Interlude One. THE BLACK CLAY
1
I wonder am I buried in the Pound Plot or the Fifteen-Shilling Plot? Or did the devil possess them to dump me in the Half-Guinea Plot, after all my warnings? The morning of the day I died I called Pádraig up from the kitchen: “I beseech you, Pádraig, my child,” I said. “Bury me in the Pound Plot. In the Pound Plot. Some of us are buried in the Half-Guinea Plot, but even so …”
I told them to get the best coffin in Tadhg’s. It’s a good oak coffin anyway … I have the scapular1 mantle2 on. And the winding-sheet. I had them left ready myself … There’s a spot on this sheet. It’s like a daub of soot. No it’s not. A fingermark! My son’s wife for certain. It’s like her sloppiness. If Nell saw it! I suppose she was there. She wouldn’t have been, by God, if I could have helped it …
Little Cáit made a botch of cutting out the shroud. I’ve always said not to give a drop of drink to herself or Bid Shorcha till the corpse was well away from the house. I warned Pádraig not to let them cut out the shroud if they had drink taken. But Little Cáit can’t be kept away from corpses. Her greatest delight every day of her life was to have a corpse anywhere in the two townlands. The crops could rot on the ridge once she got the whiff of a corpse …
The crucifix is on my breast, the one I bought at the mission … But where’s the black crucifix Tomáisín’s wife got blessed for me at Knock Shrine3 the last time Tomáisín had to be tied? I told them to put that one on me too. It’s much better looking than this one. The Saviour on this one is crooked since Pádraig’s children dropped it. The Saviour on the black one is gorgeous. But what’s the matter with me? I’m as forgetful as ever! There it is under my head. It’s a pity they didn’t put that one on my breast …
They should have knotted the rosary beads round my fingers better. Nell herself did that, for sure. She’d have been delighted if they’d fallen on the floor when they were putting me in the coffin. Oh Lord God, that one would keep well clear of me …
I hope they lit the eight candles over my coffin in the chapel. I had them left ready for them, in the corner of the chest under the rent papers. That’s something no corpse in that chapel ever had: eight candles. Curraoin only had four. Liam Thomáis the Tailor had six, but he has a daughter a nun in America.
Three half-barrels of porter I told them to get for my wake, and Éamonn of the Hill Field promised me personally that if there was any drop of the hard stuff4 to be had on the Mountain5 he’d bring it himself without waiting to be asked. It would all be needed, with so much altar-money.6 Fourteen or fifteen pounds at the very least. I sent someone, or a shilling, to many places I didn’t owe a funeral visit at all in the five or six years since I felt myself failing. I suppose all the Mountain crowd came. It would be a poor show if they didn’t. We went to theirs. That’s the best part of a pound for a start. And the Wood of the Lake crowd would follow the in-laws. That’s the best part of another pound. And the whole of Glen of the Pasture owed me a funeral … It wouldn’t surprise me if Sweet-talking Stiofán didn’t come. We were at every single funeral of his. But he’d say he didn’t hear about it till I was buried. And the song and dance he’d make of it then! “I assure you, Pádraig Ó Loideáin, if it cost me my life’s blood I’d have been at the funeral. I owed it to Caitríona Pháidín to come to her funeral even if it was on my two knees. But devil a word I heard about it till the night she was buried. A young lad …” A right blatherer, the same Sweet-talking Stiofán! …
I wonder was I keened7 well. No word of a lie but Bid Shorcha has a fine tearful wail, if she wasn’t too drunk. I’m sure Nell was sponging around there too. Nell crying and not a tear on her cheek, the pussface! That one wouldn’t dare come near the house while I was alive …
She’s happy now. I thought I’d live another few years and bury the bitch. She failed a lot since her son was injured. Even before that, she was going to the doctor fairly often. There’s very little wrong with her. Rheumatism. That won’t kill her for a long time. She takes good care of herself. Which I didn’t do, and it’s now I know it. I killed myself toiling and moiling … If only I’d seen to that pain before it became chronic. But once it hits you in the kidneys your goose is cooked.
I was two years older than Nell, anyway … Baba, then me, then Nell. A year last Michaelmas I got the pension. But I got it before my time. Baba is bordering on seventy-three. She’s close to death now, for all her efforts. Our people weren’t long-lived. When she gets word of my death she’ll know she hasn’t long left herself, and she’ll make her will for certain … She’ll leave every single penny she has to Nell. The pussface got the better of me after all. She has milked Baba well. But if I’d lived till Baba had made her will I’d say she’d have given me half the money in spite of Nell. Baba is fickle-minded. I was the one she wrote to most, these last three years since she moved out from Big Brian’s people in Norwood and went to Boston. It’s a great relief that she parted company with that nest of vipers at any rate …
But she never forgave Pádraig for marrying that scold from Mangy Field and turning his back on Big Brian’s daughter Mag. She wouldn’t have gone next or near Nell’s house, that time she was home from America, if Nell’s son hadn’t married Big Brian’s Mag. Why would she! … A little hovel of a house. And a filthy little hovel at that. Not a house fit for a Yank at any rate. I don’t know how she put up with it at all, after our house and those grand American houses. But she didn’t stay there long before taking off over again …
She won’t come to Ireland again in her lifetime. She’s done with that now. But who knows, she might get itchy feet again when this war is over, if she’s still among the living. As for Nell, she’d charm the honey from a hive, she’s so sly and cunning. Blast Baba for an old hag! Even though she parted from Big Brian’s family in Norwood, she still has a great regard for his daughter Mag … Wasn’t my Pádraig the silly little fool not to take her advice and marry the ugly wretch’s daughter. “It’s no use going on at me,” said the little fool. “I wouldn’t marry Big Brian’s Mag if she was the last woman in Ireland.” Baba went off up to Nell’s as if she’d got a slap in the face, and she never came near our house again, except to step in for a moment the day she was going back to America.
— … Hitler is my darling. He’s the man for them …
— If England is beaten this country will be in bad shape. We’ve already lost the market …
— … You Breed of the One-Eared Tailor, it’s you who left me here fifty years before my time. The One-Ear Breed were always ready with the foul blow. Knives, stones, bottles. You wouldn’t fight like a man, instead of stabbing me …
— … Permission to speak! Permission to speak …
— Jesus, Mary and Joseph! — Am I alive or am I dead? Are these here alive or dead? They’re all giving out as much as they did above ground! I thought that once I was laid in the grave, free from chores and household cares and fear of wind or weather, there’d be some peace in store for me … but why all this squabbling in the graveyard clay? …
2
— … Who are you? Are you long here? Do you hear me? Don’t be shy. Feel as free here as you would at home. I’m Muraed Phroinsiais.
— For God’s sake! Muraed Phroinsiais who lived next door to me all my life. I’m Caitríona. Caitríona Pháidín. Do you remember me, Muraed, or do you lose all memory of life here? I haven’t lost mine yet at any rate …