An Irish Christmas Feast (39 page)

It was Fionnuala, the youngest of the Toper children, who recognised the tall handsome young man. When he followed her and lifted her in the air she screamed and then smiled when she saw the laughing face of her oldest brother Frank. Great rejoicings followed but these were eclipsed by the total joy of Frank's revelations that he had tickets to New York for his mother and the four other members of the family. All were sworn to secrecy for the good reason that Sam would be within his rights to prevent his younger children from leaving home before they reached legal age. When Sam arrived home late that evening he was partially covered in feather and turkey droppings. He acknowledged Frank's presence with a grunt but then realising that Frank would surely be well heeled he invited him out for a drink. Drink was the last thought in Frank's head but he agreed. His father needed to be humoured lest he deduce that he was being duped for the second time. In the public house Sam Toper called for a glass of whiskey and a pint bottle of stout.

‘Pay for that!' he instructed his oldest son.

More drinks followed, all paid for by Frank. Sam drank his fill and almost slept out the following morning which would never do, he reminded himself, with hundreds of turkeys and geese still waiting to be plucked and no wages forthcoming until the bare pelts were singed and trussed. He gulped down a cup of tea and rushed out the door to his place of employment. If he was a solitary minute late he would be docked an hour's wages by the eighty-four-year-old timekeeper Dotie Topper who, according to all the employees under her supervision, could see around corners and had eyes in the back of her head as well as an ear-splitting bell which sounded off whenever the only door to the plucking quarter was opened.

When Sam returned home for his lunch at one o‘clock the first thing he noticed was the cold and the second was the absence of any form of appetising odour such as that of beef stew or bacon and cabbage or roast chicken. All cockerels and pullets badly damaged in the plucking were available to staff at half price and there would be many of these at Christmas. Sam's suspicions were aroused when he finally became aware of the profound silence. He hurried through the house calling out his wife's name and then the names of the children. Panting he ran out the door and never slackened his pace until he reached the railway station. Its only occupants were the pair who had carried his son's suitcases to Cobblers' Lane the previous afternoon. Their lines were carefully rehearsed, their stories convincing. Yes! The children and the mother had all boarded the Dublin-bound passenger train at half-past nine that morning. Sam hurried to the barracks where he was interviewed by Sergeant Bill Ruttle. He demanded the return of his children without delay. He threatened the sergeant with legal proceedings which could cost him his job if he didn't get a move on. Bill guessed that the Topers were by now on their way by bus from Limerick city to Shannon airport. Later he would question friends and neighbours in Cobblers' Lane.

The children had looked elegant in the new clothes Frank had brought with him from New York and the neighbours would swear in any court of law that a more contented group of people never left Cobblers' Lane. Sam did not die of a broken heart. He did not love his children and he did not love his wife. The only person he loved was Sam. He questioned the neighbours but they had seen nothing, heard nothing and were too busy in the first place minding their own business.

As time passed Sam began to come to terms with his loss. He had extra money for drink and he lived out of tins. Sardines, beans and bread and butter were his basic diet. He thrived but his growling had entered a new phase. He now betook himself to the grave-yard for a few hours every evening. It afforded him the isolation he needed to indulge in his now-demented growling activities. On the rare occasions when he was visited by outlandish urges he would climb on the flat roof of an ancient tomb and hold forth loudly and at length, slobbering and whining, pillalooing and yelping sometimes savagely and sometimes gently. All his complaints were directed at his absent family.

Then a surprising development took place. He began to attract the attention of dogs. These were, for the most part, good-natured mongrels who indulged him and who followed him around in the hope that he might unearth something out of the ordinary. In time they ignored him but there still remained a few disciples who trailed him when they had nothing better to do. Alas one day while he held forth from an all-fours position on a large limestone flag at the farthest corner of the grave-yard he found himself confronted by two vicious Alsatians who savaged him beyond recognition for having the temerity to growl at them. They had returned to the town after an unsuccessful sheep search in the nearby hills. Well known for their murderous onslaughts a look-out had spotted them as they passed through a large upland field. The look-out had raised the alarm and in a short while several armed sheep farmers appeared on the scene. The killers, however, with that particular canine cunning common to sheep killers, had disappeared. The grave-yard had proved on occasion to be a source of food. Lazy, uncaring vandals from the locality would dump occasional carcasses over the grave-yard wall in the dead of night. Chiefly these would be aborted calves or dead cats and dogs. Sometimes there would be chunks of rancid meat and other times flitches of bacon with a tangy taste due to insufficient salting. Canon Coodle, the parish priest, had roundly condemned these sacrilegious practices on many occasions but the grave-yard was convenient and there was little or no likelihood that the dumpers would be identified.

The Alsatians were near to starving when they entered the grave-yard. They lifted their heads high and sniffed the cold air when strange sounds drifted towards them from the far corner. Excitedly they bounded in that direction. They were at first mystified when they beheld the strange creature on all fours. Beyond doubt it was of the human species but on all fours it was fair game. After the first onslaught the savage canines became hysterical. The blood of the victim indicated more substantial fare to come. Frenziedly they dragged the screaming Sam into an area overgrown with whitethorn.

It was some days before a passing mourner, on his way to the isolated grave of a deceased relative, discovered the remains. He alerted Sergeant Ruttle who took charge of the investigation. An inquest was set in motion and under cross-examination the sergeant informed the jury that when he arrived at the scene he found that the body had been mutilated by animals which had since been destroyed. Some of Sam's ribs had been gnawed away and much of the flesh had been removed from the upper part of the torso. Pressed by the coroner, Sergeant Ruttle revealed that rodents had consumed some of the victim's flesh.

Sam's wife Moya and their seven children flew home for the funeral. They never saw his remains. Once the coffin was closed it would never be opened again. Neither would Sam‘s family ever be seen again in their native place but first they would wake their father as a father had never been waked before.

The little house was crammed for the occasion. Although the wake had a sluggish start it turned in the end into the most enjoyable extravaganza in the long history of parish obsequies. The paid mourners and the ordinary mourners were hard put to find a good word for Sam. Not one could show a tear and remember that between them in their lifetime they had shed enough tears to float the
Titanic.
Drink and goodwill circulated freely but there were no kind words. It was left to Fionnuala, the family's youngest member, to set the eulogistic trend for the evening.

‘God be good to my poor father,' she opened.

‘Amen! Amen!' responded all present.

‘We all know he blackened my eyes,' Fionnuala went on, ‘and we all know he pulled out my hair. We know too he thumped me for no reason. He walloped me when I didn't deserve it. He growled at me and he howled at me and he scowled at me but he never bit me.'

‘Amen! Amen!' sang the mourners.

Frank, the oldest son, spoke next.

‘He broke my two legs once,' Frank recalled.

‘He fell on top of me from a ladder when he was drunk but he never complained.'

‘Amen! Amen!' sang the mourners.

Entering into the spirit of the thing Moya spoke next. Her voice was broken but she managed somehow to hold it together so it wouldn't fall apart. ‘God grant that poor man a silver bed in heaven!' she cried out fervently, ‘for he had no bed of roses down here. He suffered from a life-long thirst you wouldn't raise in the hobs of hell but he never complained. He just drank and drank and drank until that thirst was cured. There was never a man like him.'

‘There was never a man like him,' everybody chorused.

‘I recall well the time Frank broke his legs,' Sergeant Ruttle remembered in a fractured tone. ‘Sam Toper never reported it to me and he never reported it to any other civic guard. He just put up with it because he was that kind of a man.'

‘Amen! Amen!' came the assenting voices.

‘And he never reported it to me either,' Dr Matt Coumer recalled. ‘He took it on the chin like the proud father he was. We coffined a man today who will go down in history.'

‘Down in history!' the mourners echoed to a man.

The wake was now buzzing. Drink in all its forms flowed freely and no man or woman went hungry on that memorable night. Holding Moya's hand in one of his and his wife's Blossom O'Moone's in the other Mental Nossery rose unsteadily to his feet. His voice was hoarse with emotion when he addressed the mourners. he nodded his head in the direction of the coffin and spoke: ‘This was the noblest Toper of them all,' he cried. ‘I knew his brothers Jack and Mick and he'd drink the two of them under the table. And is it not he who is responsible for this banquet here tonight? There would be no wake without him. This surely is the greatest wake of all and I swear to this by the six breast nipples of the three musketeers. I say to you once and I'll say no more. I say to you that there was only one Sam Toper and no more.'

‘Amen, amen!' sang Moya and her sons and daughters.

‘Amen, amen,' sang Mental Nossery and his wife Blossom.

‘Amen, amen!' sang out the great assembly of mourners while in the full-moon sky abroad in the night a lone star with a lengthening tail of silver whirred across the winking heavens to prove without doubt that another soul had arrived at the gates of heaven.

This is the story of the strange disappearance of Hiccups O'Reilly. He did not disappear forever, only for seven years. ‘They felt like a day,' he told his wife when he came home.

He was missing from Christmas Eve 1959 to Christmas Eve 1966 which was the very same day that Canon Cornelius Coodle landed the record-breaking thirty-four pound cock salmon in Pudley's Pool near the big bridge.

Hiccups' wife Delia did not believe him when he told her that he vanished while chasing a hare. He had been wearing a waist-coat made from the skin of his favourite greyhound bitch when he rose the hare in question on the slopes of Crabapple Hill overlooking the town. Hiccups was not called Hiccups because he was given to hiccupping. he was so called because he looked like a hiccup. Personally I do not know what a hiccup looks like. It's my guess, however, that it doesn't look good, that you wouldn't hang it on a wall for instance or you wouldn't give it to your children to play with.

Delia Hiccups' brothers, three in number, were built like tanks and made similar noises. Not once had they been seen to smile or laugh and whatever about Hiccups' story of disappearing while chasing a hare the whole town and countryside would be on one word that the surest known way to disappear was to be in receipt of a mature, well-timed upper-cut from any single one of the six overgrown fists of the three aforementioned brothers, Mick, Dick and Slick.

Since Hiccups had already disappeared once he felt it would not be in his best interests to disappear twice so he stuck grimly to his story no matter the degree of incredulity it induced in his wife or her brothers Mick, Dick and Slick McCraw. Some believed his story, others did not. They said that Hiccups was a professional liar and that it was just the sort of tale they would expect from him. His friends and neighbours believed him or at least they said they did.

The story really began when Hiccups was presented with a beautiful greyhound bitch as a Christmas present by his uncle Ned. She was fawn in colour, moved like lightning, swerved like a footballer and could not resist the sight of a hare. The name they gave her was Flash. On her first outing she won the Trallock Bitch Sweepstake which qualified her for a trip to the track in Limerick city for the final of another important stake. She won it easily and went on to win ten more big races before she was retired for breeding purposes. Alas she was never to breed because of an injury. She died soon after and so overcome with grief was Hiccups that he made a waist-coat out of her skin which he wore till the day he died. In fact, his enemies would say that it was the very same waist-coat he was seen wearing when he left Trallock railway station on that fateful Christmas eve morning when he disappeared for seven years. His female companion was also wearing something, a perfectly fitting blonde wig which ran down to the small of her back. Nobody knew who she was, that's if she ever existed, but Hiccups' enemies insisted she was a voluptuous dame with false eyelashes and a well-developed bosom. Hiccups' friends would point out afterwards that there was no female missing from the parish or its surrounds so that the female seen with Hiccups – if seen – was no more than a casual acquaintance in whose vicinity he chanced to be prior to his departure.

I should have explained earlier that Hiccups was not warmly received by his wife after his long absence. In fact she locked him out and but for the intervention of Sergeant Ruttle and Canon Coodle he might never have seen the insides of his house again.

A week after his return his three brothers-in-law arrived at the house and demanded an explanation. They sat around the kitchen table and insisted that Hiccups join them. Hiccups knew that if his story was not accepted he would be beaten senseless so he wisely suggested to his would-be executioners that perhaps a sojourn in a nearby public house, such as Crutley's, might be more conducive to storytelling. The suggestion drew neither a hum nor a haw from Mick, Dick and Slick. When Hiccups intimated that he would be paying for all the drink consumed the brothers-in-law consulted with each other and with their sister who was not averse to a dollop of gin on occasion and they agreed that a public house might be a better proposition. The five proceeded to Crutley's at nine o'clock and found a particularly pleasant and secluded corner of the bar for the forthcoming revelations.

According to Hiccups he set out on the morning of Christmas Eve for open country, the morning it was alleged he left Trallock railway station with the wigged woman seven years before. He brought with him an elderly greyhound bitch for company and also in the half-hope that they might rise a hare. He made his way to the slopes of Crabapple Hill and arrived there at noon. The day in question he reminded his brothers-in-law and their sister was a fine one with a wide blue sky and no sign of rain or storm, just a mild frost which saw their breaths, his and the dog's, rise in foggy plumes into the clear air where lark and linnet sang loud and high in praise of the weather. At this juncture Hiccups caught Fred Crutley's eye and signalled a refill.

While Fred did the needful the party spoke of the quality of local potatoes, coming down strongly in favour of Kerr's Pinks. They spoke of the spiralling price of beef and butter and of many other topics which affected their lives. They accepted the drinks gravely and without thanks and when they had the table to themselves they looked at their storyteller and waited for the resumption of his tale. Hiccups cleared his throat and licked his lips.

‘Where was I?' he asked

‘There was linnets singing,' his wife said.

‘And larks,' the oldest of the brothers Mick reminded her gruffly.

‘There were larks of course,' she agreed in the most conciliatory of tones.

‘Correct on all counts,' Hiccups announced happily. ‘I will never forget that day,' he went on, ‘and not just because it was such a fine Christmas Eve but because of what befell me for I swear that there was magic involved. Didn't the hairs all of a sudden stand up on the top of my head the very same as darning needles and didn't they tingle with music in the weak breeze that was just beginning to rise. After a while the bristles softened a little and were like what you would see on a coarse brush. The wind freshened all the while and sang in the heather.'

According to Hiccups the elderly bitch in his company suddenly sat down and refused to budge. He coaxed her but she whined and pined and whimpered which was most unusual because up until that time she was a brave and a game bitch without fear. The bitch then began to howl in a louder tone and the whole area at the western slope of Crabapple Hill brightened as though highlighted by spot-lights. It was then that the bitch rose unsteadily to her feet and raised her front paws aloft in the direction of her master, indicating that he should quit the scene if he knew what was good for him. He endeavoured to mollify her a second time but all she did was drop her paws and turn her back on him after which she galloped off yelping, down Crabapple Hill at breakneck speed. She was not seen again for a very long time.

By now Hiccups was becoming a trifle apprehensive and when he heard the faint music of fairy pipes in the breeze he was between two minds whether he would stay on the hill or make for low ground. Ever a curious chap and coming from a long line of courageous sportsmen, he proceeded to the very top of the hill where the sun shone as if it was the very height of June instead of Christmas Eve. Then for the first time he felt his waist-coat tensing and pulsating as though it was a living creature. There was silence now all over and then came a faint female voice, the most melodious and haunting ever heard by Hiccups.

‘It wasn't the banshee,' he explained to his listeners, ‘and it wasn't the sheegwee and it wasn't a
lorgadán
and it wasn't the man in the moon. I have heard in my time,' Hiccups continued, ‘female singers from every part of the globe, sopranos, mezzo-sopranos and contraltos but none to match the bewitching tone that seemed to emerge from the very heart of the hill.' According to Hiccups he very nearly swooned and would have, he was sure, had it not been for the exceedingly fresh breeze, not a gale mark you, nor a wind but a refreshing breeze which filled him with extraordinary vitality. The strains of incredibly beautiful pipe music were now pouring forth from every crack, every cave, every hole and every cicatrice, every hollow and every dip on the vast hillside. All the while the fairy voice sang its haunting tunes. They tugged at the heartstrings until it seemed they must wilt and wither. They filled the mind with unworldly thoughts and the feet with a mad desire to leap and fly and dance. Even the heather at his feet seemed to be tugging at its roots such was its desire for escape into the skies where it would be free. Then, without warning of any kind, there was no sound save the fairy voice which now circled around his head and finally around the waist-coat fashioned from the skin of his favourite bitch of all time, the one and only Flash, Flash of the lightning turns and the speed of the fastest gale, Flash that had never been bested by a hare. Now the voice was calling a name.

At this exact stage when the tale was at its most gripping Hiccups caught the very watchful eye of Fred Crutley – Fred who was never still, who never rested, who never seemed to take a break, who like the great barman that he was always hovered and never once intruded.

‘Same again Fred!' Hiccups informed him.

During this interlude there was no small talk. His listeners including his wife were caught up in the story. The four came originally from a household in the far-off hills where there was more thought of a man who could tell a ghost story than there was of any professional man or any craftsman or any musician. Their faces were hungry for more for there was also an innocence underneath all the toughness and churlishness and the lack of good manners and it was on this basic innocence that Hiccups was depending for his physical welfare. While the innocence rose above the lesser traits and dominated their out-look and thinking he was safe. When the drink was served Fred moved out of ear-shot and swept the bar with his wary eye lest some unfortunate be denied his basic right to intoxicating liquor.

‘Now!' said Hiccups, ‘where was I?'

‘They was calling Flash,' his wife informed him.

‘They were not!' Hiccups was emphatic.

‘Well,' said his wife, ‘if they was not they was very near to calling her.'

‘Don't argue woman!' Dick the second of the brothers cautioned her.

‘Don't argue woman!' echoed Slick the youngest of the brothers.

They lifted their glasses and swallowed heartily. Then they directed their baleful eyes at their storyteller.

‘This voice which was circling all around,' Hiccups resumed, ‘was calling the name of my late greyhound bitch, my beloved Flash whose waist-coat I wear around my heart. “Flash, Flash, Flash,” the voice called and I could feel the waist-coat trying to free itself off my body. “Flash, Flash, Flash!” it called again as the waist-coat struggled in vain to free itself.'

Then according to Hiccups the fairy voice materialised into a white hare. The hare hopped to and fro and danced provocatively in front of Hiccups and his darling waist-coat which was now trying to rip its buttons so that it could take off after the white hare. Failing to do so, the waist-coat took off anyway with Hiccups wrapped inside and with no say over his movements. He was obliged to follow the hare and his inadequate legs were doomed to chase wherever the hare decided to run. It ran, first of all, slowly up the hill as though it was giving the waist-coat a chance to catch up. It dawdled insolently as the waist-coat with Hiccups wrapped firmly inside tried to make up ground. All to no avail. The white hare, known far and wide as the fairy hare, lived in the depths of the hill, far, far underground, far from the sounds and sights of mixed-up humans. The hare now sat on its hind legs and started to call the waist-coat as though she was calling a cat.

‘Peesh, peesh. Peesh, peesh,' she called.

Now nothing so infuriates a greyhound as comparison with a cat and Flash the greyhound bitch was no different. The waist-coat with Hiccups inside bounded up the hill and quickly gained on its tormentor. The hare was lucky to escape as Hiccups' legs worked overtime. As he tried to slow down Hiccups made the fatal mistake of digging in his heels. He turned several somersaults before coming to a halt. When he recovered and drew breath he saw the white hare sitting on a clump of heather far below him. He took off at once unable to restrain the waist-coat which was now at the height of its form and bent on nothing else but the tearing of the hare to shreds. As Hiccups bore down upon the hare the creature suddenly turned and went uphill again. Hiccups followed with no say over his movements. The waist-coat strained with all its might and its jaded owner had no choice but to follow. The hare took off in another direction when Hiccups drew near. The creature ran abreast of the hill along a lengthy level course. Now the hunt was on in real earnest.

The waist-coat started to bark as it neared its quarry. Hiccups found his own jaws directing themselves downwards, snapping and chopping and slobbering. His teeth almost seized upon the backbone of his would-be victim but all he got was a mouthful of white hair. The hare changed its course once more and now decided upon a rapid downhill run, avoiding nothing on its path, neither briar, nor nettle nor furze nor stream nor hole so that Hiccups was covered with scratches and blood and mud and drowned to the skin when the hare decided to stop for a breather half-way down the hill.

The waist-coat decided otherwise so that Hiccups found himself heading for a deep, soggy bog-hole at the bottom of the hill. In vain did he try to brake but the impetus was unstoppable. He roared at the top of his voice. He screamed in terror and cried out for the help as the moon started to rise over the top of the hill. Nobody answered his call. There was pipe music in plenty still coming from all sides and there was a great wailing and a great pillalooing coming from everywhere at once. Hiccups braced himself as the bog-hole drew near. He undertook a mighty leap in the hope that he might clear the obstacle and land at the other side. He landed, alas, right in the middle of the bog-hole with an almighty splash which sent frogs and newts and beetles scurrying for cover. So too did nesting wild ducks take off into the moon-lit skies as did freshly awakened larks, while stoats and rabbits and rooting badgers fled for their very lives. When Hiccups sank he was convinced he would never surface again but he reckoned without the waist-coat.