Puckoon
Spike Milligan
1963
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter One
Several and a half metric miles North East of Sligo, split by a cascading stream, her body on earth, her feet in water, dwells the microcephalic community of Puckoon. This June of a Morning, the whole village awoke to an unexpected burst of hot weather.
Saffron coloured in the bleach early sky, the sun blistered down, cracking walls and curling the brims of the old men's winter-damp hats; warm-bum biddies circulated air in their nethers, flapping their skirts and easing their drawers. Joyous voiced children fought for turns at the iron pump, their giggling white bodies splashing in the cool water from its maternal maw; bone-dreaming dogs steamed on the pavements and pussy cats lay, bellies upwards, drinking the gold effulgent warmth through their fur; leather-faced fishcatchers puzzled at the coarse Atlantic now flat and stunned by its own salt hot inertia. Shimmering black and still, it lay at the mercy of stone-throwing boys; the bowmen of the sands took respite from the endless cavalry charges of the sea. Nearby, Castle Hill groaned under the weight of its timeless ruins, while the distant mountains came and went in the mid-morning haze. Old Danny Conlon was already setting up the evening edition with ink-tinted fingers, 'Hottest Day in Living Memory', it took something like that to get the Pope off the front page; so lay Puckoon caught by summer in her winter thrawl, as she lay thus dreaming 'twixt land and sea, all was light, and like a golden finger the morning was writ upon the scene.
Gleaming off-white at the foot of Castle Hill were the puzzled crumbling faces of the old peat cutters' cottages, their glass eyes now dimmed with cataracts of neglect and dirt. The peat had run out thirty years ago and the peat cutters had run out not long after; some went to America, the rest stayed behind and hit each other with loaded sticks but it never really caught on and they dispersed. The cottages had been condemned as unfit to live in except during thunderstorms and depressions. The year after' the troubles', the Irish Free State Government had bequeathed the cottages to those who had helped rid 'Houly Ireland' of the English, the Tans and for that matter, anybody.
One such beneficiary was the Dan Milligan, son of a famous paternity order. With a roof over his head he had ceased work, living off his pension and his wits, both hopelessly inadequate.
This sun-barbed morning the Milligan lay full length on the grass, head against the wall, his eyes lost in the shadow of his cap. His thoughts, few that they were, lay silent in the privacy of his head.
Across the road, through a gap in the hedge, Milligan observed a nobbly brown dog snoozed down on the grass verge, now it was one of those creatures that dozes with eyes half open, but, to Milligan, a Catholic, it would appear the animal was giving him a long sensual erotic stare: Milligan moved uneasily in his holy Catholic trousers.' I wonder if he's trying to hypnotize me,' he thought, avoiding the creature's eyes. 'You can't be too careful dese days wid all dem patent medicines about!'
In an attempt to break the white man's supremacy, Paul Robeson had once remarked 'AH handsome men are slightly sunburned'.
Milligan was no exception, he had also said it. He sat in the half upright.' I tink,' he reflected, ' I tink I'll bronze me limbs.' He rolled his trousers kneewards revealing the like of two thin white hairy affairs of the leg variety. He eyed them with obvious dissatisfaction. After examining them he spoke out aloud.' Holy God! Wot are dese den ? Eh ?' He looked around for an answer.'
Wot are dey ?' he repeated angrily.
'Legs.'
'Legs? legs? Whose legs?' 'Yours.'
' Mine ? And who are you ?' 'The Author.'
'Author ? Author ? Did you write these legs ?' 'Yes.'
'Well, I don't like dem. I don't like 'em at all at all. I could ha'
writted better legs meself. Did you write your legs ?'
'No.'
'Ahhh. Sooo! You got some one else to write your legs, some one who's a good leg writer and den you write dis pair of crappy old legs fer me, well mister, it's not good enough.'
' I'll try and develop them with the plot.'
' It's a dia-bo-likal liberty lettin' an untrained leg writer loose on an unsuspectin' human bean like me.'
It was a Dublin accent charged with theatrical innuendo; like all Irish he could make Good Morning sound like a declaration of war - which it usually was.
' Now, listen Milligan, I'll grant you a word wish. If you ever find yourself in trouble just shout "Squrrox".'
' Squrrox ?'
' Squrrox.'
'Alrite alrite, Squorrox, I'll remember dat. Squor-rox,' he repeated, 'Right, Squorrox.'
He lay back, the sun grew on. ' I must admit you write nice weather, mister.' Heiield one arm up to the sky and eyed the frayed cuffs of a once-upon-a-time suit.
'It's goin' home at last, still a suit can't last for ever.' But on reflection he remembered it had.
The shoulders were padded like angled flight decks, the trouser seat hung a foot below the crutch and the twenty-eight inch bottoms flapped round his legs like curtains. He shook his head sadly.
'Ahh, they don't make suits like dis any more, I suppose the age of Beau Brummel is dead.'
He recalled the day he'd bought it. The bride-to-be waiting at the church while he, the groom, was still at home, standing naked in front of a mirror, a top hat angled jauntily on his head. 'By Gor, she's getting value for money,' he said.
'Hurry up, Dan lad,' his father was saying, 'you're late, and you can't get married in that nude.'
'And why not ?' said Milligan, admiring his honeymoon appendages, 'Adam and Eve done it and look at the fine honeymoon dey had.'
' Thank God,' said the old man,' dere were no press photographers at dat weddin', or the Houly Bible would ha' been banned in Ireland for ever, perhaps longer.'
His two brothers had arrived with the suit just in time to get him to the wedding. He never forgave them, standing at the altar with two dirty great cut price tickets hangin' down his back. It was all so long ago. Suits were cheap in dem days, this one only cost a poun' ten shillin'. Prices must have gone up since then. 'Why, it must be nearly two thousand pounds for a suit dese days,' he reflected.
Kersploosh! A bucket of evil-smelling slops hit him square in his sleeping face.
'And there's more where that came from, you lazy bugger.'
The owner of the voice stepped from the cottage into the white sunlight.
' God forgive yez for dat,' spluttered the now reeking Milligan.' Me hat! Look at me hat.'
With nostrils and legs akimbo, she towered over him like some human Yggdrasill, blotting out the sun.
' Owwwwwwwwww!' shrieked the Milligan as she kicked the sole of his boot.
'If you don't get some work soon I'll - ' she made the sign of slow manual strangulation. Milligan noticed that of a sudden there were no birds in the sky and the brown dog had fled.
' Owwww!' She kicked his other boot.
' Darling,' he whined -' you know full well dere's no work round dese parts,' and he pointed as far as the fence.
' Poor Father Rudden is still looking for someone to cut the church grass,
I'm going in for five minutes, if you're still here when I come out in half an hour -'.
'Owwww!' She kicked his boot again. Like an Amen the cottage door slammed after her. All the world went quiet.
' Holy God! Who in the blazes was dat ?'
'That's your darling little wife.'
'Wife
? Wife?' Agony swept across his face. 'Man alive, I thought it was a man. Good God, did you see dem arms ? Jack Dempsey would be world champion again if he could get 'em. What kind of a writer are you ? First me legs, and now this great hairy creature!'
' Don't worry, Milligan, I'll see you come out of this alive.'
'Alive ?' He sat bolt upright.' Holy Christ! Is dis a murder mystery
? If so include me out, Mister. I'm a Catlick, a Holy Roman Catlick.' He listened towards the cottage. 'I better get after dat job.' He stood up, yawned, stretched, farted and lay down again.
'No need to rush at it,' he yawned. Kersploosh!! A bucket of evil-smelling slops hit him square in his face.
'I'm gettin' out of dis chapter, it's too bloody unlucky for me.'
Chapter Two
The Dan Milligan cycled tremendously towards the Church of St Theresa of the Little Flowers. Since leaving the area known as his wife he had brightened up a little.' Man alive! The size of her though, she's a danger to shipping, I mean, every time I put me key in the front door I'll wonder what I'm lettin' meself in for.' Away down a lumpy road he pedalled, his right trouser leg being substantially chewed to pulp in the chain. His voice was raised in that high nasal Irish tenor, known and hated the world over.
'Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh IIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Once knew a judy in Dubleen Town Her eyes were blue and her hair was brown, One night on the grass I got her down And I . . .'
The rest of the words were lost to view as he turned a bend in the road. Farther along, from an overhanging branch, a pure-blooded Irish crow watched the Milligan approach. It also watched him hit the pothole, leave the bike, strike the ground, clutch the shin, scream the agony, swear the word. ' Caw!' said the crow.' Balls!' said the Milligan. Peering intently from behind a wall was something that Milligan could only hope was a face. The fact that it was hanging from a hat gave credulity to his belief.
Are you all right, Milligan ?' said the face in the hat.
' Oh ho!' Milligan's voice showed recognition.' It's Murphy. Tell me, why are you wearing dat terrible lookin' trilby?'
'We sold der hat stand, an' dere's no place ter hang it.' Murphy's face was a replica of the King Edwards he grew. He did in fact look like King Edward the Seventh. He also resembled King Edward the Third, Fifth and Second, making a grand total of King Edward the Seventeenth. He had a mobile face, that is, he always took it with him. His nose was what the French call retrousse, or as we say, like a pig; his nostrils were so acutely angled, in stormy weather the rain got in and forced him indoors.
His eyebrows grew from his head like Giant Coypu rats, but dear friends, when you and I talk of eyebrows, we know not what eyebrows be until we come face to face with the Murphys eyebrows! The man's head was a veritable plague of eyebrows, black, grey, brown and red they grew, thick as thieves. They covered two-thirds of his skull, both his temples and the entire bridge of his nose. In dry weather they bristled from his head like the spears of an avenging army and careless flies were impaled by the score. In winter they glistened with hoar-frost and steamed by the fire. When wet they hung down over his eyes and he was put to shaking himself like a Cocker Spaniel before he could proceed. For all their size dose eyebrows were as mobile as piglets, and in moments of acute agitation had been seen as far south as his chin. At the first sight of Milligan they had wagged up and down, agitati ma non troppo. As he spoke they both began to revolve round his head at speed.
'I heeerd a crash,' said Murphy. 'I examined meself, and I knew it wasn't me.'
' It was me,' said Milligan.' I felled off me bi-cycle. Tank heaven the ground broke me fall.'
' Oh yes, it's very handy like dat,' said Murphy, settling his arms along the wall.
' Oh dear, dear!' said Milligan, getting to his feet. ' I've scratched all the paint off the toe of me boot.' ' Is dat right den, you paint yer boots ?' ' True, it's the most economical way. Sometimes I paints
'em brown, when I had enough o' dat I paints 'em black again.
Dat way people tink you„got more than one pair, see ? Once when I played the cricket I painted 'em white, you should try dat.'
'Oh no,' said Murphy solemnly. 'Oh no, I don't like inteferring wid nature. Der natural colour of boots is black as God ordained, any udder colour and a man is askin' fer trouble.'
'Oh, and what I may ask is wrong wid brown boots?'
' How do I know ? I never had a pair.'
' Take my tip, Murphy, you got to move wid der times man. The rich people in Dublin are all wearin' the brown boots; when scientists spend a lifetime inventin' a thing like the brown boots, we should take advantage of the fact.'
'No, thank you,' said Murphy's eyebrows, 'I'll stick along wid the inventor of the black boots. After all they don't show the dirt.'
'Dat's my argument, black don't show the dirt, brown ones don't show the mud and a good pair of green boots won't show the grass.'
'By Gor', you got something dere,' said the Murphy.' But wait, when you was wearing dem white boots, what didn't dey show ?'
'They didn't show me feet,' said Milligan, throwing himself on to the bike and crashing down on the other side.
' Caw!' said the crow.
'Balls!' said Milligan. 'I'll be on me way.' He remounted and pedalled off.
'No, stay and have a little more chat,' called Murphy across the widening gap. ' Parts round here are lonely and sparse populated.'
'Well it's not for the want of you tryin',' came the fading reply.
The day brewed hotter now, it was coming noon. The hedgerows hummed with small things that buzzed and bumbled in the near heat. From the cool woods came a babel of chirruping birds.
The greena-cious daisy-spattled fields spread out before Milligan, the bayonets of grass shining bravely in the sun, above him the sky was an exaltation of larks. Slowfully Milligan pedalled on his way. Great billy boilers of perspiration were running down his knees knose and kneck, the torrents ran down his shins into his boots where they escaped through the lace holes as steam.
'Now,' thought the Milligan, 'why are me legs goin' round and round ? eh ? I don't tink it's me doin' it, in fact, if I had me way dey wouldn't be doin' it at all. But dere dey are goin' round and round; what den was der drivin' force behind dose legs? Me wife! That's what's drivin' 'em round and round, dat's the truth, dese legs are terrified of me wife, terrified of bein' kicked in the soles of the feet again.' It was a disgrace how a fine mind like his should be taken along by a pair of terrified legs. If only his mind had a pair of legs of its own they'd be back at the cottage being bronzed in the Celtic sun.
The Milligan had suffered from his legs terribly. During the war in Italy. While his mind was full of great heroisms under shell fire, his legs were carrying the idea, at speed, in the opposite direction. The Battery Major had not understood.
'Gunner Milligan? You have been acting like a coward.'
'No sir, not true. I'm a hero wid coward's legs, I'm a hero from the waist up.'
' Silence! Why did you leave your post ?'
' It had woodworm in it, sir, the roof of the trench was falling in.'
' Silence! You acted like a coward!'
' I wasn't acting sir!'
' I could have you shot!'
'Shot? Why didn't they shoot me in peacetime? I was still the same coward.'
' Men like you are a waste of time in war. Understand?'
' Oh ? Well den! Men like you are a waste of time in peace.'
' Silence when you speak to an officer,' shouted the Sgt. Major at Milligan's neck.
All his arguments were of no avail in the face of military authority.
He was court martialled, surrounded by clanking top brass who were not cowards and therefore biased.
' I may be a coward, I'm not denying dat sir,' Milligan told the prosecution. 'But you can't really blame me for being a coward. If I am, then you might as well hold me responsible for the shape of me nose, the colour of me hair and the size of me feet.'
'Gunner Milligan,' Captain Martin stroked a cavalry moustache on an infantry face. 'Gunner Milligan,' he said. 'Your personal evaluations of cowardice do not concern the court. To refresh your memory I will read the precise military definition of the word.'
He took a book of King's Regulations, opened a marked page and read 'Cowardice'. Here he paused and gave Milligan a look.
He continued: ' Defection in the face of the enemy. Running away.'
' I was not running away sir, I was retreating.' 'The whole of your Regiment were advancing, and you decided to retreat ?'
' Isn't dat what you calls personal initiative ?' 'Your action might have caused your comrades to panic and retreat.'
' Oh, I see! One man retreating is called running away, but a whole Regiment running away is called a retreat ? I demand to be tried by cowards!'
A light, commissioned-ranks-only laugh passed around the court.
But this was no laughing matter. These lunatics could have him shot.
' Have you anything further to add ?' asked Captain Martin.
'Yes,' said Milligan.' Plenty. For one ting I had no desire to partake in dis war. I was dragged in. I warned the Medical Officer, I told him I was a coward, and he marked me A.i. for Active Service. I gave everyone fair warning! I told me Battery Major before it started, I even wrote to Field Marshal Montgomery. Yes, I warned everybody, and now you're all acting surprised ?'
Even as Milligan spoke his mind, three non-cowardly judges made a mental note of Guilty.
'Is that all?' queried Martin with all the assurance of a conviction.
Milligan nodded. What was the use ? After all, if Albert Einstein stood for a thousand years in front of fifty monkeys explaining the theory of relativity, at the end, they'd still be just monkeys.
Anyhow it was all over now, but he still had these cowardly legs which, he observed, were still going round and round. 'Oh dear, dis weather, I niver knowed it so hot.' It felt as though he could have grabbed a handful of air and squeezed the sweat out of it. 'I wonder,' he mused, 'how long can I go on losin' me body fluids at dis rate before I'm struck down with the dehydration ? Ha ha! The answer to me problems,' he said, gleefully drawing level with the front door of the 'Holy Drunkard' pub.