bittersweet love letter to small-town Irish life in the vein of Elizabeth Strout’ Irish Times
MOUTHING
‘Everyone here has a tale to tell . . . Mackey’s structure requires the reader to constantly reassess their opinions of the characters. It is a fascinating magic trick, shimmering with fractal richness . . . Again and again we meet a character, form an opinion and almost immediately have that wittily torpedoed’ Irish Times
‘A compelling and highly entertaining read . . . The more people you get to know, the more compelling the novel becomes . . . The interlinked stories are like an addictive soap opera, and you never want them to end’ Irish Examiner
‘A bittersweet love letter to small-town Irish life over several generations, a polyvocal mosaic in the vein of Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge’ Irish Times, ‘Everything Books in 2024’
‘A hotbed of gossip and intrigue, the novel is narrated in a dark, humorous and confessional style by several generations of villagers, from the mid-twentieth century to the early twenty-first . . . Anyone with experience of a small town will be drawn to this’ Journal.ie
‘A startling debut . . . The world Mackey pitches her readers into is hilarious, heartbreaking and oh-so-familiar to anyone who grew up in a small community. No character is straightforward here and each voices their story in a unique and compelling way’ Irish Times, ‘The Best Books of 2024 So Far’
‘Intimate and panoramic, a raucous gathering of voices: full of humour, pierced with longing, caught between connection and claustrophobia. Compassionate but clear-eyed, angry and elegiac, Mouthing is a portrait of our confused and often destructive yearning for grace’ Colin Walsh, author of Kala
‘Orla Mackey writes with tenderness, honesty and caustic wit. Mouthing is full of characters who’ll simultaneously make your blood boil and break your heart into little bits. A novel for everyone who’s ever wondered what the neighbours are really up to behind closed doors . . . ’ Jan Carson, author of The Raptures
‘Sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued, a biting, unsentimental love letter to rural Irish life’ Image
‘All human life is here . . . Mackey’s book is told in the richly descriptive language of the local people, and calls to mind writers like Donal Ryan and Anne Griffin’ Irish Times, ‘Arts and Ideas’
‘A hugely accomplished, sophisticated debut, wildly original and distinct: a startling chorus of vivid, hungry characters battling for love, status and meaning in a small Irish town where not much of anything is to be found. Mackey’s characters possess a devastating, squint-eyed wit but also a capacity for moments of great, unexpected tenderness. No one is ever as alone as they might think. I cannot wait to read what Orla Mackey does next!’
Lauren Mackenzie, author of The Couples
‘Terrifically sharp-witted and deeply moving, Orla Mackey’s novel crackles with intelligence and life. Reading these pages I had the feeling, time and again, of stepping into a moving current’ Chetna Maroo, author of Western Lane
‘A wonderful novel full of memorable characters and charming voices. I was absorbed, amused and moved by Orla Mackey’s masterful depiction of so-called ordinary life in all its richness and complexity’ Ben Hinshaw, author of Exactly What You Mean
‘Orla Mackey’s much-anticipated debut novel, a chorus of voices staking their claim for the truth of their times and what goes on in the rural outpost of Ballyrowan from the 1960s to the noughties’ RTÉ Guide
about the author
Orla Mackey is a writer and teacher based in Kilkenny in Ireland. She studied English Literature at Trinity College, Dublin. Mouthing is her first novel.
MOUTHING
Orla Mackey
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For my parents, John and Sheila, and for Auntie Joan
If life in little places dies, Greater places share the loss; Life, if you wish, may not be worth One passing game of pitch-and-toss; And yet a nation’s life is laid In places like the Crooked Cross.
Brendan Kennelly, The Crooked Cross
the reMaINS
Mona Muldowney
1963
It was a summer’s day. We were sent for cabbage. Two heads of it. Down the road to Jack Costigan’s. Tidy rows of vegetables ribbed Jack’s garden. Worry tangled our minds. I don’t think she really needed the cabbage. Mammy. Not as a matter of urgency. But she didn’t need us either. Listening behind doors. Trying to make sense of the hush that had fallen on the house.
We were set to work after the long walk back from Jack’s. Knowing not to ask questions. We peeled and buttered. Sliced and rolled. The tarts came out lovely. Happy with that. And the pavlova rose to a great height. Lifted. But that wasn’t enough. To take it away. The silence. The sadness. If that’s what you’d call it.
Full suits appeared. Hung on the doors of the boys’ wardrobes. Black jackets slung over empty shirts. Shoes polished to a gleam. Wellington socks had to be peeled off. Bodies soaped. Ties wound around necks. Toes pinched and laces knotted. There was jostling. A game. Manhood. Out from under the shadow of him.
And for us. The girls. We wore our best black. With a coat over it no one’ll mind you. That’s what Mammy said but vanity got the better. We did all we could with a hair comb and lipstick.
Then there was the funeral. What a glory that was. What a glory. Mammy brushed his teeth over and over before handing them to the undertaker. They have to be fitted into the mouth, Michael Farrell said. It fills out the face. And I wondered at that. All the eating he
had done with his bare gums and now they put teeth in. Michael Farrell was right. He looked different. Younger somehow. With the teeth. His cheeks rounded. Cheeks that we had stood in line to kiss. Everyone was at their shiniest. At the funeral. Transformed. Slightly. Not enough to raise suspicion. You’ll come back to the hall. Of course you will. He had great time for you. Spoke highly of your father. We turned to look at each other. Begged to know when this high talk happened.
We were pointed out. Named. As belonging to him. And I felt a pride in that. Belonging to someone dead was a great thing. As it happened. Tiring too. Old women rubbing you. Young men wringing tears from your eyes with the strength of their handshakes.
Nobody eats much. Around the time of a funeral. Not the family anyway. The corpse least of all. That told on Mammy. The not eating. She had a small face at the best of times. It didn’t stand out from her neck. Not having much of a chin to speak of. And yet it was a face I loved. Most of the time. My heart broke for her.
A decent amount of days lapsed before we started. You know. To move on. Clearing out was the first job. And a grand fine day came along. Shame not to use it. A pet day they called it. Mightn’t get as good again. We said that and set to. Pulling and dragging and piling. Making a right big bonfire. The excitement of it. Flames leaping and licking. And us trying not to look too pleased with ourselves. Except for Mammy. She didn’t have to try.
The mattress really took off. And there was something about that. Something frightening. Watching the flames devour the stain of him. We knew we couldn’t talk about it. Even to each other. The fire. The satisfaction of seeing the room empty. Clean of him.
The carpet had been a big job. It made a great difference. To have it gone. And the wallpaper. Layers of it. Stripped. The eyes that had held those patterns. Gone too. It was bare now. The room. Bare walls. Bare floor. The stuff of life removed. The shoes and the jumpers and the socks. The glass for the teeth. Black plastic bags, Mammy said
as I made my way to the fire with his clothes. You can’t burn those. Put them into black plastic bags, she said. And I understood. It takes effort to get rid. The fire was only the start of it.
Afterwards, no one sat at his place at the table. Didn’t want to. Everyone shuffled past it. Preferred instead to take a plate from the press. Make an extra setting. There was that much of him still there. With us. Much more than a memory. No one wanted to occupy his space. Heaven forbid. And so we passed the butter around him. Around the empty breadth of him. That’s how he would’ve wanted it.
We were great ones for remembering. If it suited us. The time he bought the two-bar heater. That was a favourite. And the difference it made to us. In fairness. It had to be said. Say what you like about him. That made some difference. Took the sting out of getting dressed on a cold morning. A wonder we didn’t all go up in flames. We fought so hard to be in on top of it.
Mammy began to grow a little fatter. After the fact. As time went on. Anyone’d laugh to hear it said. Mrs Muldowney? Fat? They’d solid laugh in your face. But it happened. I’m telling you. Soft pleats of flesh put pressure on her blouses. Furrows of skin pushed their way over her skirts. Her little face filled out. The face that I loved. It became a bit softer. I think it was to do with the fact that she relaxed a bit more at the dinner. Gave the spuds a chance to settle on her. Must’ve been what it was.
There were other changes too. So small you didn’t even think of them. The dog was let off his chain. That was one thing. He got a basket inside in the hall. That was the first move. And after that, his home was the mat in front of the fire. Bit by bit it happened. And it made a difference. To all of us. A body to greet you when you came through the door. A friendly one.
There were visitors now. We never had visitors before. Mammy referred to them as callers. Women who brought bracks and tarts and bits of news. The latest on John F. Kennedy. And the wife, Jackie. Beyond in America. When the callers came, the house felt different.
Like it belonged to other people. That was what we were becoming. Other people. And it was no harm. No harm at all.
We bought things. Stood at the counter below in the hardware and at the newsagent’s. Handed over fistfuls of sweaty change and creased notes. It was getting more diffi cult to remember. That time when we had never put our faces inside a shop. If you want it badly enough you’ll grow it abroad in the field. Make it with your God-given hands. That’s the end of it. I had never tried to grow Marietta biscuits. Or make them. But there were times when that’s all I wanted. It was a smashing feeling. Not answering to someone over a biscuit.
The air in the house changed a small bit too. It was a long while before I noticed that. It took months before I realised. The smell. Of us. It was different.
Mammy gave up on the rosary. Not altogether. Just the saying of it on our knees. All of us. At the same time. At the fireplace. There was something about the breaking of that ritual. A freedom. I felt it. Every time. The clock struck nine. I turned the page in a newspaper. The world didn’t end. Who would’ve thought it.
Sometimes of a Friday there would be chips. I know. To think that chips could be tolerated. The feast that would be had on chips and fried eggs and batch loaf. Shop bought. It makes my eyes water to remember. And the best bit. The bit that finished us. The time she said, Take them dinners inside and eat from your laps. There were whoops. A race for the sitting room door. The plates in our hands. Wedging of too many backsides onto a too small couch. Wouldn’t have as good as this in New York. Spoken through a full mouth. And laughter. Real laughter. Good laughter.
When the small changes were lumped together. When you sat down and sized the whole thing up. There was a pretty hefty difference. Between then and now. No comparison really. We didn’t sit down though. Nor did we size up. We did other things. Got on with other things.
For Mammy. Getting on with things meant the odd shopping bag from Shaws. A new cardigan or an anorak in it. A blanket for her bed. Her very own bed. It was being in charge of her purse and the bit of money that she had. For Mammy it was a collar for the dog in place of the fraying baling twine. It was the bus to town. It was tea with a scone and jam.
For the boys. The older ones. It meant dances. Chances. To set sail. Fresh collars on their necks and excitement fizzing inside of them. For us. The younger ones. The girls. I think they hoped that we just wouldn’t remember. That we’d think it had for ever been like this.
That’s why we didn’t talk. Us girls. Well, one of the reasons why. Another was that we didn’t know how to. Silence was a good friend to us. And we were loyal as old dogs where friends were concerned. Ask anyone. What good would it do anyhow. Raking. Poking and prodding. We were plenty good at talking about the stuff we wanted to talk about. That was enough.
The tractor was sold. That was a big thing. Now that I think of it. That was as big as the thing itself. To see the red Massey chug off down the yard. And him not in it. It frightened me. I got an awful land when I heard it start up. The belly rumble of it. And then to see it move. The shadow of a person in the cab. It could’ve been him. Except it wasn’t. There was great relief in that. Removal of the remains.
We’re not under any illusions. He’ll never be gone. The grime of him. It dims life even now. But a glow is creeping in. A temperate glow. Satisfaction in the small things. A knob of butter and a pinch of salt in an egg. And your own stomach easy enough to enjoy it.
Joe Muldowney
1974
Mona was my sister. She still is. My younger sister. It’s a long time since I saw her though. She’s in the village of Ballyrowan now. About seven or ten mile from here. She got a job as the priest’s housekeeper. Full of it she was, the day she came home to tell me. The day after that, I was looking at her back as she sailed down the road on her bicycle. A cloth bag with her bits and pieces in it, rolled up and fastened with twine to the carrier. She turned her head once. Mona did. She looked over her left shoulder at me and then snapped her head back to the road again. Real quick she did it. Mightn’t even have noticed if you weren’t looking careful enough.
I saw her a couple of times after. She called. The way a politician might call. Or a milkman doing his rounds. Or one of the callers who used visit Mammy. The same sister who hung your underpants in front of the fire to dry. That same sister no more than a caller now. The one who you handed the hot jar to every night so the bed would be warm for her. That was my job. To fill the hot jars. And I did it faithfully. I brought turf in too. Always enough for a good fire.
It was just the two of us in the house at night-time. Myself and Mona. During the day it was only herself. I stayed outside, do you see? Mostly I had stuff to be doing. Clearing a dyke. Mending gaps in the ditches. Dragging water to the trough or other business. Sometimes there was nothing. Nothing to be doing. But I wouldn’t go inside all the same. I’d prefer to be out. It was enough to go inside
for the bit of dinner. Grand to get in as it got dark too. When the cold rightly stung your face. You’d be glad to let the auld feet steam in front of the fire then. Damn glad you’d be of a cold winter’s night.
Once she left I didn’t feel the same grá for outside. I wasn’t in anyone’s way. Inside. When herself wasn’t there. So some days I lit the fire early. Other days I stayed looking into the ashes without moving much at all. I didn’t boil the kettle for the hot jars any more. There wasn’t the need. I hardly made it to the bed. If I slept at all, it was in the chair.
The hens Mona had looked after were killed by the fox. All gone in the one go. He must’ve had a field day that same fox. Left nothing only feathers behind him. Not a sign of a hen. I always kept a few cows myself. Just a few. But I didn’t bother with them much. After she’d gone. And then it was only the one that was left. Only one.
The one that was left grazed right up to the front door, the crayture. She looked in at me often and I’d look past the fire, out at her. Her big black nose only inches from the window. It was grand for her in the summer. There only being one of her and about three quarters of an acre to graze. The winter was rough though. That first winter after Mona left was rough. The wind would skin you, so it would. I know that, not from being outside but from hearing it howl down the chimney and from watching the auld curtains lift with it. I wasn’t feeling much of the cold myself, mind you. I wasn’t feeling much of anything.
But I thought to bring her in all the same. What harm would it do? I thought to bring her in out of the cold and see how she’d fare inside. It wasn’t hard. To get her in. Not once I’d taken the door down. I laid out a bit of straw on the floor for her. I hadn’t done as much in a long time and it felt grand to be moving. Grand to be working again.
The cow took a good look around at the set-up and to give her credit, she didn’t baulk. She stood her ground, in fairness to her. She looked back once or twice at the door (which wasn’t a door any
more of course, only a hole in the wall) before settling herself onto the straw and laying her head close to the floor.
It made all the difference to me to have her inside. I felt happier to be honest with you. I slept better in the night and I was glad to open my eyes and to have them land on another living thing. The cow herself made no move to leave at all. She made a few moves of course but that was only natural. She often shifted about on the straw. She stood up too. She often stood up and she’d stay standing for a while. She’d stand while she ate the hay I brought her and she’d stand to drink her water. There wasn’t a bother on her that way.
It was a funny thing but for a while that poor harmless cow drew more people to the house than ever darkened the door in all the years that had gone before. Many’s the one came up the lane and stopped at the door and went on again, tutting and shaking their heads. Many’s the one. The Doyles and the Trehys. The Hendersons and the Delaneys. They all traipsed up the lane to have a look. Jim Hickey tried to stick his oar in. I don’t mind at all, Joe. I don’t mind at all giving you a hand getting that auld cow out from in front of your fireplace, he said but I didn’t even raise my head to look at him.
We were getting along the grandest, the two of us. Not minding each other at all. Sure enough, a bitter wind came in through the door hole every so often but the poor cow couldn’t do anything about that. Divil a bit she could do about it. And a wind never killed anyone. Never killed anyone I’d heard tell of anyway.
Another summer came and went, the second since Mona left. This time the beast didn’t stir outside. Nor did I go about making her stir. She had no interest at all in the outdoors. That day was gone. She stayed on the bed of straw and only barely moved her old jaws enough to eat the hay I put under her nose.
I tried to clean up around, not being able to move her; but it was a curse to tell you the truth. A few weeks in and I didn’t smell the dung any more. I didn’t bother much with mucking out after that. And that’s how the two of us went on. Sharing the same room.
Minding each other and not minding each other at all. If you know what I mean. We went on like that for a good while.
The dung and the dirt wasn’t long gathering around us. I didn’t notice a thing except whether or not the beast ate a bit during the day. I didn’t see the dirt when it was halfway up the leg of the kitchen table nor did I notice when it near blocked the front door.
The parish priest on the other hand, he noticed. Why in the name of Jesus it bothered him, don’t ask me. But it did. It bothered him fierce. Up and down the lane he came, day in and day out to look in at the two of us. It drove him quare that I wasn’t paying a blind pick of notice to him.
He danced jigs and reels and hornpipes outside the hole in the wall where my door used to be. He was red in the face, so he was, and his cheeks used puff up before he’d eventually let a breath out. I looked through him every time. I wasn’t being rude, you know. I didn’t have it in me to be rude. I just wasn’t all that interested in what he thought. And so off he’d go again with the two hands clenched into fists and the cassock flying out behind him.
That was all well and good until it wasn’t. Until one day out of the corner of my eye, I spied a van pull up outside the old place. A white van it was. If I had been thinking, I might have made a guess at what a van would be doing pulling up outside my house when no one much besides the parish priest and a few interfering McManuses or Laceys or Cahills had come near it in months. I might have guessed but I didn’t.
I wasn’t thinking when the men appeared at the door with their shovels. Jesus Christ, could you credit it? I heard one say and he covering his mouth and nose at the same time. Is he alive at all? another one asked. Holy fuck, lads, I wasn’t prepared for this, a third one said as he shovelled on.
It was hours before they reached me. And only seconds after that they had me stretchered out to the van. I looked over my shoulder. Back at the poor beast on the cottage floor with the department
vet standing over her and the knacker’s gun pointed at her forehead. She jumped and moaned and shifted about before laying down her head and closing her big soft eyes. That near broke my heart, so it did.
Near killed me to be here too. At the start. It near finished me to be put in here. Stripped and thrown under a fall of water. A shower. That’s what they called it. After the shower they dried me. Dressed me in someone else’s old clothes. Left me to look at a closed curtain for the rest of the day. I wished I was dead.
As the years go on, I’m getting more used to it. More and more accustomed to the place. The bed is warm and soft. I’ll say that much for it. And if you keep your eyes closed you could be anywhere. Sometimes I imagine the sound of a trolley clanking past is the haggard gate swinging open. Voices from nearby beds are the lowing of cows or the whimpering of newborn kittens in the hay shed.
The parish priest was behind it. Behind the whole thing. It didn’t look good for him, do you see. It didn’t look good for him at all. I had to be seen to be minded, he said. The fact that I wasn’t doing anyone a bit of harm didn’t come into it. The fact that none of this would’ve come about if he hadn’t taken my sister off me. That didn’t come into it either. No. As well as everything else, the PP said I had to think of Mona. How it made her feel. Well, that made me sit up straight in my chair. Mona. She was thinking of me. By the sounds of it, she was thinking of me.
Father Lennon
1970
The best thing I ever did was join the priesthood. The worst thing I ever did? There’s a question and a half now. And isn’t it an unfortunate thing to say that I don’t have to think too long on it.
My brother David died in a farm accident, that’s how they put it. My eldest brother. He died when the tractor crushed him against the wall of the milking parlour. That was more than twenty years ago now. He’ll be dead twenty-one years in two months’ time. Twenty-one years on the nineteenth of July. The handbrake must have slipped, they said, easy happen. They presumed it was him who had been driving. And when the guards asked questions. Has to be done, you understand. Procedure. Sorry to put you through it all again. My father answered. I sat shivering under a blanket with the taste of vomit fresh in my mouth.
The handbrake didn’t slip. And well I knew it because I was the last one who had been driving the tractor. I jumped from the cab in a hurry to close a gate. No one’s fault, Thomas, my mother said. But she couldn’t look at me. My mother couldn’t look at me when she said that. And my father, my poor father, he lived under a cloud from that day on.
My ordination was a big thing. The accident took a lot away from us but the ordination gave a small bit back. Schoolchildren spent months making bunting. Every highway and byway was strung with it. There was a meal and dancing in a hotel. A committee. Guests
were assigned to houses in the locality to be put up for the night. And I laughed to think of teammates and classmates staying with the Kenneallys or the Tobins or the Fitzgibbons.
There were presentations. New robes and vestments. Banners. A choir assembled from all three churches in the parish. The village freshly painted. Top to bottom. Pews polished. Carpets laid. Burco boilers filled. Sandwiches and sponges. Stewards put in place to direct traffic. A marquee erected. A Master of Ceremonies appointed to stand in the field belonging to the school, calling on people to sing my praises.
Cameras were dusted off, pulled out for the occasion. My parents and I stood for hours below outside the church while the flashes popped. Smiling widely. My brother was there as well, my younger brother. Other brother. We’d still be there now if the Bishop hadn’t called a halt to it, the photo shoot. We were all happy. As happy as could be, given the circumstances.
I had nightmares. Terrors. Not about David and the death that he got. No. I had nightmares about being found out, caught, identified as the culprit. And then there was the guilt.
When it came to the part of my ordination ceremony, the part where the person being ordained lies face down as a sign of humility, unworthiness for the office to be assumed, I prayed for forgiveness and for healing. And for my secret to remain secret.
I said my first Mass in the church where I’d been baptised on the day following the ordination. I gave Communion to my mother and father. They raised their eyes to look at me as I presented the host. And it seemed as though they believed in me. Again.
All Glory and Honour is Yours, Almighty Father. For Ever and Ever. Amen, they said. And then they knelt.
Mona Muldowney
1970
I felt the weight of a hobnail boot on my neck. For years. From the time Mammy died until the time I got the job with Father Lennon. Good and solid. The boot was there. It came out of nowhere. The boot. I wasn’t prepared. For how it trapped me. Hurt me. Kept my nose to the floor.
The brother made it known in no uncertain terms. The house was his from the day Mammy went down in the clay. From that day forward, the house was his and so was I. It was a shock, let me tell you. A horrid shock. Bad enough coping with the loss of Mammy. To be dealing with that into the bargain. Only the two of us in it and you wouldn’t credit the work. Not time left to bless my face. The going never stopped. Afraid to turn my head sideways, so I was. In case I’d have it turned back the other way for me.
Breakfast. The table laid the night before. Elevenses at ten o’clock. Dinner at half twelve. Supper at six. A cup of tea and a bit of bread before bed. Start over again. The few hens and the cows and the messages. And the bread and the fl oors and the windows and the beds. And whatever else he’d think of on the day. Not a sinner to talk to in between times. Not a soul.
It hadn’t been all that bad before. Not in Mammy’s time. In Mammy’s time it was grand. We all found our place. After Daddy died. Lord have mercy on him. We found our place and things went on the finest. Didn’t hurt at all that I was the youngest. The youngest
I’ll never forget the cold of it. Of the house once Mammy was gone. Won’t forget it for as long as I live. The two-bar heater was the first thing to go. The law laid down straight away. That fire is only to be lit before I come in out of the yard in the evening. If you’ve enough to be doing, you won’t feel the cold. I’m not working like a dog only for you to be inside warming your arse.
The fire was lit in time to have a blaze going for when he came through the door. You could freeze for all the hours of the day before that. Let you do what you like until ten before six when himself was due to come in. Daren’t burn so much as a scrap of paper in the grate until then. Fear there’d be a remnant of heat that he’d detect. Wouldn’t want to give him an excuse. Not that he needed one.
Despite all the work, he didn’t want anything done around the place. Nothing substantial. Nothing that would cost him. He took pride in the sameness. Daddy never dead while he was around. Others were getting fridge freezers and cars. Not a house without indoor plumbing and central heating. He was using hammer and nails and putty. Replacing the kitchen window with one from an old tractor. He was emptying the outside toilet onto a heap in the haggard. Emptying the ash bucket over that.
Once a month. When my things came. He left the toilet. Left the stinking bucket outside the front door. Snarled at me. Get rid of your own filth, he’d say. And I felt it fierce. The shame of it all. Piling up the bloody shit. Wearing a worn apron over a worn dress. Washing at a basin. Rolling up newspaper and stuffing it into the toes of my mother’s shoes. My own shoes without a sole left on them.
You’d swear he hadn’t a bob to his name. The same man. But he had. He had money enough all right. And liked what came with it. Being the fella who held the purse strings. Me not able to do a thing without passing it by him. By God, did he make the most of
16 of five. Mammy had the time to mollycoddle me a small bit. Dotie, she called me. Never anything else.
