they had a fire lit and they were telling tales and getting each other spooked but it was only to get Brackets over to their side for the night. When it was midnight and Brackets was drunk and relaxed they done something terrible to him. They put the pitch cap on him and Brackets was in agony. They put him on one of their horses and the lord’s friend took Brackets’s horse and they followed in behind Brackets whose head was on fire. The horse Brackets was on knew the way back to the city and the lads were behind shouting and whooping and following this ball of fire that was Brackets. But when Brackets’s horse got near the city the fire went out and Brackets was able to concentrate on the horse not his head. He was able to turn the horse into a field and the men went on straight didn’t know where Brackets had went. Poor old Brackets fell off the horse and he cooled his head in the swamp that was in the field. When he woke up the next morning he seen that in the field was a fair being set up, all the tents, the ovens cooking the chickens. The people in the fair they took pity on him because his head was black. A man with a tent said he would give Brackets a cut if he sat in the tent and let the people come in and look at him. Brackets did this for a week and then he was off but he said he would go in the city because he was so near to it. And in the city the people there took pity on him too because of the state of his head. They gave him money though this was not allowed because he didn’t have the alms badge until one day a gentleman said to him he should go to the town hall ask for a badge. So Brackets went up to the town hall, he knocked. And do you know who opened the door to him.
Who I says.
The lord the fella set his head on fire. Course he did not know Brackets to see now and he gave him the alms badge. But what happened him then was Brackets got so good at the begging the other beggars turned on him. He got a good amount of money this one day he was able to pay a man to take him all the way out of the city back to our people. When he got back to our people he had to tell them he was Brackets Sonaghan because they did not know him to see. They said to him where he been these years. He turned out his pockets and he showed them the money he had and he said he been a very successful beggar. He showed them the badge made of tin. He said it was easy. They could make these badges easy, if anyone could it was them. He told them he had the best meals he ever had and he been taken in plenty people’s homes in the city. He said if they took the tin they got from the yeomen made up a load of these badges they could go begging instead of this skittering around the yeomen. But you know what our fellas said.
What I says.
They said they weren’t going to go down that road. There after been a barracks had been set up near enough and these fellas had taken over from the yeomen and they were from Cornwall in England. And these was fellas who worked in the tin mines and their people worked in the tin mines and these people could see the work that our people were able to do with the tin. They appreciated the skill and they made our people proud of the work they were doing because they said it. So our people said that was it. They said no to Brackets Sonaghan and fucking matchstick head was put on his way.
Fucking matchstick head was put on his way he says. Was good he says.
I says to him what would he have done. I says would he have gone along with Brackets or stood with the rest of our people.
Arthur said he didn’t care because it was only a story.
No man would survive his head being set on fire he says. He be dead before even being put up on a horse he says.
That is true I says.
He says I’ll tell you something about that story though. What’s true is them fellas from Cornwall in England know it all about the tin. I been there meself. There is tin mines the length of the place. Not too many them left open now but I met these fellas said their people worked in them. They took me in said I was their brother they told me.
Arthur threw his head back laughing the thought of the word they used.
He says they were going to march on London they said. But first they wanted to drink. I spent I say five month there. Most I ever spent in one place anywhere in England.
What kept you there I says.
I was relaxed he says. I watched the fellas on their surf boards on the water. I slept on the beach a lot. I got a batch of this sex wax they called it and I sold it to them. Then I got another batch and another. It was for their dicks on the surf boards. I could have gone on. And I was with this woman. I met this girl I had her one night on the beach.
Arthur finished off his glass the xeres one go.
No more of that he says. I shouldn’t be telling you things like this.
I could feel me getting drowsy, I could feel the heat of the lamp on my lip.
I says Arthur you’ve a gift do you know.
For what he says.
For setting out the story there in front of someone and the light and life in it is there to see. It’s a gift no doubt I says.
A thick moan blew out in the night and came in through the walls. This would happen.
Sh what’s that he says
I says that’s the boats come in on a misty night Arthur all that is. We’re only a mile or less from the port and that’s the fog horn alerting the other boats.
He went over by the window looked out as if he could see. He was stood there his good hand in his back pocket, the bad hand holding open the curtain.
Gone to see the world he says.
I says they are.
They can keep it he says.
He looked above him then, his head moving with something.
And what’s this come here he says.
I went to the window. Two strokes of light were moving through the mist. They were settled on the thicker cloud above and the spots they were making were moving ten mile across, back to touching, out again.
It’s coming from the port too I says. There’s something always going on out there I says.
We did not like to look at it too long. I poured out the last dropeen of the xeres.
And musha musha have you a story to tell yourself for your old uncle little bookaleen he says the night getting on.
I went over to put on the television.
I don’t know fuck all about stories I says.
Here is a good one. Judith Neill tried to sink a submarine. This was a long time ago. A submarine of the Canadian Navy was pulled up in Dublin for show. Judith went along with some old friends to try gather intelligence is the word. Never again she said. She said she’d left that person she was behind in the past but she was fond of her all the same. She had a tattoo remind her of times gone by. It was the head of a fox, on the inside of her arm near the elbow. She was trouble back then she said but she was lucky because she could have been in even worse trouble, she had got away with it. I said to her I would not tell anyone about the submarine. She said to me I could tell who I wanted.
She said this the first day I met her.
