“Get you anything?”
“Yes, a gram of coke.”
He gave a polite laugh, so I had to ask,
“You’re not with the Bank of Ireland by any chance?”
“Hardly. I know you though.”
“Yes?”
“Jack Taylor, ex-cop…you were in the papers last year.”
“Stew, where are we on the coke?”
He excused himself, then returned with a brown envelope. The country was awash in them. He said,
“There’s one and a half.”
“Great, what’s the damage?”
It was steep. As he let me out, he said,
“Call any time.”
London by-law:
“No gypsy, hawker, beggar, rogue or vagabond shall enter the burial ground.”
The funeral was massive and probably the biggest I’ve seen. God knows I’ve seen a few. Sometimes, I feel like an old cemetery, laden with coffins. There is nothing like the funeral of a tinker. It almost beggars belief. If there be truth in nothing in your life becomes you like the leaving of it, then they score heavily on all fronts. Descriptions like show-stopper, showpiece, showboat don’t come close. The first thing to know is expense doesn’t matter. Secondly, you will almost never experience such an outpouring of grief. Arab women used to have the lock on public demonstrations of sorrow. Not even close to the women of travelling stock. It’s not that they rend their garments: they lacerate their very souls. Dylan Thomas, when he wrote of rage against the dying of the light, would have witnessed his words personified.
I was relieved it was the Bohermore Cemetery because none of my crowd is buried there. We’re planted in Rahoon with Nora Barnacle’s dead lover. One of those days, I’d have to go visit.
Walking behind the hearse is a custom almost obsolete. Not that day. Sweeper came over, said,
“I got you a lift.”
“I’ll walk.”
He was very pleased. At the graveside, various travellers shook my hand, clapped my shoulder. Word was out that I was OK. Neither settled community nor tinker, I was outlaw enough to be accepted. They said,