At Swim-two-birds (22 page)

Extract from Manuscript, being description of a social evening at the Furriskey household: the direct style
: The voice was the first, Furriskey was saying. The human voice. The voice was Number One. Anything that came after was only an imitation of the voice. Follow, Mr Shanahan?

Very nicely put, Mr Furriskey.

Take the fiddle now, said Furriskey.

By hell the fiddle is the man, said Lamont, the fiddle is the man for me. Put it into the hand of a lad like Luke MacFadden and you'll cry like a child when you hear him at it. The voice was number one, I don't deny that, but look at the masterpieces of musical art you have on the fiddle! Did you ever hear the immortal strains of the Crutch Sonata now, the whole four strings playing there together, with plenty of plucking and scales and runs and a lilt that would make you tap the shoe-leather off your foot? Oh, it's the fiddle or nothing. You can have your voice, Mr Furriskey, – and welcome. The fiddle and the bow is all I ask, and the touch of the hand of Luke MacFadden, the travelling tinsmith. The smell of his clothes would knock you down, but he was the best fiddler in Ireland, east or west.

The fiddle is there too, of course, said Fuiriskey.

The fiddle is an awkward class of a thing to carry, said Shanahan, it's not what you might call a handy shape. They say you get a sort of a crook in the arm, you know…

But the fiddle, continued Furriskey slow and authoritative of articulation, the fiddle comes number two to the voice. Do you mind that, Mr Lamont? Adam sang…

Aye, indeed, said Lamont.

But did he play? By almighty God in Heaven he didn't. If you put your fiddle, Mr Lamont, into the hands of our first parents in the Garden of Eden in the long ago…

They'd hang their hats on it, of course, said Lamont, but still and all it's sweetest of the lot. Given a good player, of course. Could I trouble you, Mr Furriskey?

A sugar-bowl containing sugar was passed deftly from hand to hand in the pause. Tea was stirred and bread was buttered swiftly and trisected; at the same time there were adjustments as to trouser-crease, chair-stance and seat. The accidental gong of a cream-jug and a milk-plate was the signal for a resumption of light conversation.

John is very musical, said Mrs Furriskey. Her eyes followed closely the movements of her ten fingers as they prepared between them a tasteful collation. I'm sure he has a good voice only it's not trained, He sings a lot when he thinks I amn't listening.

A small laugh was initiated and gently circulated.

Do you mind that, eh, said Lamont. What does he sing now, Mrs F.? Is it the songs of the native land?

The songs he sings, said Mrs Furriskey, have no words to them. The bare air just.

When do you hear me at it? asked the prisoner, a meek inquiry on the changing contours of his face. Then, stem and immobile, he waited for an answer.

Don't mind him, Mrs F., said Shanahan loudly, don't mind him, he's only an old cod. Don't give him the satisfaction.

Sometimes when you're down there shaving. Oh, I'm up to all his tricks, Mr Shanahan. He can sing like a lark when he feels like it.

Because when you were listening to my singing this morning, my good woman, said Furriskey stressing with his finger the caesura of his case, I was blowing my nose in the lavatory. That's a quare one for you.

Oh, that's a shame for you, said Mrs Furriskey contributing her averted giggle to an arpeggio of low sniggers. You shouldn't use language like that at table. Where are your manners, Mr Furriskey?

Clearing my head in the bowl of the W.C., he repeated with coarse laughing, that's the singing I was at. I'm the right tenor when it comes to that game.

It's a poor man that doesn't sing once in a while, anyway, observed Lamont, continuing the talk with skill, we all have our little tunes. We can't all be Luke MacFaddens.

That's true.

Of all the musical instruments that have been fashioned by the hand of man, said Furriskey, the piano is far and away the most…useful.

Oh, everybody likes the piano, said Lamont. Nobody can raise any objection to that. The piano and the fiddle, the two go well together.

Some of the stuff I've heard in my time, said Shanahan, is no joke to play for the man that has only two hands. It was stuff of the best make I don't doubt, classical tack and all the rest of it, but by God it gave me a pain in my bandbox. It hurt my head far worse than a pint of whisky.

It's not everyone can enjoy it, said Furriskey. Every man to his taste. As I was saying, the piano is a fine instrument. It comes number two to the human voice.

My sister, I believe, said Lamont, knew a lot about the piano. Piano and French, you know, it's a great thing at the convents. She had a nice touch.

Furriskey angled idly for the floating tea-leaf with the lip of his tea-spoon, frowning slightly. He was sprawled crookedly on his chair, his left thumb tucked in the arm-hole of his waistcoat.

You have only half the story when you say piano, he announced, and half the notes as well. The word is pianofurty.

I heard that before, said Shanahan. Correct.

The furty stands for the deep notes on your left-hand side. Piano, of course, means our friends on the right.

Do you mean to say it is wrong to call it piano? asked Lamont. His attitude was one of civil perplexity; his eyelids fluttered and his lower lip drooped as he made his civil inquiry.

Well, no…It's not
wrong
. Nobody is going to say you're
wrong
. But…

I know what you mean. I see the point.

By virtue of enlightenment, culture, and a spirit of give-and-take, the matter was amicably settled to the satisfaction of all parties.

Do you understand, Mr Lamont?

I do indeed. You are quite right Pianofurty.

There was a pleased pause in which the crockery, unopposed, clinked merrily.

I believe, said Shanahan in a treacherous manner, I believe that you can do more in the line of music than give out a song. I'm told – no names, of course – I'm told the fiddle is no stranger to your hand. Now is that a fact?

What's this, good God? asked Lamont. His surprise, as a matter of fact, was largely pretence. He became upright and attentive.

You never told me, John, said Mrs Furriskey. She sadly reproached him with her weak blue eyes, smiling.

Not a word of truth in that yarn, boys, said Furriskey moving his chair noisily. Who told you that one? Is this another of your stories, woman?

Dear knows it's not

It's a thing you want an ear for, I may tell you, told Lamont. For the hundred that takes it up, it's a bare one that lives to play it right Do you play the violin, though, honest to God?

By God I don't, said Furriskey with a sincere widening of the eyes, no Sir. I was half thinking of trying it, you know, give it a short trial and see do I like it Of course it would mean practice…

And practice means work, Shanahan said.

The ear is the main thing, observed Lamont. You can wear the last tatter of skin off your knuckles with a fiddle and a bow and you won't get as far as your own shadow if you haven't got the ear. Have the ear and you're half-way there before you start at all. Tell me this. Did you ever hear of a great fiddler, a man by the name of Pegasus? I believe he was the business.

That's one man I never met, said Shanahan.

He wasn't in our time, of course, said Lamont, but the tale was told that himself and the Devil had arrived at an understanding. What you call a working agreement

Dear dear, said Furriskey. He gave a frown of pain.

Well now that's a fact Your man becomes fiddler Number One for the whole world. Everybody has to toe the line. But when the hour comes for him to die, My Nabs is waiting by the bed!

He has come to claim his own, said Mrs Furriskey, nodding.

He has come to claim his own, Mrs Furriskey.

Here there was a pause for the purpose of heart-searching and meditation.

That's a queer story certainly, said Shanahan.

But the queerest part of it is this, said Lamont, in all the years he lived, man, never once did he do his scales, never once did he practise. It happened that his fingers were in the pay of who-you-know.

That's very queer, said Shanahan, there's no doubt about it I'm sure that man's mind was like a sewer, Mr Lamont?

Very few of the fiddlers had their heads on the right way, said Lamont. Very few of them indeed. Saving, of course, the presence of our host.

Furriskey gave a sound of coughing and laughing, groped quickly for his hankerchief and waved a hand high in the air.

Leave me out of it, now, he said, leave the host alone boys. The biggest ruffian of the lot, of course, was our old friend Nero. Now that fellow was a thorough bags, say what you like.

He was a tyrant, said Mrs Furriskey. She brought her light repast to a dainty and timely conclusion and built her vessels into a fine castle. She leant forward slightly, her elbows on the table and her chin on the trestle of her interlocking hands.

If everything I hear is true, ma'am, said Furriskey, you praise him very high up when you call him a tyrant The man was a bowsy, of course.

He was certainly not everything you look for in a man, said Shanahan, I'll agree with you there.

When the city of Rome, continued Furriskey, the holy city and the centre and the heart of the Catholic world was a mass of flames, with people roasting there in the streets by the God Almighty dozen, here is my man as cool as you please in his palace with his fiddle at his jaw. There were people there…roasting…alive…not a dozen yards from his door, men, women and children getting the worst death of the bloody lot, Holy God can you imagine it!

The like of him would have no principles, of course, said Mrs Furriskey.

Oh, he was a terrible drink of water. Death by fire, you know, by God it's no joke.

They tell me drowning is worse, Lamont said.

Do you know what it is, said Furriskey, you can drown me three times before you roast me. Yes, by God and six. Put your finger in a basin of water. What do you feel? Next to nothing.
But put your finger in the fire!

I never looked at it that way, agreed Lamont.

I'm telling you, now, it's a different story. A very very different story, Mr Lamont. It's a horse of another colour altogether. Oh, yes.

Please God we'll all die in our beds, said Mrs Furriskey.

I'd rather live myself. I'll say that said Shanahan, but if I had to go I'd choose the gun. A bullet in the heart and you're right You're polished off before you know you're hurt at all. There's no nonsense about the gun. It's quick, it's merciful, and it's clean.

I'm telling you now, fire's a fright said Furriskey.

In the old days, recalled Lamont, they had what you call a draught It was brewed from weeds – deadly nightshade, you know. It got you at the guts, at the pit of the stomach, here, look. You took it and you felt grand for a half an hour. At the end of that time, you felt a bit weak, do you know. At the heel of the hunt, your inside is around you on the floor.

Lord save us!

A bloody fact now. Not a word of a lie. At the finish you are just a bag of air. You puke the whole shooting gallery.

If you ask me, said Shanahan quickly, inserting the shaft of his fine wit in the midst of the conversation, I've had an odd pint of that tack in my time.

A laugh was interposed neatly, melodiously, retrieved with skill and quietly replaced.

They called the dose a draught of hemlock, Lamont said, they made it from garlic and other things. Homer finished his days on earth with his cup of poison. He drank it alone in his cell.

That was another ruffian, said Mrs Furriskey. He persecuted the Christians.

That was all the fashion at one time, Furriskey said, we must make
allowances, you know. You were nothing if you didn't let the Christians have it.
Onward Christian Soldiers, to your doom
!

No excuse, of course, said Lamont Ignorance of the law is no excuse for the law, I've often heard that said. Homer was a great poet altogether and that made up for a lot of the rascality. His Iliad is still read. Wherever you go on the face of the civilized globe you will hear of Homer, the glory that was Greece. Yes, indeed. I'm told there are some very nice verses in the Iliad of Homer, very good stuff, you know. You have never read it, Mr Shanahan?

He was the daddy of them all, said Shanahan.

I believe, said Furriskey with a finger to his eye, that he was as blind as the back of your neck. Glasses or no glasses, he could see nothing.

You are perfectly right, Sir, said Lamont.

I saw a blind beggarman the other day, said Mrs Furriskey rummaging with a frown in the interior of her memory, in Stephen's Green I think it was. He was heading straight for a lamp-post When he was about a yard away from it, he turned to the one side and made a beeline around it

Oh, he knew it was there, said Furriskey, he knew it was there. He knew what he was about the same man.

The Compensations of Nature, that's what they call it, explained Shanahan. It's a long as it's broad. If you can't speak, you can listen twice as good as the man that can. Six of one and half a dozen of the other.

It's funny, said Mrs Furriskey. Curiously examining it, she replaced her reminiscence.

The blind are great harpers, said Lamont, great harpers altogether. I knew a man once by the name of Searson, some class of a hunch-back that harped for his living about the streets. He always wore a pair of black glasses.

Was he blind, Mr Lamont?

Certainly he was blind. From the day of his birth he hadn't a light in his head. But don't worry, it was all made up to him. My brave man knew how to take it out of his old harp. I'll swear by God he did. He was a lovely harper certainly. It would do you good to listen to him. He was a great man altogether at the scales.

Is that so?

Oh, by God he was a treat.