An Irish Christmas Feast (23 page)

On this occasion the eavesdropper was to be cheated. The occupiers of the snug had clammed up. After a short while they finished their drinks and left the premises. Outside they dawdled on the sidewalk before moving on to the centre of the roadway where they strolled leisurely until they had assured themselves that their voices could not carry.

‘Canon Coodle it will be then,' Tom agreed. ‘When do you propose to see him?'

‘I don't propose to see him at all,' the old man answered with a cynical laugh. ‘She is your responsibility and I suggest that you see him now, right this very minute before you go to bed.'

Before Tom had time to reply he found himself being directed towards the presbytery. The old man had a firm grip on his arm and, although reluctant, Tom did not resist the pressure.

Canon Coodle listened most attentively to what his parishioner had to say. He posed no questions, preferring to stimulate his caller with encouraging nods and winks. It was his experience that, by listening and by hearing the person out, all would be revealed in the end. When Tom Collins reached the end of his revelations the canon expressed neither surprise nor dismay. He sat perfectly still for some time in case his caller might wish to add an overlooked item. When none was forthcoming he did what he always did after listening to unfortunates with puckers to resolve. He poured two large glasses of port and handed one to Tom Collins. They sipped for a while in silence while the cleric mulled over what he had been told. He knew Tom and his wife well; a model couple surely and a credit to the parish.

The cleric knew Tom's father-in-law, a domestic alarmist if ever there was one but a devout and decent man, nevertheless. The canon wondered if he might not be at the back of his son-in-law's visit. He would not ask. He would provide instead the counsel which was expected of him. Slowly the canon began to make up his mind and making it up he resolved that if the pucker could not be resolved by the parish with all its resources it would be a reflection on both the parish and himself.

‘Before you think about seeking out expert medical advice further afield,' the canon opened, ‘you might consider exhausting the capabilities of the parish first. I mean,' the canon continued in his homely fashion as he silently resorbed the last of his port, ‘the solution to our problem could be in our own hands.'

‘My father-in-law said something about sending for an exorcist,' Tom suddenly put in lest he forget the matter before the conversation ended.

Canon Coodle considered the question and as he did he remembered his last meeting with Father Sylvie Mallew, the diocesan exorcist, a saintly and upright cleric who, in Canon Coodle's private estimation, would be likely to do more harm than good in this case. He had first met Father Sylvie after an unsuccessful adjuration addressed to an evil spirit which had placed an elderly lady under its power.

‘Could it be,' Canon Coodle's companion of the time asked, ‘that he failed to exorcise the evil spirit because there was no evil spirit to begin with?' Canon Coodle was forced to concur that this indeed might have been the case. When both clerics encountered Father Sylvie in the local hotel he was in a state of total exhaustion after the fruitless but demanding rite. The local doctor ordered him straight away to the nearest general hospital where the ailing exorcist spent a month recuperating from his ordeal. It transpired that the real evil spirit of the piece was the daughter-in-law of the old lady who had failed to come up trumps with a spirit. It was the daughter-in-law who demanded the exorcist in the first place. Later she would admit that she had been driven to it by the exorbitant demands of the old woman, by her continuous nagging and whining and by the fact that they heartily detested each other. For this and for many other valid reasons Canon Coodle was totally against calling in an exorcist especially an exorcist with the track record of Father Sylvie Mallew. He was at pains to establish his position to Tom Collins.

‘You may or may not know,' he explained patiently, ‘that exorcism as such is governed by the Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church. Before consenting to an exorcism I would be bound to seek authorisation from my bishop and even then before we could get down to brass tacks it would have to be proved that we are dealing with a case of real possession. Now, you and I both know that your wife is no more possessed than you or me so let us here and now dispense with exorcism. If we don't and if we are foolish enough to resort to it your wife may very well begin to believe that she is possessed and that is almost as bad as being truly possessed.'

‘What should we do then?' Tom asked.

‘First things first,' the canon replied, ‘so let us deal with what we know and proceed from there. You told me earlier that your wife was of the belief that she had passed herself out, which is a common enough expression hereabouts. In my time I have met several people who passed themselves out to a certain degree but never to such a degree that they were not able to return to their normal selves after a certain period. I must confess,' the canon continued, warming to his task, ‘that I very nearly passed myself out on a few occasions when my curates were indisposed. The fact that I did not pass myself out means that I do not take the matter seriously. Passing oneself out is really no more than an expression or at worst a flight of the imagination. From your wife's particular case we may safely draw the conclusion that she has simply looked too far ahead.'

‘Years and years ahead,' her husband interrupted in an exasperated tone, ‘and if she isn't stopped she'll soon be decades ahead and maybe even centuries and if that happens it is possible that she'll never return to her former self and it really means that I'll be married to a woman who isn't there at all.'

‘Come, come!' the canon resorted to one of his favourite expressions. He used it frequently when somebody forced him into a corner.

‘Don't you come, come with me!' Tom would never normally react in such a fashion to his parish priest but he had the feeling that the canon was a trifle too dismissive or at the very least was not prepared to take him seriously.

‘Now, now!' said the canon.

‘Don't you now, now me either!' Tom turned on him. The canon was taken completely by surprise. In every case the expressions he had used helped to mollify people, to calm them down and reassure them. The canon was about to say ‘well, well' but changed his mind in view of the agitated state of his visitor.

The canon was now fully alerted to the fact that the time for meaningless expressions was past. He would have to approach the situation from a different angle. He would need to apply some homemade, countrified common sense.

‘My wife is getting worse by the hour,' Tom was on the verge of tears, ‘while we sit here talking nonsense.'

‘Now, now!' The expression died on the canon's lips as he endeavoured with all his mental might to come to the aid of his parishioner. At the back of his mind's eye a picture began to form. It was a picture from the past and it was dominated by the figure of Big Bob the uncrowned king of the travelling people. It was well known to the canon that Big Bob was not accorded regal status because of his fighting ability although he had never been beaten in a fair fight. Rather was it because of his sagacity and diplomacy although some would prefer words like roguery and guile or scheming and deception. Whatever about anybody's opinion of Big Bob he was a man of his word and once given it was never broken. Women trusted him and children followed him when he walked through the town in his swallowtail coat and Homburg hat. He was part of the community and then again he wasn't. He was a travelling man but he honoured the outskirts of the town with his presence during the winter and early spring. Then he departed, as he was fond of saying himself, for the broad road.

The picture in Canon Coodle's memory had become better developed as he tried to placate his visitor with words of concern and understanding. The picture was still hazy and it would remain hazy for it had happened many years before and it had happened under moonlight so that an absolutely clear picture was out of the question. He remembered a woman, somewhere in her mid thirties, running in circles in the commonage where the travelling folk were camped. It was in that part of the commonage where the travelling folk trained their horses so that a dirt track of almost perfect circular proportions would already be etched. A man stood at the centre of the ring. From time to time he clapped his hands and called out to the woman. The calls were of an encouraging nature and the man who made the calls was none other than Big Bob. Later when they met accidentally near the big bridge which spanned the river the canon's curiosity got the better of him. He told Big Bob of what he had seen in the moonlight and the traveller responded that the canon had indeed seen a woman running in a circle under the light of the moon.

‘She was my sister,' Big Bob explained, ‘and after her tenth babby she lost the run of herself so I took her out to the ring and told her to run until she caught up with herself.'

‘And did she?' Canon Coodle had asked eagerly at the time.

‘Yes,' Big Bob had replied, ‘she caught up with herself soon enough and she had no more children after that.'

The canon had been somewhat mystified but he felt as he looked across at Tom Collins that his sudden recall of the events in the commonage had a rare significance. By no means a superstitious man, the canon would testify under oath that Big Bob had no supernatural gifts but he would also testify that Big Bob was an extraordinary man with uncommon powers over his fellow travellers. It was also said of him that he had great power over horses. It was said of him too, by his detractors, that he had stolen more eggs and chickens in his heyday than any man alive but the canon did not believe this. His fellow-travellers, especially the womenfolk, would always vindicate him on the grounds that what he stole from the well-off was stolen for hungry children and if not for hungry children then for the aged and the infirm among his clan. Then there were things he would never steal. He would never steal money and he would never steal horses. He would never steal dogs but if a dog got the notion to follow the travellers' caravans that was another story. Judges liked him. In particular district justices would listen when he made a case for a young traveller who might have been engaged in fisticuffs or window-breaking or abusive language while under the influence. Whatever the charge Big Bob would guarantee that the wrong-doer's behaviour would undergo a change for the better if he was given a chance. The travellers said of him that he kept more men out of jail than Daniel O'Connell.

The canon was well aware that the settled community might not take too kindly to the proposal which he was about to make to Tom Collins.

‘When all fruit fails we must try haws,' Canon Coodle opened. He went on to tell his visitor of what he had seen in the moonlight so many years before and of the exchanges between himself and Big Bob.

‘You're not suggesting ...' Tom was cut off before he could finish.

‘That is exactly what I am suggesting,' the canon said, ‘unless, of course, you can come up with something better.'

All Tom could do was shake his head. He shook it for a long while before he spoke.

‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained,' he agreed resignedly.

‘That's the spirit,' said Canon Coodle. ‘All we have to do now is wait for a moonlit night.'

‘Tonight is a moonlit night,' Tom Collins pointed out to his parish priest.

‘So it is. So it is!' the canon exclaimed joyously as he drew the curtains apart and gazed onto the gleaming lawn outside the window of his study. ‘See how balmy and blessed is God's moonlight,' the canon was quite carried away by what he saw. ‘Note how it silvers the land and softens the harsher features. How blessed is the balm it brings! How sublime its serenity!' He placed a fatherly arm around the shoulders of Tom who had joined him at the window. ‘See where it struggles with the shadows for supremacy. How gracious is moonlight and how tranquil! See Tom where it transforms the grey of the slates on the outhouses to shining silver.'

‘It's mid-winter canon,' Tom reminded the moonstruck canon.

‘So it is. So it is,' the canon answered absently.

‘Christmas is only four days away,' Tom pointed out.

‘You mean,' the canon removed his arm the better to survey the anxious face before him, ‘you are contemplating doing it tonight?'

‘Pray why not?' Tom asked.

‘Why not indeed!' Canon Coodle agreed.

‘I will go and fetch Jenny.' Tom hastened towards the door.

‘And I will locate Big Bob,' the canon announced, ‘as soon as I can find my hat and coat.' After a lengthy search, during which Tom fretted and fumed, the hat and coat were located. They left the presbytery together.

The canon turned towards the travellers' encampment on the outskirts and the younger man turned towards the town.

‘I'll see you at the entrance to the commonage,' Tom called over his shoulder.

‘Please God. Please God!' Canon Coodle called back.

An hour would pass before the principals in the bizarre ceremony were gathered together at the entrance to the commonage. Big Bob, replete in swallowtails, Homburg hat and flowing white silk scarf, stood with Jenny at one side of the entrance while her husband and Canon Coodle stood at the other watching with undivided interest. Big Bob was speaking to the housewife. As he spoke her eyes became fixed on his. From time to time she seemed to nod her head as though she agreed with what he was saying. Not a word was borne to the watching pair although the depth and richness of the traveller's tone was clearly audible. Now and then Big Bob would raise a hand and in flowing movements would indicate the moon overhead and the myriad of stars that winked and danced in the December sky. All the time he spoke softly but all that was heard by the listeners was a purring monotone not unlike the
crónáning
of a contented cat. The listeners strained but still not a word came their way. They would never know because later Jenny Collins would say that she could not recall a single word no matter how hard she tried. She would explain that she knew at the time and that things were clear to her but all had been washed away.