He liked the garish covers, and the romantic titles: The Berry Kiss, Two Men and a Powder Puff, The Russet Tresses …
“Two pounds fifty for you, Master,” I said. “That’s all I paid for them myself. I won’t make anything on it, as they don’t belong to the company. But if you don’t buy them, I’ll be bankrupt …”
The bargaining began. He wanted to Jew me down to nothing. I told him in the end to take them or leave them, but there was no way I would let them go for less than two pounds. I got that much from him, by the skin of my teeth. Of course, they weren’t worth diddly squish …
You knew what you were doing, I’m telling you. But so did I. I never told you about this coup:
There were two sisters living next to me. One of them was Nell Paudeen. The other was Caitriona. She’s here now. The two of them hated one another’s guts … Oh, you heard all this stuff before. Off I went and toddled up to Nell. Her daughter-in-law was there also. I told them about the children’s insurance; they’d get so much money when they reached such and such an age and so on. You know the way it is. The two of them were very wary. I showed them some of the forms the neighbours had filled in. For all the good it did me.
“There’s no chicanery about this,” I said, “but you could get a killing. Ask the priest …”
He did. In the next fortnight I got insurance on the two kids. And then I apprised them about insurance for the elderly: the price of a funeral and so on. The old one was happy to pay for her husband, Jack the Lad …
Off I went down to the other sister, Caitriona. She was the only one in the house.
“Do you see,” I said, “these forms that your woman up there filled out for two children and the oldfella. I told her I was going to drop into you on the way down, but she warned me not to …”
“What did she say? What did she say?” said Caitriona.
“Ara, I don’t really want to be talking about it,” I said. “You’re neighbours …”
“Neighbours! We’re sisters!” she said. “Did you not know that, or what? … You’re a stranger. Yea, that’s it, sisters. But even so, and so on, I hope that’s she’s the next corpse that goes to the graveyard! But what did she say anyway?”
“Ah, sure, there’s no need to be talking about it. If it wasn’t for the fact that I have a loose tongue, I’d say nothing at all.”
“What did she say?” she shouted. “You won’t leave this house alive until you tell me.”
“As you wish,” I said. “She said I’d only be wasting my time coming in here; that the people in this house didn’t have enough to pay any insurance …”
“The whore! The harridan! …” she said. “It would be a sad day when we couldn’t pay it just as much as Nell. But we’ll pay it. You’ll see that we’ll pay it …”
Her son and his wife came in. The fun started. She was trying to get insurance for two of the kids and they, the couple, they were dead set against it.
“I’m in a hurry,” I muttered. “So, I’ll just leave you now. Maybe you’ll have a decision for me the day after tomorrow; I’ll be calling in to Nell again. She told me to call in and she’d take insurance out on the old man who’s living up there all on his ownio …”
“Fireside Tom,” she said. “Lord Divine Jesus! Fireside flippin’ Tom. This is another one of her sneaky tricks to grab his land from us. Any way we could take out insurance on him? … I’ll pay it out of my half-guinea pension …”
It was like the Battle of the Bitches after that. They were waltzing through the house as if they were dancing on grease. The son and his one wanted to smash my back out on the street. And all the time, Caitriona was trying to pin me down and keep me inside until the forms were filled …
And they were. I had to give in in the end. It was the diciest situation I was ever in in all my time dealing with insurance.
That’s how I got around Caitriona. I couldn’t really help it. The tricks of the trade, and all that …
— You lied! You’re a liar, you didn’t get around Caitriona! And if you did, you got around Nell too …
— Nell never said as much as one word about you, nor about Fireside Tom. The tricks of the trade, Caitriona my beauty …
— Hoora, Margaret! … Did you hear that … I’m going to burst …
6.
Peter the Publican is a right sourpuss too. Even after I went against the grain and voted for him, he didn’t even thank me, or nothing. If he had any manners he might have come right out and said to me:
“Caitriona Paudeen, I am very grateful that you voted for me. You are a woman with enough balls to face down all of the Fifteen Shilling Lot together. We really screwed Toejam Nora …”
But he didn’t. He should have remembered — whether during an election or not — that I still had no cross.
I had to tell Huckster Joan a long time ago that they had to put up a cross. So what now, like? It’s been a long time since I was depending on her and her friends. But I may as well do it now, now that the great opportunity of the Election has passed …
Hey, Joan! Huckster Joan you … Are you there? … Joan, are you there? … Do you hear me, you shower in the Pound Plot? … Or are you all asleep? … Huckster Joan, that’s who I’m looking for … It’s me Joan. Caitriona Paudeen, John Thomas Lydon’s wife. Joan, they’ll be putting up a cross of the best Connemara marble on me … very soon. Like the one on Peter the Publican, and railings around it, just like your own, Joan …
Don’t let me bug you, Joan? Is that what you said? I thought you’d like to hear about it, Joan … You don’t want to have any hand, act, nor part with the Fifteen Shilling gang. I voted for Peter the Publican, Joan. I brought the whole Fifteen Shilling gang down on my head as a result … You’d be better off without my vote! … It’s not right nor proper that you Pound Plot proper snobs should talk to us plebs in the Fifteen Shilling Place! Do you feel any better now? I can wear my tongue out gabbling and yacking away, but you won’t take a blind bit of notice of me … You’re not happy to talk to my likes of a gossip machine! Gossip machine, Joan! Gossip machine, Joan! You don’t want to talk any more to a gossip machine like me! …
Go piss off so, you clot! You’ll talk again when I get going on you! There’s plenty of stuff about you, if you only knew about it! … Just because you had a bit of a shop up above and you were ripping us off with your clogs …
I know what you’re on about, you trollop. I voted for Peter the Publican in the Election. It’s a pity I did! Yourself and himself are really pissing yourselves because I’m going to get a cross and rails just as fancy as yours. I’ll be as good as the two of you then …
That wretch, Joan. That’s life, by Jaysus …
— … “Fireside Tom was there with his trousers …
Torn from the top to the bottom and then …”
— … Nora! Nora Johnny! …
— Hi! How are tricks? Have you got over the Election yet? I feel a bit shagged myself.
— You’ll excuse me now, Nora …
— Ara, Peter, my pet, why wouldn’t I? A nod is as good as a wink to the wise. There was a bust up — some of them call it a stink — but between ourselves, who cares? “The flighty mind forgives and forgets. The noble mind needs necessity,” as Jinks said in The Russet Tresses. Honest …
— Holy God Almighty! Peter the Publican talking to Nora Johnny again, even though he swore black and blue during the Election that he wouldn’t ever ever say another word to her. Oh, what’s the effing point in talking! …