“Is the child mine or is it yours?” says Pádraig, flying into a rage. “Nóra is what she’ll be called.”
“But Pádraig, my dear,” says I, “think of the child and the life ahead of her. Didn’t you hear what I told you before? Sailors …”
“Shut your mouth, or may the devil take my soul …”
It was the first cross word I ever heard him say to me, I think. “If that’s how it is,” says I, “carry on. But it won’t be me will bring her to the font. I have some respect for myself, thanks be to God. If you call her Nóra, go ahead. It’s enough for me to have one Nóra calling to the house without having another there permanently. If that’s the way it’s to be, I’ll not be staying. I’ll take to the roads …”
I handed Muraed the infant and I grabbed my shawl off the back door. Pádraig went back into the room to Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter. He was back out again in the flick of an eyelid. “Let you call her whatever name ye want to,” he says. “Call her ‘Hi Diddle Diddle6 the Cat and the Fiddle’ if you want to. But don’t be making a show of me any more. The pair of you have me between hammer and anvil every day of my life …”
“’Twas your own fault, Pádraig,” says I. “If you’d taken my advice and Baba’s advice …”
He had stormed out of the house. From that day till the day the thumbs were placed on my eyelids there wasn’t another word about calling any of the infants Nóra. But that hussy of a wife of his knows that I’m gone now …
The cross is ordered anyhow. Pádraig is a good scout, though he’s probably left penniless by that stiff-jointed wife of his who’s not able to raise a calf or a pig or go out into a field or on a bog. I know in my heart it’s hard for him to attend to everything. When Máirín is a schoolmistress she’ll be able to help him out.
Wasn’t Bríd Terry7 ready with her tongue when she said, “There’s no cross over you yet as fine as Nóra Sheáinín’s.” But there will be, you slut. A cross of Island limestone like the one over Peadar the Pub, and railings like Siúán the Shop’s, and flowers, and an inscription in Irish …
Only for I don’t like to, I’d tell Peadar the Pub about the cross. Amn’t I more entitled to talk to him — seeing as I’m voting for him — than Muraed or Cite or Dotie. They’re the ones with the crosses, of course. I wouldn’t mind but for all the attention he paid to Nóra Filthy-Feet! But the porridge is spilt now. Good Lord, they gave each other a right scolding the other day. If Peadar the Pub had heeded me in time I’d tell him who Nóra Filthy-Feet is. But it’s not easy to talk to that lot in the Pound Plot. They have far too high an opinion of themselves …
I’ll leave Peadar the Pub alone for the moment. He’s too busy with the Election anyhow. I’ll tell Siúán the Shop, and she’ll tell the Pound crowd. I’d better say that the cross will be put over me within …
— … He stabbed me through the edge of my liver. The One-Ear Breed were always a treacherous lot …
— … Wasn’t it stupid of us to let go of the English market, Curraoin? …
— … “It’s the War of the Two Foreigners, Paitseach,” says I …
— … Honest, Dotie! Our people had great intellects. Myself, for example … My son, who’s married at home in Mangy Field, has a young lad who was going to school to the Big Master, and he told me there was no surpassing him. Literature was his pet subject: “He had culture in his bones,” he said. “I knew by looking at him.” Honest, that’s what he said, Dotie. You know that daughter of mine who’s married to Caitríona Pháidín’s son. A young girl of hers has just gone off to be a schoolmistress. ’Twas from my daughter she got the brains. It wasn’t from the Loideáin or from the Páidín clan at any rate …
— That’s a damned lie, you bitch! Drinking secretly in Peadar the Pub’s snug! Drinking secretly! Sailors! Sailors! … Hey, Muraed! Hey, Muraed! … Do you hear that? … Do you hear what Nóra Filthy-Feet said! … I’ll explode! I’ll explode! …
4
— … Would you for the love and mercy of God, Nóra Sheáinín, leave me alone. It’s a fine time you pick for novelettes! I must have a conversation with my old neighbour Bríd Terry. I didn’t have a chance to talk to her since she came, what with yourself and your culture and your elections! …
Are you there, Bríd Terry? … Fell into the fire! That was always the first science lesson I taught in school, Bríd, how important it is to keep air away from a fire. Air is what nourishes a fire, Bríd. That should be widely understood … Oh, nobody was left at home who could have kept the air off you, Bríd? In a case like that the best thing to do would be … I’m afraid science would have no remedy for a case like that, Bríd … Oh, looking for peace, are you, Bríd? … I’m afraid science has no remedy for a case like that either … What’s that, Bríd? … The whole country was at the wedding, Bríd! …
— That’s the truth, Master. The whole country was at the wedding. You can be proud of your wife, Master. There was lashings of everything: bread, butter, tea, six kinds of meat, porter, whiskey, and Seán Payne,8 Master. Seán Payne, Master. When our fellow — Séamas — got fed up drinking whiskey and porter, into the parlour he goes to drink the Seán Payne, Master. Every bit as good as Éamon of the Hill Field’s poteen, he said.
Don’t worry, Master, it was a lavish wedding — as lavish as if you’d been alive yourself. She’s a generous woman, the Schoolmistress, Master. She came up to our place two nights beforehand to invite the whole household down to the wedding. Myself, I wasn’t able to stir, Master. By the book, if I were, I’d have been there, not a word of a lie. “Maybe you could spare a can of fresh milk, Bríd,” says she. “Indeed I could and two cans, Mistress,” says I. “Even if it were much more than that, you’d be welcome to it, and so would your poor husband who’s in the graveyard clay — the Big Master — the Lord have mercy on him!” says I.
“I mean to make it a good wedding, Bríd,” says she. “Billyboy the Post and myself were talking about it,” says she: “‘A good wedding,’ says Billyboy the Post,” says she. “‘That’s the way he’d prefer it himself, the Lord have mercy on him!’”
“‘I’m sure if the Big Master knew that I’m getting married again, Billyboy,’ says I, Bríd,” says she, “‘that’s what he’d tell me, to make it a good wedding. He wouldn’t begrudge it to the neighbours. And of course he wouldn’t begrudge it to myself.’ And he wouldn’t, either, Bríd …”
“Bedad then, Mistress,” says I to her — I don’t know if I should have said it at all, Master, only for my tongue being too loose—“Bedad then, Mistress,” says I, “I thought you wouldn’t marry again.”
“Well indeed, Bríd my dear,” says she, “I wouldn’t either — no fear of me — only for what the Big Master said to me a few days before he died. I was sitting on the edge of his bed, Bríd. I took his hand. ‘What will I do,’ says I, ‘if anything happens to you?’ He burst out laughing, Bríd. ‘What will you do?’ says he. ‘What would you do — a fine active young woman like you — but marry again?’ I began to whimper, Bríd. ‘You shouldn’t say a thing like that,’ says I to him. ‘A thing like that?’ says he, and he was deadly serious this time, Bríd. ‘A thing like that!’ says he. ‘It’s exactly the right thing. I won’t rest easy in the graveyard clay,’ says he, ‘if you don’t promise me that you’ll marry again.’ Faith then, that’s what he said, Bríd,” says she.
— The harlot! …