An Irish Christmas Feast (14 page)

Relieved that her predicament had been shouldered by such a doughty pair she rose from the table and wiped a tear from her eyes with a corner of her apron. Her visitors had the good grace to turn their heads and used the opportunity to carefully examine the glinting soot which adorned the back wall of the chimney.

‘If ye will come to the table now,' Kitty suggested without the least sign of stress or worry in her voice, ‘I will grease the griddle and we'll have fresh pancakes for supper.'

After that April visit the twins called regularly across the summer to render a progress report on their turf-cutting activities. Always there would be fresh pancakes and then one glorious day in the middle of June she made her way to the bog in order to see for herself the advances being made and to invite her champions home for supper.

The sun shone from a cloudless sky and from every quarter of the boglands the larks sang loudly especially when the sun departed the centre of the heavens and moved slowly down the sky.

‘On such a day as this,' Patcheen Mickelow spoke with awe in his tone, ‘God do give his voice to the larks and then the larks do tell us about God.'

‘Oh well spoke brother, well spoke!' Pius made the sign of the cross reverentially and turned to Kitty whose sparkling blue eyes radiated appreciation of the heavenly sentiments expressed by Patcheen.

‘Was it not well spoke Kitty?' Pius asked and then he fell silent as he awaited Kitty's reaction.

‘It was well spoke,' Kitty agreed, ‘in fact it could not be better spoke if it was spoke about forever.'

Pius marvelled at the wisdom of her answer. For some time he had the feeling that the pair had a special relationship, nothing that he could put his finger on except that he knew it to be there.

‘It's there,' he said to himself, ‘as sure as there's frogs in the bog-pools and hares in the heather.'

‘Oh you may say it was well spoke,' Kitty turned the full force of her blue eyes on Patcheen but he could no more look directly into their depths than he could at the blazing sun which adorned the heavens. Modestly he bent his tousled grey head and sought refuge in the heather. Pius now knew for certain that there were exciting stirrings in the hearts that beat close by and that when the stirrings comingled there would be a rare song in the air.

‘Wouldn't it be lovely,' Kitty whispered the hope half to herself, half to the twins, ‘if this day could go on forever.'

The brothers were immediately arrested by the sentiment, impractical though it might sound.

‘Yes, yes,' they whispered fervently, ‘it would be lovely.'

For the remainder of the day Kitty helped with the making and clamping of the donkey stoolins and it was not she who cried halt as the shadows lengthened.

‘If I don't eat soon,' Patcheen announced, ‘my belly will never again converse with my gob.'

Taking each by an arm Kitty led them to a spongy passageway and thence to the dirt road which would take then to her home.

The summer passed uneventfully thereafter and then came the time for the drawing home of the turf. They made light work of the task and by the end of the second week in September the Doody shed was filled to capacity as promised. The turf was of the highest quality and properly utilised would keep the winter cold firmly in its place.

As usual the twins paid their biweekly visit to the pub at the crossroads and it was here one night that they overheard strange tidings which alarmed them no end.

‘She'll pine for the ways of the city, you'll see,' a local farmer informed another, ‘and it's my guess,' he continued, unaware that he had an interested audience only a few yards away, ‘that she'll make tracks as soon as her year's mourning is down.'

‘What makes you say that?' the second farmer asked.

‘I say that,' said the first farmer, ‘because she has stopped wearing the black at mass and when women stops wearing the black they gets anxious about the future and then they're likely to pull up stakes and to move or to marry as the humour catches them.'

That very night at the request of Pius the twins departed the pub after the second pint.

‘Follow me,' he said, ‘and don't ask no questions like a good man.'

Although slightly irritated Patcheen was curious. Silently he followed his twin into the night. Despite his best efforts he found himself unable to draw abreast of his brother. He wanted to ask why they were making a detour and why he had been obliged to forego half of his normal intake but could not catch up, so determined was Pius to reach his goal.

Eventually they found themselves at the gate which opened on to the Doody laneway.

‘It's up to you now boy,' Pius confronted his brother, ‘you better go in there and state your case or we might never see her again.'

‘Look at the hour of the night we have!' Patcheen argued.

‘'Tis the right hour for what you have to do,' Pius insisted, ‘and isn't there a light in the kitchen window which means she's still up.'

Patcheen hesitated. If he was to tell the absolute truth he would admit to having considered the precise manoeuvre on which his brother wished him to embark on many an occasion but implementing it was another matter altogether.

‘I won't know how to put it,' he complained.

‘It will all come to you when you face up to her,' Pius assured him as he pushed him towards the gateway. At that moment the door opened and Kitty appeared.

‘Who's out there?' she called.

‘It's only us,' Pius returned.

‘I'm so relieved,' Kitty called back as she placed a shaking hand under her throat. The brothers stood silently side by side, Pius nudging Patcheen to give an account of himself and the latter temporarily tongue-tied.

‘Is there anything wrong?' Kitty asked anxiously after she had advanced a few paces.

‘This poor man has something wrong with him all right,' Pius pushed Patcheen forward, ‘but he'll be telling you all about it himself for I would say that it's been playing on his mind for some time.'

‘Oh dear!' came the sympathetic response, ‘there is none of God's creatures without some kind of a cross.' So saying she bent her head meekly and went indoors, making sure as she did that the door remained ajar behind her. At the same moment Pius Mickelow turned on his heel and disappeared into the night.

‘Sit up to the fire,' Kitty removed a bundle of knitting from a chair near the hearth and sat herself on a chair nearby, nearer his chair Patcheen noticed than she had ever ventured before. His heart soared but then it flopped awkwardly downward into its rightful resting place when he considered the unpredictable ways of the opposite sex.

So far as Patcheen knew, and it was also believed by other eminent authorities, members of the opposite sex for reasons best known to themselves did not always make themselves quite clear in matters of the heart.

Faced with this dilemma he bided his time. Caution was called for and he would be the first to admit that he had no experience in dealing with women.

So profound was the silence in the kitchen, apart from the ticking of the mantelpiece clock, that the only sound to be heard came from the gentle criss-crossing of the knitting needles which Patcheen had never before seen so speedily and skilfully employed. Thus they sat for what seemed ages. From time to time he adjusted himself on the chair but there was no move from his companion saving the bewildering complexities of the knitting fingers. As far as he could see she seemed to be in a jovial mood. However, limited and all as his experience was, he knew that females often tended to make their meaning clear too late in the day, with disastrous consequences.

Occasionally she would lift the blue eyes from her work and smile at him as if it was the most natural thing in the world that the two of them should be sitting together.

Then surprisingly she moved her chair nearer to his, so near that their bodies brushed whenever they adjusted themselves. It was a hopeful sign surely but she gave no other and as the night wore on it seemed that she might not move till dawn brightened the landscape beyond the curtained window.

‘Unless I make a move now,' Patcheen told himself, ‘I will never make one.'

‘Do you know what I'm thinking?' he whispered confidentially.

‘No,' came the conspiratorial reply.

‘I was thinking,' said he, ‘of what a waste it is to see two fires in two different houses when you could have just one fire in one house.'

‘I know what you mean indeed,' she agreed, ‘for it was often the same thought occurred to myself.'

‘Waste not,' Patcheen recalled the first half of the ancient maxim.

‘Want not!' she concluded it for him.

‘Then there's the upkeep of the two houses.' He pressed his advantage. She nodded eagerly in accord.

‘There's no telling the advantages,' he went on, at which she laughed and so did he.

‘One of the houses would have to go,' she said.

‘You mean for pour oul' Pius to stay here with us then?' he asked, hardly daring to believe his ears.

‘We couldn't very well leave the poor creature on his own,' she replied, ‘and isn't there a room to spare. We would have our room and he would have his, that's if he'll agree!'

‘Oh he'll agree.' Patcheen assured her, ‘there's nothing he'd like better.'

‘That's good to hear.' She laid the knitting aside.

‘All Pius ever wanted from the day he met you,' Patcheen informed her, ‘was to see the two of us settled. He worries that you may go off and leave us and never come back.'

‘I won't be leaving,' she whispered as she turned the devastatingly blue eyes upward and in so doing presented her pursed lips for approval. Only a man of iron would have by-passed such an opportunity. Kiss her he did, not once but several times and not just on the lips but all over her face and her throat and her nose and her nape and her ears. It was the blue eyes that he wondered at most of all. They seemed never to be without a sparkle and they were filled too with wonder or so it seemed every time he gazed into them.

When they had kissed their fill she laid the table for tea. They drank cup after cup and spoke for hours. Canon Mulgrave would have to be consulted. They both knew that he would approve, for was he not night and day vociferating his views about the absolute necessity for more marriages in the seriously depopulated parish and while discriminating pundits might argue that Kitty was past it, others would counter by insisting that where there was life there was hope.

As things turned out there would be no issue but otherwise it was as happy a marriage as one could find in the parish or the many parishes beyond. As for the arrangement with Pius, he treated his sister-in-law with the utmost respect and was at pains at all times to show her that he knew his place and could be trusted beyond words.

Certain of their immediate neighbours who believed themselves to be possessed of rare powers of prognostication let it be known that it was their belief that the bi-weekly visits to the crossroads pub and to other harmless activities would be seriously curtailed when the twins moved into the Doody homestead. They were to be proved totally wrong.

As always the pair showed up at the crossroads and they were to be seen at football matches and coursing meetings in the many enterprising townlands and villages which hosted such events in their seasons.

It was noted too by interested parties who had made close studies of the affairs of others on the grounds that it was beneficial to the community as a whole that the twins looked better, were sprightlier of step and were never without the price of a drink in their pockets.

Time passed and the old ways of the countryside began to undergo changes. Donkey and carts began to disappear from the roadways and the bog passages. Tractors and trailers began to replace them.

Small, serviceable motor-cars replaced the horse and pony carts and the family traps as a means of transport to mass and to village and occasionally to the town in the far away valley.

The twins Mickelow kept to the old ways for as long as was practicable but eventually, after years of subtle prompting from Kitty, submitted to the new craze and invested in a venerable Morris Minor which both brothers learned to drive.

From a financial point of view they were never as well off so the belated purchase of the car did not leave them in debt. All three had reached pensionable age before eventually deciding to invest in the Morris.

All around, other exciting changes were taking place in the villages and towns throughout the countryside. The old, musty, male-dominated public houses were being reconstructed and glamorous lounge bars began to replace them.

The crossroads pub, frequented by the twins, was among the last to conform to the modern style and the first female to accompany her men on a crossroads excursion on a Sunday night was the brave Kitty, wife of Patcheen Mickelow. In no time at all other females followed suit.

In short order came singalongs and dance music and even the clergy for once, somewhat confused by the transition, kept their opinions to themselves and allowed the parish free rein in its appetite for modern entertainment.

The twins, lookalike as ever, grew frailer but retained both their rude health and appetite for enjoyment. Their tousled heads whitened in the face of the advancing years but their capacity for consuming stout declined not at all. Kitty kept the white and the grey at bay with various tints and lotions. The happiness the trio enjoyed from the day Patcheen married had mellowed into a pleasant contentment. Whatever the neighbours might opine they could never say that the Mickelows were poorly off. When the three old-age pensions were tallied they realised a considerable income.

Then, alas, Kitty took ill and after a short illness passed away. The twins very nearly succumbed to the grief which followed. In the course of time the sorrow would be assuaged a little but they might never have visited the crossroads pub again had it not been for what Pius would later term heavenly intervention.