— Get your act together now, man …
— … It was my wife who filled in the papers for Paddy Caitriona … Cool down for feck’s sake, Master! Back off, will ya! … Grand so, Master, if you say so. I know she was your wife … Hang on there, Master! Patience now! Like two dogs …
— … There were days like that, Peter the Publican. Don’t try to deny it …
— … Paper under the roof, Caitriona. But Paddy is putting a slate roof on the house! … That’s it, a two-storey house, Caitriona, bay windows and all and a windmill up on the hill for electricity … If you saw the government bull that he bought, Caitriona! All of ninety pounds. The cattle dealers are very happy. All the bulls around the place were a posse of pansies …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, isn’t that exactly what Blotchy Brian said: “The bulls have gone awful quiet since England put a stop to de Valera’s cattle and since the Massacre of the Innocents …”
— And he has plans to buy a lorry to deliver turf. We could do with it badly in our own hole of a backwater. We don’t have sign or sight of a lorry since Paudeen’s was taken from him … I’m telling you, neighbour, five or six hundred pounds …
— Five or six hundred pounds! Anybody’s pocket would be very lonely if that much was removed from it, Billy. Nearly as much as Nell got that time in the court …
— His pocket wasn’t lonely at all, Caitriona, especially since he got the will …
— But Nell got the big fat wad of notes all the same …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, didn’t Blotchy Brian say that Paddy Caitriona wouldn’t recognise paper money any more than Fireside Tom would recognise the sweat of his brow, or …
— Wouldn’t you think, Billy, with a whirlwind of notes like that flying around the place that somebody would remember to pay back the pound that I loaned to Caitriona …
— You little drizzling shit! …
— … The Postmistress’s daughter told me as much … Calm down, Master! … It’s a dirty lie, Master … I never opened any letter …
— Don’t take a blind bit of notice of his ranting, Nora. Remember always that he was a noncommissioned officer in the Murder Machine … I won’t have the opportunity to read any more of “The Sunset” to you again, Nora. I am far too busy with my new draft, “The Piglet Moon.” I got the idea from Coley. His grandfather could trace his family tree back as far as the moon. He spent three hours every night staring up at it, just like our ancestors. When the new moon rose his nostrils developed three different kinds of snot: one golden, one silver, and the good old dependable genuine solid Irish snot …
— … She told me, Caitriona, that Baba said that you were her favourite sister ever, and that you would have been grateful to her too, only that you died first …
— I did my best and I did my worst, Billy, but I failed to bury Nell …
— Be japers, Caitriona, neighbour, maybe it made no difference one way or the other. Paddy himself told me, and told the … the Mistress, that Nell left him a lot of bits and pieces that were never in the will. She’d only take half of Fireside Tom’s land from him, and believe you me, Caitriona, not a Sunday passes without the priest saying a Mass for your soul and Jack the Lad’s …
— For my soul, and Jack the Lad’s …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, didn’t Blotchy Brian say that …
— For my soul, and Jack the Lad’s …
— And Baba, and …
— … “The only comparison you could ever make with the gang of Paudeen’s daughters,” he said, “is that they’re like the two scabby pups that I saw once with their eyes glued to a nag of a mule that was in the throes of death over in Bally Donough. One of them was yapping and yowling trying to keep the other away. It stressed him so much that he burst his whole guts out in a glob of gunk. No bother to the other dog, as soon as he saw that the mule was dead and had him all to himself, didn’t he just up and away and left him there for the dead dog …”
— Looks like he missed that trick all right! He thought that his own family would get its paws on every crumb of the will! That I may be killed stone dead …
— I’ll tell you no lie, Caitriona, neighbour, himself and his daughter aren’t cosying up to Nell now as much as they used to …
— No harm in that … For my own soul and that of Jack the Lad …
— He can’t make up his mind, Caitriona, whether to come or to go. He was anointed the other day …
— It won’t make him any younger! He’s twice my age …
— My own … Mistress took a jaunt up to see him. Do you know what message he sent back with her? …
— The hard and bitter word unless he has totally changed … I swear …
— My own uncle never received any spiritual assistance from the time I was looking after him, or do you think, Billy, that he says the Rosary? …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, isn’t that what he said …
— What he said to the Mistress was this: “You’ll tell Billy the Postman,” he said, “if he pops off before me to tell them all back there that that I’ll be on my way flying in no time at all. He’ll tell Redser Tom that I’ll take the lump out of his throat, if he didn’t bother to take my advice …”
— Neither herself nor anyone else ever managed to put one over on somebody else because of what I said, Billy. And I have to tell you too that that all the graves are riddled with holes …
— … “He’ll tell Black Bandy Bartley to strike up a bar of a ballad as soon as he hears I’m on my way …”
—“And ho row there Mary, with your bags and your belts …”
—“Marty John More had a young one
And she was as strong as any man …”
— … “He’ll tell Greedy pint-guzzling Guts that I’ll crack the willow whip on the hide of his old crock of a donkey for being ready and waiting in my field of corn, especially since she started Curran making his pilgrimages to the courts …”
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, Billy, go on, keep going …
— … For my soul and for …
— That’s what he said, neighbour. But if he did my … the Mistress never told me about it …
— Bloody tear and ’ounds, what’s the point of making a Redser Tom of himself! If it’s going to rip, let it rip. “And he’ll say to my own little darling, Caitriona,” he’ll say, “that they were sending for the long tubes of the fire brigade to quench me after the scorching I got from the geyser in Dublin, but that I’m not in any way scared now of its boiling water …”
— Ababoona! Ababoona! Black Bandy Bartley! Billy my friend! How do we know they won’t dump the ugly waster … the stuff-nosed … stoopy slanty-shouldered … yob, down on top of me … Oh, go away Billy dear, I don’t believe he ever washed himself in Dublin … Bury him next to me! Like fuck they will! They have their glue! … The room … The grin … “You can have Blotchy Brian, Caitriona …” Oh, Billy, I’d burst, I swear I’d burst, I’d burst …
— Don’t worry your noggin about it, Caitriona, neighbour. Everything will be fine.
— But just look where they buried you, Billy …
— The poor creature didn’t really know what she was up to … Back off, Master! Take it easy! … Don’t take a blind bit of notice of him, Caitriona. That leech is as fresh and as clingy as the ivy …
— That kind of stuff doesn’t matter in the end. Holy Mary, Mother of God, the Earl’s little black boy wouldn’t disgust me as much … What’s this now, Billy? Another body coming in! Sacred Heart of Jesus, Billy my good friend, suppose it’s him. Shut up a minute and listen! …
— How are you all cutting! Are you plugging away? John Kitty from Bally Donough has just arrived …