An Irish Christmas Feast (35 page)

‘Tell the canon to say a prayer for me,' he informed Mrs Hanlon after she had accepted the fresh fish on her master's behalf.

‘I'll do that Gerry,' she had promised, ‘and I'll say one myself as well.'

The spring and summer went by and in the middle of September Gerry found himself gainful employment in Folan's timber-yard. Shortly afterwards he became engaged to Noreen Meeke and a fortnight before Christmas, to the day, the pair were married free, gratis and for nothing by the legendary Canon Coodle himself.

‘Don't forget in my obituary,' he wagged a cautionary finger at his friend Matt Coumer, ‘to tell them about the eighteen-pounder I landed in Shanowen the very day after I was made canon of this parish.'

Matt promised the outstanding catch would be resurrected for the occasion but added the rider that should roles be reversed the nineteen-pounder he bagged at the Black Stick on his second day out must not be excluded. It was not the first time it occurred to the canon that anglers were inordinately proud of their catches and why wouldn't they be he thought defensively to himself when the average weight of a spring fish was roughly eight pounds.

As Christmas drew near the love and compassion, often buried out of sight in men's hearts, began to flow so that by the time Christmas Eve came round there was an unmistakable air of goodwill and generosity all over the parish. The dour became cordial, the gripers grew cheerful, the grim grew gracious and so forth and so on until it seemed that a Christmas of untold joy was at hand. Every household radiated happiness, except one.

It had come to pass that Noreen Meeke the blushing bride of Gerry had ceased to blush, the laughter to which she had been addicted before she married vanished from her lips after marriage. In short Noreen was anything but meek and poor Gerry who was surely entitled to his fair share of marital bliss became once more a martyr to the matrimonial state. She had begun to natter early one morning as he dressed for work. The morning was dark and gloomy enough as it was without the addition of human woe to drag it down further. Gerry said nothing. He went to the side of the bed and he kissed his babbling bride to silence. Afterwards he went straight out the door to his place of work at Folan's timber-yard. He prayed that by the time he returned for his lunch she would be her old self once more but it was not to be.

There was no lunch but down from the room came a powerful verbal barrage which made Gerry believe for a moment that his late wife had been reincarnated. Trembling he opened the bedroom door and was gratified to see that it was his new wife who occupied the bed from which she was still holding forth. All the abuse wasn't directed at Gerry although it would be true to say that the greater portion of it was. She excluded none of his friends or neighbours reserving the choicer profanities for Matt and Maggie Coumer but most heinously of all she announced in a powerful voice that the flames of hell were not hot enough for Canon Coodle, his housekeeper and the two curates, a quartet, incidentally, on whom until this time nobody had laid a hard word.

Vainly Gerry tried to calm her. He spoke with the utmost tenderness and reassured her of his undying love. He spoke of the wonderful Christmas they would have and of the happy times after that. He endeavoured to calm, cajole and canoodle her but all his physical efforts were rejected and all his blandishments fell on deaf ears. he spent his entire lunch break with her. That evening Matt paid her a visit and prescribed some medication.

At ten o'clock that night, without a word to anyone, Gerry betook himself to an ancient water-keeper's lodge above the river bank. It was situated about two miles outside the town and was hidden from every approach by dense natural growth. he made several journeys during the course of the night and early morning until he had accumulated sufficient clothing and utensils to meet his needs. He prepared a fire from some timber and tinder he had brought with him. He slept until noon and when he had breakfasted he spent the remaining day-light hours walking along the river bank. He had brought his rods and lines and lures with him on his final journey to the lodge. He would spend the weeks ahead preparing his fishing gear.

In the course of time Noreen recovered fully but she never mentioned her husband's name or responded to queries about his welfare. If one was to judge by appearances one would have to conclude that no happier soul existed in the parish. She was well pleased with her deserted wife's allowance and declared it to be more than adequate.

Gerry, for his part, collected his dole money by arrangement from a small shop where he would purchase all his wants for the week. The shop stood near a cross-roads about a mile from where he resided but it might as well have been a hundred for the terrain was rough and dangerous and a resort of badgers whose rooting and grunting could be heard all night. Compared to the verbal broadsides of Noreen Meeke the sounds of the wilderness were music to Gerry's ears. Any salmon he bagged was taken to the crossroads shop which acted as an agency for a Waterford city fish buyer. Gerry ignored the other anglers who fished the waters contiguous to his domain. When saluted he grunted an acknowledgement and no more. On a few occasions from the undergrowth he spotted Matt Coumer circling the lodge but he never emerged. He blamed Matt's wife for landing him in a second disastrous marriage and wanted no more to do with her. He allowed his beard to grow and grow it did down to his naval, grimy, grey and gruesome. He became known as the Hermit of Scartnabrock.

After ten years in the wilderness he eventually fell foul of the wet and the damp and brought pneumonia upon himself. When he failed to appear for several days his friends Matt Coumer and Sergeant Ruttle went in search of him. He lay gasping his last breath on a damp bed when they found him. He managed a smile when he recognised them. It was a smile that touched Matt to the very quick of his being.

The funeral was poorly attended save for the salmon and trout anglers who fished the river from source to mouth year in, year out. They carried the coffin on their shoulders from the church to the grave-yard where Canon Coodle spoke of the kindness Gerry had shown in his healthier days to younger anglers and to strangers who were not well versed in the ways of the river. The canon spoke of Gerry's attachment to all rivers great and small and explained the influence the river had on himself especially when the dead man and he fished together in the past. He spoke about the tributaries which brought their own special flavour to the river. He spoke of the different tunes the river sang depending on the highs and lows of the ever-flowing waters. He explained how the river never sang the same song twice, how the casual listener might easily be duped into believing that river-song remained the same for days on end until the floods came or the waters dropped in dry seasons to rock bottom. This was not the case at all he told them. There was a subtle difference every day guaranteed by the ever-changing flow. He explained how Gerry knew these things and he told how he himself could never pass a river without stopping to inspect the water and listen to the particular tune of the river in question. Afterwards the anglers went to their favourite watering hole where they toasted the dead angler and drank their fill in his memory.

Noreen never attended the funeral. After a month she packed her bags and returned to England where she married a man who passed by a great river every day but never looked at it. That then is the sad tale of the Hermit of Scartnabrock who so unsuccessfully fished in the waters of matrimony but managed to land a few whoppers in the river of his dreams.

It had always been Johnny Naile's ambition to play the role of Santa Claus. He had nearly succeeded once. He had the appropriate garments on. He hadn't put a drink to his lips all day. He had stayed indoors from four in the afternoon. He had shaved, washed, cut his toe-nails and then his finger-nails. He had trimmed his red beard and would certainly have been the only red-haired Santa Claus ever to be seen in the village of Cushnalicka.

Cushnalicka had its assortment of cottages and bungalows, forty in all, at either side of the road-way and there were two extra houses, the presbytery and the vicarage. The new vicar, a dapper figure, spare and lean and Church of Ireland, was smiling and pleasant which immediately made him suspect.

‘Anyone,' the Catholic canon's housekeeper was fond of maintaining, ‘who smiles non-stop isn't right in the head.'

The canon and parish priest of Cushnalicka and several surrounding townlands rarely smiled. Neither did his curate Fr Bressnan. ‘He's too weak to smile', some of the less charitable of the Catholic parishioners were fond of saying when the curate's lack of condition would be the prevailing topic.

‘Mrs Topp,' they would say maliciously, ‘don't believe in feeding curates. Signs on they're never the same after a year or two in Cushnalicka.'

‘It's a wonder to me,' said Hannah Toben, the schoolmaster's wife, ‘that they don't fade away altogether or collapse entirely or be capsized by a gale.' When she spoke in this disparaging fashion she always made sure that there was no sign of Mrs Topp in the vicinity.

Mrs Topp, a large, ambling, stern-faced widow, was the first to see Johnnie Naile as he attempted to make his way unseen through what was once described by a deceased postman as the most inquisitive resort in Western Europe. Johnnie, in full regalia, was as inconspicuous as his parish priest in full canonicals on Confirmation day. He was heartened as he drew near the presbytery that there was no sign of the housekeeper but then, suddenly, she appeared with a sweeping brush in her hand in pursuit of a heretical tomcat which had entered the sacred precincts without any invitation whatsoever.

George Cudd, the local civic guard who was also the only limb of the law in Cushnalicka, was heard to say that those who credited cats with an understanding of human language weren't too far wrong. ‘I mean,' he confided to Mrs Toben, ‘how else would the cat hear that the presbytery was full of mice unless it was a member of our species that let it drop.'

‘They say,' Mrs Toben returned with equal confidentiality, ‘that all the mice of the parish does have their meetings there.'

‘I've heard of stranger happenings,' the civic guard nodded.

No sooner had Mrs Topp sent the tomcat about his business than she uplifted her brush and intimated in no uncertain terms that the pathetic representation of Santa Claus which was defiling her pavement was to come to a halt forthwith. Johnny Naile's apologetic smile revealed a mouthful of mixed molars, half of them as black as pitch and the remainder brown as hazelnuts. He was about to proceed on his way to the vicarage where he was expected when Mrs Topp confronted him a second time by forcing the head of the brush against his chest.

‘I'll be late,' he pleaded. ‘A promise is a promise missus.'

‘A promise,' she called out to the street at large, ‘sure no one would expect the likes of you to keep a promise.'

‘This woman would,' he blurted out and suddenly covered his mouth with the palm of his right hand while he endeavoured to deliver a gentle hand-off with his free hand to the resolute housekeeper. The move made her all the more difficult to shift.

‘You'd better make way for me woman because I'm comin' through,' Johnny shouted the warning while Mrs Topp braced herself.

Suddenly she changed her tack. Lowering the sweeping brush she forced a syrupy smile to her lips. Johnny Naile was more curious than disarmed. If Johnny's teeth were black and brown Mrs Topp's dentures were as white as snow but with the same tendency to shift. Shift they did with every word she spoke.

‘Ah Johnny,' she was at her most cajoling now, ‘be a good lad and tell me who the damsel is that you're meeting?'

‘Can't do that missus.' Johnny was adamant.

Mrs Topp thrust a hand under his arm and endeavoured to guide him towards the front door of the presbytery which was still ajar after the cat's eviction.

‘No, no, no missus,' Johnny held firm, ‘what about the canon? What would he say if he caught me in the holy presbytery? I'd be excommunicated for sure with maybe jail on top of it.'

‘The canon is gone to Limerick paying his sister her Christmas visit so you need have no fear of him. Come on now,' she wheedled and leaned her considerable rump against him to misdirect him indoors.

Johnny Naile realised that if he was to escape he would be obliged to knock the housekeeper to the ground and while he was reasonably sure that nothing would happen to her because of her abundant natural padding he could not be certain.

‘Come on,' she whispered. ‘I'll pour you a nice glass of the canon's own whiskey the likes of which you never tasted in all your born days.'

At the mention of the word whiskey Johnny could not make up his mind whether to run or submit.

‘One drop of whiskey won't do all that much harm,' he told himself.

As he stood hesitantly he remembered his promise to Mrs Trupple the vicar's wife. ‘Wait until just after dark,' she told him, ‘you'll find the hat and coat will fit nicely. You'll find the bag of gifts in the pantry. You'll find the back door will be open. All you have to do is push it in. We'll be in the living-room. You'll get your five shillings when the presents are handed over.'

‘Is there boots with the outfit?' he asked.

‘Those you have on will do nicely,' she assured him. Johnny looked downwards doubtfully at the turned-down wellingtons which were the only footwear in his possession. After her departure he went over her instructions and cursed himself repeatedly for not asking her to go over the instructions a few more times.

‘And what the blazes was a pantry?' he asked himself. He solved that one by asking a passing schoolboy to enlighten him.

‘A pantry is it?' the schoolboy had asked.

‘Yes,' Johnny answered, ‘a pantry. What exactly is a pantry?'

‘Why,' said the schoolboy, ‘a pantry is nothing only a bedroom.'

‘Upstairs or downstairs?' Johnny asked.

‘Upstairs of course you ignorant eejit,' the schoolboy called out as he ran off.

In the kitchen of the presbytery where he had allowed himself to be conducted, Johnny raised the canon's special whiskey to his lips and downed it in its entirety at one swallow.

‘Another drop!' Mrs Topp poured a liberal dollop into the empty glass.

Again, because of fear of the canon and the unfamiliar surroundings, he swallowed the contents of the glass without taking it from his lips. A great sigh of satisfaction escaped him. If the first glass hit the spot then the second glass travelled all over so that a mighty shudder seized him and rocked him to the very tips of his toes.

‘Relax,' Mrs Topp advised him as she directed him towards a vacant chair. ‘Now,' she demanded, ‘what's that wan up to?'

‘What wan?' Johnny asked drunkenly.

‘Now,' said Mrs Topp as she held the snout of the bottle over his glass, ‘will you be so good as to tell me the name of this damsel you're meeting?'

‘Ah God help us,' said Johnny Naile, ‘'tis no damsel. Sure 'tis only Mrs Trupple the vicar's wife.'

‘Are you doin' Santa for her then?'

Johnny nodded and raised his glass to the snout. This time he divided the contents into two swallows. At the conclusion of the second he was visited by a deep drowsiness. Sensing that no further information was available and that there was a danger her visitor might fall asleep she assisted him to the door-way and sent him rollicking down the street in the general direction of the vicarage.

She had made an unwise investment. The scandal which she hoped would materialise out of Johnny's disclosures never did. She had long cherished the hope that something juicy would come her way and that she might bring that Trupple wan, as she called her, down a peg or two. What harm but she had been prepared, when the vicar and his wife first arrived, to let historical bygones be bygones and initiate the younger woman into the tricky rituals and formulas of village life. She had been prepared to take her under her wing despite the fact that she belonged to a different faith and spoke with a cultivated accent.

The young Mrs Trupple had not exactly ignored her. It would be truer to say that she simply wasn't aware of the older woman's standing in the community and tended to treat her the same as everybody else.

Mrs Topp saw herself as the leading female representative of the Catholic Church in the parish, as the third in command behind the canon and Fr Bressnan, the curate. She often felt disappointed that the Pope had never dubbed the housekeepers of the world's countless presbyteries with any sort of formal title. For instance, she frequently told herself, nuns are called sisters and high-up nuns are called reverend mothers and young nuns are called novices. but there was no title of any kind for the parochial housekeeper who carries responsibility for the entire parish and fills in for the parish priest in so many unseen ways and who often keeps wayward clerics on the straight and narrow. Even the young scallywags who serve mass are called altar boys and the parish clerk has the finest title of all, that of sacristan.

Sacristan, she often repeated the title to herself. Wouldn't sacristaness be a nice name now! Sacristaness Topp! She imagined herself being introduced by a master of ceremonies on formal occasions such as an episcopal visit or wearing a black mantilla being conducted on a Vatican tour by a slender, dark-haired monsignor and then the final part of the proceedings with voluptuous organ music shutting out all other sounds followed by silence as she hears her name being called out in that sexy Italian accent: ‘Your Holiness may I present to you the Sacristaness of Cushnalicka.'

She quickly reverted to reality and drew a coat over her shoulders before heading off in the direction of the vicarage. Johnny had obviously disappeared indoors or else had fallen into the road-side drain. She concealed herself beneath the shade of a large evergreen just across the road from the vicarage. The minutes passed and then a quarter-hour. She was about to depart when, unexpectedly, from an upstairs room across the road-way came a scream, loud, clear and terror-filled the way a good scream should be or so Mrs Topp felt. Other screams followed and then shouts and other alarms. Down the street came George Cudd, the civic guard, portly and ponderous and puffing like a steam engine, vainly endeavouring to pull up his trousers and button his tunic at the same time. He came to grief after a few steps but resolved both problems where he sat after his fall.

Mrs Topp rubbed her palms together in high glee. She choked a scream of pure, unbridled joy lest her presence be given away. The minutes passed and from the vicarage a large group emerged with Johnny Naile at the forefront, held firmly by George Cudd the civic guard and followed by the vicar and his wife and their three children.

Johnny Naile, deprived of his red coat and hat, was a sorry sight. Clad only in his shrunken vest and raggedy long johns and still possessed of his turned-down wellingtons he tried to explain his case but nobody would listen. George Cudd became so incensed with his proclamations of innocence that he kneed him forcefully several times in the behind. He even went so far as to draw his baton and threatened to use it if his prisoner continued with his vociferation. By this time a number of villagers had joined the motley assortment outside the vicarage.

‘What's he done George?' asked Mrs Topp who had crossed from the other side to join the commotion.

‘What hasn't he done?' George Cudd replied as he kneed his prisoner lest he make further protestations. George had just been joined by two precious if burly reinforcements in the shape of his wife Molly and her partly deaf friend and neighbour Hannah Toben the schoolmaster's wife. Several adult topers from the village's two public houses joined the growing crowd. Blossom O'Moone wearing only her nightdress appeared in her doorway but did not join the throng. Blossom, according to numerous sources not all reliable, was the most accommodating girl in the village of Cushnalicka or for that matter in the entire parish or any other place you might care to name.

‘But what will you be charging him with?' It was Mrs Topp again tugging at George Cudd's tunic.

‘I'll be charging the wretch with attempted rape,' he informed those within earshot as he once more kneed his under-dressed prisoner, ‘and I'll be charging him with resisting arrest and I'll be charging him with burglary.'

‘What did he say?' Mrs Topp who was now out of earshot asked the person next to her, who happened to be Hannah Toben, who happened to be hard of hearing at the best of times.

‘He'll be charging him with buggery,' Hannah Toben replied in the exaggerated tone she used when she believed she was dealing with people who were as deaf as herself.

‘Buggery.' The word carried to the outskirts of the crowd. some laughed nervously. Others were shocked. Buggery was something that happened elsewhere.

‘String him up,' came a drunken call from behind a parked car pressed into service as a temporary latrine.

‘Johnny Naile is a lot of things but he's no bugger and he's no rapist neither.' Blossom O'Moone it was who had spoken and after she made her views known there was silence the whole way to the barracks of the civic guards.

‘What a story I'll have for himself when he comes back from his sister's!' The whispered words came from the thin lips of the Sacristaness of Cushnalicka. ‘I won't say anything about the whiskey though and that's for sure,' she told herself.