Blotchy Brian, what about him? He’ll never pop off until they smear him with oil and put a match to him … That’s God’s honest truth, Poxy Martin. That ugly old wagon will never have bedsores … They’ll pop off together. That’s true, pop off together. I hope their old bones rot together! …
What’s that? … They’re all throwing-their-guts-up sick again in Letter Ektur! They were always like that, I’m not blaming them! They’ll be a great help to this place, anyway. They’ll add to it, and addle it …
Our own Baba is down sick in America! By the hokey! … Ah, come on like! You think she has bedsores too, Poxy! She has an arse twice as big as yours ever was. And she could keep a nice soft bed under it, unlike you, Poxy Martin … Have a bit of sense, you stupid prick … You think just because your own bed was hard that every other bed is hard too … God help you, there are plenty of soft beds in America, especially if you have money! … You never heard whether or not she wrote home, did you? You didn’t hear anything about Nell trotting up to the priest recently? … No doubt about it, Poxy. She’ll guzzle up the will, that’s the way she’s made … The priest is doing the writing for her? What next? …
That schoolmaster is no good writing for the likes of us … He hasn’t a clue about anything, Martin! You’re right about that. Everything is all right as long as he doesn’t go squawking to the priest … The priest and the master are often seen out strolling together, you say … The new road to Nell’s house is nearly finished. Why did that eejit of a son of mine have the misfortune to give her Lack Ard! …
Nell is talking about building a house with a slate roof! With a slate roof! I hope she never lives to see her house with a slate roof, the piece of poop! Maybe she’s got some of the will already? That crowd in Derry Lough got a slice of it, before their brother died at all … And of course, she had the money from the court case. They’ll certainly bury her in the Pound Plot now …
Jack is still ailing. The poor man! Nell and Blotchy Brian’s young one, that long string of misery, they fixed him up with St. John’s Gospel! … You never heard about St. John’s Gospel! … You heard something, you must have! Do you think they’d tell you anything about it! …
Patrick’s wife is up at the crack of dawn every morning! God bless her! … There are lots of calves on Patrick’s land, is that it? … Wife has taken over all the business from Patrick! … She does the buying and selling now! Would you believe it! And there I was thinking she’d be here any day soon! … But, of course, you never know with a young one, do you? … There was something crippling you. Bedsores … You’d easily know, Poxy Martin, that you’re very new in this place when you’re talking like that. Don’t you know that you must die from something, and bedsores are as good as anything else …
Ababoona! You heard that they’ve given up on the cross! You heard that! … Now, come on, Poxy Martin, maybe that wasn’t what you heard at all, but that you got the wrong end of the stick completely because of all those bedsores you had … You heard they’re not going ahead with it … That Nell was talking to Patrick about the cross … You don’t know, you don’t want to tell a lie, you don’t know what she said. Come off it, Poxy Martin, forget about that “don’t want to tell a lie” stuff.
“Don’t want to tell a lie”! Nell wouldn’t be afraid to tell plenty of lies about you, if it suited her … And you wishing her luck like fuck! You’re finished with the bed now, anyway. Spit out your story … You didn’t know how bad it would be! You had bedsores! Listen now, just for a moment even. Maybe Nell said something like this to my Patrick: “Come here to me now, Paddy my dear, you have enough on your plate now not to be thinking of a cross …” Oh, it was Nora Johnny’s one said that! Patrick’s wife said that! … “We’ll certainly be on top of things when we can afford to buy a cross … There are plenty just as good as her with no cross at all … She’s damned lucky to be buried in a graveyard at all, and the way things are.” She’d say that, alright. The sly slit of the Toejam tipple! But it was Nell taught her. I hope not another corpse comes to the graveyard before her! … Patrick won’t take a blind bit of notice of them …
Patrick’s daughter is back at home … Maureen is back home! Are you sure she’s not just taking a break from school? … She failed her exams. She failed! … She’s not going to be a schoolteacher after all … Shag her anyway! Shag her! …
Nora Johnny’s grandson from Gort Ribbuck has gone … On a boat from the Fancy City … He got a job on the ship … Just like his grandmother, he really likes his sailors …
Say that again … Say that again … Nell’s grandson is going for the priesthood. Blotchy Brian’s daughter’s youngfella is going to be a priest! A priest! That little feckless fart face going to be a priest! … He’s already gone to the seminary … He was wearing the priest’s garb at home … And the collar … And lugging a huge big prayer book around under his oxter … Reading his office up and down the new road at Lack Ard! You’d think that he’d never make a priest overnight, just like that … Oh, he’s not a priest yet, he’s just going to the college. Aha, Poxy Martin, they’ll never make a priest out of him ever …
What then, what did Blotchy Brian say? … Don’t be chewing and chomping, just spit it out … You’re afraid to, is that it? You’re afraid to! … Because Blotchy Brian is related to me by marriage. It’s to that wench of a sister he’s related. Spit it out … “My daughter has money to burn to make a priest.” Money to burn on a priest. The wrinkly old wretch! … Spit it out, or go to hell! Hurry up or they’ll have whipped you off too. You don’t think that I’d let you down into this grave and you riddled with bedsores for months … “Caitriona Paudeeen’s boy couldn’t even do that much …” Spit out the rest of it, you old gimp … “He didn’t have enough to put as much as a stitch of a college petticoat on his daughter.” Blotchy bastard Brian! The bumming bastard! …
Screw you! You’re muttering again … Nell is singing “Eleanor Aroon” up and down the road every day! Get stuffed, you mangy rash-arsed mong. You never had a good word to say, nor anybody belonging to you …
3.
— … Do you think this is “The War of the Two Foreigners”? …
— … There I was giving a word for every pint to the Great Scholar, and he was giving me a pint for every word …
Over and back again the next day. The third day he had the car under his arse. The journey over and back was flaying us out.
“Paul, darling,” my mother says to me that evening, “there should be a good bit of drying on the grass from now on.”