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Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told

Page 32

by Phelan, Tom;


  Patrick began to stand up—to remove himself from an intimate situation. Sam stopped him. “It’s all right, Patrick. Sit down. I couldn’t tell you, Else, because I am ashamed of myself and still feel guilty about what I did.” He silenced his wife with an outstretched hand when he heard her pulling in her breath. “It’s no use trying to rationalize for me, Else. There’s nothing you can say that will relieve me of my guilt. I have lived with it a long time and I’ll manage for whatever is left.”

  “But let me say, Sam,” Elsie insisted. “Guilt feelings or not, you did right by the people of Gohen by protecting them from the ones who’d returned bearing nothing but misery. And as far as the people believing they pulled sheep’s wool over his eyes, Patrick, I can tell you that underneath the wool he has always been a lively ram.”

  “Aw shucks, Else,” Sam said. “We watched The Wizard of Oz for the ten millionth time last Sunday, Patrick. And Patrick, are you satisfied now? Is this the end of the story for you?”

  “I am satisfied, Sam.”

  “I am satisfied, too, Sam,” Elsie said. She bent down and kissed him on the lips. He rubbed her back.

  “I am very glad you came to see us, Patrick,” Sam said. “Very happy you did.” Elsie kissed the top of Sam’s head. Then she fluttered over to Patrick and took his face between her hands. She pulled him down and kissed him on the forehead. She said, “Patrick, I am delighted that you came today, so delighted. I can’t tell you how delighted I am. Sam will soon feel the relief that Catholics feel when they confess their sins.”

  “All right, Else! Don’t push it too far,” Sam said.

  Elsie said, “In a few days, Sam, you’re going to say, ‘Why didn’t I tell Else all about this years ago?’ And now I’m going to put the dinner on. Can you call your wife, Patrick, and ask her to come into town? We’d love to meet her.” Elsie went back to her husband’s chair and rubbed the top of Sam’s head. “You’re such a big galoot sometimes, Sam,” she said in the same tone she would use to tell a grandchild he is a fuzzy wuzzy teddy bear.

  Patrick said, “Wait, Else. Molly and I have plans to go out to dinner. I told her if Sam and you didn’t throw me out, I would ask both of you to come with us. And Molly would love to get a tour of your house.”

  “That is very generous of you, Patrick,” Sam said, “and before Else says another word, we accept your invitation. Where are you taking us?”

  “I was hoping you’d have a suggestion.”

  Acknowledgments

  THANKS TO my brother Mike Phelan for his thatching knowledge and to Jerome Ditkoff, M.D., for medical information.

  I am grateful to the Heinrich Böll Association on Achill Island in County Mayo, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in County Monaghan, Cill Rialaig in County Kerry, and the Ireland Fund of Monaco and the Princess Grace Irish Library for residencies that were a great help to me while writing Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told and other novels.

  Thank you, staff of the Freeport Memorial Library, for your unfailing and enthusiastic assistance.

  My gratitude to Cal Barksdale, executive editor, and his colleagues at Arcade Publishing and to my agent, Tracy Brennan of Trace Literary Agency, for their hard work on my behalf.

  Thank you, family: the Hourigans and Phelans for their detailed information about farming life; my sons Joseph and Mica for their support (“Keep at it, Dad. Maybe you’ll be a best seller when you’re dead and we’ll get the loot.”)

  I am especially grateful to Belfast/Mayo artist Keith Wilson.

  Patricia Mansfield Phelan—my wife—has been my great encourager, she has been of wonderful and patient editorial assistance, and her suggestions, despite my occasional resistance, are always on target.

  Glossary

  1014: the year Brian Boru defeated the Danes at the Battle of Clontarf, near Dublin

  an oul: an old; has a negative connotation: He’s an oul bollicks.

  Abel Magwitch: character in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations who becomes Pip’s secret benefactor

  alopecia: fox mange; in humans, a disease causing hair loss

  Angelus: prayer honoring the announcement of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she was to become the mother of Jesus

  ashplant: ash sapling cut to length for use as a walking stick or as a reminder to misbehaving animals

  assencart: ass (donkey) and cart

  aten daltar rails: eating the altar rails; receiving communion very often; showing deep religious devotion or hypocrisy

  Autry, Gene: American actor (1907–1998) known as the Singing Cowboy

  babby: baby

  backband: chain attached to each shaft of a cart; the chain fits onto the bridge of the straddle to keep the shafts in place. See straddle.

  Batens: name of a field, probably corruption of “beatings,” meaning a place where beaters walked to raise game for shooters

  Bay of Fundy: bay between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; has the highest tidal range in the world

  Bayreuth: German town where Richard Wagner’s operas are per-formed at an annual festival

  bed of straw: pile of straw neatly shaped into the size of a double-bed mattress and about five feet high

  Becher’s Brook: a notorious hedge-and-water jump in Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England. Many steeplechasers fall here.

  billhook: a machete-type heavy knife on a long handle; used for cutting bushes

  biro: ballpoint pen, named for the Hungarian Biro brothers, who invented it

  Boadicea: queen of a Celtic tribe in Britain, she rebelled against the Romans c. 60 A.D. She lost.

  bob: a shilling. There were twenty shillings in a pound, which was about $3.50.

  Bogger: a person who lives in or near Ireland’s Bog of Allen, which covers much of Counties Laois and Offaly. Sometimes used derogatorily by outsiders to describe an uneducated country bumpkin who speaks unintelligibly through half-closed lips

  bollicks: testicles; a curmudgeon; an annoying person; one who is a pain in the arse

  Brehons: judges in early medieval Ireland who dealt with civil laws, commonly called the Brehon laws. They made decisions concerning ownership of property, contracts, compensation for injury, and inheritance.

  bridge (in a horse’s tacklings): shaped like a Japanese-garden bridge, with three-inch “parapets” and attached to the straddle; it accepts the backband, which in turn bears the weight of the cart and its cargo on the horse’s back. See straddle.

  calfshare: rich mixture of boiled cereals fed to young calves

  chester cake: made from a mixture of molasses and stale confections returned to the bakery by shops. A thin layer of pastry was applied to the top and bottom of the mixture; it was then baked and sold in small squares.

  Children’s Allowance: government payment to mothers to assist with the cost of rearing children

  cod: a prankster; a fake. Also a verb

  codding: kidding; pulling a leg

  colcannon: peeled boiled potatoes mashed with butter, milk, and chopped scallions

  continental money: euros from the European Union

  cornerboys: out-of-work men standing at street corners and waiting for Godot

  council cottage: cottage built by the local County Council and rented out

  cruke: crook

  dant: the aunt

  dead bell: when there was a death, the parish was alerted by the ringing of the church bell at spaced intervals after the Angelus had been rung at 7 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m. Same as the bell in John Donne’s “Ask not for whom the bell tolls.”

  deal: pine wood that has been preserved in a bog; when dry, it burns furiously; usually called bog deal

  Desker: the Esker

  Dinglish: the English

  dock leaf: leaf of a dock plant, containing tannins and oxalic acid. When rubbed on skin stung by nettles, it gives immediate relief.

  Doul Yank: the old Yank

  eat the face off: scold viciously

  eegit: idiot; fool

  eleve
nses: in Ireland, farmworkers were given tea and food at 11 a.m. as part of their pay

  elder: udder

  et: ate

  fair day: day the local farmers drove their livestock into the heart of the town to sell

  feck, fecking: mild form of fuck, fucking

  ferninst: opposite to; also fernent

  First Babies: first year of kindergarten

  First Fridays: pious belief that attendance at mass on the first Fridays of nine consecutive months would guarantee the ministrations of a priest at hour of death

  fixed-wheel bike: bike with a drive train that keeps the pedals in motion and thus allows a person to propel the bike with one leg

  frig: mild form of feck

  Garda Siochána: literally, the civic guards; Ireland’s national police force; pronounced “GAR-dah shee-a-CAW-na”

  garda, newly minted: The Garda Siochána was established in 1925, so in 1951 the institution had only been in existence for twenty-six years.

  get: literally, the offspring of an animal; a son-of-a-bitch, a bastard, a shithead, a cheat, a sneak, an oul shite, an old bollicks, an arsehole, an oul fecker, and possibly a real fucker

  gobshite: nasal mucus; a bollicks; an underhanded person

  gombeen: pejorative: merchant who takes advantage of the misfortunes of others to enrich himself

  Good Companions, The: 1929 novel by J. B. Priestley

  haggard: small (quarter acre), roofless, enclosed area for storing straw, hay, turnips, potatoes and other winter food for housed animals

  ha’penny: halfpenny: pronounced “HAPE-ney”

  hure: whore. Not necessarily a woman; often applied to a man who is a real bollicks

  Indian torture: the tight grabbing of the enemy’s wrist with two hands and twisting each in the opposite direction, thus inflicting pain

  jobber: person who buys farm animals and sells them off quickly for a profit

  jow: excrement

  knickers: women’s underpants

  lamb’s-quarters: a weed that can grow to five feet tall. It is an invasive enemy of farmers

  laocoöned: to be suffocatingly entwined in woes. Laocoön was a Trojan priest who, with his two sons, was strangled by sea serpents

  le vessie vieux: the old bladder

  lorry: truck

  Mafeking: town in South Africa where, during the Second Boer War, the British were besieged by the Boers for eight months until relieved

  Marbra: corruption of Maryborough, a town in County Laois; now renamed Portlaoise (“port-leash”)

  mass, buying a: When a Catholic asks for a mass to be offered for a special intention, a donation is given to the priest. Masses for the souls of the dead were often requested. People could arrange to have masses said for their own souls long before they died.

  me hole: my asshole; akin to saying “My ass!”

  Messenger of the Sacred Heart: monthly pamphlet promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

  motor: automobile

  murrain: disease of cattle, noticeable by blood in the urine

  nettles, stinging: plant with tiny hairs on leaves that sting by delivering histamine, acetylcholine and serotonin into the skin

  noul, a: an old

  odor: repute. Saints were often said to have died in the odor, or reputation, of sanctity

  ouha: out of; depending on the speaker’s tone, “Get up ouha that” can mean “You’re kidding me” or “Move your fecking arse.”

  oul: old; considered disparaging

  oul lad: old man; my old man (my father)

  Our Lady of Mount Carmel: patroness of Christian hermits who lived on Mount Carmel (Israel) in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the present-day Carmelites are the spiritual descendants of those early hermits.

  paddy bollicks: Irishman who dispenses unasked-for, useless advice under the misconception that he is exhibiting wisdom, knowledge and experience

  Padre Pio: Italian catholic saint reputed to have the gift of multilocation, the power to be in more than one place at the same time

  Passchendaele: town in Belgium located five and a half miles from Ypres. The Third Battle of Ypres, fought during the First World War, is also called the Battle of Passchendaele. During the war more than 88,000 soldiers disappeared into the mud between the two towns.

  Pat: There was a time when English people believed every man with an Irish accent was named Pat.

  Plain, the: large stretch of level terrain between Dublin and Gohen

  poepot: chamber pot

  pollard: the part of grain beneath the bran; used in cattle feed

  pooley: urine

  Portarlington: town straddling the river Barrow, one half in County Laois, the other in County Offaly. Sometimes pronounced “por-TAR-le-ten”

  praiseach: Irish word for charlock or wild mustard; a vicious, invasive, yellow-flowered weed much feared by farmers.

  praskeen: Irish for “apron.” Usually made with a burlap sack. One end of the sack is tied around the waist and the two hanging corners are brought together in the grasp of one hand. The grasping hand is pulled up to the belly and a bag is formed. Praskeens were used to carry apples, potatoes, hens, cats, rhubarb, eggs, feed grain, dead rabbits, suckling pigs, a goose, ducks, one large turkey, artificial fertilizer for spreading by hand, and anything of medium size on a farm in need of carrying in a bag.

  Princess Elizabeth of York: the future Elizabeth II of Great Britain

  pull the straw: straw for thatching was straightened by pulling it in small handfuls out of the bed of straw

  quare: queer, meaning odd; eccentric

  R.I.C.: Royal Irish Constabulary; police force founded in 1822 and disbanded in 1922

  right y’are: you are right; I agree with you; you’re a good man; can also mean goodbye

  rise the pump: prime the pump by pouring water down its dry throat

  sally: the sallow tree; pussy willow

  scall crow: carrion-eating grey crow that also eats small animals and young birds

  scapular: two postage-stamp-sized pieces of cloth, made of the same material as the Franciscan religious habit and worn on a string around the neck

  schelp: a blow, as in I gave him a schelp on the side of his head

  scollops: thin, pliable saplings used in thatching roofs

  seal of confession: Catholic priests may never repeat what they hear in the confession box

  settle bed: piece of wooden furniture about six feet long and shaped like a wooden box. The lid could be opened for the storage of bedclothes. During the day it was used to sit on.

  shag, shagging, shagger: a mild expletive on the same level as frig; the word had no sexual connotations

  shebeen: an illicit Irish drinking house—illicit because no excise tax was paid

  Sloper: person who lives on the slopes of the Esker

  sloping: slyly sidling

  snug: separate small room in a pub away from the “public” drinkers; usually occupied by single women or married couples

  Somme, First Battle of the: major battle of the First World War that took place on July 1, 1916; there were 57,470 British casualties within the first four hours, of whom 19,240 died. Many Irishmen, especially from Ulster, died that day.

  stag: rough game of tag

  Stations of the Cross: a Catholic devotion of contemplation before fourteen images from the passion of Christ, beginning with the death sentence and ending with the entombment

  stone: unit of weight equal to fourteen pounds

  stooking: four sheaves of cereal straw were placed standing against each other, the end containing the grain at the top. The stook was erected to keep the grain dry until the sheaves were brought into the farmyard for threshing

  straddle: similar to a horse’s saddle, but with a wooden bridge for the backband

  suck: piglet

  sweets: candy

  swingletree: corruption of singletree; a thirty-inch piece of stout wood with a hook on each end; attachment for horse-
drawn, fieldwork machinery

  thin (sugar beet): to thin out sugar beet seedlings so they do not smother each other. Seedlings were left nine inches apart.

  thruppence: three pence, or pennies

  tinker: (now considered pejorative) a person who worked with tin; an itinerant mender of kitchen utensils. The word evolved to mean a person of low character with no fixed above.

  townland: for identification purposes, all of Ireland is divided into small areas called townlands. There are 61,402 townlands in the country, most of them not signposted. Most of the names come from ancient times.

  tractor me hole: tractor my hole; tractor be damned. The “arse” part of arsehole is often omitted in Ireland.

  tuppence: two pence, or pennies; twelve pennies in a shilling; twenty shillings in a pound sterling. In 1950 one pound was valued between three and four American dollars.

  turf, turn the: after some weeks of drying in the sun and wind, sods of turf must be turned over to help the drying process

  Valley of the Squinting Windows, The: 1918 novel by Brinsley MacNamara. The book, about the happenings in a fictitious Irish village, came too close to the truth and was easily recognized as the author’s hometown of Delvin in County Westmeath. After publication, MacNamara never went home again, and his schoolmaster father had to emigrate.

  whitewash: mixture of lime and water used to waterproof the outside walls of houses, and often used on inside walls, too, for waterproofing and decorative purposes

  Wolfe Tone, Theobald: one of the leaders of the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798. He was captured and died in a British prison under suspicious circumstances.

  Women’s Sodality: a pious association for women organized under the patronage of a heavenly personage

  woodquest: large pigeon; also called wood pigeon and ring dove

  yoke: thing; something whose name the speaker momentarily forgets

  yoking: placing the tacklings on an animal

  Ypres: ancient walled town in Belgium, site of major battles of the First World War

 

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