Big Bill Braddock stepped from out of the murk. “That’s a dull old night, isn’t it?” he said. He shook my hand and raised his hat to the two Miss Quinns. Addressing me he said: “I was sorry to hear about your neighbour, ah ...”
Her name escaped him. I didn’t have the presence of mind to supply it. I’d been expecting Aisling.
“Molly. Molly was her name, wasn’t it?” he said with assurance. Never a man to lack confidence.
“Maud you mean?” cried one of my companions. “Maud Harrigan.”
Bill stared at her and then smiled and murmured: “Ah yes. Maud Harrigan. Of course.”
The sisters left us then and I led him to the kitchen. He went to the coffin and I stood dutifully beside him while he blessed himself with something of a flourish and placed a mass card on the dead woman’s two piece suit. After praying in a loud whisper May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed etcetera he turned to see who else was in the room.
Jim, James and Willie Henry acknowledged him with dumb hostility and Bill looked disapprovingly back at them, having noted the drinks in their hands. Margie was smiling glassily, keeping her own counsel.
“Very sad,” Bill said and sat on a chair opposite the others. “All things must pass.”
It was at this point that somebody let off, a prolonged squelchy one partly muffled I’d say by a pair of clenched cheeks. The smell came a little later, as it does, and there was no way of knowing for certain who it emanated from, Margie, Seamus, Jim and Willie Henry being seated inscrutably close together, unless you could have had some way of finding out who had had cabbage and baked beans and spiced meatballs too if I’m not mistaken for dinner that day.
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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...
