The Dirty Dust (20 page)

Caitriona always just happened to be hovering around when he was on his way home every Friday, and she'd haul him in. He was always gullible that way, the poor gom.

“You'll have a sup of tea,” she'd say.

“By hokey, I will,” he'd say. “There's two pounds of it there, and as long as it lasts, it'll do.”

He'd tell me that up and down the town land. He was a bit simple like that, the poor gom.

The tea would be made. Made, and maybe twice. But he never brought more than half an ounce home to me. May God forbid that I would wrong him, Johnnie! …

“I've bought two pounds,” he'd always say. “I must have lost it. Would you see if there's a hole in any of them pockets. Maybe I left some of it after me in Caitriona Paudeen's place. I'll get it the next day. And, sure, if I don't what matter? As long as it lasts, it'll do. When you're with Caitriona a lot of tea gets drunk, fair play to her! …”

He was a bit simple like that, the poor gom …

—That's another lie, you tool you! I never wasted myself feeding him with tea! He was over to me whenever the clock would chime, he was worn out with your spotty potatoes and your salty water, Breed Terry, the beggar. Don't believe her …

—I want some peace! Give me some peace! Stop badmouthing me, Caitriona. I don't deserve your bitchy effing and blinding! Peace! Peace! …

—I'll tell you the truth, Breed Terry. We had set the Garry Abbey field the same year, and it was bursting with the best of potatoes. It was out towards the arse end of May. Myself and Micil were out on the bog every day keeping an eye on things for the previous fortnight. We were, and we would have been that day too, only Micil was bringing in some dried seaweed until dinnertime. He went into the barn after dinner to get a fist of hay to stuff into the donkey's halter as he was going to be out in the bog the balance of the day.

“You'd never think, Kitty,” he said, “that so many of the old potatoes out in the barn would be gone. I would have said something only that the pigs had been sold two weeks ago.”

“I swear to God, Micil,” says I, “I haven't been next nor near the barn for the last three weeks. There was no panic for me to be there. The kids brought in the spuds for the meal.”

“We should have put a lock on it,” he said, “since we started working on the bog. Anyone could sneak in there during the day when we're not around and the kids are in school.”

“They could, of course, Micil, or even in the dead of night,” I said.

“It's closing the stable door after the horse has bolted,” Micil said.

Out I go to the barn, Breed, by the new time. I examined the potatoes.

“By the holies, Micil,” I said when I came in. “It's closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. There was a corner full of potatoes there a fortnight ago, but there's a big hole in it now. I'm not sure if there's even enough there to get us to the new potatoes. Would you have any hunch at all, Micil, who is knobbling them?”

“I'll head out to the bog,” Micil said. “You slip up to the meadow at Ard Monare letting on you're going to the bog just like every other day, then sneak down by the stony slop, and hide near the willow.”

I did that, Breed. I slid down behind the willow mending the heel of a sock and kept my eyes glued on the barn beyond. I was a long time there, and I think I was about to doze off when I heard the noise at the barn door. I jumped through the gap in a jiffy. She was there, Breed, and talk about humping potatoes on the hump of her back! …

“You may as well take them away and sell them to Huckster Joan just as you have sold your own all year,” I said. “You haven't had a potato of your own to stuff in your mouth since May. That might be alright for one year, but this is what you're up to every year.”

“I had to give them to Fireside Tom,” she said. “His own rotted.”

“Rotted! He never bothered his barney about them,” I said. “He didn't mould them, or clean up the ground, or spit a splash of spray on them …”

“I'm begging you, and I'm even grovelling, Kitty, please, please don't say a word about it,” she said, “and I'll make it worth it. I don't give a toss who'll hear about it, once that piss puss Nell gets no wind of it.”

“OK, so, Caitriona,” I said, “I won't breathe a word.”

And I swear by the oak of this coffin, Breed, I never said nothing to nobody …

—Listen to Kitty of the shitty puny potatoes, I always had tons of spuds of my own, thanks be to the Lord God Almighty …

—… Dotie! Dotie! She didn't leave Fireside Tom with a tosser. I often met him down in the village.

“For fuck's sake Nora, I haven't a farthing that she hasn't filched from me,” he'd say. Honest, that's what he'd say.

I'd lend him the price of a couple of glasses of whiskey, Dotie. Honest. You'd really pity him, all on his ownio, and his tongue hanging out like shrivelled flowers in a pot …

What's that they're saying about me, Dotie? My own daughter was up to the same tricks? I learned about it here … She pulled a fast one on my son in Gort Ribbuck very shortly after I died. Himself
and his wife were going to the fair in the Fancy City. My daughter offered to look after the house until they came back. She gathered up anything worthwhile and chucked it into the big press. She had the horse and trap all ready outside. She asked a couple of young bucks who were hanging around to load the press onto the trap. They hadn't a bull's notion about it. She gave them the price of a couple of pints.

“It's my mother's press,” she said. “She left it to me.” Honest, that's what she said. She took it home. Honest, Dotie.

It was a really well-made press in the traditional way. As strong as iron. But beautiful also. Perfection and practicality all together, Dotie …

Who'd give a damn, except for what was in it was worth! Spoons and silver knives. A whole silver toilette that I had when I was in the Fancy City. Valuable books bound in calfskin leather. Sheets, blankets, sacking, blankets, winding wrappers … If Caitriona Paudeen had been able to look after them she wouldn't have been laid out in dirty dank dishcloths …

Dead on, Dotie! Caitriona never shuts up prattling on about that press …

—Knives and silver spoons in Gort Ribbuck of the ducks! Oh, Holy Mary Mother of God! Don't believe her! Don't believe her! The so-and-so. The old sow! Hey, Margaret! Hi, Margaret! Did you hear what hairy Noreen said? … and John Willy … and Breed Terry … and Kitty … I'm about to burst! I'm going to burst …

—… A white-headed mare. She was a beauty …

—You had a young mare. We had a colt …

—A white-headed mare for sure. I bought her at St. Bartholomew's Fair …

—We bought our colt just after Christmas …

—A white-headed mare. A ton and a half was no bother to her …

—Our young colt is a big strong one, God bless him. We were making a new pen for him …

—… “The Golden Apple” won, I'm telling you, a hundred to one.

—Galway won. They beat the lard out of Kerry.

—You're totally off the wall just like that wanker who goes on and on about Kerry winning. Galway whipped them, I'm telling you …

—But there was no “Galway” running in the big race at three o'clock.

—There was no “Golden Apple” on the team that won the All-Ireland in 1941. Maybe you meant Cannon …

—… “Fi-ire-side Tom was there with his …”

—… There were seventeen houses in our town land and every single one of them voted for Eamon de Valera …

—Seventeen houses! And after all that, not one shot was fired at the Black and Tans in your place! Not as much as a bullet. Not a piss, nor a pellet, nor even one mangy bullet …

—Ah, come on, like, there was an ambush. The end of a dark night. They crocked Curran's donkey from going into Curran's field up his road.

—I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …

—… You're one of Paddy Larry's? … The third youngfella. You used to come to my school. You were a fine strapping youngfella. A head of blond hair. Brown eyes. Beautiful rosy cheeks. You were brilliant at handball … The Derry Lough gang gone to England …

The Schoolmistress is fine, brilliant, just great, that's what you said. But Billy the Postman is down and out … very sick …

—That's exactly what I said, Master. They say it's rheumatism. They told him he'd have to give the letters to whoever or whoever would be best, and then he had to start distributing them to the houses himself …

—That's the way he was, the chancer …

—He was caught out badly on the marsh. He was drowned to the skin. When he came home he took to the bed …

—Who gives a fuck! The chancer! The robber! The …

—He was always going on about taking off to England, Master, that's before he was clobbered …

—Taking off to England! Taking off to England! … Spit it out. Don't be afraid …

—Some people are saying, Master, that his health wasn't that good since he got married …

—Oh, the robber! The swine-swiver! …

—She didn't feel a bit like letting him go. When I was ready to pop off, she was talking to my father about it, and she said that if Billy went she'd drop down and die …

—The bog pig …

—She brought three doctors up from Dublin to look at him, Master …

—With my money! She never brought a doctor to see me, the whore … the twat twerp …

—De grâce, Master!

—… “Fireside Tom there, and he whoring to marry …”

—I had no intention of getting married. I'd have gone to England except that I took bad. The whole parishes of Derry Lough and Gort Ribbuck have gone …

—And Glen Booley and Derry Lough. I know just as well as you who have gone. But are any of the younger gang getting married? …

—There's lots of talk about Fireside Tom getting married.

—They'll still be talking about him, the nitwit. But who else? …

—The foxy cop with a nurse from the Fancy City. The Young Master also …

—Schoolteachers are really up for getting hooked. There must be another raise of pay in the offing.

—They don't have it easy at times. You just heard the Old Master. But who's the young one? …

—A lovely girl from the Fancy City. A fine thing, actually! That day when I was drawing pictures in the hope of going to England, I saw the two of them together. They went in to the Western Hotel.

—What kind of cut or shape of a woman was she?

—A long tall sally. Blondy hair dripping down along her back …

—Earrings?

—Of course …

—Dark eyes?

—I haven't a clue what kind of eyes she had. I wasn't thinking about them …

—A broad bright grin?

—She was gawping away at the Master all right. But she wasn't gawping at me …

—Did you hear where she hangs out?

—No I didn't. But she's working in Barry's Bookies, if there's such a joint. The Derry Lough master and the priest's sister are getting married next month. They say he'll get the new school.

—The one with the pants?

—The very one.

—Isn't that weird that she'd marry him?

—Why so? Isn't he a fine-looking specimen, and he doesn't touch a drop.

—But all the same. It's not every man would want to marry a woman who wears the trousers. They'd be a bit more pernickety than other women …

—Ah, cop on and get an ounce of sense! My own son is married to a French one in England and you wouldn't have the least clue on God's earth what she was gabbling on about no more than the gobshite buried over there. Shouldn't she be even more pernickity than any one that wears a pair of pants …

—God help you and your Frenchie one! My son is married to an Italian in England. Is that good enough for you?

—Forget about yourself and your Italian. My son is married in England to a black. Can you do better than that?

—A black! My son is married in England to a Jew. Can you credit that? To a slylock Jew. A Jew wouldn't be happy to marry any old kind of man …

—And not every man would marry her either. Some of them wouldn't fancy her …

—There's many more than that who wouldn't fancy the thing your son married. A black. For fuck's sake! …

—The big boss is to marry some woman from Glen Booley. That
youngfella of John Willy's, he's made the kip of a shack and all, and they say he's sniffing around looking for a woman. The daughter of your man Tim Top of the Road sent him packing.

—Tim Top of the Road who spent all his time robbing my turf …

—And mine …

—And my hammer …

—Oh, I hope she chokes! Trying to sneak into my land …

—It was she who threatened me with the law to ruin me about the wrack. You're telling me that John Willy's boy wouldn't marry her? …

—She'd be good enough for him. What was John Willy ever any good for? Periwinkles. And what is he any good for now? Perifucking-winkles …

—There was nothing much wrong with the periwinkles ever, there wasn't really. Myself and the youngfella got most of what we needed to buy a colt. And now we have something that you don't have: a fine big colt and a pen that only needed some covering. I told him that when the pen was finished he should get some bit of a thing of a woman for himself …

—The youngfella was sent packing as well from the house up above; and Rootey's daughter in Bally Donough refused him, and the carpenter's daughter in Gort Ribbuck …

—That youngfella is a totally useless git. Did he say that we nearly got the price of a colt from the periwinkles; that we had made a clean new pen; that we bought a fine new colt after Christmas? He'd never have managed it himself, I'm afraid. If I hadn't gone so quickly myself …