The Dirty Dust (29 page)

—So-and-so! So-and-so! Noreen Johnny is calling me a so-and-so! I'm going to burst! I'm about to burst …

—… It was a bad bottle, I'm telling you. A bad bottle. A bad bottle …

—… There was another time and I saw the two of them at the house, Paddy Caitriona and Peter Nell …

—Do you think I don't know about that? …

—Well, certainly, Breed Terry, if I could have helped it I'd have been at your funeral. It would not have been right for me not to go to Breed's funeral …

—Chalky Steven bullshitting away again, or is it? God knows it's hard to get ahold of any story here. I spit on all that useless lying gossip! The best place for it is to go through one ear and out the other! This latest wafted over from Maggie Frances's grave. That place is rife with gossip. Even so, Maggie took it up, no problem. She had a filthy place aboveground anyway. Her floor covered in dirt as tall as a ship's mast, and grime stuck to every piece of furniture in her house. It's no wonder she's perfectly at home in the muck here. You wouldn't mind, but she's worse herself! You could grow potatoes in her ears, and she never gave her shoes a lick going to Mass. You'd recognise the streaks of soil she got in the gutter that she left on the floor of the church. And then, she'd never rest easy until she had slid in beside Huckster Joan and Nell next to the altar—the sneaky sow! If Maggie had married Blotchy, they'd have been well matched. He never washed himself either, unless the midwife did it when he was born. They say that cleanliness is a virtue, but I'm not too sure of that. The dirty shower seems to prosper nonetheless. I kept a clean house all the time. Every single Saturday night without exception I cleaned and washed and scrubbed myself underneath the roof of my own house. If I hadn't enough strength left in me to swat a fly, I still did it. And what did I get for it in the end, nothing, only it shortened my life …

What's this? What kind of a racket is this? Even though my ears are stuffed up, it still goes through them … Another corpse. The rotten dose … The coffin is only like an old hen box. Just about, like. They'd chuck a tinker down on top of me if they could …

Who are you anyway? … Damn and blast you, will you speak up! My ears are stuffed up … They said they'd put you in this grave beside your mother. I don't recognise your voice, though. But you're a woman. A young one … You were only twenty-two. I think you have it all arse ways. If you could turn your shroud inside out, you might make some sense. All my daughters are dead a long time … Why the
fuck don't you speak out and tell me who you are! … Do I need any spiritual assistance! … What are you on about, spiritual assistance? … What the hell is spiritual assistance? …

Big Colm's daughter, bejaysus! Blotchy Brian is your uncle! You have little enough sense to try and scrounge your way into the same grave as me. There are far too many of your lot rubbing up against me here. You're not related to me in any way, and I don't want to have anything to do with you. Toddle off down to your mother over there. I heard her sniffling and snuffling just a while ago. I caught my death coming from her funeral. It was pissing rain from high heaven all day …

Shit! Stay away from me! The bad dose of Letter Eeckur. Stay away from me, if you have any sense. It was a bad idea to try and sneak in beside your uncle, Blotchy Brian …

What's that you said now? … You knew full well it was a bad idea! … You were against it all the time … You never darkened his door for the last year. That did you no harm at all, I can tell you, my dear … You can say that again, my dear! Isn't that exactly what I said a minute ago. Not a drop of water touched any part of his body since he was born … Do you know what, you're right there: your father was a very clean man. You'd never think he was related to that other bastard. Your father took after your mother. He was a very mild and kind man … You visited Blotchy Brian about a year ago … You asked him if you could give him any spiritual assistance. How was it any of your business to be offering the old ugly bastard any kind of assistance at all? … Oh, I see, you went there on behalf of the Legion of Mary … Too true again, he never said a rosary since the day he slimed into the world … That's what he told you … He told you to stuff your spiritual assistance … He said that the Legion were a shower of jennets! And he's a guy who doesn't give a snail's shite for God or for his Holy Mother …

The old bastard is coughing and spluttering at last. Bad luck to him, it's about time … That's what he said:

“I think I'll take a trip over thereabouts any day now … And be
sure and be certain that it'll be the right time to dip into those holes … If Paudeen's mules are …” Are you sure now he didn't finish what he was saying? …

Didn't I tell you already that I don't need … what's that you call it? … spiritual assistance … Nell is talking about building a new house with a slate roof … They're breaking up stones for it already. I don't believe it! … That's what the little hunchback runt says: it would be just right now, and the road all the way up to the door. The little twat! … “Won't be long now before we have a priest in the family, God help us all!” The mouldy bitch! … Her legs are giving up. It would serve her right if she could never walk on the new road … All that stuff you know nothing about now, you'll know plenty about it in another week's time … But everyone was too afraid to go near you in your house …

What's that you're on about now? … Jack the Lad is very sick. That's it now, the death sickness. St. John's Gospel. Nell and Blotchy Brian's young one will get another pile of money … You never heard about St. John's Gospel … You didn't know that Jack needed any spiritual assistance. He needs all the help he can get now, the poor creature …

Black Bandy Bartley was anointed … Little Kitty and Biddy Sarah are also very poorly you say … They never stir out of the house one way or the other now. They'll neither sleep nor weep that much anymore now, so …

Guzzeye Martin's cross went up the other day … and Redser Tom's too. That foxy bollocks is no time here … You heard that: Nell advised my Patrick not to erect a cross of the best Connemara marble over me … You'd have known for certain in another week. That's fucking great! … Oh be damn sure, my lovely, that it's the whole truth. She'd say that all right—the whore—and Blotchy Brian's young one and Nora Johnny's young thing urging her on … Blotchy Brian said:

“If I was Paddy, I'd give that demented hag enough of Connemara marble to last her a lifetime … Dig her up from her hole … Shunt her over to the Island … Straddle her up on the highest spike there … Like your man on top of the big column in Dublin …” That
is really appalling, even though he is on the verge of death, God's breath does not decorate his mouth … Look, I'm telling you, I don't need and I don't want any spiritual assistance …

So Nora Johnny and Blotchy Brian's young ones, and Nell are all talking again. You'd easily know it. Hardly likely there'd be any fighting one way or the other if it wasn't for that little grabber of Paddy Larry's … That's it too, my lovely. A load of hot air, all their squabbling. They're a bunch of tinkers … You'd have known it all in about a week, yea, right …

So, a letter came, did it? … She didn't say who'd she leave the money to … Oh, OK, she wrote to Patrick also … Wasn't she the cheeky cunt writing to Blotchy Brian's house, and she has no relation or connection with him! … You're sure now, she said that he was bad … And she had made her will. By dad! … And she has a tomb ready and waiting and all written up in the Boston cemetery. Think about it, a tomb! Just like the Earl has. Our Baba has a tomb! May she rot in Hell if she's gone and got herself a tomb … She put money in the bank so that the tomb would be looked after for ever and ever! By the holy hokey! … And money for Masses … Two and a half thousand pounds for Masses! The will is only diddly squat now. Blotchy Brian's family in America will suck the rest of it up. In fact, I don't give a toss any more. Nell won't get that much one way or the other. She won't be crooning “Eleanor Aroon” as she is strutting up and down outside our house …

You think that Patrick never wrote back to Baba. He's a proper thicko if he didn't! … Will you shut your gob about the definite knowledge you'd have in a week! What use is it to me what you might know next week? … The Young Master doesn't write letters for anybody anymore … Far too busy … What was he doing, did you say? … Studying the form … That is, studying the form. That's a weird thing to say … Betting on racehorses. Oh, tell me more! … He doesn't do a stroke in school, only read about them and study the form … The priest is very against it. I thought the two of them used to be off going for walks together. Or is that a lie? You can't believe anything at all here … He gave a sermon about it … As true as a bull has balls,
everyone knew who he was talking about, no need for any names or to spell it out … “Dissipating their money on gambling and cavorting with drunken loose women in the Fancy City,” he said … “I heard about a certain man in this parish who drank forty-two pints, and about girlish guzzlers who could down a cask of brandy without losing as much as a puff of the powder on their cheeks …” My God, if he only knew about Nora Johnny! … They say there's a chance that he'll fire the Junior Master … Oh, here we go again! You'd have known in another week … You'll know a lot more in a week's time, I'm telling you, my little darling! …

Up the yard! Ababoona! The letters for America that the Junior Master wrote for Patrick, he forgot completely to post them in the letter box … And when he changed his digs, Mrs. Keady found them stuck in some old clothes he had left after him … I don't believe it! She told Nell everything that was in them …

There's something wrong with Patrick: why could he not have taken them himself and stuck them in the post? Do you think that I ever left my letters behind to be posted by the Old or the Junior Master? Schoolteachers are a weird lot. I always copped on that there was something else going on in their heads apart from my few letters. Didn't I see the Old Master over and back from the table to the window as restless as fleas in an armpit just to see if could he get a gawk at the Schoolmistress strolling on the road! …

The Schoolmistress wasn't writing letters for anyone either, is that it … Too much to do, looking after Billy the Postman. The sleazy slouch! Oh, if Patrick had listened to me he wouldn't be beholden to anyone now, if he had just gone into Mannix the Counsellor. He was the guy who could pen a perfect letter for seven shillings and sixpence. But Nora Johnny couldn't bear to spend even a halfpenny … You heard that Patrick didn't give a sugar about the will … That's more of Nell's sneaky stuff, the slippery tit … You didn't think for a minute that she was getting a bad conscience about my son when she was doing the same thing with her husband … “Paddy was perfectly all right until Besheen passed away.” Blotchy Brian would say that … Leave me alone with your gabble about spiritual assistance …

Maureen's going back to college again. She'll do the business this time. Sure, she wasn't thrown out the last time at all, just that she came home herself. A bit of homesickness, the poor thing. You don't know what she's doing this time, do you? … To be a schoolteacher, I suppose … That's what you heard …

Patrick has lots of cattle on his land. Good on him! …

Fireside Tom has left his house … The rain coming in got rid of him … It should have happened a long time ago. That's what he said: “I swear to God the dirty drop was smacking me, sometimes in my mouth, then in my eye. It didn't matter where I shifted the bed. I think I'll go and arselick the quality for whatever time I have left …” He stayed two nights with Patrick and then he slung off to Nell's house completely. Nell will get the land so … Do you know did he sign it over to her or not? Only someone like Mannix the Counsellor would be able to answer that … It doesn't matter a tinker's fart what you would have known in a week's time! It's what you know now … Fireside Tom said that: “Nell had a much bigger heart than Caitriona. I'd far prefer to stay in Nell's house where I could rub shoulders with high society. Nobody with any decency visits Caitriona's house.” Fireside Tom's midget head would be a wonderful sight to behold! … “The best people always have the best smokes and they also have fine-looking women.” That hard-hearted harridan will soon have him craving women all right. If she senses anything happening to herself, she'll get St. John's Gospel from the priest, and Fireside Tom will be the first out the door. Isn't it a great pity that there's nobody alive up there to warn the poor fucker! What's the world coming to at all when Fireside grotty Tom can think he's going to rub shoulders with the high and mighty and the rich and famous? …

Lord Cockton came fishing every day to Nell's place. He could leave his car right up to the door … The priest drives his right up to her door, too … Ababoona! Lord Cockton took the slag bag out in his car … He took her out for a stroll to Rosses Cove. He must have had very little respect for his car to take piss flaps like her out in it! …

The priest's sister was up there on the hunt also. Was she wearing the pants or a dress? … The pants … Herself and Lord Cockton were
out on the hunt together. How could a priest have anything to do with them! I suppose that Lord Cockton is a black heretic. They were all saying that she was going to marry the Master in Derry Lough … Oh, for God's sake almighty, you'd have known all about it in a week's time! We'll have to get permission to hoist you up again next week …

You think the marriage is all off? I thought that that Master in Derry Lough was a decent kind of a guy, never touched a drop … What's that you're saying? My ears are all stuffed up … She has a thing going with Tim Top of the Road's son. It's a queer world all right, no doubt about it! …