The Wake (And What Jeremiah Did Next) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Maud lying over there.”
    “Margie’s right,” nodded Seamus. “The RUC had a quiet word with the bishop and the bishop had a quiet word with Swindells and it’s taxis everywhere now.”
    “Never got to court?” I asked.
    “You’re joking,” said Seamus.
    “I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Jim.
    Neither would I. And it was good to hear. Though you’d have thought somebody in the school would have told me.
    “There’s a lot of things you wouldn’t believe,” said Margie. “Did yous not hear about the two oul Quinn sisters from Windsor Terrace?”
    “I know them,” I said. “Sure they were at the door there a wee while ago. I think they might even be still in the front room now. What about them?”
    “Well, that new wee priest in the cathedral started calling at their house once a week. Doing whatever you call it, pastoral visits.”
    “Father Finucane,” said Willie Henry. Eyes gleaming and you couldn’t tell to look at him if it was from the gossip or the mucus.
    “Was that not a bit often for him to be visiting?” said Seamus.
    “It was but you see they’d always left a fiver on the edge of the sideboard beside the door of the kitchen for him to pick up on his way out.”
    “A fiver a time isn’t bad for ten minutes and a blessing,” suggested Jim.
    “Is that not how Protestants came about?” asked Seamus. “I mean, is that not how it all started?”
    “But wait till you hear. Your man Father Finucane just happened to mention to Father Swindells one day about how generous the two oul dolls were and Swindells says to him ‘I think maybe you should do the top part of Great James’ Street down as far as Prince’s Street from now on Father. I’ll see to Windsor Terrace.’ Pulling rank you see.”
    “I don’t believe it,” said Seamus.
    “I swear to God,” said Margie. “This past I don’t know how long he’s been raking in nearly as much as the bishop. And every time after he left the ladies he’d be straight out to the Broomhill House Hotel shooting the whiskeys into him. You can down a fair few drinks for a five pound note so you can and even when he ran out of the readies he was able to sponge off these ones that were hoping he’d put in a good word for their son or daughter coming out of teacher training or whatever. It was nothing ordinary what he drank.”
    “I mind hearing Irish coffee was his favorite,” said Seamus.
    “And the rest,” nodded Margie. “But you’re right about the Irish coffee. Mickey McGriskin told me he saw him putting away seven of them in the one night. And when each new one was set in front of him he’d always say Ah, not only Irish but free.”
    “I’ll drink to that,” shouted Willie Henry, eyes more or less closed now, bunged up by phlegm or whatever. “God save Ireland!” He then began a pincer movement, two hands closing in stealthily on his crotch, element of surprise being employed obviously, and quickly pouncing, pressing and possibly nailing whatever was there.
    “I heard years ago his mother was one of the Pipers from Slaughtmanus,” said Margie. “Did any of yous ever hear tell of them?”
    “He who pays the piper calls the tune,” said Jim.
    We were all laughing when Aisling walked in. I almost dropped the glass when I saw her. She had on a white mantilla over her long black hair and a dark leather jacket belted at the waist and down below some sort of a gray knee length skirt and black tights and the breath left me. Her face was like a light. She nodded to the wall in front of her and then straight over to the coffin, looked down into it I don’t know how long, it wasn’t long anyway, and next thing was she turned round and left without looking near me. I got up and my legs nearly went from under me. I followed her past mourners whispering in the hall and out to the street. I had no idea what I was going to say to her. She stopped on the footpath at the bottom of our steps and turned to me. Her eyes glistened like