“Margie,” I said, “would you fancy a drink? Orange or anything?”
Margie nodded. “I’ll have what yous are having. Whiskey’ll do fine. I hope it’s not watered Robbie.”
She was smiling away, big rosy face on her. Always up for a bit of crack Margie. Looks like it’s the hard core out here in the kitchen.
“Naw, I only bought it the day there so my mother never got at it yet.”
She gave a big man’s laugh. “Do you mean to tell me she drinks your whiskey and then waters it down to cover her tracks?”
“Naw,” I said. “I mean she’s the next thing to a prohibitionist.”
“Not a dilutionist then?” she said.
“Or illusionist,” said Jim.
We were all drinking the whiskey when Mammy came in again and took one look and reversed out. The first two or three sips loosened me. I could feel the tension come off my shoulders and was starting to see on a different level from before the stupidity of the whole thing I was implicated in. For no reason then I thought of Aisling coming to plead with me and her shock when she saw the bow on the door. Or somebody telling her about the blinds being down and her thinking it was Mammy was dead and landing up hoping it might mean a new start for us.
“Somebody told me Maud died intestate,” Seamus was saying.
“Where’s that?” said Willie Henry.
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The Wake - Table of contents
HumorTHE YEAR is 1968 and the Swinging Sixties are still swinging - though not in Ireland. But wait! An old woman dies in a northern Irish town and her wake becomes a rendezvous for lesbians, bisexuals and political revolutionaries. And in there among t...
