Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

— By the docks, dear, didn’t they let my cabin fall in on top of me in the end! …

— Ababúna! Tomás Inside is here! …

— The leak from the roof was hitting me between the gob and the eye, no matter where in the house I put the bed. They let me down badly. They did, dear. Caitríona had a lazybones of a son and Nell had another lazybones of a son, and weren’t they the bad relatives that wouldn’t put a little strip of thatch on my cabin! …

— Tomás Inside buried in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot, Cite! …

— Yes indeed, Bríd, Tomás Inside in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot! …

— The least they could do was to bury him in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot. They have his patch of land, and they’ll get a fistful of money from the insurance.

— But Nóra Sheáinín says Pádraig didn’t keep up the insurance payments after his mother’s death.

— She’s a damned liar! The Filthy-Feet slut! …

— Even if he did keep up the payments the Insurance won’t compensate him for what he’s spent on Tomás. All Caitríona’s prayers for his death were no more than a goat’s puff to Tomás. We’ll ask the Insurance Man …

— Are you long here, Tomás Inside?

— By the docks, I’m only barely landed here, Caitríona dear. I never had an ache or a pain, and isn’t it odd that I died all the same. I died just as if I had. What the doctor told me was …

— What the doctor told you is no use to you now. Nell buried you before herself …

— She’s convalescing, Caitríona. Convalescing. She spent three weeks or a month in bed, but she’s completely recovered now …

— Of course she is, the bitch! …

— And look at me, Caitríona, who never had an ache or a pain, and isn’t it odd that I died all the same …

— Did you think you’d live forever?

— By the docks, Caitríona, I think the priest wasn’t at all pleased with me, so he wasn’t. The day he was visiting Nell he passed me by in the boreen as I was on my way over to Peadar the Pub for a grain of tobacco …

— The tobacco in Peadar the Pub’s is better than anywhere else …

— It is, Caitríona dear, and a halfpenny cheaper. “Faith then, this poor woman up here is feeble enough, priest,” says I …

— You windbag! …

—“It doesn’t look as if she’s well,” says he. “She’s been confined to bed a long time. Where are you wandering off to now, Tomás Inside?” says he. “I’m going over for a grain of tobacco, priest,” says I. “I heard, Tomás Inside,” says he, “that you’ve taken a fancy to this place over here; that you don’t take your head out of the drink at all …”

— Oh, the pussface told him. She was always treacherous …

—“By the docks, I take the odd drop, priest, the same as anyone else,” says I. “A drop is one thing, Tomás Inside,” says he, “but I’m told that one of these nights you’ll be found dead on the way home.” “There isn’t a thing wrong with me, priest,” says I. “I never had an ache or a pain, thanks be to God, and of course now I have the new road under my feet right up to Nell’s door.”

— Hitler will destroy that road again, with the help of God!

—“My advice to you, and it’s for your own good, Tomás Inside,” says he, “keep away from that place over there as much as you can, and give up your drinking bouts. They’re not good for you at this stage of your life. And this crowd up here have enough to do without having to go out every night to bring you home …”

— Good God above, that cocky little bitch has him under her thumb. She won’t have Hitler under her thumb that easily …

—“By the docks, don’t they have a motor car, priest!” says I. “If they have, Tomás Inside,” says he, “petrol is not to be found in bog-holes. Look at me, having to go round on my bicycle! I’m also told, Tomás Inside,” says he, “that you’re like the change trolley in a shop, shuttling back and forth between the two houses. You’d think, Tomás Inside,” says he, “that you’d have a little spark of sense at this stage of your life and settle in one house or the other. I wish you godspeed, Tomás Inside,” says he, “and don’t let my advice go in one ear and out the other.” “If that’s the way things are,” says I to myself, “I won’t be troubling them with bringing me home every night from now on. There are far too many priests around that house up here. Themselves and their priests! …”

— Devil a word of a lie you said, Tomás Inside …

—“I’ll go down to Pádraig Chaitríona’s where I’ll have peace and quiet,” says I. I turned down the little boreen by the Cliff, in case I’d find any of Nell’s cattle on my patch of land. I didn’t. The stone walls had fallen down in a few places. “I’ll tell Pádraig Chaitríona to come up in the morning and build up the walls, and to put his cattle in on my patch of land,” says I to myself …

— You were perfectly right, Tomás Inside …

— I came back to the head of the boreen again, and I started off down towards Pádraig’s house. By the docks, you won’t believe it, but all of a sudden I couldn’t walk as much as a step, or talk as much as a word. One half of me was dead and the other half alive. I never had an ache or a pain, Caitríona, and isn’t it strange that I died all the same! …

— To burst like a bicycle tube by the side of the road! Nell is the thorn that did for you, you unfortunate little fellow!

— I didn’t die by the side of the road, my dear. Peadar Nell came by at that very moment and whisked me up to his house in the motor car. I’d have died in your house only for that, Caitríona. But I was in bed in Nell’s house before I got my speech back, and then I thought it would be rude to ask them to bring me down to Pádraig’s house.

— There wasn’t a day of your life you didn’t do something stupid, Tomás Inside …

— I only lived for ten days or so. My speech was coming and going. Faith then, I think the priest was no help to me. I never had an ache or a pain …

— You never gave yourself cause, you lazybones …

— By the docks, Caitríona dear, I used to do heavy bouts of work. Faith then, I had a hard life …

— Faith then, if you did, Tomás Inside, it wasn’t from being useful. You had a hard life on account of your drinking and your contrariness …

— Faith then, to be honest about it, Caitríona, I suppose I did have a hangover on the odd Saturday, after the Friday …

— Faith then you did, Tomás Inside, and every Saturday, and every Sunday, and every Monday, and a good many Tuesdays and Wednesdays too …

— You always have your tongue at the ready, Caitríona. I always said that Nell was much more kind-hearted than you …

— You windbag! …

— Faith then, I did, Caitríona. “The devil a bit of looking after me would Caitríona do but to spite Nell,” I used to say. You should see the care Nell gave me when I was laid low, Caitríona. Two doctors …

— For herself she got them, Tomás Inside. Ho-ho, there are no flies on that little pest! …

— It was for me, indeed, she got them, Caitríona. The very moment I was brought into the house to her, she got up off her bed to attend to me …

— She got up off her bed! …

— Faith then she did, Caitríona, and she stayed up …

— Oh, you simpleton! You simpleton! She played a trick on you! She played a trick on you! Sure you never had an ache or a pain, Tomás Inside …

— The devil an ache or a pain then, Caitríona, and isn’t it odd that I died the same as a person who had. By the docks, I think the priest was no help to me …

— You can swear on the book that he wasn’t, Tomás Inside. That cocky little one coaxed the St. John’s Gospel from him that evening, and sent you packing instead of herself, as she did to Jack the Scológ …