The firewater was in my head now although I didn’t realise 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 Browning.”
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 be 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?”
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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...
