talking to each other and it takes years of practice.There are people who
dont talk to each other because their fathers were on opposite sides in
the Civil War in 1922. If a man goes off and joins the English army his
family might as well move to another part of Limerick where there are
families with men in the English army. If anyone in your family was the
least way friendly to the English in the last eight hundred years it will
be brought up and thrown in your face and you might as well move
to Dublin where no one cares. There are families that are ashamed
of themselves because their forefathers gave up their religion for the
sake of a bowl of Protestant soup during the Famine and those families
are known ever after as soupers. Its a terrible thing to be a souper
because youre doomed forever to the souper part of hell.Its even worse
to be an informer. The master at school said that everytime the Irish
were about to demolish the English in a fair fight a filthy informer
betrayed them. A man whos discovered to be an informer deserves to
be hanged or, even worse, to have no one talk to him for if no one talks
to you youre better off hanging at the end of a rope.
In every lane theres always someone not talking to someone or
everyone not talking to someone or someone not talking to everyone.
You can always tell when people are not talking by the way they pass each
other.The women hoist their noses, tighten their mouths and turn their
faces away. If the woman is wearing a shawl she takes a corner and flings
it over her shoulder as if to say,One word or look from you,you ma-faced
bitch, and Ill tear the countenance from the front of your head.
Its bad when Grandma wont talk to us because we cant run to her
when we need to borrow sugar or tea or milk.Theres no use going to
Aunt Aggie. Shell only bite your head off. Go home, shell say, and tell
your father to get off his northern arse and get a job like the decent men
of Limerick.
They say shes always angry because she has red hair or she has red
hair because shes always angry.
Mam is friendly with Bridey Hannon, who lives next door with
her mother and father. Mam and Bridey talk all the time. When my
father goes for his long walk Bridey comes in and she and Mam sit by
the fire drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. If Mam has nothing in the
house Bridey brings tea, sugar and milk. Sometimes they use the same
tea leaves over and over and Mam says the tea is stewed, coddled and
boiled.
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