Emerald Germs of Ireland (6 page)

as outside, upon a carpet of leaves which had somehow arranged itself on the windowsill, a chorus of small and beady-eyed birds paused to chirp in unison.

I
t was an ordinary day in the middle of September and Pat was busy in the kitchen doing the dishes. He was listening to the news but there wasn’t much on. There was talk of Ireland getting a lot of money from the Common Market and a man had been blown into the sea in Bray, County Wicklow. Just then there was a knock at the door. “Hmm,” pondered Pat to himself as he set down a dish on the draining board, “I wonder who that could be now?” He untied his apron and went off to see who his visitor might be. He opened the door and discovered a shortish man in an old sports coat and hay coming out of its pockets standing on the step. His trousers were held up by a fraying halter and the top of his gray felt hat (which had once boasted a band) seemed quite bashed in.

“Hello,” Pat said, smiling, adding, “And what might I do for you?”

“There you are now,” the man said. “It’s looking like it’s not going to be such a bad day.”

Pat nodded and made as if to inspect the sun, which was positioned just above the chemist’s.

“No—it certainly looks as if it’s going to pick up,” he replied.

The man nodded and inhaled some mucus.

“I’m selling turf,” he replied.

Pat leaned over—for no apparent reason—and replied, “Indeed. I see.”

“I have it here in a bag,” the man said.

He opened a plastic sack which was half-filled with turf. It was the
sort of sack which normally contained fertilizer or perhaps chicken feed.

“It’s grand turf,” the man said. “It comes all the way from Ardee.”

“Ardee?” mused Pat.

“Aye,” the man said. “It’s in County Louth. Did you ever hear tell of it, I wonder?”

Pat frowned and placed his index finger close to his lower lip.

“I think I might have heard a fellow talking about it one night in Sullivan’s.”

The man made a sucking sound with his teeth and hoisted up his trousers.

“There’s a man by the name of McNab lives in it,” he said. “He’s from this town. You would probably know him all right.”

Pat chewed the tip of his index finger.

“McNab?” he said, frowning.

“Aye!” the man replied perkily. “He’d be a Tom McNab!”

Pat shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I don’t know any Tom now, I have to say.”

Now it was the visitor’s turn to frown.

“Or maybe it could be Joe. I’m not sure,” he said.

“No,” asserted Pat, “nor Joe either.”

The man tugged absentmindedly on a nostril hair.

“Unless of course his name isn’t McNab at all,” he said.

Pat nodded, unthinkingly.

“It might be somebody else, I suppose,” he said.

“Aye,” came the reply, “it might be Grue, for example. Or Halliwell, maybe.”

Pat placed a hand on either hip.

“I wouldn’t know him so,” he said.

“No. Sure he’s gone out of this town this years, anyway!”

“Oh—is he?” replied Pat.

His caller nodded—with vigor.

“Aye!” he continued. “He says it was a dump. He says all there is in it is child molesters and men whose idea of enjoyment is to batter their wives.”

Pat felt a litde bit of tension manifesting itself just over his left eye.

“Batter their wives?” he said. “Beat them?”

The man looked at his toes.

“Aye,” he said, “with hammers.”

Pat swallowed.

“Hammers?” he gasped, incredulously.

The man knitted his brow.

“Sure didn’t one fellow leave half his wife’s head on the wall of the coal house,” he said.

Pat drew a deep breath.

“Half her head? No!” he weakly responded—half as a question.

The response was quite firm.

“No—not, no! Took the hammer and hit her with it, I’m telling you! For nothing! It was like eggs. They say her brains was like eggs.”

Pat found himself swallowing again.

“Like eggs?” he said.

The man gazed directly at him.

“On the wall. For nothing.”

“Good God Almighty,” moaned Pat.

The man was continuing.

“There you are now,” he said, “that’s the type of people you’re dealing with. Hitting women with hammers for doing damn all.”

He paused and hooked a weather-beaten thumb into the waistband of his trousers. They were oatmeal-colored.

“Well—not damn all, exactly.”

He sighed. Then he said, “Women can be odd sometimes, you know.”

Pat tossed back his head and laughed.

“Oh now! Sure don’t I know it only too well!” he cried.

The man brightened.

“Indeed and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that, sir!” he said. “Sure don’t you have eyes of your own! And I dare say there’s any amount of women around this town would be glad to go odd if they were let!”

“Indeed and there sure is!” laughed Pat, now hitching up his own trousers.

At the far end of the town, a woman went by with her shopping. The
turf-selling visitor hesitated and said to Pat, “Sometimes you couldn’t even be sure of your own sister.”

“Sure?” asked Pat, so dry at the back of his throat he had to ask it again—”Sure?”

“Aye,” came the reply, “sure that they wouldn’t go odd, I mean.”

“Oh, aye,” answered Pat, pretending to understand—although he really didn’t.

“Or your mother aither!” he began again. “Sure who’s to say your own mother wouldn’t do the same? And then what would you do? I say—what would you do then? Your own bloody mother that carried your around in her stomick?”

The toes of the man’s boots moved closer to Pat, his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek as his gaze fixed intensely upon him.

“What?” was the word which attempted to leave Pat’s throat—although, because of the man’s somewhat overpowering proximity, it might have been more accurately described as a “thin croak” which left it. The eyes now fastened to Pat were small as currants. Or studs. The studs his father used to put in his shirt on Sunday mornings.

“I mean—you couldn’t be taking a hammer to your own mother,” he continued. “I mean—Jesus Mary and Joseph! You couldn’t be at the like of that! You’d have to find some other way!”

“Some other way?” queried Pat. He was chewing on the ends of his fingers now.

“Aye! The way I see it—that wouldn’t be right! Not with me, anyhow! Do you get my meaning, mister?”

Pat could almost feel his hot breath on his neck. The stud-eyes bit deep into him.

“Unless of course—unless maybe you think it’s okay,” he went on, “unless maybe you think it’s not so bad at all?”

Pat regreted the eagerness which insinuated itself—despite his best efforts—into his voice.

“No! No I don’t!” he cried aloud.

The man sighed and drew the back of his hand across his peat-caked, furrowed brow.

“Thank God for that!” he gasped, and, with intense relief, shook his head.

There was a long pause. There were some rooks on the wires above them, staring down. They looked like notes you would see on the page of a music book. Eventually the halter-belted visitor said: “Right. I’ll just leave you the half-bag so.”

Pat stiffened.

“What?” he said.

“The half-bag,” he replied, “the half-bags are all I’ll leave.”

Pat scratched his right eyebrow and said:

“But I didn’t ask you!”

He hesitated, and then added:

“I don’t want any, you see! I have enough turf! Anyway, I use mostly coal!”

In that moment, or perhaps the direct aftermath of it, it was as if time appeared to stand still. When the reply to Pat’s statement came, it was barely audible, and appeared to issue from the darkest, most impregnable depths of the fuel-salesman’s soul.

“What?” he said.

Pat swallowed. His saliva had a pungent, acidic taste.

“Turf,” said Pat. “I have enough of it, thanks.”

A broodiness, which seemed to come out of nowhere, appeared to consume the man. He looked half at Pat, half at the rain barrel by the side of the house.

“Is it because I’m from Ardee? Is that it?” he said quietly.

“What?” Pat said, paling somewhat.

There was a distinct lack of emotion in the caller’s voice now as he spoke.

“I knew, you know,” he began, “from the minute I came through the gate, I knew.”

Now it was the turn of Pat’s brow to knit.

“Knew?” he said, hoarsely. “Knew what?”

The back of his throat felt like sandpaper.

The man’s lips seemed to thin out before Pat’s very eyes.

“Oh, you’re the funny fellow all right!” he said then. “Keep me talking! And all the time thinking: ‘Look at him! Look at him, auld Ardee!’ It’s a wonder you didn’t keep me going till I sang my song for you! It’s a wonder you didn’t do that!”

“Song?” asked Pat, perplexed. “What song?”

“Don’t cod me! Every time I make a sale, I usually give them a bar of a song. But of course you don’t know, do you, mister? Mr. I Know Everything! Mr. I Can See Behind Your Eyes! Mr. So You Like to Sing While You Sell, Do You? Yes! I like to sing! Damn bleddy right I do! And I won’t be stopped by the likes of you! Do you hear me, do you? Eh? Well?”

Without wavering, the toe of his right-hand boot began to tap in six-eight time as—also taken by surprise—the rooks (there were three of them) altogether suddenly evacuated the electric wires in favor of the slated rooftops to the northwest of the town as the late summer air became filled with the sound of a familiar air. The gesdculations of the vocalist were unexpectedly debonair, tending indeed toward the operatic:

The tranquil evening resounded with the dying echoes of the sprightly ballad as Pat shrank before the penetrating set of eyes.

“What do you think of that song?” he found himself asked.

Pat coughed politely.

“I think it’s very good,” he said.

The turf-selling vocalist frowned.

“Good, eh? You think it’s good, do you?”

“Yes! Yes!” enthused Pat. “Excellent.”

The now quiet surroundings reverberated with the sound of teeth being sucked.

“I see,” the caller said softly. Then, after some time, with a hint of abjection, continued, “Not like my turf.”

“No!” cried Pat. “Your turfs good! It—”

“If I had said, ‘I’m from Carrick. I’m not the turfman from Ardee—I’m the turfman from Carrick’—would you have bought it then, maybe?”

“No!” cried Pat. “Of course I wouldn’t!”

The man hung his head and narrowed his eyes.

“No. No, of course you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t have said, ‘Two full
bags,’ or ‘A’bag and a half!’ You’d have said: ‘No bags! No bags at all!’ Isn’t that right?”

“That’s right,” agreed Pat.

“You know what’s the worst thing in the world?” said the turfman.

“What?” he said.

“Never mind what! Say: ‘What is it? What is the worst thing in the world, turfman?’”

“What is the worst thing in the world, turfman?” repeated Pat as instructed.

There wasn’t a sound for a second and then the peddler of kindling and peat said, “The liar.”

“Liar?” choked Pat.

“More than the husband who puts his wife’s brains in with a hammer, steals another man’s kidneys, poisons his own dog—the liar. Because he’s the man looks into your eye and says, ‘I wouldn’t do it. I’d buy no turf from a Carrick man.’ He’s the man looks into your eye and says, ‘Up Ardee!’ When all the time he’s thinking …”

A tense pause followed. Then the turfman said, “Say: ‘Up Ardee,’ mister!”

“Huh?” said Pat.

“Up Ardee. Say it. Go on now!”

“Up Ardee,” complied Pat.

“Worse than the man who mutilates himself to become a woman. Worse than the man who lays down with beasts of the field. Worse than the vilest fornications the mind can ever dream of, worse than …”

Pat felt hot breath on his neck. Then, paradoxically, a wintry tremor went running through him as he heard the words:

“Worse even than the man who murders his own mother.”

Pat’s smile was faint and sickly as he replied: “Do you know what I was just thinking, Ardee, or whatever your name is. It said on the forecast we could be in for a rough spell come October. I think I’d be as well to take ten bags—if you happen to have them, that is!”

“Ten bags?”

Pat nodded.

“Aye,” he said, “ten bags. Ah sure, to hell—make it a dozen. I’ll take the dozen!”

“You’d make a nice warm fire with that. You wouldn’t be long getting a nice roaring fire going with a dozen bags, eh?”

“What?” blurted Pat, forgetting himself for a second, then smiled and said, “Oh now! Now you’re talking!”

“Oh indeed and begod you would not!” continued the turfman. “You wouldn’t be long heating up if you had the dozen bags to be going on with!”

“That’s right! Isn’t it?” beamed Pat, becoming a trifle disoriented for no immediately identifiable reason.

“Do your cooking and the whole lot!” he affirmed. “Your griddle bread, for example!”

“You could bake away—couldn’t you?”

“Your griddle bread. Caraway cake. Not to mention boiling the water. All the water you need!”

“The water too! As much as you could use!”

“Like the fellow who threw the pan of water over his wife in Longford! It was turf he used to boil the water! I believe she was heard screaming for three days!”