Hello, Muraed! Do you hear me? Your own kind were the liars … You’ll take no heed of my impertinence from now on, you say! Impertinence, oh! It’s the blatant truth! Hello, Muraed! Muraed! … Devil the talking, then! Hello, Muraed! … Why don’t you wake up your tongue?
Hello, Little Cáit! … Little Cáit! … This isn’t very neighbourly, Little Cáit … Seáinín Liam! … Do you hear me, Seáinín Liam? … Devil as much as a word! …
Hello, Bríd Terry! … Bríd Terry! … Tell me, Bríd Terry, what did I ever do to upset you?
Máirtín Pockface! … Máirtín Pockface! … Cite! … Cite! … This is Caitríona. Caitríona Pháidín … Cite, I say!
Jack! Jack! … Jack the Scológ! … Hello, Jack the Scológ, it’s me, Caitríona Pháidín … You Pound Plot People, call Jack the Scológ! Tell him Caitríona Pháidín is calling him! Jack, I say! … Siúán the Shop, Siúán! May God bless you Siúán, and call Jack the Scológ! … He’s beside you there … Siúán! … Jack! … Jack! Jack! … I’ll explode, explode, I’ll explode, I’ll explode …
Interlude Nine
THE SMOOTHING OF THE CLAY
1
—Sky, sea and land are mine …
—Mine are the hind side, the down side, the internal side, the least side. Only the peripheries and the accidents are yours …
—Glowing sun, shining moon, sparkling star are mine …
—Mine are the mysterious depths of every cavern, the rugged bottom of every abyss, the dark heart of every stone, the unknown innards of every clay, the hidden ducts of every flower …
—Southerly aspect, brightness, love, red of rose and the maiden’s loving laugh are mine …
—Mine are northerly aspect, darkness, gloom, root system that sends growth to rose leaf, and arterial system that brings the gangrenous blood of depression to erupt on the smiling cheek …
—Egg, pollen, seed, produce are mine …
—Mine are …
2
—… Monsieur Churchill a dit qu’il retournerait pour libérer la France. Vous comprenez, mon ami? …
—He’s losing his Irish again fast, since he joined the higher learning …
—… I fell off a stack of oats, Sweet-talking Stiofán …
—… With my own two ears I heard “Haw Haw”1 promise that the Graf Spee would be revenged …
—… The Big Butcher came to my funeral, Soft-spoken Stiofán …
—… Hitler himself, his very own self, will come over to England and with his own two hands he’ll stuff a little bomb about the size of a loaf of bread down those well-filled trousers of Churchill’s …
—… Administering spiritual assistance to people is what I do. If you think you need spiritual assistance at any time …
—I will not, I’m telling you. And I’m warning you in time, Big Colm’s daughter, to leave the black heretics here to me, and not to poke your nose into the business in any way, or upon my soul …
—… The Lord between us and all harm, if England is isolated like that, where will the people find a market? You have no land at the top of the village …
—… Mon ami, the United Nations, England, les États Unis, la Russe, et les Français Libres are defending human rights against … quel est le mot? … Against the barbarism des Boches nazifiés. I’ve already told you about the concentration camps. Belsen …
—Nell Pháidín is on Churchill’s side. Fowlers and anglers from England, of course …
—She was always treacherous, the little bitch! Up Hitler! Up Hitler! Up Hitler! Do you think if he comes over he’ll raze her new house to the ground?
—The Postmistress is on Hitler’s side too. She says the Postmistress is a most important executive in Germany and that if she suspects anybody it’s part of her duty to read that person’s letters …
—Billyboy the Post is on Hitler’s side too. He says …
—Oh, the dishevelled little upstart! What would you expect? Of course, that fellow has no belief in private wealth or the traditional living standards aspired to in Western Europe. He’s a Communist, a non-traditionalist, a revolutionary, an Antichrist, a blackguardly little fart, an evil spirit just like Hitler himself. Up Churchill! … Shut your cocky mouth, Nóra Sheáinín! You’re a disgrace to womanhood! To say that dirty knobnose is a romantic …
—Well said there, Master! Let the Fair Darling of the Filthy Feet have it hot and heavy now! …
—Red-haired Tom says about Tomás Inside …
—Tomás Inside? What side is Tomás Inside on? It’s a wise man would say what side Tomás Inside is …
—… Do you think I don’t know that? …
—Nobody would rightly know it but someone from the same village as them … Tomás Inside was as fond of that burrow of a hovel of his as a king would be of his throne.
—By the docks, dear, didn’t they let my cabin fall in on top of me in the end! …
—Ababúna! Tomás Inside is here! …
—The leak from the roof was hitting me between the gob and the eye, no matter where in the house I put the bed. They let me down badly. They did, dear. Caitríona had a lazybones of a son and Nell had another lazybones of a son, and weren’t they the bad relatives that wouldn’t put a little strip of thatch on my cabin! …
—Tomás Inside buried in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot, Cite! …
—Yes indeed, Bríd, Tomás Inside in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot! …
—The least they could do was to bury him in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot. They have his patch of land, and they’ll get a fistful of money from the insurance.
—But Nóra Sheáinín says Pádraig didn’t keep up the insurance payments after his mother’s death.
—She’s a damned liar! The Filthy-Feet slut! …
—Even if he did keep up the payments the Insurance won’t compensate him for what he’s spent on Tomás. All Caitríona’s prayers for his death were no more than a goat’s puff to Tomás. We’ll ask the Insurance Man …
—Are you long here, Tomás Inside?
—By the docks, I’m only barely landed here, Caitríona dear. I never had an ache or a pain, and isn’t it odd that I died all the same. I died just as if I had. What the doctor told me was …
—What the doctor told you is no use to you now. Nell buried you before herself …
—She’s convalescing, Caitríona. Convalescing. She spent three weeks or a month in bed, but she’s completely recovered now …
—Of course she is, the bitch! …
—And look at me, Caitríona, who never had an ache or a pain, and isn’t it odd that I died all the same …
—Did you think you’d live forever?
—By the docks, Caitríona, I think the priest wasn’t at all pleased with me, so he wasn’t. The day he was visiting Nell he passed me by in the boreen as I was on my way over to Peadar the Pub for a grain of tobacco …
—The tobacco in Peadar the Pub’s is better than anywhere else …
—It is, Caitríona dear, and a halfpenny cheaper. “Faith then, this poor woman up here is feeble enough, priest,” says I …
—You windbag! …
—“It doesn’t look as if she’s well,” says he. “She’s been confined to bed a long time. Where are you wandering off to now, Tomás Inside?” says he. “I’m going over for a grain of tobacco, priest,” says I. “I heard, Tomás Inside,” says he, “that you’ve taken a fancy to this place over here; that you don’t take your head out of the drink at all …”
—Oh, the pussface told him. She was always treacherous …
—“By the docks, I take the odd drop, priest, the same as anyone else,” says I. “A drop is one thing, Tomás Inside,” says he, “but I’m told that one of these nights you’ll be found dead on the way home.” “There isn’t a thing wrong with me, priest,” says I. “I never had an ache or a pain, thanks be to God, and of course now I have the new road under my feet right up to Nell’s door.”
—Hitler will destroy that ro
ad again, with the help of God!
—“My advice to you, and it’s for your own good, Tomás Inside,” says he, “keep away from that place over there as much as you can, and give up your drinking bouts. They’re not good for you at this stage of your life. And this crowd up here have enough to do without having to go out every night to bring you home …”
—Good God above, that cocky little bitch has him under her thumb. She won’t have Hitler under her thumb that easily …
—“By the docks, don’t they have a motor car, priest!” says I. “If they have, Tomás Inside,” says he, “petrol is not to be found in bog-holes. Look at me, having to go round on my bicycle! I’m also told, Tomás Inside,” says he, “that you’re like the change trolley in a shop, shuttling back and forth between the two houses. You’d think, Tomás Inside,” says he, “that you’d have a little spark of sense at this stage of your life and settle in one house or the other. I wish you godspeed, Tomás Inside,” says he, “and don’t let my advice go in one ear and out the other.” “If that’s the way things are,” says I to myself, “I won’t be troubling them with bringing me home every night from now on. There are far too many priests around that house up here. Themselves and their priests! …”
—Devil a word of a lie you said, Tomás Inside …
—“I’ll go down to Pádraig Chaitríona’s where I’ll have peace and quiet,” says I. I turned down the little boreen by the Cliff, in case I’d find any of Nell’s cattle on my patch of land. I didn’t. The stone walls had fallen down in a few places. “I’ll tell Pádraig Chaitríona to come up in the morning and build up the walls, and to put his cattle in on my patch of land,” says I to myself …
—You were perfectly right, Tomás Inside …
—I came back to the head of the boreen again, and I started off down towards Pádraig’s house. By the docks, you won’t believe it, but all of a sudden I couldn’t walk as much as a step, or talk as much as a word. One half of me was dead and the other half alive. I never had an ache or a pain, Caitríona, and isn’t it strange that I died all the same! …
—To burst like a bicycle tube by the side of the road! Nell is the thorn that did for you, you unfortunate little fellow!
—I didn’t die by the side of the road, my dear. Peadar Nell came by at that very moment and whisked me up to his house in the motor car. I’d have died in your house only for that, Caitríona. But I was in bed in Nell’s house before I got my speech back, and then I thought it would be rude to ask them to bring me down to Pádraig’s house.
—There wasn’t a day of your life you didn’t do something stupid, Tomás Inside …
—I only lived for ten days or so. My speech was coming and going. Faith then, I think the priest was no help to me. I never had an ache or a pain …
—You never gave yourself cause, you lazybones …
—By the docks, Caitríona dear, I used to do heavy bouts of work. Faith then, I had a hard life …
—Faith then, if you did, Tomás Inside, it wasn’t from being useful. You had a hard life on account of your drinking and your contrariness …
—Faith then, to be honest about it, Caitríona, I suppose I did have a hangover on the odd Saturday, after the Friday …
—Faith then you did, Tomás Inside, and every Saturday, and every Sunday, and every Monday, and a good many Tuesdays and Wednesdays too …
—You always have your tongue at the ready, Caitríona. I always said that Nell was much more kind-hearted than you …
—You windbag! …
—Faith then, I did, Caitríona. “The devil a bit of looking after me would Caitríona do but to spite Nell,” I used to say. You should see the care Nell gave me when I was laid low, Caitríona. Two doctors …
—For herself she got them, Tomás Inside. Ho-ho, there are no flies on that little pest! …
—It was for me, indeed, she got them, Caitríona. The very moment I was brought into the house to her, she got up off her bed to attend to me …
—She got up off her bed! …
—Faith then she did, Caitríona, and she stayed up …
—Oh, you simpleton! You simpleton! She played a trick on you! She played a trick on you! Sure you never had an ache or a pain, Tomás Inside …
—The devil an ache or a pain then, Caitríona, and isn’t it odd that I died the same as a person who had. By the docks, I think the priest was no help to me …
—You can swear on the book that he wasn’t, Tomás Inside. That cocky little one coaxed the St. John’s Gospel from him that evening, and sent you packing instead of herself, as she did to Jack the Scológ …
—Do you think so, Caitríona? …
—Isn’t it obvious to yourself, Tomás Inside! A woman who was on the flat of her back for a month, rising up like a butterfly like that! You were courting disaster by ever going near that bitch at any time. Had you stayed in my Pádraig’s house you’d be alive and well today. But what did you do with your patch of land? …
—Musha, Caitríona dear, I left it to the two of them: to Pádraig and to Nell …
—You left them a half each, you useless lout! …
—By the docks, I didn’t, dear. I did not, or anything of the sort. I used to say to myself like this, Caitríona, whenever I got my speech back: “If it were much bigger than it is, I wouldn’t begrudge the whole lot of it to either of them. It’s not worth making halves of it. Big Brian always used to say it wasn’t worth dividing …”
—Of course he’d say that, hoping you’d leave it all to his own daughter …
—“I’ll have to leave it to Pádraig Chaitríona,” says I to myself like that. “I’d have left it to him anyhow, if I had managed to reach his house before I collapsed. But Nell was always kind-hearted. I couldn’t but leave it to her, seeing that I died in her house …”
—Oh, you useless fool! You useless fool! …
—The priest was there, writing down what I said, whenever I found my speech: “Make two halves of it, Tomás Inside,” he said. “Either that or leave it to one of the two houses.”
—Why the devil, Tomás Inside, couldn’t you do a bit better than that! Why didn’t you do the decent thing and go in to Mannion the Counsellor in Brightcity?
—By the docks, Caitríona, I only got my speech back now and again, and faith then, a person would need frost-nails2 in his tongue to go splitting words with Mannion the Counsellor. Apart from that, Caitríona, I never felt much like visiting the same Mannion … Your Pádraig was there: “I don’t want it,” he said. “I’ve already got plenty of my own.”
—Oh, the little fool! I knew that Nell would hoodwink him. He’s lost without me …
—Isn’t that what Big Brian said! …
—Brian blubber-lips! …
—Indeed then, Caitríona, he sent for the motor car and came over to visit me …
—To help Nell get your patch of land. If not, it wasn’t for your sake, Tomás Inside. He sent over for the motor car! He was a fine sight in a motor car! A beard like rolls of unspun wool. Buckteeth. Slouched shoulders. Stopped-up nose. Club-foot. Crusted with filth. He never washed himself …
—“If the go-between who’s laid to rest back there were here,” says he, “I’d say it wouldn’t be you, priest, but Mannion the Counsellor would be escorting Milord Inside past the gander …” Nell put her hand over his mouth. The priest pushed him out the door of the room … “We don’t want your land either, Tomás Inside,” says Nell …
—She’s a damned liar, the cocky little scrounger! Why wouldn’t she want it? …
—“I’ll leave the patch of land to Pádraig Chaitríona and to Nell Sheáinín,” says I when I got my speech back. “I won’t begrudge it to you.” “There’s neither rhyme nor reason to what you’re saying, Tomás Inside,” says the priest. “It would end in wrangling and law, were it not for the good sense of these decent people …”
—Decent people! Oh! …
—I couldn’t speak a word from then
on, Caitríona. Devil an ache or a pain I ever had, and isn’t it odd that I died! …
—You’re no great asset, alive or dead, you stupid little fool!
—Listen Tomás! That’s the dote! That tiff with Caitríona won’t make …
—By the docks, tiff?
—That scolding will only vulgarise your mind. I must establish a relationship with you. I am the cultural relations officer of the graveyard. I’ll give you lectures on the “Art of Living.”
—By the docks, the “Art of Living” … ?
—A perceptive group of us here felt we had a duty to our fellow corpses, and we founded a Rotary …
—What do you want a Rotary for? Look at me! …
—Exactly, Thomas. Look at you! You’re a romantic roebuck, Tomás. You always were. But romance must have the stilts of culture under its feet, to raise it up out of the wild sod, and to make it the coercive King Stork of the Twentieth Century, graduating to the high sunlit groves of Cupid, as Mrs. Crookshank said to Harry …
—Hold on there now, my good Nóra. I’ll relate to you what Gambolling Naked said to Knotted Bottom in the “Ripping of the Mantle” …
—Culture, Thomas.
—By the docks, this can’t be Nóirín Sheáinín from Mangy Field I have here! … I wonder will I begin to speak like that in the graveyard clay. Indeed then, Nóra, you had fine homely talk in the old days! …
—Nóróg dear, don’t let on you hear him at all.
—Gug-goog, Dotie! Gug-goog! We’ll have a cosy little conversation after a while. Between ourselves, so to speak. A nice friendly chat between ourselves, you know. Gug-goog!
—I always had culture, Tomás, but you weren’t able to appreciate it. That was obvious to me in the first affaire de coeur I ever had with you. Only for that maybe I could have incited you a little. Ugh! A man without culture! A mate should be a companion. I’ll give you a lecture, with the help of the writer and the poet, on platonic love …
Graveyard Clay- Cré Na Cille Page 29
