Graveyard Clay- Cré Na Cille

by Máirtín Ó Cadhain

  —It’s in the prophecy of Caitríona Pháidín that her son’s wife will be here on her next childbirth …

  —Ababúna!

  —I’d believe in prophecies myself. I wouldn’t like any misunderstanding about this. I don’t say I believe in any particular prophecy, but I can see that people could have that gift. There are gifts that material science knows nothing about because they cannot be demonstrated by experiment. The poet is the same as the prophet in many ways. “Vates” is what the Romans called the poet: a person who would have a vision or an insight. I discussed that point in the “Guiding Star” in my poetry collection, The Golden Stars …

  —May the devil pierce you! The only thing you ever did above ground was your useless verses …

  —Hold your tongue, you brat. It would be hard for you to do any good above ground, when your father and mother didn’t nurture any good in you. They allowed you to stay in the house, herding the embers and daydreaming, while they killed themselves working …

  —… The way it was promised in the prophecy is that the Foreigners would come ashore in the West Headland, and would drive on eastwards …

  —There’ll be plenty of men then for the women of Mangy Field, Donagh’s Village and Sive’s Rocks …

  —You’re insulting the faith …

  —A big General in charge of them will go down to the river at Wood of the Lake bridge to water his horse. An Irishman will shoot at him and the horse will be killed …

  —That big General will immediately go looking for another horse! Do you think if he should see a fine big colt he would take it away with him? …

  —This is the War of the Two Foreigners. I was up in the bog-hollow footing turf7 when Peaits Sheáinín came up to me. “Did you hear the news?” says he.

  “Devil the news,” says I.

  “The Kaiser attacked the poor Belgies yesterday,” says he.

  “They’re much to be pitied,” says I. “Do you think it’s the War of the Two Foreigners?”

  —Wake up, man. That war ended a long time ago …

  —… The Big Master said the other day this must be the World War, as the women are so fickle …

  —Tomás Inside said it too. “By the docks, dear,” he said, “it’s the end of the world, the way people have lost their good nature. Look at my little shack full of leaks …”

  —When the Insurance Man got started here there wasn’t a house he went into without saying it was the War of the Prophecy.

  “Now or never,” he used to say, “you must take out a bit of insurance on yourself. There’s no fear of them killing someone who’s insured, for if they did they’d have to pay out too much money at the end of the War. All you have to do is to carry your insurance paper with you at all times, and to show it if …”

  —Oh! Didn’t the little good-for-nothing fool me …

  —Tricks of the trade …

  —Caitríona herself said the other day it must be the War of the Territories. “The Island limestone is used up,” she said, “and it was in the prophecy that when the Island limestone was used up you’d be very close to the end of the world.”

  —Ababúna! The Island limestone. The Island limestone. The Island limestone! I’ll explode! …

  4

  —… Patience, Cóilí. Patience …

  —Allow me to finish my story, my good man:

  “I laid an egg! I laid an egg! Red hot on the dunghill …”

  —Yes, Cóilí. Even though there’s no artistry in it, I think it has some deep and obscure meaning. Stories of this type always do. You know what Frazer said in The Golden Bough … I beg your pardon, Cóilí. I forgot you weren’t able to read … Now Cóilí, allow me to speak … Cóilí, allow me to speak. I’m a writer …

  —… Honest, Dotie. Máirín failed. If she had taken after me or after my daughter she wouldn’t have failed. But she took after the Páidín clan and the Loideáin. The nuns in the convent completely failed to drive anything into her head. Would you believe, Dotie, that she began to call her teachers “pussface” and “bitch”! … Honest Engine, Dotie. It was impossible to stop her using rude words. What would you expect, after listening to them since she was born, in the same house as Caitríona Pháidín …

  —Ababúna! Nóirín …

  —Let on you don’t hear her at all, Dotie dear. Don’t you see for yourself now that Máirín was “destined to be afflicted,” as Blinks says in The Red-Hot Kiss … You’re right, Dotie. He’s a cousin of Máirín’s. It’s no wonder he’s going to be a priest, Dotie. He was surrounded by a good deal of culture since he was born. The priest used to call to the house every time he came fowling. Fowlers and hunters from Brightcity and Dublin and from England came there regularly too. Of course, Nell is his grandmother and he’s still with her. Nell is a cultured woman …

  —Oh! … Oh! …

  —His mother, Big Brian’s daughter, was in America, and she met cultured people there. America is a great place for culture, Dotie. The grandfather, Big Brian, used to visit the house from time to time, and though you wouldn’t think it, Dotie, Big Brian is a cultured man in his own way … He is as you say he is, Dotie, but at least he had enough culture not to marry Caitríona Pháidín. Honest…

  —Oh! … Oh! … You honeycomb of fleas …

  —Let on you don’t hear her at all, Nóra …

  —Yep, Dotie … Nevertheless, isn’t it amazing how different two families can be! … My grandson in Mangy Field is another first cousin of Máirín’s: the young man the Big Master talks about. He got to be a ship’s petty officer, Dotie. Lucky him! Marseilles, Port Said, Singapore, Batavia, Honolulu, San Francisco … Sun. Oranges. Blue seas …

  —But it’s very dangerous at sea since the war began …

  —“The valiant youth doesn’t measure the blind leap of danger,” as Frix said in Two Men and a Powder-puff. Happy, happy the life of the sailor, Dotie. Beautiful romantic clothes on him that are every woman’s heart’s desire.

  —I told you before, Nóra, I’m an old-fashioned rustic myself …

  —Romance, Dotie. Romance … I fell head-over-heels in love with him, Dotie. Honest! But don’t say a word about it. You know, Dotie dear, that you’re my friend. Caitríona Pháidín would love to have something to gossip about. Having no culture herself she’d have a very unsophisticated attitude to a matter like that …

  —Let on you don’t hear her at all, Nóra …

  —Yep, Dotie. I fell head-over-heels in love with him, Dotie. He was like a brand-new statue of bronze with life breathed into it. The pupil of his eye was like the sparkle of a star in a mountain lake on a frosty night. His hair was like black silk … But his lips, Dotie. His lips … They were on fire. On fire, Dotie. Burning from The Red-Hot Kiss itself …

  And the stories he told me about foreign countries and ports. About turbulent seas and the driven storm blowing white foam to the topsails. About bright sandy estuaries in the recesses of wooded headlands. About snow-covered, windswept peaks. About sun-drenched pastures on the margins of gloomy forests … About foreign birds, strange fishes and wild animals. About tribes that have stones for money, and about other tribes that wage war to capture spouses …

  —That’s cultured enough, Nóra …

  —About tribes that worship the devil, and about gods that go courting milkmaids …

  —That’s cultured too, Nóra …

  —And about adventures he had himself in Marseilles, Port Said, Singapore …

  —Cultural adventures, I suppose …

  —Oh! I’d give him the last drop of my heart’s blood, Dotie! I’d go with him as bondmaid to Marseilles, to Port Said, to Singapore …

  —You stabbed one another after all that …

  —We had only known one another briefly at the time. An ordinary true-lovers’ tiff, Dotie. That was all. He was sitting by my side on the sofa. “You are beautiful, my Nóróg,” he said. “Your tresses are more luminous than the sunrise on the snow-capped peaks of Ice
land.” Honest, he did, Dotie. “Your eyes are more sparkling, my Nóróg,” he said, “than the Northern Star appearing over the horizon to the mariner as he crosses the Equator.” Honest, he did, Dotie. “Your countenance is more beautiful, my Nóróg,” he said, “than white-crested waves on the smooth strands of Hawaii.” Honest, he did, Dotie. “Your slender body is more stately, my Nóróg,” he said, “than a palm-tree by the rampart of a seraglio in Java.” Honest, he did, Dotie. “Your snow-white body is more delicate,” he said, “than the lighthouse that guides the mariners to the port of Brightcity and that beckons me to the loving embrace of my fair Nóróg.” Honest, he did, Dotie. He embraced me, Dotie. His lips were aflame … Aflame …

  “Your well-formed legs are more shapely, my Nóróg,” he said, “than the silver bridge of the moon over San Francisco Bay.”

  He made a grab at the calf of my leg …

  —He made a grab at the calf of your leg, Nóróg. Now for you! …

  —Honest, he did, Dotie. “De grâce,” said I. “Don’t be grabbing my calves.” “The curves of your calves are prettier, my Nóróg,” he said, “than a whirl of seagulls in the wake of a ship.” He grabbed my calf again. “De grâce,” said I, “leave my calves alone.” “The calves of your legs are more beautiful, my Nóróg,” he said, “than the Milky Way, thrown on its back in the raging seas of the south.” “De grâce,” I said, “you’ll have to leave the calves of my legs alone.” I grabbed a book I’d been reading from the window ledge and I smacked him on the wrist with the edge of it …

  —But you told me, Nóróg, that you took a pot-hook to him, like I did myself …

  —Dotie! Dotie! …

  —But that’s what you told me, Nóra …

  —De grâce, Dotie …

  —And that he drew a knife, Nóróg, and made a sudden lunge to stab you; and then he apologised and said it was the custom in his country to grab another person’s calves as a sign of friendship …

  —De grâce, Dotie. De grâce …

  —That you made it up again then, and that every time his ship reached Brightcity he wouldn’t take his finger off his nose till he came as far as you …

  —De grâce, Dotie. “Finger off his nose.” Very uncultured …

  —But that’s exactly the way you put it yourself, Nóróg. And you said he used to write to you from San Francisco, Honolulu, Batavia, Singapore, Port Said and Marseilles. And that you were down in the dumps for a long time when you got no letter from him, till a sailor told you he was laid low after being stabbed with a knife in a bistro in Marseilles …

  —Ugh! Ugh! Dotie. You know how sensitive I am. It would upset me greatly if anybody should hear that story. Honest, it would, Dotie. You are my friend, Dotie. What you said a while ago would give me a terrible reputation. That he would draw a knife! That I would do something so uncultured as taking a pot-hook to somebody! Ugh!

  —That’s what you told me a good while ago, Nóróg, but you didn’t have as much culture then as you have now …

  —Hum, Dotie. It would take a rustic like Caitríona Pháidín to do a thing like that. You heard Muraed Phroinsiais say it was boiling water she took to Big Brian. She must be a right harridan. Honest! …

  —It’s a terrible shame he didn’t bury the knife to the hilt in you, you sailors’ leavings. Where was it you said he sat down beside you? Oh, Lord God, the unfortunate man had no mind to do what was good for him. Easily known he’d be stabbed in the end if he sat down with the Filthy-Feet Breed. He had a fine present parting from you, indeed: a cargo of nits …

  —Let on you don’t hear her at all, Nóróg …

  —… Now, Red-haired Tom, for God’s sake listen to me. I’m yelling at you for the past hour and you’re paying no more heed to me than if I were frogspawn. Why don’t you have confidence in me? Weren’t we the closest of acquaintances above ground? …

  —The closest of acquaintances, Master. The closest …

  —Tell me this, Red-haired Tom. Is Billyboy the Post unwell? …

  —Billyboy the Post? Billyboy the Post, now. Billyboy the Post. Billyboy the Post, indeed. Faith, there is such a man, Master. Billyboy the Post definitely exists …

  —Arrah, may the devils and the demons and the thirty-seven million devils that were present at Alexander Borgia’s death-bed take Billyboy the Post to hell with them! Don’t I know he exists! Do you think, Red-haired Tom, I don’t know Billyboy the Post exists. Is he unwell, the blubber-lipped little lout? …

  —Some people say he is, Master. Some people say he’s not. Many a thing is said without a grain of truth in it. But he could be unwell. He could, faith. He could, surely. It’s a wise man …

  —I humbly ask you, Red-haired Tom, to tell me if Billyboy the Post is unwell …

  —Oh! He could be, Master. He could be, indeed. He could be, Master. He could, surely. Musha, devil do I know …

  —I implore you, in the name of the age-old custom of neighbourly gossip, to tell me if Billyboy the Post is unwell … Good man, Red-haired Tom … I’ll love you forever, Red-haired Tom … You’re my golden apple, Red-haired Tom, but tell me is Billyboy the Post unwell, or is he likely to die soon?

  —It’s a wise man …

  —I implore you, Red-haired Tom, as a man who was espoused to a woman—as I was myself—to tell me if Billyboy the Post is unwell …

  —He could be …

  —My earthly store, white of my eye, my life’s help, Red-haired Tom! … Do you believe in private property at all? … In the name of everybody’s duty to sustain the natural foundation of marriage, I implore you, Red-haired Tom, to tell me if Billyboy the Post is unwell …

  —If I told anything, Master, I’d tell it to yourself as soon as to anyone else, but I won’t tell anything. One should keep one’s mouth shut in a place like this, Master. It’s not a place to be indiscreet. Graves have holes …

  —My seven cries of curses on you, tonight and tomorrow and a year from tomorrow, you Communist, you Fascist, you Nazi, you heretic, you red-haired Antichrist, you right mouthful of vulgar-blood, you putrid dregs of rustic table attendants, you remnant of disease, you leavings of fly, maggot and earthworm, you lifeless wretch who frightened death himself till he had to put a bad sickness on you, you worthless creature, you useless boor, you red ruffian …

  —De grâce, Master. Control yourself. Remember you’re a cultured Christian gentleman. If you keep on like this you’ll soon be able to keep up a sparring match with that hooligan, Caitríona Pháidín …

  —Master, Master, answer her. You have the education, Master. Answer her. Answer Nóirín …

  —Let on you don’t hear the So-an’-so at all, Master …

  —So-an’-so! So-an’-so! Nóirín Sheáinín calling me a So-an’-so! I’ll explode! I’ll …

  5

  —… A bad bottle, then. A bad bottle. A bad bottle …

  —… Another time I saw the two of them on the roof of the house: Pádraig Chaitríona and Peadar Nell …

  —Do you think I don’t know? …

  —… Indeed, Bríd Terry, if it cost me my life’s blood, I’d be at your funeral. I owed it to come to Bríd’s …

  —Sweet-talking Stiofán blabbering again, or is that him at all? Our Lady knows I have difficulty in hearing any news story here. That earthworm, God blast it! Nowhere would suit it but to go into my earhole! Straight over from Muraed Phroinsiais’s grave it came. That grave is riddled with earthworms. Muraed was used to that, of course. She had a filthy abode above ground too. Dirt on the floors piled high as a ship’s mast, and a coating of filth on every bit of furniture under her roof. No wonder she’s in her element in the clay now. Not to mention herself. You could grow potatoes in her ears, and she never cleaned her shoes going to Mass. You’d recognize the daubs of yellow soil from the swallow hole outside her house, that she left in her trail all the way up the chapel. And she wouldn’t rest till she’d cock herself up beside the altar in front of Siúán the Shop and Nell—the little bitc
h. If Muraed had married Big Brian the pair of them would have been well matched. He never washed himself either, unless the midwife washed him. They say cleanliness is a virtue, but I wonder. Filthy people thrive too. I kept a clean house every day of my life. There wasn’t a Saturday night in the year that I didn’t wash and scrub everything within the four walls of the house. Even when I wasn’t able to stand up I’d still do it. And all I gained by it was to shorten my life.

  What’s this? What sort of commotion is this? Blocked and all as my ears are, they can hear that much at least … Another corpse. The epidemic … The coffin is only an old hen-box. That’s all it is. They’d throw any old tinker down on top of me now …

  Who are you? … On the devil’s tracks to hell with you and speak up! My ears are stuffed … They said to bury you in this grave beside your mother? I don’t recognize your voice, then. But you’re a woman. A young woman … You were only twenty-two. I’m afraid you must have gone astray on the “sod of bewilderment.”8 If you could turn your shroud inside out, maybe you’d find your way. My daughters are dead this long while … Why don’t you speak up and tell me who you are! … Do I need any spiritual assistance? What sort of spiritual assistance are you talking about? … What’s spiritual assistance? …

  Big Colm’s daughter? Big Brian is your uncle! It’s very unwise of you to try and gate-crash your way into the same grave as me. I have too many of your ilk all around me here as I am. I’m not even distantly related to you. Go down to your mother down there. I heard her whining a short time ago. It was coming home from her funeral that I first caught what killed me. A desperate downpour of a day it was …

  Ugh! Keep away from me! The Lower Hillside epidemic.9 Keep away, or God help you. Your uncle Big Brian’s house was an inhospitable place to call on.

  What’s that you said, now? … You know only too well how inhospitable it was! … You fell out with him? … You didn’t go near his house for the past year? You were none the worse for that, sister dear … You may say that again, sister dear. Isn’t that what I said a while ago? Devil a drop of water that fellow splashed on himself since he was born … By japers, you could be telling me the truth: that your father was a clean man. You wouldn’t recognise a trace of him in that other streak of misery? Your father took after his mother! He was a mild-mannered man? … You went to Big Brian a year ago? … You asked him if you could give him spiritual assistance? Oh, you were badly employed offering that ugly streak of misery any sort of assistance! … Ah, it was for the Legion of Mary10 you visited him! … True for you, devil a Family Rosary he said since he was born … That’s what he said to you? … That he wouldn’t accept any spiritual assistance from you! … He told you the Legion was full of jennets! That man has no fear of God or the Virgin Mary …