Sleep, sleep, sleep.
Gypo’s eyes opened wide for a moment. Then he closed them. Everything in his mind became a blur. Nightmares stood massed in his brain ready to rush in on the platform of his sleeping mind and carry on their mad acting, as soon as his being soared off, bound in sleep. He had already surrendered to these nightmares.
Sleep, sleep, sleep.
Katie Fox looked at him cunningly for a moment. Her face hardened and her eyes narrowed to points. Then she glanced away again, towards the wall. Her lower lip dropped. Her eyes distended. She puffed twice at her cigarette. She began to talk again.
“I could tell ye stories about them all, Gypo,” she cried, waving her arm wildly in Gypo’s direction. “I could tell ye, so I could, but what’s the use of tellin’? Wha’? What’s the use of anythin’? An’ Fr. Conroy refused to give me absolution. Well, he can go to hell. I can get along without his absolution. I’m not afraid o’ hell. Oh, Mother o’ Mercy!” she cried, suddenly crossing herself; “what have I said? What—”
“Ha! Cross yersel’, cross yersel’,” croaked Louisa Cummins. “But it’s no good to ye. Down ye’ll go. Down ye’ll go. Ha, ha, ha!”
“There’s a curse on me family, Louisa, since me second cousin the Duchess of … of … of … where is that place she was Duchess of? … I forget it, although I was there often with me mother. It’s somewhere out be Killiney. Well, she put a curse on me family anyway. She used to have thirteen monkeys sittin’ at the breakfast table with her.”
“Yer a liar, yer a liar,” cried the old woman in a sudden fury. “She couldn’t have thirteen monkeys. She couldn’t have thirteen. It’s them drugs yer takin’ that’s gone to yer head. Thirteen! Foo!”
Gypo mumbled something in a tremendous whisper. Both women looked at him. His lips were moving, but the words were unintelligible. His massive chest heaved up to an enormous extent and collapsed again slowly, with a great outrush of breath from the nostrils. His tawny face stood out impassively in the glimmer of the firelight. It looked sorrowful and oppressed.
Sleep, sleep, sleep.
He was wafted away by heavy gusts of sleep, to the thunderous music of fantastic nightmares. Primeval memories assumed form in the clouds of sleep that pressed down about him. They assumed form and shape, the shape of the beings that pursued him.
Sleep, sleep, sleep.
His strength was becoming unbound, dissolved in sleep, loosened out and swaying limply on vapours of sleep.
Sleep, sleep, sleep.
“D’ye know what I’m goin’ to tell ye, Louisa?” continued Katie in a low, hushed voice. “When I’m dead they’re goin’ to canonize me. Then I’ll have a holy well out on the Malahide Road, an’ I’ll put a spell on everybody I don’t like, an’ make them get up in the middle o’ the night, an’ walk out barefoot to the well, to drink three cupfuls o’ the holy water. An’ never knowin’ that I’ll have it poisoned. This is a queer world, Louisa, an’ ye’ll soon be out of it, ’cos yer—”
“Sorra a fear o’ me,” croaked the old woman. “I’ll dance on yer grave. Ye little rip o’ divilment. Yer not the first nor the fifth that has come into me house this ten years an’ gone the same road. No yer not. An’ ye won’t be the last. Oho! Ye all got pretty faces. Ye all get the fine strong men to kiss ye. But old, dirty-faced Louisa Cummins’ll dance on yer graves. She dances on yer graves. So she does. Now what are ye doin’ with him? Are ye puttin’ yer evil spell on him? Informer an’ all that he is, I’ll not let ye put yer evil spell on him. I’ll not let ye do that. Go away from the bed.”
Katie had come to the bed and had bent down with her left ear to Gypo’s face, listening to his breathing. She raised her face to look at the old woman.
“He’s dead asleep,” she whispered with a smile.
“Well? Is that queer?”
“Don’t wake him while I’m gone, Louisa.”
“Where are ye goin’?”
“Mind yer own business, Louisa. I’m givin’ ye warnin’.”
“Is it to the polis yer goin’?”
“Don’t talk so loud. It’s not to the polis I’m goin’. I’m just goin’ out.”
“Ha! Yer goin’ to inform on him ye rip o’ divilment. Yer goin’ to inform on him.”
“It’s nothin’ o’ the kind. Isn’t he an informer? Don’t make a noise. Don’t waken him or they’ll fill ye full o’ lead when they come. I’m givin’ ye this warnin’. Shut up.”
She moved backwards to the door, with her hand held out threateningly towards the old woman. The old woman looked after her. Her mouth was wide open. Her eyes roamed about. Then Katie disappeared out the door. Her shoes went tapping down the stairs. The banisters creaked. The room was still, except for Gypo’s heavy breathing.
The old woman remained motionless for several seconds, looking towards the door. Then she groped for her stick and tried to rouse Gypo with it. But Gypo’s arm still lay across her body holding it down. In his sleep it stiffened and held her down. She peered at it and frowned. She dropped the stick and smiled.
“Ha!” she gurgled, “she’s gone to inform on ye, me fine boyo. They’ll soon be here after ye. Trust a woman, trust a devil. She’ll be the ruin o’ ye, me bould warrior. An’ many’s the fine strappin’ woman from yer own country would give her two eyes for a night with ye. An’ here ye lie, asleep an’ weak, with the weariness o’ death on ye. Ha! The divil mend the lot o’ ye. Ha! There ye are now. Hal There ye are now an’ be damned to ye. Ha! Ha!”
Sleep, sleep, sleep.
Sleep and strange dreams.
XVII
At sixteen minutes to six, Mulholland rushed down the stairs into the Bogey Hole,
