The Dirty Dust

by Máirtín Ó Cadhain

  He was cured at Kill Eeney Well! Fat chance! Didn’t that strap of a mother of his know full well where to take him for a cure! That bitch knows a thing or two about life! But I’d never believe, not in a month of Sundays, that he was cured at Kill Eeney Well. Neither do I believe a bit of it, that there’s any cure of any kind at Kill Eeney Well. My own son’s wife wore out her kneecaps saying prayers and doing the rounds there. There’s hardly a well from our own one here to the Well at the End of the World that she hasn’t visited, for all the good it ever did her. Always a bit sick. She’ll be put to the pin of her collar at the next pregnancy, no doubt about it.

  That’s another one of Nell’s tricks to take him to Kill Eeney Well, and then say he was cured there. That hag is well got with the priest! … God bless you anyway and your Kill Eeney Well, Breed! It was nothing like that. This is it. The priest. What else? He gave a copy of St. John’s Gospel to her son. That’s how he was cured, Breed. What else, like? The priest.

  Somebody else is going to have to die instead of him now, though, as he was cured by John’s Gospel. Death will have its own. That’s what they always said …

  God bless you, Breed! As if Nell would be the one to die! It’s no wonder you fell into the fire, you’re so stupid. Not a chance in hell of Nell copping it! … Or Blotchy Brian’s daughter, either. Or anyone of her brood. Jack the Lad, he’s the one they’ll drive over the edge. You can be sure that she told the priest to have Jack die, as payment for saving her son. God help us all! She gave poor Jack a really hard time, the skank. She never looked after him. Remember what I’m telling you now, Breed, the finger is pointed at Jack and he’ll be here very soon. Nell or Blotchy Brian’s daughter couldn’t give a fart in a gale. Won’t they get a chunk of money from the insurance as a result! …

  Is that so? The case is still going on, therefore … They’ll be going to Dublin in the autumn, is that it? … I’ll tell you something, going to Dublin isn’t in any way cheap, Breed … Oh, they say it might be put back next time yet again! That’ll bleed Nell dry at last, I hope it does! But, Breed, tell me now, if her son is fine again, then surely he won’t be getting any money … Oh, he only works on the sly, is that the way? … He has the crutches laid down beside him anywhere he goes to work! … He has statements from doctors saying that his hip will not really mend! He would. You wouldn’t mind but taking them out to the field and the bog with him as well! That’s more of Nell’s slyness. She was always twisted …

  There’s talk of building a road in as far as her house now! The priest and the Gentry will be able to drive up to her door in their cars. Bad luck to that road, anyway! … Forget the road, Breed, there’ll never ever be a road there! Who’d shift all those boulders? …

  Peace again, is that it? You’ll make a total eejit of yourself if you keep up that talk … Biddy Sarah’s pretty well fucked by now, is she? The kidneys as usual! Too bad for her! There’s not too many people, apart from Nell and my daughter-in-law, that I’d rather see here first … And Little Kitty’s back is at her again! I hope it gets worse! Another one … Blotchy Brian as sprightly as a spring donkey, you said. I wouldn’t doubt him! … He can go and collect the pension all the time? Some people have all the luck! He’s old enough to be my grandfather. God forbid, the poxy gowl! …

  Listen, Breed, many people fell into the fire just as well as you. You’d lived your life anyway. What’s the problem, it was as well the house didn’t burn down too … Patrick lost two calves … With the black leg? God save us! … Isn’t it just as well that that’s how they had to die! … Nell fed her own the right stuff in time? That old cow is haunted lucky. And for all that, the black leg was most often on her land. The priest …

  Patrick didn’t cut that much turf at all this year, you tell me? How could he cut turf while he is looking after that floozie of a wife? He should smother her under a pot like you’d do with a cat, as she won’t go and die herself … Five hens swiped in just one day. My God, that’s a massacre! … And he didn’t get even one of Nell’s. Didn’t the foxes always hide out on the rough ground around her place. Oh, she has a woman there—Blotchy Brian’s daughter—who can mind hens, not like Nora Johnny’s daughter from Gort Ribbuck. I think the fox is scared shitless to come near Nell’s hens. The priest …

  Patrick hasn’t any pigs now, has he not? Oh, you mean when I went, Breed, the pigs went too. I’d get two lots of pigs ready every year … Nell got thirty-five pounds for her own lot! For fuck’s sake! … Your few pigs were better than hers, Breed, and you only got thirty-two pounds fifteen for them. Nell would get top dollar, whatever. The priest …

  Do you think there was any news from Baba in America recently? … You didn’t hear any? … Blotchy Brian says Nell will get all of Baba’s money … “Who do you think that Baba would give her money to,” he says, “but to her only sister, Nell? Sure, like, he could hardly give it to a woman who was buried in a hole in the ground …”

  That’s what he said, Breed? What else would he say, of course, isn’t his daughter married to Nell’s boy? …

  You heard that Fireside Tom had his lad hanging out all the time to marry someone? The cunt! He should be saying his prayers … You think that Patrick doesn’t visit him as often as he did when I was alive? I nearly had to whip him to do anything for Tom. That’s the kind of guy Patrick was. He wouldn’t have kept any kind of decent house without me. Nell will butter him up … What’s that you tell me, Nell paid some jobber to cut Tom’s turf this year? Sweet jumping Jesus! What’s that you said, Breed? Don’t be muttering and mumbling, I tell you … Fireside Tom said that if he didn’t get married he’d leave his bit of land and shack to Nell: “Caitriona didn’t have as good a heart as Nell,” he said. “No way, she didn’t. Caitriona only wanted my patch of land …” The cunt! The bollocks! The knacker! The fucker! Oh, yes, that’s Fireside Tom alright! …

  Isn’t that a great story you have so, Breed Terry! All of Ireland knows that Nell’s land is rubbing up against Fireside Tom’s? Nobody would ever think the way you’re talking, Breed, that Nell deserved Tom’s land more than my Patrick … Don’t I know just as well as you, Breed, that Nell has only a few rocky scraggy bits? … Haven’t you some cheek to say that to me up to my face. What the fuck do you care who gets Fireside Tom’s land? What’s it to you anyway? …

  Peace again! It’s what you deserve, you airhead … What’s that you said, Breed? … Move over in the grave to make way for you! You’d easily know it wasn’t your grave. Did you know that I’d paid my fifteen shillings for this a year before I croaked? Wouldn’t that be just it to have laid out next to me: a bitter woman. You never thought that you or your crowd up there would ever be buried in the Fifteen Shilling Place. Makes no difference now, easy for you. There are five people in your house drawing the dole …

  I’ll give you peace! Piss off so! But you won’t sidle up to my side here. I had the best coffin in Tim’s shop, and three half-barrels of stout, and the priest threw the holy water …

  Now, listen, you slag, if you carry on like that, I’ll tell the rest of the cemetery who you are … What’s that you said? …

  “It is just as rare to saddle a cat as to have any of the Paudeens buried in the Fifteen Shilling Place! …”

  Ah, come on, Breed, just look at who’s talking: one of the beggars. Didn’t I rear your father? Coming on over to me anytime it suited him, cadging a cup of tea when he was getting nothing but potatoes and a dry herring. Talk about speaking snottily and an inflated opinion! There’s no way that the dungheaps are getting bigger these days … What’s that you’re saying, you hag you? … I don’t have a cross over me yet as good as Nora Johnny’s … Get stuffed yourself, you sluttish slag!

  3.

  Breed Terry, the hag … Biddy Sarah the sponger … Kitty the small potatoes … Little Kate the gossip … Fireside Tom, the cunt … Blotchy Brian …

  It’s easy enough for that muppet to have bragging rights again and his son-in-law doing OK. What was that Joh
n Willy the periwinkles said that he wouldn’t do a stroke of work ever again? He was cured at Kill Eeney Well! He was in my arse! Even if he was, it was because that harridan of a mother got John’s Gospel from the priest. Jack the Lad will pay for it. He’ll try some black magic now instead of John’s Gospel. He’ll be here soon. And I’m sure they never gave him either a hint or a warning. Great balls of fire! They don’t really give a toss!

  The priest and Nell and Blotchy Brian’s young one gossiping away to one another in secret:

  “The way it is,” Nell would say, “if anyone is going to plop his clogs, it’s likely to be old Jack. It won’t be long before he snuffs it. He hasn’t been well for ages. But, say nothing about it. It would only bug him. Nobody, really nobody likes to kick the old bucket …”

  She’d certainly say it, the cute hoor … Another young one, she’s got so, my daughter-in-law. It’s a wonder it didn’t take her. But that cow is tough. Just as tough as the rocks of Gort Ribbuck that the road engineers cursed because dynamite couldn’t even blast them apart … But she’ll be here at the next birth. I’d bet anything on that …

  And they called the kid Nora! Isn’t a pity I wasn’t there! My daughter-in-law thought she’d try the same trick when Maureen was born. I had her wrapped up in the blanket myself, before we took her out to be baptised.

  “What’ll you call the little thing, God love her?” says Maggie Frances, who was waiting there.

  “Maura,” I says. “What else would I call her. After my mother.”

  “Her mother stretched on the bed says we should call her Nora,” Patrick says.

  “Toejam Nora,” I says. “To name her after her own mother. What else would she do? But why so, Patrick?”

  “You’re not exactly short of names,” Maggie says. “Caitriona or Nell or …”

  “Fuck the fucking fruitcake,” I says. “I’d prefer to give her no name at all rather than Nell … No name would suit her better than that of her great-grandmother: Maura.”

  “Is the kid yours or mine?” Patrick says, and he was getting stroppy. “She will be called Nora.”

  “But Patrick, my lovely son,” I says myself, “think about the child and her future life and what she will have to put up with. Do you remember what I said? Sailors and so on …”

  “Shut your face, or I’ll be totally bollixed …”

  They were the very first cross words that ever came out of his mouth, that I heard, I think.

  “If it’s like that,” I says, “then off you go. But somebody rather than me will take her to the baptism font … I have more respect for myself, God’s honest truth. If you are going to call her Nora, then do it! But I might get a bit pissed off what with one Nora toddling up to my house, and the other Nora hardly ever to be seen. If that’s the way it’s going to be, I won’t be hanging around. I’ll take myself off, wherever …”

  I gave Maggie the baby, and I grabbed my shawl from the closed door.

  Patrick took off to the back room to Nora Johnny’s daughter. He was back as quick as a flash. “Call her whatever damn name you like,” he said, “Call her ‘Diddly high di dee diddelly dum’ if you like. But don’t drag me into it. There’s not a day that I wake up but that one of you isn’t shitting on me …”

  “It’s your own fault, Patrick,” I says. “If you had taken my advice, and Baba’s …”

  He was out the door as swift as snot off a shovel. From that day until the day they laid me out there was no talk about calling any of the kids Nora. But his trollop of a wife fancies it, now that I’m gone …

  The words are all ready for the cross anyway. Poor Patrick is alright even though he doesn’t seem to have anything left because of that frump of a woman who couldn’t rear a pig or a calf or do any work in the field or on the bog. I know in my heart of hearts that he can’t do everything. But when Maureen is a schoolteacher, she’ll be able to provide a few bob …

  Wasn’t Breed Terry fast with the quip when she said: “Your cross isn’t as good yet as Nora Johnny’s.” But it will be, you old bat. A cross of Connemara marble like that of Peter the Publican’s, or Huckster Joan’s, and wreaths, and an inscription in Irish …

  If I could be bothered, I’d tell Peter the Publican about the cross. I suppose I should be sooner talking to him—as I am going to vote for him—rather than for Margaret, or Kitty, or Dotie. They are the people who have the crosses, of course. It wouldn’t be that important only the way he listened to Toejam Nora! But the cat is out of the bag now. Lord Divine Jesus, didn’t they tear strips off one another the other day. If Peter the Publican had taken any notice of me in time, I’d have told him what Toejam Nora Stinky Soles was like. But, it’s fierce hard to talk to that Pound crowd. They fancy themselves twice as much as anyone else …

  I won’t bother Peter now. He’s far too busy bothering about the elections anyway. I’ll tell Huckster Joan, and she’ll pass it on to the Pound crowd. I’d better say that they’ll put the cross on me between now and …

  —… He stabbed me through the three layers of my liver. The Dog Eared crowd were always treacherous …

  —… Didn’t we make a right mess of screwing up the English market, Curran? …

  —… “It’s ‘the War of the Two Foreigners,’ Patch,” I said …

  —… Honest, Dotie! Our lot were always sharp and smart. Take me, for instance … My son had a young fellow, he’s married over at Gort Ribbuck, and he was going to school with the Old Master, and he said there was nobody like him. He was really into literature:

  “He had culture in his bones,” he said. “I could see it in him.”

  Honest, Dotie, that’s what he said. Do you know that daughter of mine that’s married to Caitriona Paudeen’s boy. She has a girl now who’s going to be a schoolteacher. She got that from my daughter. And if she didn’t, there’s no way she got it from the Lydons or from the Paudeens.

  —You’re lying up to your teeth, you old cow! Drinking on the sly in the snug in Peter’s pub! Drinking on the sly! Hanging out with sailors! Sailors! …

  Hey, Margaret! Hey, Margaret! … Did you hear that? … Did you hear what Toejam Nora said? … I’m going to burst! I’m going to burst! …

  4.

  —… May God Almighty give you a bit of sense, Nora Johnny, and would you ever just leave me alone. You picked a great time to talk about novelettes! I have to have a few words with my old neighbour, Breed Terry. I had no chance to talk to her at all since she arrived, what with yourself and your culture and elections! …

  Are you there, Breed Terry? … Fell into the fire! The first science lesson I ever taught them in school, Breed, was how necessary it was to keep air from a fire. Air fans the flames, Breed. People should know that … Oh, there was nobody left to keep the air out, is that it, Breed! … In that case the best thing to do was … I’m afraid science could do nothing at all about that situation, Breed … You want some peace and quiet, Breed! … I’m afraid science can do nothing about that situation either … What’s that you said, Breed? … The whole country were at the wedding, oh Breed.

  That’s the truth, Master. The whole country was at the wedding. You can be rightly proud of your wife, Master. There was no shortage of nothing: bread, butter, tea, and six different kinds of meat, porter, whiskey, and Sam Payne, Master. Sam Payne, Master. When one of our lot—Seamus, it was—got pissed off with the whiskey and the porter, he took off to the parlour and laid into Sam Payne. Every bit as good as the poteen that Ned Tawny has, he said.

  Don’t worry one bit, Master. It was a great wedding; just as good as if you had been there. The Mistress is a fine woman, Master. She toddled down to us just two nights before the wedding and invited everyone into the house. I was weak to the world, Master. If I wasn’t I swear, Master, I swear it’s not a word of a lie, but I would have been there.

  “Any chance you’d have a bit of a can of buttermilk to spare there, Breed,” she says.

  “Of course, and I might have two of them also, Mi
stress,” I says myself. “If it was more than that, I wouldn’t begrudge it to you, or to your husband who’s laid out in the cemetery clay—the Old Master himself—may God have mercy on him!” I says myself.

  “I’m determined to have a great wedding,” Breed, she says to me. “Myself and Billy the Postman were talking about it,” she says:

  “‘A great wedding,’ said Billy the Postman,” she said. “That’s how he’d love it himself, God bless him!”

  “‘I am absolutely certain that if he knew, that if the Old Master knew, Billy, that I was going to marry again,’ I says myself, Breed, I says, ‘that’s exactly what he’d say to me, to have a great wedding. And, he’d be happy for the neighbours. And, of course, he’d be happy for me also.’ No, he wouldn’t either, Breed …

  “Feck me anyway, Mistress,” I says—I didn’t really know what I was saying at all, Master, only the words slipped out—“I swear really, Mistress, but I swear I thought you’d never marry again.”

  “Ah, sure, Breed dear,” she says, “I wouldn’t have either if it wasn’t for what the Old Master said to me a few days before he died. I was sitting on the edge of his bed. I took his hand:

  “‘What will I do at all,’ I says, ‘if anything happens to you?’

  “He let out a great guffaw, Breed.

  “‘What will you do?’ he says. ‘What would a fine young strap of a woman like you do—but get married again?’

  “I started sobbing, Breed: ‘You shouldn’t say something like that,’ I tells him.

  “‘Something like that,’ he said, and he was really serious this time, Breed.

  “‘Something like that,’ he said, ‘is nothing but the truth. I won’t rest easy in my grave unless you promise me that you’ll marry again.’

  “That’s what he said, I swear he did, Breed,” she said.