Carn (26 page)

The barman began to sweep up the used lottery tickets. One of the youths cursed and swore to himself as he tore up yet another ticket and disappeared into the early afternoon.

“I remember the days when you couldn’t move in this hotel for visitors. There were trains rolling into the station every half hour, packed with people. There were markets on the The
Diamond every day—there was money to burn . . .”

The man shook his head. His drinking partner sighed wistfully. “Well there’s one thing for sure—this town will never be the same again,” he said, without looking up.

Francie Mohan finished his drink and slid down off the barstool. He pulled his greatcoat about him and said, “Don’t worry. There’s no need to worry.”

The two men stared at him as he walked to the door. He turned and said, “There was a feast in the past and there’ll be a feast in the future.” They continued to stare blankly
at him. Then he swung on his heel and shouted, “A feast of fuck-all,” as the screams from the video screen floated out through the deserted foyer of the Railway Hotel.

On the mantelpiece of Sadie’s bedroom, Josie Keenan smiled as she stood in a London street, behind her a flutter of pigeons. Around her ankles, in poor handwriting, the
name
Gina Lollobrigida
.

Sadie visited the cemetery once a fortnight to say a small prayer for Josie by the gravestone that read,

Michael Joseph Keenan R.I.P.

Kathleen Josephine Keenan 1898–1946 R.I.P.

She stood on the hill overlooking the town. The church clock sounded the quarter hour. Through the streets Blast Morgan’s son pushed a bin on two wheels. A carpet was beaten in a garden.
The chickenhouse fan hummed. As on all those warm days years before, when she leaned over the fence at the bottom of his garden, Mr Galvin smiled at Sadie.

On it goes Sadie, and not a thing we can do about it. What was it you used to call them Sadie? The tick tock days of Carn? The tick tock days of Carn half a mile from the Irish
border.

Mr Galvin smiled. Then he turned and went back to his ridges, prising at the clay with his garden fork as the sun beat down on him all those days ago.

He smiled again and then faded gently from her mind as he had passed from the earth.

On it goes Sadie, on it goes and not a thing we can do about it.

She took her daughter’s hand and left the flowers on the grave. She walked back towards Abbeyville Gardens through the grounds of the church.

In the churchyard, many of the people of the town were on bended knee at the grotto of the Virgin Mary which had been built years before in the days of the railway to commemorate the Marian
year. A rumour had circulated that she had been seen to move the night before. There was talk of her bringing a special sign to the town of Carn. The Virgin looked up at the whey-faced sky with a
pale, chipped countenance. Beneath her pale feet, old women and middle-aged men fingered rosary beads anxiously. Beside them, in the fashionable black dress of their generation, freshfaced
teenagers scanned the heavens hopefully. On the granite wall of the church Pat Lacey smiled, a framed portrait sponsored by the Anti-Divorce League. Beneath it, two small candles burned. The chant
of the rosary began anew and they wrapped themselves in the arms of its consoling monotony, flickers of the past moving almost unseen across their minds, a tail of smog as a steam engine hissed
into the depot, a flutter of coloured flags on Dolan Square, the music from The Sapphire spreading outward through the bustling, energetic streets.

But that was gone now and it was not for that they had come to the feet of the Virgin but for a sign that would take them back to the way it had been all those years ago, long before James
Cooney, when there had been no questions to answer, when they had toiled long hours in the summer hayfields with the unquestioning acceptance of children, their sleep sound and undisturbed.

But a sign was not to come that evening and as Sadie made her way to Abbeyville Gardens, she saw them rise, heads still bowed, and like a silent wave, return to the empty streets where above on
the hill, the rusting tower of the Carn Meat Processing Plant threw its evening shadow out across the huddled rooftops of the town.

Carn

P
ATRICK
M
C
C
ABE
was born in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland, in 1955. He has published a
children’s story,
The Adventures of Shay Mouse
(1985), and six adult novels,
Music on Clinton Street
(1986),
Carn
(1989),
The Butcher Boy
(1992), which was the
winner of the
Irish Times/
Aer Lingus Literature Prize, was shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize and was a highly acclaimed film directed by Neil Jordan,
The Dead School
(1995),
Breakfast on Pluto
(1998), which was shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize, and
Mondo Desperado
(1999). His play
Frank Pig Says Hello
, based on
The Butcher Boy
, was
first performed at the Dublin Festival in 1992. He lives in Sligo with his wife and two daughters.

The Butcher Boy

Breakfast on Pluto

CHILDREN
’
S STORIES

The author would like to express his thanks to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre,

First published 1989 by Aidan Ellis Publishing Limited

This edition published 1993 by Picador

This electronic edition published 2012 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-447-23140-0 EPUB

Copyright © Patrick McCabe 1989

The right of Patrick McCabe to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
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liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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