An Irish Christmas Feast (42 page)

In Crutleys there was unconfined delight. The participants in the charade turned out to be members of the Trallock Amateur Drama Group with the following cast in order of appearance:

Elizabethan Satchel-carrier Matt Coumer

Been-been Coolnaleen Roseanna Ruane

Princess Awlingal Bridget Ruane

Counsel Bill Ruttle

Producer Maggie Coumer

Lighting Canon Coodle

Stage Manager Dotie Tupper

Music Tom Mackson

Costumes Mickey Mokely

Dotie Tupper

Front of House Fred Crutley

Concept Mental Nossery

In the years ahead the brothers gave Hiccups and Delia a wide berth and covered their faces with their hands whenever they met lest they make contact with the eyes of either and be consigned forever to supernatural botheration.

When the two adopted sons of Hiccups and Delia reached boyhood a reconciliation was effected and the McCraw brothers devoted their lives to their nephews' upbringing.

If you were suddenly to leap from behind a furze bush, seize my throat in both hands and threaten me with strangulation if I didn't tell you the truth, I could hardly tell a lie could I!

If you were to ask me as your grip tightened which was the most memorable Christmas in the history of our parish I would say without hesitation that it was the Christmas of the sacred calf. You will no doubt have heard and read of sacred cows but I'll lay a fat goose to a starving sparrow that it's the first time you've come across a sacred calf; golden calves yes, castrated calves yes, fatted calves yes, but sacred calves no!

The calf in question was born on St Patrick's Day, a spindly, knock-kneed chap the image of his grandfather and this is where the catch comes in. The father, if you get my drift, was suspect or if you like he was rejected for procreational purposes by an inspector from the Department of Agriculture on the grounds that his shoulders were exaggerated and he was also, alas, possessed of a somewhat contracted rump, features indeed which were often highly prized in his human counterparts by certain females, at least in this parish or so it is claimed by those who should know. Although the sacred calf himself suffered from no such so-called defects he might nevertheless be branded as undesirable for breeding purposes.

The sacred calf's owner, one Jackeen Coyne, was undecided about the creature's future. ‘I could,' he told his wife, ‘deprive him of his population stick and turn him into a prime bullock in the course of time or I could hold on to him and let him take his chances with the inspectors from the department.'

‘You could sell him in a few weeks for veal or you could hold on to him until Christmas when he'd be just right for baby beef. Baby beef is all the go now,' his wife reminded him, ‘but by that time he might be shaping towards a passable bull so you wouldn't have anything to lose.'

Jackeen, like most of the farmers in the district, always paid heed to what his wife suggested. Wives had no vested interests like butchers or calf-jobbers. They listened to the agricultural programmes on the radio and had a fair idea of what was going on. So it was that Jackeen opted for baby beef.

It had all begun the previous summer when a scrub bull or a Walkeen Aisy as he would be known locally entered the scene or rather broke into the well-fenced acres of Jackeen. The owner of the marauding scrub was a happy-go-lucky sort, one Mickey Martin, who rarely mended his fences and might never have done so had not Jackeen threatened him with the law on numerous occasions. It was left to Jackeen to secure his heifers by constant fence-mending and extreme vigilance by himself and his wife all day and all night from early springtime onwards. Jackeen's pure-bred Friesian heifers, eight in number, were separated from the remainder of the mixed herd for breeding purposes and were truly the apples of their proprietor's eye. He walked among them morning and evening after the herd had been milked. He noted their sprightliness and playfulness and allowed that they were a prime lot well worth the time invested in them.

When the scrub bull could no longer contain himself he became increasingly agitated. Normally this agitation might not appear until the late autumn when he would have expended all his energies. This particular form of agitation, however, was different. It was, if you'll forgive the pun, born out of mounting frustration. He was a young bull and had already accounted for all of his master's cows and heifers.

Jackeen redoubled his labours at the fences and would look apprehensively through the well-stitched thorn hedge at the restless fornicator who rarely took his eyes off the forbidden fruit in the next field. Jackeen decided to change his charges to more distant pastures at the earliest opportunity. On the other hand Mickey Martin cared not a whit for the state of his fences or the sexual ardour of his scrub. When Jackeen spotted him one evening on his way to town he shouted after him that he should move the scrub to another field.

‘You get your Friesians to stop teasing him,' Mickey called back before disappearing through a gap in another pasture. Meanwhile Jackeen fretted and fumed as he awaited the arrival of the department inseminator, an industrious young man already working round the clock in order to fulfil his many commissions. Jackeen's nights were sleepless. He would rise several times from his bed as would his wife. From their upstairs window their eyes swept the moon-lit fields but the bull was nowhere to be seen. Occasionally they would hear him bellow and there came a time when Jackeen would hear bellowing in his imagination until black rings began to appear under his eyes.

So jaded had he and his wife become from their sapping vigils that they went straight to bed after the evening milking and rarely visited the cavorting Friesians who taunted their mesmerised admirer with swishing tails and fancy steps. Then of a sudden when he could endure the anguish no longer the scrub found a gap in the hedge. It was only a small gap but by the time he had forced his way through it was considerably larger, certainly large enough for the pure-bred Friesians, no longer mindful of their vaunted pedigrees, to pay return visits to the paddock of their less exalted pursuer. In record time Mickey's tireless impregnator accommodated each and every one of the eight heifers. Amazingly he showed no loss of taspy after his endeavours but he did, according to a boastful Mickey, have a long and sound sleep for himself, in case he might be called into action again.

In the spring of the following year the cows calved. One of the five bull calves presented to the world by the pedigreed Friesians stood out above the others. Although spindly and knock-kneed at birth as we have said he assumed his true pose and carriage after a few days.

Eventually Christmas began to advertise its proximity. The streets of the nearby town took on a carnival atmosphere and indulgent parents made haste to book their personal Santa Clauses in advance of the great feast day. There was an air of excitement abroad and a heart-warming type of burgeoning goodwill which only Christmas can generate. Then came the great Christmas cattle fair, an annual event which drew cattle of all ages and breeds from far and wide. The great square in the nearby town was the traditional venue and although the square boasted two churches, one Catholic and the other Protestant, it was conceded by reverent and irreverent alike that no other place had the capacity to accommodate the large numbers of livestock and their owners.

Jackeen and his wife Maryanne were plain to be seen. Maryanne's presence was imperative if the eight weanlings they offered for sale were to be prevented from straying. Jackeen and Maryanne carried light hazel sticks more for intimidation than physical punishment. Brandishing was sufficient, for the most part, although from time to time the more adventurous had to be rounded up and returned to the preserved area outside the main entrance to the Catholic church. It was here that all the generations of Coynes as far back as anybody could remember were known to have traditional standing rights for their stock. With Christmas only a week away, and money scarce or so the farmers maintained, the Coynes were anxious to dispose of their weanlings before the fair ended and darkness fell. Their Christmas shopping would follow.

They had arrived at their small domain outside the church at seven o'clock and, as the early-morning hours lightened, the jobbers were afforded better conditions to inspect what was on offer. There had been several tentative approaches from first light. None was satisfactory although there was a farmland saying about an owner being better advised to accept the morning price. Jackeen, however, suspected that the adage was originally invented by the jobbers. It would be true to say that farmers always suspected jobbers in the first place and would bide their time until the market settled and the vendors had consulted each other about prices.

Maryanne was already well versed in such matters having been tuned in to the agricultural programmes on radio and television for weeks before. It was she who put an asking price on the eight weanlings consisting of five bull calves and three heifers. As expected the buyers wanted only the special bull calf who was a far more attractive specimen of his species than his brothers or sisters.

‘Pity they hadn't the pure drop in them,' Jackeen declared angrily to his wife on more than one occasion when he went to count them. ‘I promise you I wouldn't be selling but with their father a scrub what can I do?'

‘We'll do fine,' Maryanne assured him. ‘They're good-looking weanlings all. They'll make my price. You'll see now.'

Sure enough as the morning hastened towards noon the offers began to improve until Maryanne's reserve was nearly reached. The square, by this time, was chock-a-block with cattle young and old. Calves bawled for their milk and as the shouting of jobbers and cattle-tenders intermingled with the bawling and bellowing of hungry cattle there was a situation akin to pandemonium in the great square. Then and only then did Maryanne notice the absence of Blueboy, the pet name with which they had christened the cherished bull calf. They searched high and low but there was no trace of their pride and joy. Jackeen later admitted that he had been reluctant to offer him for sale in the first place. Opinions among local experts had been divided as to whether he would pass the bull test when his time came. Some voted nay and some voted yea. Between the jigs and the reels Jackeen decided to sell. He would reseed the Friesian heifers the following spring and he would make sure that the inseminator got to them before Mickey's scrub.

In desperation Jackeen engaged some local youngsters to search for the calf. All they brought back were conflicting reports. One had seen the weanling crossing the river and another had spotted him disappearing into a lane-way. When the lane-way was searched there was no trace of the missing calf.

It was then that Maryanne decided to invoke the aid of St Francis of Assisi. Rosary beads in hand she entered the adjacent church where she quickly located a plaster statue of the Franciscan founder and, head bent in supplication, she prayed for the recovery of the missing weanling. Normally she would spend an hour and sometimes longer on her knees but her husband would be waiting. As she was about to leave the church she was surprised to see a large crowd gathered in the vicinity of the crib. Some were tittering and smiling. Others wore serious expressions. Despite her hurry she allowed her natural curiosity to get the better of her. She forced her way through the gathering and wondered what the attraction might be. Another moving statue perhaps or maybe one of the plaster occupants of the crib was bleeding! She knelt at the crib railing and closed her eyes the better to concentrate on her prayers and also to convey the impression to the watchers all around that she had no interest in anything bar her own supplications.

After the third Hail Mary she opened her eyes and could scarcely believe what she saw before her. There lay Blueboy with a contented look on his face, his mouth stuffed with high-grade straw. He had taken up his position between the life-sized cow and donkey where he knew he would be safe.

Earlier his nostrils had been assailed by the odour of freshly disturbed straw. Compared to the graveolence all around him this was truly a heaven-sent fragrance which had to be investigated. He made his way into the church, empty save for the presence of a few elderly people who would hardly have noticed had a lion appeared in front of the main altar. Blueboy was reassured by the presence of the other animals and had no trouble in making his way into the crib where he attempted to satisfy his hunger. The first person to notice something out of the ordinary was an old man, a regular visitor to the crib from the moment the parish clerk had erected and populated it.

‘I declare to God,' he said with a smile on his wrinkled face, ‘if it isn't a sacred calf.' His words carried to the ears of two old ladies nearby who had waited all their lives for some manifestation of recognition from the spiritual world.

‘A sacred calf.' They echoed the words with awe and reverence and when Maryanne blinked her eyes in disbelief as the old ladies whispered into her ear from either side of her she nodded good-humouredly. She hurried into the square to tell her husband the good news. He threw his arms around her in delight and lifted her high in the air. Did I say earlier on that they were a young couple and very much in love! Maybe not. I should have and I'm sorry I didn't but it's out now and we'll all be the better for it.

Jackeen recovered his calf and brought him back into the fold.

‘I say to you,' he said to his wife with a twinkle in his eye, ‘that a calf which is lost and then found must be kept.'

So it was that Jackeen disposed of the remaining calves at a fair price and so too did he hand over the money to his wife for she would surely make better use of it than he. That night as they lay in bed they spoke of the day's events and recalled the recovery of the sacred calf with much laughter.

‘We will never part with him,' Jackeen promised Maryanne, ‘for as sure as that's a wind in the curtains it was a message from above we received this day.'

‘St Francis had a hand in it,' Maryanne reminded him. ‘We'll say a prayer to him now in thanksgiving.'

‘He'll make a powerful bull,' Jackeen whispered when the prayer was finished.

Jackeen's prophesy came true. Two years later the sacred calf was presented for inspection at Abbeyfeale cattle fair. The inspector from the Department of Agriculture declared that in all his days he had never come across a more promising bull.

‘His grandfather was a latchiko,' the inspector recalled, meaning that the parent in question was sometimes remiss in his obligations towards consenting heifers and often turned his back on what more industrious bulls might regard as golden opportunities.

‘His father now was a different kettle of fish,' the inspector went on, ‘and could not be kept away from members of the bovine species regardless of age. Luckily for the future of the cow population of this country the bull I have just passed is the image of his father in this respect.'