The Dirty Dust

by Máirtín Ó Cadhain

  —You tramp of the Toejam trollops! You so-and-so! … Hey, Margaret! …

  5.

  —… He was there ready and waiting for Blotchy Brian collecting his pension every Friday. “You’d be well advised to grab a fist of insurance for yourself from now on, Briany,” the wretch says. “Who knows, any one of these days you might go the way of all flesh …”

  —“There’s no guarantee that that useless old crockery wouldn’t take out insurance himself,” Blotchy Brian said to me one Friday in the Post Office, “or on anything apart from Nell Paudeen’s little pup who used to come in regularly and sniffle around on Caitriona’s floor.”

  —I was over with Brian myself getting the pension the day he was buried.

  “The insurance lad didn’t last too long after, either,” I said.

  “There he is heading away there now, the sewer sucker,” Brian says, “and if he goes up, he’ll piss The Man Above off with his never-ending guff about the accident that happened ages ago, and trying to get him to insure his holy and angelic property against the pyromania of yer Man Below. And if The Man Below gets it, he’ll piss him off getting him to insure his few embers against the wiles of yer Man Above. They both of them couldn’t do any better to that louse lackey than what Fireside Tom did to him: every time he didn’t want Nell’s cattle on his patch of land, he drove them into Caitriona’s, and then Caitriona’s cattle into Nell’s …”

  —Did you hear what he said when that headbanger Tim Top of the Road died?

  —“Sweet Jumping Jesus, boys, St. Peter had better be looking after his keys from now on, or this new blow-in will have filched them from him in no time …”

  —And I’ll tell you one thing for nothing, do you know what he said to Fireside Tom when Caitriona died:

  “Thomas, my beautiful angel,” he said, “Yourself, and Nell, and Baba, and Nora Johnny’s young one will have to be constantly calling into the Celestial Smithy to get their wings mended, that is, if God grants that you be allowed around the same place as herself. I’d say I only have a very slim chance of getting wings, though. Caitriona never thought me good enough. But do you know what Thomas, my gentle dove, you’d have no problem at all with anything broken if I could get myself a little cubbyhole of my own near her …”

  —Ababoona! Brian next to me to torture me! God forbid! What would I do at all? …

  —The Postmistress told me that she couldn’t open any letters when I died she was so busy with the telegrams …

  —My death was in the newspaper …

  —My death was in two newspapers …

  —Listen to the account of my death in the Daily News:

  “He was of an old and highly renowned family in the area. He played a significant part in the national movement. He was a personal acquaintance of Eamon de Valera …”

  —This is the description of my death in The Irish Observer:

  “He belonged to a family that was very well liked in the area. He joined the Fenian Scouts when he was a boy, and after that he joined the Irish Volunteers. He was an intimate friend of Arthur Griffith …”

  —… Coley told the story of “The pullet who was born on the dung heap” at your wake, also.

  —You’re lying! That’s a disgusting story to tell at any respectable wake! …

  —But, wasn’t I listening to him! …

  —You’re lying, you were not! …

  —… A row at your wake! A row at a wake where there were only two old pensioners!

  —And one of them as deaf as Fireside Tom when Caitriona was trying to persuade him to come to visit Mannix the Counsellor about the bit of land.

  —All true, and every vessel in the house was overflowing with holy water.

  —There was a row at my wake …

  —There sure was. Fireside Tom took it upon himself to say to Blotchy:

  “You’ve drunk enough of Ned of the Hill’s buttermilk since you came in, Tom, that you must have enough already for churning.”

  —There were two barrels at my wake …

  —Three at mine …

  —That’s true, Caitriona, there were three of them at your wake. That’s the bare honest truth for you, Caitriona. There were three of them there—three fine big ones—and a few shots from Ned of the Hill’s magic waterworks also … And even if I was the oldfella, I still drank twelve mugs of it. To tell you God’s honest truth, Caitriona, there’s no way I would have swilled that much if I knew that my heart was a bit dicey. What I said to myself was, as my eyes were staring at the pints of porter: “Wouldn’t it be a lot better for this guy to buy a colt rather than to be getting pissed with shit artists …”

  —You pompous piss artist! …

  —That’s what they were. Some of them were laid out smashed drunk on the ground in the way of everyone else. It even happened that Peter Nell fell on top of the bed you were laid out on, Caitriona. His leg was gone, the one that was injured.

  —The sneaky swill slurper!

  —The best of it all was when Breed Terry’s youngfella and Kitty’s son started beating the crap out of one another, and then smashed the round table before they could be separated …

  —Holy fuckaroni! Ababoona! …

  —I split them up. If I knew then that my heart was a bit dicey …

  —… It appeared to me, anyway, that you were laid out in the proper traditional way, unless my eyes were deceiving me …

  —Then your eyes didn’t see the two crosses on my breast …

  —I had two crosses and the scapulars …

  —Whatever they had on me, or they didn’t have on me, Kitty, it wasn’t a dirty sheet like there was on Caitriona …

  —Ababoona! Don’t believe a word from that mangy maggot’s mouth …

  —… You had a coffin that was made by the little scutty carpenter from Gort Ribbuck. He made another one for Nora Johnny and ’twas as small as a bird’s cage …

  —Your coffin was made by a carpenter as well …

  —That may be so, but it wasn’t the jobber from Gort Ribbuck, but a proper carpenter who had served his time. He had qualifications from the Tec …

  —My coffin cost ten pounds …

  —I thought yours only cost eight pounds: just like Caitriona’s one …

  —You’re a liar, you microphallic muppet! I had the best coffin from Tim’s shop …

  —Little Kitty laid me out.

  —Me too, and Biddy Sarah keened me …

  —Then she didn’t make a very good job of it. There’s a kind of a lump in Biddy’s throat and it doesn’t melt until about the seventh glass. Then she starts up with “Let Erin Remember” …

  —Anyway, I don’t think anyone keened Caitriona at all, unless her son’s wife or Nell sang a few bars …

  —… Your altar was only six pounds ten …

  —Mine was ten pounds.

  —Hang on a minute now, ’til I see what mine was … 20 by 10 plus 19, that makes 190 … plus 20, that’s 210 shillings … that comes to 10 pounds, 10 shillings. Isn’t that right, Master? …

  —Peter the Publican had a huge altar …

  —And Nora Johnny …

  —That’s true, Nora Johnny had a big altar. I would have had a big altar too, only nobody knew about it, I went too quickly. The heart, God help me! Just the same as if I had been laid up and had bedsores …

  —I would have had fourteen pounds exactly, except that there was a bad shilling with it. It was only a halfpenny that somebody had covered with fag paper. Blotchy Brian noticed it, and he copped on to the trick. He said that it was Caitriona Paudeen put it there. She had put many bad shillings like that on the altar. She tried to be at every altar like that but she couldn’t afford it, the poor wretch …

  —You lying son of a poor rat bastard! …

  —Oh, I forgive you, Caitriona. I wouldn’t give a tinker’s curse or an itinerant’s malediction about, if it wasn’t for the priest. “They’ll be plonking their old rotten teeth on the plate for me so
on,” he said …

  —I only ever heard “Paul this,” and “Paul that” from yourself and your daughter that time when she jizzed up the Great Scholar in the parlour. But there was no mention of Paul when you had to put a shilling on my altar …

  —After I had drunk forty-two pints I tied Tomaseen up, but not one of his kip and kin or anybody from his house bothered their arse to come to my funeral, even though we’re in the same town land. They hardly put as much as a shilling on my altar the lot of them together. They all had a cold, or so they said. That was all the thanks I got, even though he was stuck like shit to a blanket. Imagine, like, if he had to be tied up again? …

  —I didn’t have a very big funeral. Most of Bally Donough had gone to England, and Gort Ribbuck also, and Clogher Savvy …

  —… And what do you think of Caitriona Paudeen, Kitty, who didn’t as much as darken the door of our house since my father passed away, despite all the cups of tea she polished off …

  —That was the time she was going to Mannix the Counsellor about Fireside Tom’s land …

  —Do you hear that old strap Breed Terry, and manky Kitty of the piddly potatoes? …

  —I had to clamp my hand three times over the mouth of that old windbag over there, where he was singing: “Martin John More had a beautiful daughter” at your funeral, Curran …

  —The whole country was at your funeral, journalists and photographers, the lot …

  —And for a good reason! You were blown up by the mine, all of you. If you had died on the old bed just like me, there wouldn’t have been a journalist or a photographer next or near the place …

  —Bien de monde was at funeral à moi. Le Ministre de France from Dublin came to mine and he laid a couronne mortuaire on my grave …

  —There was a representative of Eamon de Valera at my funeral, and the Tricolour was on my coffin …

  A telegram from Arthur Griffith came to my funeral and shots were fired over the grave …

  —That’s a lie!

  —No, you’re the liar. I was First Lieutenant of the First Company of the First Battalion of the First Brigade …

  —That’s a lie!

  —God save us, for ever and ever! Wasn’t it a disaster that they never brought my bag of bones east of the Fancy City!

  —The Big Butcher came to my funeral from the Fancy City. He respected me, and his father respected my father. He often said to me that he respected me because of the respect that his father had for my father …

  —The doctor came to my funeral. That was hardly a surprise, of course. My daughter Kate has two sons doctors in the States …

  —Now you tell us! That was hardly a surprise, indeed. So that he wouldn’t be entirely shamed—after all the money you had given him—he came to your funeral. And you twisting your ankle every second month …

  —The Old Master and the Mistress were at my funeral …

  —The Old Master and the Mistress and the Foxy Cop were at my funeral …

  —The Old Master and the Mistress and the Foxy Cop and the priest’s sister were at my funeral …

  —The priest’s sister! Tell me, was she wearing the pants? …

  —It was a disgrace that Mannix the Counsellor didn’t come to Caitriona Paudeen’s funeral …

  —It was, disgraceful. Nor the priest’s sister …

  —Nor the Foxy Cop …

  —He was checking out the dogs in Bally Donough that day …

  —No dog would survive on the flea-ridden baldy bumps of your place …

  —… “Fireside Tom’s grin was as wide as a gate,

  He’d have Nell now, as buried was Cate …”

  —I’m telling you, Caitriona Paudeen, if I could have helped it at all, I would have been at your funeral. It wouldn’t be right for me not to be at Caitriona Paudeen’s funeral, even if I had to crawl there on my hands and knees. But I never heard a whisper about it ’til the night of the burial …

  —You’re an old codger, Chalky Steven. How long are you here? I didn’t know you were here at all. The bad pains …

  —There were gangs of people at my funeral. The Parish Priest, The Chaplain, The Chaplain from Lough Shore, A Franciscan and Two Brothers from the Fancy City, The Schoolmaster and Mistress from Derry Lough, The Master and Mistress from Kin Teer, The Master from Clogher Savvy, The Master from Glen Beg, and the Junior Mistress, The Assistant Teacher from Kill …

  —No doubt about it, every single one of them, Master, and Billy the Postman too. To tell you the truth he was very helpful that day. He fastened and screwed down the bolts on the coffin, he carried it out of the house, and he slid it down into the grave. In all fairness, he wasn’t either slow or sluggish. He threw off his jacket with gusto and grabbed the shovel …

  —The robber! The homuncular homo! …

  —There were five cars at my funeral …

  —Yea, that gimp from Derry Lough, his car got stuck right in the middle of things, and your funeral was an hour late …

  —There were as many as thirty at Peter the Publican’s. He had two hearses …

  —Just as you mentioned it, I had a hearse as well. The old woman wouldn’t rest easy until she had got one: “His guts would be all shook up if he was up on their shoulders, or being hauled in an old cart,” she said …

  —Oh, it was easy for her to talk, Tim Top of the Road, with my turf …

  —And my wrack from the sea …

  —… There weren’t enough there to even haul Caitriona to the church they were so mouldy from the booze. Even they started to act the maggot. They had to let her corpse down twice, the way they were. I swear they did: smack bang in the middle of the road …

  —God help us! Ababoona!

  —I’m telling you God’s honest truth, Caitriona, love. There were only six of us from beyond Walsh’s pub. The rest of them went into Walsh’s, or else they fell by the wayside. We thought we’d have to get the women to carry the corpse …

  —Ababoona! Don’t believe him, the bollocks …

  —That’s the whole bare unadorned truth, Caitriona. You were heavy as hell. You weren’t sick that long, and you had no bedsores.

  “The two old buckos will have to lift her,” Peter Nell says just near the lane at Clogher Savvy. The old men were great, Caitriona. Peter Nell was on crutches and Kitty’s youngfella and Breed Terry’s youngfella were beating the shit out of one another, metaphorically, like: each one blaming the other about smashing up the round table the night before. The truth is always the best, Caitriona. There is no way I would carry the coffin, or even go a step of the way with you, if I knew then that I had a dicey heart …

  —Too busy piddling around with periwinkles, you piss artist …

  —“There she is, still acting the mule. You wouldn’t know from hell if she wanted to go to the church or even to the cemetery,” Blotchy Brian said, while himself and myself and Kitty’s youngfella were lifting you up to take you in along the church path …

  “Not a word of a lie, my good friend,” Peter Nell says, as he dumps his crutches, and goes in up and under the coffin …

  —That’s really the pits! The slut’s son carrying my coffin. Blotchy Brian carrying me. The beardy bastard. If that twisted hunch humped whore was carrying me, then the coffin was baw ways. Abooboona boona! … Blotchy Brian the bum! … Nell’s son! Margaret! Margaret! … If I had known all about it I would have burst. I would have burst on the spot …

  6.

  —… Are you telling me now, that they don’t take any insurance on colts? …

  —Well, my kind of insurance broker wouldn’t take it anyway, Johnny.

  —You’d think you weren’t taking any chance with a fine healthy young horse. It would be well worth it, before anything happened, to get a big pot of money …

  —I nearly got a big pot myself, Johnny, in the crossword in The Sunday Scandal. Five hundred pounds …

  —Five hundred pounds! …

  —That was it, by Jaysus, Johnny. I only h
ad one letter wrong …

  —I get it …

  —What they wanted was a word in eight letters ending in “e.” The clue said that it meant something that flew through the air by means of mechanical propulsion.

  —Yea, I still get it.

  —I immediately thought of the word “aeroplane,” as I had seen them flying in the sky. But that was nine letters …

  —Yea, still with you.

  —“That can’t be it,” I said to myself. I spent ages and aeons wracking my brains and torturing myself. Anyway, in the end I put down “aerplane,” as I couldn’t think of anything else …

  —I get it.

  —But what do you know, when the answer came out on the paper it was “airplane”! Fuck that new spelling anyway Johnny! If I had a handgun I’d blow my brains out. That was one of the reasons why my life was cut short …

  —Now, I really get it.

  —… By the oak of this coffin, Chalky Steven, I swear I gave her, I gave Caitriona Paudeen the pound …

  —… He had a broad grin on his mug …

  —That stupid grin that the Junior Master makes is a good sign, anyway! He might go the way of the Old Master, who knows. There’s some kind of curse on our school that the women don’t get on with the masters there …

  —… I’ll tell you now the advice I gave to Cannon after he won the semifinal for Galway:

  “Cannon, my hero,” I says to him, “even if you don’t manage to kick the ball in the final against Kerry, kick something. There must be some kind of equality in clocking people. The ref will be up for Kerry anyway. Why else would they have won so many All-Irelands? You can do it. You have the guts and the balls for it. Every time you clobber something, I will raise the roof …”

  —Hitler is my darling! I can’t wait for him to get to England! … I’m sure he’ll damn them all to hell and the devils will be dancing on the dunes of England: that he’ll give the bum’s rush to their snotty snoots: that he’ll plant a million tons of mines in their belly buttons …

  —God help us all! …