Puckoon (8 page)

Three miles away Dr Goldstein pulled
the sheet over the face of Dan Doonan. Mrs Doonan took the news dry-eyed. She'd
only stayed with him for the money. Twenty years before she had tried to get a
separation. The solicitor listened to her attentively. 'But Mrs Doonan, just
because you don't like him, that's no grounds for separation.'

'Well, make a few suggestions,' she
said.
' Has
he ever struck you ?' 'No. I'd kill him if
he did.'
' Has
he ever been cruel to the children ?'
'Never.'

'Ever left you short of money, then?'

'No, every Friday on the nail.'

'I see.' The solicitor pondered. 'Ah,
wait, think hard now, Mrs Doonan, has he ever been unfaithful to
you ?'

Her face lit up.' By God, I tink we
got him there, I know for sure he wasn't the father of me last child!'

The solicitor had advised her
accordingly.' Get out of my office,' he told her and charged six and
eight-pence for the advice.

Now Dan was dead.
'
I
wonder how much he's left me,' the widow wondered. Money couldn't buy
friends but you got a better class of enemy.

Messrs Quock, Murdle, Protts and
Frigg, solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths, pondered dustily over the grey
will papers; at 98, Dan Doonan had died leaving all his money to himself. The
quartet of partners shook their heads, releasing little showers of legal
dandruff. They had thumbed carefully through the 3,000 pages of Morell on
Unorthodox Wills, and no light was cast on the problem. Murdle took a delicate
silver Georgian snuff box from his waistcoat, dusted the back of his hand with
the fragrant mixture of Sandalwood and ground Sobrani, sniffed into each
nostril, then blew a great clarion blast into a crisp white handkerchief.

'This will take years of work to
unravel,' he told his companions; 'we must make sure of that,' he added with a
sly smile, wink, and a finger on the nose. They were, after all, a reputable
firm built up on impeccable business principles, carefully doctored books and
sound tax avoidance.

Only the last paragraph of the said
will was clear. Doonan wanted a hundred pounds spent on a grand 'Wake' in
honour of himself. Senior partner, Mr Protts, stood up, drew a gold engraved
pocket watch to his hand, snapped it closed, '4.32 exactly, gentlemen - Time
for Popeye,' he said switching on the t.v.

The inebriated chanting of professional
mourners came wailing from 44 Cloncarragah Terrace. Inside the front room,
propped by the fireplace, was the flower-bedecked coffin of Dan Doonan.

Grouped around admiringly, reverently
clutching their drinks, were friends and foes alike, and with drink they were
all very much alike. Funeral cliches were flying in the teeth of the dear
departed.

'A fine man, ma'am, it's a great day
for him.'

'You must be proud of him, Mrs
Doonan.'

' One
of the
finest dead men ter ever walk the earth.'

' I
was
sorry ter see him go!'

' So
was I -
he owed me a pound.'

' It's
hard
to believe he's dead.'

' Oh
he's
dead is he ?' said Foggerty, who'd been speaking to him all evening.

The corpse looked fine, fine,
fine
. New suit, hair cut and greased, his boots highly
polished and loaned by an anonymous donor were firmly nailed to the coffin for
additional security.

The tables in the next room were
swollen high with the food. Two wooden tubs steamed with baked potatoes, their
earthy jackets split and running with rivulets of melting butter. Hot pig
slices, a quarter inch thick, were piled high on seventeen plates. In the
middle, was one huge dish of brown pork sausages, and bacon, still bubbling
from the
pan.
On the floor, floating in a bucket of
vinegar,
was a minefield of pickled onions. The temporary
bar was serving drinks as fast as O'Toole could pour them.

'God, there hasn't been a night like
this since the signing of the Treaty.'

Many people die of thirst but the
Irish are born with one.

O'Connor the piper tucked his kilt
between his legs, puffed the bladder of his pipes and droned them into life;
soon the floor was lost in a sea of toiling, reeling legs.

Uppity-hippity-juppity-ippity-dippity-dippity
shook the house. The centre bulb danced like a freshly hanged man.

There was a clapping a
stamping-and-cries-of-encouragement.

The faithful few in Dan's parlour
soon deserted him for the dance.

Alone in his room he stood, his body
jerking to the rhythm now shaking the house. The party was swelled by the
arrival of the victorious Puckoon Hurley team, many still unconscious from the
game. These were dutifully laid on the floor beside Dan's coffin - the rest
joined into the frenzied dance.

The Milligan pulled his trousers up
and leaped into the middle, but he observed his legs and stopped. 'Hey, you
said me legs would develop with the plot.'

'They will.'

' Den
why
are they still like a pair of dirty old pipe cleaners ?'

' It's
a
transitional period.'

'Look, I don't want transitional
legs.' He stood in the middle of the leaping bodies and spoke, 'What's dis book
all about, here we are on page-page - ' he looked down, 'on page 74 - and all
these bloody people comin' and goin', where's it all going to end ?'

' I
don't
know. Believe
me,
I'm just as worried as you are.'

' Tell
me
why ? - tell me - give me a sign!' A bottle bounced off Milligan's head. 'The
Queen,' he shouted and fell sideways like a poleaxed ox.

Three fights had broken out in the
midst of the dancers but the difference was hard to tell. The whole house now
trembled from roof to foundations. In the next room the great family bible
shook from the shelf above the coffin and struck Dan Doonan, throwing him from
the coffin and catapulting him from his boots. His wig, a life-long secret,
shot from his head and slid under the table next to the cat. He fell among the
unconscious members of the Hurley team, who were starting to recover. 'He's
drunk as a lord,' they said, dragging him across the hall and tucking him in
bed.

' Good
God,
look at the size of that rat,' one said, seeing the cat pass with a wig in its
jaws. 'He mustha' put up a fight.'

Placing a bottle of whisky by the bed
they drank it and stumbled from the room.

It was 4.32 in the morning as the
crow flies.

The last mourners had slobbered out
their drunken farewells, their voices and great posterior blasts mingling into
the night. Mrs Doonan drained an empty bottle, scratched her belly, and made
for her bed.

Somewhere in the night, Milligan,
drunk and with lumps on his head, was wandering through the braille-black
countryside: in his path a carefully written well. Splash!
it
went on receipt of his body.

At 4.56 in the morning, the quietly
patrolling constable Oaf was reduced to a kneeling-praying holy man by a
leg-weakening shriek. The door of number 33 burst open and out screamed Mrs
Doonan in unlaced corsets.

' There's
a
man in me bed, get him out!' she yelled, restraining her abounding bosoms.

' Madame
, if
you can't frighten him in that get up, I certainly can't!'

'Do yer duty,' she said, ladelling
her bosoms back.

The constable undipped his torch,
took a firm grip on his truncheon and entered the house.

' In
that
room,' she whispered.

' Leave
him
to me,' said Oaf, pushing her in front. He shone his torch on the bed. Mrs
Doonan gasped and let fall her bosoms.

'Holy Mary!' she gasped, 'It's me
husband.'

She fainted, clutching the
policeman's legs as she fell, bringing his trousers to the ground. Now then,
who would have thought a constable would use green knotted string for garters,
and have red anchors tattooed on his knees? Ah, Ireland is still a land of
mystery.

'Helpppp!' shouted Milligan from the
bottom of the well.' Helppp - pppp - pelp - elp - Ip -' it echoed up.

'Who's down there drinkin' me water?'
A white face peered down the cool shaft. It was Farmer O'Mara.

'It's meeeee.'

' I
know
it's you, yer idiot!
but
what's yer name ?'
'Milligan.'

' Dan
? What
you doin' down there,
man ?'

' I'm
playing the cello. What do you
think ?'

He threw Milligan a rope. 'Hold
tight.' O'Mara was a giant of a man, his hands hung from his shirtsleeves like
raw hams. He started to pull.
' God
, he's strong,'
thought Milligan, ascending draggletail from his watery bower.

Drying out by the fire, O'Mara gave
him hot tea and whisky. They awaited the morning. In the leaping firelight
Milligan saw O'Mara's face. His eyes were cups of sadness, and seemed far, far
older than him. A smile on that face would look like a sin.

Milligan knew the story. O'Mara had
married a raving beauty, Sile Kerns. When he started courting her every man in
the village had been through her, every one in the village knew it, all except
O'Mara. Him being so big they were frightened to cast asper-sions on the girl.
The marriage bore three children, Sean, Laura and Sarah. It seemed that at last
Sile had left her old ways behind her. Then O'Mara had

caught
her
red-handed, the lover had fled across the countryside without his trousers
which were shown as evidence. O'Mara was awarded custody of the kids. That
seemed the end of it, things settled down, all but Sile, who was slowly going
out of her mind.

Losing the kids had done it. One
night Sile got in to their bedroom and cut their throats. She would have had
O'Mara too but for the fact he couldn't sleep for the toothache. She was taken
away and put in Gedstow Asylum.

There she sat out her life, sitting
and looking at a wall, sitting and looking at a wall, sitting and looking at a
wall. . . . From a man who laughed and loved life, O'Mara was cut down to a
walking dead. It was thirteen years since then. Unknown to anybody, he still
kept the children's beds made up and every night slept with a teddy bear and a
dolly clutched in his great hairy arms.

Now he bred horses. In the spring
he'd watch the young rubber-legged foals racing through the sweet morning
grass, and sometimes he could see three laughing children on their backs.

They lay buried in the Churchyard of
St Theresa. He comforted himself with whisky, and an eternal hatred of women.
'You drink too much,' Dr Goldstein told him.

' Drink
too
much for what ?' he asked in reply. The doctor, knowing his tragedy, stayed
silent.

Sgt Joseph MacGillikudie read and
re-read the official report.' Is this all
true ?
' he
asked the blinking constable.

' It's
just
as it happened, Sarge.'

MacGillikudie removed his pince-nez.
'It's a mystery then how did Dan Doonan get out of his coffin, take his boots
off and get into bed without a wig on, at the same time being stone dead.'
MacGillikudie thought towards the floor, and tapped the pince-nez on his
thumb.' Fancy! Him wearing a
wig ?

I've known Doonan, man, woman and
boy, for thirty years and never did I know he had the baldness. He must have
been a master of disguise.' He closed the dossier and stamped it

'Unsolved'.
Constable Oaf coughed, blinked and spoke.

'Technically speaking, Sarge, coming
back to life is no crime.'

' Oh
yes it
is! If you come back, for a start you need a birth certificate. Meantime
supposin' yer wife married
again ?
What
then ?
Eh ?
What
then
?'

'You can have her for bigamy,' smiled
the Constable.

MacGillikudie waved him away. 'No,
no, no, it's all wrong,
bugger
off!'

That night, wearing a cheap smoking
jacket cut from blankets that his wife had made and laughed at, he lay in bed
fuming and meditating.

Crime! It obsessed him. When he
joined the police he had destined himself for the high office of Chief
Detective Inspector.

After nearly twenty-seven years he
was still eighteen promotions short. How could the Inspector have overlooked
him for so
long ?

Of course, he had made mistakes. Like
Dr Crippen.
' It
looks like he did it,' MacGillikudie
said, three days after the man had been hung.

Nevertheless, there was no one alive
who could match him for scientific criminological deduction. Fu Manchu, Sexton
Blake, Charlie Chan, he'd read them all, he'd learned the hard way -
paperbacks. The lights went out, his wife settled beside him.