Short Fiction of Flann O'Brien (Irish Literature) (17 page)

I suppose you wonder what I think of Crawford’s brainstorm about putting an end for good and all to potato-eating in Ireland. Well, this America is a great country with nothing beyond the boundless horizon only another enormous horizon beckoning on but I still remember very affectionately the land that gave me birth but I may say that the disgraceful way the native peasants treated my Earthquake Wonder still rankles bitterly in my nose. If the Irish don’t recognise a sound, decent, bug-free potato when they are offered one, then they don’t deserve any potato at all—those are
my
feelings—and they have thoroughly merited the decision to have sago made the national mainstay. Poor Crawford tried to interest myself in sago but nothing in that line has ever agreed with me, though who can say what I would think at my present age if I had had sago from the cradle as the new generation of Irish people probably now will have. My own conviction and my money are totally behind Crawford’s scheme because (one) the extremely delicate and complicated business of handling oil men, geological and mineral technicians, banker and financial panjandrums, to say nothing of State and Federal politicians,
are no proper concern for a decent young married woman
: and (two) my dear wife is finding happiness in the fulfillment of philanthropic yearnings far from home. It is a great pleasure and consolation to me that she should decide to see the bigger world from the resolve, God willing, to improve it and in doing so help me to discharge honourably the burdens of the great wealth which has flowed to me, and that keeps flowing in an ever-rising tide, from the Texas soil. There are not many dedicated persons in this shabby old world, and Crawford Hoolihan is one of them. Ireland may yet salute her, with holy Saint Brigid and Queen Maeve and the other great ladies of our storied past, not forgetting Graunya Wayl. I thank God humbly that she is far away from the hurly-burly and prairie stink of Texas oil, for nobody can pretend that gasoline is a pretty thing. And listen, Tim—don’t be fooled if it seems for the present that she doesn’t care a damn about you and takes you just for a gobshite of a caretaker.
I marked her card
and made it plump and plain that in my book you were the decentest and ablest young Irishman who ever wore a hat. I told her you were a sort of son of mine, though I didn’t labour that point. Crawford doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve but she is far too shrewd to make any mistake about a man like you or even our mutual friend Sarsfield Slattery. Ah, how is Sarsfield? There is one little point I would like you to look to with your special care. Crawford has all the charity, humility and simplicity of a Saint Francis of Assisi or a Saint Teresa of Avila in her little finger but there is one thing she has yet to learn something about: I mean TACT. God help us but her honest direct attitude and methods might give offence to some of the over-sensitive slobs who still abound in Ireland’s green and pleasant land. There is, if you like, something of the Saint Joan about her. Give her some help and guidance there, Tim! Never tire telling her that the Irish are easy-going (you and I know that they are just bone-lazy) and that it is far easier to lead them gently than to push them. I need hardly tell you that she has plenty of the proper contacts in high places, and I had Senator Hovis Oxter introduce her to old Mrs. Scheisemacher, mother of the American Ambassador in Dublin, Charlie Bendix Scheisemacher. I might tell you under the hat that Charlie is a stockholder and not a tiny one either in my H.P. Petroleum outfit and I can pull his whiskers any time I want to. You will find that Crawford will move fast as soon as she gets her bearings and if she has told you that she has already arranged to ship sago to Ireland in tankers as a stop-gap measure, it is perfectly true because she arranged it all through my own tanker subsidiary. I’m telling you, she’ll wake Ireland up—and about time!

Do write to me, Tim, and tell me what is going on and how things are shaping. What impression has Crawford made on my native sod? How many local people has she met? What does Sarsfield Slattery think of her? And my old sparring partner Baggeley, how is he behaving and has he yet heard any tidings of my wife? My hope is that they won’t meet, because the Doctor’s health habits make him rather unreliable. The enclosed little extra cheque, which you need not mention to Crawford, is for yourself. Write, write, WRITE, Tim, and give me all the news.

Yours ever—Ned.

[The original typescript ends here.]

Appendices

Appendix I
[For] Ireland Home & Beauty (1940)

by Brian O’Nolan / Flann O’Brien [both names are listed in the original typescript]
¹

In my many walks with Mr. Cullen I had become accustomed to his habit of saluting the most unlikely people and explaining to me afterwards that they were in “the movement” and had been “mainly
”
responsible[”] for such and such a piece of work when the fight against the British was at its hottest. He had never dwelt at any length on his own part in “the movement” beyond an occasional mention in passing that he had been present at the Howth Gun-running. For many years I had regarded this simple claim as [
a delicate and not unmoving piece of modesty, clearly proving
] [clear proof] that that daring bid to land the guns under the very noses of the British had been conceived by him alone and carried out practically single-handed. Later, when I learnt that he had been living in Howth during these eventful times and for many years before, I found several rather shabby thoughts [
crowding
] [coming] into my [
brain
] [head] every time [
the burly form of my friend appeared on my horizon
] [I met the good-natured burly patriot].

On the day I want to write about we were moving down the quays in the direction of Murtagh’s back-parlour. Mr. Cullen had been speaking when he suddenly stopped, nudged me and nodded ahead. Approaching us was a slender young man of twenty-two or so, dressed with great correctness in a dark suit. [His head was high.] He carried a cane and walked gracefully [
carrying a high head.
] [, and seemed to infect the whole street with his own distinction].

Mr. Cullen spoke when we were about to pass.

“How is Mr. Hogan?” he called.

Instead of answering, the young man looked at Mr. Cullen [
for
the briefest possible interval of time with the most supercilious eye
I have ever seen
]. [It was a very brief look and his eye seemed supercilious]. It was not a look of scorn or derision or hatred. It seemed to say merely that Mr. Cullen was an unfamiliar thing and that his salutation was incomprehensible.

Mr. Cullen glanced at me and shook his head sadly.

“What does that mean?” I asked [him].

“I will tell you [all about it],” he said. “His mother was in the movement.”

We had reached Murtagh’s. Mr. Cullen led the way in with quiet efficiency and ordered two schooners. Mr. Murtagh himself was present and bade us the time of day. He was a massive bald man with a serious face and leaned far across the counter sideways on the pivot of his left arm, gesturing with his right and swiping idly at the flies.

“Well, Martin,” he said.

“It is very close,” said Mr. Cullen.

He drank deeply [
from his pint
]. The two of them gazed abstractedly at the counter [
but I could see that their minds were completely blank
] [as if nestling contentedly in each other’s friendship]. [
Idly
] [The [???] had dragged] Mr. Murtagh[’s] [trousers tight about the crotch. He adjusted himself carefully. I drank quietly for a while until I thought it would not be sacrilegious to break the silence. Then I said:]

“Who was our friend with the walking-stick?”

“Him?” said Mr. Cullen.

“Who is this, Martin?” asked Mr. Murtagh.

“O a very important gentleman.”

“[And] Who is he when he is at home?” asked Mr. Murtagh.

“His name is Hogan,” said Mr. Cullen. “I knew [
her
] [his mamma] well and [I] knew him, too. And when I met him five minutes ago in the street and gave him the time of day, he presented me with a look very few men would throw to a dog. ‘Who the hell are you[?] [
, if
you understand me.
] [
Who the bloody hell are you to say good-day to me
?] How would you like that, Ned? A man that was old enough to be his father.”

“The word for that, Martin,[”] [said Mr. Murtagh] is bad manners,” [
said Mr. Murtagh
]. It is not a nice thing at all.”

“[
It is not
] [Certainly I will say it is not what I would expect from him],” Mr. Cullen agreed, drinking heavily.

Mr. Murtagh slid his right hand [meditatively] along [a] [
his
] thigh.

“Hogan?” he said slowly. “Surely not the Harold’s Cross crowd?”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Cullen.

“Hogan?” said Mr. Murtagh. He frowned very darkly, weighing the word carefully in his mind. He seemed to be holding it up against every light that was in his memory. Suddenly he disengaged himself from the counter and went away to pull a bottle of stout for a customer at a distant part of the premises. Mr. Cullen turned to me.

“Hogan’s mother,” he said, “was one of the best. Ireland never had a better daughter. It was Ireland or nothing. There’s a well-known saying about touching nothing that she did not adorn. [Well] She was one lady that filled the bill. It made you proud you were an Irishman.”

“I suppose she did great work?”

“Great work?”

As if appalled by the limitations of human speech, he turned to his drink and finished it. Mr. Murtagh had returned and resumed his [attitude of] sidelong attention.

“By God I can’t place that particular Hogan high or low,” he said.

“As a matter of fact,” said Mr. Cullen quickly, “his name isn’t Hogan at all!”

“What?”

“A fact.”

“Well Holy God, Martin,” said Mr. Murtagh looking with mock anger at both of us, “what class of talk is that to be giving out?”

“Fill these glasses again,” I said.

“What sort of a story is that?” he asked again, moving away to draw the porter.

Mr. Cullen smiled. He was the centre of mystery and was pleased with his importance.

“Now, Martin, fair is fair,” said Mr. Murtagh, bringing up the drinks. He took my money absently in his right hand and fell into the side[w]ays [
attitude
] [stance] again.

“I will tell you the story,” said Mr. Cullen. “Do you remember the Camden Street affair?”

“Which affair was that?” I asked.

“The famous ambush—Lord save us, surely you remember the day we lost Paddy Carroll the Lord have mercy on him. It was a party of military in three lorries. Paddy Carroll was in charge. The boys were in doorways and hanging out of the windows of tenement houses. There was holy bloody murder. If Paddy lost his life the other side paid a stiff price for it. There were more dead men in Camden Street that day than I ever laid my eyes on in my life. I happened to be present on the historic occasion.”

I found myself wondering whether he had been living in Camden Street at the time. Looking into his earnest face as it looked brightly at the two of us, I felt ashamed of myself.

“It was a desperate piece of work. It was the most unmerciful shooting-match I ever witnessed.”

He drank to fortify his mind.

“They rose in dark and evil days,” said Mr. Murtagh, nodding.

“The next day,” said Mr. Cullen, “the fun started in earnest. There were comb-outs and house-to-house searches. Every second man you met was a policeman or a soldier or a black-and-tan. They were like maggots under a stone. Thousands of people were arrested and most of them were given an unmerciful beating free of charge to show there was no ill-feeling.

“They were dark days,” said Mr. Murtagh [gloomily].

[I knew that Mr. Cullen’s superior grasp of tactics had brought him safely through all harm but I asked the question lightly as if I did not know the answer.]

“Did they get you?” I asked.

Mr. Cullen shook his head solemnly.

“They did not sir. And that’s what I’m coming to. Myself and four of the boys were lying low. We knew what was good for us. It was Mick Hennessy that brought us to Mrs. Hogan’s. She had a big house in Sandymount at the time. We had the run of the place, with first-class beds and the best to eat. I made out afterwards that it would cost you a pound a day for the same treatment at a good hotel.”

“Tell me this,” said Mr. Murtagh. [He looked as if some thought of considerable importance had suddenly lit upon his brain.] “Was there any husband there at all or what sort was this lady if you get my meaning?”

Mr. Cullen’s face clouded.

“O Lord save us nothing like that,” he said seriously, “nothing like that at all. O God no. She had any amount of cushions and curtains about the place that she had made herself. A most respectable woman. She had a husband alright but where he was I couldn’t tell you. Every night we had prayers together in the kitchen.”

“I see,” said Mr. Murtagh. His interest in the story seemed [
diminished
] [to fade].

“We were there for three days. Most of us were feeling the want of exercise and we were [
all
] sick [and tired] playing draughts. At about five o’clock in the evening of the fourth day when we were all in the drawing-room reading the papers and yarning, we heard cars drawing up in the street below. I needn’t tell you that we knew the sound of the old Crossleys by heart.”

“I see,” said Mr. Murtagh. “A raid?”

“Hennessy went over to the window and peeped out. When he turned round, his face was the colour of that, look.”

Mr. Cullen put a finger on a white water-jug [, with his nail tapping it].

“As pale as a ghost,” he added, looking in turn at each of us. [
//
] “‘What’s up, Mick?’ I asked. ‘Two lorries of military,’ said Mick.”

“Well God knows,” said Mr. Murtagh, “I’d rather be here than there that day.”