— But the poxy runt gave in to that cute hoor …
— He was busy, but he said he’d throw a few straws over the worst bits until he got a chance to do the whole lot … The heart …
— True for you. The heart. Patrick has a good heart. Too good … Did you hear anything about the cross they were to put over me?
— A fine new clean cross of the best Connemara marble, Caitriona …
— Recently?
— Recently, certainly …
— And my daughter-in-law? …
— My daughter-in-law? … My son isn’t married at all, Caitriona. I told him that when the colt’s pen was ready, that the best thing a fine strapping lad like him could do would be …
— To go to the doctor about his heart, Johnny, in case he took the weakness from you. My daughter-in-law? My son, Patrick. Nora Johnny’s One. Do you get it now? …
— Oh, I do. Nora Johnny’s One. A bit sick. The heart …
— You’re a filthy liar. It’s not her heart, just sick …
— Just a bit sick, Caitriona …
— Go away with yourself! I knew that much already. I thought she’d be throwing shapes to get into this place. She’ll be here at her next birth, certainly. Did you hear anything about Baba?
— Your crowd’s Baba, in America? She wrote to Paddy sympathising with him about your death. She sent him a fiver. She hasn’t made a will yet. He told me that the eldest one he has — what’s that her name is? I forget. I should remember it, but I went too quickly …
— Patrick’s eldest one. Maureen.
— That’s it, Maureen. There’s a shower of nuns down the country somewhere want to take her away and turn her into a schoolteacher, just as soon as she has enough learning …
— Maureen is going to be a schoolteacher! Good luck to her! She was always gawping at the books. That’ll be one up on Nell anyway …
— … The joint candidate we have in this Election …
— Jesus, come down from the cross! Don’t tell me, Caitriona, that there are elections here also. There was one above just the other day.
— How did our people vote …
— I got a little stitch in my side. The heart …
— He’s away with the fairies again. Shut up! How did our people vote? …
— Same as ever. What did you expect? Everyone in the town land voted exactly the same way as always, except for Nell’s family. Her whole crowd went over to this new gang …
— Bad luck to her, the strap! They would, wouldn’t they? She’d always stab you in the back …
— They say that this new gang promised her a new road up to the house … To hell with it anyway, there’s no flies on her anyway. She’s getting younger. I never saw her looking better in all my life than the day you were buried, Caitriona …
— You can go and fuck off, you old bags. No one of yours ever had a good word to say, ever … Shag off, this is not your grave anyway … The graveyard must be all over the bleedin’ gaff if they put you into the same grave as me. Shag off to the Half Guinea Place. That’s where you should be. Did you hear about the altar I had? Did you hear what the priest said about me? Your coffin never went beyond five pounds. You can go and fuck off. Yourself and your old heart. You have a cheek! … No one of your lot ever had a good word to say. Fuck off as fast as you can! …
3.
… So I only had ten miserable pounds worth of an altar, despite the fact that I shitted bricks chasing every old skanger and scum bucket putting money on their altars. It’s not anybody’s time, dead or alive … And the Hillbillies didn’t come to my funeral … Or the shower from Glen Booley or Derry Lough … And Chalky Steven didn’t come, the gobshite. They’ll get their comeuppance someday. They’ll come here too …
What chance had any of them to come to my funeral when that old tramp Nell was worming her way into Patrick’s confidence, and she insisting that nobody should be told that I died. And there she was, laying me out, and dispensing and doling out drink at my funeral. She heard I wasn’t alive, she heard that much. The dead can do nothing at all about it …
Who would give a toss, only for Little Kitty and Biddy Sarah. They’ll get it rough yet. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if Nell put it in their heads and suggested they didn’t go near the house, one way or the other. She’d do it, the old bag! Any woman who’d say that I didn’t have my clothes properly laid out to be buried in … May not one other corpse come to the grave before her! …
But Baba sent a fiver to Patrick. He’s certainly worth that much. He’ll surely hook up now with that slag, Nora Johnny’s daughter. She won’t be able to say then that she is not responsible for my cross. But that’s not a bad sign either. Baba is writing to us … If I had only lived for another few years so that she, the wrinkly whore Nell, was buried before me …
That’s great news that Maureen is going to be a schoolteacher. That’ll really piss Nell off and Blotchy Brian’s Maggie: we’ll have a schoolteacher in our family, and they’ll have no schoolteacher at all in theirs. A schoolmistress makes a lot, I believe. I’ll have to ask the Old Master what did his wife get. Who knows, maybe Maureen might get a job as a schoolteacher in our own school, especially if the Old Master’s wife fecked off, or if anything happened to her? Then Nell would know all about it. Think about it, Maureen strutting up through the church every Sunday in her hat and gloves and parasol, her prayer book as big as a creel of turf tucked neatly under her oxter, strolling with the priest’s sister as far as the gallery, and playing the piano. Nell and Blotchy Brian’s Maggie would have been gobsmacked — if they were alive. Anyway, they say it’s the priest who fixes up the schoolmistresses. If that’s the case, I haven’t a clue what my best guess would be, as Nell is very friendly with him … And who knows what that’s about? Maybe he might be transferred soon, or he might even die …
And that wench of a wife of Patrick’s is still a bit sick … It’s a feckin’ wonder that she’s still alive. But, no doubt about it, she will be here at the next birth …
Isn’t it an awful pity I didn’t ask John Willy about the turf, and the planting, the pigs, the calves, and what’s up with the fox these days? It was the only thing that was bugging me, if the truth be told … But what chance has anyone saying anything to him while he was yapping away about his old heart? It should be easy to get a chance to talk to him in a while. He was stuffed down here right next to me …
— Patience, Coley, patience. Listen to me. I am a writer …
— Wait now, my good man, wait ’til I finish my story:
“… ‘Ho-row, the chancer!’ Fionn said. ‘There was no way that he was going to leave Niamh of the Golden Locks with his poor father, even if he was on his own every night since that fast thing Grania the daughter of Cormac Quinn eloped with Muckey More Dooley from the Wild Woods of the Fianna’ …”
— … The most awkward and cunning person I ever had to deal with about insurance, was the Old Master. I tried every trick in the book. I came at him from behind and from the front and from every angle. I sailed towards him on sunny seas and from the frozen wastes. From the eye of the storm and on the flat of the plain. I came at him in a pincers movement, encircled him, pummelled him, jabbed him and atom bombed him. I was a fawning dog, and a thief in the night. I filled him with the fleets of human charity and jeered him with the jibes of satire. I flooded him with invitations to the princess of Peter’s Pub. I fed him with cigarettes for sweet fanny all, and fobbed him off with rides in the car for nothing. I followed him with the sweetest gossip about the intentions of inspectors, and the latest news about the rows between the Master and the Schoolmistress from Barna Townee. I told him fancy stories about young women …