But it was completely useless. He thought if he bought an insurance policy from me it would be the worst thing he could do. Even as the head of a family he wouldn’t part with a bean …
— But I did …
— You did, and me too. Hang on a minute. He was the biggest miser in creation. He was so mean he could steal mice at a crossroads, as they say. He never splashed out except that one time when he went to London, the time the teachers got the raise …
— That’s when he was in the nightclub.
— That was it. He spent the rest of his life telling me all about it, and warning me never to open my big mouth. “If the priest or the Schoolmistress heard about it,” he’d say …
He married her: the Schoolmistress.
“Maybe,” I said to myself, “I might be able to find his weak spot now. The Schoolmistress would be a great help, if I could soft-soap her. And you can always soft-soap her …”
There isn’t a woman alive who doesn’t fancy herself, but she needs to be told. I didn’t spend years messing with insurance without learning that much.
— I know that much, too. It’s much easier to flog things to women than to men, only to have enough cop on …
— I had to give him a while until the novelty of being married wore off. But I couldn’t leave it too long, either, in case her influence began to wane, when her magic was fading away. Insurance people know all about that …
— And booksellers too …
— I gave him three weeks … It was a Sunday. Himself and herself, the pair of them, were outside sitting on the front of the house just after dinner.
—“I’m coming to get you, you muppet,” I said, “I swear by my balls I’ll get you today! … You have your week’s work all laid out, and those notes you are always going on about, they’re all ready. You’re stuffed up to the gills, and if your wife is anyway pleasant at all, it’ll be easier to get you than ever …”
We chatted a bit about politics. I said I was in a bit of a hurry. “Sunday is the same as any other day to me,” I said, “always on the lookout ‘to see whom I can gobble up.’ Now that you’re married, Master, the Mistress should encourage you to take out a life insurance policy. You’re better off now than ever. You have a spouse to look after … My opinion is,” I said to his wife, “that he doesn’t really love you at all, that he’s only out to get what he wants from you, and if you weren’t around he’d be off chasing another straight away.”
The two of them laughed. “And,” I said, “as an insurance man I have to tell you that if he pops off, there is no provision made for you. Now, if there was ‘a gilt-edged guarantee’ like you there …”
She pulled a bit of a face. “That’s it,” she said to the Master, half serious and wholly in earnest, “if anything happened to you, we’d all be in a proper mess …”
“What could happen to me?” he said, grouchily.
“You know not the day nor the hour,” I said, “it’s the duty of an insurance man to say that kind of thing all the time.”
“Exactly,” she said. “Of course, I hope nothing would ever happen. God forbid that it would! If it did, I couldn’t live without you. We pray that nothing would ever happen, but if you died, and if I didn’t die at the same time … How would I be fixed then? You have a duty …”
And do you know what, he took out a life insurance policy! Fifteen hundred pounds worth. He had only paid up four or five instalments — big fat ones too. She made him take out another two hundred and fifty when he paid the last bit.
“He won’t last long,” she said jokingly, and winked at me.
True for her. He snuffed it soon after that …
I’ll tell you about another coup of mine. It wasn’t half as good as the one I put over on the Old Master.
You played the Old Master just as sharp as Nell Paudeen played Caitriona about Jack the Lad …
— Aboo boona, boona! I’m going to burst! I will burst! I’ll burst! Burst …
4.
Hey, Margaret! Hey Margaret! … Do you hear me?
… They were dumping John Willy in on top of me, I swear they were, Margaret … May God help your head, Margaret! Why would I let him into the same grave as myself? I never collected periwinkles to hock. Didn’t he and his whole family live on periwinkles, and I’d soon tell him that. Even though I was only talking to him for a small bit, he nearly drove me nuts yacking on about his old heart … That’s true, too, Margaret. If they had the cross up over me, it would be much easier for them to recognise the grave. But it won’t be long now, Margaret. John Willy told me that much. A cross of the best Connemara marble just like Peter the Publican’s … My daughter-in-law, is it? John Willy told me she’d be here at her next birth, no doubt about it …
Do you remember, Margaret, do you remember our Patrick’s eldest girl? … That’s her. Maureen … That’s right. She’d be fourteen years old now … You got it there. She was only a little strip of a thing when you died. She’s in secondary school now. John Willy told me … she’s going to be a schoolteacher! What else! You don’t think, do you, Margaret, that they’d be sending her to secondary school to learn how to boil potatoes or to cook mackerel, or to make beds, or sweep the floor? That might be all right for that bag job of a mother she has, if any such school existed …
Maureen also took a fancy to school. She has a great head for learning, for a girl as young as that. She was far better than the Mistress — that is, the Old Master’s wife — before he himself died. There’s not one in the school who can hold a candle to her, John Willy tells me.
“She’s way beyond them all at learning,” he said. “She’ll be qualified a year before anyone else.”
I swear he said that, Margaret … Ah come on now, Margaret, there’s no need to be talking like that. It’s no surprise at all. Why do you say that it is a surprise? My family always had brains and intelligence to burn, not because I say so …
— … But that’s not what I asked you, Johnny.
— Ah, Master, it was my heart! My heart, for God’s sake! I was going for the pension. I didn’t hear a whisper … Now, come on, Master, no need to be so pissed off. I couldn’t help it. I was humping along with a basket of spuds. When I was letting them down … But, Master, I am telling you nothing now, apart from the whole truth. But, sure, I haven’t a clue, apart from what people say to me. There were other things on my mind. The basket came down skewways. It happened … What were people saying then, Master? But, of course, we couldn’t say anything, or even hear anything. We were making a new pen for the colt …
So, what were people saying then, Master? You know the way it is — somebody like you who has so much education, God bless you — there are bags of people out there who wouldn’t be alive if they couldn’t gossip. But then, someone with a dicey heart … Amn’t I telling you what they were saying, Master, but just back off and don’t be so crappy with me. It wouldn’t have mattered, but we had great weather when we were building the pen … It’s just people, the way they are, Master. They have a lot more on their minds apart from prayers. But the guy with the dicey heart, God help us! …
You were asking about the Mistress? I never saw her so beautiful, God bless her. She’s getting younger, no doubt about it. She must have a very healthy heart … Ah, sure, people used to be talking. That’s the way they are. I swear, myself and the youngfella were caught up with the pen … Ah, come on, don’t be so pissed off with me. Don’t you know, that everyone said that Billy the Postman wouldn’t leave that house of yours, no matter what.