The Field by John B. Keane Read Free Book Online Page B

if the seed of man fails the rats will take over the world.
    Bull: They’re crafty, sure enough. But I could watch crows if there was time given for it. I often laughs at crows.
    Tadhg: Can they talk to one another? I’d swear they have a lingo all of their own.
    Bull: Who’s to say? Who’s to say? Anyway I have something else in my head besides the antics of crows.
    Tadhg: He’ll never come now. ’Tis all hours of the night.
    Bull: We’ll give it another half-hour and if he doesn’t show up, we’ll go to our beds. God knows I could sleep now, boy.
    Tadhg: And my Ma will be wondering.
    Bull: Let her wonder. You’ll hear no complaint out of her.
    Tadhg: Da?
    Bull: What?
    Tadhg: Why don’t yourself and Ma talk?
    Bull: Ah, hould your tongue!
    Tadhg: Ah, Da, come on! I always told you about my women.
    Bull: Your mother is a peculiar woman, son. I won’t account for her. She’s led me a queer life all these years.
    Tadhg: How long has it been?
    Bull: How long has what been?
    Tadhg: Since you spoke to her?
    Bull: Eat your sandwich, can’t you. You have me addled.
    Tadhg: Ah tell us Da.
    [He sits near him]
    Bull: [Rises, pauses and returns to Tadhg] Eighteen years since I slept with her or spoke to her.
    Tadhg: What was the cause?
    Bull: What was the cause but a tinker’s pony … a hang-gallows piebald pony, a runty get of a gluttonous knacker with one eye. I was at the fair at Carraigthomond that day and she gave permission to a tinker’s widow to let the pony loose in one of the fields. The land was carryin’ fourteen cows an’ grass scarce. Fourteen cows, imagine! An’ to go throwin’ a pony in on top of them! Cripes, Tadhg, a tinker’s pony would eat the hair off a child’s head!
    Tadhg: He would, Da, he would. But what happened between Ma and yourself?
    Bull: God blast you! … that’s what happened. Amn’t I after tellin’ you?
    Tadhg: But after the pony, what happened?
    Bull: I was in bed when she told me. I had a share of booze taken. I walloped her more than I meant, maybe. I went out and looked at the pony. He had one eye, a sightful right eye. I shot him through the two eyes, the blind and the good … a barrel at a time. It often played on my conscience. If ’twas an ass now, ’twouldn’t matter, but a pony is a pony.
    Tadhg: And she never spoke to you since?
    Bull: Never a word. I tried to talk to her, to come round her. I put in electric light and bought the television. I built that goddamned bathroom … for her … all over a tinker’s nag, a dirty one-eyed pony. You’d swear he was human.
    Tadhg: You had to do it, Da. Carrying fourteen cows. You had to do it.
    Bull: Of course, I had to do it but she wouldn’t see it that way. You understand all right, Tadhg. You’re a sensible fellow who knows the ropes.
    Tadhg: A tinker’s pony would eat your fingernails. Didn’t you explain to her?
    Bull: But you can’t explain these things to women. It don’t trouble them if the hay is scarce and the fields bald. I seen lonesome nights, Tadhg, lonesome nights. [Comes suddenly upright] Whisht! What was that?
    [Sounds of a jet]
    Tadhg: That’s only a jet … one of them new ones with the high boomin’ sound.
    Bull: An aeroplane, is it?
    Tadhg: That’s all it is. I often hear them down here at night. I could tell you the different kinds.
    Bull: [Good-natured] An’ what do you be doin’ down here at night? Eh? Not sayin’ your prayers, I’ll bet!
    Tadhg: Oh, rambling around, watching out for donkeys.
    [He slaps his armpits and moves around]
    Bull: Women, I suppose! Anyone I know?
    Tadhg: Ah, now, Da!
    Bull: Ah, come on. Tell your oul’ Da.
    Tadhg: There’s a daughter of Patsy Finnerty’s.
    Bull: I seen her. I seen her. A bit red in the legs but a good wedge of a woman. Can she milk?
    Tadhg: As good as ourselves.
    Bull: Can she handle