— By Cripes, as you say, that’s how it goes. Foolish lads. I heard my old woman at home was delighted with Nancy — I think Nancy is her name — but if I were alive I’d say to him: “Look out for yourself, now. What’s that little girl able for in a country household? Do you think she could spread a bank of turf or carry a creel of seaweed? …”
— Isn’t that exactly what I wrote to my son in England! “Wasn’t it the fine heifer you married,” said I. “If you ever come home, what good-looking specimens you’ll have on a halter coming into the country: a blackeen, and a clutch of young blackeens running round the village. Your reputation will go all over Ireland. People would come from near and far to look at them. Don’t you know she won’t be able to forage on land or on strand. Devil a bit of seaweed or turf was ever seen where that one came from …”
— There’s no accounting for foolishness, as you say. There was no getting our fellow to listen to advice. He was always … what’s this Nóra Sheáinín called it? …
— A coxcomb? … A bowsie? … A blackguard?
— Faith then, he was not. He wasn’t a blackguard, anyhow. I brought him up a well-mannered, honest lad, even if I say so myself. Why can’t I think of how Nóra Sheáinín put it? …
— Adonis! …
— Faith then, as you say, that’s the way. Nancy brought him off to Brightcity and he put a wedding ring on her finger. It warmed the cockles of my old woman’s heart …
— And my old woman was overjoyed too! She thought a negress was some sort of a grand lady until I told her she had the same colour skin as the Earl’s butler. When she heard that, the priest had to be sent for …
— That’s how it goes, as you say. The priest was trying to get Nancy to marry the Wood of the Lake schoolmaster, but faith then, she told him out straight, without putting a tooth in it, that she wouldn’t marry him. “That miserable nonentity is already married to the school,” she said, “and what would he want to marry me for, then? I don’t like the Wood of the Lake schoolmaster,” she said. “Sure, there’s no pep in him! He’s an impotent old thing …”
— My son was an impotent thing, in any case. Wasn’t he hard up to go and marry a black in London, where there’s as many people as there is in the whole of Ireland … I heard she has hair as curly as an otter …
— Foolishness, as you say. “I won’t marry that impotent thing from Wood of the Lake,” said Nancy. “Road-End’s son has a motorbike. He’s a fowler, an angler, a fiddler, and a top-class dancer. He’s an eyeful when he dresses up. He offered to shoot Lord Cockton if he saw him in my company again. His house is as bright as a villa — a villa she said, on my soul! — it’s so well furnished and ornamental. It clears the clothes-moths out of my heart to go in there …”
— It’s easy for you to boast about your ornamental house, Road-End Man. Ornamental …
— Thanks to my drift-weed …
— … Honest, Dotie. Every word of what I told you was the truth. Caitríona Pháidín never paid for anything: the roundtable, or Cite’s pound …
— You’re a damned liar …
— And her son is like that too, Dotie. Her coffin is still to be paid for in Tadhg’s, and the drink for her wake and funeral in Siúán the Shop’s …
— You’re a damned liar, Nóirín …
— Doesn’t her son get demands for them every second day. Honest. That’s why Peadar the Pub and Siúán the Shop are so annoyed with her here.
— Ababúna, Nóirín, Nóirín …
— Not the least little bit of her burial expenses has been paid, Dotie, except that my son from Mangy Field paid for the tobacco and snuff …
— Oh! Nóirín, you guiding light of mariners! Don’t believe her, Jack the Scológ …
— God would punish us …
— Nell paid for her grave here too, out of pure shame …
— Oh! The pussface, she did not, she did not. Don’t believe Rotten Thighs from Mangy Field! Don’t believe her, Jack! I’ll explode! I’ll explode! I’ll explode! …
5
— … It was I laid you all out, my dear neighbours …
— You were great, Little Cáit, to give you your due …
— I never accepted a pound, shilling or penny from anyone. The Earl sent for me the time his mother died. When I had finished with her, “How much will you charge?” he said. “You’ll get whatever you ask for …”
— You’d be sent to prison for the rest of your life, Little Cáit, if you had as much as tried to lay a finger on her, or even go near the room she was laid out in …
— It was I laid out Peadar the Pub …
— It was not, Little Cáit, it was two nurses from Brightcity, in uniforms and white caps. People said they were nuns …
— It was I laid out the Frenchman …
— If you had laid a hand on him, Little Cáit, you’d be sent to prison for contravening Ireland’s neutrality in time of war …
— It was I laid out Siúán the Shop …
— That’s a damned lie. My daughters wouldn’t allow you one nostril’s ration of air in the room I was laid out in. Why would they? For you to go pawing me! …
— Even the viewing of Siúán’s corpse was rationed, Cáit …
— The Big Master …
— Indeed it was not you, Little Cáit. I was working over there next to his house, in our own Roadside Field. Billyboy the Post called me:
“Your man is for the stray letters office,” he said. You and I, Little Cáit, were in through the door at the exact same moment. We went upstairs and said a blast of prayers with the Schoolmistress and Billyboy.
“The poor Master has expired,” said the Schoolmistress, with a lump in her throat. “Easily known. He was too good for this life.”
— Oh! The hussy! …
— You went over, Little Cáit, and stretched out your hand to put your thumbs on his eyelids. The Schoolmistress stopped you. “I’ll do all that’s to be done with the Big Master, the poor man,” she said.
— Oh! The cocky little bitch!
— Now, Master, remember that Máirtín Pockface saw you in the school …
— Faith then, there’s nothing better than the truth, Master …
—“Let you go down to the kitchen and rest yourself, Little Cáit,” she said. She told myself and Billyboy to go for food and drink and tobacco. “Don’t spare anything,” she said to Billyboy. “I don’t begrudge it to the Big Master, the poor man …”
— With my own money! Oh!
— When we came back you were still in the kitchen, Little Cáit. Billyboy went up to the Schoolmistress who was snivelling upstairs …
— Oh! The beggar! The frisky little lout!
— When he came down you spoke to him, Little Cáit. “That poor creature up there must be exhausted,” you said. “I’ll go up and help her wash him.” “Rest yourself there, Little Cáit,” said Billyboy. “The Schoolmistress is so grief-stricken for the Big Master that she’s better off on her own for a while,” he said. He grabbed a razor out of a press and I held the strop for him to sharpen it.
— My own razor and strop! They were kept in the top of the press. How well he knew where to find them, the thief …
— You were darting around the kitchen, Little Cáit, like a dog with fleas …
— As busy as Nóra Sheáinín when she’d come over to Caitríona’s …
— Shut your mouth, you little brat …
—“I must go upstairs and keep him propped up on his side while you’re shaving his cheeks,” you said. “The Schoolmistress will do that,” said Billyboy. “You can rest yourself there, Little Cáit …”