The Dirty Dust

by Máirtín Ó Cadhain

—You’re wrong about that, that they were sent to her. After all, she has no cross …

  —And the Rotary won’t accept her …

  —Redser Tom! Redser Tom! Maggie! Kitty! Breed Terry! Guzzeye Martin! John Willy! Redser Tom! Redser Tom, he has something to say! I’m going to burst!

  Interlude 8

  THE HEATING EARTH

  1.

  I am the Trumpet of the Graveyard. Hearken to what I have to say! Hearken unto my voice …

  The unturned sod is unwelcoming and sour with its lining of ice. The heart of the earth is acid sharp. As this is the meadow of tears …

  Aboveground life is putting on the raiment of Spring. The pert peek of serendipitous stalks and the fresh smile which breaks on the bare earth are the basting thread of this suit of clothes. The radiant rays of the sun agleam on the shoulders of the clouds are its hem. Its buttons are the clumps of primroses waving from the banks of every hedgerow and whispering behind every rock. Its lining is the love song of the lark chirping above in the high empyrean and pouring down through the diaphanous air on the ploughman, while the brushwood is the mellifluous melody which accompanies the birds in their bundling. The spring in the step of the youth who has just found his lost lamb in the rough rocks and the lively lilting of the boatman while he skims his skiff along the frieze of the tide are the seams of hope with which the transient beauty of the eye and of the heart stitch the tunic which is the sempiternal spark of glory of land, sea, and sky.

  But already, the thread which the tailor teases through the eye of his needle is an emaciated rainbow on the horizon. The scissors of a gale is tearing the buttons out. The clothes are being unravelled by the ripping of the elegant twill. The aurora of gold in the field is being unburnished as the corn dips its head. The tempest fairy wind is roaring through the barn and sweeping away every ear, wisp, and grain left over from last year’s harvest …

  The refrain the milkmaid sings as she returns from the summer pasture is flagging and fading. She knows well that soon the farm implements will be stored in the yard beside the house …

  For spring and summer have retired. They have been gathered up by the squirrel in his haunt beneath the tree. They have flown away on the wings of the swallow and with the slipping sun …

  I am The Trumpet of the Graveyard. Hearken to my voice! Hearken unto me …

  2.

  —… “Ho-oh-row, then Maureen, with your belts and buckles

  My love in the stook of barley …”

  —What the heck is this? … Black Bandy Bartley, by the hokey, singing to himself. You’re very welcome, Bartley! …

  —“Ho-row, oh Maureen, with your belts and buckles …”

  —Well, isn’t it great for you, you son of a Black Bandy gun …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, who’s that? …

  —Caitriona. Caitriona Paudeen …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds and that, Caitriona. We’ll be neighbours again …

  —They’re not putting you in the correct grave, Bartley.

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, but it doesn’t matter a damn where they stick your heap of bones? “Ho-row, oh Maureen …”

  —Jaysus, Bartley, you’d hardly think that death had taken anything out of you. What caused it, anyway?

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, don’t you know that even the best can’t go on for ever, as Blotchy Brian said about …

  —Oh, the loud-mouthed scuzzy bastard! …

  —No reason at all really, just lay back until the last drop drained away. Bloody tear and ’ounds, isn’t that reason enough! “Ho-row …”

  —How’s she cutting up there anyway, Bartley? …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, same as always. Some coming, some going, some neither here nor there. Isn’t that the way it is, and it has to be. Just like loading a gun and giving it a blast, as Blotchy Brian said …

  —I’m telling you, he was some smart guy with a gun …

  —He never stirred out, Caitriona, never since that time when he was looking at Redser Tom after he was anointed. He was very cut up after Tom …

  —They were well suited to one another, the dour-faced copper-knobbed scum and the snivelling snotty shit head …

  —I was listening to him that very night up in the room telling Tom what he should do. “Bloody tear and ’ounds,” he says, “if it ever happens, Redser Tom, if it ever happens that you make the trip across, and if you happen to meet her on the way, make sure she learns nothing from you. She’ll be whoring after gossip, or else she has changed completely …”

  —But, who’s that Bartley?

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, but it wouldn’t be right or proper of me to disclose that …

  —Ah, for God’s sake, Bartley, no need for you to be like Redser Tom. That’s exactly his carry-on since he landed in the cemetery clay …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, if there’s going to be a row, well then, let there be a row. It’s you. Yourself. Who else, Caitriona? …

  —Me, Bartley? Me, whoring after gossip! That’s a filthy lie. That nutjob will always have the bitter word until death clogs up his tongue …

  —I wouldn’t say it will be that long now, Caitriona.

  —He’ll be more than welcome …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, don’t you know he’s easy come, easy go, and he didn’t have enough spunk to go to Jack the Lad’s funeral! …

  —Aba bloody boona una! Jack the Lad’s funeral! Jack the Lad’s funeral! Jack! Jack jaysus Jack! You’re spitting out lies now, you seed of the son of Satan …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, he’s here three weeks already!

  —Jesus, God almighty, St. Joseph, Mary, and her Blessed Mother! Jack the Lad is here this long, and neither Maggie nor any of them would tell me a bit about it! Toejam Noreen has this place totally fucked up, Bartley. Have a guess, what do you think she’s up to now? … A Rotary!

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, who’d imagine that, a Rotary. “Ho-row, then Maura, with your belts and your buckles …”

  —Jack the Lad! Jack the Lad! Jack the jaysus Lad here. You’d easily know he wouldn’t have too long to live. St. John’s Gospel and all …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, St. John’s Gospel, Caitriona …

  —That’s John’s Gospel that that fugly wheedled out of the priest, what else? Jack the Lad, Jack the joke Lad! Jack the Lad done down and buried for the last three weeks unbeknownst to me. The ghouls down here would tell you fuck nothing, especially since the stupid Election. They’d stuff that mong John Willy, and Breed Terry the blow rag, and that clod churl Redser Tom into the same grave as me. Jack! Jack the langer …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, it doesn’t matter a snivelling snot—unless you are totally out of your tree—who gets dumped in the same grave. “How-ro, oh Maura …”

  —One way or the other, Nell was hopping around like a heron on the griddle the day of the funeral! All flash and fashion and not a thought about the poor hoor that was laid out. They put him in the Pound Place, of course? …

  —The grave just next to Huckster gombeen Joan …

  —Huckster Joan, the scrubber! Too bad that she’s next to poor Jack. That old bag will buy and sell him. But Nell wouldn’t give a toss, the sly slut, she’d be happy to dump him into any old hole …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, she got a nice dry grave right next to Huckster Joan and Peter the Publican; and hired a hearse; more than everything for people to stuff themselves at the wake and at the funeral, but she didn’t let anyone get drunk; and then a High Mass just like the ones that Peter the Publican had, and Huckster Joan; four or five priests singing and ceremonising, the Earl up in the gallery with that other fancy fowler who used to be there …

  Bloody tear and ’ounds, what else would you expect? …

  —She really has a soft spot for the priests and the lords and ladies all the time. But I’d swear she never shed as much as a tear f
or the poor fecker. Neither herself nor Blotchy Brian’s daughter ever gave as much as a fiddler’s fart for him, all they wanted was that the poor old skin would be swept out of their way …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, Blotchy Brian and herself cried their eyes out. And everyone said they never heard wailing as beautiful as that of Biddy Sarah’s …

  —Biddy Sarah! I thought that that freeloading dipshit had completely taken to the bed by now …

  —And bloody tear and ’ounds, she has so! Isn’t this exactly what Blotchy says about her, and about Catty Kitty and Billy the Postman too: “The priest has smeared enough oil on the three of them,” he said, “that there won’t be a drop left for any of us, whenever we want it …”

  —No doubt about it, that bollocks Brian would need a lot of greasing! And didn’t Biddy Sarah go to Nell’s …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, didn’t Nell send a car for herself and Catty Kitty. But Kitty walked there nonetheless …

  —She got the whiff of a corpse, what else?

  —“Bloody tear and ’ounds,” she says, just as she’s laying Jack out, “it’s like, even if I was going to peg out myself the next day, I couldn’t not turn up, considering who asked me especially.”

  —Biddy Sarah, the sponger! Catty Kitty, the gossip! They went off to Nell, but didn’t bother their arse about decent people at all. I wouldn’t blame Jack the Lad one bit, the poor creature, if it wasn’t for that other smarty pants. Jack the Lad! Jack …

  —It won’t be too long now before someone else will be weeping for Biddy Sarah, anyway. Bloody tear and ’ounds, she collapsed and fell on the way back from Jack’s funeral, and they had to bring the car up to the house again …

  —A drunkard! She was often off her tits plastered …

  —She got a bit of a turn. Didn’t get up out of the bed since. “But ho-row oh Maureen, with your belts and your buckles …”

  —Nell has no recollection of coming here? …

  —She said she wasn’t well enough. But bloody tear and ’ounds anyway, she came to have a gawk at me, and I’d say she was as much of a fine fresh filly as ever she was …

  —That’s why she was thrilled and delighted to dump Jack the Lad out. Jack! Jack! …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, hasn’t she got it nice and easy with a car under her arse to bring her wherever her fancy takes her! …

  —Lord Cockton’s car. Has she no shame or decency to be gallivanting around the country like a young thing! Jack the Lad …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds anyway, Caitriona, but why wouldn’t she do what she liked with her own! …

  —What do you mean her own? …

  —The only thing that was bugging me was that I didn’t get a lift there at all. Herself and Peadar had promised they’d take me any place I wanted in the County, but bloody tear and ’ounds, I laid back and croaked without a groan! …

  —Ababoona, boona! You can’t be serious, you son of the Black Bandy Bugger, that she actually owns the car! …

  —Herself, and her son Peter. Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, how is it you never heard she bought a car for Peter? …

  —Never! No, she didn’t. She never did, you son of the Black Bandy Bugger! …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, and so he did. He can’t really do the hard work anymore with his bad leg. He won’t bother her that much anymore with his bandy leg, although you wouldn’t know there was much wrong with him. He’s doing all right shuffling people in a panic here and there and left and right and over and out and up and down in his car …

  —I suppose you don’t know what kind of a racket it makes going up and down by our house. Aren’t I lucky, Bartley, that I’m not alive! …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, but sure, she also wears a hat any time she leaves the house and goes out and about! …

  —Ah, come on, Bartley! Bartley the son of the Black Bandy Bugger! A hat …

  —A hat, just as fashionable as the one that the Earl’s wife wore …

  —I just don’t believe, Bartley, that she hasn’t already sucked off some of the money from Baba …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, she’s done all that, and four months ago! Two thousand pounds! …

  —Two thousand pounds! Two thousand pounds you Black Bandy Bugger’s bastard!

  —Two thousand pounds, Caitriona! Bloody tear and ’ounds, she bought the car with it, and now she’s going to put a real plushy posh window in the church! …

  —She has good reason to suck up to the priest. I’d swear by the Holy Bible itself, Bartley, Baba wouldn’t loosen her claws on that money until she died! …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, sure didn’t she die ages ago! Nell got a thousand before she died, and another thousand since. She has to get the odd hundred here and there yet, and she’ll hump them into the bank to spend on that guy who’s going to be a priest …

  —Ah, forfucksake! My own Patrick won’t even get enough to tickle his palm …

  —They say he’ll get more than enough, but he won’t get as much as Nell. Bloody tear and ’ounds, the old dog always returns to his vomit! …

  —Nell herself has her knickers in a twist about it …

  —“Ho-row, there Maureen, your belts and your buckles …”

  —Oh, Jesus Christ Almighty! Baba’s will. Poor Jack, like a piece of useless crap thrown to one side, and her son kept alive with St. John’s Gospel. A new road up to the house. Her grandson going for the priesthood. A new house with a slated roof being made for the puss-face. A car. Fireside Tom’s land. Jack …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, nobody has Fireside Tom’s land.

  —But isn’t he living with Nell? …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, not for a long time now. He’s in your Paddy’s place, and Paddy’s cows graze in his field. He never liked the nobs who came to Nell’s house. “I mean, like,” he said to Pat, “they’re not half as generous as they are cracked up to be. I couldn’t get a wink of sleep up there. Cars roaring and revving up all around from morning ’til night: hacking and hammering and blasting away from the crack of dawn to the drawing down of the light. They’re bursting their guts to build the new slate-roofed house. I mean, like, for Jaysus’s sake, think about me in my own shack and it didn’t matter diddly shit where I shifted my bed around, there was always a drop of water piddling down on my eye or into my mouth …”

  —No word of a lie there about the slate-roofed houses, anyway …

  —Baba left him two hundred pounds in her will, and bloody tear and ’ounds, he never lifted his lips from a pint since then. Nell’s house is too far away from the pub for him …

  —He’s the sly skunk alright, Fireside Tom … !

  —Sly skunk is right. That’s God’s honest truth, Caitriona. A sly skunk. Bloody tear and ’ounds, I often said myself that he was a sly skunk. What else would you call someone who snuck out of Nell’s house out of sheer stubbornness because they wouldn’t let him get into the car …

  —But wasn’t he just the same, Bartley, just the same as the rest of the riff raff that snivelled around there? …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, when Nell got her arse under the car first, she hardly let it out at all, apart from herself. Off she went, showing her snout to the rest of the country every other day—off to the Fancy City, to Lough Shore, to Ross Cala—herself and Blotchy Brian …

  —The slitty slut …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Nell’s Peter would hardly be there, but then the kids would be there too. He wanted to make a few bob and it didn’t suit him that those little knackers were hogging the car at the same time. It’s mouthed about that that’s what finally did for Blotchy Brian, he was forbidden from getting into the car. Anyway, it was around that time, that he started shacking up in the house …

  —God’s curse on him anyway, wasn’t it time for him! He’d look a holy show in a car, Blotchy buffer Brian!

  —Bloo
dy tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, didn’t he look just as good as Fireside Tom! Tim Top of the Road’s youngfella brought himself and Peter Nell and the priest’s sister to a dance in the Fancy City. Fireside Tom had just come back from Peter’s Pub, and bloody tear and ’ounds, do you know what, he plonked his arse straight up and into the car! “I’m going to the dance too,” he announced, “I swear to God there’ll be fine things and hot lashers there.”

  —The senile slapper …

  —He was puffing and smoking like crazy, and bloody tear and ’ounds, what do you know, but the next thing is he chucks up a big green glob of scummy spit and fires it off! Nobody said nothing much, Caitriona, but I heard that Blotchy Brian muttered later that the priest’s sister had to change her clothes before she went to the dance …

  —Good enough for her, the little shit, getting into a car that belonged to a blow rag butch bitch …

  —Peter Nell told Tom to shag off in home. “I will yea,” he said … “No fucking way …”

  —God bless him, and give him long life! …

  —Blotchy Brian’s daughter asked him to go in … “I’m telling you all, I swear, I’m going to the dance,” he says with vehemence.

  —He was right, of course, not to take a bitch of a bit’s notice of what Blotchy Brian the Bummer’s frump of a daughter said …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Tim Top of the Road’s youngfella should grab him by the balls, fuck him out head over heels onto the street, and give him two big whopping boots up the bum! Bloody tear and ’ounds, he should take off down to Paddy’s house right now no messing, he’s skulking there this long while …

  —That’s a real smack in the face, a real beauty for Nell! He’ll leave all the land now to Patrick …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, so it goes, nobody has the least clue who Fireside Tom will leave his streaky rasher bit of land to. When they’d be off gallivanting in the car, Blotchy Brian was always nagging him to sign the papers to leave it to his daughter, but small chance! …

  —Serves them both right, Brian the snotty smart-arsed jerk and mincy meddlesome Nell! I suppose you heard nothing about a cross, did you, Bartley? …