— That you made it up again then, and that every time his ship reached Brightcity he wouldn’t take his finger off his nose till he came as far as you …
— De grâce, Dotie. “Finger off his nose.” Very uncultured …
— But that’s exactly the way you put it yourself, Nóróg. And you said he used to write to you from San Francisco, Honolulu, Batavia, Singapore, Port Said and Marseilles. And that you were down in the dumps for a long time when you got no letter from him, till a sailor told you he was laid low after being stabbed with a knife in a bistro in Marseilles …
— Ugh! Ugh! Dotie. You know how sensitive I am. It would upset me greatly if anybody should hear that story. Honest, it would, Dotie. You are my friend, Dotie. What you said a while ago would give me a terrible reputation. That he would draw a knife! That I would do something so uncultured as taking a pot-hook to somebody! Ugh!
— That’s what you told me a good while ago, Nóróg, but you didn’t have as much culture then as you have now …
— Hum, Dotie. It would take a rustic like Caitríona Pháidín to do a thing like that. You heard Muraed Phroinsiais say it was boiling water she took to Big Brian. She must be a right harridan. Honest! …
— It’s a terrible shame he didn’t bury the knife to the hilt in you, you sailors’ leavings. Where was it you said he sat down beside you? Oh, Lord God, the unfortunate man had no mind to do what was good for him. Easily known he’d be stabbed in the end if he sat down with the Filthy-Feet Breed. He had a fine present parting from you, indeed: a cargo of nits …
— Let on you don’t hear her at all, Nóróg …
— … Now, Red-haired Tom, for God’s sake listen to me. I’m yelling at you for the past hour and you’re paying no more heed to me than if I were frogspawn. Why don’t you have confidence in me? Weren’t we the closest of acquaintances above ground? …
— The closest of acquaintances, Master. The closest …
— Tell me this, Red-haired Tom. Is Billyboy the Post unwell? …
— Billyboy the Post? Billyboy the Post, now. Billyboy the Post. Billyboy the Post, indeed. Faith, there is such a man, Master. Billyboy the Post definitely exists …
— Arrah, may the devils and the demons and the thirty-seven million devils that were present at Alexander Borgia’s death-bed take Billyboy the Post to hell with them! Don’t I know he exists! Do you think, Red-haired Tom, I don’t know Billyboy the Post exists. Is he unwell, the blubber-lipped little lout? …
— Some people say he is, Master. Some people say he’s not. Many a thing is said without a grain of truth in it. But he could be unwell. He could, faith. He could, surely. It’s a wise man …
— I humbly ask you, Red-haired Tom, to tell me if Billyboy the Post is unwell …
— Oh! He could be, Master. He could be, indeed. He could be, Master. He could, surely. Musha, devil do I know …
— I implore you, in the name of the age-old custom of neighbourly gossip, to tell me if Billyboy the Post is unwell … Good man, Red-haired Tom … I’ll love you forever, Red-haired Tom … You’re my golden apple, Red-haired Tom, but tell me is Billyboy the Post unwell, or is he likely to die soon?
— It’s a wise man …
— I implore you, Red-haired Tom, as a man who was espoused to a woman — as I was myself — to tell me if Billyboy the Post is unwell …
— He could be …
— My earthly store, white of my eye, my life’s help, Red-haired Tom! … Do you believe in private property at all? … In the name of everybody’s duty to sustain the natural foundation of marriage, I implore you, Red-haired Tom, to tell me if Billyboy the Post is unwell …
— If I told anything, Master, I’d tell it to yourself as soon as to anyone else, but I won’t tell anything. One should keep one’s mouth shut in a place like this, Master. It’s not a place to be indiscreet. Graves have holes …
— My seven cries of curses on you, tonight and tomorrow and a year from tomorrow, you Communist, you Fascist, you Nazi, you heretic, you red-haired Antichrist, you right mouthful of vulgar-blood, you putrid dregs of rustic table attendants, you remnant of disease, you leavings of fly, maggot and earthworm, you lifeless wretch who frightened death himself till he had to put a bad sickness on you, you worthless creature, you useless boor, you red ruffian …
— De grâce, Master. Control yourself. Remember you’re a cultured Christian gentleman. If you keep on like this you’ll soon be able to keep up a sparring match with that hooligan, Caitríona Pháidín …
— Master, Master, answer her. You have the education, Master. Answer her. Answer Nóirín …
— Let on you don’t hear the So-an’-so at all, Master …
— So-an’-so! So-an’-so! Nóirín Sheáinín calling me a So-an’-so! I’ll explode! I’ll …
5
— … A bad bottle, then. A bad bottle. A bad bottle …
— … Another time I saw the two of them on the roof of the house: Pádraig Chaitríona and Peadar Nell …
— Do you think I don’t know? …
— … Indeed, Bríd Terry, if it cost me my life’s blood, I’d be at your funeral. I owed it to come to Bríd’s …
— Sweet-talking Stiofán blabbering again, or is that him at all? Our Lady knows I have difficulty in hearing any news story here. That earthworm, God blast it! Nowhere would suit it but to go into my earhole! Straight over from Muraed Phroinsiais’s grave it came. That grave is riddled with earthworms. Muraed was used to that, of course. She had a filthy abode above ground too. Dirt on the floors piled high as a ship’s mast, and a coating of filth on every bit of furniture under her roof. No wonder she’s in her element in the clay now. Not to mention herself. You could grow potatoes in her ears, and she never cleaned her shoes going to Mass. You’d recognize the daubs of yellow soil from the swallow hole outside her house, that she left in her trail all the way up the chapel. And she wouldn’t rest till she’d cock herself up beside the altar in front of Siúán the Shop and Nell — the little bitch. If Muraed had married Big Brian the pair of them would have been well matched. He never washed himself either, unless the midwife washed him. They say cleanliness is a virtue, but I wonder. Filthy people thrive too. I kept a clean house every day of my life. There wasn’t a Saturday night in the year that I didn’t wash and scrub everything within the four walls of the house. Even when I wasn’t able to stand up I’d still do it. And all I gained by it was to shorten my life.
What’s this? What sort of commotion is this? Blocked and all as my ears are, they can hear that much at least … Another corpse. The epidemic … The coffin is only an old hen-box. That’s all it is. They’d throw any old tinker down on top of me now …
Who are you? … On the devil’s tracks to hell with you and speak up! My ears are stuffed … They said to bury you in this grave beside your mother? I don’t recognize your voice, then. But you’re a woman. A young woman … You were only twenty-two. I’m afraid you must have gone astray on the “sod of bewilderment.”8 If you could turn your shroud inside out, maybe you’d find your way. My daughters are dead this long while … Why don’t you speak up and tell me who you are! … Do I need any spiritual assistance? What sort of spiritual assistance are you talking about? … What’s spiritual assistance? …
Big Colm’s daughter? Big Brian is your uncle! It’s very unwise of you to try and gate-crash your way into the same grave as me. I have too many of your ilk all around me here as I am. I’m not even distantly related to you. Go down to your mother down there. I heard her whining a short time ago. It was coming home from her funeral that I first caught what killed me. A desperate downpour of a day it was …