At Swim-Two-Birds (22 page)

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 armhole 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 halfway 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 handkerchief 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 times. 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 beggerman the other day, said Mrs. Furriskey rummaging with a frown in the interior of her memory, in Stephens 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 as 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 hunchback 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.

Music is a wonderful thing when you come to think of it, observed Mrs. Furriskey, raising her gentle countenance until its inspection had been duly accomplished by the company.

Here's a thing I was going to ask for a long time, said Shanahan, is there any known cure for blackheads?

Plenty of sulphur, said Mrs. Furriskey.

Do you mean pimples? inquired Lamont. Pimples take time, you know. You can't clean pimples up in one night.

Sulphur's very good, of course, Mrs. Furriskey, but it's for the bowels they give you sulphur unless I'm thinking of something different.

To clear away pimples in the one go-off, continued Lamont, you'll have to get up early in the morning. Very early in the morning, I'm thinking.

They tell me if you steam the face, said Shanahan, the pores will - you know - open. That's the man for blackheads, plenty of steam.

I'll tell you what it is, explained Lamont, bad blood is the back of the whole thing. When the quality of the blood isn't first class, out march our friends the pimples. It's Nature's warning, Mr. Shanahan. You can steam your face till your snot melts but damn the good it will do your blackheads if you don't attend to your inside.

I always heard that sulphur was the best thing you could take, said Mrs. Furriskey, sulphur and a good physic.

There would be less consumption in this country, continued Lamont, if the people paid more attention to their blood. Do you know what it is, the nation's blood is getting worse, any doctor will tell you that. The half of it is poison.

Blackheads are not so bad, said Furriskey. A good big boil on the back of your neck, that's the boy that will make you say your prayers. A boil is a fright. It's a fright now.

A boil is a fright if you get it in the wrong place.

You walk down the street and here you are like a man with a broken neck, your snot hopping off your knees. I know a man that never wore a collar for five years. Five years, think of that!

Well sulphur is good for that complaint, said Mrs. Furriskey, people who are subject to that complaint are never without a pot of sulphur in the house.

Sulphur cools the blood, of course, concurred Lamont.

There was a girl that I knew once, said Mrs. Furriskey rummaging anew in the store of her recollections. She worked in a house where they had a lot of silver, pots, you know, and that kind of thing. She used to polish them with sulphur.

Ah, but the boil's the boy, said Furriskey with a slap of his knee, the boil's the boy that will bend your back.

I'll tell you what's hard, too, said Shanahan, a bad knee. They say a bad knee is worse than no knee at all. A bad knee and an early grave.

Water on the knee do you mean?

Yes, water on the knee is a bad man, I believe. So I'm told. But you can have a bad cap too, a split knee. Believe me that's no joke. A split knee-cap.

Where are you if you are gone in the two knees? asked Furriskey.

I knew a man and it's not long ago since he died, Bartley Madigan, said Shanahan. A man by the name of Bartley Madigan. A right decent skin too. You never heard a bad word about Bartley.

I knew a Peter Madigan once, said Mrs. Furriskey, a tall well-built man from down the country. That was about ten years ago.

Well Bartley got a crack of a door-knob in the knee...

Eh! Well dear knows that's the queer place to get the knob of a door. By God he must have been a bruiser. A door-knob! - Oh, come here now. How high was he?

It's a question I am always asked, ladies and gentlemen, and it's a question I can never answer. But what my poor Bartley got was a blow on the crown of the cap... They tell me there was trickery going on, trickery of one kind or another. Did I tell you the scene is laid in a public-house?

You did not, said Lamont. ell what happened, asked Furriskey.

I'11 tell you what happened. When my hard Bartley got the crack, he didn't let on he was hurt at all. Not a word out of him. On the way home in the tram he complained of a pain. The same night he was given up for dead.