Poguemahone, p.32
Poguemahone, page 32
Before finally arriving at
the back door of Brondesbury Gardens,
now, of course, entirely deserted.
‘Welcome to a real Nirvana!’ she stammered,
‘Yes, at very long last
a perfect, proper Paradise!’
only then, of course
almost the second she’d closed the door
behind them
began quaking and crying
& apologising to the childre
& generally making a fool
of herself
what she would do without me
I just don’t know.
Not that I’ve received much acknowledgement
over the years
especially not here in Cliftonville Bay
in spite of the fact that
no matter what hour of the day or night
it might be
I’m always here to hold her hand,
the poor woman.
Poor woman?
What on earth am I talking about?
Just try telling that to any of the guests in here.
Who, as you can see,
are eating out of her hand,
every single one of them.
To such an extent that, ever since our arrival
back from London, I think she’s been considering
abandoning me altogether.
Not that she hasn’t tried that before
which is why I’ve tended to keep my distance
in case of anymore violent disagreements
because I can’t, to be honest,
bear the thought of
anymore scenes.
As we had the other day
when I mentioned Tom Padge McGurran
Padge who used to
sing in The Bedford
what a great old character he was
God bless him.
I remember the pair of us were laying cables
down in Rochester.
Ah, the heart’s a wonder, Padge, I says,
give us a bar of a song, will you
craythur?
As he leans on his pick
&, with not a bother on him,
off he goes,
because that was always the way
with Tom Padge McGurran
of Killaloe.
And which is why I had absolutely no hesitation at all
in recommending one of his celebrated
favourites for Una’s now-imminent
World-Famous Capers!
‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ I pronounced,
‘I’d like to introduce a very special
guest!’
as the pair of us launch into singing:
Hello there old Ireland
diddly die-dill machree!
When, glory be to God,
don’t I find myself receiving
an almighty wallop
across the face
before looking across to see
not so much my sister
no, not what you might
call our Una at all
but a complete and utter
harridan
shaking like a leaf
with all her bits and pieces
thrown around her
as she screams
& I mean screams:
‘He’s a liar!
That’s all he is,
a lousy, selfish,
manipulative liar!
& always has been
for there’s no Tom Padge
& never was!’
Then, after that,
starting up the same
old dirge
insisting it was me
who’d been responsible
for all her heartbreak
down the years
& how
never in a million years
would she have me in her show
telling lies the like of that
because there is such a thing as
a bad angel, she says
whether he goes by the
name of the gruagach or
slinks around favelas
in Nigeria & Brazil
attired all in white
which
is the colour of purity
ha ha ha
the one they call Mr Exu
the sly one
with his polished white loafers,
buttoned waistcoat & ponytail,
insinuating himself
into the recesses of people’s minds
spreading lies about how
he doesn’t exist
& then what happens?
Her whole body goes rigid
and she knocks down
the great big potted palm
beside the door
as Rutherford, white-faced,
comes running over
along with Connie.
As, professionals that they are,
they somehow succeed, against the odds,
in calming down the whole unfortunate
situation.
So, it’s a grand old station.
With that, more or less,
terminating the possibility
of any further rehearsals
as they lead her by the elbow
along the corridor towards the bathroom
where they tidy her up
& she does that laugh
with her narrow shoulders
o yes
& old Una
Magoona
she keeps on repeating
Yes, I am Una
Una Fogarty
daughter of Dots
who had the misfortune
to fall in love with
silly old Troy
yes, tumble head over heels
i ngrá
in love
with McClory
the Scottie
yes, fell for him so bad
all them hundreds
of stupid years ago
o look
at him now
in your mind’s eye
smiling like he used to
do you see him
sister
do u want
to maybe do the
mickey-jump-jubbly
with him
as of old
well, do you
want to
or not?
Aw!
O how beautiful
it sounds
that long-ago
Scottish burr
& it debating
all about how those
two wee childre
they got stolen
with the police
now
like slaters
crawling everywhere
around Queen’s Park
in every nook and cranny
of North London
in fact
with their radios spurting
& blue lights revolving
as the officers
they make
one-to-one
house searches
with photofit sketches
of the two little
babbies
vanished
pouf!
like a plume of smoke.
O come
away
o
human
child
to
the waters and
the wild –
you can hear it plainly
on the breeze
on the wind
you can hear it
& yet, what do they still
go and do
o Lord aren’t people so foolish
they turn around
&
say that there’s
no such thing
as
the
g
r
u
a
g
a
c
h,
o but there is
you see
there’s a gruagach, all right
just as sure as there are
lambs that gambol
out there in the rolling fields
of Kent
& the white surf of Margate
breaks daily
upon that sandy shore.
With poor sweet Connie,
Rutherford’s lieutenant
looking edgily,
like she seems to do
does so often now
looking out through
the high window
at the front
fidgeting and twisting,
chatting absently
to her superior.
With The Princess,
to be honest,
this past while
getting nearly as
bad as our Una.
Asking repeatedly
what are we going to do
not only about our Una
but as regards her own private life
& being reassured
by Margaret
on a daily basis
who tells her not to worry about Una
for now that they’ve changed
the electronic codes on the door
there’s little fear of her scarpering
off to London again
we’re lucky we kept our jobs
says The Princess
looking like she’s about to
break down herself
on the spot, poor thing.
With Butley & Roystone
the terrible twins
coming along to cheer
up for a bit
or so they seem to think
with some North London
stories of an entirely different type
the Sunday-morning jazz
in otherwords
which were held
each and every Sunday morning
without fail
says Butley
in the Done-Our-Bit Club
with not so much as one cloth-eared
Paddy to be seen anywhere
about the place
causing rows and disputes
& no end of unnecessary dissension.
No, not so much as a single soul
from the so-called ‘old country’,
that rain-drenched land of self-pity
& sentiment
where the two gentlemen
felt comfortable
paying homage to the talents
of Messrs Coltrane & Thelonious Monk,
or anyone else of the ‘bebop’ persuasion.
‘Cloth-eared though they might be,’
muses Roystone, ‘I have got to
be honest and acknowledge the fact
that Pat & Mick,
for all their failings,
they have generally
never, in my experience,
been anything other than civil.
That is, of course, when they
weren’t engaged
in blowing my beloved city
to pieces around me!’
‘Yes, that’s true,’ Butley interrupted. ‘There was in existence
a certain contingent who made our lives a misery – not that
they were representative, and not for a minute would I
suggest otherwise.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Roystone nodded, ‘I expect they mustn’t have laws
of their own – certainly no grasp of anything approaching a
civic code was in evidence. Not next door at any rate – why
there were times in the night when I’d wake up to the sound
of what I took to be a wardrobe falling down the stairs.’
‘Yes,’ said Butley, ‘A wardrobe filled with bricks, indeed.’
‘Going to change the world, by all accounts. With their
idiotic music and spurious, half-baked philosophies.’
‘They used to filch our electricity willy nilly & call us names
– The Pokey Men, if you don’t mind. Although in retrospect, I
have to say I find it amusing.’
‘Nonetheless, there had always been something unsavoury
about the place. Chilling, even. Even yet it can get to me.’
‘Make you sick even to have to think about it.’
‘I’ll never forget the night we broke in. Although I
knew we shouldn’t have.’
‘But you were disturbed. You said you could hear a woman
weeping.’
‘Yes. Weeping and wailing and screaming.’
‘Yes, screaming relentlessly: Don’t hit me! Dan, Dan,
please don’t hit me!’
‘Whoever Dan was – gives me the shivers. We shouldn’t have
ever gone near the place. . .’
‘I nearly died when you knocked over the milk bottles. Such a
state as those layabouts had left the place in. . .to be honest, I
wanted to get the hell out. But it was already too late. . .’
‘Old torn letters, empty food cartons. An old rusted workman’s lamp, a ragged old curtain hanging from the
window – a great big giant butterfly on the ceiling. . .’
‘All I wanted was to get the blazes out. But it was already too
late. . .’
‘Perhaps we imagined it. . .’
‘WE DIDN’T IMAGINE IT! WE’VE BEEN THROUGH
ALL THIS BEFORE – I KNOW WHAT I HEARD!’
PLOC
PLOC
PLOC
‘That’s why I wanted to sell up and get out. Yes, get the hell
away out from N0.45 – indeed as far as humanly
possible away from the Kilburn area!’
As up arrives Rutherford, just as he’s
finishing off his story
with this knowing smile like
she’s been listening all along.
with her kind eyes
twinkling
as she catches a hold of
him by the sleeve
& says to Roystone:
you wouldn’t by any chance
be telling little birdies?
Reminding me as it does
of the question
I’m always asking
why do birds sing?
Cén fáth a channan siad?
I mean, there’s thousands of them
who come up here to the door of the hotel
every day
& such a racket as the rascals make!
With the question remaining: why?
Yes, just why does it exist, this chorus of pathetic notes
repeated five or six times, afterwards prolonged with an
entirely new accent?
Perhaps the robin might give us some advice, with its
succession of infinitely varied phrases – indicating that he
alone is in possession of the territory and that he intends to
remain master there.
For singing, to a bird, is to issue a challenge too.
Before the timid finales, rivals habitually affront each other
with their voices.
Chaffinches ceaselessly toss each other their triumphal
refrain, as if they were seeking their last breed of adversaries.
Over the fields and woods, the males’ boasting rises thus, loud
or discreet, sweet or harsh, repeating from place to place.
But then are they to compare with the song that is produced
by that uniquely majestic species, the great white bird that is
the whooper swan, silver son of the sea god Manannan Mac
Lir.
With his strong voice mastered at full octave, resounding
fiercely, triumphantly as his wide sailing flight brings him
close to his mate.
To hear him sing, Aunt Nano used to say, is to forget
everything one knows and to remember everything one has
forgotten.
‘For that’s the way that it is, do you see – with us queer old
birds, that is from the times way before now.’
And I know what she means.
For all I ever wish whenever I wake up
to greet
the sun
not knowing
whether it’s it
or the moon
I’m looking
at
is to recall at least
a portion
of so many of the things
I’ve forgotten
bombed away
without trace
in my mind
yes,
entire houses,
whole streets
erased
as the whistling stops
&
V
V
V
down they come
again
the consequence of
lumbering, advancing years
& with no way of knowing
when an even more
powerful
UXB
might turn around
&
take a notion
yes
phléasc!
go
B
O
O
M!
& leave you standing
on waste ground
annihilated
gawping into
the steep ravine
of
yourself.
What a way to end one’s days
& o how I wish
it could have been otherwise
more like the way
my sweet young sister
wanted
with us both acting roles
in our very own version of
the fairytale
‘Children Of Lir’
soaring high above the rooftops
in the company of our lovely little páistí.
God only knows
it would fair break
your heart
even thinking about
such things
but as Una says
you still have to go
on
no matter what it might be
that ails you
as Una says
on and on
we must go
for we Fogartys
as always
what choice do we have
but to get up & go
& go on
&
on
&
on
&. . .
I mean, you really do have to hand it
to her for courage
& for absolutely everything she’s done
in order to make, once again,
her annual Cliftonville Capers
happen.
& which look, at last, like they’re ready
to go.
Not, mind you, that you can ever be entirely
100% certain
that, at the very last minute,
just before curtain-up,
she won’t go back
to her auld troubling ways
like she did last year
one minute to showtime
when she took into blaming
