The Wake (And What Jeremiah Did Next) by Colm Herron Read Free Book Online

everything Kate said back with all the snivelling but I picked up the not exactly useful information that Madam Esmerelda was actually Sadie Walker from up Creggan Heights and she was in hospital at the minute with a broken hip from the time she got hit by a trailer carrying bricks at the end of Nailor’s Row.
    “She never seen that one coming,” said Jim to nobody in particular. Seamus shook with silent merriment but straightened his face as Kate turned to leave the kitchen. When she was gone Bill returned to the question of the anti-treaty league.
    “I think you may be right about that,” he said to Seamus. “I don’t remember ever reading of any such body. They were known only as the Republicans although of course they later became Fianna Fáil.”
    A groan from Willie Henry getting geared up, trying to open sleepstuck eyes, slapping his knee. And hark! a voice like thunder spake, the west’s awake! the west’s awake! “And Fianna failed us!” he shouted. “Dirty scuts!”
    “Foiled us,” said Seamus nodding. “Fianna foiled us.”
    “Filed us,” added Margie between laughing and serious. “They’re supposed to be the Republican party and they filed us away for another day.”
    “I wouldn’t say that,” said Bill. “I think there are certain moves being made behind the scenes from Dublin. I think you might soon see Captain O’Neill being summoned to the headmaster’s office in Downing Street and given some lines to say.”
    Willie Henry didn’t seem ready to accept this bit of surmising. Looking fiercely into his glass he said: “Dublin? I wouldn’t trust that crowd a wankers as far as I’d throw them. Fianna foul!”
    “I can’t see Wilson or Callaghan or any of them over there doing anything,” said Margie. “And what sort of a name is that anyway? Did you ever hear of a prime minister being called captain? What is he the captain of? A cricket team? I remember reading one time he went to Eton. Cricket’s what they play there isn’t it?”
    “He’s the captain of a sinking ship,” shouted Willie Henry. A clear case of withdrawal symptoms. Which I also was suffering from but at least I had the wit to keep quiet.
    “This place is incurable,” said Margie. “Do you see all this stuff about one man one vote and fair housing and all? The only way this place can be reformed is to hand it over lock stock and barrel to the Free State.”
    Bill was pulling distractedly at his waistcoat buttons and elaborate looking things they were too. “And what would the Free State as you call it do with the Orange Order and the Apprentice Boys and the million Protestants that are afraid of Rome rule?”
    Willie Henry came out fighting. “What do you mean Rome rule?” he demanded.
    “Aye, what do you mean Rome rule?” said Margie. “That’s the kind of language Carson used. And Craig and Basil Brooke and the whole rogues’ galley of them.”
    “Gallery,” I said impulsively.
    “What?” shouted Willie Henry, picking angrily at hardened phlegm from the inside corner of one eye and dislodging what looked to me like red clots.
    “Gallery,” I repeated and then closed my eyes, sorry I’d spoken. The hard g at the start of the word had caused a sharp pain to shoot across my forehead twice in quick succession.
    “Margie’s right,” said Seamus emphatically. “Rogue’s galley’s what they are. Because they’re all going to go down with the ship so they are.”
    Bill shook his head reprovingly. “Tell me this now,” he said. “Just tell me this. How would you feel if you were a Protestant being handed over to the Republic of Ireland and wanting to marry a Catholic? Eh? You’d have to promise to change your religion and bring up any children you might have in the Catholic faith. Would you not think your religion was being forced into extinction?”
    “And what’s wrong with that?” said Jim. “Weren’t the Planters brought in here by the English to keep the Catholics down? And