—“Art is long and Time is fleeting.”
—“Fleet! Fleet!” The Fleet is the big bead on your rosary. Fleet and sailors. Oh! Mother of Mercy tonight, I must have little respect for myself to be talking to you at all, you So-an’-so …
Interlude Six. THE KNEADING OF THE CLAY
1
I am the Trump of the Graveyard! Let my voice be heard! It must be heard … Here in the graveyard is the autocratic policeman that is darkness. His baton is the melancholy that will not be broken by the sweet smile of a maiden. His bolt is the bolt of insensibility that will not be loosened by the glitter of gold or the smooth words of authority. His eye is the shadow of misfortune across the path through the wood. His judgement is the harsh judgement that no sword of a knight at arms will thwart on the sod of death.
Above ground Brightness is dressed in his suit of valour. He wears a mantle of sunshine with buttons of roses, hem of sea song, seam of birdsong, tassels of butterfly wings and a belt of stars from the Milky Way. His shield is made of bridal veils. His sword of light is made of children’s toys. His reward of valour is the corn stem that is ripening at the ears, the cloud that is impregnated by the virgin morning sun, the fair maiden whose eyes are alight with love’s young dream …
But the sap is drying in the tree. The golden voice of the thrush is turning to copper. The rose is fading. The black rust that blunts, rots and decays is infesting the sword edge of the knight.
Darkness is overcoming brightness. The graveyard demands its due … I am the Trump of the Graveyard. Let my voice be heard! It must be heard …
2
— Who have I here? Máirtín Pockface, upon my word! It was time for you to come! I’m a long time here and I was the same age as you … Yes, I’m that same woman, Caitríona Pháidín …
Bedsores is what you had, you tell me …
— Caitríona, dear, the bed was very hard. Very hard indeed on my poor buttocks, Caitríona. My back was completely blistered. There wasn’t a shred of skin left on my thighs and I had an old injury in my groin. It was no wonder, Caitríona, dear, after being bedridden for nine months. I couldn’t twist or turn. My son used to come in, Caitríona, and turn me over on my other thigh. “I can’t give my body a proper stretch,” I’d say. “It’s a long time to be bedridden,” I’d say. “A long time laid up never lied,”1 he’d say. Caitríona, dear, the bed was awfully hard on my poor buttocks …
— Your buttocks were well able for it, Máirtín Pockface. You had some surplus there … If you had bedsores it’s all the better for getting used to the boards here … Bid Shorcha, you said. She’s still above ground. Rather her there than here. Not wishing to demean her, but she was an ugly sight above ground and I don’t think this place would improve her looks much either … You and Bid were vying with each other to see which of you would live longest, you say? Yes, indeed. Yes. That’s how it goes, Máirtín Pockface … And she buried you before her! Those things can’t be helped, Máirtín dear. Bad luck to her, but isn’t she long-lived! She should have died long ago, if she had any shame … That’s true, Máirtín, it’s a great wonder she didn’t get bedsores, she was so fond of the bed. She was sick every day of her life except on funeral days. All the other days she’d be hoarse with a cold. But there’d be nothing wrong with her voice on a funeral day. “Only for my being throaty,” she’d say after the funeral, “I’d be the one to keen him …” The brazen scold! Drawing pensions and half-crowns still, and heaping them into her son’s wife’s apron. As long as she keeps putting money in the apron her son’s wife won’t let a bedsore near her, I’m telling you! There’ll be butter rubbed on that one’s thighs and buttocks … She doesn’t keen anybody now, you say. The spouter! … Red-haired Tom is laid up. He’s another one … The hovel didn’t fall in on Tomás Inside yet, you say … Ababúna! Nell put in a table for him … and a dresser … and a bed. A bed, even! She wouldn’t put a bed in for anybody only for her ill-gotten money. Oh! A stupid judge … Afraid he’d get bedsores in the old bed. Afraid she wouldn’t get his land, Máirtín Pockface …
Big Brian, you say? That fellow will never die till a jar of paraffin is poured over him and a match put to him. That’s the truth, Máirtín Pockface. That ugly streak of misery won’t get bedsores … He’ll die all of a sudden. True for you. All of a sudden, indeed. May his heap of bones steer clear of us here! …
What’s that? … Another bad illness in Lower Hillside! That’s nothing new to them, not wishing to demean them. They’re going to be a great asset to this graveyard, indeed! They’ll fatten it and deafen it …
Our Baba is laid up in America! Had Dad! … What do you mean! Bedsores on that one, Máirtín Pockface! She has thighs twice as fat as yours. And she can afford to keep a soft bed under her, unlike you, Máirtín Pockface … Have an ounce of sense, my good man … You think because you felt your own old bed hard that every bed is hard … May God give you sense, there are soft beds in America for anybody with money … You didn’t hear if she wrote home? You didn’t hear if Nell was with the priest recently? … You may be sure she was, Máirtín. She’ll gobble up the will by hook or by crook … The priest is writing for her? Who else!
Of course, that schoolmaster who’s writing for our crowd is no use … He has no learning, Máirtín. True for you. Things are not too bad if he doesn’t tell the priest about it … The priest and the schoolmaster often go strolling together, you say … The new road up to Nell’s is nearly finished. Oh, wasn’t that little fool of a son of mine unfortunate when he let her have Flagstone Height! …
Nell is talking of building a slate-roofed house? A slate-roofed house! May she not live to enjoy her slate-roofed house, then, the cocky bitch! Unless she’s got some of the will already? That crowd in Wood of the Lake got a share before their brother died at all … But, of course, she had the money from the court. She’ll be buried in the Pound Plot now, for certain …
Jack is still ailing. The poor thing! Oh, didn’t Nell and that lanky lump of a daughter of Big Brian’s play a trick on him with the St. John’s Gospel! You didn’t hear about the St. John’s Gospel! Of course you didn’t! You don’t think they’d tell you about it! …
Pádraig’s wife up at cockcrow every morning! Good for her! … Lots of calves on Pádraig’s land, did you say? … The wife has taken everything over from Pádraig! She does the selling and buying herself now. Look at that now! And me thinking she’d be here any day! You wouldn’t know anything about a child, of course? … You had enough on your mind. Bedsores … Easily known you’re new here, to be talking like that, Máirtín Pockface. Don’t you know that everyone must have some cause of death, and bedsores are no worse than any other cause.
Ababúna! You heard that plans for my cross have been abandoned! … Is that what you heard? … Now, Máirtín Pockface, maybe that’s not what you heard, and you picked up the story wrong on account of your bedsores … You heard it was abandoned … That Nell was talking to Pádraig about the cross … You don’t know, for fear of telling a lie, what she said to him. Now, Máirtín Pockface, none of your “fear of telling a lie.” “Fear of telling a lie!” Nell would have no fear of telling a lie about you if it suited her … God blast yourself and your old bed! You won’t be seeing that bed any more. Tell the story straight out. You don’t know how the story went! You had bedsores! Listen here a moment now. Maybe Nell said something like this to my Pádraig: “Faith then, Pádraig dear, you have enough calls on you without a cross …” Oh, Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter said that! Pádraig’s wife said that! … “We’ll be well off in the world before we go buying crosses … many a person as good as her is without a cross … She should be thankful to be buried in a cemetery, even, the way things are nowadays.” She would say that! The Filthy-Feet Pullet! But she learned it all from Nell. May no corpse come into the graveyard ahead of her! … Pádraig won’t pay any heed to them …