The Dirty Dust (28 page)

—This is “The War of the Two Foreigners.” I was down at the shallow hole footing turf when Patsy Johnny comes my way. “Hey, did you hear the latest news?” he said.

“Not a bit of it,” I said.

“The Kaiser attacked the poor Belgies yesterday,” he said.

“You'd really have pity on them,” I said. “Do you think that this is ‘The War of the Two Foreigners'?” I said.

—Cop yourself on, you nitwit. That war is over ages ago …

—… The Old Master said only the other day that this must be the War of the End of the World, as the women have got so fickle …

—Fireside Tom said exactly the same thing. “Do you know how it is,” he said, “it's the end of the world, as the people have lost all decency. Look at my little shack and the roof dripping with leaks …”

—When that insurance man started off, every house he went into, he said it was the War that was prophesied to come:

“If you never did it before,” he said, “this is the time to take out a little bit of insurance on yourself. They'll never kill the people who have insurance as they'd have to pay out far too much at the end of the War. All you have to do is to carry your insurance papers around with you at all times, and to show them if …”

—I know! The chancer robbed me! …

—Just the tricks of the trade …

—Caitriona herself said the other day that it must be the War of the Continents. “The Connemara marble is all used up,” she said, “and it was prophesied that when all the Connemara marble was gone, it would be the end of the world.”

—Ababoona! Connemara marble! Connemara marble! Connemara marble! I'm going to burst! …

—… Take it easy now, Coley! A bit of patience …

—Let me finish my story, please, my good sir:

“I laid an egg! I laid an egg! Hot and fresh on the dung heap.”

—That's fine, Coley. Despite the fact that it is devoid of art, I surmise that there is a deep interior meaning lurking within. It is always thus, in stories of that
genre.
You will be aware of what Fraser said in
The Golden Bough
… O, my deepest apologies, Coley. I mis-remembered
that you were unable to read … Now, Coley, give me a chance to speak … Ah, come on, Coley, allow me to speak! I am a writer …

—…
Honest,
Dotie. Maureen failed. If she had been like me or my daughter she wouldn't have failed. But she took after the Paudeens and the Lydons. The nuns in the convent weren't able to put the tiniest jot of learning into her head. You'd hardly believe it, Dotie, but she started calling her teachers bitches and whores! … Honest Injun, Dotie, they couldn't clean the filthy talk out of her mouth. How could it be otherwise, she's listening to that kind of talk since she was born, in the same house as Caitriona Paudeen …

—Ababoona! Noreen …

—Pretend you don't hear her at all, Dotie darling. Isn't it obvious now that “a heavy hand was laid upon her at birth,” as Blinks put it in
The Hot Kiss
? … You're right on the button there, Dotie. He's a cousin of Maureen's. It's no surprise at all that he is going to be a priest. He was surrounded by a great deal of culture since he was a boy. The priest would call around to the house every half chance he had. There were also fowlers and hunters from the Fancy City, from Dublin and from England around. Nell is, of course, his grandmother, and he was always with her. Nell is a cultured woman …

—Oh! … Oh …

—His mother, Blotchy Brian's daughter, was in America, and she bumped into a lot of cultured people there. America is a great place for culture, Dotie. The grandfather, Blotchy Brian, would hop over there from time to time, and even though you'd never think it, Brian is actually quite a cultured man in his own way … He's like that too, Dotie, but he had enough culture anyway not to marry Caitriona Paudeen. Honest …

—Oh! … Oh! … You infested foul mouth of fleas! …

—Pretend you don't hear her at all, Nora …

—Yep, Dotie … Isn't it amazing the differences between two families nonetheless! … My son's son in Gort Ribbuck is another cousin of Maureen's: the youngfella that the Old Master is always talking about. He managed to become a petty officer on a ship, Dotie.
Isn't that fantastic for him! Marseilles, Port Said, Singapore, Batavia, Honolulu, San Francisco … Sun. Oranges. Blue seas …

—But it's getting very dangerous at sea, now since the war began …

—“The hero never evades the daring of danger,” as Frix said in
Two Men and the Powder Puff.
The sailor's life is a happy, happy one, Dotie. Wearing beautiful romantic clothes, every woman's dream come true …

—I told you already, Nora, that I'm a bit of a landlubber …

—Romance, Dotie. Romance … I gave him the key to my heart, Dotie. Honest! But don't whisper a word about that. You understand, Dotie dearest, you are my friend. Caitriona would only love to savour a bit of gossip. As she has no culture at all herself, she'd not quite get that kind of thing …

—Pretend you don't hear her at all, Nora …

—Yep, Dotie. I gave him the key to my heart. He was like a priceless urn into which the breath of life was blown. She was the sparkling star reflected in the wild pools of his eyes. His hair was black silk … But his lips, Dotie. His lips … They were on fire … On fire, Dotie. They had been warmed by the kiss of the vine …

And the stories he told me about foreign countries, and about harbour towns in strange places. About stormy seas and the white foam blowing in blond blasts to the tips of our topsails. About inlets of virgin sand in the embrace of bosky elfin woods. About scary scrubby mountains snuffed with snow. About meadows of solar warmth on the borders of deep dark woods … About strange birds, weird fish, and untamed beasts. About tribes whose money consists of stones, and other tribes who go to war in order to capture their brides …

—That's very cultured, alright, Nora …

—About tribes who worship the devil, and about gods who lust after milking maids …

—That's very cultured too, Nora …

—And about his own adventures in Marseilles, in Port Said, in Singapore …

—Cultural adventures, undoubtedly …

—Oh, I would have given him the last drop of my blood, Dotie. I'd have gone with him as his sex slave to Marseilles, Port Said, Singapore …

—But you broke up nevertheless …

—We didn't know one another that long then. Just an ordinary true lovers' tiff. That's all. He was sitting next to me on the couch. “You are beautiful, Norita,” he said. “Your hair gleams more brightly than each rosy dawn of sunrise on the snow-topped peaks of Iceland.” Honest, he said that, Dotie. “The sparkle in your eyes, Norita,” he said, “shines more brightly than the North Star peeping out from the horizon to the lonesome sailor as he crosses the equator.” Honest, Dotie, he said that. “Your features are more beautiful, Norita,” he said, “than the white waves on the smooth beaches of Hawaii.” Honest, Dotie, that's what he said. “Your posture is more stately, Norita,” he said “than the palm trees that grace the
seraglio
walls in Java.” That's what he said, Dotie, honest, no word of a lie. “Your unsullied body is more gentle, Norita,” he said, “than the lighthouse which smoothly guides the sailor to the shores of the Fancy City and that calls me to give a warm and loving hug to my precious Norita.” Honest, Dotie, he said all that. He kissed me, Dotie. His lips were on fire … On fire …

“Your legs are more shapely, Norita,” he said, “than the moon which appears as a bridge of silver over San Francisco Bay.” Then he dropped his hand down on my leg, on the calf of my leg …

—He grabbed the calf of your leg, Nora. You're away now! …

—Honest, he did, Dotie. “De grâce,” I said, “Don't touch my leg.” “The curve of your legs is more beautiful, Norita,” he said, “than the graceful swoop of seagulls in the wake of a ship.” He grabbed my leg again. “De grâce,” I said, “hands off my leg.” “Your legs, Norita,” he said, “are more splendid than the rainbow cast on its back away beyond the oozy ocean.” “De grâce,” I said, “but you better take your hand off my leg.” I grabbed a book I was reading off the window shelf and I clobbered him with the back of it on his arm …

—But you told me, Nora, that you hit him with the handle of a pot, just as I did …

—Dotie! Dotie! …

—But that's what you told me, Nora …

—De grâce, Dotie …

—But then, he pulled a knife on you, Nora, and tried to stab you; and then he apologised and said that was how they did it in his country, if somebody fancied somebody else, they put their hands on her leg …

—De grâce, Dotie, de grâce …

—But that you hooked up together again after that, and he wouldn't as much as sniff his snot rag anytime his ship came in to the Fancy City, before he'd be hot foot after you …

—De grâce, Dotie. “Sniff his snot rag.” That's very crude and uncultured.

—But that's exactly the way you described it, Nora. You also said that he'd write to you from San Francisco, Honolulu, Batavia, Singapore, Port Said, and Marseilles. And that you were pining and whining when no letter came, until another sailor told you that he had snuffed it, some guy had stuck a knife in him in a bistro in Marseilles …

—Ah no, no! Dotie. You know I am a very sensitive soul. It would really upset me if someone heard that story. Honest, it would. You are my friend, Dotie. What you said just now would ruin my reputation. That he'd pull a knife on me! That I would do anything as uncultured as to hit somebody with the handle of a pot! Ah, come on! …

—That's what you told me a good while ago, Nora, but you didn't have as much culture then as you have now …

—Hum, and ha, Dotie. It's only an ignorant crude person like Caitriona Paudeen would do something like that. You heard Maggie Frances saying that she threw boiling water at Blotchy Brian. She must be a right terror. Honest! …

—It's a shame to God Almighty that he didn't stick the knife right into your guts, you sailors' bicycle! Where was that place you said he sat down next to you? Lord God, his luck had run completely out. You'd easily tell he was going to be stabbed in the end, anyone who'd sit down next to the One of the Toejam tribe. He got a lovely present leaving you, though: a nest of nits …

—Don't let on you've heard her at all, Nora …

—Redser Tom, now, for God's sake listen to me. I'm screaming at you for the last hour and you take no notice of me no more than if I was a slobber of frog spawn. What's up that you won't take any notice of me? Wasn't I one of your palsy-walsies up above? …

—One of your palsy-walsies, Master. One of your palsy-walsies, like …

—Redser Tom, just one question. Is Billy the Postman in a bad way? …

—Billy the Postman? Billy the Postman, is that it? Billy the Postman. Billy the Postman, bejaysus. There's a Billy the Postman there, I'd swear, Master. Billy the Postman is there, no doubt about it …

—Ara, fuck Billy the Postman, and I hope he'll wallow on the deathbed of Alexander Borgia, and roast in the hot house of the devils and the demons! I know full well that he's there! Do you for a moment think, you Redser Tom, that I don't know about Billy the Postman? Is he in a bad way, the foam-lipped little prick? …

—Some say he is, Master, and some say he isn't. They say a lot of stuff that's neither here nor there nor anywhere at all. But he could be bad all the same, he certainly could. No doubt about it, certainly? It would be a wise …

—I'm humbly asking you, Redser Tom, is Billy the Postman in a bad way …

—Oh, he might be Master. He might be, certainly. It could be, Master. Definitely, certainly. Ah, sure, I wouldn't know myself …

—I am asking you in the ancient name of neighbourly gossip to please tell me is Billy the Postman in a bad way … That's it, Redser Tom! … Fair play to you, Redser Tom! You're my golden boy, Redser Tom, but please tell me is Billy the Postman in a bad way, or is he going to die soon?

—Only a wise man would know that …

—I'm begging you, Redser Tom, as someone who always said the right thing about women—just like myself—to please tell me, is Billy the Postman in a bad way …

—He could be …

—I love you, Redser Tom, you are the apple of my eye, my rippling rill, my saviour of life … Do you not believe in private property at all, at all? … In the holy name of everybody to preserve the natural state of marriage, I am begging you to tell me, please Redser Tom, is Billy the Postman in a bad way …

—If I was to say anything, Master, I'd tell you before anybody, but I won't say nothing, Master. You'd be well advised to keep your trap shut in a place like this, Master. It's not the kind of place for someone to be blabbing and blathering. Even the graves have ears …

—May you be seven thousand times cursed tonight and tomorrow and a year from tomorrow, you Communist you, you Fascist, Nazi, atheist, spawn of the red Antichrists, you perfect pustule of the plebeian pricks, you dirty dregs of the dingy damned, you fester of fever, you fly's fart, you maggot's mickey, you earthworm's slime, you belching bollocks that even frightened death himself so he had to send you a disease in the end, you muck muppet, you clap of crap, you rusty wreck of a useless git! …

—De grâce, dear Master! Keep a grip on yourself. Remember that you are an upright noble living Christian. If you hang on, you'll soon be able to have all the hassle in the world with that wretch, Caitriona Paudeen herself …

—Answer her, Master, come on, Master, answer her. You are educated, Master. Answer her. Answer Noreen …

—Pretend nothing, Master, pretend you don't hear that so-and-so at all …