An Irish Christmas Feast (2 page)

Agnes Mallowan shot the iron bolts into place in the back and front doors of the presbytery. Then she did the rounds of the house upstairs and downstairs, securing the windows in the curate's room but firmly resisting the temptation to inspect his belongings. She could have carried out the inspection with impunity if she so wished, she told herself, seeing that he was enjoying a short Christmas break at the other end of the diocese in his parents' home.

As was his wont the parish priest Father Canty would read in bed until she brought him his nightcap after which he would fall fast asleep until the seven o'clock bell sounded.

There had been no exchange of Christmas presents. As always he had handed her an extra week's pay but repeated his insistence that she was not to invest in a present on his behalf. From the beginning he had made it clear that there were to be no Christmas gifts.

‘The best present you can give me,' he had warned, ‘is to keep your money in your purse.'

Neither would he let her spoil him. ‘Plain fare for me,' he would raise his hand aloft, ‘and the plainer the better.'

The few luxuries he permitted himself were the nocturnal glass of punch and a glass of wine on Sundays with his dinner. He had partaken of wine earlier that day but only, he had reminded her, because it was Christmas. Sometimes she worried about his health. What concerned her most was the wheezing when he paused on the landing, having forgotten to take his time when ascending the stairs. She used every conceivable subterfuge lest he over-exert himself. Sometimes his irritability showed when he found the cob tackled and waiting preparatory to a sick call.

‘Who tackled the cob?' he would ask pretending to be angrier than he really was. There would be no answer while she prepared him for the journey. There were times, he would reluctantly admit to himself, during epidemics as the calls came pouring in when he was grateful. Normally the chores of catching and tackling the cob would fall to the sacristan but such a post had been vacant for years.

‘The parish just can't afford it,' he had explained only the year before to the bishop who had intimated in his usual roundabout way that the elderly parish priest ought to be taking things easier.

‘I'm only seventy-three,' Father Canty had retorted mischievously, ‘which makes me two years younger than my bishop.'

‘True,' came the unruffled response, ‘but I don't have to go on sick calls at all hours of the night and you do and that is why I am giving you a curate. You have been playing on my conscience a lot lately.'

‘We can't afford a curate,' Father Canty responded testily.

‘We'll manage,' the bishop had concluded blithely.

The curate, Father Scanlan, had proved himself to be a hardworking, likeable young man well able to generate income through football tournaments, card-drives, raffles and silver circles. The parishioners might protest about the cost but they quickly became involved in the new activities and were to wonder in the course of time how they had managed to retain their sanity for so long without such diversions. Unfortunately for him Agnes Mallowan saw the new addition as an interloper whose every act seemed calculated to usurp the authority of the ageing parish priest. She felt it her duty to protect her employer. The younger man sensed her hostility but was prepared for it and had been counselled by colleagues in the art of countering it.

‘Play second fiddle to the parish priest,' he was advised, ‘and she won't see you as a threat to him.'

In truth, the new curate presented a greater threat to the housekeeper. She knew this from the beginning. When Father Canty retired and retire he must, sooner rather than later, she would find herself unemployed. There would be no place for her in the Old Priests' Home where elderly parish priests spent their declining years. No lay people were employed on the staff which was made up exclusively of nuns. With care, however, and unremitting attention to Father Canty's welfare she would see to it that it would be many a year before he relinquished his pastorship. Please God they would sustain each other to the very end. It would not be her fault if his parochial duties were terminated prematurely.

Agnes heaved a great sigh of contentment as she poured the boiling water over the whiskey, lemon, sugar and cloves in the tall glass. The sugar began to melt instantly while the glistening lemon surfaced tantalisingly at the rim.

Agnes Mallowan inhaled the uprising steam and wondered, not for the first time, if she was placing her Confirmation pledge in jeopardy. Always she would reassure herself that there was no harm in steam and that the whiskey content therein was at such a minimum that it must surely be rendered ineffective before infiltrating the nostrils.

Just to be sure that her pledge remained intact she inhaled only once. She might have averted her head but then how would she identify the tiny foreign bodies such as flecks, specks and motes which needed to be extracted from his reverence's punch before she deemed it worthy for delivery not that he would notice for he always kept his eyes firmly closed as he swallowed.

He drank noisily.

‘There is no satisfaction,' he would explain, ‘unless I can hear myself drinking. It helps me relish the punch even more.'

From the moment he closed his eyes preparatory to the first swallow he would keep them closed, blindly extending the glass in her general direction, before drawing the coverlet under his chin. She always stood in close attendance while he drank and, upon receipt of the glass, would lower the wick in the shapely globe of the paraffin lamp before blowing out the flame. Then she would withdraw silently, closing the bedroom door behind her. Now, as she gently stirred the amber mixture with a slender spoon before embarking on the upstairs journey, the contentment departed her placid features and was replaced by a frown. It was a frown with which every parishioner in the remote, rambling parish was familiar. Agnes Mallowan was best avoided while the frown was in residence. Otherwise she was good-humoured and tractable. The frown deepened when the front door bell rang for the second time.

‘Let them wait!' she spoke out loud and ascended the tarpaulin covered stairs. Gently she knocked on the bedroom door.

‘Come!' the response was immediate.

She stood silently at the bedside while he closed the leather-bound copy of
Ivanhoe
without marking the page and placed it on the table near the bed. He liked to open the covers of his favourite novels at random and proceed from the beginning of the paragraph which presented itself.

‘It was a quiet Christmas thank God,' he said as he accepted the punch. He swallowed without closing his eyes and she knew that he had heard the front door bell. He would ask about it. If only she had brought him the punch ten minutes earlier he would be fast asleep and the caller or callers could be fobbed off till morning.

Certain parishioners, especially the more isolated, had a habit of making mountains out of molehills as far as sick calls were concerned.

‘Better go and see who's at the door Agnes,' he spoke resignedly, ‘we don't want to be the cause of sending some poor soul to hell for the want of a priest.'

‘Yes Father. At once Father,' she answered dutifully. She could truthfully say that never once had she questioned one of his commands in all of her twenty years as his housekeeper. He was a good man. Others had not been so good, other employers after her husband had expired prematurely and left her with four young children, all now safely emigrated to America and corresponding regularly. Her husband had not been a good man nor had her father. Her two brothers had been good men. She remembered them fondly. No need to pray for them. She knew for sure they went straight to heaven when they died. She prayed every night for her husband and her father. God knows they needed prayers if ever a pair needed them.

In the doorway she addressed herself to the two men who stood together sheepishly, one waiting for the other to open the negotiations.

‘Where did ye get the rain?' she asked coldly, ‘there's nothing but a bare mist outside.'

‘That's the thick mist up the mountain missus,' the taller of the pair informed her.

She looked from one to the other without inviting them in. They wore tattered overcoats but no head-gear. The rain had plastered their scant grey hair to their heads.

‘How did ye come?' Agnes Mallowan asked.

‘We walked missus,' from the smaller man.

Agnes recognised him from the way he shuffled his feet. He indulged in the same motions when he stood outside the church on Sundays. From the age of fourteen onwards neither had entered the parish church. They came to church all right but only to stand with their backs to the outside walls while the mass was in progress. She would attest under oath that they never paid Christmas dues nor oats' money nor any church offerings so that their priest could keep body and soul together and feed and pay his housekeeper and curate. Now, more than likely, they would have somebody sick, so sick, or so they believed, that a priest was required. Her worst fears were realised when the taller asked if the curate was available.

‘You know as well as I do that he's gone home for Christmas and won't be back until the day after tomorrow. In fact the whole parish knows it.'

‘Well then,' from the smaller brother, ‘himself will have to do. Our dada is dying and he needs a priest.'

‘And who decided your dada was dying?'

‘Doctor,' the taller responded smugly.

‘And when did he have the doctor?' Agnes, a veteran of rustic interrogation, wasn't going to allow the parish priest out on such a night till she had confirmed that death was imminent.

‘Two hours ago,' came the reply.

‘And why didn't the doctor get in touch with us?' she asked.

‘'Cos,' said the other brother, ‘him be gone to the other side of the mountain to deliver a baby and there's rumours of a man killed when his horse and cart capsized farther on. There's other calls too.'

‘Ye can bide yeer time out in one of the sheds for a while then,' the housekeeper informed them, ‘till 'tis a bit closer to morning. Father Canty needs a few hours' sleep.'

‘Our dada won't last that long,' the taller brother placed a leg in the hallway. ‘Him was gasping and us leaving,' the smaller added, pushing the taller man forward.

‘Mind ye don't wet my hallway that I polished specially for Christmas,' Agnes Mallowan countered as she pushed the persistent pair to the outside.

‘Call the priest before we call him!' The tone of the taller brother's voice was unmistakably threatening.

‘Who is it Agnes?' Father Canty called from the upstairs landing.

‘The Maldooney brothers looking for a priest Father.'

‘The Maldooneys of Farrangarry is it?' Father Canty asked.

‘None other.' Agnes threw a withering look at the unwelcome visitors.

‘Ask them in for God's sake. I'll go tackle the cob.'

‘Let one of these tackle him,' Agnes called back as she withdrew to allow them access to the kitchen where the parish priest joined them.

‘No,' he spoke half to himself as he took stock of the dripping brothers, ‘make them a pot of tea. I'll see to the cob. Light a lantern while you're at it Agnes.'

Obedient to a fault the cob, stout, firm and round, submitted itself to harness and backed itself docilely between the long slender shafts. Father Canty draped a partially filled oats' bag around the powerful crest and returned to the kitchen.

The brothers sat amazed as the housekeeper prepared the parish priest for his journey. They were even more amazed when, childlike, he submitted himself to her fussy ministrations which began with the removal of his slippers and their replacement with stout, strong boots and gaiters. She then removed the short coat which he had worn to the stable and placed a heavy woollen scarf around his neck and shoulders. This was followed by a heavy woollen cardigan and a heavier short coat and finally on top of all came a long leather coat which reached all the way down to his ankles. With mouths open the brothers watched in wonder as she placed a wide-rimmed black hat on his balding pate and, finally, handed him the small suitcase which contained the oils, missal and stole. All that remained to be done was the collecting of the sacred host from the tabernacle and here, they were surprised to note, the housekeeper had no role.

‘You'll find dry sacks in there,' Father Canty indicated an outhouse. ‘They'll cover your heads and shoulders.'

They were surprised when he opened the trap door for them. They would not have been dismayed if they had been called upon to walk behind. After three miles of moderately undulating ground they entered the side road which would take them to the Maldooney abode, three-quarters of the way up the mountain. It was a steep climb but not for a single moment did it tax the short-gaited cob. After the first mile when they left the presbytery there was no attempt at conversation. Despite repeated attempts to involve them Father Canty gave up. He found it difficult to stay awake without the stimulus of verbal conversation. He attempted a rosary but there were no responses forthcoming. Thereafter, he prayed silently to himself. He was not unduly worried. The cob had conveyed him safely in the past while he slept and could be depended upon to do so again. When eventually they reached the Maldooney abode some waiting neighbours came forward and took charge of the cob.

The old man lay propped on an ancient iron bed. His breathing was erratic but his eyes opened when he beheld the priest in the faint light of the three spluttering candles, precariously placed especially for the occasion on the mantelpiece, bedpost and windowsill.

‘You'll hear my last confession Father?'

Father Canty was surprised. The voice was weak and spluttering like the candles but there seemed to be no doubt that he was strong enough to make himself understood.