Graveyard Clay- Cré Na Cille
Page 7
—Her house was the better for it, Muraed. She had wealth and means …
—… Dropping into Barry’s the Bookmakers in Brightcity. My hand in my pocket as bold as if there was something in it. And me down to the one shilling. Making a great rattle throwing it down on the counter. “‘Golden Apple,’” I said. “The three o’clock race. A hundred to one … It might win,” says I, putting my hand in my pocket and turning it out …
—… A pity it wasn’t me, Peadar the Pub, I wouldn’t have let him away with it. It wasn’t right of you to let any black heretic insult your religion like that, Peadar.
“Faith of our fathers holy faith,
We will be true to thee till death,
We will be true to thee till death …”
You had no red blood in you, Peadar, to let him away with talk like that. If that had been me …
—To hell with yourselves and your religion. Neither of you has shut his mouth in the last five years but arguing about religion …
—… Indeed, Muraed, they say that after all Caitríona’s bitching about Nell she was glad to have her, after her husband died. She was in a bad state at that time, for Pádraig was still fairly young …
—That I was glad to have Nell! That I was glad to have Nell! That I’d accept anything from Nell! Sweet Jesus tonight, that I’d accept anything from that pussface! I’ll explode! I’ll explode! …
7
—… The nettly groves of Donagh’s Village, you said.
—Even nettles wouldn’t grow on the hillocks of your village, there are so many fleas on them …
—… I fell off a stack of oats …
—Faith then, as you say, the Menlo man and myself used to write to each other …
—… “I wonder is this the War of the Two Foreigners?”24 says I to Paitseach Sheáinín …
—Wake up, man! That war’s over since 1918 …
—It was still going on when I was dying …
—Wake up, I tell you. Aren’t you nearly thirty years dead? The second war is on now …
—I’m thirty-one years here. I can boast of something that none of you can boast of: I was the first corpse in this graveyard. Don’t you think the oldest inhabitant of the graveyard should have something to say? Permission to speak. Permission to speak …
—… Indeed then, Caitríona had wealth and means, Muraed …
—She had. But though her place was much better than Nell’s, Nell never left a tithe unpaid either …
—Oh, God bless your innocence, Muraed. The devil a tap of work herself or Jack ever did but looking into one another’s eyes and singing songs, till their son Peadar was strong enough to cultivate some of the moor and the bog and clear those wild wastelands.
—Nell didn’t have a brass farthing till Big Brian’s Mag’s dowry came into her house.
—For all your criticism of her place, what stood to her in the end was its nearness to the river and the lake and the grouse. There’s no telling the amount of money fowlers and anglers from England left with that one. I saw the Earl myself pressing a pound note into her hand one day—a brand new pound note …
—… “Fens” is what you call marshes, on the fair plains of East Galway, Dotie. I also heard that your name for the cat is “rat-hunter,” and “fireside son” for the tongs … Oh indeed then, Dotie, that’s not the real Old Irish …
—God help us forever and ever …
—… “‘We’ll send pigs to the fair,’ said Caitríona’s cat,
‘It’s the bullocks are dearest,’ said the cat of Nell.”
—… I’m not exaggerating when I say Caitríona used to put an extra aspiration into her prayers to bring want and waste down on Nell. She used to be delighted if a calf of hers died or her potatoes failed …
—I wouldn’t tell a lie about anyone, Muraed. May God forbid that I should! But the time the lorry injured Peadar Nell’s leg Caitríona said to my face, “Why didn’t he stay clear of it? The road was long and wide enough for him. That’s the stuff for her, the pussface! …”
—“Nell has won that trick,” she said, the day Seán Thomáis Uí Loideáin, her husband, was buried.
—’Twas in the east cemetery he was buried. I remember it well and I have good reason to. I twisted my ankle when I slipped on a flagstone …
—When you made a glutton of yourself, as you often did …
—… To have more potatoes than Nell; to have more pigs, hens, turf, hay; to have a cleaner, neater, house; to have better clothes on her children: It was part of her revenge. It was all revenge …
—… “She came ho-ome dressed in gaudy clo-oth-ing
For she coaxed the ho-ard from the grey-haired dame.”
—Baba Pháidín got a bout of sickness in America that brought her to death’s door. It was Big Brian’s Mag who looked after her. She brought Mag home with her …
—… “’Twas in Caitríona’s house that Baba took shelter …”
—She seldom went near Nell. She was too far up and the path was too rugged for her, after her illness. She felt more at home with Caitríona somehow …
—… “Nell’s little house is an ugly hovel
And she has no conscience in whispering lies.
She had the fever there but won’t admit it,
And if the plague will hit you it will end your life …”
—… There was only the one son, Pádraig, in Caitríona’s house.
—Two daughters of hers died …
—Three of them died. There was another one in America: Cáit …
—It’s well I remember her, Muraed. I twisted my ankle the day she left …
—Baba promised Pádraig Chaitríona that he wouldn’t see a day’s hardship for the rest of his life if he married Big Brian’s Mag. Caitríona had an undying hatred of Big Brian, as she had of his dog and his daughter as well. But Mag was to get a big dowry, and Caitríona thought Baba would be more inclined to leave all her money in Caitríona’s own house on account of Mag. To get the better of Nell …
—… “’Twas in Caitríona’s house that Ba-a-ba took sh-e-elter
Till Pádraig re-e-jected Big Brian’s Mag.
’Tis Nó-ra Sheáinín has the neat-handed daugh-ter,
I lo-oved her always without go-old or land …”
—High for Mangy Field! …
—Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter was a fine-looking woman, by God …
—… That’s what turned Caitríona against your daughter from the beginning, Nóra Sheáinín. This talk about the dowry is only an excuse. Since the day your daughter stepped into her house married to her son, she went at her like a young dog with its paw on its food when another one challenges it. Didn’t you often have to come over from Mangy Field, Nóra …
—… “Ere the morning grew o-old Nóra Sheáinín came o-over …”
—Oh my! We’re getting to an exciting part of the story now, Muraed, aren’t we! The hero is married to his sweetheart. But the other woman is still there in the background. She’s defeated in battle now, but there are more upsets to come … anonymous letters, insinuations about the hero’s affairs, murder maybe, divorce for certain … Oh my! …
—… “I wouldn’t marry Big Brian,” said Caitríona’s kitten …”
Put in another line yourself now …
— “‘To scald him you tried,’ said the kitten of Nell …
— ‘His daughter I’d marry,’ said Caitríona’s kitten …
— ‘I won’t give you the chance,’ said the kitten of Nell.”
—’Tis well I remember, Muraed, the day Peadar Nell married Big Brian’s Mag. I twisted my ankle …
—… “’Twas in Caitríona’s house that Ba-a-ba took she-e-elter
Till Pádraig re-e-jected Big Brian’s Mag …”
—It hurt Caitríona even more that Baba moved up to Nell’s house than that Nell’s son got the money and the dowry promised to her own son Pádraig …
—’Tis well I remem
ber, Muraed, the day Baba Pháidín went back to America. Cutting hay in the Red Meadow I was when I saw them coming down towards me from Nell’s house. I ran over to say goodbye to her. I’ll be damned but as I jumped a double ditch didn’t I twist …
—Would you say, Muraed, it’s twenty years since Baba Pháidín went back to America? …
—Sixteen years she’s gone. But Caitríona never took her eye off the will. That’s what has kept her from being in her grave long ago. The satisfaction she got from snarling at her son’s wife gave her a new lease of life …
—Yes, Muraed, and her obsession with going to funerals.
—And Tomás Inside’s land….
—… Listen now, Curraoin:
“Much altar-money was small consolation …”
—Don’t pay any heed to that brat, Curraoin. He’s not able to compose poetry …
—The story is pretty flat now, Muraed. Honest. I thought there’d be much more excitement …
—… Listen, Curraoin. Listen to the second line:
“And a good pound grave, will’s proud donation …”
—… Honest, Muraed. I thought there’d be murder, and at least one divorce. But Dotie can analyse all my misjudgements …
—… I have it, by Heavens, Curraoin. Listen now:
“A cross on my grave will make Nell’s poor heart pine,
And in graveyard’s cold clay grief’s triumph is mine …”
8
Hello Muraed … Can you hear me, Muraed? … Hasn’t Nóra Sheáinín a nerve, talking to a schoolmaster … But of course she is, Muraed. Everyone knows she’s my in-law. I wouldn’t mind but in a place like this where there’s no privacy and nobody has any discretion. Good God above! A bitch! She’s a bitch! She always was a bitch. When she was in service in Brightcity before she got married, they say—we renounce her!—that she was keeping company with a sailor …
Of course I did, Muraed … I told him. “Pádraig dear,” says I, like this. “That one from Mangy Field you’re so eager to marry, did you hear that her mother used to keep company with a sailor in Brightcity?”
“What harm?” says he.
“But Pádraig,” says I, “Sailors …”
“Huh! Sailors,” says he. “Can’t a sailor be as decent as any man? I know who this girl’s mother was going out with in Brightcity, but America’s farther off and I don’t know who Big Brian’s Mag was going out with over there. A black, maybe …”
Of course, Muraed, the only reason I asked my son to bring a daughter of Big Brian’s into my house was that I didn’t want to give Nell the satisfaction of getting the money. By God, Muraed, I had good reason for not liking Big Brian’s daughter. The night Nell got married, that’s what the pussface threw in my face. “Since I have Jack,” she says, the pussface, “we’ll leave Big Brian for you, Caitríona.”
Believe you me, Muraed, those few words hurt me more than all the other wrongs she did me put together. That remark was like a plague of weasels snarling back and forth through my mind and spitting venom. I didn’t get it out of my head till the day I died. I didn’t, Muraed. Every time I’d see Big Brian I’d think of that night, of the room at home, of that mocking grin on Nell’s face in the arms of Jack the Scológ. Every time I’d see a son or daughter of Big Brian’s I’d think of that night. Every time anyone mentioned Big Brian I’d think of it … the room … the grin … Nell in the arms of Jack the Scológ! … in the arms of Jack the Scológ …
Big Brian asked me twice, Muraed. I never told you that … What’s this you said Nóra Sheáinín calls it? The eternal triangle … the eternal triangle … That’s like her stupid grin all right … But, Muraed, I didn’t tell you … You’re mistaken. I’m not that sort of person, Muraed. I’m no gossip. One thing about me, anything I saw or heard, I carried it into the graveyard clay with me. But it’s no harm to talk about it now that we’re on the way of eternal truth25 … He asked me twice, indeed. The first time he came I was no more than twenty. My father wanted me to move in there. “Big Brian is a good hard-working man with a warm house and a fat purse,” he says.
“I wouldn’t marry him,” says I, “if I had to get the loan of the shawl from Nell and stand in the middle of the fair.”
“Why not?” says my father.
“The ugly streak of misery,” says I. “Look at the goaty beard on him. Look at the buckteeth. Look at the stopped-up nose. Look at the club-foot. Look at his dirty little hovel of a house. Look at the layers of filth on him. He’s three times my age. He could be my grandfather.”
It was true for me. He was nearing fifty then. He’s nearing the hundred now, and still above ground, without a day’s illness, apart from the odd twinge of rheumatism. He was going for the pension every Friday when I was still above ground. The ugly streak of misery! …
“The wilful child will follow his own counsel!” says my father, and he said no more about it.
It wasn’t long after Nell got married when he came in again. I was just going to make a drop of tea before nightfall. I remember it well. I had set the teapot down on the hearth while I was raking out a bed of embers to put under it. This man comes barging in on top of me before I had a chance to see who it was. “Will you marry me, Caitríona?” he says, not beating about the bush. “I’ve earned you well, having to come twice. But since I’m not getting my health for want of a strong lump of a woman …”
Upon my soul, that’s exactly what he said.
“I wouldn’t marry you, you ugly streak of misery, if I was covered in green scum for the want of a man,” says I …
I’d laid down the tongs and I had the kettle of boiling water in my hand. Without a moment’s wavering, Muraed, I ran at him in the middle of the floor. But he had made it out the door.
I’d have you know, Muraed, I was hard to please when it came to men. I was good-looking and I had a good dowry … To marry Big Brian, Muraed, after what Nell had said …
—… “It could win,” says I, putting my hand in my pocket and turning it out. “It’s all or nothing now!” says I, collecting the ticket from the girl. She smiled at me: an innocent smile from a young heart without guile. “If ‘Golden Apple’ wins,” says I, “I’ll buy you sweets and I’ll take you to the cinema … or would you prefer a caper of a dance … or a couple of drinks in the privacy of the lounge bar in the Western Hotel? …”
—… Qu’est-ce que vous dites? Quelle drôle de langue! N’y a-t-il pas là quelque professeur ou étudiant qui parle français?
—Au revoir. Au revoir.
—Pardon! Pardon!
—Shut your mouth, sourpuss!
—If I could get over as far as that drake I’d shut him up! Either that or make him talk like a Christian. Every time Hitler is mentioned he starts spluttering, with a torrent of talk coming out of him. If one could understand him, I think he’s not at all grateful to Hitler.
—Don’t you hear, every time Hitler’s name comes up he says “meirdreach”26 on the spot. He’s picked up that much Irish anyway …
—Oh, if I could only reach as far as him! High for Hitler! High for Hitler! High for Hitler! High for Hitler! …
—Je ne vous comprends pas, monsieur …
—Who is that, Muraed?
—That’s your man who was killed out of the aeroplane, don’t you remember? Your man who fell into the Middle Harbour. You were alive at the time.
—Oh, didn’t I see him laid out, Muraed … He had a fine funeral. They say he was some sort of a hero …
—He keeps on babbling like that. The Master says he’s a Frenchman and that he could understand him if only his tongue weren’t sluggish from being so long in the salt water …
—So the Master doesn’t understand him, Muraed?
—The devil a bit of him then, Caitríona.
—I always knew, Muraed, that the Big Master had no learning. Don’t heed him if he doesn’t understand a Frenchman! I should have known that a long time ago …
—Nóra Sheáinín
understands him better than anyone else in the graveyard. Did you hear her answering him a while ago …
—Oh, have a bit of sense, Muraed Phroinsiais. You mean Nóirín Filthy-Feet ? …
—Ils m’ennuient. On espère toujours trouver la paix dans la mort, mais la tombe ne semble pas encore être la mort. On ne trouve ici en tout cas, que de l’ennui…
—Au revoir. Au revoir. De grâce. De grâce.
—… Six times six, forty-six; six times seven, fifty-two; six times eight, fifty-eight … Now amn’t I good, Master! I know my tables as far as six. If I’d gone to school as a child there’d be no stopping me. I’ll say the tables for you from the beginning now, Master. Two times one … Why don’t you want to hear them, Master? You’ve been neglecting me this last while, since Caitríona Pháidín told you about your wife …
—… By the oak of this coffin, Curraoin, I gave Caitríona Pháidín the pound and I haven’t seen sight of it since …
—Ababúna! That’s a lie, you old hag …
—… Honest, Dotie. You wouldn’t understand: a stranger from the plains of East Galway. This is the truth, the honest truth, Dotie. I was going to say “By the blessed little finger,” but that’s tramps’ talk. I’ll say “Cross my heart” instead, Dotie. Muraed told you about herself and Nell, but she didn’t tell you what dowry I gave my daughter when she married into Caitríona’s house. You should know that now, Dotie. The rest of them here already know it. One hundred and twenty pounds, Dotie. Honest! One hundred and twenty pounds, in golden guineas …
—Ababúna! Muraed! Muraed! Do you hear? I’ll explode! I’ll explode, Muraed! I’ll explode, Muraed! Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter … one hundred and twenty … dowry … into my house … I’ll explode! I’ll explode! Oh, I’ll explode! I’ll expl. I’ll exp. I’ll ex …
Interlude Two
THE SPREADING OF THE CLAY
1
You were asking for it. If I hadn’t stabbed you someone else would have, and isn’t the fool as good as his servant? If you were to be stabbed, it was better for a neighbour to do it than a stranger. The stranger would be buried far away from you, on the fair plains of East Galway maybe, or up in Dublin, or even the North. What would you do then? Look at the satisfaction you get scolding me here. And if it was a stranger buried beside you, you’d be in a bad way not knowing what to throw in his face, since you wouldn’t know his people for seven generations back. Have sense my good man! I wouldn’t mind, but I stabbed you cleanly …