The Dirty Dust
Page 15
Nell called in the priest to fix it up! She would, wouldn’t she … That’s what Patrick said about them: “Don’t take a blind bit of notice of women clawing and clattering one another,” he said. Nell got him to say that. She misses me, the withered old gummy crone! …
What’s that you said? That my daughter-in-law is very busy these days … She’s bursting her guts working since the fight … She’s never sick or slacking now! That’s a big change! And I was certain she’d be here any day now … Up at the crack of dawn, you say … Out in the fields and in the bogs … She’s raising piglets again! Good for her! They had three or four calves at the last fair! Good for them! Sound man, now you’re talking, I’m telling you … And you said you heard your mother say that the whole road was swarming with chickens! How many clutches do you think she had this year? … It’s not your fault, of course, that you know nothing about that …
Patrick is away on a hack now, you say. He’ll soon best Nell with her eight hundred pounds so. That judge hadn’t a clue from Adam. But if my daughter-in-law goes on the way she’s flying now, and when Maureen becomes a schoolteacher …
You’re right about that, youngfella! Patrick was robbed … What did he say? What’s that Blotchy Brian said? That Patrick would be better off, as he couldn’t pay his rent, he’d be better off giving a mortgage to someone else on a handful of land, on his handful of a wife, and take off to England to get some work … To call a fine holding like that a handful of land, the scum bucket! … “But it’s just as well that that old bat of a mother of his isn’t around to give him bad advice,” he said. The scum bag! The scum bag! The scum …
Where have you gone, youngfella? Where are you? … They’ve taken you away from me …
3.
You don’t know, my good man, why the land in Connemara is so rough and barren …
—Patience, Coley! Patience. The time of the Ice Age …
—Ara, put a sock in it! The time of the Ice Age, for God’s sake! Nothing to do with it, it was the Curse of Cromwell. That time God banished the Devil down to hell, he nearly didn’t succeed. He tumbled from heaven down here. Himself and Michael the Archangel spent a whole summer wrestling it out. They tore the guts out of the land from the bottom up …
—You’re right there Coley. Caitriona showed me the mark of his hoof up there on Nell’s land …
—Shut your trap, you nasty grabber! …
—You’re insulting the faith. You’re a heretic …
—I’ve no idea how things would have ended up after their brawl, only the Devil’s shoes started to give way. Cromwell had made them. He was a cobbler over in London. His shoes fell off along the shoreline. One shoe broke into two pieces. They’re the three Aran islands out there since. But as the Fallen Angel was up the creek without his shoes, he forced Michael to retreat all the way to Skellig Michael. That’s an island there facing Carna. He roared and screamed at Cromwell to come and mend his shoes. I’ve no idea how things would have ended up after the struggle if his shoes had been mended …
Cromwell hightailed it to Connacht. The Irish hightailed it after him—not surprisingly—as they were always fighting against the Devil …
Michael confronted them, still running away from the Devil, five miles from Oughterard in a place they call Lawbawn’s Hole … “Stand, you knave,” he said, “and we’ll give it to you straight in the balls.” That’s the spot where he was banished to hell, at Sulpher Lake. That’s where the Sulpher River rises to flow through Oughterard. Sulpher is the correct name for the Devil in Old Irish, and Sulphera is his wife’s name …
With all the messing, didn’t Cromwell escape their clutches and took off to Aran, and he’s been there ever since. It was a holy place until then …
—But Coley, Coley, let me speak. I’m a writer …
—… Go and get stuffed, yourself and your Yellow Stars! …
—The way it is, as you say yourself, the very best sods were stolen from us …
—Who are you to talk about stealing, Tim Top of the Road, when you’d rob the egg from the stork, and the stork after that? I was cursed that my bog was right next to yours and I didn’t have a patch of land to dry my turf on except that bit right next to yours. You’d cosy your own cart or donkey up against your own rick, but you’d fill your own load from mine. Do you remember the morning I caught you at it. It was just at daybreak. I told you the night before that I was going to the market with some pigs. You said you were going to the market also …
And the day I caught your wife. I saw her heading off to the bog in the cold light of day. I knew there’d be nobody up there. They’d all be down at the shore at full tide. I was going to go there too, but I knew by the look of your one that she was up to no good, off for a bit of stealing …
I crawled up on my belly down around the back of Drum, then I shot up and saw her tightening the rope over the top of the load …
“However much the fox escapes, he’ll be caught in the end,” I said …
“I’ll get the law after you,” she said. “You have no business sneaking up on a woman on her own in a lonely place like this. I’ll swear it black and blue. You’ll be deported …”
—And you talking about stealing, Tim Top of the Road, you’d steal the honey from the hive. Selling every clump of your own turf. Not a bit of yours taken in since Hallowe’en, and yet a blazing fire in the kitchen, in the parlour, upstairs …
I was in visiting you one night. I recognised the turf I had cut in the bog myself the day before that.
“The way it is, as you say, there’s neither heart nor heat in any of that turf,” you said. “It should be a lot better … The very best sods were stolen from us …”
—And you talking about stealing, and you’d whip the sheet from a corpse. You stole the wrack that I had slaved for over from the Island.
“If we can’t pile this stuff on the bank either on our backs or with the horse,” I said to the wife, “I’d better put some string around the end of it, so we’ll know it’s ours. It’d be no bother for that shower at the top of the road to swipe it from the shore in the morning.”
“You’re not saying that they’d go as far as to rob the wrack,” the wife said.
“God grant you sense, woman,” I said. “If it was spread out there on your own ground, they’d swipe it, not to mention anything else.”
… The following morning I was coming down from the houses, and I bumped into your daughter at Glen Dyne, with a load of seaweed astride the donkey.
—Oh, that fast one my eldest is hanging around with.
—I recognised some of my own wrack immediately, even though some of the string had been removed from the end.
“You got that in Cala Colum,” I said.
“In Cala Lawr,” she said.
“No way,” I said, “you got it in Cala Colum. Seaweed never comes in to Cala Lawr from the Island with a south wind and a full tide. That’s my wrack. If you have any decency at all you’ll unload it and leave it to me …”
“I’ll get the law after you,” she said, “assaulting me on my own in a lonely place like this. I’ll swear it black and blue. You’ll be deported …”
—You stole my hammer. I spotted it when you were working on the back of the house …
—You stole my sickle …
—You stole the rope I left outside …
—You stole the thatching stick that I left stuck out in the barn after two rough days in Kill Unurba. I recognised my own two notches on every stick …
—If the truth be told, a fistful of my periwinkles were stolen too. I left them in a bag up at the top of the road.
“Come here ’til I tell you,” I said to the youngfella, “if we collect as much as this every week from now ’til next November, we’ll nearly have enough for a colt.”
There were seven big lumps of bags there. The next morning I went down to the periwinkle man. He looked at them. “This bag here is a couple of stone short,” he said.
The truth is always the best. I had some suspicion about Caitriona Paudeen …
—Holy moley! Abuboona! …
—I had, I’m telling you. She was nuts about periwinkles. I heard someone say that they were just the stuff for the heart. But I hadn’t a clue then that I had a dicey heart, God help us! But I got a catch in my …
—You old dolt head! Don’t believe him …
—Usen’t I see my old man, John Willy. The old gom, he drank tea morning, noon, and night. I never saw a brass farthing of his pension in the house, and I have no idea where he stashed it away. But there were buckets of tea that time, and he’d buy a pound and a half, or even two pounds, every Friday. Huckster Joan told me he’d often buy two and half pounds. “As long as it’s there, it’ll do,” he’d always say, the poor gom.
Caitriona always just happened to be hovering around when he was on his way home every Friday, and she’d haul him in. He was always gullible that way, the poor gom.
“You’ll have a sup of tea,” she’d say.
“By hokey, I will,” he’d say. “There’s two pounds of it there, and as long as it lasts, it’ll do.”
He’d tell me that up and down the town land. He was a bit simple like that, the poor gom.
The tea would be made. Made, and maybe twice. But he never brought more than half an ounce home to me. May God forbid that I would wrong him, Johnnie! …
“I’ve bought two pounds,” he’d always say. “I must have lost it. Would you see if there’s a hole in any of them pockets. Maybe I left some of it after me in Caitriona Paudeen’s place. I’ll get it the next day. And, sure, if I don’t what matter? As long as it lasts, it’ll do. When you’re with Caitriona a lot of tea gets drunk, fair play to her! …”
He was a bit simple like that, the poor gom …
—That’s another lie, you tool you! I never wasted myself feeding him with tea! He was over to me whenever the clock would chime, he was worn out with your spotty potatoes and your salty water, Breed Terry, the beggar. Don’t believe her …
—I want some peace! Give me some peace! Stop badmouthing me, Caitriona. I don’t deserve your bitchy effing and blinding! Peace! Peace! …
—I’ll tell you the truth, Breed Terry. We had set the Garry Abbey field the same year, and it was bursting with the best of potatoes. It was out towards the arse end of May. Myself and Micil were out on the bog every day keeping an eye on things for the previous fortnight. We were, and we would have been that day too, only Micil was bringing in some dried seaweed until dinnertime. He went into the barn after dinner to get a fist of hay to stuff into the donkey’s halter as he was going to be out in the bog the balance of the day.
“You’d never think, Kitty,” he said, “that so many of the old potatoes out in the barn would be gone. I would have said something only that the pigs had been sold two weeks ago.”
“I swear to God, Micil,” says I, “I haven’t been next nor near the barn for the last three weeks. There was no panic for me to be there. The kids brought in the spuds for the meal.”
“We should have put a lock on it,” he said, “since we started working on the bog. Anyone could sneak in there during the day when we’re not around and the kids are in school.”
“They could, of course, Micil, or even in the dead of night,” I said.
“It’s closing the stable door after the horse has bolted,” Micil said.
Out I go to the barn, Breed, by the new time. I examined the potatoes.
“By the holies, Micil,” I said when I came in. “It’s closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. There was a corner full of potatoes there a fortnight ago, but there’s a big hole in it now. I’m not sure if there’s even enough there to get us to the new potatoes. Would you have any hunch at all, Micil, who is knobbling them?”
“I’ll head out to the bog,” Micil said. “You slip up to the meadow at Ard Monare letting on you’re going to the bog just like every other day, then sneak down by the stony slop, and hide near the willow.”
I did that, Breed. I slid down behind the willow mending the heel of a sock and kept my eyes glued on the barn beyond. I was a long time there, and I think I was about to doze off when I heard the noise at the barn door. I jumped through the gap in a jiffy. She was there, Breed, and talk about humping potatoes on the hump of her back! …
“You may as well take them away and sell them to Huckster Joan just as you have sold your own all year,” I said. “You haven’t had a potato of your own to stuff in your mouth since May. That might be alright for one year, but this is what you’re up to every year.”
“I had to give them to Fireside Tom,” she said. “His own rotted.”
“Rotted! He never bothered his barney about them,” I said. “He didn’t mould them, or clean up the ground, or spit a splash of spray on them …”
“I’m begging you, and I’m even grovelling, Kitty, please, please don’t say a word about it,” she said, “and I’ll make it worth it. I don’t give a toss who’ll hear about it, once that piss puss Nell gets no wind of it.”
“OK, so, Caitriona,” I said, “I won’t breathe a word.”
And I swear by the oak of this coffin, Breed, I never said nothing to nobody …
—Listen to Kitty of the shitty puny potatoes, I always had tons of spuds of my own, thanks be to the Lord God Almighty …
—… Dotie! Dotie! She didn’t leave Fireside Tom with a tosser. I often met him down in the village.
“For fuck’s sake Nora, I haven’t a farthing that she hasn’t filched from me,” he’d say. Honest, that’s what he’d say.
I’d lend him the price of a couple of glasses of whiskey, Dotie. Honest. You’d really pity him, all on his ownio, and his tongue hanging out like shrivelled flowers in a pot …
What’s that they’re saying about me, Dotie? My own daughter was up to the same tricks? I learned about it here … She pulled a fast one on my son in Gort Ribbuck very shortly after I died. Himself and his wife were going to the fair in the Fancy City. My daughter offered to look after the house until they came back. She gathered up anything worthwhile and chucked it into the big press. She had the horse and trap all ready outside. She asked a couple of young bucks who were hanging around to load the press onto the trap. They hadn’t a bull’s notion about it. She gave them the price of a couple of pints.
“It’s my mother’s press,” she said. “She left it to me.” Honest, that’s what she said. She took it home. Honest, Dotie.
It was a really well-made press in the traditional way. As strong as iron. But beautiful also. Perfection and practicality all together, Dotie …
Who’d give a damn, except for what was in it was worth! Spoons and silver knives. A whole silver toilette that I had when I was in the Fancy City. Valuable books bound in calfskin leather. Sheets, blankets, sacking, blankets, winding wrappers … If Caitriona Paudeen had been able to look after them she wouldn’t have been laid out in dirty dank dishcloths …
Dead on, Dotie! Caitriona never shuts up prattling on about that press …
—Knives and silver spoons in Gort Ribbuck of the ducks! Oh, Holy Mary Mother of God! Don’t believe her! Don’t believe her! The so-and-so. The old sow! Hey, Margaret! Hi, Margaret! Did you hear what hairy Noreen said? … and John Willy … and Breed Terry … and Kitty … I’m about to burst! I’m going to burst …
4.
—… A white-headed mare. She was a beauty …
—You had a young mare. We had a colt …
—A white-headed mare for sure. I bought her at St. Bartholomew’s Fair …
—We bought our colt just after Christmas …
—A white-headed mare. A ton and a half was no bother to her …
—Our young colt is a big strong one, God bless him. We were making a new pen for him …
—… “The Golden Apple” won, I’m telling you, a h
undred to one.
—Galway won. They beat the lard out of Kerry.
—You’re totally off the wall just like that wanker who goes on and on about Kerry winning. Galway whipped them, I’m telling you …
—But there was no “Galway” running in the big race at three o’clock.
—There was no “Golden Apple” on the team that won the All-Ireland in 1941. Maybe you meant Cannon …
—… “Fi-ire-side Tom was there with his …”
—… There were seventeen houses in our town land and every single one of them voted for Eamon de Valera …
—Seventeen houses! And after all that, not one shot was fired at the Black and Tans in your place! Not as much as a bullet. Not a piss, nor a pellet, nor even one mangy bullet …
—Ah, come on, like, there was an ambush. The end of a dark night. They crocked Curran’s donkey from going into Curran’s field up his road.
—I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …
—… You’re one of Paddy Larry’s? … The third youngfella. You used to come to my school. You were a fine strapping youngfella. A head of blond hair. Brown eyes. Beautiful rosy cheeks. You were brilliant at handball … The Derry Lough gang gone to England …
The Schoolmistress is fine, brilliant, just great, that’s what you said. But Billy the Postman is down and out … very sick …
—That’s exactly what I said, Master. They say it’s rheumatism. They told him he’d have to give the letters to whoever or whoever would be best, and then he had to start distributing them to the houses himself …
—That’s the way he was, the chancer …
—He was caught out badly on the marsh. He was drowned to the skin. When he came home he took to the bed …
—Who gives a fuck! The chancer! The robber! The …
—He was always going on about taking off to England, Master, that’s before he was clobbered …
—Taking off to England! Taking off to England! … Spit it out. Don’t be afraid …
—Some people are saying, Master, that his health wasn’t that good since he got married …