—“Johnny Martin had a daughter
As big as any other man …”
— Five-eight’s forty; five-nine’s forty-five, five ten’s … sorry sir, I don’t remember …
—“As I roved out to the market, seeking for a woman to find”
— I had twenty, and I played the ace of hearts. I took the king from your partner. Mrukeen topped me with the jack. But I had a nine, and my partner out of luck …
— But I had the queen, and was defending …
— Mrukeen was going to play the five of trumps, and he’d beat your nine. Wasn’t that what you were going to do, Mrukeen?
— But then the mine blew our house up into the air …
— But we’d have won the game anyway …
— No way. If it wasn’t for the mine …
— … A lovely white-headed mare. She was gorgeous …
— I can’t hear a thing, Maggie. O my God almighty and His precious mother … a white-headed mare … The five of trumps … I can’t listen to this …
— I was fighting for the Republic …
— Who asked you anyway …
— He stabbed me …
— Then he didn’t stab you in the tongue anyway. Bugger the lot of you. My head is totally screwed up since I came here. Oh, Maggie, if you could just slink away. In the other world, if you didn’t like someone’s company you could just leave them there, and shag off somewhere else. But unfortunately, the dead can’t budge an inch in the dirty dust …
3.
… And after all that they shagged me into the Fifteen Shilling Place. After all my warnings … Nell had a grin on her as wide as a barn door! She’ll surely get buried in the Pound Place now. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it was she put Patrick up to sticking me in the Fifteen Shilling Place instead of the Pound. She wouldn’t have the neck to darken the door of my house, only that I was dead. She didn’t put a foot on my floor since the day I married … that is, if she didn’t sneak in unknown to me while I was dying.
But, Patrick is a bit of a simpleton. He’d give in to her crap. And his wife would agree: “To tell God’s truth, but you’re right Nell. The Fifteen Shilling Place is good enough for anybody. We’re not millionaires …”
The Fifteen Shilling Place is good enough for anyone. She would say that. She would say that, wouldn’t she? Nora Johnny’s One. I’ll get her yet! She’ll be here for sure at her next delivery. I’ll get her yet, I’m telling you. But I’ll get her mother first — Nora Johnny herself — in the meantime.
Nora Johnny. Over from Gort Ribbuck. Gort Ribbuck of the Puddles. It was always said they milk the ducks there. Doesn’t she just fancy herself. Now she’s learning from the Master. It was about time for her to start anyway. No schoolmaster in the world would speak to her, except in the graveyard, and even then he wouldn’t if he knew who she was …
It is her daughter’s fault that I’m here twenty years too soon. I was washed out for the last six months looking after her mangy children. She’s sick when she’s expecting a child, and sick when she’s not. The next one will take her away. Take her away, no doubt about it … She was no good for my Patrick anyway, however he would get on without her … You couldn’t talk to him. “It’s the only one thing I’m going to do,” he said, “I’ll feck off to America and I’ll leave the place go to hell, seeing as you don’t give a toss about it …”
That was when Baba was home from America. She did everything she could to get him to marry Blotchy Brian’s Maggie. She really took a fancy to that little ugly hussy of Blotchy Brian’s for some reason. “She looked after me well when I was in the States,” she said, “especially when I was very sick, and all my own people miles away. Blotchy Brian’s Maggie is an able little smarty, and she has a bit put aside herself, as well as what I could give her. I had more time for you, Caitriona,” she says, “than for any other of my sisters. I’d prefer to leave my money in your house than to anyone else belonging to me. I’d love to see your own Paddy get on in the world. You have two choices now,” she said to him, “I’m in a hurry back to America, but I won’t go until I see Blotchy Brian’s young girl fixed up here, as she is having no luck at all over there. Marry her, Paddy. Marry Brian’s Maggie and I won’t see you stuck. I have more than enough to see me out. Nell’s son has asked her already. Nell herself was talking to me about her only the other day. She’ll marry him, Nell’s son, I’m telling you, if she doesn’t marry you. Marry her, or marry who you like, but if you marry who you like yourself …”
“I’d sooner take to the roads,” said Patrick. “I won’t marry any other woman who ever sniffed the air other than Johnny Nora’s daughter from Gort Ribbuck.”
He did.
I had to put the clothes on her back myself. She didn’t have as much as a penny towards the wedding, not to mention a dowry. A dowry from the crowd of the Toejam trotters? A dowry in Gort Ribbuck of the Puddles where they milk the ducks? … He married her, and she is like death warmed up ever since. She couldn’t raise a pig or a calf, or a hen or a goose, or even a duck, and she knew all about them from Gort Ribbuck. Her house is filthy. Her kids are filthy. She’s totally clueless whether she’s working the land or scavenging stuff on the shore …
There was some decent stuff in that house until she came along. I kept it as clean as a whistle. Every single Saturday night without fail I washed the stools and the chairs and the tables out in the stream. I spun and I carded. I had bags of everything. I raised pigs and calves and fowl … as long as I had the go in me to do it. And when I hadn’t I shamed Johnny Nora’s one enough that she didn’t sit on her arse completely …
But what will happen to the house now without me? … Nell will get great satisfaction anyway … She can afford to. She has a fine woman to make bread and spin yarn on the floor of her house now: Blotchy Brian’s Maggie. She can easily be jeering about my own son who only was a bit of a waster, a messer. She’ll be going up past our house every second day now saying: “Bejaysus, we got thirty pounds for the pigs … It was a great fair if you had some cattle. We got sixteen pounds for the two calves” … Even though the hens aren’t laying right now, our Maggie has always a few tricks up her sleeve. She brought eighty eggs to the Fancy City on Saturday. We had four clutches of chicks this year. The hens are laying twice as many eggs. I had another clutch yesterday. “The little speckled oat coloured clutch,” Jack called them, when he saw me handling them … She’ll have ants in her pants when she’s going past our house. She’ll know I’m not there. Nell! The Bitch! She might be my sister, alright, but I hope and pray that not one other corpse will come to the graveyard before her …!
4.
— … I was fighting for the Irish Republic, and you had me executed, you traitor. You fought for the English, just the same as fighting for the Free State … You had an English gun in your hand, English money in your pocket, and love of England in your heart. You sold your soul and your ancient heritage for a mess of porridge, for a “soft bargain,” for a job …