thick judge if he didn’t see that he was only there to help his daughter and her husband, the slob-faced skanger! …
You’d really think that a youngfella like you wouldn’t believe any of that old shite, and yet you’ll end up like John Willy and Breed Terry, if you live long enough. I was hoping for some news about the court, but you said that the crowd from Glen Booley had all taken off to England. Bad luck to them! The Glen Booley shower can go and fuck themselves as far as I am concerned! The bastards wouldn’t even come to my funeral …
For crying out loud! Nell got eight hundred pounds … Even though he was on the wrong side of the road. You’re sure of that? Maybe Nell, the cute hoor, added five or six hundred to it … It was in the paper! You can read it in the paper yourself. Six weeks ago … In The Galwegian. Don’t take a blind bit of notice of that paper … It was in The True News also, and in The Irelander? … And you say there’s nothing wrong with him … He’s thrown away the crutches altogether now … He’s doing all kinds of work … And three doctors swore black and blue that he wasn’t himself, and would never be himself again. O sweet Jesus! Truly he was a very thick judge. Did they tell him that he was on the wrong side of the road? The priest told him. What else so! …
She gave the priest fifty quid for a mass. She would too, the witch. Her son is fine and she has a pot of money … She gave him ten pounds to say a mass for me also! … She gave it straight to him and into his fist while Patrick was looking, is that it … The mass money that that cow would give would do me no good, I’m telling you …
The gang from Derry Lough went to England also five weeks ago. There! Tough shit for England that they had to put up with those gougers from Derry Lough … They wouldn’t come to a funeral to someone half as good as themselves … Hang on! Don’t vanish until you tell me some more! … Jack the Lad isn’t that well. You’d easily know it. St. John’s Gospel. He’ll be here now any day soon. Nell and Blotchy Brian’s daughter made up that potion for him. They’ll get insurance money from it …
They’re blasting a road in as far as Nell’s place! God help us all! I never thought they’d be able to hack a road into that ugly goddam awful place … This new crowd she voted for, they’ve got it in for her, is that what you’re saying. The little piss puss really knew who to vote for! … They’re chopping off a corner from our land! For Chrissake! That’s the field. The Laccard. We don’t have any other field next to the path up to Nell’s kip of a house … My own Patrick gave away a chunk of the Laccard! Aaagh! I knew as soon as I croaked that Patrick would be putty in the hands of that bitch … The priest came along to see what was going on … That’s all part of Nell’s sly shy shift shit … The priest himself, he laid out the boundaries … That was the same day that Nell gave him the money to say masses for me. My God Almighty, what was she thinking about, no flies on that one! That was her sneaky trick to get the road done. There was no other way to do it apart from taking chunks from our land, especially the Laccard … You’d think that Patrick was paid for the field? You have your glue! He shouldn’t have let her get away with it. Isn’t it a pity he didn’t live a few more years! … That’s what Blotchy Brian said: “Ah, come on, like, you don’t expect that Nell would pay for a pate bald baldy bollocks of a heap of stones that couldn’t ride one another? If Caitriona’s Paddy had the least ounce of sense he’d have built some kind of a crappy kip for her heap of bones over there … Up over on Laccard … And there’d be tons of stuff for headstones there too, no need at all for Connemara marble … John Willy and Breed Terry … to keep them away from the hedgehog …” Oh, the bitch! The nasty bitch! …
This is it again: “If I was only in England! Oh to be in England!” Did I stop you? … The whole shower from Kin Teer took off six weeks ago! I couldn’t give a tinker’s curse or an itinerant’s malediction where the sun goes down on anybody from Kin Teer. There’s a couple of babbling blabbers here for sure, and they add to the place …
Are you saying that you heard nothing about my sister Nell’s will? … Not a word … How could you with your itchy langer out trying to go to England? … That’s all you heard about Fireside Tom? … He’s still in his old shack … He drops in to us every time he’s heading down for the pension. A good man! That’s great news … He sometimes gives my daughter-in-law the pension book to get it for him! Good for him! … He’s not as sprightly as he was … Oh, you mean he also gets Nell and Blotchy Brian’s Maggie to get it too! Shag that! …
Little Kitty’s back is bad again, you say. I hope there’s no one else laid up who won’t be laid down before her in the cemetery clay! … Biddy Sarah is also very crocked. Another one of them. She wouldn’t come to keen me, the bloodsucking ghoul! …
You never gave a toss about anything except going to England … You’d go to England just because the gang from Shan Kyle went there two months ago! Anyone who copied the knackers from Shan Kyle never came to any good. My son’s wife, she’s still a bit sickly, all the time …
God be good to us! … She was fighting with Blotchy Brian’s daughter! … Fighting with her! … She went up to Nell’s house, straight in the door, and grabbed Blotchy Brian’s daughter by the scruff of the neck! You’re having me on! … Oh, so it wasn’t Little Kitty who said that Maureen’s college outfit was bought in Jack Chape’s. What was Breed Terry on about so, the whore? … Oh, it was Blotchy Brian’s daughter who said it first to Little Kitty! She always had the bad word. The bitch’s daughter! And my daughter-in-law scrawled her hair out, right in her own house … She flattened her on the ground! I never thought she had the guts, Toejam Nora’s daughter! …
She chucked Nell into the fire! Threw Nell into the fire! I love her! She’s brilliant! A good one! A good one! You’re sure she fucked Nell into the fire? … Nell then tried to defend Blotchy Brian’s daughter, and my son’s one threw her into the fire also! May God give her good health and happiness! She’s a good one! My life on you, ya good thing! That’s the first bit of good news that has raised my spirits in the cold rag hole of this earth.
They were beating the shit out of one another until Patrick went up and hauled his wife back home! God’s curse on him that he didn’t leave them at it! …
Ara, who knows but the gang from Tawney Lawr mightn’t be better off at home. A mob of mangy maggots! They won’t leave a crumb after them in England. But hey, my daughter-in-law and Blotchy Brian’s Maggie, they’ll be in court after this …
What, they won’t? What do you mean? If she went into the Bright City and persuaded Mannix the Counsellor that her good name had been ruined, she wouldn’t be long in putting a big hole in Nell’s money. Maybe ’twould cost her five or six hundred pounds …
Nell called in the priest to fix it up! She would, wouldn’t she … That’s what Patrick said about them: “Don’t take a blind bit of notice of women clawing and clattering one another,” he said. Nell got him to say that. She misses me, the withered old gummy crone! …
What’s that you said? That my daughter-in-law is very busy these days … She’s bursting her guts working since the fight … She’s never sick or slacking now! That’s a big change! And I was certain she’d be here any day now … Up at the crack of dawn, you say … Out in the fields and in the bogs … She’s raising piglets again! Good for her! They had three or four calves at the last fair! Good for them! Sound man, now you’re talking, I’m telling you … And you said you heard your mother say that the whole road was swarming with chickens! How many clutches do you think she had this year? … It’s not your fault, of course, that you know nothing about that …
Patrick is away on a hack now, you say. He’ll soon best Nell with her eight hundred pounds so. That judge hadn’t a clue from Adam. But if my daughter-in-law goes on the way she’s flying now, and when Maureen becomes a schoolteacher …
You’re right about that, youngfella! Patrick was robbed … What did he say? What’s that Blotchy Brian said? That Patrick would be better off, as he couldn’t pay his rent, he’d be better off giving a mortgage to someone else on a handful of land, on his handful of a wife, and take off to England to get some work … To call a fine holding like that a handful of land, the scum bucket! … “But it’s just as well that that old bat of a mother of his isn’t around to give him bad advice,” he said. The scum bag! The scum bag! The scum …
Where have you gone, youngfella? Where are you? … They’ve taken you away from me …
You don’t know, my good man, why the land in Connemara is so rough and barren …
—Patience, Coley! Patience. The time of the Ice Age …
—Ara, put a sock in it! The time of the Ice Age, for God’s sake! Nothing to do with it, it was the Curse of Cromwell. That time God banished the Devil down to hell, he nearly didn’t succeed. He tumbled from heaven down here. Himself and Michael the Archangel spent a whole summer wrestling it out. They tore the guts out of the land from the bottom up …
—You’re right there Coley. Caitriona showed me the mark of his hoof up there on Nell’s land …
—Shut your trap, you nasty grabber! …
—You’re insulting the faith. You’re a heretic …
—I’ve no idea how things would have ended up after their brawl, only the Devil’s shoes started to give way. Cromwell had made them. He was a cobbler over in London. His shoes fell off along the shoreline. One shoe broke into two pieces. They’re the three Aran islands out there since. But as the Fallen Angel was up the creek without his shoes, he forced Michael to retreat all the way to Skellig Michael. That’s an island there facing Carna. He roared and screamed at Cromwell to come and mend his shoes. I’ve no idea how things would have ended up after the struggle if his shoes had been mended …
Cromwell hightailed it to Connacht. The Irish hightailed it after him—not surprisingly—as they were always fighting against the Devil …
Michael confronted them, still running away from the Devil, five miles from Oughterard in a place they call Lawbawn’s Hole … “Stand, you knave,” he said, “and we’ll give it to you straight in the balls.” That’s the spot where he was banished to hell, at Sulpher Lake. That’s where the Sulpher River rises to flow through Oughterard. Sulpher is the correct name for the Devil in Old Irish, and Sulphera is his wife’s name …
With all the messing, didn’t Cromwell escape their clutches and took off to Aran, and he’s been there ever since. It was a holy place until then …
—But Coley, Coley, let me speak. I’m a writer …
—… Go and get stuffed, yourself and your Yellow Stars! …
—The way it is, as you say yourself, the very best sods were stolen from us …
—Who are you to talk about stealing, Tim Top of the Road, when you’d rob the egg from the stork, and the stork after that? I was cursed that my bog was right next to yours and I didn’t have a patch of land to dry my turf on except that bit right next to yours. You’d cosy your own cart or donkey up against your own rick, but you’d fill your own load from mine. Do you remember the morning I caught you at it. It was just at daybreak. I told you the night before that I was going to the market with some pigs. You said you were going to the market also …
And the day I caught your wife. I saw her heading off to the bog in the cold light of day. I knew there’d be nobody up there. They’d all be down at the shore at full tide. I was going to go there too, but I knew by the look of your one that she was up to no good, off for a bit of stealing …
I crawled up on my belly down around the back of Drum, then I shot up and saw her tightening the rope over the top of the load …
“However much the fox escapes, he’ll be caught in the end,” I said …
“I’ll get the law after you,” she said. “You have no business sneaking up on a woman on her own in a lonely place like this. I’ll swear it black and blue. You’ll be deported …”
—And you talking about stealing, Tim Top of the Road, you’d steal the honey from the hive. Selling every clump of your own turf. Not a bit of yours taken in since Hallowe’en, and yet a blazing fire in the kitchen, in the parlour, upstairs …
I was in visiting you one night. I recognised the turf I had cut in the bog myself the day before that.
“The way it is, as you say, there’s neither heart nor heat in any of that turf,” you said. “It should be a lot better … The very best sods were stolen from us …”
—And you talking about stealing, and you’d whip the sheet from a corpse. You stole the wrack that I had slaved for over from the Island.
“If we can’t pile this stuff on the bank either on our backs or with the horse,” I said to the wife, “I’d better put some string around the end of it, so we’ll know it’s ours. It’d be no bother for that shower at the top of the road to swipe it from the shore in the morning.”
“You’re not saying that they’d go as far as to rob the wrack,” the wife said.
“God grant you sense, woman,” I said. “If it was spread out there on your own ground, they’d swipe it, not to mention anything else.”
… The following morning I was coming down from the houses, and I bumped into your daughter at Glen Dyne, with a load of seaweed astride the donkey.
—Oh, that fast one my eldest is hanging around with.
—I recognised some of my own wrack immediately, even though some of the string had been removed from the end.
“You got that in Cala Colum,” I said.
“In Cala Lawr,” she said.
“No way,” I said, “you got it in Cala Colum. Seaweed never comes in to Cala Lawr from the Island with a south wind and a full tide. That’s my wrack. If you have any decency at all you’ll unload it and leave it to me …”
“I’ll get the law after you,” she said, “assaulting me on my own in a lonely place like this. I’ll swear it black and blue. You’ll be deported …”
—You stole my hammer. I spotted it when you were working on the back of the house …
—You stole my sickle …
—You stole the rope I left outside …
—You stole the thatching stick that I left stuck out in the barn after two rough days in Kill Unurba. I recognised my own two notches on every stick …
—If the truth be told, a fistful of my periwinkles were stolen too. I left them in a bag up at the top of the road.
“Come here ’til I tell you,” I said to the youngfella, “if we collect as much as this every week from now ’til next November, we’ll nearly have enough for a colt.”
There were seven big lumps of bags there. The next morning I went down to the periwinkle man. He looked at them. “This bag here is a couple of stone short,” he said.
He was right. It had been opened the night before and a couple of stone had been stolen from it.
The truth is always the best. I had some suspicion about Caitriona Paudeen …
—Holy moley! Abuboona! …
—I had, I’m telling you. She was nuts about periwinkles. I heard someone say that they were just the stuff for the heart. But I hadn’t a clue then that I had a dicey heart, God help us! But I got a catch in my …
—You old dolt head! Don’t believe him …
—Usen’t I see my old man, John Willy. The old gom, he drank tea morning, noon, and night. I never saw a brass farthing of his pension in the house, and I have no idea where he stashed it away. But there were buckets of tea that time, and he’d buy a pound and a half, or even two pounds, every Friday. Huckster Joan told me he’d often buy two and half pounds. “As long as it’s there, it’ll do,” he’d always say, the poor gom.
Caitriona always just happened to be hovering around when he was on his way home every Friday, and she’d haul him in. He was always gullible that way, the poor gom.
“You’ll have a sup of tea,” she’d say.
“By hokey, I will,” he’d say. “There’s two pounds of it there, and as long as it lasts, it’ll do.”
He’d tell me that up and down the town land. He was a bit simple like that, the poor gom.
The tea would be made. Made, and maybe twice. But he never brought more than half an ounce home to me. May God forbid that I would wrong him, Johnnie! …
“I’ve bought two pounds,” he’d always say. “I must have lost it. Would you see if there’s a hole in any of them pockets. Maybe I left some of it after me in Caitriona Paudeen’s place. I’ll get it the next day. And, sure, if I don’t what matter? As long as it lasts, it’ll do. When you’re with Caitriona a lot of tea gets drunk, fair play to her! …”
He was a bit simple like that, the poor gom …
—That’s another lie, you tool you! I never wasted myself feeding him with tea! He was over to me whenever the clock would chime, he was worn out with your spotty potatoes and your salty water, Breed Terry, the beggar. Don’t believe her …
—I want some peace! Give me some peace! Stop badmouthing me, Caitriona. I don’t deserve your bitchy effing and blinding! Peace! Peace! …
—I’ll tell you the truth, Breed Terry. We had set the Garry Abbey field the same year, and it was bursting with the best of potatoes. It was out towards the arse end of May. Myself and Micil were out on the bog every day keeping an eye on things for the previous fortnight. We were, and we would have been that day too, only Micil was bringing in some dried seaweed until dinnertime. He went into the barn after dinner to get a fist of hay to stuff into the donkey’s halter as he was going to be out in the bog the balance of the day.
“You’d never think, Kitty,” he said, “that so many of the old potatoes out in the barn would be gone. I would have said something only that the pigs had been sold two weeks ago.”
“I swear to God, Micil,” says I, “I haven’t been next nor near the barn for the last three weeks. There was no panic for me to be there. The kids brought in the spuds for the meal.”
“We should have put a lock on it,” he said, “since we started working on the bog. Anyone could sneak in there during the day when we’re not around and the kids are in school.”
“They could, of course, Micil, or even in the dead of night,” I said.
“It’s closing the stable door after the horse has bolted,” Micil said.
Out I go to the barn, Breed, by the new time. I examined the potatoes.
“By the holies, Micil,” I said when I came in. “It’s closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. There was a corner full of potatoes there a fortnight ago, but there’s a big hole in it now. I’m not sure if there’s even enough there to get us to the new potatoes. Would you have any hunch at all, Micil, who is knobbling them?”
“I’ll head out to the bog,” Micil said. “You slip up to the meadow at Ard Monare letting on you’re going to the bog just like every other day, then sneak down by the stony slop, and hide near the willow.”
I did that, Breed. I slid down behind the willow mending the heel of a sock and kept my eyes glued on the barn beyond. I was a long time there, and I think I was about to doze off when I heard the noise at the barn door. I jumped through the gap in a jiffy. She was there, Breed, and talk about humping potatoes on the hump of her back! …
“You may as well take them away and sell them to Huckster Joan just as you have sold your own all year,” I said. “You haven’t had a potato of your own to stuff in your mouth since May. That might be alright for one year, but this is what you’re up to every year.”
“I had to give them to Fireside Tom,” she said. “His own rotted.”
“Rotted! He never bothered his barney about them,” I said. “He didn’t mould them, or clean up the ground, or spit a splash of spray on them …”
“I’m begging you, and I’m even grovelling, Kitty, please, please don’t say a word about it,” she said, “and I’ll make it worth it. I don’t give a toss who’ll hear about it, once that piss puss Nell gets no wind of it.”
“OK, so, Caitriona,” I said, “I won’t breathe a word.”
And I swear by the oak of this coffin, Breed, I never said nothing to nobody …
—Listen to Kitty of the shitty puny potatoes, I always had tons of spuds of my own, thanks be to the Lord God Almighty …
—… Dotie! Dotie! She didn’t leave Fireside Tom with a tosser. I often met him down in the village.
“For fuck’s sake Nora, I haven’t a farthing that she hasn’t filched from me,” he’d say. Honest, that’s what he’d say.
I’d lend him the price of a couple of glasses of whiskey, Dotie. Honest. You’d really pity him, all on his ownio, and his tongue hanging out like shrivelled flowers in a pot …
What’s that they’re saying about me, Dotie? My own daughter was up to the same tricks? I learned about it here … She pulled a fast one on my son in Gort Ribbuck very shortly after I died. Himself and his wife were going to the fair in the Fancy City. My daughter offered to look after the house until they came back. She gathered up anything worthwhile and chucked it into the big press. She had the horse and trap all ready outside. She asked a couple of young bucks who were hanging around to load the press onto the trap. They hadn’t a bull’s notion about it. She gave them the price of a couple of pints.
“It’s my mother’s press,” she said. “She left it to me.” Honest, that’s what she said. She took it home. Honest, Dotie.
It was a really well-made press in the traditional way. As strong as iron. But beautiful also. Perfection and practicality all together, Dotie …
Who’d give a damn, except for what was in it was worth! Spoons and silver knives. A whole silver toilette that I had when I was in the Fancy City. Valuable books bound in calfskin leather. Sheets, blankets, sacking, blankets, winding wrappers … If Caitriona Paudeen had been able to look after them she wouldn’t have been laid out in dirty dank dishcloths …
Dead on, Dotie! Caitriona never shuts up prattling on about that press …
—Knives and silver spoons in Gort Ribbuck of the ducks! Oh, Holy Mary Mother of God! Don’t believe her! Don’t believe her! The so-and-so. The old sow! Hey, Margaret! Hi, Margaret! Did you hear what hairy Noreen said? … and John Willy … and Breed Terry … and Kitty … I’m about to burst! I’m going to burst …
—… A white-headed mare. She was a beauty …
—You had a young mare. We had a colt …
—A white-headed mare for sure. I bought her at St. Bartholomew’s Fair …
—We bought our colt just after Christmas …
—A white-headed mare. A ton and a half was no bother to her …
—Our young colt is a big strong one, God bless him. We were making a new pen for him …
—… “The Golden Apple” won, I’m telling you, a hundred to one.
—Galway won. They beat the lard out of Kerry.
—You’re totally off the wall just like that wanker who goes on and on about Kerry winning. Galway whipped them, I’m telling you …
—But there was no “Galway” running in the big race at three o’clock.
—There was no “Golden Apple” on the team that won the All-Ireland in 1941. Maybe you meant Cannon …
—… “Fi-ire-side Tom was there with his …”
—… There were seventeen houses in our town land and every single one of them voted for Eamon de Valera …
—Seventeen houses! And after all that, not one shot was fired at the Black and Tans in your place! Not as much as a bullet. Not a piss, nor a pellet, nor even one mangy bullet …
—Ah, come on, like, there was an ambush. The end of a dark night. They crocked Curran’s donkey from going into Curran’s field up his road.
—I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …
—… You’re one of Paddy Larry’s? … The third youngfella. You used to come to my school. You were a fine strapping youngfella. A head of blond hair. Brown eyes. Beautiful rosy cheeks. You were brilliant at handball … The Derry Lough gang gone to England …
The Schoolmistress is fine, brilliant, just great, that’s what you said. But Billy the Postman is down and out … very sick …
—That’s exactly what I said, Master. They say it’s rheumatism. They told him he’d have to give the letters to whoever or whoever would be best, and then he had to start distributing them to the houses himself …
—That’s the way he was, the chancer …
—He was caught out badly on the marsh. He was drowned to the skin. When he came home he took to the bed …
—Who gives a fuck! The chancer! The robber! The …
—He was always going on about taking off to England, Master, that’s before he was clobbered …
—Taking off to England! Taking off to England! … Spit it out. Don’t be afraid …
—Some people are saying, Master, that his health wasn’t that good since he got married …
—Oh, the robber! The swine-swiver! …
—She didn’t feel a bit like letting him go. When I was ready to pop off, she was talking to my father about it, and she said that if Billy went she’d drop down and die …
—The bog pig …
—She brought three doctors up from Dublin to look at him, Master …
—With my money! She never brought a doctor to see me, the whore … the twat twerp …
—De grâce, Master!
—… “Fireside Tom there, and he whoring to marry …”
—I had no intention of getting married. I’d have gone to England except that I took bad. The whole parishes of Derry Lough and Gort Ribbuck have gone …
—And Glen Booley and Derry Lough. I know just as well as you who have gone. But are any of the younger gang getting married? …
—There’s lots of talk about Fireside Tom getting married.
—They’ll still be talking about him, the nitwit. But who else? …
—The foxy cop with a nurse from the Fancy City. The Young Master also …
—Schoolteachers are really up for getting hooked. There must be another raise of pay in the offing.
—They don’t have it easy at times. You just heard the Old Master. But who’s the young one? …
—A lovely girl from the Fancy City. A fine thing, actually! That day when I was drawing pictures in the hope of going to England, I saw the two of them together. They went in to the Western Hotel.
—What kind of cut or shape of a woman was she?
—A long tall sally. Blondy hair dripping down along her back …
—Earrings?
—Of course …
—I haven’t a clue what kind of eyes she had. I wasn’t thinking about them …
—A broad bright grin?
—She was gawping away at the Master all right. But she wasn’t gawping at me …
—Did you hear where she hangs out?
—No I didn’t. But she’s working in Barry’s Bookies, if there’s such a joint. The Derry Lough master and the priest’s sister are getting married next month. They say he’ll get the new school.
—The one with the pants?
—The very one.
—Isn’t that weird that she’d marry him?
—Why so? Isn’t he a fine-looking specimen, and he doesn’t touch a drop.
—But all the same. It’s not every man would want to marry a woman who wears the trousers. They’d be a bit more pernickety than other women …
—Ah, cop on and get an ounce of sense! My own son is married to a French one in England and you wouldn’t have the least clue on God’s earth what she was gabbling on about no more than the gobshite buried over there. Shouldn’t she be even more pernickity than any one that wears a pair of pants …
—God help you and your Frenchie one! My son is married to an Italian in England. Is that good enough for you?
—Forget about yourself and your Italian. My son is married in England to a black. Can you do better than that?
—A black! My son is married in England to a Jew. Can you credit that? To a slylock Jew. A Jew wouldn’t be happy to marry any old kind of man …
—And not every man would marry her either. Some of them wouldn’t fancy her …
—There’s many more than that who wouldn’t fancy the thing your son married. A black. For fuck’s sake! …
—The big boss is to marry some woman from Glen Booley. That youngfella of John Willy’s, he’s made the kip of a shack and all, and they say he’s sniffing around looking for a woman. The daughter of your man Tim Top of the Road sent him packing.
—Tim Top of the Road who spent all his time robbing my turf …
—And mine …
—And my hammer …
—Oh, I hope she chokes! Trying to sneak into my land …
—It was she who threatened me with the law to ruin me about the wrack. You’re telling me that John Willy’s boy wouldn’t marry her? …
—She’d be good enough for him. What was John Willy ever any good for? Periwinkles. And what is he any good for now? Perifucking-winkles …
—There was nothing much wrong with the periwinkles ever, there wasn’t really. Myself and the youngfella got most of what we needed to buy a colt. And now we have something that you don’t have: a fine big colt and a pen that only needed some covering. I told him that when the pen was finished he should get some bit of a thing of a woman for himself …
—The youngfella was sent packing as well from the house up above; and Rootey’s daughter in Bally Donough refused him, and the carpenter’s daughter in Gort Ribbuck …
—That youngfella is a totally useless git. Did he say that we nearly got the price of a colt from the periwinkles; that we had made a clean new pen; that we bought a fine new colt after Christmas? He’d never have managed it himself, I’m afraid. If I hadn’t gone so quickly myself …
—Hey, John Willy, that Rootey in Bally Donough is my cousin. He didn’t do half enough rejecting your son. I rejected you about my daughter. Do you remember the time you came looking for her?
—I had neither colt nor pen that time.
—Aren’t you so uppity to talk about Rootey from Bally Donough, no more than anyone else. You’d think he was some kind of a snooty snotty Earl or something, and my father rejecting his woman. “Do you think, Rootey tootey,” my father says, “that I’d condemn my daughter to live in Bally Donough to live on nettles and the chirping of crickets?”
—Your father refusing the Rootey! My mother also refused him a woman! “There’s forty pounds and a cow going with my daughter,” she says, “and there’s no way she’ll be living on the flea-ridden fastnesses of your place with her forty pounds.”
—Your mother refused him a woman! Your mother! My father tried to pawn her off on me, but I wouldn’t touch her. She was half blind. She had a mole under her ear. She only had a dowry of fifteen quid. I wouldn’t touch her …
—I wouldn’t marry Blotchy Brian. He asked me …
—I wouldn’t marry Blotchy Brian either. He asked me twice.
—Nor me neither. He asked me three times. I swear by the oak of this coffin. He nearly completely failed to get any woman at all. Caitriona Paudeen would have married him alright the time that Jack the Lad dumped her, but he never bothered coming looking for her …
—Holy cow! Abooboona! Kitty you dirty liar! Kitty the small potatoes! …
—… Honest, Dotie. No way was the place good enough. There was really no way that I would allow my daughter to go there with her sixty pounds dowry, unless I really had no choice in the matter. I was always possessed of a romantic streak and I couldn’t let inferior worldly affairs be an insurmountable obstacle to their unfulfilled love. Honest. If it wasn’t for that Dotie, do you think I would have allowed my daughter and her sixty pounds to go and live in Caitriona Paudeen’s pokey little hovel? …
—You little blabbering scum shit! You riffraff so-and-so! Don’t believe her! Don’t believe a word! Margaret! Margaret! Do you hear what Toejam Nora is saying? And Kitty the dirty liar? … I’m going to burst!
—… Do you think that this is “The War of the Two Foreigners”?
—… The murdering bastard gave me a bad bottle …
—… There was every single tiny drop of the forty-two pints lining my stomach when I was tying up Tomasheen …
—I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …
—“The doh-og is drinking.” Qu’est-ce que c’est qu’ “the doh-og?”
… Qu’est-ce que c’est qu’ “the doh-og”? Doh-og. Doh-og.
—Bow wow! Bow wow!
—Un chien, n’est-ce pas? Doh-og. Bow wow. Doh-og.
—Dog! Dog! Dog! You headbanger!
—“The dog is drinking.” Le chien boit, n’est-ce pas? “The dog is drinking.” Mais non! “The doh-og is crying.”
—Like dogs cry all the time, you headbanger! Maybe he was whining, or barking, or even drinking. But he wasn’t crying. Crying! I never ever saw a dog crying.
—“The doh-og is crying.”
—“The dog is whining. The dog is whining.”
—“The doh-og is crying.” “Crying: c—r—y—i—i—n—g”! “Crying.” Ces sont les mots qui se trouvent dans mon livre. “The doh-og is crying.” Pas “drinking.”
—Well, if he was crying let him cry away. We can’t do nothing about it, nor about the twit who put it in a book. Maybe the dog went on the drink and then he started to cry about the hangover he got and his empty pockets …
—Je ne comprends pas. Aprés quelques leçons peut-être … “The white cat is on the mat.” “Cat”: qu’est-ce qu’il veut dire? “Cat”? “Cat”?
—Mi-aw! Mi-aw!
—Mee-ou! Mee-ou! Chat! N’est-ce pas? Chatte.
—Shat. Yes, of course. Shat. What else?
—“The wo-od is go-od. The ha-at is a-pt. The ha-at is tall on Paul. T— …”
—You’re a dirty liar! I never wore a tall hat. It was too low for me anyway. Do you think that I was a bishop? …
—Je ne comprends pas. “Young Paul is not …”
—You’re a liar. I was still only a youngster. I’d have been only twenty-eight by the next Peter and Paul’s day.
—Je ne comprends pas. Paul is not drinking …
—He’s not drinking now because he is not thinking, but he drank what he had before this, and that wasn’t much.
—Je ne comprends pas.
—Au revoir! Au revoir! De grâce! De grâce! …
—He’ll never have a word of Irish as long as he lives.
—Nevertheless, he shouldn’t be that long getting the hang of it. There was a guy learning Irish around here the year I died. He hadn’t the least clue from Adam, but he was picking up bits and pieces from those small learning books, the same as your man. He’d be there in the kitchen every morning a full hour before I got up and he’d have made a rat’s nest of the whole place:
“This is a cat. This is a sack. The cat is on the sack. This is a dog. This is a stool. The dog is on the stool.”
He went on like that all day long. He had my mother driven completely round the twist.
“For Jaysus’ sake, Paul, take him away over and into the field,” she’d say to me.
I was cutting hay in the meadow down by the shore at that time exactly. I hauled him along with me. We were barely there when it was time to come back again for dinner as he read the lesson to everyone we met on the way.
Up and away again after dinner. I tried to teach him some small words: “scythe,” “grass,” “ditch,” “rick,” and little bits like that. It was a very hot day. It was a blistering hot day and he couldn’t get his tongue around the words. He spat out a few knotty snots. He asked me how would you say “pint” in Irish.
I said “Pionta.”
He said “Pionta” and nodded to me …
We moseyed off along the shore to Peter’s Pub. He bought two pints.
Then back to the field.
I gave him another word.
“Pionta,” he said.
“Pionta,” I said.
Off we went again. Two more pints. Back again to the field. I gave him another word again.
Off again. Back again.
Over and back like that all day long. It was a pint for a word, and a word for a pint …
—… Fell from a rick of hay, bejaysus …
—Do you think that I was raised in a cabbage patch and never saw a film? …
—An oldfella like you?
—An oldfella like me? But, I wasn’t always old, you know.
—They’re absolutely beautiful. I saw magnificent things like them. Big houses just like the Earl’s …
—And I saw they had fine big crosses, and I’d say they were made of Connemara marble …
—I saw lots of women wearing pants …
—And black women …
—And cultured people, and nightclubs, and down by the quays, and sailing boats and sailors with multicoloured skins. Honest …
—And the occasional nasty bitch …
—And women with sly slippery smiles just like Huckster Joan when she refused you a fag or two …
—And women giving you the “come-here-I-wantcha,” just like Peter the Publican’s young one standing in the door trying to lure some new sucker into her parlour …
—You’d see some fine frisky colts there, I’m telling you! …
—And games of football. Up the yard, boy! Cannon would make shite and onions of any footballer’s arse …
—You’d never see any wrack that came in there …
—Or two thatchers on either side of the house …
—Or nettles like there was in Bally Donough.
—Or flea-ridden kips like in your town land …
—I’d prefer Mae West to the whole lot of them. I’d give anything to see her again. She’d be a great one for the young bucks, I’d say. Myself and the youngfella were in the Fancy City the night before the fair. We downed a few pints.
“That’s enough now,” I said. “If we went the whole hog we’d soon make a hole in the price of the colt.”
“It’s too early to go to bed now,” he said. “Come on, let’s go to the pictures.”
“I was never there,” I said.
“So what?” he said. “Mae West is on tonight.”
“In that case, so,” I said, “it’s alright with me.”
We went.
A woman came out. A fine strap of a thing, and she started leering at me.
I leered back at her.
“Is that her?” I said.
“Who, so?” the youngfella said.
Another babe came out just after that. She kind of ran her hand along his hip. Then she threw a face and started grinning at us. They all started grinning too.
“That’s her now,” the youngfella said.
“Off you go,” I said. “She’d be a great one for the young bucks, I’d say. As soon as the pen is ready, I’m telling you now, but you couldn’t do much worse than to get hitched up with a little slip of a thing. But for God’s sake, don’t get caught up with the likes of her. She’d be a great one for the young bucks alright, but nonetheless …”
“But, but, nonetheless what?” the youngfella asked.
Just then another busty broad came out, just like the floozie that is always up for it in Jack the Lad’s house, and he was talking to the two of them. He started waxing the air with his hands. Some lickspittle comes out. The cut of your man who goes fishing in Nell Paudeen’s place—Lord Cockton. Mae West said something to him. I swear to God that the youngfella told me what it was, but there’s no way I can remember it now …
The little fart pulled a face as if his cheeks were swollen up. He dropped the hand down along his sides. He was a filthy fucker, and he knew what he wanted. I’d say he had a dicey ticker too, the poor hoor! …
—… Just the once Kitty. That’s the only time I was ever ever at the pictures. More than anything I’d give anything to see them again. That was the time my daughter was about to deliver, the one who is married in the Fancy City. I spent a week looking after her. She was coming around after the birth that time. Her husband came in after work. He gobbled down his dinner and done himself up.
“Breed Terry,” he says, “were you ever at the pictures?”
“What are they?” I says.
“All those pictures that they’re showing up in that place?”
“In the church?” I says.
“Ah no,” he says, “just pictures.”
“Pictures of Jesus and the Blessed Virgin and St. Patrick and Joseph, is that it?” I said.
“Ah, not at all,” he said, “but pictures of foreign places and wild beasts and whacky weirdos.”
“Foreign places and wild beasts and whacky weirdos,” I says to myself. “I don’t think I’d like to go there at all. Who knows, God save us from all harm! …”
“You have a crude culchie mind,” he said, pissing himself laughing. “They’re only pictures. They won’t do you any harm.”
“Wild beasts and whacky weirdos,” I says. “What’s that all about? …”
“It’s a picture about America tonight,” he said.
“America,” I exclaimed. “Is there a chance that I’d see my lovely Breed and Noreen—God love them!—and Anna Liam? …”
“You’ll see people like them,” he said. “You’ll see America.”
And of course I did. You never saw anything like it! It’s more the pity I couldn’t do anything about them? That bloody fire that destroyed my mind completely! … But I’m telling you Kitty, everything was as clear as if I was there myself. There was an old woman with a rag wiping the door with a face on her just like Caitriona Paudeen when she’d see Nell and Jack the Lad going on past her coming from the fair …
—Holy shite! Abooboona! …
—And there was a big spacious room with a round table, just like that one Kitty, that you gave the pound to Caitriona to buy, that time she never gave it back to you …
—You’re a filthy liar! …
—And a silver teapot, like the one in Nell’s house, laid out on it.
And then this guy, all dressed in black, except for his golden buttons opened the door. I thought it was the Foxy Cop, but then I remembered that it was in America. Then another man came in with a cap on his head like a messenger boy and himself and the first guy started ballocking one another. Himself and the guy with the golden buttons grabbed the man and shagged him down the stairs. I thought he was going to be completely mangled as they chucked him down three or four flights. Then they kicked him headfirst out the door and nearly bowled the old woman over. I swear Kitty, I really felt sorry for her. My head was all fuzzy.
And then the man looked back and shook his fist at the guy who chucked him out. I thought he was the Old Master—the little button nose and the bitty beady eyes—and Billy the Postman threw him out, but then I remembered it was all in America. And I realised whatever about the Old Master being in America there’s no way that Billy could be there as he had to deliver the post every day …
—The crook! The sneaky lowlife slime sucker! The …
—This guy, the spitting image of Billy, went back upstairs, and there was a woman there all in black sporting some flowers.
“That’s the Schoolmistress, if she’s alive,” I said to myself. But then I remembered this was all happening in America, and the mistress was teaching in the school a few days before this …
—The dirty cow! …
—De grâce, Master! … Now, Dotie …
—The guy with the golden buttons opened the door again. Another woman with a small cute nose came in wearing a fur coat, just like the one Baba Paudeen wore when she was home from America but that she had to get rid of because of the snots of soot that slopped down on it in Caitriona’s house …
—You’re a filthy liar, you useless crock of crap! …
—… Oh, it was a wonderful film, smashing, Dotie! Honest! I was both excited and scared shitless. If you had only seen that bit where Eustasia says to Mrs. Crookshank:
“My dear,” she said. “There’s no point in getting upset about it. Harry and I are married. We were joined together in matrimony in a registry office on Sixth Avenue this morning. Of course, my dear, Bob is there all the time …”
Then she rolled her shoulders kind of triumphantly. Oh, it’s really a tragedy that you didn’t see the face that Mrs. Crookshank pulled, and she struck dumb! I couldn’t help thinking—God forgive me!—of what Nell Paudeen said to Caitriona:
“Sure, you can have Blotchy Brian, Kay.”
—You whoring whack! … You so-and-so … Margaret! Margaret! Did you hear that? Did you hear the trollop of the Toejam trotters, and Breed Terry? I’m going to burst! I’m going to burst! …
And so Nell wasted the lorry man! Even though her son was on the wrong side of the road. That judge hadn’t a clue. So much for Breed Terry that the law wouldn’t leave her with a brass farthing? And she got eight hundred pounds after that! It was the priest, wasn’t it? And the holy joke had the cheek to say masses for me …
They’re making a road into her house. They couldn’t have made that road only that my Patrick is so simple. She’s taking him for a ride now, just like she did with Jack the Lad about John’s Gospel. If I were alive …
There hasn’t been as much as a peep about the cross anymore. And after what that ugly turkey said: “It would be a shame to put a cross up over that dried-up juice box.” Easily known he’s not a bit afraid of God or of His holy mother. And he’s nearly hitting the hundred! I hope his journey to Dublin kills him! …
They’ve forgotten all about me up above. So it goes, God help us. I didn’t think Patrick would go back on his word. That’s if that little scut got the story right? Probably not. He was far too set on going to England …
If only my own Patrick really knew what things were like stuck here in the dirty dust of the cemetery clay! I’m like a hare trapped by a gang of bloodhounds. Totally harassed and heckled by John Willy, and Kitty, and Breed Terry, the whole shower of them. Trying to keep up with them all on my ownio. And neither soul nor sinner round about to say a word for me. But I won’t stand it. I’m about to burst …
That whore’s melt, Toejam Nora, she’s egging them on all the time …
And the huge change that came over her daughter and all. I was certain she’d be here ages ago. She’s a tough woman, alright. I’m delighted now that she married Patrick. You have to tell the truth. That’s how it is. I’d forgive herself and her mother every single thing they ever did on me just because she shoved Nell into the fire on the back of her head, and she didn’t leave a wisp of hair, or a tatter of rags, or as much as a strip of clothes on Blotchy Brian to cover him up. And she smashed the dishes. She chucked the tub that Blotchy Brian’s young one and Nell were churning in upside down. She stamped on a whole clutch of young chicks on the floor. She clattered Nell’s silver teapot against the wall, the one she used to show off on top of the dresser. And she flung the clock that Baba gave to that old scrotum-face straight out the window. That’s what the youngfella said …
She’s some woman. I’m sorry now I was so hard on her. To shove Nell arse over head into the fire! Something I never had the good luck to do …
And she’s got over her sickness now. She’s raising hens and pigs and calves. If she lives, she’ll do a great job yet …
But to shove Nell arse over head into the fire! The back of her white hair was burned. I forgot to ask that youngfella was her white hair sizzled. I’d give all that I ever wanted just to see her dumping Nell in the fire. Isn’t it a tragedy that I wasn’t alive!
I’d shake her by the hand, I’d give her a big kiss, I’d slap her on the back, I’d order one of those golden bottles that Peter the Publican has in the window, we’d drink to our health, I’d say a prayer for her mother’s eternal soul and I’d get her to call her next baby Nora on top of that. What am I talking about? Isn’t there a Nora already! …
But anyway, I’ll call Nora Johnny, I’ll tell her all about the great deed her daughter did, and how she is so busy now, and I’ll tell her that I’m so thrilled that she is married to my son …
And what will Maggie, and Kitty, and Breed Terry, and the whole lot of them say? That I used to be bitching about her; calling her a strap and a slut, and Toejam Nora; that I wouldn’t vote for her in the Election …
They’ll say that. And they’ll say also—and ’tis too true—that she told lies about me: she said I had robbed Fireside Tom, that her daughter got a hundred and twenty pounds of a dowry …
But let them! I’d forgive her everything just because she shoved Nell arse over head into the fire …
Hey Nora! … Hello, Nora! … Nora, my darling! … This is Caitriona Paudeen … Nora! … Nora my lovely! … Did you hear that news from above? … about your daughter …
What’s that Nora? What’s that you said? … Ababoona! That you have no time to be listening to silly stories about life aboveground! … Oh, yea, you had no problem getting involved in the silliness of the Election, and it’s left you more stuck in the mud! By cripes! … You couldn’t be bothered listening to my story … It’s only something silly, ha! … You’re going to spend all the rest of your time on … on … on … What’s that you called it … On culture … You don’t have the time to be bothered listening to my story as it has nothing to do with … with culture … Sweet Jesus almighty! … Toejam Noreen … Toej—Noreen from Gort Ribbuck talking about … about culture! …
Give me that chunk of English again. As pigs can fly, imagine English in Gort Ribbuck. Give it to me again …
—“Art is long and Time is fleeting.”
—Fleet! Fleet! That’s what you’re mainly interested in. Fleets and sailors. Holy Mother of God, I must have had no respect for myself to think that I might get through to you, you So-and-so! …