Poguemahone, p.1
Poguemahone, page 1
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Big Yaroo
Heartland
Hello and Goodbye
The Stray Sod Country
The Holy City
Winterwood
Call Me the Breeze
Emerald Germs of Ireland
Mondo Desperado
Breakfast on Pluto
The Dead School
The Butcher Boy
Carn
Music on Clinton Street
Poguemahone
Patrick McCabe
BIBLIOASIS
Windsor, Ontario
With special thanks to Paddy Goodwin
In loving memory of Paschal Quinn, Longford
NOTE:
pogue (Gaelic) = kiss
tóin = arse
pog mo thóin, Eng trans: poguemahone = kiss my arse
CONTENTS
By the Same Author
Dedication
Note
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Copyright
Oh yes, that’s what they’ll tell you
that the women are worse than the
men by far
&
whether or not that’s true
I am sorry I have to say
that I do not know
but I’ll tell you this
yes, this one thing I’ll tell you
that it certainly is
when it comes to
our Una –
for this
longtime past
she has been
literally putting me
astray in the head,
with no matter where you go
it’s Dan
Dan
Dan
yes, Dan this
Dan that
& Dan the other
every hour of the blooming. . .
ah, she’s not the worst of them
all the same
not by a long shot
with some of the spakes
she comes out with
making you howl
with the laughter.
Get out of my way!
she crows
& away off with her then
swinging around the corner,
don’t talk to me about
The New Caledonia and
funky inner cosmonauts
she calls back, hesitating,
dismissing me with an impatient
wave: now don’t be annoying me
for I’m off on my travels
to get myself a cup of tea.
Yes, a sweet wee tasty cuppa
so let me be hearing no more
about it!
Oi – get over here, you!
she says the other day
yes, get you the frig on over,
do you hear?
Is it true that only just this morning
you were up in London?
yes it is, I says
what of it anyway
as she turns &
lets out this
outlandish yelp
making a swipe at a
crock of flowers,
causing a near riot in the lobby
as staff, from all angles,
come running
out of breath
are you trying to ruin
our reputation
one of them says,
with a bit of a nervous
laugh.
But for all our disagreements
I didn’t ever think that we’d
end up where we did,
that is to say
beyond in Limehouse
Basin
tossing canvas bags
over the parapet of a bridge
shivering there together
in the cold East London dawn,
with the pair of us
awestruck
petrified beneath the red sky
spanning Jerusalem,
watching leopards with
the wings of eagles
gliding into land
over a body of water
already on fire.
I mean, you wouldn’t, would
you?
But somehow that’s how
it always tends to be
with our Una
that’s how it always
seems to end up.
Anyhow, I was telling you
– after the two of us had
had yet another set-to,
in the exact same place,
the front hall where she’d chucked
the flowers,
I decided, once and for all,
that enough was enough
and so away I went, the very
second I got the chance,
off out the
automatic doors –
with nothing, only
a toothbrush &
a couple of shirts
flung inside a case,
down to the station
where I boarded the train
& headed on up to
London,
off once more in the direction of
good old ‘Killiburn’,
as Paddy Conway
the landlord of
The Bedford Arms
used to call it
in the old days.
& a right old trip
I had of it,
I have to say,
not having been anywhere
near the place
for God knows how long –
close on forty years, I’d say.
But all the same,
I’m glad that I did it
yes, went out of my way
to make the effort
because now that I’m back
all, at last, seems peaceful once more.
With a lovely sense of calm
miraculously having been
restored
(at least until this morning
when I heard her at it again).
I’ll give you
Creedence Clearwater Revival!
she bawls at Todd the American.
Yes, what would you know
about music or anything else, she says.
Because me, I bloody well knew
Ian Hunter, yes and all the
rest of Mott the Hoople!
Not giving the poor fellow
so much as a chance to
open his mouth.
Causing a right kerfuffle and no mistake.
Which was not,
to be honest,
all that surprising
because she always gets like
that
whenever Hollywood
Awards Season once again
comes around
announcing to anyone
who can be bothered their
backside to listen
that she thinks Jane Fonda
will scoop the gold for Klute
& that Saoirse Ronan
– the ‘poor child’ – she doesn’t
have so much as
a prayer
whether for Mary Queen of Scots,
Little Women
or any of her other
stupid films
which you have to laugh at
I mean, how could you not.
When you think of poor old Hanoi Jane
– Fonda, that is,
and her not having so much as
made a movie in years
never mind
running around
winning
Oscars
for
them.
With the next thing you know the Yankee, Todd, is ambling over –
dabbing away at the scratches she’s inflicted, giving out about Richard
Nixon and the whole bloody motherfucking no-good bunch!
Don’t talk to me about Tricky Dicky, he says, because I’m one hundred
per cent up to speed with just exactly what is going on there.
&, without so much as another word, he’s away off down the corridor
again, complaining and disputing as he swings and rotates his plump
chunky fists in the air.
But apart from all that, it’s a grand old spot,
with very few complaints, all told, these days.
Not now that Una’s back in business
with her amateur dramatic
shenanigans,
making sure she’s keeping the rest of us on our toes.
The Cliftonville Capers, she calls her most recent
foray,
swearing it’s going to be the best show ever.
Although she hasn’t, not for certain, entirely made up
her mind
Regarding the precise format
she intends it to take.
I’m actually at my wit’s end,
she admits, shredding a tissue as she
shifts from one end of the window seat
to the other.
Sometimes in the night, you can hear her getting up
& moving around
slippering along the tiles of the corridor
or just sometimes sitting there alone in the library,
sobbing fitfully.
All the young dudes, she says to herself,
all the old decrepit wretches, more like,
carrying the news here, there &
everywhere,
all
&n bsp; over
the
accursed, blasted place.
Only the other day she put a fish in the laundry.
Hanoi Jane, to be honest,
she isn’t all that bad,
but as far as movies and films go
I’ve always preferred the
old black-and-whites.
There’s always matinees,
any amount,
just as soon as you’ve
enjoyed your tasty yum-yums,
courtesy Cliftonville à la carte.
The maitre d’
is a dead ringer
for Margaret Rutherford – that
you maybe remember
from a lifetime of playing
all these bossy spinsters on bicycles
with her spaniel jowls
& bulky frame
not to mention her formidable
no-nonsense manner,
like she’s headmistress
of a girls’ public school.
Ah, good old Margaret,
she’s always somewhere
nosing around
to see what it is she might
be able to see.
They say that the women
are worse than the men
riteful, titeful titty folday.
I was just in the middle of humming
a couple of verses away to myself
when out of the blue arrives Una who
declares, smacking her fist: ‘This time, Dan,
I definitely have it!’
& stands there, poised,
waiting for me to answer
arms folded, beside the potted plant
but before I can manage to
so much as open my mouth
she exclaims:
‘The show I’ve decided
I’m going to put on
the name of it is:
Green For Danger!’
& starts picking at the
threads of her jumper
all breathless
elaborating as to how
whole streets in her mind
seem to have
disappeared –
yes, taken
away in seconds
completely
& utterly
obliterated
she says,
without so much as a
by-your-leave
with you just standing
there, minding your own business
when – whee! – you hear
this rocket
it’s a V-1
& then you hear nothing
until down it comes
& another wall
or gable-end tumbles
gone, as so many memories
before
reduced to rubble forever.
I’m glad she’s made the decision
all the same
although I wouldn’t thank you
for the likes of Trevor Howard
who was actually in the film
she was talking about
Green For Danger
with all his big talk about being
this fearless and courageous
night-time commando
going on all these missions
when all the time
he’s sitting at home
reading the Daily Express
& chomping hmmph hmmph
on his briar
for fuck’s sake
I mean, I ask you.
Una’s latest recruit
for her Cliftonville Capers
All-Star Repertory Troupe
is Butley Henderson
who must be over eighty
if he’s a day
& is under the impression
that he’s God’s gift to music.
Although I have to admit he’s a
dab hand on the cornet:
Miles Davis
Kind of Blue –
you name it.
Although you wouldn’t think it
to look at him
with those great big specs
and a big roundy bonce like
it’s been carved out of lard.
Still not over what my sister
got it into her head
to do to him only just
the other day
convinced it was him
who’d started this business
of calling her names
& whispering to everyone
that she’s the spit of Ho Chi Minh
with all the weight she’s
been losing since coming in here
toasted good & brown from sitting
in her wheelchair out among the roses.
Yes, here he comes, it’s Ho Chi Minh!
she swears she overheard him saying
except that I know
it was Todd Creedence & his buddies who
christened her that
but o boys, I swear,
I really did have to laugh
because Una, God love her
she really can be hilarious
whenever she gets something
into her head
grabbing the brass instrument as poor
old Butley, he just snoozes away
in a rattan chair on the verandah
with his paws on his paunch
as – PARP! – right into his ear
doesn’t she blast it
scaring the bejasus out of
the poor old divil
‘O, mother mercy!’ he squeals
like someone you’d hear
in the village
back in Ireland long ago.
‘Yes, Currabawn!’ she squeals
as she lifts it up
and blows it again
into his poor old other
ear this time
& then goes off with her two sides
splitting,
tossing the instrument away with disdain
as she shouts to all and sundry
Damn and blast yiz English no-good
Sassenachs
Una Fogarty she’ll fart in your face!
Before slumping across the sofa
in the foyer
& starting up this falsetto whistle
an impromptu rendition of an
old showband tune
one we used to dance to in the
Killiburn National long ago
about some poor old idiot who left
his village in Co. Galway
& went off to America
with his brown-paper parcel
underneath his arm
& before he knew it
had found himself conscripted
& shoved in the back of a Chinook,
heading straight for Saigon
and the battleground of South East Asia.
‘The Blazing Star of Athenry’
it was called,
as off he went to get himself
riddled.
&, as God is my judge,
never in my life have I seen my sister
laughing
not like that
with her two legs splayed as
the tears rolled down her face
thinking about the poor old conscript
getting himself dumped away out
there in Vietnam.
Poor wee Athenry! she squeals,
before slinging a cushion and
hitting another elderly resident
in the face.
‘Boo hoo!’ the woman bawls, wagging
her finger at the unrepentant Una,
who by now is turning cartwheels,
spry as any young thing
having lost four stone,
a veritable human twig
in fact
& just about as far as you might
possibly imagine
from what was once the humungous
‘Fudge’ Fogarty
in good old Killiburn, North London,
long ago.
Now a nut-brown stick
at the tender age of 70 yrs.
O, man alive,
but some of the crack
you can have in here!
Because that loodramawn Trump,
he was back on the television
again this morning.
‘Motherfucker!’ shouts Todd Creedence
shaking his fist at the screen
because he, really and truly,
absolutely loathes the
orange-headed goon
& was about to go over
and knock the power off
when, fortunately,
David Attenborough appeared
introducing a segment about this plucky
little iguana
outwitting all these snakes
in the desert
‘Motherfucking gooks!’ bawls Todd
as the wee lizard scuttles
and away with him then to the
relative safety of the higher ground.
But what’s this I was saying
yes, I was telling you
wasn’t I, about
The Bedford Arms
the pub up in Killiburn where
we all used to drink.
All the old gang
in the good times,
