He was right. It had been opened the night before and a couple of stone had been stolen from it.
The truth is always the best. I had some suspicion about Caitriona Paudeen …
— Holy moley! Abuboona! …
— I had, I’m telling you. She was nuts about periwinkles. I heard someone say that they were just the stuff for the heart. But I hadn’t a clue then that I had a dicey heart, God help us! But I got a catch in my …
— You old dolt head! Don’t believe him …
— Usen’t I see my old man, John Willy. The old gom, he drank tea morning, noon, and night. I never saw a brass farthing of his pension in the house, and I have no idea where he stashed it away. But there were buckets of tea that time, and he’d buy a pound and a half, or even two pounds, every Friday. Huckster Joan told me he’d often buy two and half pounds. “As long as it’s there, it’ll do,” he’d always say, the poor gom.
Caitriona always just happened to be hovering around when he was on his way home every Friday, and she’d haul him in. He was always gullible that way, the poor gom.
“You’ll have a sup of tea,” she’d say.
“By hokey, I will,” he’d say. “There’s two pounds of it there, and as long as it lasts, it’ll do.”
He’d tell me that up and down the town land. He was a bit simple like that, the poor gom.
The tea would be made. Made, and maybe twice. But he never brought more than half an ounce home to me. May God forbid that I would wrong him, Johnnie! …
“I’ve bought two pounds,” he’d always say. “I must have lost it. Would you see if there’s a hole in any of them pockets. Maybe I left some of it after me in Caitriona Paudeen’s place. I’ll get it the next day. And, sure, if I don’t what matter? As long as it lasts, it’ll do. When you’re with Caitriona a lot of tea gets drunk, fair play to her! …”
He was a bit simple like that, the poor gom …
— That’s another lie, you tool you! I never wasted myself feeding him with tea! He was over to me whenever the clock would chime, he was worn out with your spotty potatoes and your salty water, Breed Terry, the beggar. Don’t believe her …
— I want some peace! Give me some peace! Stop badmouthing me, Caitriona. I don’t deserve your bitchy effing and blinding! Peace! Peace! …
— I’ll tell you the truth, Breed Terry. We had set the Garry Abbey field the same year, and it was bursting with the best of potatoes. It was out towards the arse end of May. Myself and Micil were out on the bog every day keeping an eye on things for the previous fortnight. We were, and we would have been that day too, only Micil was bringing in some dried seaweed until dinnertime. He went into the barn after dinner to get a fist of hay to stuff into the donkey’s halter as he was going to be out in the bog the balance of the day.
“You’d never think, Kitty,” he said, “that so many of the old potatoes out in the barn would be gone. I would have said something only that the pigs had been sold two weeks ago.”
“I swear to God, Micil,” says I, “I haven’t been next nor near the barn for the last three weeks. There was no panic for me to be there. The kids brought in the spuds for the meal.”
“We should have put a lock on it,” he said, “since we started working on the bog. Anyone could sneak in there during the day when we’re not around and the kids are in school.”
“They could, of course, Micil, or even in the dead of night,” I said.
“It’s closing the stable door after the horse has bolted,” Micil said.
Out I go to the barn, Breed, by the new time. I examined the potatoes.
“By the holies, Micil,” I said when I came in. “It’s closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. There was a corner full of potatoes there a fortnight ago, but there’s a big hole in it now. I’m not sure if there’s even enough there to get us to the new potatoes. Would you have any hunch at all, Micil, who is knobbling them?”
“I’ll head out to the bog,” Micil said. “You slip up to the meadow at Ard Monare letting on you’re going to the bog just like every other day, then sneak down by the stony slop, and hide near the willow.”
I did that, Breed. I slid down behind the willow mending the heel of a sock and kept my eyes glued on the barn beyond. I was a long time there, and I think I was about to doze off when I heard the noise at the barn door. I jumped through the gap in a jiffy. She was there, Breed, and talk about humping potatoes on the hump of her back! …
“You may as well take them away and sell them to Huckster Joan just as you have sold your own all year,” I said. “You haven’t had a potato of your own to stuff in your mouth since May. That might be alright for one year, but this is what you’re up to every year.”
“I had to give them to Fireside Tom,” she said. “His own rotted.”
“Rotted! He never bothered his barney about them,” I said. “He didn’t mould them, or clean up the ground, or spit a splash of spray on them …”
“I’m begging you, and I’m even grovelling, Kitty, please, please don’t say a word about it,” she said, “and I’ll make it worth it. I don’t give a toss who’ll hear about it, once that piss puss Nell gets no wind of it.”
“OK, so, Caitriona,” I said, “I won’t breathe a word.”
And I swear by the oak of this coffin, Breed, I never said nothing to nobody …
— Listen to Kitty of the shitty puny potatoes, I always had tons of spuds of my own, thanks be to the Lord God Almighty …
— … Dotie! Dotie! She didn’t leave Fireside Tom with a tosser. I often met him down in the village.
“For fuck’s sake Nora, I haven’t a farthing that she hasn’t filched from me,” he’d say. Honest, that’s what he’d say.
I’d lend him the price of a couple of glasses of whiskey, Dotie. Honest. You’d really pity him, all on his ownio, and his tongue hanging out like shrivelled flowers in a pot …
What’s that they’re saying about me, Dotie? My own daughter was up to the same tricks? I learned about it here … She pulled a fast one on my son in Gort Ribbuck very shortly after I died. Himself and his wife were going to the fair in the Fancy City. My daughter offered to look after the house until they came back. She gathered up anything worthwhile and chucked it into the big press. She had the horse and trap all ready outside. She asked a couple of young bucks who were hanging around to load the press onto the trap. They hadn’t a bull’s notion about it. She gave them the price of a couple of pints.
“It’s my mother’s press,” she said. “She left it to me.” Honest, that’s what she said. She took it home. Honest, Dotie.
It was a really well-made press in the traditional way. As strong as iron. But beautiful also. Perfection and practicality all together, Dotie …
Who’d give a damn, except for what was in it was worth! Spoons and silver knives. A whole silver toilette that I had when I was in the Fancy City. Valuable books bound in calfskin leather. Sheets, blankets, sacking, blankets, winding wrappers … If Caitriona Paudeen had been able to look after them she wouldn’t have been laid out in dirty dank dishcloths …
Dead on, Dotie! Caitriona never shuts up prattling on about that press …
— Knives and silver spoons in Gort Ribbuck of the ducks! Oh, Holy Mary Mother of God! Don’t believe her! Don’t believe her! The so-and-so. The old sow! Hey, Margaret! Hi, Margaret! Did you hear what hairy Noreen said? … and John Willy … and Breed Terry … and Kitty … I’m about to burst! I’m going to burst …
4.
— … A white-headed mare. She was a beauty …
— You had a young mare. We had a colt …
— A white-headed mare for sure. I bought her at St. Bartholomew’s Fair …