An Irish Christmas Feast (16 page)

After the presents were distributed Tom sat by the fire and was prevailed upon to accept another glass of gin.

‘I will. I will,' he replied good-humouredly, ‘but only if the lady of the house is having one too.'

The lady in question was more than agreeable and soon there was a half-empty bottle where there had been a full one. Songs were sung and for all his wan, woebegone, winterish appearance Tom sang as warmly as any and since he was the proprietor of a soft mellow voice was much in demand as the night wore on.

For once the lady of the house did not resort to abusive language nor did she raise a hand in anger to her husband. Instead she addressed herself to the second gin bottle for which the man of the house had dispatched his oldest daughter. Did I say that he indulged in a glass or two himself? If I didn't let me say at once that he did and if I didn't say that he laughed and sang you may now take my word for it that he did and that he danced as well especially with the smaller members of the household.

The time passed happily and Tom Winter was obliged to admit to himself that he had never spent a better night. No sooner had the second gin bottle been emptied than the clock struck twelve. Declining all offers of tea and edibles Tom took his leave of the happy family in the fond hope that the pub he had vacated earlier in the night would be still manned by some of its staff for much as he enjoyed the household gin he, like all gin lovers, would, if asked, agree that there was no gin like the gin that comes across a bar counter. It is more natural for one thing and there is the unique atmosphere and there is the incomparable presence of drunken companions.

At the doorway, after he had made his goodbyes to the children, Tom Winter gave his word to Gladiola and her husband that he would do the needful without fail the following Christmas and during every Christmas thereafter while there was a gasp of life left in his body. Forgetting to disrobe, he turned his head towards his favourite watering hole. Although full to the gills with gin already he felt an insatiable desire to be reunited with the distinct camaraderie of that spot which had cheered him so often in the past. It is an astonishing aspect entirely of the toper's life that he most requires drink when he least needs it. No other thought now occupied Tom Winter's mind but the prospect of downing a glass of gin and tonic. Let the sot or the drunkard be mightily overburdened after his intake he will, nevertheless, always manage to find room for one more.

After many a skip and many a stagger he eventually arrived at his destination but there was, alas, no room at the inn, at least there was no room for Tom so early on the morning of Christmas Day.

In the eye of the drinker there is no sight so sad as an empty public house or worse a public house which has retained its maximum number of clients and is not prepared, for the sake of comfort and safety, to admit any more. He thought he heard the tinkling of glasses and chinking of coins in tills behind the closed doors, behind the shuttered windows. He had never in his life felt so lonely. It seemed as if the whole world had gone off and left him behind all alone.

Disconsolately he directed his steps towards his shop. Some time later, after it seemed that he had been walking all night, he realised that he had been going around in circles and it dawned on him that the reason for his aimless wandering might be because he really didn't want to go home. To begin with there was nobody there, no cat or no dog, not even a mouse for he had trapped them all in his many mousetraps. Again, more firmly this time, he directed his steps towards the shop but walk as he would he found himself no nearer his base.

Was there a superhuman force restraining him, keeping him away from calamity or was he so drunk that it was not within his power to focus himself properly? There came a time in his journeying when it seemed that he was destined to go on forever and then he fell into the benign arms of Canon Cornelius Coodle. At this stage he had been in the process of passing out.

‘My poor fellow,' the canon spoke gently as he dragged his stupefied find towards the garage and thence to the warm room upstairs where he deposited him upon the bed already occupied by the first Santa Claus. Canon Coodle had been surprised to see the first Santa Claus. He had totally forgotten but was relieved that no harm had come to the creature. He was quite taken by the fetching snores, not at all like those to which he was accustomed. He satisfied himself that the second Santa was in no danger of suffocating and was pleased to acknowledge his first resounding snore. He stood for a while at the head of the stairs, listening intently, a rapturous smile on his ancient and serene countenance. He reminded himself that he must tell his curates about this remarkable phenomenon in the morning but wait! What phenomenon! He racked his brains for several moments and then it came back to him. It was the harmonised snoring. Never in all his days had he heard anything so agreeable. It was as though the pair on the bed had been training together all their lives such was the perfect complimentary pitch of their joint renditions. He was reminded of a lyric by Thomas Moore:

Then we'll sing the wild song it once was such pleasure to hear

When our voices commingling breathed like one on the ear.

Surely this was a phenomenon or was it more! Was it a minor miracle, an act of homage to the creator on Christmas morning! He hurried downstairs for his tape recorder. Alas when he returned the snoring had ceased altogether and the pair now lay side by side breathing deeply and evenly, their white beards rising and falling as the air expelled itself from their lungs. Again he thought of Thomas Moore but resorted to parody in order to suit the occasion:

Where the storms that we feel in this wide world might cease

And our hearts like thy snoring be mingled in peace.

Raising his hand he breathed a blessing upon the contented pair before finally repairing to his bed and to the sleep he so richly deserved. As the night wore on the couple on the bed resorted occasionally to bouts of the melodious snoring heard earlier. Then came the dawn and Julie Josie stirred in her bed but did not open her eyes. Her head, surprisingly, did not throb nor did her heart thump. She lay contented for a while in the belief that she was in her own bed. When the snore erupted from somewhere beside her, some place too close for comfort, she too erupted and would have taken instant flight had she not become aware of her apparel.

She stood astonished looking down at the figure on the bed. She crept close to the recumbent form and gently removed the beard. She could scarcely believe her eyes. She knew Tom Winter well, had shopped with him, had always purchased her hardware wants from Tom and Tom alone and she recalled how at that very moment four different pictures hung from walls in her home, hung by Tom's picture cord from Tom's nails, which he had himself driven, and found to be good nails. She also recalled how her late father had purchased the hammer which had driven the nails.

She knew Tom to be a gentle soul, a good-hearted chap who should not be judged on the strength of his wintry face alone. She decided to wake him. He raised himself slowly to his elbows and was surprised, to say the least, when he beheld Santa Claus standing by the bed.

‘I'm sorry I didn't bring you anything,' the voice said and what a voice! It is surely the voice of an angel, Tom told himself. He had never heard an angel's voice but he had imagined such a voice ringing in his ear one day and calling him to heaven if he was lucky, if he was very, very lucky. The voice he had just heard was the kind of voice which had called him in his more hopeful dreams.

‘Did we sleep together?' he asked falteringly.

‘Looks like it,' she answered with a laugh.

‘In that case,' said Tom solemnly, ‘you must marry me. In fact,' he continued hardly believing himself to be possessed of such courage, ‘I would marry you if we had never slept together. I have admired you many a time on the streets and in my humble shop which you have enhanced by your all too rare visits. Say you'll marry me and make my life into something glorious and good. Marry me and change my ways.'

She took his hand gently and was surprised to see that he was not in the least winterish at close quarters.

‘We will talk about it some other time,' she whispered gently.

‘I will give up the gin,' he promised, ‘and never touch the accursed stuff again.'

‘No need to give up all drink though,' came the pragmatic response. ‘I firmly believe that a few beers now and then would stand you in better stead.' She looked at her watch and saw that it was twenty-five minutes to eleven.

‘I'll have to hurry,' she said, ‘if I'm not to miss mass.'

‘So must I,' he told her.

‘Have you any idea how we arrived here?' she asked. He shook his head. As they divested themselves of their Santa Claus coats she spoke again. ‘There is something very strange about all this,' she ventured.

‘I know. I know,' Tom agreed. ‘It's as though we were destined to be together. I mean why else would God join us together in this most unlikely place without either one of us knowing the first thing about it. Neither of us have any idea how we came to be here.'

They never would because the incident would have slipped Canon Coodle's mind after his breakfast and it would never surface again not even when he would marry them in the summer of the following year. He would baptise their children too in the years that followed and they would both live to see their children grow up and their grandchildren and even their great-grandchildren so that it could be truly said of them that they both lived happily ever after.

‘When you meet a bully,' Roger Wonsit thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets and surveyed the class of schoolboys before him, ‘you must not allow yourself to be cowed and you must not take to your heels like a coward.'

He paused and allowed his injunctions to sink in before proceeding. He took a turn round the classroom, his head held high, a steely look in his grey eyes. His captive audience, for the most part boys of seven and eight years old, listened with mixed feelings as the famous ex-boxer clenched and unclenched his fists.

Jonathan Cape, the second smallest boy in the class, was glad he wasn't a bully. On the other hand he doubted if he would be able to stand his ground for long should a bully suddenly confront him. Roger Wonsit was going on.

‘I,' he said and he paused for a longer period, ‘have met many bullies in my time and I have dispatched them thus!' Here he feinted and thrust a straight left into the face of an imaginary bully before demolishing the scoundrel with a right cross.

‘There are other methods,' he went on belligerently, ‘but the most important thing is that you must never allow anything or anybody to come between yourself and your particular bully.' Here he extended his arms and emitted a blood-curdling whoop that made the hairs stand on Jonathan's head. He looked around for an avenue of escape, convinced that the middle-aged man before him was about to dismember several members of the class. Instead Roger Wonsit seized the imaginary bully by the hair of the head and swung him round and round as though he were a wet dishcloth.

‘When your bully comes into view,' he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘what must you do?' The class waited eagerly for the great boxer to continue but Roger was not continuing. He was once more applying his tried and trusted psychology of allowing his words to sink in. After several moments he clapped his hands together and asked for the second time: ‘What must you do when your bully stands before you?'

When no answer came, as expected, he provided one.

‘You must go for his jugular. Forget the size of him and the weight of him. Just go for him and get stuck in. Now what do you do when you see your bully?' The class responded at once, even Jonathan Cape.

‘You must go for his jugular and get stuck in.'

‘Again.' Roger Wonsit lifted his outstretched palms demanding a more forceful response. This time the class went overboard as such classes do when given the slightest opportunity. Satisfied that he could elicit no more by way of vocal reply he executed a neat dance around the room, shadow-boxing and flooring imaginary assailants at every hand's turn. If asked, most of the boys' parents would be hard put to recall the championship bouts won by Roger Wonsit. They would remember him as an amateur boxer all right and they would remember that he was without peer when it came to weaving and to footwork and to wild swings, any one of which would have dispatched his opponent to Kingdom Come had it landed but they could not recall any knock-outs. The boys' teacher would agree but a number of the more gullible females in the parish had insisted that Roger be allowed talk to the boys.

The emergence, after a long period of relative peace, of several youthful bullies had prompted the action in the first place. The schoolteacher first approached his headmaster, an elderly chap justly famed for his sarcastic comments, and asked for his approval.

‘Who did you say?' the headmaster asked in disbelief.

‘Roger Wonsit,' his assistant informed him.

‘Roger Wonsit,' said the headmaster wearily as was his way, ‘would not beat a dead dog. In fact,' he continued, ‘Roger Wonsit would not beat the snow off his own overcoat.'

Having rid himself of his daily spew of sarcasm he confided to his assistant that he had no objection to the proposal.

On his way home Jonathan dawdled as only schoolboys dawdle and have been dawdling since the first school was established. As he gazed through a confectioner's window he was joined by his friend Bob's Bobby, an unkempt lad with tousled hair and a wide gap in his upper teeth.

Bob's Bobby was of the travelling people. Confined now to the town's suburbs because of the severity of the winter they would stay put till spring came over the windowsill, as the song says. Then they would move into the countryside and Bob's Bobby's schooling would end temporarily and prematurely as it did every year.

Like most of his kind Bob's Bobby had little interest in schooling. The teacher understood his feelings in this respect and left him alone for the most part provided he behaved himself.

Jonathan counted the meagre coins which he had withdrawn from his pocket.

‘Come on!' He elbowed his friend and made his way into the confectioner's where he went directly to a blonde-haired, rather corpulent young woman who greeted him by his first name.

‘A currant bun if you please Miss Polly.' Jonathan handed over the coins and if Miss Polly noticed that there was a minor deficit she kept it to herself and rung up the amount received on the till behind her back.

Outside the shop the boys stood silently examining the bun which sat invitingly on Jonathan's palm. With a skill beyond his years Jonathan managed to divide the bun into two fair halves. He handed one to his friend and if you think that they gobbled the halves down at once then you don't know boys. They consumed the delicate pastry crumb by crumb as only small boys can and when they finished they licked their fingers clean and they ran their tongues around their mouths lest a solitary particle escape. This is not to say that small boys do not wolf and gobble. Of course they do but there are times when the fare is scarce and it is at these times that they prolong the consumption of the delicacy although it must be said that they are not above retaining choice pieces for the very end and these they may well gobble like starving wolves. It is the way of all boys and many adults.

On their way homeward they spoke of many things and then there came the subject of bullies. They were agreed that bullies were best avoided and neither would subscribe to the way-out views of Roger Wonsit. His name, Bob's Bobby recalled, had often come up at night as the travelling folk sat around their campfire. It was Bob's Bobby's grandfather Big Bob who had mentioned the boxer's name.

‘I saw him fight once,' the old man told the extended family as they savoured the heat from the glowing logfire. ‘In those days he was called Killer Wonsit but I shall never know why for as far as I could see, he was not possessed of the power to kill a butterfly. On the night I saw him he was fighting a man called Crusher Kaly and I shall never know why for he would not crush a skinless banana. They fought for three rounds and not a single blow was struck although I must admit that both boxers left the ring hardly able to stand. I remember they made a lot of noises and they threw a lot of punches but they hadn't a scratch between them when the final bell sounded. The two together would not make one fighting man.'

The young friends parted at Jonathan Cape's front door. Sometimes Jonathan would accompany Bob's Bobby to the campsite and already Jonathan was well acquainted with Big Bob and other lesser-known members of the travelling clan. However, on this particular occasion, Jonathan made the excuse that he had errands to run. He did not say that the real reason was fear of meeting a bully. Truth to tell there was only one real bully in the community and he was newly emerged. He had not yet attracted any henchmen although there was one small, harmless boy who followed him about wherever he went. Already the bully whose sobriquet happened to be Pugace had beaten up several younger bullies and was in receipt of weekly dividends from a score or so of terrified small boys in whom he had successfully invested his time and intimidatory tactics. He didn't have to beat up these victims of his terror campaign. The fame of Pugface had spread throughout the town but only among the schoolchildren. It was their secret and even their parents were in the dark as to the identity of the wretch who was responsible for the sleepless, tortured nights of their offspring.

Pugface had threatened his victims with absolute dismemberment should they breathe a word of his existence to anybody.

Imagine the horror experienced by Jonathan when there was no response to his frenzied knocking just as Pugface, trailed by his satellite, came swaggering down the street. Jonathan's mother, if only he had known, was next door copying a yuletide recipe from her neighbour. Jonathan tried to make himself look smaller as Pugface drew near but failed utterly in his first attempt at self-diminishment.

‘Got any money boy?' The question came from the uncouth, over-grown twelve-year-old who stood towering above him.

If only I hadn't purchased that bun, Jonathan thought.

‘You deaf boy?' The second question was accompanied by a vicious wigging of Jonathan's left ear. When the bully let go Jonathan remembered Roger Wonsit's words. He withdrew several yards, to the bigger boy's astonishment.

‘Go for the jugular!' That's what Wonsit had said. Jonathan did not know exactly where the jugular was situated but he suspected it must be somewhere downstairs or else he would surely have heard his mother use it. He bent his head and ran at his tormentor with a high-pitched squeal. Almost at once, after he had rebounded, he found himself on the flat of his back. Pugface lifted him to his feet by the hair of his head.

‘You have my money ready for me next time we meet, you hear boy, else you won't reckernise yourself when you look in the mirror.'

‘Sure!' Jonathan assured him.

‘You won't forget boy!' Pugface was now wigging the right ear.

‘I won't! I won't! I won't!' Jonathan promised. Later he might have told his mother or he might have told his father who had been a crack footballer in his heyday but a fitful sleep full of nightmares would pass before he confided in anybody. After school he informed his friend Bob's Bobby of the previous afternoon's disaster. Christmas was but three days distant and if Jonathan was to hand over his Christmas money there would be nothing left for presents. The friends decided that under no circumstances should any money be handed over. Bob's Bobby was emphatic especially since Jonathan had disclosed to him some weeks before that he intended buying him a Christmas present.

‘And I'll get you one too,' Bob's Bobby had replied although after this impetuous promise he did not know where the money for such a luxury would come from. The travellers had little money and the little they had they needed for food and clothing and sometimes for medicine and professional treatment for their sick horses and ponies.

After school the friends decided on a circuitous way home. Bob's Bobby went first so that Jonathan would have time to beat a hasty retreat should his tormentor appear.

‘He won't bother with me,' Bob's Bobby explained. ‘I don't have any money and I don't have nowhere to get money.' Having escorted his charge to his front door and having waited till he was safely indoors Bob's Bobby hurried homewards, not because he was afraid of Pugface but because he wished to consult his grandfather before the old man departed to the next county where he planned to spend the twelve days of Christmas with his youngest daughter who happened to be married to a travelling man with a loose base in that part of the world. Bob's Bobby found the old man about to depart. First he asked him about the likely locations of red-berried holly trees and then he told him of Jonathan's predicament. Small bearts of red-berried holly sold at one shilling each and there was, Bob's Bobby reckoned, enough time left to him before Christmas to dispose of sufficient bearts to meet his financial requirements for Christmas.

The old man disclosed the whereabouts of three giant holly trees in the extreme corner of a distant wood.

‘Cut your branches cleanly and then only the tiniest,' the old traveller warned. ‘This way the trees will not suffer and other branches will grow in place of those you cut. For God's sake do not hack or bend or pull branches or the trees will suffer great pain.'

Bob's Bobby promised Big Bob that the trees would not be injured.

‘Now,' said his grandfather, ‘what was this other matter you wanted to talk about?' Briefly Bob's Bobby ran though the events of the day and the day before.

‘I know him to see him,' Big Bob informed his grandson, ‘and he's no different from any other bully except that this fellow is blubber from head to toe and will not last long in a scrap. Still he's big and blustery and by now he's used to scaring people so he thinks he's tough.' Followed by his grandson, Big Bob led the way to a small alder grove out of earshot of the makeshift canvas tents and other improvised shelters. There were caravans too, brightly painted down to the very wheel-spokes, canvas-covered as well and not at all unlike the covered wagons used by the early American trail-blazers as they pioneered their way across an undeveloped continent.

‘This Pugface,' Big Bob lit his pipe and allowed the blue smoke to ascend through the branches overhead, ‘will fall or maybe run the same as all his kind as soon as he meets anybody who'll stand up to him. As far as I can see your friend Jonathan is not this person although from what you've told me he does not seem wanting in courage. Courage alone is never enough when you're dealing with somebody twice your size so it seems to me that you are the very man to deal with Pugface.'

‘Me!' Bob's Bobby could scarcely restrain the laughter which came surging from his throat. Ignoring the outburst his grandfather led him by the hand through the grove until they reached an ancient stile which led into an even more ancient graveyard.

‘Your great-grandfather, who was my father, lies over there where the ivy climbs the wall near the corner. He was the smallest of all his brothers and some say he was the smallest traveller that ever lived in this part of the country. Yet, for all that, he beat four well-known bullies in the same day in four different places and at the end of that day they stopped being bullies for the rest of their lives. In many ways you resemble him. You have his eyes and you have his hair but now you must ask yourself if you have his wiles and above all you must ask yourself if you have his heart so what you must do is go over to his grave and ask him for the loan of his wiles and the loan of his heart. If a voice comes up out of the ground that says no it will mean that he doesn't want you to have them but if there is no answer by the count of three sevens it will mean that he has passed the things you need over to you. So long as you have his heart and his wiles you need fear no man. Off with you now and I will stand here till you return.'