— But it could have happened! I have no doubt he was stealing my turf …
— Or mallets …
— They say, God help us, that a ghostly airplane is heard over Cala Lawr every night since the Frenchie was downed there …
— Not at all, that’s the regular airplane on its way to America from somewhere in the North, or from Shannon! …
— Are you saying I wouldn’t recognise a normal airplane! I heard it clear as a bell, when I was saving seaweed late at night …
— Maybe the night was dark …
— Come off it, what’s the point of dribbling shite talk! For Moses’ sake, what’s this about it not being a regular airplane. Any gobdaw would know a regular airplane …
— Mes amis …
— Let me speak! Let me get a word in, please! …
— When all is said and done, though, it looks like it. I never gave a petrified puke about ghosts until I heard about John Matthew who’s buried here, in the Half Guinea place. His own son told me about it. I’ve only fallen under the hatch since then myself. He was himself up in the land of the living at the time, but he’d never say his father was a liar. The last thing his father begged them to do, just when he was dying, to bury him here along with the rest of his people. “I’ll die happy,” he said, “if you can promise me that much.” They’re a shower of drippy dossers over there in Kin Teer. They threw some dust there just in front of the door. For the next month the son was pitching dried seaweed over by the shore. He told me straight out of his very own mouth. He saw the funeral coming out of the grave-yard. He told me it was a clear and present to his own eyes — the box, the people, the whole lot — as clear as the clutch of seaweed he was pitching on the heap. He moved over closer to them. He recognised some of the people, but he’d never even dream of calling them by their names, he said. He was a bit scared at first, but as he got nearer to them, he plucked up a bit of courage. “Whatever God has in store for me,” he said, “I’ll follow them.” He did. They moved along the shore, and he kept after them step by step, until they came to this graveyard, and they put the coffin down here, and buried it in the Half Guinea place. He recognised the coffin. He wouldn’t tell a lie about his own father …
— Where’s John Matthew? If he’s here, nobody heard a peep out of him …
— I wouldn’t know anything about that any more than I would about the Pope’s tooth, but just as his son said, and he wouldn’t tell a lie …
— The dead didn’t budge a bit. Call up the Half Guinea gang and they’ll tell you whether he’s there or not …
— Look it! Listen to those clack boxes!
— I won’t listen, no way will I listen. Hey, you over there, you in the Half Guinea place! …
— … Bridey Matthew is here …
— And Colie Matthew …
— And Paddy Matthew …
— And Billy Matthew …
— And Matthew himself …
— Johnny Matthew is buried over in the cemetery at Kin Teer. He was married over there …
— He never told a lie about his own father! …
— It’s not as easy to switch around like that like it is to go from one political party to another. If that were the case, Dotie would have shifted a long time ago to the bright shiny meadows of the Smooth Fields …
— And the Frenchie … But maybe it’s only his ghost is here …
— It’s not any weirder a yarn than what Billy the Postman spun me: that Fireside Tom is often seen shooing the cows off of his own patch. Paddy Caitriona and Nell chopped it in two between them, but neither of them is happy about it. Every second week either Paddy or one of Nell’s sees him. If one house sees him one week, the other doesn’t. Nell hauled the priest in and got him to walk the land and say a whole protective wall of prayers, not to mention St. John’s Gospel, or so he said.
— She’d do that alright, the old biddy. God grant she’ll never make a single rotten fucking penny out of it! My Patrick has lashings of land without that …
— It’s mouthed about, Caitriona, that you haven’t given Jack the Lad a second’s peace since you died …
— God would punish us …
— Nell told Fireside Tom that you made a right sucker out of him …
— Wasn’t she mooning after Blotchy Brian? …
— Oh, Jesus Christ Almighty and his blessed mother! After Blotchy Brian! …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, isn’t that exactly what he said …
—“O row there Mary, with your bags and your belts …”
— What did he say? …
— What did he say, Black Bandy Bartley, boy? …
— What did he say, Bartley?
— The same Blotchy Brian says the most ridiculous things …
—“O row there Mary …”
— What did he say, Bartley?
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona, it won’t do you the least bit of good …
— It would do me good, Bartley. Spit it out …
— That’s the dote, Bartley! Let us have it …
— Hey, do you hear scrunty Johnny. Don’t put a tooth in it, Bartley …
— You’re a dote, Bartley. Spill the beans …
— Don’t say it, Bartley! Don’t breathe a word! …
— Honest to God, Bartley, you’ll be a right meanie if you don’t tell us now. Did he say that every time he opens his eyes her ghost is hovering above him? …
— If you dare tell it to Johnny Sparrow’s sow, Bartley! …
— Honest to God, Bartley, you are awfully mean! I should cut off all cultural relations with you. Let me see now. Did he say that because he wouldn’t marry her when she was alive that her ghost is his phantom lover now? …
— Ababoona! A phantom lover to that ugly maggot! Watch it, Bartley!
— On the level, Bartley. Did Caitriona’s ghost tell him to go and shave his jowls, have a shower, shite, shampoo, and a scratch, or to wash himself, or to pay a visit to some shoulder and shank specialist? …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, Nora! … Bloody tear and ’ounds, Caitriona! …
— The skin off your nose if you breathe a word, Bartley! …
— Honest to God, Bartley!
5.
— … That’s true for you, Fireside Tom. God would be fierce angry at anyone who’d suggest that that ugly string of misery would be my lover …
— … You fell from a stack of oats … Did you ever hear of the Battle of the Sheaves? … I’ll tell you that one. “Cormac MacAirt Mac Conn Mac Bulging Muscles Baskin was one day making a stack of oats in Tara of the Assemblies. Gabby Clump was chucking them up to him. Then came the Seven Battles of Learning, and the Seven Battles of Everyday Knowledge and the Battle of the Small Fry …”
— … There’s a lot of talk about moving him. A lot of talk …
— But what’s the point of moving him, unless he was going to be smashed up, or killed, or drowned or hanged, or squashed like a cat after that. This cemetery is in a mess because of that sponging squatter, Billy. “Take two teaspoons of this bottle,” the murderer said …
— Maybe, yet, neighbours, he might be smashed up. It could happen yet after he beat seven kinds of crap out of a man from Bally Donough who offered him a red ticket. But I don’t think he’ll be executed …
— Ah, sure, that’s no good then! I’ll tell you what should be done with him: he should be suffocated under a pisspot. Look at me, he gave me poison! …
— By the holy souls, didn’t he tell me to drink whiskey? That’s what he said, exactly. The bastard! What harm, but I never had a pain, not a day sick in my life! …
— Galway have a good football team this year, Billy? …