Second Installement Peggy's Secret.

Donie stands, apart in the Graveyard, watching as the coffin is shouldered and borne to the grave. Behind him the gravestones, some old, not straight, leaning, some tall, some short, stand ghosted in a morning dimness. A light rain falls straight down.

Jonnie, in the box over there Paddy, was only sixty-five: not old today, we were cousins. His mother and mine were sisters. We were neighbours and we were friends too. Old friends, who grew up together. I thought we would grow old together.

We were friends as well on the bog. Investors each year in the bank that he always said had no big locked door, no money, no manager, shareholders or funds.

He laughed each time he visited the Bookies. The Turf Accountant, the official taxman's title on the betting business. Are they countin' the sods - of turf? He laughed and said, as well: the only loan we would get from our bank, was the loan of a bog-barrow that was hidden in a drain.

That’s the sister, Peggy in the wheelchair. She looked after him most of the time, even when he used be on the batter, on the drink. He gave that up in the last ten years, but he kept puffin’ on the coffin-nails. That’s what got him in the end.

That lot around her are the nieces and nephews, the ones on the edge of the circle, are the O’Connors. She used call in and keep an eye on them after Molly, her sister died. Martin did not last long after. A broken heart they said.

They're all away in their own places now, with their own families, except the youngest. He's in the home place, letting it fall down around his ears. Too lazy to shake himself, never mind work for a living. On the scratch, calling it disability, 'cause he says his back is at him. It's his elbow resting on a bar counter that is the real culprit.