The Wake (And What Jeremiah Did Next) (2 page)

Since an earlier edition of
The Wake (And What Jeremiah Did Next)
was published a year ago I have been asked many times: “Are you Jeremiah?” And my answer has always been the same: “I was and still am Jeremiah, except in two respects. The love of my life is not bisexual but straight and has been my wife for many years. And my mother, unlike Jeremiah’s, was as kind and loving as any mother could be.” So I have tampered with the facts in an effort to get at the truth. I have used poetic license to try and make that truth more plausible. And what is the truth? For me, it is that I have learnt more from my wife and my mother than I got from all the reading I have ever done.

Colm Herron
Derry, Northern Ireland
August 31, 2015

I REALLY DIDN’T
want to be bothering you about this but Maud Harrigan died yesterday, dropped dead at our kitchen table. No loss if you ask me. But wait till you hear. We’re waking her, yeah you got that right, we’re waking her. She near enough lived here and she died here and we’re not going to get rid of her till she’s carried out that bloody door. And in the meantime I have to listen to Mammy’s crap.

“Poor Maud, she’d nobody. She was desperate lonely since Bobby died. Always looking to do you a good turn so she was.” Bobby was glad to get out of it. He was the only corpse I ever saw with a smile on its face. Nearly everybody remarked on it, one or two that I heard gave the credit to Charlie Bradley and Denis McLaughlin of Bradley & McLaughlin but most of the women at the wake decided it could only mean he was in heaven. I thought he looked more like he’d got out of hell.

Maud was waked in our house for one reason and one reason only. Mammy insisted. I wanted her to be brought to the cathedral to lie overnight as soon as she could be boxed and then on to the cemetery after mass in the morning but Mammy wasn’t having it. Fucking hypocrite. The face she showed to the world would have made you sick. She was posing as the selfless neighbor that wanted to give Maud a good send-off and she was landing me with all the arrangements. Typical. And of course she was showing up Majella Doherty Maud’s neighbor on the other side that hadn’t spoken to her for years over Maud puncturing a ball that Majella’s weans had accidentally kicked into her back yard.

But here’s the thing. People that came to the wake were going on as if I’d been bereaved, shaking hands with me and some of them kissing me and telling me they were sorry for my trouble. I was actually going along with it sometimes, mainly because I wasn’t able to hit the right mood between that and the distaste I felt for the whole thing. You have to understand, a whole lot of the women in this town are like professional mourners, they come into wakehouses with expressions on them like Veronica wiping the face of Jesus on the way to Calvary and you have to go along with it or people will only be talking about you. This meant that most of the time I had an expression on me of either resignation or desolation depending on who I was talking to.

And then the stressful conversations I had with the two undertakers — these guys put their noses right up to yours when they’re talking to you as if what they’re saying is really confidential when they might be only asking you where the bathroom is or telling you what time the hearse will be taking Maud to the cathedral or exactly where the grave is located, the last bit being vital information of course because I as the chief mourner would be walking right behind the hearse all the way to the cemetery and God knows I might veer off and end up in the River Foyle like one of those horses in the Grand National that didn’t turn left at the Canal Turn and had to be pulled out of the Leeds and Liverpool canal.

There was this big hallion of a girl too from over the terrace Majella McAllister that caught me completely unawares and gave me a French kiss at the door when she was leaving and left me standing there with my mouth full of slabber just as the Miss Quinns were arriving. I did manage to get rid of some of it by leaving four small deposits on the two old ones’ cheeks, ucching most of the rest of it over the wall of Maud’s garden as I followed them in. Majella’s had a notion of me for years and she used to give me the glad eye in the street till I stopped even looking at her. She was crafty the way she did it though. She was saying cheerio and how good I was to be waking Maud and I thought she was away till she turned quickly as if she was suddenly overcome with emotion which could well have been the case now that I think of it and gave me this warm wet kiss on the cheek and then her big sticky lips sort of slid down sideways to my mouth and that’s when the tongue came out.

I got a day and a half off for this but to tell you the truth I’d far rather have been in school even though I’ve a Primary Six that would put years on you. Father Swindells arrived about half ten just when the wake was getting into its stride and reminded me first thing that I had to be back by the beginning of lunchtime the day of the funeral seeing I was on playground duty all week.

“You haven’t been well lately Jeremiah?” he said, still holding my hand after he finished shaking it. By rights he shouldn’t have been shaking my hand at all because he knows full well I’ve as much relationship to Maud as I have to Ian Paisley. I find him creepy, Swindells that is, face shiny and smooth like a choirboy’s and those piercing eyes and curved beak of a nose like an eagle. What’s the word? Egalitarian? No, hardly that. Aquiline I think. Yes, aquiline. And there was something yucky about him that was patronizing and ingratiating at the same time slowslidingly mingling the sweat of his hand with mine.

“How do you mean Father?”

“You were off a few days, weren’t you, this past fortnight? No notice to speak of either. You’re not having late nights are you? Not burning the candle the two ways as they say?”

I shook my head. We were still holding hands, perspirations slippily melding. Looking down at him I felt both wary and fearful, wary of what he might find out, fearful of what he could do. He doesn’t come up to my shoulder and he makes me feel small.

“Not at all Father. I’ve been trying to shake off this flu but it just won’t go away. I’m sure you’ve been through the same sort of thing yourself.”

“Yes,” he said smiling joylessly, “but I haven’t been out on street demonstrations challenging the law and being chastised for it. How are you anyway? It’s a wonder they didn’t arrest you. That wouldn’t have looked good you know.”

His shoulders then began to shake with put on mirth. “Have you ever heard the one?” he said, spluttering into his free hand. “I suppose I shouldn’t be telling it to you at a wake of all places but what would you say now is the difference between a magician’s wand and a policeman’s baton?”

I waited in disbelief and then saw from his expression that I was expected to ask for the answer.

“I don’t know Father,” I lied. “What’s the difference?”

“Well you see, the magician’s wand is for cunning stunts.” He stared at me to see when the penny would drop. I smiled slowly, then nodded approval, indicating that it had. His shoulders shook again, pleased. If I’d told him what I thought in return for the penny I don’t think they would have been so pleased. At this point he removed his hand and left me abruptly, realizing I suppose that he was neglecting his duties. As I was mine. Three people were waiting to offer their sympathies. Mammy was nowhere to be seen, having gone upstairs to lie down, possibly permanently. I wiped my right hand on the shoulder of my pullover and went to meet them. I heard word behind me then that prayers were about to be said so I made my apologies and went to the kitchen where Maud was laid out.

Father Swindells was looking solemnly into the coffin, lips moving noiselessly, and after a short time he waved his hand over the corpse in what looked like a gesture of dismissal, begone from me, then moved away and stood with his back against the kitchen door, proceeding to intone a decade of the rosary, flicking his long mother-of-pearl beads extravagantly as he went from one Hail Mary to the next. The mourners responded respectfully, some sitting, some kneeling . When the decade was finished the priest moved forward expectantly, looking for someone to offer him a seat. There were no men occupying any of the chairs so Majella McCorkell, one of the youngest present, got up and said: “Here’s a sit for you Father. I’m going now anyway.” She bowed her head to him as she passed and he touched her shoulder familiarly.

“That’s big of you Majella,” he said smiling broadly. “And while I’m on the subject, no word of you starting that diet is there?”

Majella reddened and answered: “No word yet Father.”

There were one or two stifled giggles as she went out. The priest sat down, shifting his backside on the chair until it was settled comfortably. He looked around him benignly and his gaze settled on Mairead McCaughey to his left.

“Hello Mairead,” he said. “And how are you and all the bairns?”

“We’re grand Father. We’re all grand.”

“And Charlie. How’s Charlie getting on? Still helping out with the Saint Vincent de Paul?”

“He is Father.”

“Isn’t he the great one,” said the priest. Then duty done with Mairead the eagle’s head rotated ninety or so degrees due west and the blackbutton eyes found Susan Helferty.

“Ah, Susan,” he said. “I see you’re with child. How many will that be now?”

“Nine, God willing Father.”

He smiled, gratified. “The more the merrier. Aren’t you great now Susan. And Bobby’s working away. Two jobs still hasn’t he?”

“No Father. He was paid off last year from the building and Jimmy Heffron told him he doesn’t need him in the pub anymore.”

“Oh dear.” The priest’s indifferent eyes blinked and stared ahead. “Well I’m sure you’ll be all right. God will provide, my dear, God will provide.”

He was a little taken aback when Susan began to sniffle but sharp enough to lay a comforting hand on her arm. “Now now Susan, don’t you be worrying now. You’ll see.”

But the floodgates were well and truly open. She took a large gray handkerchief from her overcoat pocket and proceeded to weep buckets into it. Father Swindells seemed at a loss as to how to stem the flow but Miriam McBride rode to the rescue.

“Maud went sudden, didn’t she Father?” she said.

He looked across at her and smiled, composure restored. “The ways of God are not our ways,” he said softly. The blubbering went on unabated to the side of him but the priest was on familiar ground now and raring to go. “Sure none of us knows,” he said, fixing his full attention on Miriam, “not one of us knows the day nor the hour. When I hear about a sudden death I always think of that parable Our Lord told about the wedding. You know the one I’m sure.”

Miriam nodded knowingly, not knowing the one I’m sure but hoping he’d think she knew. Miriam is what we call in these parts a good-living girl. This doesn’t mean she grows her own vegetables or even that she lives it up. No, it means that she never lies out of the chapel, never has a bad word to say about anybody and would never let a man near her.

She was still nodding like a toy dog in the back window of a fastmoving car when Father Swindells went on to talk about the parable of the ten virgins though he didn’t say virgins of course. Bridesmaids was the word he used or was it girls? I can’t exactly remember. Whatever it was it wasn’t virgins because he knew that that particular word was one that should only be used in mixed company when it referred to the mother of Jesus. Otherwise, taboo.

“The bridegroom was late coming if you remember and the five foolish bridesmaids hadn’t taken the precaution of having enough extra oil for their lamps. Of course the other five bridesmaids, the wise ones, had plenty to spare but wouldn’t part with it when the foolish ones found their lamps were dry.”

Disobliging bitches I was thinking when the door swung open and Willie Henry McGillycuddy stood swaying and surveying all before him. He quickly spotted me and hastened forward to shake my hand, face wreathed in sympathy.

“I’m sorry for your trouble Master,” he said. It’s a strange country we live in when people call it having trouble when someone dies. Granny Coffey used to say a person was in trouble if somebody belonging to them died. Funny word trouble. Hold on, I’ll be with you in a minute, I’m having trouble with this shoelace here. Excuse me but could I trouble you for a light? I hear your man Doherty got that wee one Majella whatdoyoucallher from Rosemount in trouble. Did you not see her? Like the side of a bus already. Somebody was telling me there’s a bit of trouble at the bottom of William Street, petrol bombs flying everywhere. Ah yes, and then there’s the Troubles. I’m sorry for your Troubles. The capital letter at the start and the s at the end make the difference, not one wake but thousands of them, thousands butchered for a free Ireland or a British state in the northern bit. The head of the body politic severed from the rest. Now that’s severe. Capital punishment for being Ireland.

“Thanks Willie.”

“I didn’t even know she was sick so I didn’t. When did she die?”

“She died today. The doctor was attending her but I don’t think anybody expected her to die. It was sudden all right.”

Willie Henry’s big rheumy eyes held me in their respectful gaze. “I was just coming back from the Don Bar there and me blood was up and I was going to give them boys in the police car passing in the street a piece of me mind and then I saw the big black bow on the door there and I says to meself Aw my God, that’s Master Coffey’s house. Aw my God, don’t tell me. I always member you warning me about me two boys and the trouble they were going to get in if I didn’t see to them. I always member that, Master. And they’re doing all right now so they are. Kevin’s down in Doherty’s butchers working you know and Hugh’s going to get temporary in the Castle Bar coming up to Christmas.”

“That’s great Willie. I’m glad to hear it.”

Father Swindells’s voice behind me. “Well now Jeremiah, if you could give me your attention for a moment. I have to be going.”

I turned to see the smooth shining face smiling superiorly up into mine. He’s forty if he’s a day and I’ll put on any money the man’s never used a razor.