An Irish Christmas Feast (12 page)

‘You say,' he opened, ‘that the bones she flung at you were finger bones!'

‘Yes,' came my ready answer.

‘Human fingers?'

‘Yes.'

He took his right hand from behind his back and threw a fistful of small bones on the table.

‘These,' he announced solemnly, ‘are the very bones which lay scattered around the yard just now. Will you confirm that these are the bones which were flung at you last night by the banshee?'

‘There's no doubt in my mind,' I replied.

Guardedly I fingered the bones which still retained some tissue and a residue of meat. It was clear that they had been well and truly gnawed.

‘And you say they are human?' My father was now at his most inquisitorial. All the family knew that he secretly fancied himself as a prosecutor. He was always at the head and tail of every domestic investigation, strutting around the kitchen with his hands clasped behind his back, taking them apart occasionally and joining them together at the uppermost point of his paunch as he listened to evidence and submissions.

Sometimes he would close his eyes as he questioned a hostile witness. Other times he would stand silently for long periods, his eyes firmly fixed upon the defendant who was generally myself. This tactic nearly always worked with the girls who would readily confess to anything, just to be free of his accusing eye. I must say that the entire household enjoyed such trials at the end of which everybody, except yours truly, was acquitted and exonerated. When convicted I would be confined to my bedroom for periods of one hour to a maximum of four although the possibility of a twenty-four-hour sentence was always on the cards.

‘My Lord!' he unexpectedly addressed himself to my mother who had sufficiently recovered her composure to acknowledge the surprise judicial appointment, ‘these bones you see before you which the defendant claims are human finger bones are nothing of the sort. They are, in fact, bones from a pig's foot or
crubín
which is the local term affectionately applied to this particular extension of the pig's anatomy.'

My mother rose to examine the evidence, nodded her head in agreement and resumed her seat.

‘Not only is the defendant a pathological liar,' my father was continuing, ‘but he is a deceitful scoundrel as well.'

‘Please proceed!' was all my mother said.

My father cleared his throat.

‘You are aware,' said he, ‘of the existence of a woman known as Madgeen Buggerworth?'

‘Yes!' I replied with a laugh.

‘You will respect the court sir!' my father cautioned, ‘or you'll be fined for contempt.'

I bent my head submissively and tried to look contrite. This wasn't easy, for the very mention of Madgeen Buggerworth's name was enough to make anyone laugh. She was a local beggar-woman and it was frequently said of her that she never drew a sober breath. On reflection it would be true to say that I had never seen her sober.

Madgeen was a powerful virago of a woman. Her husband had died after siring the final member of her thirteen-strong family and the family, the moment they were fledged, took off for foreign parts and were never seen again and small blame to them because she was never done with scolding and beating them.

Her favourite pose was when she spread her legs apart in the middle of the roadway and threw off the black shawl which truly covered multitudes. Up then would go the front of her skirts so that her bare midriff was exposed to the world. Then would come the drunken boast as she touched her navel with the index finger of her right hand: ‘There now,' she would call out at the top of her voice for all to hear, ‘there now is a belly that never reared a bastard!'

She would rant and rave, skirts aloft until the civic guards came on the scene and ushered her homewards. Other times she was to be seen lying in one of the town's laneways with her back to a wall, fast asleep, snoring in drunken abandon. Given enough drink she could sleep anywhere, regardless of wind or rain. She was to be seen too late at night staggering from one doorway to another singing at the top of her voice, if singing it could be called.

‘If it please the court I would request that your worship and the defendant follow me to the out-house where I shall provide incontrovertible evidence that this man,' my father pointed a finger in my direction, ‘was so bereft of sense from the consumption of cider that he confused our friend Madgeen Buggerworth with the banshee.'

He led the way into the back yard and on to the out-house where we were greeted by deep snoring punctuated now and then by outbreaks of spluttering and wheezing. There on the ground, partly covered by turf sods, lay Madgeen Buggerworth. By her side there lay an uneaten
crubín
.

‘We'll let her sleep for the present,' my father announced, ‘later,' again he pointed in my direction, ‘when she wakes you will serve her with dinner and afterwards you will take her home.'

I hoped that this would be his last word on the matter but there was more to follow.

‘Let us return to the kitchen,' he said solemnly, ‘where your sentence will be handed down. Meanwhile I suggest you pray for mercy.'

So saying he preceded us into the kitchen where he announced that he was relieving my mother of all judicial responsibilities on the grounds that she would be incapable because of her known affection for the defendant of meting out a just sentence.

I stood with my back to the Stanley awaiting the pleasure of the court. My father stood at the doorway, hands clasped behind back. My mother sat in a neutral corner.

‘I find you guilty of drunkenness in the first degree,' he said, ‘and I hereby sentence you to twenty-four hours' solitary confinement in your room.'

I stood aghast! It was the toughest sentence he had ever handed down. I would have to admit that I expected no less. He was clearing his throat again.

‘There are, however,' he proceeded solemnly, ‘mitigating circumstances. This day as you know is the birthday of a great and good man who was once wrongly convicted and subsequently crucified. As a small measure of atonement for that woeful miscarriage of justice I hereby suspend the sentence imposed upon you. You are, therefore, entitled to walk from this court a free man.'

On my way home from mass I met him walking down the street against me. It had turned unexpectedly into the mildest of days.

‘Let's have a stroll before dinner,' he suggested.

We took the pathway to the river which was in modest flood. He spoke about other Christmases, of his father and grandfather and of great wobbling geese especially stall fed for the Christmas dinner, of whiskey drinking, great-uncles and carol singing and the innocent pranks of his youth. We walked through the oak wood, marvelling at the splendid contributions of the songbirds despite the greyness of the day and the leafless trees and hedgerows.

We reentered the town at the end farthest from where we left it and proceeded down the long thoroughfare known as Church Street. We turned off into a laneway and found ourselves at the rear door of Moorey's premises. I was astonished to discover that my father was familiar with the sesame of admission, two knocks and a pause, two knocks a pause and finally three knocks. The door opened after a short wait and Moorey stood there, surprise showing on his face.

‘Long time no see, Master!' he said with a smile.

Inside we sat on stools at the bar counter.

‘Do you think this man has graduated from cider Moorey?' my father asked.

Moorey considered the question carefully before answering. Then after a while he said: ‘Just about.'

‘Then,' said my father as he laid a hand on my shoulder, ‘we'll have two pints of stout to sharpen the appetite.'

Many years ago, in our street, there lived an old woman who had but one son whose name was Jack. Jack's father had died when Jack was no more than a
garsún
but Jack's mother went out to work to support her son and herself.

As Jack grew older she still went out and worked for the good reason that Jack did not like work. The people in the street used to say that Jack was only good for three things. He was good for eating, he was good for smoking and he was good for drinking. Now to give him his due he never beat his mother or abused her verbally. All he did was to skedaddle to England when she was too old to go out to work. Years passed but she never had a line from her only son. Every Christmas she would stand inside her window waiting for a card or a letter. She waited in vain.

When Christmas came to our street it came with a loud laugh and an expansive humour that healed old wounds and lifted the hearts of young and old. If the Christmas that came to our street were a person he would be something like this: he would be in his sixties but glowing with rude health. His face would be flushed and chubby with sideburns down to the rims of his jaws. He would be wearing gaiters and a bright tweed suit and he would be mildly intoxicated. His pockets would be filled with silver coins for small boys and girls and for the older folk he would have a party at which he would preside with his waist-coated paunch extending benignly and his posterior benefiting from the glow of a roaring log fire.

There would be scalding punch for everybody and there would be roast geese and ducks, their beautiful golden symmetries exposed in large dishes and tantalising gobs of potato-stuffing oozing and bursting from their rear-end stitches. There would be singing and storytelling and laughter and perhaps a tear here and there when absent friends were toasted. There would be gifts for everybody and there would be great good will as neighbours embraced, promising to cherish each other truly till another twelve months had passed.

However, Christmas is an occasion and not a person. A person can do things, change things, create things but all our occasions are only what we want them to be. For this reason Jack's mother waited, Christmas after Christmas, for word of her wandering boy. To other houses would come stout registered envelopes from distant loved ones who remembered. There would be bristling, crumply envelopes from America with noble rectangular cheques and crisp, clean dollars to delight the eye and comfort the soul. There would be parcels and packages of all shapes and sizes so that every house became a warehouse until the great day came when all goods would be distributed.

Now it happened that in our street there was a postman who knew a lot more about its residents than they knew about themselves. When Christmas came he was weighted with bags of letters and parcels. People awaited his arrival the way children awaited a bishop on confirmation day. He was not averse to indulging in a drop of the comforts wherever such comforts were tendered but comforts or no the man was always sensitive to the needs of others. In his heart resided the spirit of Christmas. Whenever he came to the house where the old woman lived he would crawl on all fours past the windows. He just didn't have the heart to go by and be seen by her. He hated to disappoint people, particularly old people. For the whole week before Christmas she would take up her position behind the faded curtains, waiting for the letter which never came.

Finally the postman could bear it no longer. On Christmas Eve he delivered to our house a mixed bunch of cards and letters. Some were from England. He requested one of these envelopes when its contents were removed. He rewrote the name and address and also he wrote a short note which he signed ‘your loving son Jack'. Then from his pocket he extracted a ten-shilling note, a considerable sum in those far-off days. He placed the note in the envelope. There was no fear the old woman would notice the handwriting because if Jack was good at some things, as I have already mentioned, he was not good at other things and one of these was writing. In fact, Jack could not write his own name. When the postman came to the old woman's door he knocked loudly. When she appeared he put on his best official voice and said: ‘Sign for this if you please Missus.'

The old woman signed and opened the envelope. The tears appeared in her eyes and she cried out loud:

‘I declare to God but Jack is a scholar.'

‘True for you,' said the postman, ‘and I dare say he couldn't get in touch with you until he learned to write.'

‘I always knew there was good in him,' she said. ‘I always knew it.'

‘There's good in everyone Missus,' said the postman as he moved on to the next house.

The street was not slow in getting the message and in the next and last post there were many parcels for the old woman. It was probably the best Christmas the street ever had.

Hector Fitzpitter, player-manager-author, sat on his trunk. It was his only possession apart from his hat, suit, shirt and the shoes in which he stood. He had been sitting in the same position for an hour and a half. Occasionally he made a slight concession to ache and cramp by gently lifting and relocating his numb buttocks slightly because the shiny, well-worn seat of his trousers was beginning to fray and might not survive a more energetic adjustment. The last of his coins had been expended earlier in the day on a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich.

‘You don't have enough for ham,' the restaurant owner had cautioned after he had calculated the pennies, halfpennies and solitary sixpenny piece which Hector had extravagantly spread across the counter top.

‘What have I enough for then?' he had asked petulantly.

‘Cheese sandwich,' came the disinterested reply, ‘and even then you're short.'

Hector pretended he hadn't heard, secretly hoping that the sandwich and tea would be forthcoming without further reference to financial discrepancy. The chest on which he sat contained his costumes, tattered and torn and sadly reduced to three in number, Iago, Falstaff and Tontagio, in
The
Bearded Monster of Tontagio,
the eponymous role for which he was best known and indeed revered in smaller towns and villages. It was a fearsome part which left unsophisticated audiences cowering and abject as he ranted and raved all over the stage, directing his more savage outbursts towards the meeker-looking members of the audience who faithfully responded with screams and fainting fits.

He had written the play himself. Once, in his hey-day, he had fallen through a trapdoor. He had broken a leg and had penned the piece during the subsequent six weeks of hospitalisation and convalescence.

‘Would,' said a particularly scurrilous provincial critic, ‘that he had broken his hand instead of his leg and spared us this infantile gibberish!'

Another called him the clown prince of balderdash and compared him with the village idiot on one of his worse days. The cruelest came from an amateur actor who wrote a weekly theatre column and who lambasted all visiting plays and players with unrefined vitriol and without exception, reserving his more generous encomiums for the annual offering of the local amateur drama group of which he was a member.

Said he, ‘Not satisfied with the immortal roles created by Shakespeare, Sheridan, O'Neill, et cetera, Fitzpitter dives deep into his psyche and surfaces covered in his own crud.'

Another wrote that Herbert Fitzpitter should be hung, drawn and quartered, ‘hung,' he suggested, ‘for directing the play, drawn for taking the leading role and quartered for writing the damned thing!'

Hector Fitzpitter revelled in such notices, attributing the lack of appreciation to ignorance and jealousy. Now, virtually at the end of his career, his unpaid company scattered to the four winds and his pockets empty, he would surely have wept had it not been for the fact that he had never shed a genuine tear since he first embarked on an acting career at the tender age of seventeen, all of fifty years before his present predicament. A lesser man would have despaired and thrown himself at the mercy of the county.

For Hector his present plight was merely a temporary reversal, a minor stumbling-block on the long road to the recognition which surely lay around the corner. Meanwhile there was the question of board and lodgings. His leading lady and his several underlings knew how to look after themselves. They would regroup instinctively, aided by the theatre grapevine, at a specific venue during the first days of spring. All save he were now gone to ground in their own homes or other safe havens for the Christmas which was almost upon them. The spiritual balm of the season would quickly heal the trauma which they had all endured when
The Bearded Monster of Tontagio
closed prematurely. The proprietor of the theatre had confiscated the slender takings of the three nights before it folded, pointing out to Hector that the paltry amount would hardly pay for the electricity not to mention himself, the caretaker, the box-office staff, the cleaners and the general upkeep.

Wearily, Hector rose to his feet. He shivered as the north-eastern gusts reminded him that he should not have pawned his overcoat. Cutting as the gusts were they were not as damaging as the review of a local amateur.

‘The audience,' wrote he, ‘few as they were from front seat to back, were soon drenched by the spume and spittle which accompanied the uncontrolled rantings of Mr Hector Fitzpitter.'

There had been more but Hector had not read on. Attacking an actor over the incidental discharge of a minute particle of saliva was akin to criticising a person for having a hump or a stammer. It just wasn't done. He walked slowly down the street, dragging the cumbersome trunk behind him. Time was when he would have effortlessly borne it on his shoulder.

Hector was possessed of a large and ungainly frame. The excess flesh which once rippled on his torso now shuddered and trembled like a blancmange at the least exertion. He presented a formidable figure to those who encountered him for the first time. Younger actors feared him not at all.

‘Blubber!' they would reply contemptuously when asked if the outsize player-manager-author might not be a dangerous adversary in a confrontation. Elaborating, they would explain that he was never less than a dangerous antagonist on the stage and finding himself with a naked sword in his hand was quite capable of slashing at anything that got in his way. Similarly when fisticuffs were demanded during a violent scene he was apparently the equivalent of a Jack Johnson and often knocked down younger opponents as though they were made of straw.

‘But,' they would be quick to explain, ‘in real life he is a cowardly wretch who wouldn't fight to save his life.'

‘In fact,' one of Hector's closest friends informed a curious reporter, ‘while the fellow would not hesitate for a moment to save a damsel in distress on the stage he would run a mile if called upon to do so in public.'

After several hundred yards of trudging he found himself at the front door of the lodgings which he had vacated that morning, having met half of his obligations before saying farewell and promising to pay the other half when funds came to hand as he put it to Mrs Melrick the accommodating landlady who tired easily of his many long-winded apologies.

She was anything but receptive to his second proposal of the day, board and lodgings until his ship came in. Rather curtly she pointed out that all of her lodgers without exception would be returning to their various homes for Christmas and since she expected to find herself with an empty house throughout Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the three days following, she had decided to stay with her son and daughter-in-law in a nearby town for the period of the closure.

‘I'm doing it for my son and grandson,' she explained to Hector, despondent of face, his jaws resting on intertwined hands atop his now vertical trunk. His thoughts were elsewhere, his attention diverted to the unlikely prospect of alternative accommodation. The thought of sleeping out was an appalling one. He had resorted to it on occasion in his younger days and then only in summer time. At his present age and in winter time it would have been suicidal. His ears pricked suddenly when she referred to her daughter-in-law directly for the first time.

‘Bitch!' she was saying.

Her remarks were not addressed altogether to Hector. Ruefully she recalled, for her own benefit, the inexplicable antics and tantrums of her son's wife. From what he heard it was not difficult to gather that there was bad blood between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

‘It beats me,' Hector cut across her ill-concealed disgruntlement, ‘how you've endured it for so long.'

‘God alone knows that,' she replied vigorously, roused to full articulation by the obviously sincere commiseration from this unexpected quarter.

‘You know about her?' Mrs Melrick asked.

‘Who doesn't!' came the ready reply.

‘She's something isn't she?'

Hector thought for a moment before responding.

‘She's might pull the wool over my son's eyes,' the landlady warmed to her task, ‘but she won't pull it over mine!'

‘She's not worth it.' Hector shook his head secondly. A great sorrow clouded his face.

‘She's not fit to polish your shoes,' he continued as Mrs Melrick opened the door wide so that he might follow her, trunk and all, into the kitchen. Over the tea which followed they spoke at length about the wickedness and countless misdeeds of her son's wife. To add criminality to her natural sinfulness there was confirmation also that the awful creature was pregnant again.

‘What next!' Hector asked as he lifted his eyes to heaven. He was enjoying the role no end. What a pity that playwrights, royalty-hungry, so-called moderns, could not write such parts! The exchanges between the pair lasted until the first of the boarders arrived for the evening meal.

‘See out there.' Mrs Melrick pointed out the kitchen window to a tiny annex, erected by her late husband for their only son as a facility for his studies.

‘You can stay there until my return,' his benefactress informed him. ‘There's a divan and I'll leave in a few blankets. You can eat here tonight and tomorrow night but after I've left you must fend for yourself. You must not come near the house.'

There had been other conditions but, by and large, Hector felt that he had not been mistreated. The following day he would enquire as to the whereabouts of the local presbytery. He had always found, so long as one didn't overdo it, that Presbyterians were a most reliable source of food and small amounts of cash and, surely if they had been supportive in the past on everyday occasions, was it not likely that they would be even more charitable at Christmas!

Father Alphonsus Murphy had once seen Hector Fitzpitter on the stage. He had been holidaying at the time in a nearby seaside resort and finding himself with nothing better to do, forked out a florin he could ill afford to see the great man's version of Iago. He had intended after the holiday to repair to the diocesan retreat house for a few days' meditation and a subsequent revelation of his transgressions, minor and all that they were, but decided against it after he had endured two and three-quarter hours in the stuffy marquee which Hector Fitzpitter had rented for the season

‘I felt,' he confided to one of his curates some time later, ‘that my experience in that marquee was sufficient atonement for anything I might have done since my last visit to the retreat house.'

‘Allow me to introduce myself,' Hector Fitzpitter opened rather grandly.

‘No need. No need!' Father Murphy put him at his ease.

‘Perhaps you've seen me on the stage Father?'

Father Murphy decided to ignore the question. Instead he asked if he might be of some assistance to his urbane visitor.

‘You can indeed Father,' came the deferential reply.

After providing a résumé of his recent misfortunes in a style not unfamiliar to his listener, Hector asked if it might be possible to borrow a modest sum of money, to be repaid in full without fail as soon as the touring season commenced in the forthcoming spring.

‘We are not in the business of lending,' Father Murphy reminded him, ‘but if you are not averse to a day's work I can provide same and pay you when the job is done.'

‘Work!' Hector recoiled instinctively as images of shovel and pick-axes assailed him.

‘Don't be alarmed.' Father Murphy had experienced countless reactions of a similar nature. ‘Your qualifications for the sort of work I have in mind are impeccable. In fact, I know of nobody off-hand who could do a better job.'

‘You want me to read the lesson.' Hector's face beamed as he saw himself addressing a record audience and, more importantly, a captive audience. Father Murphy scowled uncharacteristically at the awful prospect.

‘I merely want you,' he said icily, ‘to play the role of Santa Claus tomorrow night. I will supply you with hat, beard and coat. After you've eaten I will take you, in advance, to the laneway where you will be delivering gifts to the underprivileged children of the parish.'

Hector smiled. The prospect appealed to him.

‘And I will be paid?'

‘Yes,' Father Murphy assured him. ‘You will be paid the moment you finish your rounds. Now you may go around the back and tell the housekeeper that I said you were to be fed. I'll expect you to present yourself here tomorrow night at eight o'clock.'

Later, as they drove slowly up the laneway which ended in the open countryside, Father Murphy handed him a pencil and some paper with instructions to write down the name of the owner of each house so that there would be no instances of wrong delivery. Each parcel of gifts would bear the name of the recipient on the outside. By the simple expedient of requesting the house-owner's name the parcels would find their way into the right hands.

‘Let me warn you,' Father Murphy's voice assumed a cautionary tone, ‘in the very last house you are likely to meet with trouble so you would be best advised not to enter. When your knock is answered you will hand over the gifts to whatever person opens the door. Then, if you have any sense, you will make yourself scarce!'

‘You're not trying to tell me that my life will be in danger Father?'

‘Not your life,' Father Murphy forced a laugh, ‘but the fact is that the parish's biggest bully and its most foul-mouthed drunkard, one Jack Scalp, lives in that house and if he happens to be at home when you call he will most certainly attempt to assault you. By not entering the house you will be in no danger whatsoever. Just turn and leave when your job is done and here,' said Father Murphy, ‘is a half-crown. It's Christmas time and you could do with a drink, I dare say, only don't let me see you with a sign of drink on you tomorrow night or I'll clear you from the door!'