The Dirty Dust (32 page)

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, not for a long time now. He's in your
Paddy's place, and Paddy's cows graze in his field. He never liked the nobs who came to Nell's house. “I mean, like,” he said to Pat, “they're not half as generous as they are cracked up to be. I couldn't get a wink of sleep up there. Cars roaring and revving up all around from morning 'til night: hacking and hammering and blasting away from the crack of dawn to the drawing down of the light. They're bursting their guts to build the new slate-roofed house. I mean, like, for Jaysus's sake, think about me in my own shack and it didn't matter diddly shit where I shifted my bed around, there was always a drop of water piddling down on my eye or into my mouth …”

—No word of a lie there about the slate-roofed houses, anyway …

—Baba left him two hundred pounds in her will, and bloody tear and 'ounds, he never lifted his lips from a pint since then. Nell's house is too far away from the pub for him …

—He's the sly skunk alright, Fireside Tom … !

—Sly skunk is right. That's God's honest truth, Caitriona. A sly skunk. Bloody tear and 'ounds, I often said myself that he was a sly skunk. What else would you call someone who snuck out of Nell's house out of sheer stubbornness because they wouldn't let him get into the car …

—But wasn't he just the same, Bartley, just the same as the rest of the riff raff that snivelled around there? …

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, Caitriona, when Nell got her arse under the car first, she hardly let it out at all, apart from herself. Off she went, showing her snout to the rest of the country every other day—off to the Fancy City, to Lough Shore, to Ross Cala—herself and Blotchy Brian …

—The slitty slut …

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, Nell's Peter would hardly be there, but then the kids would be there too. He wanted to make a few bob and it didn't suit him that those little knackers were hogging the car at the same time. It's mouthed about that that's what finally did for Blotchy Brian, he was forbidden from getting into the car. Anyway, it was around that time, that he started shacking up in the house …

—God's curse on him anyway, wasn't it time for him! He'd look a holy show in a car, Blotchy buffer Brian!

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, Caitriona, didn't he look just as good as Fireside Tom! Tim Top of the Road's youngfella brought himself and Peter Nell and the priest's sister to a dance in the Fancy City. Fireside Tom had just come back from Peter's Pub, and bloody tear and 'ounds, do you know what, he plonked his arse straight up and into the car! “I'm going to the dance too,” he announced, “I swear to God there'll be fine things and hot lashers there.”

—The senile slapper …

—He was puffing and smoking like crazy, and bloody tear and 'ounds, what do you know, but the next thing is he chucks up a big green glob of scummy spit and fires it off! Nobody said nothing much, Caitriona, but I heard that Blotchy Brian muttered later that the priest's sister had to change her clothes before she went to the dance …

—Good enough for her, the little shit, getting into a car that belonged to a blow rag butch bitch …

—Peter Nell told Tom to shag off in home. “I will yea,” he said … “No fucking way …”

—God bless him, and give him long life! …

—Blotchy Brian's daughter asked him to go in … “I'm telling you all, I swear, I'm going to the dance,” he says with vehemence.

—He was right, of course, not to take a bitch of a bit's notice of what Blotchy Brian the Bummer's frump of a daughter said …

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, Tim Top of the Road's youngfella should grab him by the balls, fuck him out head over heels onto the street, and give him two big whopping boots up the bum! Bloody tear and 'ounds, he should take off down to Paddy's house right now no messing, he's skulking there this long while …

—That's a real smack in the face, a real beauty for Nell! He'll leave all the land now to Patrick …

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, Caitriona, so it goes, nobody has the least clue who Fireside Tom will leave his streaky rasher bit of land to. When they'd be off gallivanting in the car, Blotchy Brian was always
nagging him to sign the papers to leave it to his daughter, but small chance! …

—Serves them both right, Brian the snotty smart-arsed jerk and mincy meddlesome Nell! I suppose you heard nothing about a cross, did you, Bartley? …

—Crosses. Bloody tear and 'ounds, they hardly talk about anything else. John Willy's cross, Breed Terry's cross, Redser Tom's cross, Jack the Lad's cross that they've done nothing about since … Bloody tear and 'ounds, Caitriona, but it doesn't matter by the hangers of the halls of Hell whether you have a cross or not when you are dead! “Oh-row, Maureen …”

—You won't be piping that tune much more when you're here a bit longer, Bartley, listening to Nora Johnny. You'd think she was the mother of the Earl. But, come here to me, did you hear that Patrick was going to stick up a cross over me anytime soon?

—Himself and Nell are often away off and yonder in the car ever since Jack the Lad was buried. Stuff about crosses, stuff about wills …

—But it wouldn't do him any good to be going off with that scum scuzzy slag …

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, Caitriona, but he's doing all right, God bless him! He never had as many cattle on his land. He raised two litters of pigs recently: you never saw the likes of them, lovely luscious lusty pigs with loaded backsides as hot and heavy as bullocks on the boil. Bloody tear and 'ounds, isn't he sending two of them to college! …

—Two of them? …

—Yeah, two, that's it. The older one and the young one after her …

—God help them, like! …

—And the one after that will be going in the autumn, they say. Bloody tear and 'ounds, isn't that exactly what Blotchy Brian said! … “Ho-row, then Mary, your belts and your buckles …”

—But what exactly did he say, Bartley?

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, it was just a slip of the tongue, Caitriona! “Ho-row …”

—No harm, Bartley, no harm. I can't exactly contradict him, can I? God bless you anyway, Bartley, but hey, listen, just tell me. It'll do me good …

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, Caitriona, it'll do you no good, no good at all. “Ho-row, then Maureen …”

—I'm telling you it'll do me a power of good, Bartley. You'd never credit the lift we get from a bit of news here. The crowd down here would tell you nothing at all at all, even if they could get back up again for a while as a reward. See! Jack the Lad buried in his grave for the last three weeks! Jack the Lad! Jack …

—“Ho-row, then Maureen …”

—Ah go on! Let it out. Good man, Black Bandy Bartley! … Straight up now. They'll know soon enough up above that this is the wrong grave …

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, Caitriona, it doesn't matter diddly squat where they chuck your old bag of bones! …

—But tell me anyway, Bartley, what did Blotchy Brian say …

—Well, if it's going to cause shit, Caitriona, it's going to cause shit. “Paddy is away on a hack,” he said, “ever since he left that meddling muppet of a mother in the hole of the graveyard. He should have boiled a blazing pot years ago, lit it up with burning flames, and dumped her into it like you'd do with a kitten …”

—They've blotted you out, you bastard Black Bandy Bartley! Jack the Lad! Jack the Lad! … Jack the Lad! …

—… I was crushed when I heard that the
Graf Spee
was sunk. I came here a fortnight since then …

—The mine nearly got us. Apart from that, Mrukeen was going to take the five …

—… Stabbed me through the twists of my kidneys. The Dog Eared Shower always had that sneaky stab …

—I caught the death of me from sweating in my sleep, that time I cycled to Dublin to see Cannon …

—… Fell off the rick of oats and broke my hip …

—Pity you didn't break your tongue, as well! …

—Your legs took you a long way up, up on a rick of oats …

—I swear that you'll never fall from a rick of oats again. I swear you won't …

—If you hadn't fallen from a rick of oats, you'd have died some other way. You'd have got a kick from a horse; or your legs would have given out …

—Or he'd have given you a bad bottle …

—Or your daughter-in-law wouldn't have given you enough to eat, seeing as you lost your pension because you had money stashed in the bank.

—You can be sure you would have died anyway …

—To fall is a terrible thing …

—If you fell in the fire like I did …

—It was the heart …

—Bedsores. If only they had rubbed a bit of hot stuff into me …

—Joan, ya jizzer ya! You caused the death of me. Lack of fags …

—And your coffee, ya ugly Joan ya …

—One way or the other, that's the reason I died …

—Bloody tear and 'ounds, there was no reason for me to die. I just laid back and drifted away …

—The reason the Old Master died was …

—An excess of love. He thought that if he died the Mistress thought her life wouldn't have been worth living without him …

—That's not it, but it dawned on him that he'd be doing the dirty on Billy the Postman if he hung on any longer …

—No way, but Caitriona cursed him after he wrote a letter to Baba. “May not another corpse come to the graveyard before her!” she'd say. “Going from the table to the window …”

—The reason for Jack the Lad's death was that Nell sent him off with St. John's Gospel …

—Shut your hole, you grabber! …

—It's true! It's too true. The little whore's git got St. John's Gospel from the priest …

—… You died from shame. Your son marrying a black in England …

—It would have been a lot worse if he had married an Italian, like your son did. From that day on you had no luck. I saw you going home one day. “He's done for,” I said to myself, “he's like a dead man walking. Since he got the news that his son married an Italian he's been wasting away. Pure shame. Nothing would surprise you …”

—… The guy from the east of the town died because we let the English market go …

—… He was so pissed off mulling over whether or not to stick his foot out the door.

—Blotchy Brian said that Curran died because he was totally pissed off 'cos he couldn't do a hatchet job straight down through the middle of the Guzzler's donkey that he found gobbling the oats in his field …

—I thought it was Tim Top of the Road's donkey …

—Up his arse anyway, it was Top of the Road's donkey, but I'd have much preferred it if it was his daughter rather than his donkey …

—Colm More's daughter died because …

—The sad sickness of Letter Eektur …

—No way, no way, at all. But since she got a belt nobody visited the house apart from the doctor, and there wasn't a stir out of her …

—You are insulting the faith. You're a black heretic …

—The insurance man was only one letter short in the crossword. He had abbreviated …

—The reason for Redser Tom's death was that his tongue was too loose …

—What happened to me? What was wrong with me? What saw me off? You'd want to be very smart to know that …

—Chalky Steven died with sheer disappointment that he heard nothing about Caitriona Paudeen's funeral …

—… One way or the other, as you say, the reason I popped my clogs was the old guts …

—… Hoora! Did you hear that? The guts! His guts, like! It was
God's great revenge that he killed you, Tim Top of the Road. You stole my turf …

—It bugged him that he wasn't made the Grand Inquisitor …

—The wrath of God, Peter the Publican. You were watering the whiskey down …

—I was robbed blind in your house, Peter the Publican …

—Me too …

—God's justice, Guzzler. Drinking forty-two pints …

—“Nobody could ever say that I was just one of God's windbags,” I says. “To go between hell and a hot place. Even if I had said a full and proper act of contrition, but I had hardly gone beyond the second bit of the credo, when the young one from the house beyond came looking for me. You're all lucky, you Tom types, that I have drunk forty-two pints …”

—Didn't God himself hassle you, you being an insurance man, that you were pulling a fast one on Caitriona Paudeen about Fireside Tom? …

—Ah come on now! I never did that, I never did …

—Too true, Caitriona, you never did, and you never didn't. The tricks of the trade …

—And when the Goom rejected my collection of stories,
The Yellow Stars
…

—You were better dead than alive, you poor shagger. Inside next to the fire praying by the ashes. “O Holy Ashes!” … Dear frozen blood that was spilled so that the balls of my bowels could be warmed! …

—He's a dirty black heretic …

—The
Irish Paddy
wasn't happy to publish “The Setting of the Sun.” Nobody in the six parishes wanted to hear me read it …

—God's justice, no doubt about it! You said that Colm Cille made a prophecy just to fool the people …

—… No wonder that you died. I heard the doctor saying that nobody could keep their health on the nettle-infested fields of Bally Donough …

—The priest himself told me that twenty years ago, nineteen
households paid for it on the flea-infested hillocks of your own pissy little town, but now …

—Jack the Lad's funeral did me in. I crawled up out of my bed just to keen him. I collapsed on the way home. I burst out in a sweat. I was still sweating my guts out when I pegged out …

—Jack the Lad's funeral did me in also. I started swelling up after that …