Бетти Смит: Maggie-Now

1 ' 1 Oh, for me son to treat me so, and he me last baby and the hardest to bring into God's world with his head the size of a hard, green cabbage at the time.

She wept and Patsy was ashamed. He left during the final prayer. Maggie Rose, kneeling, turned as he got up and made an instinctive movement to follow him but Big Red pulled her back down.

Outside, Patsy hid behind a tree to wait for his mother.

He saw Rory-Boy come out surrounded by most of the young men of the village. He tried to catch Rory-Boy's eye but his friend was too busy.

To Patsy's horror, he saw Rory-Boy entertain the boys by pantomiming the thrashing of the night before. First, he was Big Red, chest stuck out, fists clenched, entering the tavern. Then he was Big Red holding up an invisible Patsy and shaking him as a bulldog shakes a rat. Then the rat or Patsy was set down and Rory-Boy gave his impression of the thrashing.

He was Big Red slapping Patsy on either side of the face. Then he was PatsNr with his head going back and forth like a pendulum under the impact of the slaps and blows and so on. The fellers around clapped their hands noiselessly in rhythm and tapped their feet.

Although suffering, Patsy viewed the pantomime with a professional eye. A little music along with it, a ballad made up by Henny, the Hermit. . Not bad, he thought with professional detachment.

Rory-Bov was going into the ending of the act. He was Patsy backing out of the door with his hands protecting his buttocks. Here, Rory-Boy ad-libbed. He acted out Patsy being kicked in the backside and, in reaction, leaping awkwardly into the air with his face distorted in fright.

A lie! A black lie! Patsy wanted to call out. It was not that way. And then he was crying tears in his heart. Ah, he decided, RoryBoy no longer seems like a friend to me.

Maggie Rose came OUt with her mother and brother and the girls surrolmded her an I smiled and gushed and hugged her. Maggie Rose turned away and pulled her shawl lower over her face. The Widow Shawn accepted the congratulations of her friends complacently and the men greeted Big Red heartily and [21 1

pumped his hand. It was like a \vedding reception.

Patsy saw his mother come out supported by two crones who patted her arm and gave her spurious sympathy the while they leered with delight at her comeuppance. When Lizzie Moore saNv Maggie Rose, she braille loose from her crones, made her hands into claws and went for the girl. She was pulled off by the crones.

She went down the road supported by them and from time to time her knees buckled and she slumped down like a drunken woman and had to be pulled up again. The young girls looked after her and her escorts; whispering, giggling, laughing aloud and being silenced, laughingly, bv each other.

Father C'rowley came out and stood on the steps of the church. He frowned and clapped his hands sharply. The talk and giggling and horseplay stopped at once. The cro\vds broke up into little groups and the congregation went home.

Patsy felt friendless and disgraced. He was sure that by now all the village knew he had been licked by his girl's brother. Before night the whole village would know whatever trick Big Red had used to get the bawls read and he, Patsy Denny, would be the laughingstock of the county.

Sure, he fmust have promised leather a crate of Hennessy's l: our Star to make hint read th. bimns, thol'`,ht Patsy.

Rory-Boy: That hurt! I hey were through. Rory-Boy no longer had need of a part-per nor of his fiddle. NO He could perform in the taverns as a single giving his pantomime of "The Thrashing of Patrick I tennis Moore."

Oh, they'd laugh and throw coppers at him. A!ld after he'd play ed out the village pubs. he could go on to the next village; the next county to all of Ireland. And he was sure Rory-Boy would do exactly that because that's what he, Patsy, would do were he in Rory-Boy's shoes.

And Rory-Boy would never want for anything because the Irish dearly loved an entertainer and they'd clothe him and feed him and house him the \\~ay they did witl1

idiots whom some believed to be God's pets.

It came too late to Patsy too late- the knowledge that he loved.\laggie Rose and would never love any other woman. Why, oh, \vlly hadn't he married her when their love was fresh and new before it had been dirtied by scandals and beatings and public disgrace?

1 We could' have gotten along smite way, he thought. '4/:, but leer mother! And me own mother, too. The sin is theirs Jor is there any law in the world that ways I must not marry if me mother says so and I must marry if the girl's mother says so? No.

Could eve not have lived with me another? No! he answered himself. She'd never have the girl in the house.

But the Widder Shawn! She would. If she wouldn't we'd go to live there anyhow counting on. her getting used to it in time. And maybe I could have gone to work. Would not the Clooney give me the job of drawing ale in his tavern, me who could dance a jig or two between servings? Could ~

not go to the TVidder Sharon and Big Red with me hat in one hand and me pride in the dust and say: I'm willing?

No, I could not. And I cannot stay here because Herlny, tee Hermit, is starting to work on me the while l'n, standing here. And when he's done with me there will be no place in all of Irelan.l where I can hide me head.

Henny, the Hermit, was a one-eyed, dirty old man who lived in a hovel in the hills with a she goat. He had a zither and he made up ballads about everything that went on in the village. On holidays and saints' days he sat in the village commons with his goat tethered to his leg and his zither in his lap. There he sang his interminable ballads in a high, cracked whine that he called his voice, accompanying himself on the zither with one, monotonous note because the zither had but one string. The dirty man lived off the halfpennies they threw hi and the milk of his goat.

"The Ballad of Patsy 1). I\~loorc! " The dreary drivel of untalented Helmy distorting facts and making Patsy the butt and burden of the narrative! Children would sing it along the road walking home from school. Drunkards would bawl it out beating time on the bar with their pewter mugs. Even as an old man, the ballad would haunt Patsy and shame his children.

'Tis not to be endured, decided Patsy. OF, better to be dead to go to America. .

America!

~ ~ 1

ten miles away where the steamship man from Liverpool arranged everything. He almost whistled as he sneaked home in a roundabout way.

His mother wouldn't spear. to him wlletl he got home.

She had her good, black dress and a pair of black stockings she'd been hoarding for twenty years laid out on the bed. She was polishing her black shoes from a tin of caked blacking. He chattered, trying to get her to speak to him. But she had nothing to say until he asked politely: "Are you going a-visiting, ~\~lother~" "And who would I go see, the way I'm 'shamed to show me face in the village? No, I'm getting me good black clothes ready the clothes I'm wishin or to be laid GUt in."

"Not for many a year vet, God willing."

"Soon. Soon. The day you marry is the day you'll see me in me casket."

"Don't die on me," he bcggetl.

"You marry on me and I'll die on you." She buffed the shoe which gloved her hand.

"I'll never marry the ~ bile you live."

"Ah, so. Never rnarry~ he says, after having the banns read and all! "

It took him an hour to convince her that the banns were said without his consent or knowledge. She refused to believe him until he told her of the beatinr' he'd had from Big Red.

"And so he licked you me poor boy, and you saying you fell off your wheel."

"'Twas shame made me say it."

"And he'll lick you many a time till you say, 'I do.'" "I'll die first!"

"You won't die first on last. You'll be made to marry the girl."