—I am a woman, and undoubtedly I would be up for women if it came to that. But is that all you have to do, just listen to Caitriona Paudeen badmouthing Jack the Lad morning, noon and night …
—I swear now, but Caitriona isn’t the only one buried here who has her tongue slobbering on about that yoke of a young jerk …
—I never ever saw anyone as bad as her. Do you know what she said to him the other day, that Nell tried to pull a fast one on him when she asked him to marry her. How’s that for a brass neck? …
—I swear by the oak of this coffin, this is what I heard her say: “The women around here, Jack,” she said, “they really appreciate you talking to me. But be as wary as hell of them, I’m telling you! …” Whatever shame she had she left it six feet above …
—“Maggie Frances,” she shouted at me, “the barb is gone from my heart, and I don’t notice the time passing, no more than if I was at a concert, since Jack came.” “Have you actually banished every bit of shame by now, Caitriona?” I asked.
—Did you hear, Margaret, did you hear the words she spat back at me? “Breed Terry,” she gloated, “doesn’t it just serve the old bitch right! ‘I have Jack. I have Jack.’ She doesn’t have Jack wrapped in under her little rag of a shawl anymore, Breed Terry …”
—I’ll speak to Jack the Lad. I would and you would too, you scabby scum, if he’d speak back to you. It’s not for want of trying he won’t talk back to you, you tight-arsed twat …
—Leave off your insults, Caitriona! Peace is all that I want …
—May God not weaken you, Caitriona. They really deserve that tongue-lashing! You’d never think to listen to them that the coven of cunts here in the graveyard thought about anyone else except Jack the Lad! You wouldn’t mind, but they’re all married! …
—But the Old Master himself admitted the other day that death dissolves the bonds of marriage …
—So why is he so pissed off about Billy the Postman? …
—He said that: death dissolves the bonds of marriage! I should have kept my eye on him. Definitely a heretic …
—Say nothing now, until you hear the whole thing! If that’s all Caitriona said it would be alright …
“Breed Terry,” she says to me, “there’s a …” Decency doesn’t allow me to repeat exactly what she said, there are some men listening …
—Just whisper it, Breed …
—Whisper to me, Breed! …
—To me, Breed! …
—I’ll tell it to Nora … Are you ready for it now, Nora? …
—Upon my word! I’m shocked! Who’d ever think that about Jack! …
—I think we should give Jack some advice, as Nell is not here …
—I’ll advise him …
—You haven’t a clue how to talk, not the same way as a woman …
—Do you require any spiritual assistance, Jack the Lad?
—Listen, Colm More’s daughter, you have a damned cheek sticking your nose into this one way or the other, there are women here three times older than you …
—… Hey, Jack the Lad! Jack the Lad! … Maggie Frances here … I have a bit of advice for you … In a little while. You’ll sing a song first, Jack …
—Go for it, Jack …
—God bless you Jack, off you go! …
—Jack, you can’t begrudge me, Breed Terry …
—Honest Jack. That new ditty: “Bunga, bunga bunga” …
—“Bunga, bunga, bunga”! Holy God Almighty, “Bunga, bunga, bunga,” ya son of a gun, ya lovely lad ya! …
—You won’t let me down, Jack. Huckster Joan …
—May God forgive you! … Why don’t you all just leave me alone! … I told you already I wasn’t going to sing you any song.
—Ah, come on Jack, Jack of my heart, that bunch of crazy women are as mad as a posse of porpoises panting after a school of sturgeon. Tell them, Jack, as you used to tell us when we were young ones on the bog jibbing and jibing at you: “I never dreamed the hunting started this early in the year …”
—God wouldn’t forgive us if we were to say anything wrong, Caitriona. But I’m imploring you dear God Almighty and His Blessed Mother that the women in this graveyard will give me some peace …
—Toejam Nora, Low-lying Kitty, Twisted Joan, Breed Terry. Hoora, Jack bejaysus, I think I know them better than you do. You were always away at the arse end of the bog from them. And I’m here longer than you too. I’m telling you not to take a bit of notice of them! All very well, but songs too! …
—Every single minute, Caitriona. But God would punish us if we said anything bad about our neighbour …
—They’d say that for certain, Jack, and swear black and blue that he came looking for the loan of a pound and never paid it back. I’m telling you I suffered endlessly because of them and their lies! Are you there, Jack? … You’ve been promising me for a long time, but you better sing your song now …
—Don’t ask me Caitriona …
—Just one verse, Jack. Just one small measly fucking verse! …
—Some other time, Caitriona. Some other time …
—Come on Jack. Now …
—How do I know that I wouldn’t be just like any old hag who died in the parish? …
—Oh, if that’s all that’s bothering you, Jack! It’s only the rheumatism that’s at her now, and they won’t be bringing her corpse to the graveyard for another twenty years! …
—She’s never that well, really, though, Caitriona …
—She hasn’t as much as an ache or a pain, Jack. I hope her corpse stays miles away from this graveyard! Sing the song. Go for it, Jack! …
—She was always a very good woman, I’m telling you Caitriona, and not just because she is your sister …
—It doesn’t matter a ghoul’s ghost whatever sisters say in this life, Jack, just sing the shagging song …
—I’m not trying to be awkward, Caitriona, but there’s no point in badgering me. It’s strange the way things happen, Caitriona, my dear. The night before I got married, there I was in your parlour and the whole gang were at me to sing a song. Breed Terry was there, and Kitty, and Maggie Frances. I don’t want to speak ill about anyone, but the three of them were hassling me no end! I was whining and wheezing like an old bit of clattered clapped-out coffin all through the night. “Jack won’t sing any more songs,” Nell said, half-mocking, whole in earnest, while I was sitting in her lap … “except when I ask him …” You won’t believe me, Caitriona, but they were the very words that were swimming through my head the following morning when I was there down on my two knees before the altar rails in front of the priest? May God forgive me! It was a grievous sin! But the ways of the world are weird, Caitriona. Every time I was asked to sing a song afterwards, that’s exactly what I remembered!
—Ababoona, boona, boona! Oh, Jack. Jack the Lad! I’ll burst! I’m going to burst!
Interlude 10
THE GOOD EARTH
1.
—He doesn’t want to go …
—It’s a blessed release… .
—He finds it distressing …
—It’s a blessed release …
—He’s afraid of the unknown …
—It’s a blessed release …
—He finds it scary …
—It’s a blessed release …
—But …
—It’s a blessed release …
2.
—Son of a gun, I swear to God, you couldn’t even hear Oscar threshing because of all the hammering and blasting. And that’s the truth …
—Was there any letter from Brian Junior? …
—God bless your brains! A young man going for the priesthood has better things to be doing than sending letters off to that hole. Making the postman sweat …
—Nell was laid up for a while too, wasn’t she, Tom?
—Just rheumatism, dear. The old rheumatism. She got up the day I went down …
—She was always a decent woman, Tom …<
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—I always said, Jack, that she had a much kinder nature than Caitriona …
—God doesn’t want us to speak ill of our neighbours, Tom …
—Be that as it may, there was always the bitter word amongst neighbours, dear! If she didn’t have a kinder nature she’d hardly offer to pay for Caitriona’s cross, or to send three of Paddy’s children to college. And one thing’s for sure, they need some education. Look at me! …
—Every penny she ever had, Tom, she did some good with it …
—You never spoke a truer word, dear. I always say to myself, if Nora Johnny had got the money from that will she wouldn’t be sober even one day in the year …
—God doesn’t want us to say anything bad about our neighbours, Tom. There was never as much as a bitter word between myself and Nell …
—Son of a gun, sure, you don’t know what happened, dear, she cried a cupboard full of big bright hankies when you died. She bawled her eyes out, dear. And on top of that, she got tons of Masses said for you! I heard it said that she stuffed two hundred pounds into our priest’s paw, not to mention what she gave to other holy priests in other places …
—Bloody tear and ’ounds, isn’t that what Blotchy Brian says: “If the priests can’t get the Lad up on that ladder and give him a kick in the arse up to the loft, then nobody can …”
—Holy shite, like, Black Bandy, you don’t know nothing, nor half of it. You couldn’t hear a bang on the ear with all the talk they had about Masses. Masses for Jack’s soul, for Baba’s soul, for Caitriona’s soul …
—Charity isn’t lessened when you spread it around, Tom …
—That’s exactly the same as Nell used to say. “You’re getting piles of Masses said for Caitriona,” I said to her one day, when we were talking about this. “Give good for evil, Fireside Tom,” she’d say to me …
—God forbids us to say anything bad about our neighbours, Tom. Poor Caitriona can’t help it. The poor creature is tormented because she has no cross …
—So it goes, dear. You couldn’t hear a bang on the ear with all the carry-on about crosses. Caitriona’s cross was ready to go, paid for and all, but when you died Nell and Paddy agreed to leave it until her own and yours could be erected together …
—Bloody tear and ’ounds, isn’t that what Blotchy Brian said that it was no wonder the world was in a mess when you think of all the hard-earned money being squandered on a heap of old stones …
—Game ball, Black Bandy, you never heard nothing, nor even half of it. I don’t know if all that yackety yack about crosses helped me one way or the other. Crosses from morning to night, and from night until morning. A fellow couldn’t have a quiet pint to himself without some goofball going on about crosses. You couldn’t walk your bit of land without imagining there were crosses sprouting up all over. I escaped down to Paddy Caitriona’s house, where they don’t talk much about crosses at all. I could do with …
—… Qu’il retournerait pour libérer la France …
—… Off again. Then back. Every day I’d drink at least twenty pints …
—God help you and your twenty pints! I drank forty-two …
—Even so, my dear, the doctor who brought Nell back from the Fancy City said it was Peter the Publican’s whiskey did for me. That’s what he said. “I swear, dear,” I says, “the doctor insisted I drink it.” “Which doctor?” he asks. “Our own doctor, bless him,” I says. They were his very words, my dear. Peter the Publican’s daughter was listening to him. If you don’t believe me, toddle into her on your way back. I don’t blame the doctor one little bit. I was well used to drink, and it never bothered me. But I can tell you now, I blame the priest. Son of a gun, I swear to God, I don’t think he helped me in the slightest …
—May I offer you any spiritual assistance, Fireside Tom? …
—Goo Goog to you, Colm More’s daughter. Goo Goog! Just a bit of a natter …
—I mean, even the priest didn’t succeed.
—The priest didn’t succeed! The priest succeeds at everything. You’re a heretic …
—… By the oak of this coffin, Jack the Lad, I gave her the pound …
—God will punish us, Kitty …
—Wills! If it wasn’t for Baba Paudeen’s will, Fireside Tom wouldn’t have been sent packing quite so soon …
—His own fault! The booze would have stayed in the same place only Tom decided to bring his gut to where it was already. The will didn’t bring Nell any bad luck. She bought a car and a hat with peacock feathers …
—Oh! Oh!
—We’ve seen all of this before, anyway! Wills kept Bally Donough alive for years. Or, if not, it was nettles. Women who hardly had gloves one day, we saw them flaunting themselves in their hats and their frills the next. Too bad for them: soon hens were laying eggs in their hats …
—The people of Bally Donough had enough guts and gumption to go to the side of the sun, even to the ditch of the devil himself, to get what they could from people’s wills. If the spas from your place left their pissy little hills, they’d be pining over the fleas they left behind …
—Did you hear of the guy from our place who was buried and all he had was a shilling! …
—That man from our place wasn’t buried with just a shilling, but it was the best thing that ever happened to him, if true. He had his feet on the ground until he got the big moola. Neither God nor ghost saw him after that except he was flashing around with his grin gawking out at you from every corner. Did you see him? I bet you couldn’t see him without his gob glowering at you …
—It might make some sense if your gob was smashed, but remember that young scut from Clogher Savvy—he’s related to me—he got a fortune, and nothing would do him except to go and break his neck. That’s exactly the way to say it: nothing in this whole wide world would satisfy him except to go and break his neck …
—Don’t you see that smarmy lout from Derry Lough! Some old witch in America left him a few thousand. The dregs of Huckster Joan’s tea were hardly drained from his belly, but there he was in Dublin with a monster motor under his bum. He also took up with a little strip of a woman who was up for it, and he upped and offed with her. She didn’t stay that long with him. The gurgle of the engine was grating on her guts. She took off on her own again into the night. They called the car Tight Arse. May I never leave here, but it never budged an inch until he got a gang of local langers and yobbos from the top of the road to push it with him!
—Didn’t I twist my ankle! …
—They’d push it to the nearest pub. It was left there until morning, and then they’d push it back again. Its wheels and body were left at the top of the road in the end. But it had a great horn! …
—Just like on Nell Paudeen’s car …
—Especially passing Caitriona’s house …
—Ababoona! …
—All very well, for a car that was got from a will, it rattled along no problem …
—Maybe, with the help of God, Hitler will be here soon …
—Not as much as a drip of a drop ever leaked out from Mannix the Counsellor about Old Wood’s will. He told me that much the day I was with him trying to sue Tim Top of the Road about my mallet …
—… “The arse will fall out of Wall Street, as it did before,” he says, while his eye is wandering over towards the axe. “It’ll all fall apart, and I’ll lose another will, just like it happened before …”
“I wouldn’t give a toss,” Caitriona said, who was there at the time, “if it fell out in one big plop, as long as it fell with the same noise out of Nell’s …”
—Tim Top of the Road’s old one got a slice of a will also …
—That’s what gave her the flashy house …
—No it wasn’t. It was my turf …
—I got a great coup from the insurance at the same time. Top of the Road and his eldest daughter …
—I sold a whole set of The Complete Carpenter and Mechanic to his son …
—Credit that, as you’d say yourself …
—He came into a will that time when Peter the Publican’s daughter was teasing him in the parlour …
—The Old Master got a will …
—Billy won’t be short of doctors so …
—Oh, the thief. The little pimply prick face! …
—… That’s another lie! It wasn’t because of a will that that Dog Eared butcher stabbed me …
—… He could pay for forty-two pints, couldn’t he! Somebody with not enough land that the donkey could only plonk his two hind legs down on it! He had to stick his front two on Curran’s land next to him … That’s him all the way! Pushing the car for those knackers from Derry Lough was the best he did …
—And Curran too, he got the lump of land he wanted his son and Tim Top of the Road’s daughter to move into …
—The devil fuck her! I’ll be bollixed if she lets that one in on her land! …
—Top of the Road’s young one has insurance …
—… If that’s the way it is, then Caitriona is delighted she didn’t get the will. If she had …
—She’d have made two slate-roofed houses …
—She’d have bought two cars …
—She’d have erected two crosses …
—And two hats …
—You’d never know, and maybe even a pair of pants …
—Bloody tear and ’ounds, isn’t that what Blotchy Brian said when his daughter’s son went off to college to be a priest: “If that cud-chewing cunt were still alive,” he said, “she’d never have rested easy until she had forced Paddy to dump his wife, and packed him off for the priesthood.”
—If you tell me Caitriona how many pounds were to be got in the will, I’ll make out the interest on it for you:
Isn’t that right, Master?
—They’d be enough there anyway to repay Kitty her pound.
—And Tim Top of the Road for the chimney …
—And Nora Johnny for the spoons and the silver knives …
—Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God! Silver knives in Gort Ribbuck! Silver knives! Oh, Jack! Jack the Lad! Silver knives in Gort Ribbuck! I’ll burst! I’m going to burst! …
The Dirty Dust Page 31
