—This guy, the spitting image of Billy, went back upstairs, and there was a woman there all in black sporting some flowers.
“That’s the Schoolmistress, if she’s alive,” I said to myself. But then I remembered this was all happening in America, and the mistress was teaching in the school a few days before this …
—The dirty cow! …
—De grâce, Master! … Now, Dotie …
—The guy with the golden buttons opened the door again. Another woman with a small cute nose came in wearing a fur coat, just like the one Baba Paudeen wore when she was home from America but that she had to get rid of because of the snots of soot that slopped down on it in Caitriona’s house …
—You’re a filthy liar, you useless crock of crap! …
—… Oh, it was a wonderful film, smashing, Dotie! Honest! I was both excited and scared shitless. If you had only seen that bit where Eustasia says to Mrs. Crookshank:
“My dear,” she said. “There’s no point in getting upset about it. Harry and I are married. We were joined together in matrimony in a registry office on Sixth Avenue this morning. Of course, my dear, Bob is there all the time …”
Then she rolled her shoulders kind of triumphantly. Oh, it’s really a tragedy that you didn’t see the face that Mrs. Crookshank pulled, and she struck dumb! I couldn’t help thinking—God forgive me!—of what Nell Paudeen said to Caitriona:
“Sure, you can have Blotchy Brian, Kay.”
—You whoring whack! … You so-and-so … Margaret! Margaret! Did you hear that? Did you hear the trollop of the Toejam trotters, and Breed Terry? I’m going to burst! I’m going to burst! …
6.
And so Nell wasted the lorry man! Even though her son was on the wrong side of the road. That judge hadn’t a clue. So much for Breed Terry that the law wouldn’t leave her with a brass farthing? And she got eight hundred pounds after that! It was the priest, wasn’t it? And the holy joke had the cheek to say masses for me …
They’re making a road into her house. They couldn’t have made that road only that my Patrick is so simple. She’s taking him for a ride now, just like she did with Jack the Lad about John’s Gospel. If I were alive …
There hasn’t been as much as a peep about the cross anymore. And after what that ugly turkey said: “It would be a shame to put a cross up over that dried-up juice box.” Easily known he’s not a bit afraid of God or of His holy mother. And he’s nearly hitting the hundred! I hope his journey to Dublin kills him! …
They’ve forgotten all about me up above. So it goes, God help us. I didn’t think Patrick would go back on his word. That’s if that little scut got the story right? Probably not. He was far too set on going to England …
If only my own Patrick really knew what things were like stuck here in the dirty dust of the cemetery clay! I’m like a hare trapped by a gang of bloodhounds. Totally harassed and heckled by John Willy, and Kitty, and Breed Terry, the whole shower of them. Trying to keep up with them all on my ownio. And neither soul nor sinner round about to say a word for me. But I won’t stand it. I’m about to burst …
That whore’s melt, Toejam Nora, she’s egging them on all the time …
And the huge change that came over her daughter and all. I was certain she’d be here ages ago. She’s a tough woman, alright. I’m delighted now that she married Patrick. You have to tell the truth. That’s how it is. I’d forgive herself and her mother every single thing they ever did on me just because she shoved Nell into the fire on the back of her head, and she didn’t leave a wisp of hair, or a tatter of rags, or as much as a strip of clothes on Blotchy Brian to cover him up. And she smashed the dishes. She chucked the tub that Blotchy Brian’s young one and Nell were churning in upside down. She stamped on a whole clutch of young chicks on the floor. She clattered Nell’s silver teapot against the wall, the one she used to show off on top of the dresser. And she flung the clock that Baba gave to that old scrotum-face straight out the window. That’s what the youngfella said …
She’s some woman. I’m sorry now I was so hard on her. To shove Nell arse over head into the fire! Something I never had the good luck to do …
And she’s got over her sickness now. She’s raising hens and pigs and calves. If she lives, she’ll do a great job yet …
But to shove Nell arse over head into the fire! The back of her white hair was burned. I forgot to ask that youngfella was her white hair sizzled. I’d give all that I ever wanted just to see her dumping Nell in the fire. Isn’t it a tragedy that I wasn’t alive!
I’d shake her by the hand, I’d give her a big kiss, I’d slap her on the back, I’d order one of those golden bottles that Peter the Publican has in the window, we’d drink to our health, I’d say a prayer for her mother’s eternal soul and I’d get her to call her next baby Nora on top of that. What am I talking about? Isn’t there a Nora already! …
But anyway, I’ll call Nora Johnny, I’ll tell her all about the great deed her daughter did, and how she is so busy now, and I’ll tell her that I’m so thrilled that she is married to my son …
And what will Maggie, and Kitty, and Breed Terry, and the whole lot of them say? That I used to be bitching about her; calling her a strap and a slut, and Toejam Nora; that I wouldn’t vote for her in the Election …
They’ll say that. And they’ll say also—and ’tis too true—that she told lies about me: she said I had robbed Fireside Tom, that her daughter got a hundred and twenty pounds of a dowry …
But let them! I’d forgive her everything just because she shoved Nell arse over head into the fire …
Hey Nora! … Hello, Nora! … Nora, my darling! … This is Caitriona Paudeen … Nora! … Nora my lovely! … Did you hear that news from above? … about your daughter …
What’s that Nora? What’s that you said? … Ababoona! That you have no time to be listening to silly stories about life aboveground! … Oh, yea, you had no problem getting involved in the silliness of the Election, and it’s left you more stuck in the mud! By cripes! … You couldn’t be bothered listening to my story … It’s only something silly, ha! … You’re going to spend all the rest of your time on … on … on … What’s that you called it … On culture … You don’t have the time to be bothered listening to my story as it has nothing to do with … with culture … Sweet Jesus almighty! … Toejam Noreen … Toej—Noreen from Gort Ribbuck talking about … about culture! …
Give me that chunk of English again. As pigs can fly, imagine English in Gort Ribbuck. Give it to me again …
—“Art is long and Time is fleeting.”
—Fleet! Fleet! That’s what you’re mainly interested in. Fleets and sailors. Holy Mother of God, I must have had no respect for myself to think that I might get through to you, you So-and-so! …
Interlude 6
THE MANGLING EARTH
1.
I am the Trumpet of the Graveyard. Hearken to what I have to say! Hearken unto my voice …
Here in the graveyard the autocratic overseer is darkness. His cudgel is the melancholy which does not melt on the smart smirk of the young woman. His lock is the lock of unknowing, and will neither be opened by the lustre of lucre nor by the winsome words of wonder. His eye is the penumbra which peeps from the pox at the edge of the wood. His sentence is the sentence of death from which no cavalier can escape with his sword of valour before he expires.
There aboveground the brightness is resplendent in its radiance. The sun sports a rose-mottled mantle hemmed with the music of the sea and stitched with a seam of birdsong while tassels of butterfly wings belt the stars from the Milky Way. His shield is of the serenity of the bride. His sword of light swirls like a child’s. His optimum is the corn which is opening on the stalk, the morning panoply of cloud which is penetrated by a shaft of brightness, the young girl whose vision is still lit by the fresh dreams of love …
But the sap is sagging in the trees. The aureate voice of the thrush is coppering. The rose is slouching. The dark
rust which ruins, ravages, and runkles is corroding the cavalier’s blade.
The darkness is besting the brightness. The graveyard must get its due … I am the Trumpet of the Graveyard. Hearken to what I have to say! You must hearken unto my voice …
2.
—Who’s this now, like? … Poxy Martin, be the holies! About time for you, too. I’m here long enough, and we’re the same age … Yes, that’s me, the same woman, Caitriona Paudeen …
You had bedsores, you say …
Ah, Caitriona, my dear, the bed was very hard. Really hard on my poor arse. My back was really in bits. There wasn’t a sliver of flesh on my thighs, and there was a very sensitive spot on my groin. You wouldn’t mind, Caitriona, but I was laid up for nine whole months. I couldn’t turn or twist. My son used to come in, Caitriona, and turn me on my other side. “I can’t really budge my old body at all,” I’d say. “I’m a long time laid up,” I’d say. “Being laid up a long time never told a lie,” he’d say. Ah, Caitriona, my dear, the bed was very hard on my poor arse …
—Your arse never felt much, Martin. Did it good … Well, if you had bedsores, it’s all for the better, they’ll help you get used to the planks here … Biddy Sarah, you’re asking about. She’s still alive. We’re better off without her. She was an ugly trollop aboveground, not to speak badly about her, but I don’t think this place would improve her one tiny bit … Yourself and Biddy were always in competition to see which of you would live longer, is that it. That’s it, alright. That’s it. That’s how it is, Poxy … But she buried you first all the same! We can do sweet fanny all about that, my poor Martin. Bad shit to her anyway, isn’t she the long living thing! She should have died ages ago, only she has no shame … Too true for you Martin, it’s a wonder she wasn’t covered with bedsores she was so fond of the bed. She was sick every single day, except when there was a funeral. Every other day she was choking with a cold. But there wasn’t much wrong with her voice on those days. “If I wasn’t hoarse,” she’d say to you after the funeral, “I would really have keened him.” The lying latchico! She’s still drawing the pension and hauling in half-crowns and shovelling them into her daughter-in-law’s apron. As long as she keeps ladling the money into the apron, her daughter-in-law won’t let her get any bedsores, I’m telling you. They’ll rub butter on those thighs and hips … She doesn’t keen anyone now, she says. What a spouter! … Redser Tom is laid up too. Another one … The shack didn’t fall down on Fireside Tom yet, you say … Ababoona! Nell bought him a table … and a dresser … and a bed. A fecking bed! There’s no way she’d give a bed to anyone if she didn’t want some sneaky money back. Oh, that judge didn’t have the least clue! … She was scared shitless she’d have sores on the old bed. Listen, Poxy Martin, she was scared shitless she wouldn’t get his bit of land …
Blotchy Brian, what about him? He’ll never pop off until they smear him with oil and put a match to him … That’s God’s honest truth, Poxy Martin. That ugly old wagon will never have bedsores … They’ll pop off together. That’s true, pop off together. I hope their old bones rot together! …
What’s that? … They’re all throwing-their-guts-up sick again in Letter Ektur! They were always like that, I’m not blaming them! They’ll be a great help to this place, anyway. They’ll add to it, and addle it …
Our own Baba is down sick in America! By the hokey! … Ah, come on like! You think she has bedsores too, Poxy! She has an arse twice as big as yours ever was. And she could keep a nice soft bed under it, unlike you, Poxy Martin … Have a bit of sense, you stupid prick … You think just because your own bed was hard that every other bed is hard too … God help you, there are plenty of soft beds in America, especially if you have money! … You never heard whether or not she wrote home, did you? You didn’t hear anything about Nell trotting up to the priest recently? … No doubt about it, Poxy. She’ll guzzle up the will, that’s the way she’s made … The priest is doing the writing for her? What next? …
That schoolmaster is no good writing for the likes of us … He hasn’t a clue about anything, Martin! You’re right about that. Everything is all right as long as he doesn’t go squawking to the priest … The priest and the master are often seen out strolling together, you say … The new road to Nell’s house is nearly finished. Why did that eejit of a son of mine have the misfortune to give her Lack Ard! …
Nell is talking about building a house with a slate roof! With a slate roof! I hope she never lives to see her house with a slate roof, the piece of poop! Maybe she’s got some of the will already? That crowd in Derry Lough got a slice of it, before their brother died at all … And of course, she had the money from the court case. They’ll certainly bury her in the Pound Plot now …
Jack is still ailing. The poor man! Nell and Blotchy Brian’s young one, that long string of misery, they fixed him up with St. John’s Gospel! … You never heard about St. John’s Gospel! … You heard something, you must have! Do you think they’d tell you anything about it! …
Patrick’s wife is up at the crack of dawn every morning! God bless her! … There are lots of calves on Patrick’s land, is that it? … Wife has taken over all the business from Patrick! … She does the buying and selling now! Would you believe it! And there I was thinking she’d be here any day soon! … But, of course, you never know with a young one, do you? … There was something crippling you. Bedsores … You’d easily know, Poxy Martin, that you’re very new in this place when you’re talking like that. Don’t you know that you must die from something, and bedsores are as good as anything else …
Ababoona! You heard that they’ve given up on the cross! You heard that! … Now, come on, Poxy Martin, maybe that wasn’t what you heard at all, but that you got the wrong end of the stick completely because of all those bedsores you had … You heard they’re not going ahead with it … That Nell was talking to Patrick about the cross … You don’t know, you don’t want to tell a lie, you don’t know what she said. Come off it, Poxy Martin, forget about that “don’t want to tell a lie” stuff.
“Don’t want to tell a lie”! Nell wouldn’t be afraid to tell plenty of lies about you, if it suited her … And you wishing her luck like fuck! You’re finished with the bed now, anyway. Spit out your story … You didn’t know how bad it would be! You had bedsores! Listen now, just for a moment even. Maybe Nell said something like this to my Patrick: “Come here to me now, Paddy my dear, you have enough on your plate now not to be thinking of a cross …” Oh, it was Nora Johnny’s one said that! Patrick’s wife said that! … “We’ll certainly be on top of things when we can afford to buy a cross … There are plenty just as good as her with no cross at all … She’s damned lucky to be buried in a graveyard at all, and the way things are.” She’d say that, alright. The sly slit of the Toejam tipple! But it was Nell taught her. I hope not another corpse comes to the graveyard before her! … Patrick won’t take a blind bit of notice of them …
Patrick’s daughter is back at home … Maureen is back home! Are you sure she’s not just taking a break from school? … She failed her exams. She failed! … She’s not going to be a schoolteacher after all … Shag her anyway! Shag her! …
Nora Johnny’s grandson from Gort Ribbuck has gone … On a boat from the Fancy City … He got a job on the ship … Just like his grandmother, he really likes his sailors …
Say that again … Say that again … Nell’s grandson is going for the priesthood. Blotchy Brian’s daughter’s youngfella is going to be a priest! A priest! That little feckless fart face going to be a priest! … He’s already gone to the seminary … He was wearing the priest’s garb at home … And the collar … And lugging a huge big prayer book around under his oxter … Reading his office up and down the new road at Lack Ard! You’d think that he’d never make a priest overnight, just like that … Oh, he’s not a priest yet, he’s just going to the college. Aha, Poxy Martin, they’ll never make a priest out of him ever …
What then, what did Blotchy Brian say? … D
on’t be chewing and chomping, just spit it out … You’re afraid to, is that it? You’re afraid to! … Because Blotchy Brian is related to me by marriage. It’s to that wench of a sister he’s related. Spit it out … “My daughter has money to burn to make a priest.” Money to burn on a priest. The wrinkly old wretch! … Spit it out, or go to hell! Hurry up or they’ll have whipped you off too. You don’t think that I’d let you down into this grave and you riddled with bedsores for months … “Caitriona Paudeeen’s boy couldn’t even do that much …” Spit out the rest of it, you old gimp … “He didn’t have enough to put as much as a stitch of a college petticoat on his daughter.” Blotchy bastard Brian! The bumming bastard! …
Screw you! You’re muttering again … Nell is singing “Eleanor Aroon” up and down the road every day! Get stuffed, you mangy rash-arsed mong. You never had a good word to say, nor anybody belonging to you …
3.
—… Do you think this is “The War of the Two Foreigners”? …
—… There I was giving a word for every pint to the Great Scholar, and he was giving me a pint for every word …
Over and back again the next day. The third day he had the car under his arse. The journey over and back was flaying us out.
“Paul, darling,” my mother says to me that evening, “there should be a good bit of drying on the grass from now on.”
“What do mean, drying, Ma?” I says. “You could never dry that crappy grass …”
She was on about it for a fortnight before I succeeded in making a few haycocks. Then I took it down again, and turned it up and turned it over and turned it around.
It was like that until one day when it pissed rain and the two of us were inside in Peter’s Pub. I had to up and lay it all out again to give it some more sun.
Then I gutted the gullies, flattened the fences, built them up again, then I cut the grass on the side of the road, brushed away the bracken, bundled the briars out of the way. I carved out culverts. We spent nearly a month in the front field, except that we’d be over and back in the car to Peter’s Pub all the time …
The Dirty Dust Page 17
