— That’s a lie! You were a criminal, fighting against the legitimate Government …
— … I swear by the oak of this coffin, Margaret, I swear I gave her, I gave Caitriona the pound …
— … I drank forty-two pints …
— I remember it well, you scumbag. I bollixed my ankle that day …
— … You stuck the knife in me, straight between my gut and the top of my ribs. Through the skin of my kidneys. Then you twisted it. The foul stroke always by the Dog Eared crowd …
— … Let me speak. Free speech …
— Are you ready now for an hour’s reading, Nora Johnny? We’ll start a new novelette today. We finished “Two Men and the Powder Puff” the other day, don’t you remember? This one is called “The Berry Kiss.” Listen carefully now:
“Nuala was an innocent young girl until she met Charles ap Rice in the nightclub …” Yes, I know. There isn’t any chance to get away here, or to talk about culture … and just as you say, Nora, they are always talking about small stupid insignificant stuff here … cards, horses, booze, violence … we are totally pissed off about his racing mare every bloody day … that’s the whole truth, undoubtedly, Nora … Nobody has a snowball’s chance in hell of developing their intellect here … Right on, that’s the complete truth … this place is as bad-mannered, as thicko, as barbaric as whatever happens over in the dregs of the Half Guinea place … we are really back in the dark ages since the sansculottes started scrimping money together from the dole to be put in the Fifteen Shilling Place … I’ll tell you how I would divide this place up, if I had my way: those who went to university in the Pound Place, those who … No, no, that’s not it Nora! Yes, it’s a crying shame that some of my own past pupils are lying next to me here … It really depresses me to learn how ignorant they still are, after all I burst my guts for them … and sometimes they are pig ignorant rude with me … I just don’t know what’s happening to the young crowd … that’s it, Nora … no chance whatsoever of culture …
“Nuala was an innocent young girl until she met Charles ap Rice in the nightclub …” A nightclub, Nora? … You were never in a nightclub? … Well, a nightclub isn’t that different from this place … Ah, no, Nora, ah no. Nightclubs aren’t the same places as sailors hang out. They are “dives” really, but cultured people go to the nightclubs … You’d like to go to one of them … Not a bad idea really to put the finishing touch, the last notch, to bring a proper cachet to your education … I was in a nightclub once, just that time when they had raised teachers’ salaries, just before they reduced them again, twice. I saw an African prince there … He was as black as the sloe and was drinking champagne … You’d love to go to a nightclub, Nora! Aren’t you the brazen hussy … oh, the “naughty girl” … Oh Nora, so “naughty …”
— You thieving bollocks! Johnny the Robin’s daughter out from Gort Ribbuck! Where did she say she wanted to go, Master …? Her tricks will get her yet! Don’t take a gnat fart’s notice of her, I’m telling you. If you knew her like I do you’d keep your trap firmly shut. I’ve been dealing with herself and her daughter for the last sixteen years. You shouldn’t bother your arse wasting your time with Toejam Nora. She was hardly a day at school, and she wouldn’t know the difference between the ABC and a plague of fleas in her armpit …
— Who’s this? Who are you …? Caitriona Paudeen. I don’t believe you’re here at last … Well, however long it takes, this is where you end up … Welcome anyway, Caitriona, you’re welcome … I’m afraid, Caitriona, that you are … How will I put it … You are a bit hard on Toejam No— … Nora Johnny … She has come on a bomb since you used to be … What’s that the way you put it … That’s it … dealing with her … We find it hard to measure time, but if I get you correctly, she’s three years here already under the positive influence of culture … But listen here Caitriona … Do you remember the letter I wrote for you to your sister Baba in America … ’Twas the last one I wrote … The day after that, my last sickness hit me … Is that will still in dispute …?
— I got many letters from Baba since you were writing them for me, Master. But she never said either “yea” or “nay” about the money. Yes, we got an answer from her about that letter, alright. That was the last time she mentioned the wilclass="underline" “I haven’t completed my will yet,” she said. “I hope I do not pass away suddenly or by happenstance, as you have suggested in your letter. Do not be concerned in this matter. I’ll execute my will in due course, when I know what is required of me.” I know what I told her when I caught up with her. “I’m sure the schoolmaster wrote that for you. No one of us ever spoke like that.”
The Young Master — he succeeded you — he writes the letters for us now. But I’m afraid that the priest writes for Nell. That hag can pull the wool over his eyes with her chickens and knitted socks and her twisted tricks. She is a dab hand it, Master. I thought I’d live another few years yet and see her buried, the maggot …!
You did your best for me anyway, Master, about the will. You could handle the pen. I often saw you writing a letter, and do you know what I thought? I thought that you could knit words together just as well as I could put a stitch in a stocking … “May God have mercy on the Old Master,” I’d say to myself. “He would always do you a good turn. If God allowed him to live, he’d have got the money for me …”
I’d say it won’t be long now until the Mistress — that is to say, your good wife, Master — it won’t be long until she gets her act together. No doubt about it. She’s a fine good-looking young thing yet … Oh, I’m very sorry Master! Don’t take a bit of notice of anything I say. I’m often romancing like that to myself, but sure, no one can help who they are themselves … I know, Master, I shouldn’t have told you at all. You’ll be worried about it. And I thought you’d be absolutely thrilled to hear that the Mistress was getting her act together …
Ah, come on, don’t blame me, Master … I’m not a gossip … I can’t tell you who the man is … Ah, please, Master, don’t push me … If I thought it would really make you so cranky I wouldn’t have said as much as a word …
She swore blind that she wouldn’t marry another man, did she, Master? Oh, come on! … Did you never hear it said that married women are the best … You were hardly cold in your grave when she had cocked her eye at another guy. I think, honestly, that she was always a bit flighty …
The Young Master … Ah, no, not him, never, Master … The teacher in Derry Lough. He’s a good guy. Doesn’t touch a drop. Himself and the priest’s sister — that dark fancy slip of a thing with the pants — they are to get married soon. They say he’ll get the new school there …
Ah, no, certainly not the Foxy Policeman either. He has a lump of a nurse hanging out of him in the Fancy City, or so they say … nor the spuds guy … Go on, have another guess, Master. I’ll give you as many as you want … Paddy is gone to England. They took the lorry from him, and sold it. He never went up a road for turf without letting a string of debts behind him. Guess again, Master … That’s him, dead on, exactly, Billy the Postman. Well done getting it like that, just as a pure guess. Never mind what anyone else says, Master, I think you have a great head on your shoulders …
Careful now with Nora Johnny. I could tell you things, Master …
Ah, forget about that now, get over it Master, and don’t let it bother you … Maybe you are dead right … It wasn’t just letters that had him coming to the house … Ah, come off it, Master … She was always a bit flighty, your wife …