Graveyard Clay- Cré Na Cille

by Máirtín Ó Cadhain

  But what’s this he used to call her? … Isn’t it awful I can’t remember? … That’s it, upon my soul! A So-an’-so. I must ask the Master, if he ever gets back to being his old self again, what a So-an’-so is.

  He called her a So-an’-so, then, and he’d call her worse if he could think of it. After all that, he’s talking to her as friendly as if there’d never been a cross word between them. And he wouldn’t even thank me for voting for him …

  Just because I don’t have a cross over me … If that’s the reason. Or maybe it’s because Nóra used to leave a lot of drink-money with him above ground. Neither Peadar the Pub nor any other Peadar would have much of a pub if they depended on my custom. He knows very well he’d have neither cross nor credit here only for Nóra of the Pints and her likes … I was never a drunkard … And all the same, it’s many a time I was tempted by his window.

  —… Indeed, Peadar. The cultural people all voted for me, and the Fifteen-Shilling people too, apart from Caitriona Pháidín, and God help us, that jade has neither culture nor upbringing. I’d rather do without Caitríona’s vote, although it still would have been mine, were it not for one reason. Caitríona voted for you, Peadar, because she was worried about the goods she left unpaid for in your shop. Honest!

  —That’s a damned lie, you So-an’-so! I died not leaving a penny of debt any more than the bird in the sky, thanks be to the Eternal Father. You bitch. “The goods she left unpaid for …”!

  Hello, Muraed! Hello, Muraed! … Did you hear what porter-swigging Nóirín said? I’ll explode! I’ll explode! …

  Interlude Five

  THE BONE-FERTILISING OF THE CLAY

  1

  I am the Trump of the Graveyard! Let my voice be heard! It must be heard …

  Here in the graveyard the shuttle is in perpetual motion: weaving blackness over whiteness, ugliness over beauty, weft of green scum, mildew, mould, slime and mist-coloured lichen over the entwined golden plaits of silken tresses. The coarse veil of indifference and negligence is being woven from the golden threads of sunlight, from the silver tissue of moonlight, from the jewel-studded mantle of fame, and from the soft down of irretentive memory. For this weaver’s material is the smooth, ductile clay. His loom is the withered rubbish out of which arose the dreams of the one who hitched his chariot to the brightest star in the zenith, or who plucked a cluster of the most forbidden fruit from the deepest darkness. Anxiety of dream, sheer radiance of unattainable beauty, longing of tormented desire, these are the usual fulling-waters of this ancient weaver.

  Above ground everything is dressed in the cloak of everlasting youth. Every shower miraculously creates a multitude of mushrooms in the grass. Opium poppies cover meadow and field like a dream of the goddess of growth. The mouth of the corn is smudged with gold from constant kissing of the sun. The waterfall’s voice is drowsy as it pours its cascade into the salmon’s parched beak. The parent wren hops happily under the dock leaves, watching over the fluttering leaps of its fledgling. The forager puts to sea with a song on his lips that is full of the vigour of tide, wind and sun. The young maid, skimming the dew by the first ray of sunlight, searches for the elf with the inexhaustible purse, that she might dress herself in the bright clothes and the jewels and precious stones her heart yearns for.

  But some sorcerer has scorched the green apparel of the trees with his wicked wand. The golden crest of the rainbow has been clipped by the shears of the east wind. The rosy flush of consumption has appeared in the sunset sky. The milk is thickening in the cow’s teat as she seeks shelter in a nook of the stone wall. The dumbness of inexpressible grief is in the voices of the young men weaning lambs up yonder on the moor. The stack-builder descends from his well-thatched cornstack and slaps his hands under his armpits, because black boils of bad matter are heaping up in the northern sky and caravans of noisy greylag geese head hurriedly southwards …

  For the graveyard exacts its tithe from the living …

  I am the Trump of the Graveyard. Let my voice be heard! It must be heard …

  2

  … Who are you? … What sort of old carcass are they shoving down on top of me now? … My son’s wife for sure. But no. You’re a man. You’re not a Loideáin anyhow. You’re fair-haired. None of the Loideáin were fair. Dark-haired they were. As black as the berry. Nor my own people either, except for Nell, that pussface …

  You’re one of Pádraig Labhráis’s. I should recognize you so. Are you Pádraig Labhráis’s second lad or the third? … The third lad … You’re only nineteen … a bit young indeed to be starting this caper, son … Nine months you were ailing … Consumption. That’s the killer! This cemetery is fat with it.

  You were to go to England only for you were struck down … You were all set to go, you say … The young men and women of Donagh’s Village left last week … And of Mangy Field! … May they not return, then! … True for you, my son. I believe there’s great money to be made there …

  You tell me you heard nothing about a cross to go over me. There’s no talk of it now … Not even a word, you say … He brought it up when he was in to see you. What did he say? Don’t be embarrassed to tell me, my son. Indeed, you should know yourself I have no love or liking for Big Brian … The Sive’s Rocks people have all gone to England! Indeed, son, weren’t that same crowd wandering labourers and hired hands every day of their lives … Only for you were struck down you’d have gone too … to earn money. It’s a bit late for you now to be talking of earning money … But what did Big Brian say? Why don’t you spit it out? … “That dolt of a woman doesn’t deserve a cross,” he said. “Her breed aren’t accustomed to crosses. Pádraig Chaitríona—a man who can’t afford to give his children a bite to eat—talking about putting up a cross of Island limestone!” He said that? He still bears a grudge against me …

  You tell me Big Brian was in Dublin. In Dublin! … That ugly streak of misery, up in Dublin! … He saw the man stuck on top of the pillar of stone!1 A pity the man and the pillar of stone didn’t fall down on the ugly streak’s stupid grin! … Great porter there, he said? May the devil take it past his ugly stopped-up nose! … Fine women in Dublin! It’s an awful pity he didn’t go there long ago when I had to refuse him twice. The Dublin women would be very impressed by his flat feet and his slouched shoulders … He saw the wild animals! There was no wilder or uglier animal there than himself, not wishing to demean him! … And the judge praised him to the skies? A witless judge he was, then! … “You’re a wonderful old man voluntarily to travel such a distance at your age, in order to help the court,” says he. A witless judge he was, if it wasn’t obvious to him that he was helping his daughter and her husband, the ugly streak of misery! …

  You’d think a young man like you wouldn’t be so silly, and yet you’ll make a Seáinín Liam and a Bríd Terry of yourself if you keep going. I was hoping you’d tell me about the court case, and you told me about the Glen of the Pasture crowd going to England. Let them go to England! Good riddance to the Glen of the Pasture crowd! The beggars wouldn’t come to my funeral …

  Ababúna! So Nell’s son got eight hundred pounds … in spite of being on the wrong side of the road. Are you sure? Maybe pussface Nell added five or six hundred to it … Oh, it was in the paper! You read it yourself in the paper. Six weeks ago … in The Galwayman. Arrah, nobody should heed that paper … it was in The Reporter and The Irishman as well! … And there’s nothing wrong with him, you say … He has thrown away the crutches altogether now … He’s doing all sorts of work again … And three doctors swore for him that he was in bad health. Good God! Oh, a witless judge he was. Was he told that he was on the wrong side of the road? ’Twas the priest fixed it. Who else! …

  She gave the priest fifty pounds for Masses? So well she might, the pussface. Her son is in good health and she has a fistful of money … She also gave him ten pounds to say Masses for my soul! … She handed it to the priest in Pádraig’s presence, you say … Oh, that pussface’s Mass money wouldn’
t do me any good, son …

  The Wood of the Lake crowd went to England five weeks ago. Well now! It must be a great asset to England to have the Wood of the Lake hooligans over there … they wouldn’t come to a person’s funeral half as fast … Hold on! Don’t go till you tell me more! … Jack the Scológ isn’t well? Easily known. The St. John’s Gospel. He’ll be here any day now. Nell and Big Brian’s daughter prepared that potion for him. They’ll collect insurance money on him …

  There’s a road being built up to Nell’s house! Ababúna! I thought devil a road would ever be built up into that rugged wilderness … This new crowd she voted for got it for her, you say. How well the pussface knew who to vote for! A corner of a field of ours is to be given over for the road? Ababúna! That’s the field—Flagstone Height. There’s no other field of ours by the path up to Nell’s … My Pádraig has given away a corner of Flagstone Height! What! I knew since I departed that Pádraig was too easy-going for that pussface … The priest visited the spot. One of Nell’s little tricks … So the priest laid out the boundary … That’s the day Nell gave him the money for the Masses for me. God above, there are no flies on that one! It was a trick to get room for the road. There was no room for a road without going into our Flagstone Height. You think Pádraig got paid for the field? No matter. He shouldn’t have let her have it. How I wish I’d lived a few more years even! … So that’s what Big Brian said: “Oh musha musha, Nell paying out money for a bald tail-end of a shitty old flagstone field, where there’s nothing but stones breeding more stones! … If Pádraig Chaitríona had the slightest spark of common sense he’d dig some sort of hole for that one’s prickly old bones … up on Flagstone Height … and he’d have plenty of tombstones there without the Island limestone … to keep Seáinín Liam and Bríd Terry … away from the hedgehog …” Oh, the ugly streak! The ugly streak of misery! …

  Here we go again: “If only I were in England! If only I were in England!” Did I stop you going? … “All the West Headland crowd went over there six weeks ago.” I don’t give a tinker’s curse where the sun may set on the West Headland crowd. There are a couple of those loudmouths here in the cemetery and they’re no great credit to the place …

  You tell me you didn’t hear anything about my sister Baba’s will … Nothing at all … How would you, and you so mad keen on going to England? … that’s all you heard about Tomás Inside, that he’s still in his shack … He comes into our house now every time he goes for the pension. Good man! That’s good news … He sometimes gives the pension book to my son’s wife, to collect it for him? Good man! He’s not as limber as he used to be … Oh, he gives the book to Nell and Big Brian’s Mag too! Huh! …

  Little Cáit has a bad back, you tell me. May the woman to stretch her be no nearer than the graveyard clay! … Bid Shorcha is very crippled? She’s another one of them! She wouldn’t come to keen me, the sponger! …

  You weren’t interested in anything else but going to England … You’d have gone to England two months ago, seeing that the scroungers from Woody Hillside were going! Nobody who ever followed the example of the Woody Hillside scroungers was the better for it. My son’s wife is still sickly, of course …

  God save us! … She was fighting with Big Brian’s daughter … with Big Brian’s Mag! … fighting with her! … She went up to Nell’s, and into her house, and caught Big Brian’s daughter by the hair of the head? You’re not serious! … Oh, it wasn’t Little Cáit at all who said that Máirín’s college clothes were bought from Cheap Jack! What was Bríd Terry on about so, the slut? … Oh, it was Big Brian’s daughter who first said it to Little Cáit! It’s in her nature to talk out of turn, the daughter of that streak of misery. And my son’s wife pulled her hair, in her own house … She knocked her to the floor! I thought she didn’t have the spunk, Nóirín Filthy-Feet’s daughter! …

  She threw Nell in the fire? She threw Nell in the fire! Good for her! My life on her! Good man! Good man! You’re sure now she threw Nell in the fire? … Nell went to save Big Brian’s daughter, and my son’s wife threw her in the fire! May God spare her health, then! Good man! Good on you, my son. That’s the first news to lift my heart out of this cold lump of clay.

  They were at one another’s throat till Pádraig went up in the evening and brought his wife down home! May God forgive him for not leaving them at it! …

  Arrah, we’re better off rid of the Middle Mountain crowd. A pack of hungry savages! They won’t leave a bite uneaten in England. But my son’s wife and Big Brian’s Mag will be going to law now …

  They won’t? Why not? Faith then, if she’d gone to Brightcity and engaged Mannion the Counsellor to sue for libel she’d put a good hole in Nell’s money. She might take five or six hundred pounds off her … Nell brought the priest in to make the peace! She would … So that’s what Pádraig said about them: “Let nobody heed the scolding of women.” It was Nell put him up to saying that. She knows I’m gone, the toothless bitch! …

  What’s that you said? That my son’s wife is very industrious now … She’s a hard worker since the fight … She has no disease or distress now! That’s a hell of a wonder, then! And I was sure she’d be here any minute … She’s up with the lark, you say … In the field and on the bog … She’s raising piglets again! Good man! They had three or four calves at the last fair! Good man! It’s a joy to listen to you, son! … And you heard your mother say she saw their yard littered with chickens! I wonder how many clutches they hatched this year? … Of course you’re not to blame for not knowing that, son …

  You tell me Pádraig’s doing well too. It’ll be a long time before he beats Nell and her eight hundred pounds all the same. The judge they had was a witless judge. But if my son’s wife keeps on at the present rate, and when Máirín becomes a schoolmistress …

  That’s right, my son! Pádraig was penniless … What did he say? What did Big Brian say? … That since Pádraig couldn’t pay his rent he should give someone a mortgage on his fistful of clay and his fistful of a wife, and go over to England to earn some money … A fistful of clay, is that what the streak of misery called the big holding? “But it’s a good job that dolt of a mother of his isn’t alive to give him bad advice,” he says. The streak of misery! The streak of misery! The streak …

  Where have you gone, young man? Where are you? … They’ve carried you off from me …

  3

  —… You don’t know, my good man, why the Conamara region is as rugged and bare and shallow-soiled as it is …

  —Patience, Cóilí. Patience. The Ice Age …

  —Oh, stop it! The Ice Age my foot! Not at all, but the Curse of Cromwell.2 The time God sent the Devil to Hell it very nearly failed Him. This is where he fell down out of Heaven. Michael the Archangel and himself spent a whole summer wrestling with one another. They ripped up the countryside from deep down in the ground …

  —That’s right, Cóilí. Caitríona showed me the print of his hoof up there on Nell’s land …

  —Shut your mouth, you little brat …

  —You’re insulting the faith. You’re a heretic …

  —I don’t know how the brawl would have ended if the Devil’s shoes hadn’t begun to fall apart. It was Cromwell made them for him. Cromwell was a cobbler beyond in London, England. The shoes fell off him completely out in Galway Bay. One of them broke in two halves. Those are the three Aran Islands ever since. But even though the Angel of Pride was in a predicament for want of his shoes I swear to the devil he pushed Michael back again as far as Shellig3 Michael. That’s an island to the west, off Carna. Then he let an almighty roar out of him for Cromwell to come over and mend the shoes for him. I don’t know how the brawl would have ended if the shoes had been mended …

  Over comes Cromwell to Connacht. Over come the Irishmen following him, and no wonder, because they were always and ever against the Devil. Five miles south of Oughterard, in a place they call the Holes of Laban’s House,4 is where Michael met them, and him still fleeing from the
Devil … “Stand your ground, you rascal,” they said, “and we’ll give the Devil a good kicking in the old pants.” That’s where he was sent to Hell, in Sulphur Lake. That’s where Sulphur River5 rises, that flows eastwards through Oughterard. Sulphur is the proper name of the Devil in Old Irish, and Sulphuric is his wife’s name …

  Between the jigs and the reels, what do you think but Cromwell got clear away from them to Aran, and he has stayed there ever since. Aran was holy till then …

  —But Cóilí, Cóilí, allow me to speak. I am a writer …

  —… The devil pierce yourself and the Golden Stars! …

  —… Faith then, as you say, all the good turf sods were stolen from us …

  —You talking about stealing, Road-End Man, when you’d steal the egg from the heron, and the heron as well. It was my bad luck that my turf bank bordered on yours, and the only spreading place for my turf was beside yours. You used to draw up your cart or your donkey and creels to the open end of your own turf stack but it was from mine you filled your load. Do you remember the morning I caught you? The day was just dawning. I’d told you the previous night I was going to the fair with pigs. You told me you were going to the fair too …

  And the day I caught your wife. I saw her going to the bog in broad daylight. I knew there would be nobody up there because they were all down cutting seaweed in the strand during the spring ebb.6 That’s where I should have been too, but I knew by the look of your wife she was intent on theft. I crawled on my belly ever so slowly up by the back of the Ridge till I came upon her just as she was tightening the rope on the load, right in the opening of my turf stack … “No matter how far the fox goes, he’s caught in the end,” says I …

  “I’ll have the law on you,” says she. “You have no right to accost a woman in a lonely place like this. I’ll swear on oath against you. You’ll be transported …”