After the Lockout (9 page)

‘He wouldn't even let you put in a gravestone,' I say.

‘I know the right spot.' Pius mumbles through the words he has come to say. He opens his eyes. ‘Would you not say a prayer for your mother?'

‘Ma's dead.'

He makes a sign of the cross, rises to his feet and takes a couple of steps back. He reaches inside his coat pocket, pulls out a tin hipflask and takes a swig. He offers it to me.

‘I don't think you should be starting …'

‘God damn you, I said take a drink.'

I take the flask, unscrew the lid and, looking him in the eye, pour it out onto the stony ground. He lunges desperately to try and save the last few drops but he's a sozzled old man and he's
too slow. He looks down at the little poteen puddle, more crestfallen than a man with his own distillery at home need be. ‘Why did you do that?' he hisses. He has hateful vengeance in his eyes, but I'm not a child any more and I'm not afraid of him.

‘I'm home to save you.'

His expression shifts. Anger. Scorn. Mirth. Shame. He tries to speak but whatever is going on inside him, the words won't come. A long and violent exhalation is all he can manage. He looks broken-down, confused, bitter, old. He can't contend with the world swirling around him.

‘We're going to fix up the house and get the land back to the way it should be. And there'll be no more drinking.'

Again his face shows a kaleidoscope of passion but again he settles on shame. ‘I need it. It's for my condition. I have a terrible affliction without it. My hands shake something terrible and nothing else will stop them.' He turns his eyes to the ground. He looks so pathetic that, despite everything, I relent.

‘I'll make you a deal. You can drink after dark, but by day, we work. No matter how bad you have the horrors.'

‘All right, son.'

It's drizzling and dark clouds hang overhead. You hop over the rickety wall of the Poor Ground and look for a relatively soft part among the stones. You pick a spot and thrust the spade into the soil, hoping it's virgin territory. Everyone knows the awful tales of accidental exhumations. Ordinarily the neighbours help in digging graves but not for a burial such as this. It's just you and your brothers. No-one even stops to offer condolences while you
work. Best not to talk about such things. This is for family alone. Pius isn't here. He's been drinking poteen all night and he's lying unconscious at home. But Charlie comes. ‘She was like a mother to me too,' he says. With nine men at work, the hole is soon finished.

Charlie waits with you by the graveside while your brothers go and get Pius from home and your mother from the wake house. She's wrapped in a brown blanket and they carry her on their shoulders. You go into the grave and they pass her down to you. You lay her gently on the earth and kiss her forehead before you get out of the hole. Then Maggie arrives, a black shawl draped over her head. She could be family too. You could make her a Lennon today if you wanted to. Your brothers heap soil on Deirdre while Pius watches silently, swaying in the breeze. He doesn't look at you, not at any stage. The clouds begin to spit, turning the fresh-dug earth to mud, and your brothers work quickly to get finished. There are no prayers over the grave. Pius won't allow it. Afterwards you stay until only you and Maggie are left.

‘I'm getting the train this afternoon,' you tell her. ‘Come with me. It doesn't matter where we go, let's just go.'

‘I have a family, I can't just leave them. I have to stay here, Victor,' she says.

‘You can't leave and I can't stay.'

‘You could stay. You could stay if you wanted to.'

People would have seen the newspaper report. Stanislaus held it in his hand as he waited by the downstairs window of the Parochial House while Father Daly cranked the starting motor
on his buggy. All but a few would have been shocked by it. Stanislaus had planned to devote his homily to the article, and to the disgraceful behaviour at the dance, but when he spotted Pius Lennon sitting alone in the pew, with no sign of his son in attendance, he decided to hold his peace. People would have noticed Victor's absence. If Victor thought he could inject atheism into the spiritual bloodstream of the parish, like he was some travesty of an evangelist, he misjudged the people of Madden. Stanislaus believed the best strategy was to allow Victor enough rope to hang himself.

The automobile coughed into life and as he hopped gleefully behind the steering column, Father Daly signalled to Stanislaus that they were ready to depart. Father Daly seemed to spend half his life poking around the engine trying to fix the latest malfunction in his disgustingly dirty and unreliable vehicle, and he had a devil of a time washing off the grime and oil from his hands – hands that were supposed to be worthy of handling the Blessed Eucharist! Stanislaus climbed into the vehicle. It was a crisp and clear spring day, it didn't look like rain, but still, it was a relief that the vehicle had a retractable canvas awning. Most of the ones Stanislaus had seen before didn't. He accepted Father Daly's offer of a blanket for his knees, to keep the cold off, but rejected a pair of goggles. Stanislaus had spoken to the curate before about the need for men with spiritual responsibilities to present themselves to the outside world appropriately, yet here was the young man wearing not only goggles but a leather jacket fastened with one of those hookless interlocking-teeth fasteners. Pearls before swine.

Every bump in the road felt like a kick up the backside. Stanislaus changed his mind about the goggles when he realised
that the front window merely reduced the amount of flies and dirt rushing into his face, it did not prevent them entirely. He lurched violently in his seat as the uneven road delivered another kick, and told Father Daly to slow down. Stanislaus disliked automobiles as he disliked the general mania for the new. War always had the effect of speeding up the new. Automobiles. Moving pictures. Aeroplanes. Even telephones were becoming more common. He had read a report from America that they planned to read out news ‘bulletins' in the future via radio waves, and they were working on mass-producing wireless sets small enough and cheap enough for people to have in their homes. This theme of mass access and participation seemed to be everywhere, and Stanislaus was sure it had something to do with the Marxians. He did not look forward to the world the war would leave in its wake.

‘At this speed we would cover almost thirty miles every hour. Every hour, mind you, road permitting,' Father Daly roared in triumph above the engine and the onrushing wind. Stanislaus had to admit these automobiles moved quickly. They were probably about halfway to Armagh already. It was extraordinary that this could be achieved without the use of rail. Still, he felt sure the discomfort involved would ensure it stayed confined to a minority of enthusiasts.

He still had the
Armagh Guardian
in his hand. He looked at it again, for the same reason he couldn't help poking at mouth ulcers with his tongue, and flicked inside to the main news story, set between the ads for Boys' Whitby Suits, Beecham's Pills, and below GW Megahey of Scotch Street's promise of an ‘Extraordinary Cheap Sale, with Bargains For All and Boots, Shoes and Slippers at Ridiculously Low Prices'.

COMMUNIST SOWS DISCORD

Took Part in Sinn Fein Rebellion

RETURN OF VICTOR LENNON DIVIDES MADDEN

Controversial Opinions on Church and War Effort

CELEBRATION ENJOYED BY ALL, OTHERWISE