— … By the oak of this coffin, Muraed, I gave Caitríona the pound …
— … I drank two score pints and two …
— I remember it well, Glutton. I twisted my ankle that day …
— … You stuck the knife into me between the lower and upper ribs. Through the edge of my liver it went. Then you gave it a twist. The foul blow was always the mark of the One-Ear Breed …
— … Permission to speak! Let me speak …
— Are you ready for the hour’s reading now, Nóra Sheáinín? We’ll make a start on a new novelette today. We finished Two Men and a Powder-puff the other day, did we not? The title of this one is The Red-Hot Kiss. Listen now, Nóra Sheáinín: “Nuala was an innocent girl until she met Charlie Price in the nightclub …” I know. There’s no peace or seclusion or opportunity for culture here … and as you say, Nóra, paltry trivialities is all they ever talk about … cards, horses, drink, violence … he has us demented with his little mare, day in day out … You are perfectly right, Nóra dear … There’s no opportunity here for one who wants to cultivate the intellect. That is the absolute truth, Nóra. This place is as bad-mannered, as dull-witted, as barbarous as the Wastelands of the Half-Guinea Plot down there. We’re truly in the Dark Ages since the sansculottes who accumulated piles of money “on the dole” began to be buried in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot … This is how I would divide up this graveyard now, Nóra, if I had my own way: university people in the Pound Plot, and then … Isn’t that so, Nóra? It’s a crying shame indeed that some of my own pupils are lying up here beside me … It depresses me how ill-informed they are, when I think of the diligence I wasted on them … And they can be quite disrespectful at times … I don’t know what’s coming over the young generation at all … You’re right, Nóra … Lack of cultural opportunities, I suppose …
“Nuala was an innocent girl until she met Charlie Price in the nightclub.” A nightclub, Nóra? … You were never in a nightclub? Well, a nightclub is not unlike this place … Ah no, Nóra. The places frequented by the sea-going fraternity are not the same as nightclubs. “Dives” is what those places are, Nóra, but cultivated people go to nightclubs … You would like to pay a visit to one of them, Nóra? … It would be no bad thing, to give your education the final touch, a bit of polish, a cachet … I was in a nightclub in London myself that time the teachers got a pay rise, before the two cuts. I saw an African prince there. He was as black as a berry, and drinking champagne … You’d love to go to a nightclub, Nóra? Aren’t you the shameless one … Naughty girl, Nóra … Naughty …
— You brazen hussy! Seáinín Robin’s daughter from Mangy Field! What was that place she said she wanted to visit, Master? … May she not live to enjoy it! Take care that you pay no heed to her, Master dear. If you knew her as well as I do you’d sing dumb to her. I’ve spent the last sixteen years bickering with her daughter and herself. You’re poorly employed, Master, squandering your time on Nóirín Filthy-Feet. She never had a single day’s schooling, Master, and she’d be more familiar with the track of a flea than her ABC …
— Who is this? Who are you …? Caitríona Pháidín! Is it possible you’re here, Caitríona! … Well, no matter how long it takes, this is the last shelter for all of us in the end … You are welcome, Caitríona, you are welcome … I’m afraid, Caitríona, you are … what shall I say … a little too hard on Nóra Filthy … on Nóra Sheáinín. Her mind has much improved since the time you used to be … what was the expression you used, Caitríona? … Yes … bickering with her … It is difficult for us here to keep track of time, but if I understand you rightly, she has been here for three years now, under the beneficial influence of culture … But tell me this, Caitríona … Do you remember the letter I wrote for you to your sister Baba in America? … That was the last letter I ever wrote … I was struck down by my fatal illness the following day … Is that will under discussion still?
— It’s many a letter came from Baba since you were writing for me, Master. But she never confirmed or denied anything about the money. We got her reply to that letter you spoke of, Master. That was the last time she mentioned a wilclass="underline" “I did not make my will yet,” she said. “I hope I will not suffer a sudden or accidental death as you were imagining in your letter. Do not worry. I will make my will in due course, when I consider it necessary.” When that letter came I said to myself, “It must have been a schoolmaster wrote that for her. Our people never had that sort of talk.”
It’s the Small Master — your own successor — who writes for us now, Master, but I’m afraid the priest writes for Nell. That hag can get round him with her chickens and her knitted stockings and her backhanders … She’s the one who’s good at that, Master. I thought I’d last another few years and bury the bitch before me! …
Anyway, you did your best for me about the will, Master. You had a hand for the pen, Master. I often saw you writing a letter, and I used to think that your pen was able to blacken paper with words as fast as I could put stitches on a stocking … “May the Lord have mercy on the poor Big Master,” I used to say. “He was so obliging. If God had granted him more time he would have got the money for me …”
I think the Schoolmistress — your wife I mean, Master — will soon be setting up house again. And why wouldn’t she? A strong active young woman still, God bless her … I beg your pardon, Master! Don’t heed anything I say. I’m always rattling on like that, but sure a person can’t help that … Master dear, I shouldn’t have told you at all. You’ll be worrying about her. I thought it would warm the cockles of your heart to hear the Schoolmistress was getting married again …
Now Master, you’ll have to forgive me … I’m not a gossip … Don’t ask me to name the man, Master. Ah now, Master dear, don’t ask me that! … If I’d known it would upset you so much I wouldn’t have mentioned it at all …
So she swore and she promised that if you died she’d never marry another man! Ah! Master dear! … Did you never hear: after the vows the women are easiest … You weren’t even cold, Master, when she had her eye cocked at another man. I think, between ourselves, she was always a bit flighty …
The Small Master? … Indeed it’s not … The Wood of the Lake Master? … That’s a decent man, Master. Never touches a drop. Himself and the Parish priest’s sister are to be married soon — that dark miserable little slip who wears trousers. They say he’ll get the new school then …
Indeed it’s not the Red-haired Policeman either. They say he has a fine stump of a nurse on a string in Brightcity … it’s not the seed potato man17 either … Guess away now, Master. I’ll tell you if you guess right … Padeen’s gone to England, Master. The lorry was taken off him and sold. There wasn’t a road he travelled buying turf that he didn’t leave a string of debts after him. Guess again, Master … The very man himself, Master, Billyboy the Post! You did well to guess him. You have a great head on you, Master, whatever anybody says …
Look out for yourself with Nóra Sheáinín. I could tell you things, Master … Oh! Put that bit of news out of your mind, Master, and don’t let it bother you in the least … I’m inclined to agree with you, Master. It was more than letters brought Billyboy round the house … Ah! Master, she was always a little bit flighty, your wife was …
5
— … They were sent over as plenipotentiaries to arrange a peace treaty between England and Ireland …
— I tell you that’s a damned lie. They were only sent as delegates, and they exceeded their authority. They committed treachery and the country bears the marks of it …