Margie looked round at us all, pleased with herself. “Never turned,” she went on. “Let on she did so’s she could get her man but then never darkened the door of the chapel after the day of the wedding. She turned queer remember. Do you not remember?”
“You mean ...” said Willie Henry, eyewater shining with the scandal of it. “You’re not telling me a woman —”
“Ended up sweeping the grass out her front before they put her in the mental. She used to get up in the morning and go out and sweep the grass before even she got her breakfast.”
“Howard Hughes is supposed to be like that,” said Jim.
“That’s the film man,” nodded Willie Henry. “I didn’t know he swept the grass now.”
I thought of Aisling again and brought the bottle in and poured out a bit more for everybody.
“Good on you Master,” said Willie Henry. “God save Ireland!”
“Hoof left school with nothing,” said Seamus. “Could hardly write his own name so he couldn’t. And then after he got married to your woman they went across the water and he worked as a brickie in London. Never spent a penny if he could help it and ended up a millionaire. This is the nineteen thirties I’m talking about now.”
Jim shook his head. “That’s a goodun. You’d think I’d have heard of him. Hoof Hogan you say?”
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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...
