At Swim-Two-Birds (17 page)

Now, gentlemen,
please
, said the Pooka.

Hit one, hit all, repeated Slug.

Pipe down, said Shorty.

I'll pipe you and I'll pipe you down the nearest sewer if you say another word, my fine man, shouted Slug, I'll give you what you won't hold, I'll knock your bloody block off if you say another word. Apologize!

Gentlemen! said the Pooka in a pained manner.

Make your apologies quick, rapped Slug.

All right, all right, said Shorty, apologies all round. Is everybody happy?

I am satisfied, said the Good Fairy.

That is very satisfactory, said the Pooka with a bright re-dawn of courtesy, and now possibly you gentlemen would care to join us in our happy mission. There is a small son being born to Miss Lamont and I have no reason to suspect that guests will be unprovided with refreshment of the right kind.

It's a pleasure, said Slug, we will go and welcome. Did you ever happen to know a party by the name of William Tracy?

I have heard of him, replied the Pooka. Let us take a short-cut through this copse here on the left.

A decent skin if there ever was one, said Slug with warmth, a man that didn't stint the porter. It was a pleasure to work for Mr. Tracy. Isn't the Red Swan where Mr. Trellis lives?

Quite correct, said the Pooka.

What about presents for the bride, asked Shorty, it's only right to bring the full of your pockets when you're going to a hooley.

It's the usual all right, said Slug.

That's a pretty sort of a custom, said the Good Fairy. I wish to God I had a pocket.

The travellers then scattered apart for a bit about the wilderness of the undergrowth till they had filled their pockets with fruits and sorrels and studded acorns, the produce of the yamboo and the blooms of the yulan, blood-gutted berries and wrinkled cresses, branches of juice-slimed sloes, whortles and plums and varied mast, the speckled eggs from the nests of daws.

What do you think I'm made of, asked the Good Fairy sharply, take that thing with the prickles out of your pocket.

Musha, you're very tender, said the Pooka.

I don't wear armour-plated stays, said the Good Fairy.

There's something in there in that clump, called Shorty, I saw something moving.

It's only a rabbit or a black tyke, said the Pooka.

You have your porridge, said Shorty as he peered with his shading hand, there's a trousers on it.

Give us a look, said Slug.

Are you sure it is not a ferret, asked the Good Fairy, chuckling.

Come out of there, roared Shorty with a clasp towards his gun, come out of there or I'll shoot the tail off you!

Steady now, said Slug. Good Day, Sir. Come on out till we see you and don't be afraid.

It's a man and an old one, said the Good Fairy, I can see him through the cloth of the coat here. Advance, Sir, to be recognized!

I don't believe you will see much through that cloth, said the Pooka. Five and sixpence a yard it cost.

Give the word, said Shorty with a waving menace of his hand, or it's gunplay and gravestones. Come out of that tree, you bloody bastard you!

There was a prolonged snappling of stiffened rods and stubborn shoots and the sharp agonies of fractured branches, the pitiless flogging against each other of green life-laden leaves, the thrashing and the scourging of a clump in torment, a jaggle of briar-braced tangly-brambled thorniness, incensed, with a demon in its breast. Crack crack crack.

A small man came out of the foliage, a small man elderly and dark with a cloth cap and a muffler around his windpipe.

Jem by God Casey! said Slug Willard. Two emblems of amazement, his limp hands sank down to his waist until the thumbs found fastening in the bullet-studded belt.

Can you beat it? asked Shorty.

Good morning, said the Pooka courteously.

You are a terrible man, Casey, said Slug.

Greetings all round, said the Casey, and the compliments of the season.

All I can say is this, Casey, said Slug, you are the right fly-be-night, the right hop-off-my-thumb, to be stuck in a place like that. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Jem Casey, Poet of the Pick and Bard of Booterstown.

That is very satisfactory, said the Pooka. To meet a poet, that is a pleasure. The morning, Mr. Casey, can only be described as a glorious extravagance.

What sort of a voice is that, asked Casey, high and low like a bloody swingboat?

The remark about the weather, explained the Pooka, was not made by me at all but by a fairy that I have here in my pocket.

It's a fact, said Slug.

I believe you, said the poet, I believe all that I hear in this place. I thought I heard a maggot talking to me a while ago from under a stone. Good morning, Sir or something he said. This is a very queer place certainly.

My hard Casey, said Slug. Tell me, what were you doing in that clump there?

What do you think, asked Casey. What does any man be doing in a clump? What would
you
be doing?

Here Shorty gave a loud laugh.

By God I know what
I'd
be doing, he laughed.

Approximately half of the company at this stage joined their voices together in boisterous noises of amusement.

We all have to do that, roared Shorty at the end of his prolonged laugh, the best of us have to do that.

He collapsed on his back on the rich grass, shrieking aloud in his amusement. He moved his feet in the air as if operating a pedal cycle.

They have no respect, said the Good Fairy quietly to the Fooka, no respect and no conception of propriety.

The Pooka nodded.

I hope I am broad-minded, he said, but I draw the line at vulgarity and smut. Talk the like of that reflects on them and on the parents that brought them up. It speaks very poorly for their home life.

Suddenly Casey turned round and presented a stern face to the company.

What was I doing? he asked. What was I doing then?

The only answer was a loud laugh.

Well I will tell you what I was doing, he said gravely, I will tell you what I was at: I was reciting a pome to a selection of my friends. That's what I was doing. It is only your dirty minds.

Poetry is a thing I am very fond of, said the Good Fairy. I always make a point of following the works of Mr. Eliot and Mr. Lewis and Mr. Devlin. A good pome is a tonic. Was your pome on the subject of flowers, Mr. Casey? Wordsworth was a great man for flowers.

Mr. Casey doesn't go in for that class of stuff, said Slug.

Dirty minds be damned, said Shorty.

None of your soft stuff for Mr. Casey, said Slug.

I am very fond of flowers, too, said the Good Fairy. The smell of a nice flower is like a tonic. Love of flowers, it is a great sign of virtue.

The stuff that I go in for, said Casey roughly, is the real stuff. Oh, none of the fancy stuff for me.

He spat phlegm coarsely on the grass.

The workin' man doesn't matter, of course, he added.

But why? asked the Pooka courteously. He is surely the noblest of all creatures.

What about all these strikes? asked the Good Fairy. I don't know about him being the noblest. They have the country crippled with their strikes. Look at the price of bread. Sixpence halfpenny for a two-pound loaf.

Dirty minds be damned, said Shorty again. Oh, by God I know what you were doing in that clump, me boyo.

And look at bacon, said the Good Fairy. One and ninepence if you please.

To hell with the workin' man, said Casey. That's what you hear. To bloody hell with him.

I have a great admiration for the worker, said the Pooka.

Well so have I, said Casey loudly. I'll always stand up for my own. It's about the Workin' Man that I was reciting my pome.

And then you have the Conditions of Employment Act, said the Good Fairy, class legislation, that's what it is. Holidays with full pay if you please. No wonder the moneyed classes are leaving the country. Bolshevism will be the next step.

I admire the working man immensely, said the Pooka, and I will not hear a word against him. He is the backbone of family life.

I'd advise that man in the pocket to keep his mouth shut, said Casey roughly. He wouldn't be the first of his kind that got a hammering.

It would take more than you to hammer me then, the Good Fairy answered.

The Pooka spread out his long-nailed hands and made a long soothing noise through his haired nostrils.

Please, gentlemen, he said, no need for acrimony.

If that's what you were at in the clump, said Shorty, stand out there and give us a couple of verses. Go on now.

The poet removed his frown.

I will if you want me to, he said.

Not everybody can recite poetry, said the Good Fairy. It is an art in itself. Verse-speaking they call it in London.

Don't mind him, said Slug. Off you go, Casey. One two, three...

Casey then made a demonstration with his arm and gave out his poetical composition in a hard brassy voice, free from all inflexion.

    Come all ye lads and lassies prime
    From Macroom to old Strabane
    And list to me till I say my rhyme -
    THE GIFT OF GOD IS A WORKIN' MAN.

    Your Lords and people of high degree
    Are a fine and a noble clan,
    They do their best but they cannot see
    THAT THE GIFT OF GOD I5 A WORKIN' MAN.

    From France to Spain and from Holland gay
    To the shores of far Japan,
    You'll find the people will always say
    THE GIFT OF GOD IS A WORKIN' MAN.

    He's good, he's strong and his heart is free
    If he navvies or drives a van,
    He'll shake your hand with a gra-macree -
    THE GIFT OF GOD IS A WORKIN' MAN.

    Your Lords and ladies are fine to see
    And they do the best they can,
    But here's the slogan for you and me -
    THE GIFT OF GOD IS A WORKIN' MAN.

Good man! called Slug, good man yourself. Certainly that's a great bit of writing.

Bravo, said the Pooka politely.

Casey put out his two hands to make silence and then waved them up and down.

Here's the last verse, he shouted. All together, boys.

    A WORKIN' MAN, A WORKIN' MAN,
    Hurray Hurray for a Workin' Man,
    He'll navvy and sweat till he's nearly bet,
    THE GIFT OF GOD IS A WORKIN' MAN!

Oh, good man, said Slug. He started clapping in the sun-drenched clearing of the wild jungle and the applause was completed by the rest of the company.

That is what they call a ballad, observed the Good Fairy. Did you ever read the Ballad of Father Gilligan? he asked the Pooka.

That would be an Intermediate book, of course, replied the Pooka. I'm afraid I never read that. Unfortunately, I left school at Third Book.

A very nice spiritual thing, said the Good Fairy.

A workin' man, eh? said Shorty. He got up from the ground and brushed at his garments.

Now that we've heard and enjoyed Mr. Casey's poetry, said Slug, maybe we should be moving.

Moving where? asked Casey.

We are going to a hooley, said Shorty, fill your pockets, man, and fall in. The fruits of the earth, you know.

The party then moved slowly on, the poet taking a last look at the clump where he had sat in conclave with a synod of tinkers, thimble-riggers, gombeen-men, beggars, channel-rakers, bacaughs, broom-men, and people from every walk in the lower order, singing and reciting a selection of his finer lyrics.

You in the pocket, said the poet, can you fly?

Maybe I can, replied the Good Fairy.

Would you go and tell my wife that I won't be home for dinner? Would you ever do that?

What do you take me for? asked the Good Fairy in a thin testy voice, a carrier-pigeon?

If you want to make him mad, said Shorty, call him a ferret. When I called him that he gave me any God's own thanks.

Can you tell me, Mr. Casey, said the Pooka interposing quickly, whether my wife is a kangaroo?

The poet stared in his surprise.

What in the name of God, he asked, do you mean by throwing a question like that at me? Eh?

I was wondering, said the Pooka.

A kangaroo? She might be a lump of a carrot for all I know. Do you mean a marsupial?

That's the man, said Slug. A marsupial.

Stop the talk, said the Good Fairy quickly. I see a man in a tree.

Where? asked Shorty.

Too far away for you to see. I see him through the trunks and the branches.

Pray what is a marsupial? asked the Pooka.

I cannot see him too well, said the Good Fairy, there is about a half a mile of forest in between. A marsupial is another name for an animal that is fitted with a built-in sack the way it can carry its young ones about.

If you have wings, said the poet sharply, why in the name of barney don't you take a flight in the air and have a good look instead of blathering out of you in the pocket there and talking about what the rest of us can't see?

If that is what a marsupial is, said the Pooka courteously, where is the difference? Surely the word kangaroo is more descriptive?

What do you take me for, asked the Good Fairy, a kite? I will fly away in the air when it suits me and no sooner. There is this distinction between marsupial and kangaroo, that the former denotes a genus and the latter a class, the former is general and the latter particular.

I don't believe there is any kangaroo in the tree, said Slug. Kangaroos don't go up trees in this country.

Possibly, said the Pooka, it is my wife that is up there in the tree. She shares this much with the birds, that she can journey through the air on the shaft of a broomstick. It would not be hard for her to be thus in front of us in our journey.

Who in the name of God, asked Shorty, ever heard of a bird flying on a broomstick?

I did not say my wife was a bird.

You said she was a broomstick this morning, said the Good Fairy, a shank, that's what you called her.

What I was talking about, said the Pooka slowly, was kangaroos. Kangaroos.

It might be a bird in the tree, said Shorty, a big bird.

There's a lot in that, Slug said.

Very well, said the Good Fairy in a displeased way. No doubt I was mistaken. It is not a man. It is a tit. A tit or a bloody wren.