“Tell us this,” Willie Henry went on, lowering the glass glumly. “One of the masters would know the answer to this one. If Maud, God have mercy on her almighty soul, If Maud’s in heaven this minute, do yeez think she would know what’s going to happen? Here in Derry like? Does she know how it’s all going to turn out does she? What I’m saying is, for an example now, could she tell you the date Ireland would be free could she?”
“That’s a good question,” said Margie thoughtfully. “I think there’s something in the Bible about that. Even somebody simple, God bless the mark, would know as much as Einstein once they got to heaven. I don’t know about predicting the future though.”
“Or Shakespeare,” said Jim. “Maud’s there with God now and He’d be telling her everything.”
“Naw, that’s wrong,” said Seamus. “It’s like the barrel and the thimble. If you’re like a thimble in this world then you’ll be a thimble in the next one too. A thimble can only hold so much. That’s the thing you see.”
Willie Henry wasn’t having this. “No harm to you, Seamus, but you’re ignorant, if you don’t mind me saying, no harm to you. It was the masters here I was asking.”
“Did you hear that, Seamus?” said Margie, shoulders going. “You’re a thimble.”
“That’s an interesting point you’ve brought up,” responded Bill, blinking owlishly in Seamus’s direction while doggedly avoiding Willie Henry’s gaze, “about the relativity of knowledge.”
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The Wake - Table of contents
HumorTHE YEAR is 1968 and the Swinging Sixties are still swinging - though not in Ireland. But wait! An old woman dies in a northern Irish town and her wake becomes a rendezvous for lesbians, bisexuals and political revolutionaries. And in there among t...
