An Irish Christmas Feast (43 page)

Christmas came with some gentle flurries of snow and if the nights were cold itself Maryanne was able to announce to her doting husband that the cow population wasn't the only outfit that could expect an increase in the following year. On hearing the news Jackeen leaped from his bed and with a series of delighted whoops danced around the room until he was totally exhausted. In the years ahead the rescued bull would account for countless cows and heifers and like all great bulls he treated young and old with equal tenderness and affection so that he had many calls upon his extravagant nature. I might well have called this tale ‘The Sacred Bull' but because of the season that's in it I think we should call it ‘The Sacred Calf'.

Forty years ago our public house was raided by two elderly members of the garda síochána, two gentlemen if ever there were gentlemen as you shall see if you proceed to the finish. For the benefit of those in other lands a member of the garda síochána is simply a member of the police force.

The exact time was the night before Christmas Eve and a stormy night it was with a stiff sleet-laden easterly gale confining many of the town's drinking fraternity to their homes. Not so the intrepid folk of the town's hinterland. They braved the elements and drank their fill. They would not drink again until St Stephen's night or the night of the wren as they called it.

The only creatures to be seen out of doors were tomcats for, as everybody knows, your common tomcat cannot survive without regular sexual excursions into the night. I have lost count of the times I have encountered exhausted tomcats returning to their bases even on the sacred occasion of Christmas night. A creature with nine lives has surely nine sexual drives or so people say.

There were also two members of the garda abroad or so it was rumoured but it was believed that they were not engaged in public house duties. This could be deduced, by experienced observers, from their gait and mien and general attitude. They strolled round the streets rather than policed them so the proprietors of public houses could not be blamed if they presumed they were in for an easy ride on the occasion.

In our own premises there were a half-score of hardened public house denizens whose love of liquor far exceeded their fear of storms. It wasn't that they drank excessively. Rather did they lower a few pints to cure what ailed them and help them get over the sleeplessness which affects so may souls on stormy nights. They were called regulars and at that time every public house in the town had its quota. Uncharitable members of the community would accuse them of being drunkards and ne'er-do-wells but the more charitable would say that they were merely anxious for drink.

That time there were roughly seventy public houses in the town. Now there are only forty. You could say that time caught up with the vanished thirty. Let us proceed, however, with our tale of Christmas benignity and let it serve as a reminder that kindnesses are remembered when insults are forgotten – that charity and chivalry are cherished when boors and begrudgers are benighted.

In those days I had a man working for me on a part-time basis. When he finished milking his employer's cows he came to me to tap barrels, to box bottles and to keep an eye on the back door among other things. You might say that keeping an eye on the back door was his chief duty. It was an onerous chore calling for vast experience in the ways of the world. When the prescribed number of knocks were knuckled on the back door he would admit the knocker or knockers. The door was a stout one and no one could look out unless one knelt or lay down to look underneath. Neither could anybody see in and no self-respecting policeman would stoop to peep when, by merely announcing his presence, admission would be automatic by virtue of the authority invested in him by the state.

But, the dear reader will ask, suppose a guard knuckled the secret knock after hours what would be our man's reaction? There would be no reaction for the good reason that no self-respecting member of the garda síochána would stoop to such a ruse. All guards liked to knock imperiously on the door and intone the time-honoured caution: ‘Guards on public-house duty!'

How then would my doorman respond to this official knock? My man, whose name was Jimmy Jay, would first kneel and then rest his head sideways on the ground where he could look out under the door to make sure that it wasn't a local prankster assuming the role of guardian of the peace. If the knocker wore grey shoes or brown shoes, suede shoes or white shoes or wellingtons he was admitted by Jimmy Jay. Members of the garda síochána wore only black shoes or black boots while on duty. There was another, equally important, guideline in the identification process – guards on duty had no folds on their trousers. All punters, therefore, with folds on their trousers were seen to be above suspicion and were granted immediate entry. This, let me state at this important juncture, is how our story came about. Let me put it another way. If there were no folds no story would unfold and we would be without material for our yuletide tale.

I don't have to tell my readers that this is a true story. The men who were present in the public house that night will bear witness to its veracity.

Now let us adjourn to the outside world, to wit the windy streets of my native town where our limbs of the law were sauntering along the main streets and the little streets, the big square and the small square and the limited suburbs where nothing ever happened. Seemingly casual and somewhat lackadaisical on their patrol it has to be said that nothing could be further from the truth for the good reason that our pair of custodians missed little. Not a blind was drawn or raised nor a solitary curtain opened without their committing it to memory. The number of strangers were counted, their mannerisms and physical features noted with care and every shadow was pierced by the experienced eyes of our alert duo.

The names of our patrollers were Mike and Jerry. The pair rarely troubled the town's public houses except when called upon to do so by the proprietors of the public houses in question when the latter might become apprehensive in the face of blackguardism. Others who sometimes got in touch with the guards were mothers of large families whose husbands were recklessly squandering their wages on liquor and allowing their children to starve. Other informants might be the occasional publican who would be acting out of jealousy or just plain, ordinary malice. In such instances the members of the force had no option but to investigate and issue summonses where necessary. Rarely did they prosecute the wretch who so profligately spent his wages. Instead they quite rightly prosecuted the publican and administered several well-aimed kicks to the posteriors of the aforementioned wretches. These kicks worked wonders but today it is against the law.

Anyway our jolly policemen, and jolly they were unless provoked, encountered a drunken wretch on the street. He claimed that he had been refused drink here on these very premises because of his politics. The truth is that he was refused drink because he was abusing his wife and family when under the influence. The limbs of the law, however, had no choice but to investigate the goings-on behind our closed doors. They would do so without fear or favour. They had spent the greater part of the day papering and painting some rooms in Mike's house. Mike was expecting American visitors in the spring, cousins of his wife, and who better to help him than his colleague and long-term friend.

The pair proceeded to our back door where Jimmy Jay sat in an out-house awaiting knockers. Jimmy was slightly deaf. He heard the guard's knock all right but he didn't hear them announce themselves. He went through the customary motions and knelt down before looking underneath the door from the accustomed angle. Jimmy looked for the usual tell-tale signs, the chief of these being trousers without folds. Seeing trousers with folds he opened the door and admitted the waiting guards who stepped briskly into the back-yard with a view to entering the back kitchen where our customers were happily seated, engaged in soft conversation as they discussed the events of the previous days, national and local. Tones were hushed and no voice carried. In fact, it could be said that the exterior of a busy public house after hours when guards are about is quieter than a grave-yard at night.

‘What's the meaning of this?' Jimmy asked as he drew himself to his full height of five feet, two inches.

The two civic guards were greatly taken aback and quite rightly, believing that it was they who should have been posing such a question and not Jimmy Jay.

‘Explain yourself,' said Mike.

‘Yes,' said Jerry, ‘explain yourself.'

After they had spoken they pushed their caps back on their foreheads and spread their large feet as they awaited an explanation.

‘Bad form,' said Jimmy, with all the righteousness he could muster.

‘Dang it man,' said Jerry, ‘we're only doing our job.'

‘Doing your job,' said Jimmy truculently, ‘with no trousers on!'

The pair looked downwards to reassure themselves that they had trousers on. They looked upwards into a much-improved starry sky, a Christmas sky, before looking downwards again to confirm that their trousers were indeed on. Whiskey can play strange pranks even on policemen so they felt their trousers to be sure.

‘We have trousers on,' they said in unison.

‘Yes,' said Jimmy Jay, ‘but not guards' trousers and that's not very sporting.'

‘Not very sporting!' the minions of the law echoed incredulously.

‘When I looked out under the door,' Jimmy Jay informed them, ‘I did not see trousers without folds so I admitted you in good faith, thinking you were ordinary folk like myself but what do I find, only two guards!'

Mike and Jerry explained that they had been engaged in some interior decorating all day and forgot to change into their on-duty trousers. They were most contrite and assured Jimmy that they would never involve themselves in such duplicity.

Did I say earlier that they had drunk the best part of a bottle of whiskey between them during their extra-curricular activities? The bottle had been a gift from Mike's wife. She stayed in the house until the painting and the wall-papering were completed, measuring out drops of the precious whiskey every time they seemed to flag or lose concentration.

‘We're truly sorry Jimmy,' said Mike, ‘because this not our style at all.'

‘Yes,' said Jerry, ‘truly sorry. It was bad form on our part and it is not our style at all as Mike says.'

‘I'm glad to hear you say that,' said Jimmy Jay, ‘it restores my faith in that wonderful body of men known as the garda síochána but I have to say that if tonight's visit was intentional then it was unsporting.'

‘It was most unsporting,' said Mike who nudged Jerry with an elbow and was nudged back in return.

‘Unsporting it was without doubt,' Jerry agreed, ‘but we are now prepared to withdraw and let the matter rest.'

So grateful was Jimmy Jay that he invited the pair to have a pint. He was permitted such extravagances in the rarest of circumstances only. The guards declined on the grounds that they were a danger to shipping already.

‘I'll tell you something now Jimmy,' said Mike, ‘and it is this. I will never again raid a public house without a guards' trousers on me.'

‘Me too,' said Jerry as they hurried home to don their lawful trousers.

One of the neighbours wrote a song about it in the air of ‘The great American Railway'. The exact words escape me just now but they went something like this:

'Twas the year of sixty-four

Those outlaws bold fell in their gore

He shot them down with his forty-four

In the famous William Street showdown.

The Kid stood his ground quite unafraid

Saying ‘Undertaker where's your spade?'

Come take these boys to yonder glade

From the famous William Street Showdown.

I remember that far-off morning as though it were yesterday. The crows had taken leave of the street's tall chimneys and sashayed westwards shortly after the peals of the nine o'clock bell announced the arrival of a watery sun.

‘That sun sure don't look too good,' the crows seemed to caw to each other but then they were gone and the street assumed an eerie silence. It was a silence of a kind that the street had never experienced before and old folk who were abroad at the time would say later that it boded no good.

‘Well cut my legs off and call me Shorty,' said one old-timer, ‘if there ain't a showdown o' some kind this mawnin'.'

‘You reckon?' said his wife.

‘I reckon,' came the studied response.

New Year's Eve would fall on the following day and the William Streeters, no strangers to strong liquor, would celebrate and hold hands and sing ‘Auld Lang Syne' and other sentimental songs until they could sing no more.

At approximately nine-thirty my four-year-old son Conor, resplendent in his new cowboy suit, appeared on the street. He pushed back his stetson and took stock of his bailiwick.

Jim Carroll addressed his employer Stuart Stack who owned the Arcade next door: ‘It's the William Street Kid,' he said in awe and hurriedly hung up the remainder of the coarse brushes before skedaddling indoors to safety.

‘Howdy Kid,' said Stuart. He knew the Kid well and was sure he wouldn't shoot a neighbour. then a dog barked from a nearby door-way and the Kid went for his gun.

‘It's just a dawg,' Stuart spoke mollifyingly.

The William Street Kid returned the gun to its holster and went back indoors for his porridge.

Time passed. So did some overhead clouds and so did a mild drizzle and the watery sun reappeared but the sense of foreboding and the feeling of tension had intensified. A cat appeared, an indication that the neighbourhood dogs smelled trouble and decided to spend the morning in bed. Then it happened out of the blue.

A few elderly stragglers made their way homewards from nine o'clock mass and out from the bowels of the post office, in full regalia, stepped Mick the Post. A rotund, dark-jowled individual in his late fifties, he did not escape the attention of the William Street Kid. Mick the Post stood for a while on the pavement, sniffing the wind for rain, a common practice at the time. When he was satisfied that no rain was likely he tightened the strap of his bag and moved down the street.

Mick the Post, however, wasn't all that he seemed to be. To the elderly mass folk he was their neighbourhood postman with nothing in his head but the safe delivery of his letters, especially the registered ones. The William Street Kid wasn't so easily duped. He recognised the hardened features of Black Bill the rustler under the official post office cap. The Kid's hands hovered over his guns, a steely look in his blue eyes, his legs apart, his body hunched forward. Black Bill saw the kid almost at once. He stood stock-still, his jowl set as he wetted his trigger fingers from his rapidly drying gums. He loosened his bag straps and allowed the post-bag to fall to the pavement. He did not go for his guns at once. His hand movements were fidgety. His body leaned from one side to the other. His facial muscles flickered and then he sang out that terrifying command that had petrified sheriffs and posses alike: ‘Go for your gun!'

The Kid smiled wryly but made no move. Jim Carroll and his boss Stuart Stack held their coarse brushes close to their chests. The elderly slipped into the neighbourhood shops and waited for the trouble to blow over.

‘Dang you, you mangy hound dog,' Black Bill was at it again, ‘I won't tell you no more. go for your gun!'

Still the Kid made no move.

‘Go for yours,' he commanded in a tone free of emotion. Black Bill hesitated. The terror of a hundred cowtowns, with forty notches on his gun-handle, drew like lightning. One minute his hands were empty and the next they were filled with blazing guns. Fast as he was he wasn't as fast as the Kid. His move was faster than lightning. He didn't draw two guns. He drew one. He didn't shoot twelve times like Black Bill. He shot once. Black Bill clutched his breast. A despairing cry escaped his throat. The cry was made up of a gurgle, a groan and a grunt. He staggered up and he staggered down. he staggered hither and he staggered thither and then he fell to the ground on top of his saddle-bags.

‘He's deader,' said Jim Carroll, ‘than an Egyptian mummy.'

The William Street Kid relieved Jim and his boss of their coarse brushes. They surrendered them meekly. They promised never to use them again.

Later, well out into the day, there was a New Year spirit abroad. The four principals, the Kid, Jim Carroll, Stuart Stack and Mick the Post, sat in the snug of these here licensed premises where they partook of some festive drinks. Mick the Post looked alive and well considering that he had been plugged only a few hours before. Then the snug door opened and Berkie Browne, the butcher, burst in.

‘I need a posse fast,' he explained. The four comrades stood to attention after they had bolted their drinks.

‘You guys promise to uphold the law?' Berkie Browne posed the question asked of many a brave cowboy before.

‘We shorely do sheriff,' Jim Carroll spoke on behalf of his deputies. So the posse, led by their sheriff, headed south across the mesquite for Jet Carroll's pub where they made camp for the night.

Shortly afterwards the William Street Kid returned home. He hung up his guns and allowed himself to be tucked in.

‘Where's yore podners?' I asked.

‘My podners is a singin' round Jet's campfire,' he answered drowsily as he gently spurred his mount towards the horizon, beyond which lay the river of dreams and the Land of Nod where all small boys must go sooner or later.