— … “Brian is a darling with his land and his cows
But he’ll never be right without a woman and a house …”
— … Despite all his wealth, Blotchy Brian failed utterly to get a woman. It’s a small wonder he didn’t come crawling to her again …
— … “‘By japers,’ says Triona, ‘here’s a fine pig for scalding,
Turn the kettle to the fire: he might get the warning.’”
— They’d use the handle of the pot over beyond the Fancy City. That time Pat McGrath came knocking …
— We refuse them that way too on this side of the city, Dotie. Honest. In my own case, for example …
— Did you hear what the Tailor’s sister did when an old dribbling dunderhead came over from Derry Lough looking for her? She took a long knife out of the press, and started sharpening it in the middle of the floor. “Keep it for me,” she said …
— Oh, she’d do that alright. The Dog Eared crowd …
— After all that, what do you know, Caitriona married John Thomas Lydon from our own place, and never said either “yea” or “nay” when he came for her …
— I swear, Margaret, John Thomas was far too good for her …
— He had a fine plot of the best rich soil …
— And the willingness to work it …
— A fine spacious house …
— She drooled for the place, certainly. To be better off and have more money than Nell. And to be close enough so that Nell could see every single day that she was better off and had more money than her to the end of her days …
—“‘I have a huge haggard,’ said Caitríona’s cat
‘I have the best fat cows, and butter as well …’”
—“‘I am sleek and useful and friendly and cuddly
Quite just the opposite of that kitty of Nell’s …’”
— Letting Nell know that she didn’t get the worst of the bargain, and that Nell could suck on her disappointment and failure. That much came out of Caitriona’s own unforgiving mouth. It was her revenge …
— Oh my! But that’s very interesting. I don’t think I’ll bother with the reading session I have with the Old Master today … Hey there, Master … Let’s skip the novelette today … I’m doing something else intellectual. Au revoir …
— Caitriona was particular, thrifty and nifty in John Thomas Lydon’s house. I know that well, as I was next door to her. The sun never woke her up in bed. Her card and spinning wheel often chattered and gabbled through the night …
— And it looked every bit of it, Margaret. She had stuff and more …
— … I wandered into Barry’s betting shop up in the Fancy City. I had my hand in my pocket just as if I had a pile. All I had was one shilling. I made a racket chucking it on to the counter. “‘The Golden Apple,’” I said. “‘The three o’clock. A hundred to one … It better win,’ I muttered putting my hand in my pocket and sauntering out” …
— … It’s a pity I wasn’t there, Peter, I wouldn’t let him get away with it. You shouldn’t let a black heretic like that insult your religion.
“Faith of our fathers, Holy Faith,
We will be true to thee ’til death,
We will be true to thee ’til death …”
— You’re a bloodless wimp, Peter, letting him talk like that. I wasn’t there to …
— Put a cork in it! Neither of the two of you have shut up going on about religion for the last five years …
— They say, however, Margaret, after all the savaging that Caitriona did of Nell that she would have been glad of her when her husband died. She was in a bad way that time, as Patrick was only a toddler …
— That I would have been glad of Nell! That I would have been glad of Nell! That I would take anything from Nell. God Almighty Father and his blessed angels, that I’d take anything from that hog face! I’m going to burst! I’m going to burst! …
7.
— … “The nettle-ridden patches of Bally Donough,” you say.
— The little pimply hillocks in your town land couldn’t even grow nettles with all the fleas on them …
— … Fell from a stack of corn …
— By the hokey, as you might say, myself and the guy from Men-low were writing to one another …
—“… Do you think that this war is ‘The War of the Two Foreigners’?” I says to Patchy Johnny.
— Wake up, you lout. That war’s been over since 1918 …
— It was going on when I was dying …
— Wake up, I’m telling you. Aren’t you nearly thirty years dead. The next war is on now …
— I’m twenty-one years here now. I can boast something that nobody else here can: I was the first corpse in this cemetery. Don’t you think that the elder in this place would have something to say. Let me speak. Let me speak, I tell you …
— Caitriona had stuff and plenty, no doubt about it, Margaret …
— She certainly had, but despite that her place was better than Nell’s, Nell didn’t let things slide either …
— God bless you. Margaret! Neither herself nor Jack ever did a toss except gawk into one another’s eyes and sing songs, until Peter, the son, grew up and was able to do some work on that old swamp and clear some of the cursed scrubs …
— Nell didn’t have a penny to her name until Blotchy Brian’s Maggie brought her dowry.
— However much you dress up her place, the truth is that what saved her was being near a river and a lake, with some wild grouse around. Of course, there’s no telling what money hunters and fishermen gave her. I myself saw the Earl slipping a pound note into the palm of her hand: a nice crisp clean pound note …
— … Over on the Smooth Meadow, you call your swamps “fens,” don’t you, Dotie? I also heard that you call the cat “a rat catcher,” and the thongs “the fire friend.” … No doubt about it, Dotie, that’s not the proper and correct “Old Irish” at all …
— God save us all! …
— … “‘We’ll send pigs to the market,’ said Caitríona’s cat
‘You’d do better with bullocks,’ said Nell’s cat back.”
— … It’s not one smell of an exaggeration that Caitriona would add bits to her prayers for Nell to shrivel away. She was thrilled to bits if a calf died, or if her potatoes rotted …
— I won’t tell one word of a lie about her, Margaret. God forgive me if I did! That time when the lorry crocked Peter Nell’s leg, Caitriona said straight up my face: “I’m glad it hit him. The road is plenty wide enough. It serves the maggot right …”
—“Nell won that round anyway,” she admitted, the day her husband, John Thomas Lydon, was buried …
— He was buried in the eastern graveyard. I remember it well, and I had good reason to. I twisted my ankle, just where I slipped on the stone …
— Where you made a pig of yourself, as you usually did …
— … To have more potatoes than Nell; more pigs, hens, hay; have a cleaner smarter house; her children to have better clothes: ’twas all part of her vengeance. It was her vengeance …
— … “She ca-me back ho-me dressed to th-e nines
As she fi-lched a sta-ck from the old grey hag.”
— Baba Paudeen got laid low by some sickness in America, and it took her to death’s door. Blotchy Brian’s Maggie looked after her. She brought Maggie back home with her …
— … “Baba was holed up in Caitríona’s house …”
— She rarely went near Nell. She was too out of the way and the path was too awkward after her sickness. She seemed to like Caitriona a lot better for some reason …