The Poet made up for Old Neart … until that. Old Neart he loved, yourself and himself. At least that’s how I see it now. The very mention of Heinrich Böll! Not Heinrich to us but – Height-of-Bull. All we wanted was the bloody synopsis but Mac Gee and yourself would go on. About this Existentialismus! The pair of ye getting carried away.
What I’m dying to know now is this: did ye keep it up, the friendship? You left college to us and quietly went off in the bank; the bank and you, Joe? That I could never figure out. So when poor Mac Gee’s name came up I said I’d chase you down.
Ye must have met over the years. Ye must have kept in touch. This news of Mac Gee has brought me back.
We’ll have to meet up for a chat.
Geronimo
‘You go on over first.’ The voice was harsh. I hesitated: he had the gun. This friend, this middle-aged, this good, chuckling friend, my neighbour, wasn’t there. Like he had died and we revived the corpse, made it walk, gave it talk. But not Johnny, not my friend and neighbour, Johnny Behan.
I went ahead through the gap, hoping the gun wouldn’t fire as he came after me through the ditch, throwing a leg over the barbed wire. A sense of relief as I landed in the Low Field, and I moved on quickly. What were we to find? Would he be satisfied now with a simple explanation? Bizarre, no doubt unusual, but look, that’s how it happened. To lose two bullocks in one night was a bad blow, an awful blow given the state he was in, the bleakness he was travelling through.
‘Well,’ I said, trying to cheer him up, ‘you’re as nimble as that goat, do you know that.’ Only a hint of a smile and the eye contact – as always these days – could mean anything. He was definite it was deliberate and what’s more he was definite who did it. That crowd down the road.
We walked over to the drain which came out through the field – a one-time attempt to draw off the wetness from the Low Field – and soon were standing over the marks on the bank where they had rolled in. You could still see where they’d lain, close together. The reddened earth, from the struggle in the dyke. Two in the one night.
‘I know, Johnny, it’s bloody bizarre but that’s probably what happened. They lay down near the drain and rolled over during the night. On their backs, unable to struggle out. I know two in the one night …’
He was in his own world. ‘The bloody bastards, they’re always trying to get me back, ever since I ran them.’ He stared into the feileastroms growing near the drain which the mower didn’t catch. ‘We’ll have to cut them bloody flaggers and clear it up. What do you think?’
He was moving about not needing an answer. Why the gun hugged to the chest? He couldn’t think I had anything … ‘The bloody bastards, I know they were behind it.’
I was glad to hear him repeat ‘the bloody bastards’, to be still on his right side. And I knew the history, thought I knew. Family farm where the sister got nothing, having married beneath her, defying the father. Cabbage going missing, potato drills dug up at night. All blamed on them. Who knows.
‘We’ll head on back’. Jesus, the relief. But now the gap to be manoeuvred one more time. ‘On you go,’ he says with resignation. I move fast. Down. Watching the gun in his hand as he came through, staying out of its aim just in case. And we trudged home forcing a conversation. Only the bare replies.
‘That’s where he hid when the Tans came in, I often heard my poor mother tell, in that small press!’
‘And he seems a big man in that photo?’
‘Big, is it? Twice my size!’ he chuckled. ‘Twice my size if the picture’s anything to go by! Look at him. Head and shoulders over Mullins, the two of ’em with their pistols, full of bravado! They say ’twas taken in front of the castle, around the time Collins passed through going down to Cork.
‘You can read it there, what it says on the back, that’s it: Pádraig Ó Beacháin, Lios Rua. That’s about it as far as my Irish goes, Lios Rua – the Red Fort, that’s what I heard at school, isn’t that it, our Lisroe? That and my name, Seán Ó Beacháin. You’d hear that every morning first thing for the roll call and you’d shout back, Anseo! After all poor Padge there fought for, smiling out at us not knowing how soon he’d die. It could do with a bit of a cleaning.
‘But anyway, Padge – he got himself curled up in there in the flour bags. That used to be the flour press, all homemade bread that time, and the story was around of how, over in Athea, they bayoneted the flour bags! Out of spite, of course, but that night they just opened the small door and moved on. Checked the rafters and everything, every damn thing but not there. By the time they left of course – and they left cursing and blinding, she used to say, but they didn’t do too much harm – he was like, what’s this they call it? Rigore …’
‘Rigor mortis!’
‘You have it! They had to uncurl him there on the kitchen floor after being wrapped up for so long!’
‘Houdini! But imagine, if they had bayoneted the flour bags … Jeez, the thought of it …’
‘There’d be no bread for a while! That’s for sure.’
The great white puck goat peeped in the door. I went to shoo him back to the yard. But Johnny says, ‘No, leave him.’ And then he starts his conversation with Geronimo, for that was the puck’s name.
‘And how are we today, Geronimo? Why aren’t you down the land minding your herd of cattle, Geronimo? In here for the calf nuts, is it? “Oh, just a handful, old boy. Boring work with those stupid cows. Nothing but gossip.” Go on, throw him a fist of it.’
Going down the fields for the cows at milking time, Geronimo would follow on, pucking you from behind, Move on. A character, that goat.
We’d enact our mind-plays in the kitchen or in the cow-house, giving Geronimo leading roles and a deep authoritative voice for his witty comebacks. We’d place him in Westerns where he would shoot out the varmints, more times in Chicago taking out Al Capone. Or sometimes he would predict the weather. Johnny’s way of indicating next day’s work. Things he wanted you to do but mightn’t be able to ask, leaving it to Geronimo. But rutting season came and he headed out to Ardagh where – reports came in – he attacked an equally magisterial opponent in the front-door glass of the church. We missed Geronimo.
What in the fuck got into us I don’t know, but we squeezed in the bedroom window and saw the squalor. The room he always kept locked. The rank … But idiots that we were we hung any old clothes we could find off hangers, not much, but he’d know someone had been in. Hilarious when you’re pissed. And to make it worse he didn’t ever refer to it until now, in this dimness. The good being long gone out of it.
‘’Twas yourself and Corduff, am I right? Ye’re some pair. Ye were in, however ye got the key!’ this seemed to be in jest but I knew the wrong. Some things go too far.
‘In where Johnny? Not a hope, it’s dreamin’ you are!’
He moved on to heavier matters. ‘She’s sayin’ that it’s my child. That’s what she’s at.’
‘But Johnny, she’s your niece, ah she can’t be saying that. Come on, sure that child is grown. She’s never that bad.’
‘That’s what she’s sayin’,’ he broke in. ‘They’re all at it. They have it all over the town.’
‘Ah, they’re not, don’t be botherin’ yourself with that.’
They’re all at it behind his back. There’s all this talk. This talk in his head. He sees it in the way they look. And they killed two of the herd. Rolled them in. For sure.
Almost dragging him under. But the neighbours eventually moved and with quiet coaxing the gun was taken in and he agreed to a spell inside.
‘The Snake Pit!’ was how he’d refer back to it when he found himself dwelling on those days, the humour returning, but lukewarm, not like before. The Snake Pit and the chuckle.
Yes, but not quite. Not quite. With the tablets rounding off the edges, our Johnny had become a watered-down version.
The cigarettes and all the other stuff, in the end, bringing him down.
‘So you must have been frighten
ed then that evening! When you went out with me and I having the gun!’ Good to be able to talk back on the dark days but your voice is weakening, the tough roundy frame dwindling.
Final days when cancer moved in to eat away from inside, final days saw you move off quietly. Haymaking – gone. Milking – gone. Checking for mastitis – gone. The unctuous movement of prayer in a sterile house, being looked after till the final collapse. A child’s corpse. ‘What the fuck was it all for?’ I would love to have heard you roar. Search for some meaning. Geronimo. Speak through Geronimo that we may hear what hints you have for tomorrow, what chores lined up, what hints for hereafter. Go on, let us hear.
Why the quiet graveyard, back with the old people, the swashbuckling uncle killed by his own having survived the Tans, the John Bull-hating father, the poor hard-worked mother, why enclosed by it all? The farm in autumn drooping, heavy with all the past.
Geronimo! Geronimo is at the door. Speak through him. He stands there resplendent.
‘Do you know my biggest regret? Years ago when I was on the liquor, before the farm was handed over, I sold an old ass to that good-for-nothing down the road. Money for liquor, of course! And then one day as I was coming home from the creamery there was my poor old ass being driven into the ground by that brute with a stick. I regretted that. I arrived there in the yard and I just stood there thinking back. D’you know that? I couldn’t bear to go in and face the mother. D’you know what I’m sayin’? Even though she’d say nothing.’
‘She’d be out there milking the cows and then he’d arrive home from the fair, the money spent, bawling about John Bull. That’s all he ever did about John Bull! Bawl about it on fair days with my poor mother there under the cows, milking her lot, then his, while he slept it off, cursing there by the fire.
‘“You’d think ’twas John Bull himself killed your Uncle Padge,” she whispered to me once with her shy smile. Apart from that she never had a bad thing to say of him. Blamed it all on the drink. But ’twas her did all the work except for his buaileam-sciath during the hay. He’d have to fork more than the rest. You’d have a meitheal of men and he’d have to be there ahead of ’em, cock of the walk.
‘And do you see that fellow there in the bowler hat? That’s right, the grandfather. He was said to be worse again. All the men … Oh, I don’t know … I’ll have to go back to the Home! That’s all I’m fit for!’
We’d both get a kick from that, Johnny’s eyes pinched with laughter. Standing there resplendent at the Pearly Gates a great white goat awaits his master.
The wet days, looking out at the rain, our door to the north, like the wren from her nest. And he’d be there saying, ‘Worse than a sore arse, that rain. Will it ever cease?’ and then with the laugh: ‘Take me back to the Home! That’s all that’s for it.’ But we had a visitor, his monthly visit.
‘Not if you were to throw it out the door! Put away that teapot. I’m telling you, don’t go making tea. ’Twill go out the door, I tell you.’ Our visit from Danno the court clerk. Never accept a drop or eat a bite. Up and down he’d walk with the odd break on a chair, then up again. Hands behind the back, half in a trance as he recited each case for us. Of course we’d be sitting there, rapt!
‘They were up again this week, the Cotters. The Turpentine Cotters! You’d think they’d have their lesson after being caught, for the TB scam and all the rest, but not a hope of it, they’re back again.
‘“Is it yourself George Cotter before me again today?” Leahy the Judge, but not half as witty as the last man, Quille. “Mr Cotter? Hmm? I thought we had dealt with this case?” Out from under the eyebrows, giving the quizzical look down at me! “The heifer, I believe – in farming parlance – that doesn’t take to the bull is called a repeater. Is this what we have here, Mr Cotter, a repeater?” The court was in stitches.’
As he got into the detail Danno would focus on the kitchen floor, Sheppie moving off from his favoured spot to allow the swinging gait to go forward and back from doorway to table, concentration everything – bringing on full recall.
Johnny enjoyed it no end. Chuckling away and winking at me behind Danno’s back as we savoured the lingering details of courtroom procedure. The town buckos who gave as good as they got. ‘“And is that all, your Honour? And thanking you, your Honour!” From Cotter, tough as leather,’ says Danno. We might as well be inside with them, that good.
Finally, exhausted by his eloquence and procedure, Danno would make to leave as entreaties rose up again.
‘Not if you were to force it down my throat! Not a drop, but thanks, sure thanks very much.’ Waving it away with the hand. Then off.
So standing there resplendent at the Pearly Gates a great white goat awaits his master: took you a while, old boy! The last word going to Geronimo.
Fog
‘Where’re we going now, lads? Hah!’
From the seats behind them a sudden interest. He answered himself.
‘Into the fog, lads, that’s where! If it doesn’t lift soon there’ll be no game. Down here! In this godforsaken place by the estuary … there’s always fog down here if you ask me. I don’t know how they live here. Hah!’ He tossed his head back – that gesture which said ‘I give up on them.’ What? You can’t hear? A child’s voice? Of course you can’t. How could you? We’re on a bus, the rattling. Of course you can’t hear. Usually cars, any old jalopy to take a bunch of us, the boot stuffed with the jerseys, black and white of the Magpies. Up the Magpies! Come on the Magpies!
A small man, the trainer, not much taller than us under-twelves. Who are we playing? Ask Miney, he’ll know, his father knows everything. Their shop full of leather smell, footballs, harness and sliotars. Counter worktop there in front of you. ‘Mind that sliotar now, your mother there can’t be out buying you a new one every time ye hit it into the hedge. And every night rub in the Vaseline in the grooves, d’you see, young man, and what do you rub into your hurley every winter? What did I tell you? Linseed oil. Am I right?’ Always right was Mr O’Toole, Ted-the-Harness, kindly enough but always the stern advice. In his coarse brown work coat. ‘Mind now your mother can’t be forking out for sliotars every day.’
The first puck of that ball in the backyard, the clean smack off the ash, the solid feel in the hand. Whack. Rebound. Whack. Football nowhere near it, hurling was the game. Any big geochach could push his way around at football, elbow into the mouth, but hurling was swift and clean. Smack, it’s up the field, smack, it’s back down. Clash, the clash of the ash. The ball going where it will.
‘Mind how you look after it now, d’you hear? If you want it to last. Do you see those threads? Well, you grease them well and don’t go drying it by the fire, that’ll ruin the leather.’ The smooth feel in the cup of the hand, the black horseshoe ridges, the gleaming white sitting on newly mown grass, repeat and repeat the cut off the ground, they say Theo English can cut a point from the sideline. That’s your hurling.
‘Are we anywhere near this godforsaken place?’ Dooley again to Paul. ‘This fog has me addled.’ Paul smiling kindly as always. If he had his way he’d give everyone a game, subs on and off, all going home saying it was they made the vital pass. ‘Relax there, Donny, we can’t be far.’
‘Of course … how you arranged this, Paul O’Neill, I’ll never know! Under-twelves? Sure half of them don’t know their own age! And is that a tin of biscuits you brought there under the seat? Biscuits! They’ll say we’re getting as bad as the rugby crowd, hah! Tea and biscuits at a hurling match!’
‘Ara, it’s just a little something, those lads in there now … I’d say they don’t see too many goodies.’ Paul smiled benignly out the window. Out into the autumn fog. Still playing himself, Paul could magic the ball out of a shemozzle, turn and twist, a genius, but missing the killer touch, that was the word that went around the sideline. ‘Will he get rid of it,’ they’d say, as he enjoyed wheeling about and mesmerising the opponents. ‘Will you do something with it.’ Then, after one last swerve, if he tapped i
t over the bar all was well. They’d cool down. He got that skill from his mother’s people. But missing the killer instinct. ‘If he’d only use the ball.’
We’re here! Our first time travelling to a match on a bus, that’s bad enough for the nerves, but now getting out, will you look at the size of ’em. Word travelling back onto the bus. The size of ’em, lads! Brother Timothy welcoming the adults. We were warned to be polite to the boys no matter what they might throw at us, and say hello to Brother Timothy, their coach. Before leaving, Paul had got us together and said, ‘Now look lads, this is only a challenge match, don’t worry about the result, the lads in there don’t get much time for hurling. Do yere best and give them a game. Avoid hard pulling – there’ll be only one winner out of that! Some of these lads came up hard!’ The boys on my road knew Timmo had been sent off. We hardly knew Timmo he was around so little. My mother would just say, ‘It’s probably for his good, poor lad.’ ‘If you’re not careful you’ll be sent off to the Estuary,’ an occasional warning. But we kind of knew it wouldn’t happen. Lads like Timmo, who was wild as a goat, it happened to. Robbing, that kind of thing. We only rawked orchards, the Guards would never take you away for that.
They weren’t great, we could tell early on, but the swipes they were drawing with the hurleys meant you stayed well back. Their haircuts were tight and they all looked angry. Then Miney O’Toole went down with a belt, no one saw it but there he was, stretched. A bit of blood on his ear. Wait till this gets back. Paul and Donny dousing him with the water.
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