The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland (21 page)

The land meant everything to Mick Henderson. The cardinal rule of his long life was its preservation. Envious neighbours whose own land had become run down through neglect and laziness would have outsiders believe that he loved the land more than he loved his wife and certainly more than he loved his family. This was not so. He had been fond of his wife when he married. He had remained fond of her through storm and calm over the years and even now when the physical aspect of his marriage was becoming something of a memory he treasured her companionship in a way that only long attachment can foster.

He would have been hard put to explain his obsession with the land. His wife understood fully and there were others like himself in the valley who felt as he did. These would be silent, tight-lipped men, not without humour and not given to vindicating or modifying what would seem to be an extraordinary pre-occupation with the soil.

At seventy Mick Henderson found himself in a quandary. Labour was becoming impossible to come by. Factories were shooting up like thistles in the nearby towns and cities. Whatever workforce was available in the area was almost completely absorbed. Even his regular workman had deserted him for lucrative shift work and a five-day week. The latter was something of a joke amongst the farming community. All the holdings supported herds of milch cows and during the heavy milking periods these needed constant attention.

Once when endeavouring to hire a workman Mick was asked if he would settle for a five-day week. ‘You can have a one-day week in the winter,' Mick had told him, ‘but until such time as we have a five-day cow there will be no five-day week.'

He had gone so far as to offer free Sundays during the peak periods and occasional days off for special events but there was no competing with the attractions of the factories. He cut down his herd to a manageable size although he was still heavily in debt from having put three sons and two daughters through boarding schools and colleges. There was another son, Mikey, named after himself, a black sheep of sorts, who disappeared one morning when he was barely sixteen after a vicious row regarding his attitude towards further schooling. That was nearly ten years before. Mick Henderson knew his son's address in England, knew he was doing well as a charge-hand in a Coventry factory, knew enough in fact to make Mikey feel downright uncomfortable if he ever suspected such paternal interest.

The others had no feeling for the land, no concern about it. On his seventieth birthday he had betaken himself to the city to consult with his eldest son, Maurice, who was a solicitor there. After listening carefully for over half an hour Maurice submitted his opinion.

‘Your safest and your easiest course,' he said dispassionately, ‘is to sell out and live here in Dublin or if city life has no appeal for you there is nothing to prevent you from buying a comfortable house in the country. The money you would make from the sale would clear your debts and leave you with more than sufficient to ensure a comfortable life for mother and yourself until the end of your days.'

His second son, Eddie, was a dentist. Married with two
children, he operated from a small surgery attached to his home in the suburbs. Late as it was when Tom called he found Eddie up to his eyes in work. Very late that night they sat round the sitting-room fire and talked about the land. It was impossible not to like Eddie and his wife but they had little to offer by way of a solution. They also felt that selling the land would be the best way out.

It was the third son, Martin, a civil servant, who supplied the obvious answer. Mick had a job finding his house in the sprawling, estate-cluttered northside of the metropolis. Snugly seated in the back seat of a taxi he passed row after row of newly-erected, two-storeyed houses. After numerous enquiries they eventually discovered the estate. Another search and they located the house. It stood amid hundreds of others which looked exactly alike.

‘How in the name of God does anyone live here?' he had asked undiplomatically when Martin and his wife met him at the door.

‘You get used to it,' Martin said enjoying his father's perplexity.

In spite of his first impression he was pleasantly surprised by the interior of the house. It had a heartening spaciousness in contrast to what he had expected.

‘You have a fine home Martin,' he announced by way of conciliation.

‘It's only a few hundred yards from the school,' Martin's wife said, ‘and that's what really matters.'

After the usual preliminaries Mick settled down to the business of outlining his problems. Martin and his wife listened sympathetically while he explained about the new factories and the scarcity of labour.

‘The last thing I want to do is sell it,' he finished.

‘The logical thing as far as I can see is to bring Mikey back from Coventry,' Martin suggested.

‘Will he want to come back?' Mick asked.

‘I have no doubt that he will,' Martin assured him.

Mick Henderson considered this for some time. It was a thought that had always been at the back of his head. All he needed was someone, other than himself, to suggest it. He was aware that Martin and Mikey were as close as brothers could be despite the distance that separated them. In age there was hardly a year between them. It was to be expected, therefore, that Martin would put forward a strong case for the youngest brother. Mick Henderson decided that he would find out how forceful Martin's advocacy might be.

‘That's all very fine,' he said disinterestedly, ‘but has he the feel for the land?'

‘Why wouldn't he?' Martin hastened to reply, ‘he's your son isn't he?'

‘You're my son and you have no feel for it. Neither have Maurice or Eddie.'

‘Look,' Martin pleaded, ‘Mikey is different. He's only good with his hands. He was a hopeless scholar. If you had kept him at home when he kicked off the traces that first time he'd know it all now and you wouldn't be worrying about labour.'

“Tis easy be wise after the event,‘ Mick Henderson said. He suspected that Mikey might have the true feeling for the land but there was no way he could be certain. He resolved to probe further.

‘What guarantee have I that he won't flog the farm as soon as I pass on?' he asked.

‘That's a chance you'll have to take but let me tell you this. Mikey is hardly likely to flog it when it's going to be his livelihood. You know as well as I that he knew how to handle livestock. That time before he ran away he had no objection to working on the farm. What he objected to was school.'

‘Agreed,' Mick Henderson returned, ‘but there's many a young lad will volunteer for anything to escape school.'

‘I happen to know,' Martin's tone was really serious now, ‘that if he doesn't come home this year he won't come home at all.'

‘Did he say this?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then I suppose I had better contact him. What if he says no?'

‘That's one thing he won't say,' Martin assured him. After this conversation Mick Henderson had no doubt in his mind that Martin and Mikey had discussed his position in depth. On his way home by train he had ample time to think. His one fear was that the land might be sold after his death but this would happen anyway if Mikey refused to come home. He remembered when the farm had been signed over to him by his own father. It had been a bright May morning close on forty years before. He had no idea what his father's business in the neighbouring town might be when he instructed him to tackle the black mare to the family trap. By mid-day he was the legal owner of the land. He had in no way pressurised his father although he had dropped hints that he was thinking of getting married. It was somewhat different in his case. The true feeling for the land was there. His father knew this, knew that the green pastures to which he had devoted the best years of his life would be safe for another generation. It was so important
that Mikey have this feeling for the acres which would shortly be under his care. Mick Henderson knew everything there was to be known about the land. Over the years he had discovered its idiosyncrasies and failings and learned painstakingly how to turn deficiencies into advantages. The land had its own unique characteristics, its own vague, imperceptible contours, its inexplicable portions of soft and hard, wet and dry, barren and lush.

On the surface the fields were like any other in the district but he knew better. His father had been a source of constant help as he endeavoured to discover the true lie of the land. Now that he knew all there was to be known it was high time the knowledge was passed on. He would announce his decision to his wife Julia as soon as he got home. She would be pleased. He was aware that she secretly pined after her youngest son although, like all mothers, she became somewhat resigned to his absence as time went by.

The proper thing for me to do, Mick thought, is to impress upon him without seeming to do so the value of well-treated land. I will show him that while human life is to be valued more than anything else, that which sustains it should be valued no less. I will pass over and my wife will pass over but the land will remain. We are only passing through, mere tenants at best. The land will be there forever to nurture my seed and the seed of my seed. Somehow he would try to get these feelings through to Mikey. If the genuine consciousness was there this would be no problem. If Mikey did not fully respond all would not be lost. At least he would not sell and the land would be saved. If one generation failed to throw up a man with love for the land the next generation was sure to compensate. Who could tell but he might live to see a grandson
blessed with the appropriate and peculiar disposition so difficult to define.

Mikey Henderson arrived home during the second week of spring. The roadside hedgebanks were bright with clusters of early primroses and along the sides of the avenue leading to the old farmhouse were healthy clumps of daffodils and irises in various stages of flower. It was a good time to come home. During the first months he made many mistakes but Mick was not slow to notice that he never made the same mistake a second time. He was uncannily adept with all sorts of machinery. He understood cattle and most important of all he knew how to husband his strength. He fitted perfectly into the pattern of things.

Mick watched his progress with the keenest interest. Who knew but some evening he might see Mikey with his hands on his hips surveying the sheen of a freshly-ploughed tillage field or shading his eyes against a summer sun on the headland of a meadow ripe for cutting.

With the coming of summer the new green grass, luscious and fleecy, returned to the fields. The hedge-rows no longer bare hosted a thousand songbirds and the first of the long herbage took the naked look from the broad meadows.

The meadows would prove to be the chief of Mikey's problems that first summer. It wasn't a particularly good year for growth. The new crops were light and late and to crown the general misfortune of the farming community there was no labour available when the outlook was favourable for harvesting. The weather too was unkind. To say the least it was inconsistent. Fine days were few and far between and rarely succeeded each other. During this time came the worst calamity that could possibly befall. Julia Henderson took ill and had to
be removed to hospital. All thoughts of harvesting had to be abandoned until she recovered.

It was two weeks before she was released. She had undergone a mild coronary. Her doctor warned that unless she cut down considerably in her everyday work there would be a recurrence. After her short stay in hospital she felt refreshed and the tiredness which had nagged her for so long seemed to have disappeared altogether. She herself declared that she felt twenty years younger and insisted in shouldering her full quota of chores. A young girl was found locally to help her. She agreed to stay until the schools reopened in September. Outwardly, at any rate, Julia Henderson seemed very much rejuvenated. She looked the picture of health and there was none of the breathlessness which she so often endured before her visit to hospital.

There was a general air of excitement all over the district when the weather changed for the better. Despite the fact that there was no immediate prospect of labour Mick and Mikey Henderson decided to make an all-out assault on the uncut meadows. All day they followed each other on two tractors. In their wake the tall grass fell in long parallel swathes. Julia and the girl brought their meals to the meadow. There was no tarrying for small-talk afterwards. As soon as they had eaten they mounted the cumbersome machines. The onslaught lasted until the first faint stars appeared in the late evening sky. The moment they finished they headed straight for the local pub. It wasn't that they especially needed a drink. It was the only place where they were likely to recruit labour. They were partly successful. It was first necessary to invest in several rounds of drink and to exhibit an interest in the welfare of likely prospects that was tantamount to fawning. This, with
the offer of almost double the normal wage, was responsible for the extraction of three promises. Both Mick and Mikey were well aware that the trio in question were not exactly the cream of the crop. They would be late and they would put no great strain on themselves but they were labourers and if the weather held the produce of the combined meadows might be saved at the end of three days.

For most of the first day they turned and then tossed the freshly mown swathes. Late in the afternoon they made it up into windrows in preparation for the following day's cocking. This completed they broke off. That night the Hendersons listened avidly to the weather forecast. Prospects were still good. Mick and Mikey rose with the dawn. First the cows had to be milked. Then the milk had to be cooled and transported to the creamery. After that it was straight to the meadow. Everything else was secondary. The labourers arrived at ten o‘clock and then the business of cocking commenced. First the crisp hay had to be gathered by the tractor-drawn, iron-toothed rake. Mikey attended to this particular function. He worked furiously supplying the needs of the cock-makers who worked in pairs. When the supply exceeded demand he would jump from the tractor and shoulder huge pikefuls of hay to the base of the developing cock. This was the hardest part of haymaking. One by one, slowly and painfully, the cocks went up until by the end of the second day half the entire crop was safe. The mid-day meal was brought to the meadow by Julia Henderson and the girl. On the third day Julia came alone. The girl had not showed up. Enquiry revealed that she had been at a dance the night before and was unable to get out of bed. Julia was not unprepared. She arrived at the meadow shortly after noon, just as the sky was undergoing a murky suffusion to the
south-west. If rain was to come this would be the direction from which it would threaten. After the meal one of the labourers announced that he was unable to continue because of a stomach ailment. Mick guessed that the pace was not to his liking. The same man had shown himself to be somewhat of a shirker from the beginning. Mikey had heard him derogatorily remarking to one of his colleagues that if he was to die he wouldn't like it to be for a farmer.