The Mammy by Brendan O'Carroll Read Free Book Online Page B

able to answer it without a hitch. Then came the dreaded follow-up question: ’Why?‘
    Agnes thought. The modern woman here would say: It’s called puberty ... soon your penis will be erect, and you will have dreams at night which will cause your penis to discharge a creamy thick fluid. This is called semen and is what fertilises the egg in the woman’s fallopian tubes and makes babies.
    Agnes stared into the face of her eldest baby. His eyes awaited her answer. The modern woman went out the window. ‘That’s to keep your willy warm when you go swimming.’ She jumped up to the steaming kettle and over her shoulder she said, ‘Now, out with yeh!’

Chapter 8
     
    IT WAS THE TOWN HALL. COMMUNITY CENTRE, entertainment complex and political debating arena, all rolled into one. To the sixteen thousand or so population of The Jarro, Foley’s Select Lounge and Bar was the centre of the universe. The Foleys themselves were a country family. PJ Foley had spent his childhood on his father’s dairy farm in County Meath. He and his brother JJ grew up with the smell of manure and the carbolic soap they used to wash the animals’ udders before the milking, implanted in their sinuses. Their father, old PJ, was known throughout the county as the ‘horniest whore to ever draw breath’. Everybody was surprised when Dolly Flannigan married him, but nobody was surprised when she started to walk like John Wayne. The entire village were speculating as to how long it would be before Dolly was walking like John Wayne’s horse.
    But fate is a peculiar thing, and Dolly Foley, née Flanagan, had always had her fair share of luck. Shortly after Dolly gave birth to her second son JJ, old PJ was to find himself standing in the wrong place as one of his forty-strong dairy herd let fly with a back kick that would do Bruce Lee justice. In the operation that followed, old PJ lost both testicles and the use of his penis for anything other than relieving his bladder. Dolly described him, when stripped naked, as looking like ‘a woman minding a piece of chewing gum for someone’. Old PJ took to the drink, and Dolly and the boys ran the dairy farm. It was obvious to all that the younger boy, JJ, was a natural farmer and although PJ pulled his weight, his heart wasn’t in it. Five days after PJ’s twenty-second birthday, his father was found frozen to death in the middle of the pasture. He was stripped naked from the waist down and neighbours reported hearing cries during the night of ‘Is that a prick or what?’ as he ran through the herd of kicking cows. Foul play was not suspected!
    The farm passed to Dolly and her sons, and both PJ and JJ were happy with the arrangement that JJ should take over the farm and PJ would receive the sum of £10,000 as full and final settlement. So, with those immortal words ‘Fuck that, I’m off!’ PJ Foley boarded a bus to Dublin in 1958, in search of his fortune. He purchased the run-down premises on James Larkin Street in The Jarro for £4,500, spent another £1,500 on the furniture and new linoleum, and watched with pride as the painter put the finishing touches to the sign which read ‘PJ Foley - Select Lounge & Bar’. Over the following twelve years neither the custom nor the decor changed much. PJ Foley, thanks to the steady trade provided by the locals, prospered. His brother JJ went on to pioneer the Artificial Insemination Programme of the sixties and had such a keen eye for quality donor bulls that he became renowned as ‘the best bull-wanker in the country’ - a title his castrated father would have been proud of.
    As well as a successful business, PJ Foley also found the love of his life in The Jarro - Monica Fitzsimons, a fiery, red-haired, befreckled girl from Limerick city. They courted for three years and married in Limerick. Among the locals that travelled down for the wedding were Agnes Browne and Marion Monks. Agnes was fond of both PJ and Monica, though a little wary of PJ. She