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

subsequently dismantled the wakehouse in Marlborough Terrace (the only items left intact being the softwood casket and its contents, viz., the earthly remains of one Maud Abilene Harrigan) yet by his own admission was not so intoxicated that he was unaware of what he was doing. Defending, Mister Jules Bernestock made the point that all the defendant William Henry McGillycuddy, hereinafter hopefully called ‘the plaintiff’, had been seeking was one miserly shot of Paddy, being still in a badly shaken state after having encountered what he took to be a corpse welcoming him to the wake. “To quote the plaintiff,” said Mr Bernestock consulting his notes,
“I was just after saying a Hail Holy Queeng in the corphouse standing looking down into the face of the poor dead woman when I turned round and there she was fornenst me saying ‘It was wile good of you to come Willie.’
[At this point Mister Justice Tickel van Rumpole showed commendable Dutch courage in facing down an unruly courtroom, threatening to have the have the place cleared forthwith if the merriment did not cease, on foot of which threat order incrementally returned to the proceedings.]
And all I got to bring me round were two nips of Paddy you could hardly see.”
    Mister Justice van Rumpole, on occasion sipping from a hipflask which transparently contained water-colored liquid, then asked Mr Bernestock to clarify Mr McGillycuddy’s request to be dealt with as a plaintiff. Mr Bernestock thereupon came out with a whole load of stuff in Latin to support the legal argument that a defendant can in certain cases, one of which this clearly was, ask the court to declare him a plaintiff. Mr Justice van Rumpole accepted that as it had earlier been established that Mister Jeremiah Coffey the householder, hereinafter called ‘the possessor’, had been aware of Mr McGillicuddy’s distressed state and therefore (it could be argued) was partly culpable for the Marlborough Terrace premises being effectively removed from future ordnance survey maps. “Yet,” he concluded, “although it may well be that there was equal fault on both sides, the burden is always placed on the plaintiff, and the cause of the possessor is preferred. How and ever this is a matter for another court thank Christ. Next case please. Now where did that flask go?”
    “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, is 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’m not sure 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.”
    There then followed a partly political broadcast by and on behalf of Big Bill Braddock about happiness and knowledge and moderation and seeing