— And you won’t. Life’s the same here, Caitríona, as it was in the “ould country,” except that all we see is the grave we’re in and we can’t leave the coffin. You won’t hear the living either, or know what’s happening to them, apart from what the newly buried dead will tell you. But we’re neighbours once again, Caitríona. Are you long here? I didn’t hear you coming.
— I don’t know if it was on St. Patrick’s Day I died or the day after, Muraed. I was too worn out. And I don’t know how long I’m here either. Not very long anyway … You’re a good while buried yourself, Muraed … You’re right. Four years come Easter. Spreading a bit of manure for Pádraig in the Hollow Field I was, when a young girl of Tomáisín’s came down for me. “Muraed Phroinsiais is in the throes of death,” she says. And then, believe it or not, wasn’t Little Cáit already going in the door of the house by the time I got to the top of the haggard!8 You had just expired. It was I closed your eyelids with my own two thumbs. Myself and Little Cáit laid you out. And indeed, everyone said you looked lovely. No one had call to grumble. Everyone who saw you said you made a beautiful corpse. There wasn’t so much as a hair out of place on you. You were laid out as smoothly as if you’d been ironed onto the board …
… I didn’t linger long, Muraed. My kidneys had been failing for a long time. A blockage. I got a terrible pain there five or six weeks ago, and I caught a cold on top of that. The pain went into my belly and from there up into my chest. I only lasted about a week … I wasn’t that old at all, Muraed. I was only seventy-one. But my life was nothing but hardship. It was, God knows, and the signs are on me. When it hit me it hit me hard. There was no fight left in me …
You can say that indeed, Muraed. That hussy from Mangy Field didn’t help matters at all. What possessed my Pádraig to marry her in the first place? … God bless your innocence, Muraed dear, you don’t know the half of it, for not a word of it ever passed my lips. It’s three long months now since she as much as lifted a finger … Another child. She only just pulled through. She’ll never survive the next one, I’d say … There was a clutch of children, and not an ounce of sense between them, apart from Máirín, the eldest girl, and she was at school every day. I used to potter around as best I could myself, washing them and keeping them away from the fire and giving them a bite to eat … You’re right, Muraed. Pádraig will have no house left, now that I’m gone. Certainly that hussy isn’t fit to keep a house, a woman who spends every second day in bed … Now you’ve said it, my friend! Pádraig and the children are to be pitied …
I had indeed. I had everything left ready, Muraed, shroud, scapular mantle and all … Honestly, Muraed, there were eight candles over me in the chapel, and that’s the truth … I went into the best coffin in Tadhg’s. I’d say it cost every penny of fifteen pounds … But there are three plaques on this one, Muraed, not just two … And you’d think each one of them was the big mirror in the priest’s parlour …
Pádraig told me he’ll put a cross of Island limestone9 over me like the one over Peadar the Pub, and an inscription in Irish: “Caitríona Bean Sheáin Uí Loideáin …” Pádraig himself said that straight out, Muraed … I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking him, Muraed … And he said he’d put a railing round the grave like the one round Siúán the Shop, and that he’d plant flowers over me — damned if I can remember what they’re called — the sort the Schoolmistress had on her black outfit after the Big Master died. “It’s the least we could do for you,” said Pádraig, “after all the hardship you endured for us …”
But tell me this, Muraed, what part of the graveyard is this? … Upon my soul you’re right, it’s the Fifteen-Shilling Plot … Now, Muraed, you know in your heart I wouldn’t expect to be buried in the Pound Plot. If they did bury me there I could do nothing about it, but as for asking them to …
Nell, is it? … By Dad, I nearly buried her before me. If only I’d lived just a little longer I’d have done it … Her son Peadar’s accident set her back a lot … A lorry knocked him down, back at the Strand, a year or a year and a half ago, and made pulp of his hip. They didn’t know for a week in the hospital whether he was coming or going …
Oh! You’ve heard about that already, Muraed … Faith then, he spent six months on the flat of his back … The devil a tap of work he did since he came home, just going about on two crutches. Everybody thought it was all up with him …
The children are no help to him, Muraed, apart from the eldest scamp, who’s a blackguard … Why wouldn’t he be! Taking after his grandfather, his namesake Big Brian, the ugly streak of misery. Not to mention his little granny Nell. Nell’s people haven’t made a spring sowing worth mentioning for the past two years … The injury is a hard blow for Big Brian’s Mag and for Nell. Serves the pussface right! We had three times the potato crop she had this year.
Oh! God bless your innocence, Muraed, wasn’t the road as long and as wide for him as it was for everyone else, to keep out of the lorry’s way … Nell’s son lost the case, Muraed. “I won’t give you a red cent” said the Justice … He took the lorry driver to the Sessions since, but the judge wouldn’t let Nell’s son as much as open his mouth. He’s to take the lorry driver to a High Court in Dublin soon, for all the good that will do him. Mannion the Counsellor told me personally that Nell’s people wouldn’t get a brass farthing. “For what?” says he. “On the wrong side of the road!” … It’s true for you, Muraed. The law will take the last penny off Nell. Serves her right! She won’t be going past our house so often from now on singing “Eleanor of the Secrets”10 …
Poor Jack isn’t keeping at all well, Muraed. Of course, the devil a bit of caring Nell ever gave him, or Big Brian’s daughter either, since she moved in there … Isn’t Nell my very own sister, Muraed, and why wouldn’t I know? She never took the slightest bit of care of poor Jack. She was all for herself. She cared for nobody else in the whole wide world … I’m telling you, Muraed, and I’m telling you the truth, Jack had a hard life at the hands of that little bitch … Tomás Inside, Muraed? The same as ever you saw him … He’s still in his little hovel. But it will fall in on top of him any day now … Well, indeed, didn’t my Pádraig offer to go up and put a layer of thatch on it for him. “Now, Pádraig,” says I, “don’t demean yourself by going thatching for Tomás Inside. Let Nell thatch his house for him if she wants to. If she goes thatching for him, then so will we …”
“But Nell doesn’t have a soul to help her since Peadar injured his leg,” says Pádraig.
“Everyone has enough to do to keep his own house thatched,” says I, “never mind that useless old Tomás Inside’s little hovel.”
“But the house will fall in on him,” says he.
“Then let it fall,” says I. “Nell has enough to do now without stuffing Tomás Inside’s big gob. Hold on now, Pádraig, my fine man!” says I. “Tomás Inside is like a rat in a sinking ship. It’s to our house he’ll have to run from his leaking roof …”
Nóra Sheáinín, did you say? That I would be pleased to get acquainted with her again here! Too well acquainted I am with that one, and with every one of her breed … She’s listening to the schoolmaster every day? To the Big Master, the poor man … The Big Master reading to Nóra Sheáinín! … To Nóra Sheáinín … Ababúna!11 … Isn’t it little respect he has for himself as a schoolmaster, reading to Nóra Sheáinín … Of course, there isn’t a word of learning in that one’s head. Where would she get it? A woman who never set foot in a schoolhouse unless she went there on polling day … Upon my soul it’s a strange world if a schoolmaster is having conversations with Nóra Sheáinín. What did you say, Muraed? … That he’s very fond of her, even? He doesn’t know what sort she is, Muraed … If he had her daughter in the same house with him for sixteen years as I had, then he’d know the sort she is. But I’ll tell him … about the sailor and everything …