The Dirty Dust
Page 4
Careful now with Nora Johnny. I could tell you things, Master …
Ah, forget about that now, get over it Master, and don’t let it bother you … Maybe you are dead right … It wasn’t just letters that had him coming to the house … Ah, come off it, Master … She was always a bit flighty, your wife …
5.
—… They were sent as plenipotentiaries to make a peace treaty between Ireland and England …
—I’m telling you you’re a filthy liar. They were only sent over as messenger boys, they exceeded their authority, and betrayed us, and the country is buggered up ever since …
—A white mare. She was a beauty. No bother for her to carry a ton and a half …
—… By the oak of this coffin, I swear Nora Johnny, I swear I gave Caitriona the pound …
—… “That daughter of Big Martin John
Was just as tall as any man
When she stood up on the hill …”
—… Why don’t you go stuff your England and its markets. You’re just scared shitless of the few pence you have in the bank. Hitler’s the boy! …
—… Now, Coley, I’m a writer. I read fifty books for every one that you read. I’ll sue you if you think I am not a writer. Did you read my last book, “The Dream of the Jelly Fish?” … You didn’t Coley … My apologies Coley. I’m very sorry. I forgot that you couldn’t read … It’s a great story though … And I had three and a half novels, two and a half plays, and nine and a half translations with the publishers, The Goom,* and another short story and a half “The Setting Sun.” I never got over the fact that “The Setting Sun” wasn’t published before I died …
—If you’re going to be a writer, Coley, remember that it’s taboo for The Goom to publish anything that a girl would hide from her father … Apologies, Coley. I’m sorry. I thought you intended becoming a writer. But just in case you get that blessed itch … There isn’t an Irish speaker who doesn’t get that itch sometime in his life … they say it’s the stuff on the coast around here that causes it … Now, Coley, don’t be rude … It’s the duty of every Irish speaker to find out if he has the gift of writing, especially the gift of the short story, plays, poetry … These last two are far commoner than the gift of the short story, even. Take poetry, for example. All you have to do is to start at the bottom of the page and to work your way up to the top … either that, or scribble from right to left, leave a huge margin, but that isn’t half as poetic as the other way …
Apologies again, Coley. I’m really sorry. I didn’t remember that you can’t read or write … But the short story, Coley … I’ll put it like this … You’ve drunk a pint, haven’t you? … Yes, I understand … You drank lots of pints of stout, and often … Don’t mind how much you drank, Coley …
—I drank forty-four pints one after the other …
—I know that … Just hang on a minute … Good man. Let me speak … Get an ounce of sense, Coley, and let me speak … You’ve seen what’s on the top of a pint of stout. The head, isn’t it? A head of useless dirty froth. And yet, the more of it that’s there on the pint, the more your tongue is hanging out for the pint itself. And if your tongue is hanging out for it you’ll drink it all the way down to the dregs, even though it tastes flat. Do you see now, Coley, the beginning, the middle and the end of the short story … Be careful now that you don’t forget that the end has to leave a sour taste in your mouth, the taste of the holy drink, the wish to steal the fire from the gods, to take another bite of the apple of knowledge … Look at the way I’d have finished that other short story—“Another Setting Sun,” the one I was working on if I hadn’t died suddenly from an attack of writer’s cramp:
“Just after the girl had uttered that fateful word, he turned on his heels, departed the claustrophobic atmosphere of the room, and went out into the fresh air. The sky was dark with threatening clouds that were coming in from the sea. A weak faceless sun was entering the earth behind the mountains of the Old Town …” That’s the tour de force Coley: “a weak faceless sun entering the earth”; and there should be no need for me to remind you that the last line after the last word has to be richly splattered with dots, writer’s dots as I call them … But maybe you’ll have the patience to listen to me reading it all to you from start to finish …
—Wait now, my good man. I’ll tell you a story:
“Once upon a time there were three men …”
—Coley! Coley! There’s no art in that story: “Once upon a time there were three men …” That’s a hackneyed start … Wait now a minute, Coley, patience one minute. Let me speak. I think that I’m a writer …
—Shut your mouth you old windbag. Keep going, Coley …
—Once upon a time there were three men, and it was a long time ago. Once upon a time there were three men …
—Yes, go on, Coley, go on …
—Once upon a time there were three men … ah yes, there were three men a long time ago. I don’t know what happened to them after that …
—“… I swear by the book, Jack the Lad …”
—… Five elevens fifty-five; five thirteens … five thirteens … nobody learns that … Now, Master, don’t I know them! Five sevens … was that what you asked me, Master? Five sevens, was it? … five sevens … five by seven … wait now a second … five ones is one …
6.
—… But I don’t get it, Margaret. Honest Injun, I just don’t get it. She—that’s Caitriona Paudeen, I mean—was badmouthing me to the Master. You wouldn’t mind, but I did nothing to her? You know yourself, Margaret, that I wouldn’t stick my nose into anybody else’s business, I’m too busy with culture. And there’s a big flashy cross on my grave too. Smashing, the Old Master says. She insulted me, Margaret …
—I think you had better start getting used to Caitriona’s tongue, Nora Johnny …
—But all the same, Margaret …
—… “Like an eel on a hook, by crook or by luck
Caitriona would snare Nora Johnny.”
—But she has it in for me all the time, she never stops, I just don’t get it, honest …
—… “Each morning that dawned Nora Johnny came over
To make bits of Caitriona like she would with a fish …”
—… “My beautiful daughter, she married your Paddy
Your hovel is better for all she brought in …”
—“Caitriona, you maggot, you were never ashamed
For disgracing yourself you were the best thing …”
—… All his lies, Margaret! Honest to God! I wonder what does she say to Dotie … Hey, Dotie … Dotie … What does Caitriona Paudeen say about me …
—God save us all. I don’t know who you are at all at all. I wish they had brought my sod of clay east of the Fancy City and laid me down on the flat surface of the Smooth Meadow in Temple Brandon with my ancestors …
—Dotie! I told you already that that kind of talk is only sentimental tosh. What did Caitriona say …
—I heard the filthiest talk you could imagine from her about her own sister Nell. “May not another corpse come to the graveyard before her,” she said. You’d never hear that kind of talk on the Smooth Meadow.
—Dotie! But just about me …
—About your daughter.
—… “Not a coat on her back, and I paid for that too,
Nor as much as a shirt to get married in …”
—She said that you were of the Toejam crowd, and that you were riddled with fleas …
—Dotie! De grâce …
—That there were sailors …
—Parlez-vous français, Madame, Mademoiselle …
—Au revoir! Au revoir! …
—Mais c’est splendid. Je ne savais pas qu’il y avait une …
—Au revoir. Honest, Margaret, only that Dotie knows me well she’d believe all those lies … Dotie! That old sentimentality again. You are my fellow mariner on the illimitable sea of culture, Dotie. You should be able to distil every twisted preju
dice and every prejudged notion out of your head, just like Clicks did in “Two Men and the Powder Puff” …
—… The Poet did it, I’d say …
—Oh, was it that chancer …
—No certainly not. It wasn’t him. He wouldn’t be that lucky. Big Micil Connolly made it up:
“Bonking an Old Yank was our Baba Paudeen
And there was no one just like her in all of Maine …”
—Honest, Margaret, I’ve forgotten all that business about Caitriona Paudeen in the place above. It’s the culture, Margaret. It raises the mind up to the noble heights and exposes the magic fairy forts in which the hidden elements of sound and vision dwell, just as Nibs said in “Evening Tresses.” You don’t have any interest any more in normal inanities nor in the petty pastimes of mortal life. My mind is possessed by a glorious disorder for this last while as a result of the rushing wonders of culture …
—… “And there was no one just like her in all of Maine
She came back home dressed up to the nine
With money the old hag left to her name …”
—Baba Paudeen never married, but she was looking after an old crone since she went to America. What do you know, but the old one left her all of her money—well nearly all—when she was dying. Baba Paudeen could fill all the graves in this cemetery with golden guineas, at least that is what they say about her, Dotie …
—… It was Coley who made up all that rubbish. What else?
“‘Ara, Baba, my darling,’ said Caitríona’s cat
‘Don’t yield a farthing,’ said Nell’s cat back.
‘If I only got the money,’ said Caitríona’s cat
‘It’s all for me, honey,’ said Nell’s cat at that.”
—Caitriona would prefer, better than another thousand years, to scrub Nell from Baba’s will …
“‘I have a nice deep pocket,’ said Caitriona’s pussy.
‘I have a nice deep pocket,’ said Nell’s pussy back.”
—“‘For an old hag’s money,’ said Caitríona’s pussy.
‘Baba didn’t promise you,’ said Nell’s pussy at that.”
—She had every single teacher in the whole area totally driven out of their minds getting them to write to America for her …
—And Mannix the Counsellor …
—The Old Master told me he wrote very cultured letters for her. He picked up a lot of Americanese from the films …
—That time when he used to bring the young mistress to the Fancy City in his car …
—The thing that really pisses Caitriona off is that she died before Nell. I often heard her going up the lane and muttering to herself: “I’ll bury her yet before me in the Cemetery Clay.”
—… Tell the truth, Coley. Did you write that rubbish?
—Big Micil Connolly did it. He did “The Ballad of Caitríona” too, and “The Ballad …”
—… But Nell is still alive. She’ll get what’s in Baba’s will now. There’s no other brother or sister, only herself …
—I’m not sure about that, Margaret. Baba was very fond of Caitriona.
—Do you know what my boss used to say about all of them, the Paudeens: “Weather cocks,” he’d say. “If one of them went to market to buy a cow, he’d come home with a donkey. Then he’d say to the next person who made some smart remark about the donkey: ‘I’m sorry now I didn’t buy a cow instead of that old bag of bones of a donkey. She’d be a lot more useful …’”
—… “Would you come along home with me, I’ll shelter you under my cloak,
And I swear young Jack the Lad, we’ll have songs until we croak …”
—… It’s a strange nickname for a man, alright, Dotie … Yes. Jack the Lad. He lives up there at the top of the town land where Caitriona and myself lived. I knew the original Lad himself, Jack’s father … The Old Lad. He was one of the Feeneys, really … No need to laugh, Dotie … Dotie! “Lad” is just as handy as “Dotie” any time. Even if you do come from the Smooth Meadow, I’m telling you, we weren’t pupped by hens no more than yourself …
—De grâce, Marguerita …
—… “‘I’ll marry Jack,’ said Caitríona’s dog.
‘I’ll marry Jack,’ said Nell’s dog too …”
—Caitriona refused many men. One of them was Blotchy Brian. He had a good chunk of land and pots of money. Her father advised her to hook up with him. He was so worthless, according to her, she wouldn’t give him the time of day …
—… Start that song again, and sing it right this time …
—“The Lad’s son he got up and went …”
—… You’d nearly think that God gave Jack the Lad a soul so that he could go about singing. If you heard his voice just once it would haunt you for the rest of your life. I don’t know at all what exactly to call it …
—A musical dream.
—That’s it, Nora. Just like a strange and beautiful dream. There you are on the edge of a cliff. A drowning hole down below you. Your heart thumping with fear. Then, suddenly, you hear Jack’s voice wafting up from the depths. Your desire immediately banishes your fear. Then you seem to let yourself go … You feel yourself sliding down and down … and down … getting nearer all the time to that voice …
—Oh my, Margaret! How thrilling! Honest …
—… I never met anyone who could remember exactly any song that Jack sang. We would forget everything but the soul he put into his voice. Every young girl in the place would lick the winding path which he trod to his door. I often saw the young ones up on the bog and as soon as they caught a glimpse of Jack the Lad over at his own turf they would crawl through muck and glob just to hear him sing. I saw Caitriona Paudeen doing it. I saw her sister Nell doing it …
—Smashing altogether, Margaret. Cultured people call it the eternal triangle …
—… “Jack the Lad rose up and took the early morning air
And went off chasing women with the frolics at the fair …”
—… Too true. It was at the Big Pig Fair that Nell Paudeen and Jack the Lad took off together. Her people were fit to be tied, for all the good it did them. I don’t know if it’s the way you do things over on the Smooth Meadow, you know, that the eldest daughter has to get married first …
—… “She carried him off through bog-holes, swamps and mucky glob
Disturbing all the curlews whose chicks had open gobs …”
—Jack was up on the bog and all he had was waste scrub and some drowned moorland …
—Ara, Maggie Frances, I never saw a more awkward pathway up to a house than that of Jack the Lad’s. Didn’t I twist my ankle that night coming home from the wedding at …
—… You did, because you made a pig of yourself, as usual …
—… The night of the wedding in Paudeen’s house Caitriona was holed up in a corner in the back room with a face as miserable as a wet week. There was a small gang of us there. Nell was there. She started ribbing Caitriona: “I really think you should marry Blotchy Brian, Caitriona,” she said. She knew right well that Caitriona had already refused him …
—I was there, Margaret. “I’ve got Jack now,” Nell said. “We’ll leave Blotchy Brian for you, Caitriona.”
—Caitriona went ape. She stormed out, and she wouldn’t go near the room again until the next morning. Nor did she go to the church either the following day …
—I was cutting a bunch of heather that day, Margaret, and I saw her winding her way up through the bog by Tulla Bwee even though the wedding was over the other way at the Lad’s house …
—She didn’t put one foot, right or left, across the threshold of Jack the Lad’s joint from that day to this. You’d think Nell was riddled with some kind of nasty pox the way she used to give her a wide berth. She never forgave her for Jack …
—… “Brian is a darling with his land and his cows
But he’ll never be right without a woman and a house …”
—… Despite all his wealth, Blotch
y Brian failed utterly to get a woman. It’s a small wonder he didn’t come crawling to her again …
—… “‘By japers,’ says Triona, ‘here’s a fine pig for scalding,
Turn the kettle to the fire: he might get the warning.’”
—They’d use the handle of the pot over beyond the Fancy City. That time Pat McGrath came knocking …
—We refuse them that way too on this side of the city, Dotie. Honest. In my own case, for example …
—Did you hear what the Tailor’s sister did when an old dribbling dunderhead came over from Derry Lough looking for her? She took a long knife out of the press, and started sharpening it in the middle of the floor. “Keep it for me,” she said …
—Oh, she’d do that alright. The Dog Eared crowd …
—After all that, what do you know, Caitriona married John Thomas Lydon from our own place, and never said either “yea” or “nay” when he came for her …
—I swear, Margaret, John Thomas was far too good for her …
—He had a fine plot of the best rich soil …
—And the willingness to work it …
—A fine spacious house …
—She drooled for the place, certainly. To be better off and have more money than Nell. And to be close enough so that Nell could see every single day that she was better off and had more money than her to the end of her days …
—“‘I have a huge haggard,’ said Caitríona’s cat
‘I have the best fat cows, and butter as well …’”
—“‘I am sleek and useful and friendly and cuddly
Quite just the opposite of that kitty of Nell’s …’”
—Letting Nell know that she didn’t get the worst of the bargain, and that Nell could suck on her disappointment and failure. That much came out of Caitriona’s own unforgiving mouth. It was her revenge …
—Oh my! But that’s very interesting. I don’t think I’ll bother with the reading session I have with the Old Master today … Hey there, Master … Let’s skip the novelette today … I’m doing something else intellectual. Au revoir …