—Caitriona was particular, thrifty and nifty in John Thomas Lydon’s house. I know that well, as I was next door to her. The sun never woke her up in bed. Her card and spinning wheel often chattered and gabbled through the night …
—And it looked every bit of it, Margaret. She had stuff and more …
—… I wandered into Barry’s betting shop up in the Fancy City. I had my hand in my pocket just as if I had a pile. All I had was one shilling. I made a racket chucking it on to the counter. “‘The Golden Apple,’” I said. “‘The three o’clock. A hundred to one … It better win,’ I muttered putting my hand in my pocket and sauntering out” …
—… It’s a pity I wasn’t there, Peter, I wouldn’t let him get away with it. You shouldn’t let a black heretic like that insult your religion.
“Faith of our fathers, Holy Faith,
We will be true to thee ’til death,
We will be true to thee ’til death …”
—You’re a bloodless wimp, Peter, letting him talk like that. I wasn’t there to …
—Put a cork in it! Neither of the two of you have shut up going on about religion for the last five years …
—They say, however, Margaret, after all the savaging that Caitriona did of Nell that she would have been glad of her when her husband died. She was in a bad way that time, as Patrick was only a toddler …
—That I would have been glad of Nell! That I would have been glad of Nell! That I would take anything from Nell. God Almighty Father and his blessed angels, that I’d take anything from that hog face! I’m going to burst! I’m going to burst! …
7.
—… “The nettle-ridden patches of Bally Donough,” you say.
—The little pimply hillocks in your town land couldn’t even grow nettles with all the fleas on them …
—… Fell from a stack of corn …
—By the hokey, as you might say, myself and the guy from Men-low were writing to one another …
—“… Do you think that this war is ‘The War of the Two Foreigners’?” I says to Patchy Johnny.
—Wake up, you lout. That war’s been over since 1918 …
—It was going on when I was dying …
—Wake up, I’m telling you. Aren’t you nearly thirty years dead. The next war is on now …
—I’m twenty-one years here now. I can boast something that nobody else here can: I was the first corpse in this cemetery. Don’t you think that the elder in this place would have something to say. Let me speak. Let me speak, I tell you …
—Caitriona had stuff and plenty, no doubt about it, Margaret …
—She certainly had, but despite that her place was better than Nell’s, Nell didn’t let things slide either …
—God bless you. Margaret! Neither herself nor Jack ever did a toss except gawk into one another’s eyes and sing songs, until Peter, the son, grew up and was able to do some work on that old swamp and clear some of the cursed scrubs …
—Nell didn’t have a penny to her name until Blotchy Brian’s Maggie brought her dowry.
—However much you dress up her place, the truth is that what saved her was being near a river and a lake, with some wild grouse around. Of course, there’s no telling what money hunters and fishermen gave her. I myself saw the Earl slipping a pound note into the palm of her hand: a nice crisp clean pound note …
—… Over on the Smooth Meadow, you call your swamps “fens,” don’t you, Dotie? I also heard that you call the cat “a rat catcher,” and the thongs “the fire friend.” … No doubt about it, Dotie, that’s not the proper and correct “Old Irish” at all …
—God save us all! …
—… “‘We’ll send pigs to the market,’ said Caitríona’s cat
‘You’d do better with bullocks,’ said Nell’s cat back.”
—… It’s not one smell of an exaggeration that Caitriona would add bits to her prayers for Nell to shrivel away. She was thrilled to bits if a calf died, or if her potatoes rotted …
—I won’t tell one word of a lie about her, Margaret. God forgive me if I did! That time when the lorry crocked Peter Nell’s leg, Caitriona said straight up my face: “I’m glad it hit him. The road is plenty wide enough. It serves the maggot right …”
—“Nell won that round anyway,” she admitted, the day her husband, John Thomas Lydon, was buried …
—He was buried in the eastern graveyard. I remember it well, and I had good reason to. I twisted my ankle, just where I slipped on the stone …
—Where you made a pig of yourself, as you usually did …
—… To have more potatoes than Nell; more pigs, hens, hay; have a cleaner smarter house; her children to have better clothes: ’twas all part of her vengeance. It was her vengeance …
—… “She ca-me back ho-me dressed to th-e nines
As she fi-lched a sta-ck from the old grey hag.”
—Baba Paudeen got laid low by some sickness in America, and it took her to death’s door. Blotchy Brian’s Maggie looked after her. She brought Maggie back home with her …
—… “Baba was holed up in Caitríona’s house …”
—She rarely went near Nell. She was too out of the way and the path was too awkward after her sickness. She seemed to like Caitriona a lot better for some reason …
—… “Nell’s house is only a rotting hovel
She needn’t bother be spouting lies
The fever was there, no use denying it
If that plague gets you, you’ll surely die …”
—… Caitriona only had one son in the house, Padd …
—Two daughters of hers died …
—No, three did. Another one in America. Kate …
—I remember her well, Margaret. I twisted my ankle the day she left …
—Baba promised Caitriona’s Paddy that she wouldn’t see him short for the rest of his days if he married Blotchy Brian’s Maggie. Caitriona really hated Blotchy Brian’s guts, and she was the same way with her dog and her daughter. But she had a big dowry, and Caitriona had a notion that Baba would more than fancy leaving money in her house as a result. Just to best Nell …
—… “Baba was holed up in Cat-rion-a’s house
Until Paddy rejected the Blotchy’s Maggie.
Nora Johnny has a lovely fair maiden
Without cows or gold I took her fancy …”
—High for Gort Ribbuck! …
—Nora Johnny’s daughter was a fine piece of work, I swear …
—… That’s what turned Caitriona against your daughter in the first place, Nora Johnny. All that old guff about the dowry is only an excuse. From the day your daughter stepped into her house, married to her son, she had it in for her like a pup with his paw on a bone and another pup trying to whip it from him. How often did you have to come over from Gort Ribbuck, Nora …
—… “Each morning that broke, Nora Johnny came over the way …”
—Oh my! We’re getting to the exciting part of the story now, Margaret, aren’t we? The hero is married to his sweetheart. But there’s another woman lurking away in the background. She’s been wounded by the conflict, and there will be lots of trouble ahead … Anonymous letters, sly gossip about the hero, maybe a murder yet, certainly a divorce … Oh! My! …
—… “‘I wouldn’t marry Blotchy Brian,’ said Caitriona’s kitty …”
Add a few lines to that yourself …
—“‘But you thought for to hurt him,’ said Nell’s kitty back …”
—“‘But I’d marry his daughter,’ said Caitriona’s puss to that.”
—“Said Nell’s kitty then, ‘That’s a chance you won’t get.’”
—It pissed Caitriona off even more that Baba took off and stayed in Nell’s house more than Nell’s son got the money and the dowry that had been promised to her own Paddy …
—I remember well, Margaret, the day that Baba Paudeen went back to America. I was cutting hay above in the Red Meadow when I saw them co
ming down from Nell’s house. I ran over to say good-bye to them. As God is my witness, just as I was jumping across the furrowed dyke, I twisted my …
—Don’t you think, Margaret, isn’t it twenty years since Baba Paudeen went back to America? …
—She’s gone sixteen years. But Caitriona never took her beady eye off the will. If it wasn’t for that she’d be dead a long time ago. It added years to her life to be badmouthing her son’s wife …
—Yes, Margaret, and the pleasure she got in going to funerals all the time.
—And Fireside Tom’s land …
—… Listen to me now, Curran:
“A great big altar as a kind compensation …”
—Don’t mind that little scut, Curran. Sure, he couldn’t compose a line of poetry …
—The story is getting a bit boring now, Margaret. Honest. I thought they’d be a lot more hassle by now …
—… Listen, Curran. Listen to the second line:
“And to add to my pride, to be in the Pound Place …”
—… Honest, Margaret. I thought there’d be at least a murder and a divorce. But Dotie can assess every prejudice …
—… By japers, I have it now Curran. Listen:
“The cross above me will drive Nell to distraction
And in the cemetery clay I’ll have won the race …”
8.
—Hoora, Margaret! … Can you hear me, Margaret? … Nora Johnny has no shame talking to a schoolmaster … Of course, that’s true, Margaret. Of course, everyone knows she’s my inlaw. You wouldn’t mind but there is no place here you can get a bit of privacy, or get out of the way. Sweet God almighty! A bitch! A bitch! She was always a bitch. That time when she was a skivvy in the Fancy City before she got married they used to say—we don’t want to even think about it!—that she used to hang around with a sailor …
Sure thing, Margaret … I said it to him. “Patrick, my darling,” I said, just like this. “That thing from Gort Ribbuck that you are determined to marry, did you hear that her mother was hanging around with a sailor in the Fancy City?”
“So what?” he said.
“Ah, Patrick,” I said. “Sailors, you know …”
“Hu! Sailors,” he said. “Couldn’t a sailor be just as good as any other person? I know who this girl’s mother was hooking up with in the Fancy City, but that’s a long way from America, and I haven’t the faintest clue who Blotchy Brian’s Maggie was knocking around with over there. With a black, maybe …”
Sure thing, Margaret. If it wasn’t that she couldn’t warm to Nell and didn’t want to give her the money, there’s some chance that I’d let my son bring a daughter of Blotchy Brian into my house. I swear, I could have been fond of Blotchy Brian’s daughter. The night that Nell got married, that’s what the cow threw in my face. “I have Jack,” she said, “You can have Blotchy Brian now, Caitriona.”
Do you know what, Margaret, but those few words hurt me far more than all the other wrongs she did me. What she said was like a plague of stoats buzzing back and forth through my brain spitting out venomous snots. They never left my head up to the day I died. They never did, Margaret. Every time I saw Blotchy Brian I’d think of that night in the room at home, and on the gloating grin on Nell’s puss because of Jack the Lad. Every time I’d see Brian’s son or daughter, I’d think of that night. Every time somebody even mentioned Blotchy Brian, I’d remember it … on the room … on the grin … on Nell in Jack the Lad’s arms! … in Jack the Lad’s arms …
Blotchy Brian asked me twice, Margaret. I never told you that … What’s that Nora Johnny calls it? … The eternal triangle … the eternal triangle … That was her silly shite, alright … But, Margaret, I didn’t tell you, did I? … You’re mistaken. I’m not that kind of a person, Margaret. I’m not a blabbermouth. Anything that’s my own business, anything I saw or heard, I took it into the clay with me. But there’s no harm talking about it now when we are gone the way of all flesh …
He asked me twice, I’m telling you. The first time I was hardly more than twenty. My father was trying to get me to do it. “Blotchy Brian is a good decent man, with a nice little spot, and a decent stash of money,” he said.
“I wouldn’t marry him,” I said, “even if I had to borrow the shawl from Nell and stand out in front of everyone in the middle of the fair.”
“Why’s that?” said my father.
“Because he’s an ugly git,” I said. “Look at his ridiculous goatee beard. See his sticky out teeth. His nasal whine. His bandy leg. See the dirty dive of a hovel he lives in. See the coat of filth all around it. He’s three times as old as me. He could be my grandfather.”
And I was right. He was nearly fifty that time. He is nearly a hundred now, still alive and not a bother on him, apart from the odd bout of rheumatism. He’d be going to collect the pension same time as me when we were up there. The ugly gom! …
“Every brat to her own device,” my father said, and that was all he ever said about it.
Nell wasn’t married long when he came slavering for me again. I was just getting a cup of tea in the evening as the shades of night came down. I remember it well. I had put the teapot down on the hearth trying to blow some life into the embers. This guy comes in totally unexpectedly even before I had a chance to recognise him. “Will you marry me, Caitriona,” he said, just like that. “I think I deserve you, coming like this the second time. And as it’s not doing me any good, living without a nice woman …”
I’m telling you straight, that’s exactly what he said.
“I wouldn’t marry you, you rotten poop, even if cobwebs grew out of me for want of a man,” I said.
I had put the thongs down and I had the boiling kettle in my hand. I didn’t blink an eye, Margaret, but went for him in the middle of the floor. But he had vanished out the door by then.
I know I am hard to please when it comes to men. I was good-looking enough and had a decent dowry … But marry Blotchy Brian, come on now like, Margaret, after what Nell said …
—… “It’d better win,” I said, sticking my hand in my pocket and hightailing it out the door. “When you lose, you’re screwed,” I said, taking the ticket from the wench. She smiled at me: that kind of innocent smile from a young innocent heart. “If ‘The Golden Apple’ wins,” I said, “I’ll buy you some sweeties and take you to the pictures … Or would you prefer a bit of a dance … or a few quiet drinks in the snug in the Great Southern Hotel? …”
—… Qu’est-ce que vous dites? Quelle drôle de langue! N’y a-til-pas là quelque professeur ou étudiant qui parle français?
—Au revoir. Au revoir.
—Pardon! Pardon!
—Shut your gob, you shitehawk!
—If I could reach that gander, I’d shut his trap for him. Either that, or he’d talk proper. Every time he mentions Hitler he starts spluttering away in a torrent of talk. Sweet jumping Jesus, but if he really knew I don’t think he’d be that happy about Hitler at all …
—Didn’t you notice that every time that Hitler’s name is mentioned, he calls him a “whore” immediately. Who are we to say he hasn’t picked up that much Irish …
—Oh, if only I could get my hands on him! High for Hitler! High for Hitler! High for Hitler! High for Hitler …
—Je ne vous comprends pas, monsieur …
—Who is that, Margaret?
—That’s the guy who was killed in the airplane. Don’t you remember? He went down in the middle of the bay. You were alive that time.
—Sure, didn’t I see him laid out, Margaret … He had a fantastic funeral. They said he was some kind of a hero …
—He jabbers away like that. The Master says that he’s French, and that he’d understand him if his tongue wasn’t worn away by the time he spent in the sea …
—So, the Master doesn’t understand him, Margaret?
—Not the slightest clue, Caitriona.
—I always knew, Margaret, that the Old Master wasn’t very learned. It
doesn’t matter if he doesn’t understand a Frenchy! I should have known that yonks ago …
—Nora Johnny understands him better than anyone else in the graveyard. Did you not hear her answering him just a while back? …
—Ara, would you get an ounce of sense, Maggie Frances. Do you Mean Toejam Nora with the smelly 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 sixes, forty-six; six sevens fifty-two; six eights, fifty-eight … Now, amn’t I great, Master! I know my tables up to now. If I had gone to school as a kid, there’d be no stopping me. I’ll say all the tables from the beginning now, Master. Two ones are … Why don’t you want to hear them, Master? You’ve been kind of neglecting me for the last while, since Caitriona Paudeen told you about your wife …
—I swear by the oak of this coffin, Curran, I gave her the pound, I gave the pound to Caitriona Paudeen. But I never got a gnat’s glimpse of it since.
—Ababoona! Holy cow! You lied, you old bat …
—Honest, Dotie. You wouldn’t understand: a stranger this way from the rich lands of the Fair Meadow. This is the truth, the unadulterated truth, Dotie. Honest, it is. I was going to swear “by the Holy finger,” but that is unbecoming talk. Instead of that, Dotie, I’ll say: “I’ll put the blessed crucifix on my heart.” Margaret told you about herself and Nell, but she never told you about the dowry I lavished on my daughter when she married into Caitriona’s house. You should know that story, Dotie. Everyone else here knows it. Sixty pounds, Dotie. Honest! Sixty pounds in golden guineas …
—For the love of God Almighty! Margaret! Hey, Margaret! Do you hear me?
I’m going to burst! I’m going to burst, Margaret! I’m going to burst, Margaret! Nora Johnny’s young one! … sixty … dowry … for me and us … I’m going to burst! I’m going to burst! O my God, I’m going to burst! … Goi … bur … Go … burs … G … bu … Burs …
The Dirty Dust Page 5
