The Dirty Dust (37 page)

—As it happened she called them for me, Caitriona. No sooner was I brought into the house than she leaped out of the bed to look after me …

—She leaped out of the bed! …

—Leaped isn't the word, Caitriona, and then she stayed there sitting up and just looking at us …

—Oh, you eejit! You total fucking eejit! She had you on. She
made a total asshole of you. You never had a pain nor nothing, sure you didn't, Fireside Tom …

—Hardly ever, Caitriona, and see how I died just the same as everybody else who was racked with pain. Son of a gun, like. I'm beginning to think that the priest didn't help me one way or the other …

—You can swear to that, Fireside Tom! The prick-teaser managed to get St. John's Gospel from him that night, and she dumped you instead of him, just as she did with Jack the Lad …

—Is that what you think, Caitriona? …

—You can't see it yourself, Fireside Tom! A woman who had her arse in the air one minute, and the next was flitting away like a butterfly! That's what you deserved for yourself if you went next or near that bitch. If you stuck with my Patrick you'd be alive and kicking today. But anyway, what did you do with your patch of land? …

—A, sure, Caitriona, love, I left it to them: to Paddy and to Nell …

—You left them half and half, you little bollix!

—Ah, no, I didn't go that far, not half and half. I used to say it like this to myself, Caitriona, when the words came to me: “If it was any more than that, I wouldn't go one way or the other. There's no point in chopping it up half and half. Blotchy Brian always said it wasn't worth dividing up …”

—Of course, he said that, in the hope it would all be left to his own daughter …

—“I'll have to leave it to Paddy Caitriona so,” I said to myself. “I'd have left it all to him if I had been that close to the house when I got the puck. But Nell was always very good to me too. I couldn't not leave her something seeing as I was about to die in her house …”

—Oh, you cunt! You bad baldy ball-less bollocks of a cunt!

—The priest was there and all to write down what I had to say, that's when it came to me: “Divide it in two, Fireside Tom,” he said. “Either that, or leave it all to one of them.”

—You'd think after all that crap, Fireside Tom, that you'd make a better fist of it than that. Why didn't you just saunter in nice and easy to Mannix the Counsellor in the Fancy City? …

—By the hokey, now Caitriona, I could only get the words out sometimes, and you'd have to have nails of ice on your tongue to start spitting words like Mannix the Counsellor. No matter anyway, Caitriona, I never really fancied having much to do with that same Mannix ever … Your Paddy was there: “I don't really want it,” he said, “I have more than enough myself already.”

—Oh, the eejit! I knew that Nell would make a complete asshole of him. He misses me …

—Isn't that exactly what Blotchy Brian said! …

—Blubbering Blotchy Brian!

—Maybe so, Caitriona, but he sent for the car to have him visit me …

—To help Nell about your patch of land. And if not, it wasn't for your good, Fireside Tom. Sending for the car! He'd look a sight in the car. A big bush of a beard. Teeth like a rabbit. Bent over. Stuffed nose. Clubfoot. Filthy flaky skin. Never washed himself …

—“If the mediator over at that gable-end was here,” he said, “I'd say now, Father, that it would be Mannix the Counsellor rather than yourself who'd be accompanying Milord in by the fireside past the gander …” Nell slapped him in the mouth. The priest shoved him on out the door … “We don't want your patch of land either, Fireside Tom,” Nell spluttered …

—That's another downright lie, the cocksucker! Why wouldn't she want it? …

—“I will leave my portion of land to Paddy Caitriona and to Nell Johnny,” I said, when words came back to me. “You can have it, good luck to you.” “What you say is a total crock, Fireside Tom,” the priest said. “It'd only cause confusion and the law would be dragged in, if it wasn't for the good sense of these decent people …”

—Decent people! Oh! …

—I never spoke another single word after that, Caitriona. I never had a pain nor nothing, and see, I died all the same! …

—You're not much good to anyone dead or alive, you gimp! …

—Listen up now, Thomas. That's the dote. That tiff with Caitriona won't …

—What do you mean, a “tiff”?

—All that vile vituperation will only vulgarize your mind. I will have to establish a relationship with you. I am the cultural relations officer for the cemetery. I will give you some lectures on “The Art of Living.”

—You, son of a bloody gun, … “The Art of Living”? … What next?

—A progressive section of us thought we had a duty to our fellow corpses, and so we set up a Rotary …

—Some bloody good, a Rotary! Look at me! …

—Exactly, Tom. Just look at you! You're a red-blooded romantic, Tom. You always were. But romance always requires the regulated support of culture beneath it to raise it above mere anarchy, and for its superior point to penetrate the meadows of Cupid in this twentieth century, just like Mrs. Crookshank said to Harry in …

—Hold it right there now, Nora dear! I'll tell you what Eeval Enema said to Tight Arse in “The Rape of the Cloak” …

—Culture, please, Tom.

—Up outa that! I don't believe that this is Nora Johnny from Gort Ribbuck at all, can't be? … Do you ever think that I'd ever learn to speak like that in the dirty dust? Come here 'til I tell you now, Nora, you used to have great Irish talk in the old days! …

—Don't pretend for one minute, Norita, don't bother your barney with him at all, at all.

—Goo Goog, Dotie! Goo Goog! We'll have a bit of a natter between ourselves in a minute. Just between the two of us, like. A bit of pleasant banter between us, you know what I mean. Goo Goog!

—I was always very cultured, Tom, but you were never able to tell. It was very plain to me the very first
affaire de coeur
that I had with you. If it wasn't for that I might have been able to do something with you. Agh! Such an uncultured person! A partner should really be a companion. Look, I'll give you a talk, with the help of the writer and the poet, of course, on Platonic love …

—I'll have nothing to do with you, Nora Johnny. Sweet fanny all! …

—Good on you there! Fireside Tom!

—I used to be hobnobbing with the nobs up in Nell Johnny's house …

—The bad brasser! …

—Oh, I'm telling you, those foreign ones are great fun, Caitriona. There was a big ugly Orange floozy fishing up there with Lord Cockton this year, and I'd say she smoked every fag that was ever made. She would have, and the priest's sister along with her. She keeps them in big fat boxes down in her trousers pocket. Tim Top of the Road's youngfella is shagged trying to keep up with her. Too bad for him, the gobshite! But I swear to you anyway, that she's gorgeous. I sat in the car right next to her. “Goo Goog, Nancy,” I says to her …

—Your mind is a plenitude of raw and rough substance, Tom, you dote you, but I promise you I will reorganise it, and shape it, and mould it, and polish it until it is a beautiful bright vessel of culture …

—I'll have nothing at all to do with you, Nora Johnny. I swear I won't. I've had enough of you. No sooner would I be in through the door of Peter the Publican's than you'd be in on my heels, scrounging a drink, and on the bum, and tippling away. I bought you many fine frothy pints, not that I begrudge you any of them …

—Don't pretend anything, Norita …

—Go for it there, Fireside Tom! God give you long life and good health! Give it to her now hot and heavy, Toejam Noreen of the stinky feet. Always on the scrounge! Were you in Peter the Publican's when she got the goat drunk? … God bless you, but tell that to the rest of the graveyard! …

—… I keened every one of you, my family and friends! Ochone and ochone again! I keened every single one of you, my family and friends! …

—You certainly had a fine wild whinging wail, Biddy Sarah, to tell the honest truth …

—… Ochone, and ochone again! You fell from the cursed stack, didn't you my darling!

—For all you know he could have fallen from a flying boat! Like falling from a stack of oats, like! That wouldn't kill anyone, but somebody who was dead already, dead to God, or dead to this world. If he drank the bottle that I drank! …

—Woe and alas and ochone! You drank the bad bottle, my lovely!

—You're always going on about your bottle. If you drank forty-two pints like I did …

—Ochone and Ochone again! You'll never drink a pint, ever again! And to think of all the pints that were slugged down in the gullet of that gut of yours …

—Ara, he's bored a hole through the wax of my ears, with his forty-two pints and all! If you had sucked that many barrels of ink into your lungs as the writer had …

—Ochone, and alas and alack! My wonderful writer laid low now and for ever …

—God help us for ever and ever …

—Sloppy sentimentality again! …

—I keened you Dotie, my Dotie! Oh, my love, my darling! Didn't you die far away from your native plains, sad to say! I feel it for you, I feel wrecked to the core of my being that they wrenched you over this way and you knew nothing about it! You are far from your friends and relations! You died beside the wandering wave! Your bones will be thrown …

—In the mean barren clay and the sandy seaweed …

—I keened every single one of you, my good people! … My precious, my love! … Whatever the future brings, he won't write a thing! …

—Just as well. The fucking heretic! …

—I keened you certainly! No doubt about it! Ochone oh! I'm totally destroyed! A fine chunk of land up at the top of the town! He won't set a foot on it now, not in autumn nor in spring! …

—Was it you said, Breed, that you couldn't beat it as regards fattening up cattle?

—I sure did, Biddy Sarah: I was listening to you. And then you started up on “The Lament for the Ejected Irish Peasant.” …

—… I keened you! I'm telling you I keened you! Ochone and alas and alack! He will never again get into the saddle of the white-headed mare, never again …

—Aha, Caitriona Paudeen gave him the evil eye … !

—That's a filthy lie, Nell! …

—… I cried my eyes out because of you, Old Master. Ochone and woe is us! The Old Master going to his grave still a young man! …

—Ah, come off it, Biddy Sarah, you didn't keen the Old Master one way or the other. I know it full well, as I was there closing up the coffin along with Billy the Postman …

—The maggot!

—The Mistress was sobbing and simpering. You took her by the hand, Biddy Sarah, and you began clearing your throat. “I haven't the least clue,” Billy the Postman said, “which of you—you Biddy Sarah, or you Schoolmistress—has the least sense …”

—Oh, the robber! …

—Feck off out of here and shag off down the stairs, every single one of you who doesn't live in the Other World, and stay there until we close up the coffin,” Billy shouted. They all slid off, apart from you, Biddy Sarah. “But we have to keen the Old Master,” you whined to the Mistress. “God knows, it's the least he deserves,” the Mistress said …

—Oh, the fat arsed diddy! …

—“Whether there's keening or no keening today,” Billy says, “unless you fuck off right now out of here and out of my way Biddy Sarah, he won't be on time for today's delivery.” Then you came down the stairs, Biddy Sarah, snotting and snorting and foaming at the mouth. Billy was making an unholy racket up above twisting and turning screws. “Your one, he won't leave her after Billy,” said Blotchy Brian. “If you drove the same number of screws into Mannix the Counsellor's tongue, Caitriona might go to another lawyer altogether about Baba's will …”

—Ababoona! The nasty louser!

—Just then, Billy appeared at the top of the stairs. “Get ready now lads, the four of you,” he ordered.

—I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …

—“It wouldn't be right or proper to allow the Old Master out of the house without shedding a few tears for him,” you said, Biddy Sarah, and you took off up the stairs again. Billy stopped you. “He has to go to the graveyard,” Billy insisted. “There's no point in keeping him here any longer …”

—Oh, the uppity brute!

—“By gaineys, no point at all in keeping him here any longer,” Blotchy Brian said, “unless you're thinking of putting him in aspic! …”

—You keened me, Biddy Sarah, and I certainly wasn't grateful, or even half-grateful or a tiny bit grateful to you. Oh, yes, you certainly made enough noise all around me, but you were barking up the wrong tree all the time. You didn't open your mouth about the Republic, or about the treacherous Dog Eared Lot who stabbed me because I was fighting for it …

—But I told you the people were grateful …

—That's a lie. You never said any such thing! …

—Biddy Sarah had nothing to do with politics, any more than myself …

—You coward, you were hiding under the bed when Eamon de Valera was risking his life …

—You never had any luck, Biddy Sarah, you never said that it was Huckster Joan's coffee done for me, you never said that while you were keening me …

—And Peter the Publican's daughter knobbled me …

—And me too …

—And you never said nothing, when you were keening me, about Tim Top of the Road swiping my turf …

—And my seaweed on the shore …

—Nor that your man down here died because his son married a black …

—I think what that fellow says is true, Biddy Sarah has nothing to do with politics …