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

seagreen under the streetlight. My head spun. Let her speak. Let her do the talking.
    “I thought it was your mother was dead,” she said, “and I shook hands with her at the door and she told me who she was.”
    “Did she know who you were?” I asked pointlessly.
    “I love you Jeremiah. You know that, don’t you? I’m not sleeping.”
    I opened my mouth to say I’m not sure what but then waited because a bus stopped and sat throbbing very loud in a queue. She was as irresistible as I’d ever seen her. I wanted to hold her and crush her but I stood at a measured distance and when the bus moved on I said: “Will you be going back to Audrey?”
    “I can’t say I won’t.”
    The firewater was in my head now although I didn’t realize it properly and from not knowing what I was going to say I got in a state where I didn’t right know what I was saying. “Well make sure she’s got the doldos well stocked next time you go up to Belfast” came out. The drink had loosened more than my shoulders.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “What has she got that I haven’t got? Aw I forgot, she’s got the doldos.”
    “You mean dildos? Is it dildos you’re thinking of, Jeremiah?”
    “Dildo. Doldo. What the hell does it matter what you call it? What’s she got that I haven’t got?”
    “Excuse me Mister Coffey.”
    I turned round. The two Miss Quinns were waiting to get past me, all aflutter.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t hear you coming.”
    Two pairs of spectacles flickered nervously. “We were wondering,” said one of them, “what time the funeral mass is going to be at.”
    “It’s at ten o’clock”.
    “Ten o’clock,” twittered the other. “That’s grand. Some of them are nine and some are eleven.”
    “And sometimes they’re not till twelve,” added the first. “Sometimes people have to come over from England and they don’t get here till it’s late morning.”
    Aisling was gone.
    “But poor Maud had no relations, hadn’t she not?” said the other. “Isn’t it terrible when you have no one?”
    “God have mercy on her soul,” they said, one starting on her own, then slowing down so the sister could catch up and they were together on the last three words, heads going like two sparrows.
    The street was gray with mist. I looked in the direction she went and saw something shapeless coming towards me. Her coming back? I’m not sleeping, she said. It had been good to see her humble herself and know I could still have her if I wanted. Share her. What was so bad about what she was doing? Was it so bad? Yes it was. Deviant and devious and what’s the other thing, promiscuous. Better shot of all that. It would be good to be in the state of grace again anyway, I should never have been out of it. I’d get confession tomorrow before half seven mass after Maud was taken to the cathedral, get confession and clean the slate. The swings and slides in Bull Park dizzied as I turned my head from whoever was coming and tried to think of something to say to the Quinns. Why couldn’t they go? I looked down at them and waited for the shape to clear and Aisling to say: “Can I have a word with you in private?”
    Big Bill Braddock stepped from out of the murk. “That’s a dull old night, isn’t it?” he said. He shook my hand and raised his hat to the two Miss Quinns. Addressing me he said: “I was sorry to hear about your neighbor, ah …”
    Her name escaped him. I didn’t have the presence of mind to supply it. I’d been expecting Aisling.
    “Molly. Molly was her name, wasn’t it?” he said with assurance. Never a man to lack confidence.
    “Maud you mean?” cried one of my companions. “Maud Harrigan.”
    Bill stared at her and then smiled and murmured: “Ah yes. Maud Harrigan. Of course.”
    The sisters left us then and I led him to the kitchen. He went to the coffin and I stood dutifully beside him while he blessed himself with something of a flourish and placed a mass card