Shambles Corner. Edward Toman

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СКАЧАТЬ same. Sadly the classes hadn’t lasted very long. The Movement split when they were still on Lesson Five (the first declension) and the Falls Road teacher had taken a wrong ideological turning that ended in Milltown cemetery. But an oath is an oath, especially if taken by a soldier of the Republic. Armed with the Christian Brothers’ Grammar, the Patriot spent the next six years struggling with the intricacies of the subjunctive and the complex vocabulary of field and shoreline. His labours were only partially successful. By nature a solitary person, his habits had been reinforced by years on the blanket. But lack of language was no handicap. His truculence and dourness and his reluctance to be drawn too deeply into political debate were useful tools for survival; in due course his long silences and curt utterances gave him an air of authority, an authority reinforced by his stature and reputation as the man they couldn’t kill.

      So when the Patriot got to his feet and addressed himself to the problem in hand, even Joe knew that the crack was over and that he might as well see to the pigs outside. The Patriot rose to his full height and ran his fingers through his lank locks. ‘Caidé tá cearr?’ he demanded in a quiet and reasonable voice. What is wrong?

      ‘Nothing wrong at all,’ answered Joe, likewise adopting a quiet and reasonable tone. ‘In fact I was just this minute hoping to attend to a small business matter that I fear can’t wait any longer.’

      ‘Time and tide wait for no man,’ agreed his erstwhile companion, edging his way to the door.

      But the Patriot roused to speech was reluctant to let the matter drop. He had managed to form a sentence, albeit one that was grammatically suspect, and he didn’t feel like wasting it on one airing. ‘Dúirt me caidé tá cearr?’ he demanded. I said what is wrong? The grammar was even more suspect but the meaning was clear enough. A note of menace had entered his voice. If everyone else could treat his place like a rough-house, it seemed to imply, he was going to have some of the action. He thought for a moment but no new words came to express these thoughts. So he contented himself with a third rehearsal of the original sentence. This time the intonation had been modulated; it was no longer an interrogative or an assertion, it was a threat. A threat directed at the person of Joe Feely, pig farmer. It spoke of blood in the nostrils and ribs in need of splints, of lost front teeth and eyes that wouldn’t open, of pain and humiliation and the mockery of his peers. All this and more, the Patriot conveyed in the same few words. There was only one way out and Joe knew it; only one way to prevent the Patriot, his word store depleted, from vaulting the bar and getting stuck in. Joe summoned all his resources and addressed the giant in the language of his forefathers.

      ‘Tá muid all okay, ar seise, in fact tá muid’ – he faltered for a second – ‘ag dul abhaile.’ We are, he said, on our way and he indicated the door lest the Patriot have any difficulty with the pronunciation or mistake his intentions. But the effect was instantaneous. The Patriot’s face broke into a smile. He reached across the bar and grasped Joe’s hand in his own huge paddle. Words, not for the first time, failed him. But there was no mistaking the emotion of the moment. The English had come marauding to this ancient spot seven hundred years ago, planting it with their settlers; since then the only language the Shambles had known was rough Béarla, the tongue of the oppressor, unnatural in our mouths. The Patriot and his comrades, and ten thousand more before him, had all but driven the invaders out at last, but they had left their language as a mocking legacy. But when he heard the sweet sounds of spoken Gaelic in his house he felt that our day was at last coming.

      Joe knew that there is a time to speak and a time to be silent. He stood silent now, content to have his hand roughly shaken by the Patriot, instead of his body broken by the same party. The fat man from Tyrone, meanwhile, managed to fill the silence. From the depths of his unconscious he dredged up what was left of his Brothers education. Only one sentence came to him but, as luck would have it, it was the one to do the trick. ‘Suigh síos,’ he said. Sit down. The Patriot subsided on to the stool at the bar, a happy man, while Joe and Frank made for the door, resisting the temptation to wink at the corner boys en route to show them he knew how to handle your man. ‘Let’s go outside and have a word with the mystery man,’ he whispered to the lad, ‘before there’s ructions.’

Two

      Magee stood in the drizzle gently prodding the sow with a hazel switch, gauging the depth of the fat on her haunches, but careful not to bruise the flesh so soon before slaughter. The animal pivoted her bristled snout away from him, but he prodded her firmly on the other flank till she turned back to him.

      From the door of Hughes’s Joe watched him, saying nothing. He reached into his pocket and produced a battered pouch. Carefully he rolled a thin cigarette. He cupped his hands around the match, his back hunched against the wind from the lower end of the town. His full attention seemed to be devoted to English Street where knots of pedlars were eyeing one another suspiciously before the serious business of the day began. He turned his attention down the town, to the bleak curve of Irish Street. There was only one shop on the street, Peadar’s Fruit’n’Veg, whose proprietor had positioned a few crates on the pavement as a concession to market day. Peadar himself hovered uneasily at the door, keeping an eye on the muddy potatoes and long-leafed carrots. Joe nodded to him.

      Meanwhile Magee had turned his back on the pigs and was facing up the town. They nonchalantly surveyed their respective quarters for a few minutes more, then turned slowly to check on developments across the Shambles. Magee cleared his throat and spat a ball of gleaming mucus into the gutter. The pigs jostled forward, investigating it with their dripping snouts. He held his nose between forefinger and thumb and blew it, hard and long, snapping the snot from his fingers over the backs of the beasts. Joe cocked his leg and farted loudly. Then, their toilettes completed, each of them settled their caps on the backs of their heads to indicate that they were ready for business, and turned to face the other for the first time.

      ‘How much are you looking for them?’ demanded Magee.

      ‘I’m looking plenty. You’ll not find better animals in Armagh today.’

      Magee grunted. The preliminaries were over; the ritual of selling could begin in earnest. Both men knew their parts and how they would be expected to play them. They spat on their hands. They offered to shake on it. They turned their backs on derisory offers, took umbrage, swore they’d not take a penny less nor offer a penny more. Then they would grab each other round the neck and whisper loudly into the other’s ear, the meanwhile squeezing the forearm vigorously to convey some hidden nuance. They assured each other they were decent men, and hurled abuse in the next breath. But finally, as both of them knew from the beginning, the deal was struck. There was spitting and the bargain was sealed with a knucklecrushing handshake and a vigorous slap on the back as the wad of notes changed hands.

      ‘You’ll take a drink with me now,’ demanded Joe, indicating the Patriot’s.

      ‘I will not,’ said Magee.

      ‘You’re a God-fearing man, sir, I can see that,’ Joe said with a smirk. ‘Sure something tells me you dig with the other foot. But we’ll not hold that against you.’ They both laughed sparingly. ‘Are you sure now you won’t join me in a pint? You’re not going to stand there and tell me that all you fellows are teetotallers?’

      ‘You’ll not take offence if I decline,’ Magee grunted.

      ‘I respect you for that now, sir. If there were more like you, decent men, on both sides, the country wouldn’t be in the state it’s in. Tell me, am I right on that one?’

      ‘You are,’ Magee said without much conviction. He extricated himself from Joe’s clutches and drove the squealing animals before him across the Shambles to the corner of Scotch Street, without СКАЧАТЬ