Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

— … The Big Butcher often told me that he had respect for me on account of the respect his father had for my father …

—“Seven shillings and sixpence this bottle will cost you,” says he. “It’s the very best.” “The blessings of God on you, doctor!” said I. “Only for you, I don’t know what the people would do at all. I don’t, faith. You’re great for the man in distress. There’s nothing lazy or laggardly about you …”

— The man in distress, as you say. From then on, myself and the Menlo Man would write to one another every week. He’d say in every one of his letters that his appetite had changed completely. He’d complain that he couldn’t bear to taste a potato or meat or cabbage now. He’d give the air above him and the earth beneath him for tea and fish, things I had come to detest, myself, now. But, as you say, you never saw anything more baffling. I had never been fond of meat or cabbage, but since being in hospital I would eat them half-cooked straight out of the pot with my bare hands. And potatoes as well. I’d eat potatoes three times a day if I got them …

— … “Your old ankle is twisted again,” he said. “By Galen’s 7windy plexus and by the umbilical cord of the Fianna’s physician, if you come in to me again with your shitty old ankle …”

—“Seven shillings and sixpence,” he said. “I don’t begrudge you seven shillings and sixpence,” said I. “I’ll give it to you as soon as the bottle does me good …”

— Does you good, as you say. But nothing would do me any good. The intestines were still insatiable. Potatoes, meat and cabbage for my breakfast, dinner and supper. “These sooty old chimneys are whetting your appetite,” said the old lady. “The soot is forming a coating on your intestine.” “Not at all,” says I, “but ’tis how my intestines are insatiable …”

— Arrah, my dear man, he jumped up, he smashed the bottle on the floor …

— Faith then, if I jumped like that, as you say, my intestines would start going to and fro, and they wouldn’t stop for half an hour. I told the Irish-language learner who was lodging with us that summer I died. He was a trainee doctor. He’d get his credentials the following year. He quizzed me up and he quizzed me down about the way I was operated on. “Yourself and the Menlo Man were together on the table,” he said …

— … Qu’il retournerait pour libérer la France …

— He made smithereens of the bottle on the floor. He kicked the shelf and knocked all that was on it. “Only for I’d lose my doctor’s licence, I’d make you eat those broken bottles,” he said. And over he goes to Peadar the Pub’s …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds for a story, weren’t you lucky! If you’d drunk that poison bottle, you’d lie back in your bed like the man a while ago …

— He would indeed lie back, as you say. “Your intestines are insatiable since,” said the young doctor. “And you have the Menlo Man’s appetite. The doctors and nurses were tipsy that day after the dress-dance the night before!” he said. “That’s how the likes of them are, as you say,” says I. “Oh, not a doubt about it,” said he, “but when they were putting the intestines back into the two of you, they put the Menlo Man’s into you and yours into the Menlo Man. That’s why you gave up the tobacco …”

— But you didn’t give up the thieving, Road-End Man. It was after they opened you up that you stole my drift-weed …

— And my little lump-hammer …

— Take care that he didn’t steal the intestines from the Menlo Man! …

— If he found them hanging loose at all …

— All he said to me is that I had been stabbed through the edge of my liver. “You’ve been stabbed through the edge of your liver,” he said, “and that’s all there’s to it.” “The treacherous One-Ear Breed!” said I. “On behalf of my sliced-up liver I implore you, doctor! You’ll swear against them as best you can. They’ll be hanged …”

— Caitríona went over to him. “What’s wrong with you now?” he said. “Nell was here the other day,” she said. “Do you think, doctor, will what she’s complaining of kill her? The blessings of God on you, doctor!” says she. “People tell me you have poison. I’ll share Baba’s will with you! Nobody will ever know about it if you drop the least little bit into the next one and tell her it’s the best of bottles: two spoons before she goes to bed and again on an empty stomach …”

— But Nell could have the law on her and on the doctor then …

— Ababúna! Didn’t the doctor admit to me that day …

— … And I never saw my pound from that day till the day I died …

— … That the little bitch asked him to poison me. He didn’t say it straight out, but …

— … But listen, Siúán, did she ever return your silver teapot?

— … I could easily know from the way the doctor spoke that day … Cite of the Ash-Potatoes! Don’t believe her, Jack! Jack the Scológ, don’t believe mangy Cite!

— God would punish us, Caitríona, for saying anything …

— I’ll explode! I’ll explode! I’ll explode! …

6

— … Faith then, as you say, I fixed the chimney for her at the same time …

— … By the docks, my friend, not begrudging it to her, but she wheedled some money out of me, my friend, and it was the time of the roundtable too. What did she want a roundtable for? Look at me! …

— You little good-for-nothing! When did you have a penny? …

— … Shame on us, Curraoin, that we let the English market go! I had a patch of land …

— By the docks, there wasn’t a sweeter bit of land from the stairs of Heaven down than that patch of mine. There wasn’t, my friend. But towards the end there was no will to walk or to work left in me, what with running after Nell’s and Caitríona’s cattle every minute, trying to keep them off it. They are the two who fleeced me, not that I begrudge it to them!

— Oh! See how my big holding is going to rack and ruin! Glutton’s donkey and Road-End’s donkey and cattle are picking it bare every day and every night. The eldest son is keeping steady company with Road-End’s daughter, even though she’s under some spell since the day she was born not to pass my turf stack …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , didn’t she tell Big Brian there was a stoat’s nest in her own stack!

— Oh, the devil pierce her! She has cast some sort of spell or bewilderment on my eldest son. She had a camera and she used to take pictures of herself dressed in those flimsy little rags. The Son of Blackleg thinks my old lady at home is more inclined now to make the second son hit the road and give the big holding to the eldest one. The devil take me, if she does …!

— … Exercise: A donkey would lay bare four square perches of common pasturage in the course of one night. The question is now, Curraoin, how many times would four square perches go into the seventeen acres of my holding: 17 multiplied by 4, multiplied by 40 …

— … Honest , Dotie, there wasn’t a spark of romance in Caitríona. It was the house and land she was after. Hoping to rob some of the gentry who used to frequent the place. You may be sure it wasn’t for love of Jack the Scológ …

— Don’t believe her, Jack. Don’t believe Mangy Calves Sheáinín! …

— God would punish us for saying anything …

— … It was failing her to get a man at all, Dotie. Big Brian told me that she was like a cold you couldn’t get rid of! No sooner had you spat her out of your mouth than she was in again through your nose …

— Oh! Jack, don’t believe her! Good Heavens tonight! Big Brian! …