An Irish Christmas Feast (30 page)

It transpired that the box held several hundred pounds. The civic guards took the money with them for safe-keeping as they did the leaderless rogues who would have denied the boy scouts the summer holiday which the generous subscriptions of the parishioners had guaranteed them

‘Coodle is the truest boy scout of them all,' the middle-aged sergeant of the civic guards announced to his two companions as they opened a bottle in the barracks to celebrate the capture. Later the ringleader would be happy to give himself up as the cold of the night proved itself to be the master of his mettle.

In the presbytery the triumphant foursome were content to re-occupy their warm beds and sleep the sleep of the blessed. Word of their exploits spread and would-be raiders gave the church and presbytery a wide berth from that sacred morning forward.

Christmas Day was a happy day as was the night that followed. The parishioners one and all commented over their Christmas dinners on the text of Canon Coodle's sermon. In it he had praised exceedingly the closeness of the family and the power of the family when beset by the force of evil. He was referring, of course, to the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph but when he went on to suggest that all who shared the same roof were, in a sense, families too they knew that he was referring to the inmates of the presbytery and the role they had played in defending each other and their property when unity was needed.

In spite of this the younger curate was bestowed with a sobriquet which would stay with him even when he left the parish. He became known as the Fourth Wise Man. Nobody knew who was responsible for the nickname but almost everybody in the community was agreed that it was a wise move indeed to seek the sanctuary of the holy crib when confronted by hostile forces twice his size and armed to the teeth.

The achievements of the others guaranteed lasting veneration. The fourth wise man went on to become a parish priest in the course of time and Fr Sinnott the senior curate ended up a monsignor. The occasion would be remembered as the night of the Fourth Wise Man.

As Christmas drew to a close Canon Coodle sat in the presbytery sitting-room with his housekeeper. ‘If there is one sound,' he told her after he had sipped from his glass of port, ‘that I love above all others it is the distant pulse of the
bodhrán
, the drum of drums, the native drum of Ireland. If tomorrow is as fine as the forecasters have promised we will be able to hear it from great distances.'

In the canon's study a sensitive goat-skin drum, beloved of wrenboys and stepdancers, hung from the ceiling to remind him of the days when, as a youngster, and indeed as a young man, he roved the countryside with his companions of the Ballybo Wrenboys Band under their captain the Tipper Coodle. The Tipper, uncle to the young Corny Coodle, was so called because of his preference for the bare knuckle over the
cipín
or wooden drumstick with a knob at either end.

Every band of the time would have an equal number of drummers and tippers, the tippers favouring the knuckle, the drummers favouring the
cipín
. Often the tippers would play even when the blood began to show on the backs of their bare hands such was their zeal in the pursuance of perfection.

‘I tell you now with no word of a lie,' the canon confided to his housekeeper, ‘those tippers could make the
bodhráns
talk and my dear uncle, God be good to him, could play and dance at the same time especially when he had a few whiskeys inside of him.'

‘You're a fair dancer yourself canon,' Mrs Hanlon spoke out of a sense of appreciation rather than from a sense of duty as she recalled the canon's exploits at the front of the presbytery on previous St Stephen's days.

‘He would dance with every group,' she informed her sister Bridgie whenever she visited the family home in the hills at the southern end of the parish, ‘and out of his own pocket would come a ten-pound note for every band. I remember when it was a ten-shilling note but a ten -hilling note then was as good as a tenner now.'

The money, of course, would go towards the purchase of drink and edibles for the annual wren dances, several of which would be held all over the parish until the month of January expired. The previous canon would have nothing to do with wrenboys, labelling them drunkards and scoundrels and turning them away from the presbytery door. In the end they by-passed the presbytery altogether but all changed dramatically when canon Coodle was appointed as parish priest.

The canon's face darkened a little when he recalled the terpsichorean restrictions imposed upon him by his physician. Never downcast for long he raised his great head and smiled at the prospect of the two dances which had been permitted to him. He resolved to invest more concentration and commitment into these than ever before and, please God, he would have his fill of the dance before the day was out.

As they sat, the canon reminiscing, the housekeeper deftly used her knitting needles to complete the cardigan which she had undertaken to knit for her sister. The bright needles moved like lightning in her practised fingers, one of them the same needle which had perforated the vile rear of the robbers' ringleader. The wound inflicted needed medical attention and when Dr Coumer called to the barracks on the morning of St Stephen's Day to re-examine the sore he was able to tell Sergeant Ruttle that it would take several days to heal.

‘You'll have a drink before you leave,' Sergeant Ruttle insisted.

‘I have a call to make,' he said.

‘It can't be that serious.' The sergeant took a bottle of whiskey from his desk.

‘I assure you,' said Matt Coumer at his most emphatic, ‘that it is likely to be the most important call I shall make this day.' So saying he closed his black bag and made straight for the presbytery where he was immediately shown into the august presence of his parish priest.

‘You can leave your coat on canon,' he announced warmly, ‘for I have not come to examine you.'

‘And why have you come my dear Matt?' the canon asked solicitously.

‘I have come,' Matt informed him, ‘to restore your licence.'

‘And pray what licence would that be?' the canon asked, a look of anxiety appearing on his face.

‘Your dance licence of course my dear canon,' Matt informed him, ‘you may dance as much as you please and if my ears don't deceive me I believe I hear the sound of
bodhráns
so get your dancing shoes on. I'll stay to watch and enjoy a drop of your whiskey while I do.'

Canon Cornelius Coodle heaved a great sigh and ran gaunt fingers through his heavily silvered hair. At eighty-two he was still one of the more presentable priests in the diocese. Certainly he was the most distinguished-looking. When he spoke people listened. Nobody fell asleep during his sermons.

‘Oh he calls a spade a spade sure enough,' the older farmers in the parish's hinterland were fond of saying, ‘even if he does throw back a drop or two in excess now and then.'

‘All he takes is a drop of port for God's sake,' the farmers' wives would respond defensively.

Removing his hands from his head Canon Coodle examined his smooth palms as though he might find in them a solution to the problem which had so recently been relayed to him on the phone. The voice at the other end had been that of his bishop.

‘Bad news Corny,' the bishop had opened. He went on to inform his right arm, the name by which he always referred to the canon, of several distressing sightings of one Fr Tom Doddle, ecclesiastic-in-chief of Cooleentubber, a struggling parish in the easternmost part of the diocese. ‘He was seen only last evening,' the bishop informed the right arm, ‘vainly trying to negotiate a simple street corner. When a friendly civic guard came to his assistance he ranted and raved over the stupidity of an urban council which dared to place such abominable obstructions in the path of an innocent wayfarer.

‘I tell you Corny,' the bishop continued, ‘that if this insufferable staggering doesn't end at once we'll all be disgraced.'

‘What can I do Pádraig?' Canon Coodle asked gently. Only the canon, at the bishop's behest, was permitted to address the diocesan leader by his Christian name.

‘What I want you to do Corny is get him to go off the drink right away or, failing that, get him to reduce his intake – but most of all I want you to stop him staggering in public.'

There followed a silence. After a short interval the bishop resumed where he had left off. ‘A staggering clergyman,' he told his canon, ‘is a parody of the priesthood, a degradation of all we hold sacred, an abomination to the eye.'

While the bishop's litany continued Canon Coodle brought up to mind the only occasion he had ever staggered. He had been a green curate at the time. He had accompanied his parish priest Fr Willie Sidle to a Station mass. After the celebration of the mass both priests sat at a table, already partially manned by four local dignitaries, strong farmers all. After breakfast the talk turned to Gaelic football. The young curate was astonished at the inroads made into three bottles of Powers Gold Label as the morning matured into noon. For his part, after declaring his preference for port, he downed a mere half bottle. It was he who later guided the docile mare home while Fr Sidle issued a running commentary on the football prowess of the many farmers and labourers they encountered on their way back to the presbytery.

As they both untackled the mare from the parochial trap Fr Sidle paused in his labours in order to tender some advice to his curate. Earlier the parish priest had been surprised when the curate had indulged in a mild stagger as they departed the station house.

‘Observe!' he instructed his junior, ‘my carriage and my disposition. I do not stagger under drink for two reasons. First I know to the drop what I can consume and secondly I would rather be hung like a dog before I would give it to say to any man that I am a staggerer. My drinking habits, as long as I don't show drink, are between me and my liver. I like football. I've seen you play Coodle and you're a decent half-back. I've seen you ship many a hard tackle but you never went down because you wouldn't give it to say that you were hurt. Go now and drink your moderate quota of port on occasion but stagger no more like a decent fellow.'

‘Are you there Corny?' The bishop's exasperated tone brought Canon Coodle back to the time that was in it.

‘You're not to worry.' The canon spoke with what he hoped was canonical assurance.

‘That's good to hear Corny.' The bishop sounded mollified but he wasn't finished.

‘Dang it,' he went on, ‘I served under priests who could drink Lough Lein if they had the price of it but I never saw one of them stagger.'

The first thing Canon Coodle did after his bishop had hung up was to toast his late mentor Fr Willie Sidle. Fr Sidle had been his model during those formative early years.

‘Fr Willie,' his parishioners boasted, ‘always drinks his nuff at weddings, wakes, Stations and the like but he never drinks more than his nuff.'

Finishing his port the canon folded his once mighty hands over his ample paunch and pondered his problem. Desperate ills he told himself require desperate remedies and with this precept as his guide he began to formulate his plan.

***

Now Cornelius Coodle was not an envious man but if there was to be a momentary visitation from the deadliest of the seven deadly sins the man he would most envy would be Simon Tabley. Simon was a friend, however, a close and trusted one as were most of the teachers under the canon's management. Simon could carry his liquor. He drank during weekends only.

‘He drinks like a fish,' a local wag once told his cronies, ‘but the difference is that he don't make no splash.'

What the wag said was true. Simon, a childless widower in his late fifties, was principal of the Boys' National School. His only interest in life after his video camera was his devotion to whiskey consumption during weekends. His wife had been the victim of a youthful speedster's erratic driving. Simon had been lucky to survive and was in receipt of generous insurance. ‘I would forfeit every penny,' he once confided to the canon, ‘if I could hold her in my arms for a minute, a single minute my dear friend.'

The canon had nodded, his ancient face flushed by a port-induced rufescence. At the time Simon was quite taken by the angelic expression on the old man's face. A translation from the Gaelic came to him from memory:

As sacred candle

In a holy face

Such is the beauty

Of an ancient face.

When the pair met the following weekend Simon contained his curiosity as best he could. He had brought with him a bottle of vintage port and before he could sit down he found himself with a glass of whiskey in his hand. His entry to the canon's sitting-room coincided with that of the two curates.

‘I'm off canon,' the senior curate informed his superior, ‘you will be called, I hope, for ten o'clock mass in the morning.'

‘What a personable chap,' the schoolmaster commented after he had taken a tiny sip from his unwatered whiskey. The canon showed his gratification with a benevolent nod. He had, after all, taught his assistant most of what he knew.

‘And the other one?' Simon asked.

‘Excellent young man, a beer perhaps when he is off duty, nothing while he's on.'

The preliminaries over, Canon Coodle addressed his visitor. ‘There is,' he began, ‘in this very diocese a floundering philanderer of a clergyman who seems to be quite incapable of walking in an upright manner while under the influence of drink. In fact,' the canon continued sarcastically, much to his visitor's surprise, ‘he inflicted his undesirable presence on this very parish quite recently and literally passed himself out with a variety of hitherto-unaccomplished staggers. In short my dear friend he disgraced himself on the streets of this very parish, my parish. I understand his housekeeper drives him here on a regular basis and when she's finished her shopping mercifully drives him off again. Apparently he presents a soberer mien at his own front door as it were.'

‘How's he otherwise?' Simon asked.

‘Otherwise,' the canon grudgingly conceded, ‘he seems to be all right.'

Simon found himself somewhat perplexed. The canon seemed to be stepping out of character a little. It must be his aversion to staggering he told himself.

‘How can I help?' he asked.

‘You can help by making a short video of one of his performances when he next intrudes in my bailiwick.'

‘I don't know that I can do that canon,' Simon informed his friend.

‘Oh you can do it,' the canon assured him, ‘you have no choice. You don't want to see the children of the parish scandalised. A clergyman staggering through the streets of this town is the last thing any of us wishes to see. Suppose it was a teacher?' the canon suggested.

Simon decided not to rise to this bait. He personally knew several teachers who staggered occasionally when under the influence and even if they weren't always discreet about it Simon failed to see the harm in it unless it happened in the school or on the school grounds.

‘Who would see this video?' he asked.

‘Well,' the canon paused for a moment, ‘there wouldn't be any point in the exercise if the star of the show didn't see it. I would see it and you would see it but nobody else. The idea is to show the poor wretch the error of his ways and then we'll destroy the evidence.'

‘I'll do it because I know you mean well,' Simon agreed, ‘although I have certain misgivings.'

‘I'll never be able to repay you.' The canon gratefully replenished his friend's glass and returned to his armchair.

‘Will it be difficult?' he asked.

‘Shouldn't be,' Simon assured him. ‘I know our quarry fairly well and I know his runs. Generally he arrives in town about three o'clock on Monday afternoons. I've spotted him on my way to the post office after school, calls to the hotel, to Brady's, O'Grady's, Mulligan's, Brannigan's and Crutley's, commences to stagger after leaving Brannigan's, shortish staggers really more like mis-steps until he emerges from Crutley's, his final port of call. Then the comprehensive staggers commence, be a piece of cake, nobody minds me on the streets, especially with my video. They're well used to me. I'll do the job and with average luck I'll have the finished product here on Monday night, a week before Christmas.'

‘And I'll have my man here the following morning,' the canon promised.

The friends had another drink before parting, Canon Coodle to his bed and Simon to Brady's Bar or more precisely to the back lounge or inner sanctum of the widely revered premises. There he would sip until Mrs Brady gently reminded her special customers that it was time to go home.

True to form Fr Tom Doddle, parish priest of Cooleentubber, erupted from the ornate doorway of Crutley's Bar on to the main street where he collided with several passers-by. He escaped any form of derailment or injury himself. His victims were not so lucky. One young man who had been somewhat unsighted in the first place was knocked to the ground. He arose, none the worse for his encounter, dazed and badly shaken, after a short while. On his feet he assumed a fighting stance and challenged the onlookers to a fair fight. When no one took up his offer he wished all and sundry a Merry Christmas and sat on an adjacent windowsill in order to confirm his bearings.

As Fr Tom Doddle staggered onwards in ever-increasing lurches he was videoed front face, side face and rear by Simon until the schoolmaster was satisfied that he had captured a true portrait of the wayward cleric.

Time passed and at the appointed hour the film was set in motion by Simon. With mounting annoyance the canon followed the erratic progress of Fr Doddle. He cast a side glance now and then at his friend but that worthy merely sat with folded arms, expressionless and impassive.

‘What's this?' Canon Coodle asked in alarm as his eyes returned to the small screen.

The question was followed by gasping sounds of disbelief and by various exclamations of astonishment. ‘Oh no!' Canon Coodle covered his face with his hands. ‘Can that awful parody really be me?' he asked, his voice broken, his face anguished.

‘Have I seen myself as I really am Simon or is this video a distortion of my true self?'

‘The video doesn't lie canon, not this time anyway. You've just seen yourself at a bad time and that can be unnerving.'

‘Did you do this deliberately Simon because if you did I'm most grateful for giving me a look at the horrible old windbag I really am.'

‘Not deliberately canon. You just happened to be in the vicinity.'

‘But I look awful,' the canon cried out. ‘I look drunk, trampish, farcical, infinitely worse than that poor priest.'

‘No canon. You just look a bit weary that's all. You're no chicken you know.'

The canon raised his eyes aloft. He remembered the occasion clearly now. He had been on his way home from his pre-Christmas visit to the convent where his good friend the reverend mother had plied him with vintage port. He remembered saying to himself on his way home that he was a little unsteady on his feet but then he admitted, ‘I often am and I need not have a single port taken. I remember I had my hat in one hand and my walking stick in the other just like we saw there,' the canon laughed, happily now, ‘and my scarce, grey locks blowing in the wind like Lear but he had only a crown whereas I have a Roman collar. I've seen the light Simon. I was fast becoming a whining old hypocrite. I missed the mote in my own eye but I'll never make the same mistake again. I'm so grateful to you my boy. I wish you a happy, holy and wonderful Christmas and now will you please do something about our empty glasses so that I can celebrate my escape from hypocrisy.'