The Dirty Dust

by Máirtín Ó Cadhain

  —Your mind is a plenitude of raw and rough substance, Tom, you dote you, but I promise you I will reorganise it, and shape it, and mould it, and polish it until it is a beautiful bright vessel of culture …

  —I’ll have nothing at all to do with you, Nora Johnny. I swear I won’t. I’ve had enough of you. No sooner would I be in through the door of Peter the Publican’s than you’d be in on my heels, scrounging a drink, and on the bum, and tippling away. I bought you many fine frothy pints, not that I begrudge you any of them …

  —Don’t pretend anything, Norita …

  —Go for it there, Fireside Tom! God give you long life and good health! Give it to her now hot and heavy, Toejam Noreen of the stinky feet. Always on the scrounge! Were you in Peter the Publican’s when she got the goat drunk? … God bless you, but tell that to the rest of the graveyard! …

  3.

  —… I keened every one of you, my family and friends! Ochone and ochone again! I keened every single one of you, my family and friends! …

  —You certainly had a fine wild whinging wail, Biddy Sarah, to tell the honest truth …

  —… Ochone, and ochone again! You fell from the cursed stack, didn’t you my darling!

  —For all you know he could have fallen from a flying boat! Like falling from a stack of oats, like! That wouldn’t kill anyone, but somebody who was dead already, dead to God, or dead to this world. If he drank the bottle that I drank! …

  —Woe and alas and ochone! You drank the bad bottle, my lovely!

  —You’re always going on about your bottle. If you drank forty-two pints like I did …

  —Ochone and Ochone again! You’ll never drink a pint, ever again! And to think of all the pints that were slugged down in the gullet of that gut of yours …

  —Ara, he’s bored a hole through the wax of my ears, with his forty-two pints and all! If you had sucked that many barrels of ink into your lungs as the writer had …

  —Ochone, and alas and alack! My wonderful writer laid low now and for ever …

  —God help us for ever and ever …

  —Sloppy sentimentality again! …

  —I keened you Dotie, my Dotie! Oh, my love, my darling! Didn’t you die far away from your native plains, sad to say! I feel it for you, I feel wrecked to the core of my being that they wrenched you over this way and you knew nothing about it! You are far from your friends and relations! You died beside the wandering wave! Your bones will be thrown …

  —In the mean barren clay and the sandy seaweed …

  —I keened every single one of you, my good people! … My precious, my love! … Whatever the future brings, he won’t write a thing! …

  —Just as well. The fucking heretic! …

  —I keened you certainly! No doubt about it! Ochone oh! I’m totally destroyed! A fine chunk of land up at the top of the town! He won’t set a foot on it now, not in autumn nor in spring! …

  —Was it you said, Breed, that you couldn’t beat it as regards fattening up cattle?

  —I sure did, Biddy Sarah: I was listening to you. And then you started up on “The Lament for the Ejected Irish Peasant.” …

  —… I keened you! I’m telling you I keened you! Ochone and alas and alack! He will never again get into the saddle of the white-headed mare, never again …

  —Aha, Caitriona Paudeen gave him the evil eye … !

  —That’s a filthy lie, Nell! …

  —… I cried my eyes out because of you, Old Master. Ochone and woe is us! The Old Master going to his grave still a young man! …

  —Ah, come off it, Biddy Sarah, you didn’t keen the Old Master one way or the other. I know it full well, as I was there closing up the coffin along with Billy the Postman …

  —The maggot!

  —The Mistress was sobbing and simpering. You took her by the hand, Biddy Sarah, and you began clearing your throat. “I haven’t the least clue,” Billy the Postman said, “which of you—you Biddy Sarah, or you Schoolmistress—has the least sense …”

  —Oh, the robber! …

  —Feck off out of here and shag off down the stairs, every single one of you who doesn’t live in the Other World, and stay there until we close up the coffin,” Billy shouted. They all slid off, apart from you, Biddy Sarah. “But we have to keen the Old Master,” you whined to the Mistress. “God knows, it’s the least he deserves,” the Mistress said …

  —Oh, the fat arsed diddy! …

  —“Whether there’s keening or no keening today,” Billy says, “unless you fuck off right now out of here and out of my way Biddy Sarah, he won’t be on time for today’s delivery.” Then you came down the stairs, Biddy Sarah, snotting and snorting and foaming at the mouth. Billy was making an unholy racket up above twisting and turning screws. “Your one, he won’t leave her after Billy,” said Blotchy Brian. “If you drove the same number of screws into Mannix the Counsellor’s tongue, Caitriona might go to another lawyer altogether about Baba’s will …”

  —Ababoona! The nasty louser!

  —Just then, Billy appeared at the top of the stairs. “Get ready now lads, the four of you,” he ordered.

  —I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …

  —“It wouldn’t be right or proper to allow the Old Master out of the house without shedding a few tears for him,” you said, Biddy Sarah, and you took off up the stairs again. Billy stopped you. “He has to go to the graveyard,” Billy insisted. “There’s no point in keeping him here any longer …”

  —Oh, the uppity brute!

  —“By gaineys, no point at all in keeping him here any longer,” Blotchy Brian said, “unless you’re thinking of putting him in aspic! …”

  —You keened me, Biddy Sarah, and I certainly wasn’t grateful, or even half-grateful or a tiny bit grateful to you. Oh, yes, you certainly made enough noise all around me, but you were barking up the wrong tree all the time. You didn’t open your mouth about the Republic, or about the treacherous Dog Eared Lot who stabbed me because I was fighting for it …

  —But I told you the people were grateful …

  —That’s a lie. You never said any such thing! …

  —Biddy Sarah had nothing to do with politics, any more than myself …

  —You coward, you were hiding under the bed when Eamon de Valera was risking his life …

  —You never had any luck, Biddy Sarah, you never said that it was Huckster Joan’s coffee done for me, you never said that while you were keening me …

  —And Peter the Publican’s daughter knobbled me …

  —And me too …

  —And you never said nothing, when you were keening me, about Tim Top of the Road swiping my turf …

  —And my seaweed on the shore …

  —Nor that your man down here died because his son married a black …

  —I think what that fellow says is true, Biddy Sarah has nothing to do with politics …

  —I’d have keened you a lot better, only I had a frog in my throat that day. I had keened three others the same week …

  —It wasn’t a frog or hoarseness, but drink. You were scuttered mouldy with the stuff. When you tried to start up with “Let Erin Remember” as you always did, out came “Will Ye No’ Come Back Again?” …

  —No it wasn’t, it was “Some Day I’ll Go Back Across the Sea to Ireland” …

  —I’d have keened you, Black Bandy Bartley, but I couldn’t get up out of the bed that time …

  —Bloody tear and ’ounds, Biddy Sarah, it doesn’t matter a pig’s mickey if he is keened or not! “Ho row, Oh Mary …”

  —And how come, Biddy Sarah, that you never came to keen Caitriona Paudeen, seeing as they sent for you?

  —Yes, tell us why you didn’t come to keen Caitriona? …

  —You had no problem going to Nell’s house, even though you had to get up out of bed …

  —I hadn’t it in me to refuse Nell, and she sent the car as far as my front door for me …

  —Hitler will take the car from
her …

  —I’d have keened you alright, Caitriona, no doubt about it, but I’d hate to be in competition with the other three: Nell, Nora Johnny’s daughter, and Blotchy Brian’s young one. They were whining and whimpering and huffing …

  Nell! Nora Johnny’s daughter! Blotchy Brian’s young one! … The three you got St. John’s Gospel from the priest to kill me. I’ll burst! I’ll burst! I’m going to burst! …

  4.

  —… Hey Jack, Jack, Jack the Lad! …

  —… Goo Goog, Dotie. Goo Goog! We’ll have a bit of a natter now alright …

  —… What would you say, Redser Tom, about a man whose son married a black? I’d say he’s as much of a heretic as his son …

  —Could be, you know, could be that …

  —The sins of the children are visited upon the fathers …

  —Some say they are, some say they aren’t …

  —Wouldn’t you say now, Redser Tom, that any man who drank forty-two pints was a heretic? …

  —Forty-two pints. Forty-two pints bejaysus. Forty-two pints …

  —I did that, I drank the lot of them …

  —Fireside Tom was knocking around with heretics …

  —Fireside Tom. Fireside Tom bejaysus. You’d have to be a very wise person to know who Fireside Tom was …

  —To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t be that sure either about the Old Master, Redser Tom. I’m very wary of him for the last while. I’ll say nothing until I find out more …

  —A body would be well advised to keep its clap shut in this place. All the graves have huge ears …

  —I have my doubts about Caitriona Paudeen too. She swore black and blue to me that she was a better Catholic than Nell, but if it turns out that she had the evil eye …

  —Some people said she had, some people said …

  —That’s a pack of lies, you foxy fool …

  —… Ah come off it, Master, you know full well he’s going to die. Look at me who never had nothing wrong with him, and I died same as the rest of them! I went off just the same as somebody who had …

  —But seriously, though, Tom, do you think he is going to die? …

  —Don’t you know full well, Master, that the weeds will be up through his ears shortly! …

  —Are you sure, Tom?

  —Don’t worry one bit about it, Master. He’ll die, no doubt about it. Look at me! …

  —With the help of God, the shithouse slug!

  —Ah, come off it, Master, isn’t she gorgeous …

  —Oh, the strapper!

  —Do you require any spiritual assistance, Master? …

  —No, I don’t. No, I don’t, I’m telling you. Leave me alone! … Leave me alone, or I’ll chew your ear off! …

  —Son of a gun, come here ’til I tell you, Master, I heard it said that she used to have jobbers knocking around in the kitchen, while you were stretched out on your dying bed …

  —Qu’est-ce c’est que jobbers? What the fuck are jobbers? …

  —Fireside Tom is not a jobber because he has his own plot of land. Nor the Bally Ser man either. He had some land on the top of the town that was the best you’ll ever get for fattening cattle. But Billy the Postman was a kind of jobber. All he ever had was the Master’s garden …

  —Billy used to be hanging around all right, Master. I often heard him stirring things up when he came in asking for you …

  —Oh, the tramp! The slinky sneaky skank! …

  —Be that as it may, Master, the truth must out when all is said and done. The Mistress is gorgeous. Myself and herself would be down in Peter the Publican’s. His nose was stuck in everything and everywhere his legs could carry him! I met her up at the Sharp Ridge on the mountain road, just a few months after they buried you. “Goo-Goog, Mistress,” I says. “Goo-Goog to you to, Fireside Tom,” she says. I didn’t get any chance to have any kind of a chin wag, as Billy the Postman comes down on his bike having delivered his letters …

  —… They say if you don’t fill in the first papers correctly that it’s a doddle to disqualify you from the dole after that. The Derry Lough Master filled it in for me that first time the dole came along. He scribbled something across the page in red ink. Long life to him, they never took the dole from me since! …

  —But they took it from me. The Old Master filled my form in. He did nothing apart from drawing a stroke across the paper with his pen. I’ve no doubt, but he didn’t do it with red ink either …

  —The Old Master was always very touchy when he was thinking of the Mistress. I’m not sure if you ever heard what he’d get up to just staring out the window madly penning letters to Caitriona!

  —But she never got anything from it, the Mistress, couldn’t he just fill up a dole form properly! …

  —I always got eight shillings. The Foxy Cop did it for me …

  —Just as well. He was riding your daughter on the nettle-infested fields of Bally Donough …

  —I was completely deprived of the dole. Somebody wrote in to say I had money in the bank …

  —God bless you, anyway! People are happy when their neighbours do well. Do you see there, Nell Paudeen’s daughter who was getting the dole for yonks, even though his scrubland was valued more than two pounds, and Caitriona dumped him out …

  —He never earned it! He didn’t deserve a penny of it! He had money stashed away in the bank and he was still getting fifteen shillings dole every time. She must love it, the bitch! …

  —I hear what you say, as you put it, that you had a dollop of dole …

  —You got a good slice of dole too, Tim Top of the Road …

  —No wind ever blew, Tim Top of the Road, that didn’t make things better for you. The stray sheep, it always wandered into your fold …

  —The wodge of wood that wandered into the shore on the West Pier, you can be sure you grabbed it …

  —And the seaweed on the strand …

  —And the turf …

  —And the bits and pieces …

  —Everything that was left round and about the Earl’s house, you snatched it up …

  —Didn’t you hang on to the darkie’s leg that the Earl had? I saw one of your chicks being born on the sly, and you made a balls of the cover on Caitriona’s chimney …

  —Even if it was the priest’s sister who was up and away and whistling and showing off her arse in her jeans, she still hung out with your son …

  —Hey, do you hear the tailor bullshitting and boasting? You made a jacket for me, and a bus would get lost in it …

  —You made a pants for Jack the Lad and nobody’s legs would go into it, apart from Fireside Tom’s …

  —God knows …

  —Not a word of a lie, love, but my feet slid into it, no problem, just right …

  —Easily known that’s how it would be, and then you bring your clothes to the Half Eared Tailor who stabbed me! …

  —But what’s the point of talking, you carpenter from Gort Ribbuck? Didn’t everyone see Nora Johnny in the coffin you made for her …

  —… She was the very first of the Toejam gooey gams that ever was laid in any kind of coffin …

  —She’d have been better off without that coffin, Caitriona. She was as full of holes as any chimney that Tim Top of the Road made …

  —I couldn’t do anything about your chimneys, as you didn’t pay me …

  —I paid you …

  —Well, grand, fine, if you paid me, there were four others for everyone who didn’t …

  —I paid you too, you chancer, and you fucked up my chimney a lot more than you ever fucked it down …

  —You paid me, fine, as you say, but there’s another family whose chimney I repaired just before that, and but do you think I ever got as much as a sniff of the money they owed me …

  —Is that why you screwed up my chimney, you chancer? …

  —But I told you to get a small chimney brush …

  —And I did. Top to bottom, but you left a mess …

&
nbsp; —I hadn’t a clue, as you say, who would pay me or who would not. A local woman comes up to me and says. “We’ll have the priest,” she said. “The chimney smokes away when there is an east wind. If there was an east wind when the priest came, I’d be ashamed. Nell’s chimney smokes with every wind.” “I’ll stop it smoking with the east wind, just as you say,” I says. I just redid the top of it. “You’ll see now,” I says, “that there’ll be no smoke with the east wind, just as you say. I’ll say nothing about that, as you’re neighbours and all that, just as you say. A pound and five shillings”’ “You’ll get it on market day, with the help of God,” she says. Market day came, and I didn’t get my pound and five shillings. What a hope! I never got as much as a whiff of a sniff of my money …

  —Isn’t that exactly what I told you, Dotie, that Caitriona never paid nothing. Honest! …

  —Why in God’s name would I pay the chancer—Tim Top of the Road—to put a few planks on the top to call them with smoke signals! Even though it was a west wind, it was nothing like the blast that blew the day the priest came. It would have whipped the child from the fireside, that west wind. When Tim Top of the Road was finished with it, it wouldn’t even draw a puff of smoke except with the east wind. I offered to pay him, if he did the same job on the winds as he did with Nell’s chimney. But he wouldn’t lay a hand on them, ever again. It was Nell, the bitch, who pulled a fast one on him and sold him a pup …

  —That’s true, Caitriona, Tim Top of the Road could be easily fooled.

  —Anyone who bought my seaweed.

  —To tell you the truth, Caitriona, it wasn’t Tim Top of the Road who was at fault with your chimney, however bad he is, but it was Nell who got St. John’s Gospel to look after her own chimney …

  —And to blow the smoke over to Caitriona’s, just because she thought she could get at Blotchy Brian …

  —Hoora! Hoora! I’ll burst! I’m about to burst! …

  5.

  —… I could sue him because he poisoned me. “Drink two spoonfuls of this bottle before you go to bed, and then fast again,” the murderer said. Fast my arse! I was just lying down on the bed …