— You didn’t hear that Patrick said anything about burying me somewhere else in the cemetery?
— I got a little dart in my side, and it clean took my breath away. It was the heart, God help me …
— You can keep that to yourself, Johnny. Listen to me. You didn’t hear that Patrick said anything about burying me …
— You’d have been buried anyway, Caitriona, it didn’t matter how much was drunk. Even if I was the one with the dicey heart …
— You are the most useless codger ever since Adam took a bite out of the apple. Did you or did you not hear that Patrick said anything at all about me being buried somewhere else in the cemetery?
— Paddy was going to bury you in the Pound Place, but Nell said that the Fifteen Shilling Place was good enough for anyone, and that it was a real pity for a poor person to go into debt.
— The harridan! She would say that, wouldn’t she! She was in the house, then?
— A fine handsome foal we bought after Christmas. Ten pounds …
— Did you pay ten pounds for the foal? You already said that ten pounds was paid for my altar …
— Your altar got ten pounds certainly, Caitriona. Ten pounds, twelve shillings. That was it exactly. Blotchy Brian turned up just as the funeral was turning at the top of the road, and he was trying to give Paddy a shilling, but he wouldn’t take it. That would have been ten pounds thirteen, if he had taken it …
— He was trying to stuff it down his craw. Blotchy Brian! If the ugly old duffer was looking for a woman, he wouldn’t be so slow … But listen to me, John Willy, listen to me … Good man! Was Nell at the house?
— She didn’t leave it from the time you died until the time you went to the church. She was serving the women in the house the day of the funeral. I went into the back room to fill a few pipes of tobacco for the shower from Gort Ribbuck, they were far too wary to come in from the road. Myself and Nell started to talk:
“Caitriona’s a lovely corpse, may God have mercy on her soul,” I says myself. “And you laid her out so beautifully …”
Nell shoved me into the corner out of the way: “I don’t really want to say anything,” she said. “After all, she was my sister …”
I swear, that’s what she said.
— But what did she say? Spit it out …
— When I was lowering it down going through the town, I got a little dart in my side. Took my breath away, didn’t have a puff left. Not even a puff! The heart …
— Sweet Jesus help us! Yourself and Nell were ensconced in the corner and she said something like: “I wouldn’t really like to say anything, John Willy. After all, she was my sister …”
— I swear that’s what she said. May I never leave this place if that is not what she said: “Caitriona was some whore of a worker,” she said, “but she wasn’t really as clean, may God have mercy on her soul, as everybody else. If she was, she would have been laid out beautifully. Just see how dirty this shroud now is, Johnny. Look at the smudges on it. Aren’t they a disgrace. Wouldn’t you think she could have had her laying out clothes scrubbed and ready, and set aside. If she had been laid up for a long time, I wouldn’t mind. Everyone is noticing those splotches on the shroud. Cleanliness is very important, Johnny …”
— Glory be to God! Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I left them as clean as crystal in the corner of the coffin. My daughter-in-law or the boys mucked it up. Or the gang who laid me out. Who laid me out anyway, Johnny?
— Nora Johnny’s one and Nell. They looked for Little Kitty, but she wouldn’t come … The heart, God help us all …
— Some heart! Wasn’t it her back that was bugging her? Do you think, just because your own heart was fucked, that everyone else’s heart was fucked too? Why in God’s name could Little Kitty not come? …
— Paddy sent his eldest daughter to get her. I can’t remember what her name is. I should remember, I should. But I went too fast. The heart …
— She’s called Maureen.
— That’s it. Maureen. Maureen certainly …
— Patrick sent Maureen to get Little Kitty, is that it? And what did she say? …
—“I won’t go next nor near that town land ever again,” she said. “I’m done with it. The journey is far too long now, considering my heart …”
— It wasn’t her heart, it was her back I’m telling you. Who keened me?
— The pen was ready apart from the roof. Even if I wasn’t able to give much help to the youngfella …
— You won’t be able to give him that much anyway from now on … But listen now Johnny. Good man! Who keened me? …
— Everyone said it was a great pity that Biddy Sarah didn’t come, because when she got her gut full of porter …
— Holy cow! Shag that for a game of soldiers! Why the fuck was Biddy Sarah not there to keen me?
— The heart.
— The heart! Why was it the heart? The kidneys, it was Biddy Sarah’s kidneys were bollixed, like my own. Why didn’t she come? …
— When somebody went looking for her she said: “No way, not across the sludge. I keened my eyes out for them, and what do they think of me? I’ll tell you: ‘Biddy Sarah is always on the bum. On the bum scrounging for something to drink. I swear you won’t hear a bleep or a squeal out of her until she is stuffed up to the oxter. She’ll keen sweetly then like the choirs of hell.’ They can keen her away now, for all I care. I’ll keen who I choose from now on.” I swear, that’s what she said …
— A bitch down to her bum, that’s Biddy Sarah. She’ll know all about it when she gets here … Was Nell cosying up to the priest at the funeral?
— The priest wasn’t there at all. He was off at a funeral for some cousin of Huckster Joan, as she was very near him. But he lit eight candles …
— There were never that many on any corpse before this, Johnny.
— Only that one of them went out, Caitriona. It was just smouldering …
— Smoulder my arse!
— And he said no end of prayers and he threw holy water five times on the coffin, something that was never seen before … Nell said that he was actually blessing the two corpses together, but I don’t really believe that …
— Ara, Johnny, and why would that be? God love him and give him health. That would just suit Nell down to the ground. How is her son, Peter? …
— Miserable enough. Miserable enough. The heart …
— Ara, get away out of that! Why are you blabbing on about his heart? Wasn’t it his hip that was bugging him. Or did it get him in the heart in the meantime? That would be even better …
— The hip, Caitriona, certainly. The hip. They say it will be in court in Dublin in the autumn. Everyone says it will be thrown out, and Nell won’t be left with as much as a tosser, nor Blotchy Brian’s one neither …
— So be it! With God’s help … What did you say about Fireside Tom?
— Just after I went to get the pension, I had a sup of tea, and I moseyed down to the Common Field …
— Don’t worry about it. You’ll never go there again with your spindly legs … Listen! Listen to me! Fireside Tom.
— Fireside Tom. Wheezing away. His hovel was about to cave in, no roof. Nell wasn’t long getting on to your Paddy:
“It’s a holy disgrace to leave that old man get soaked with rain,” she said. “If it wasn’t for what happened to my Peter …”