supplanted by a thriving, bustling place which bore no resemblance whatever to it.
She left the hotel and walked to The Diamond where a young girl in dancing costume tightened her thin body and kicked her legs high in the air as a row of adjudicators on the makeshift stage
consulted their clipboards judiciously. Many of the old shopfronts had been replaced. Any that she remembered had been completely repainted and refurbished. Josie could not believe her eyes when
she found herself standing outside the pub where her father, the Buyer Keenan, had spent many of his waking hours. Once called the Greyhound Bar, now a neon sign spread in an arc above the door
read the TURNPIKE INN . A poster advertised
Crazy Crazy Nites
.
When she came to the graveyard she felt the pain growing inside her again as she stared at the gravestones of her father and mother.
Michael Joseph Keenan, R.I.P.
Kathleen Josephine Keenan 1898–1946 R.I.P.
For a split second she saw her own death, a gunmetal face fixed on the sky, all around the faces and voices of Carn as she had known it. The graveyard overlooked the town. Below her, she could
see the crowds streaming from the dancehall, The Sapphire Ballroom.
The fields about her were specked with forget-me-nots and a long-forgotten day came into her mind, her mother with a basket bending down to pick them in the same fields, Josie by her side in
white socks and a pink check dress.
Josie Keenan had come home to the town of Carn, the only home she knew.
V
“Are you going to lie there all day? Do you think I have nothing better to do than run up and down after you—is that it?
Sadie Rooney’s mother shut the door loudly behind her and with that the Aston Martin in which Sadie and her companion Steve McQueen had been splicing the wind together, dissipated like
smoke and Sadie’s eyes travelled the red flock wallpaper before coming to rest on the weary face of the Infant of Prague on the mantelpiece. She shook her head and moistened the dry roof of
her mouth with her tongue, then tumbled onto the floor and stood at the window scratching her arm as she waited for some sort of order to come into her mind.
Outside the town was cranking into life. Indeed, thought Sadie, life is right.
The words of the butcher came to her. “Do you know,” he said, “this is the best wee town in Ireland. I mean, you have everything you want here. You have a picture house. And
the dances. You couldn’t meet friendlier people. And what about the celebrations last year for Matt Dolan? No other town has anything like that! The bands and the parades!”
Carn, thought Sadie, Carn, Carn, Carn. Nowhere but Carn. Carn—the beginning and the end. Nothing else in the whole wide world but it and its cramped streets.
She could see it all unwinding from her bedroom. Jacko the grocer taking out his cabbage crates whistling. Mrs Wilson screwing up her nose. “Are them cabbage fresh?” She looked at
him as if she suspected him of injecting them with a deadly poison. “Fresh? Fresh, Mrs? Did you ever know me to sell bad cabbage? There you are.” He heaped two fat-headed cabbages into
her arms and off she went, beaming. Then along came Grouse Monaghan and urinated on a lampost. In the doorway of the supermarket, Mrs Reilly and Mrs McKenna swopped domestic tales. Sadie knew their
style. “I have awful trouble with Declan and this constipation. He was on the pot for nearly a whole hour last night, nearly a whole hour I waited—and do you know what I got for my
trouble?”
“No—what?”
“Wee hard balls.”
Then they stood looking at each other as if they had just overheard the announcement of world war three.
As Sadie pulled on her dress, she caught a glimpse of a bin on two wheels coming around the corner. It was Blast Morgan—who else could it be?
Regular as clockwork, the cap parked askew on his head and half an inch of ash dangling from his lips as he made his way through the morning blinking at the
She left the hotel and walked to The Diamond where a young girl in dancing costume tightened her thin body and kicked her legs high in the air as a row of adjudicators on the makeshift stage
consulted their clipboards judiciously. Many of the old shopfronts had been replaced. Any that she remembered had been completely repainted and refurbished. Josie could not believe her eyes when
she found herself standing outside the pub where her father, the Buyer Keenan, had spent many of his waking hours. Once called the Greyhound Bar, now a neon sign spread in an arc above the door
read the TURNPIKE INN . A poster advertised
Crazy Crazy Nites
.
When she came to the graveyard she felt the pain growing inside her again as she stared at the gravestones of her father and mother.
Michael Joseph Keenan, R.I.P.
Kathleen Josephine Keenan 1898–1946 R.I.P.
For a split second she saw her own death, a gunmetal face fixed on the sky, all around the faces and voices of Carn as she had known it. The graveyard overlooked the town. Below her, she could
see the crowds streaming from the dancehall, The Sapphire Ballroom.
The fields about her were specked with forget-me-nots and a long-forgotten day came into her mind, her mother with a basket bending down to pick them in the same fields, Josie by her side in
white socks and a pink check dress.
Josie Keenan had come home to the town of Carn, the only home she knew.
V
“Are you going to lie there all day? Do you think I have nothing better to do than run up and down after you—is that it?
Sadie Rooney’s mother shut the door loudly behind her and with that the Aston Martin in which Sadie and her companion Steve McQueen had been splicing the wind together, dissipated like
smoke and Sadie’s eyes travelled the red flock wallpaper before coming to rest on the weary face of the Infant of Prague on the mantelpiece. She shook her head and moistened the dry roof of
her mouth with her tongue, then tumbled onto the floor and stood at the window scratching her arm as she waited for some sort of order to come into her mind.
Outside the town was cranking into life. Indeed, thought Sadie, life is right.
The words of the butcher came to her. “Do you know,” he said, “this is the best wee town in Ireland. I mean, you have everything you want here. You have a picture house. And
the dances. You couldn’t meet friendlier people. And what about the celebrations last year for Matt Dolan? No other town has anything like that! The bands and the parades!”
Carn, thought Sadie, Carn, Carn, Carn. Nowhere but Carn. Carn—the beginning and the end. Nothing else in the whole wide world but it and its cramped streets.
She could see it all unwinding from her bedroom. Jacko the grocer taking out his cabbage crates whistling. Mrs Wilson screwing up her nose. “Are them cabbage fresh?” She looked at
him as if she suspected him of injecting them with a deadly poison. “Fresh? Fresh, Mrs? Did you ever know me to sell bad cabbage? There you are.” He heaped two fat-headed cabbages into
her arms and off she went, beaming. Then along came Grouse Monaghan and urinated on a lampost. In the doorway of the supermarket, Mrs Reilly and Mrs McKenna swopped domestic tales. Sadie knew their
style. “I have awful trouble with Declan and this constipation. He was on the pot for nearly a whole hour last night, nearly a whole hour I waited—and do you know what I got for my
trouble?”
“No—what?”
“Wee hard balls.”
Then they stood looking at each other as if they had just overheard the announcement of world war three.
As Sadie pulled on her dress, she caught a glimpse of a bin on two wheels coming around the corner. It was Blast Morgan—who else could it be?
Regular as clockwork, the cap parked askew on his head and half an inch of ash dangling from his lips as he made his way through the morning blinking at the
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