An Irish Christmas Feast (6 page)

The ideal situation, as far as Ned and Fred were concerned, would be long periods of darkness interspersed with short periods of moonlight. The pair sat on dry stones not daring to utter a word. Sometimes they would nudge each other in appreciation of the night's own distinctive sounds such as the distinct rooting of a badger or the far-off yelping of a vixen summoning a dog fox to earth. From the opposite bank came the unmistakable call of a wandering pheasant, husky yet vibrant. They listened without comment to the furtive comings and goings of the smaller inhabitants of the undergrowth and to all the other lispings, chirpings and stirrings common to the night. They listened, most of all, to the gentle background music of the running water, savouring its eddies, its softer shallows-music and leisurely, lapping wavelets. These last were almost inaudible but as distinctive, nevertheless, to the silent pair seated on dry stones as the frailer strains of a complex symphony to the alert conductor.

Gentle breezes fanned the coarse river grasses and rustled in the underbrush whilst overhead, when the clouds gave the nod, the stars twinkled and the bright moon shone. Never had Ned entertained such a sense of sublime security. His cares had melted away under the benign influence of the accumulated night sounds. The same could be said for his friend Fred over whose face was drawn a veil of gratification, rarely enjoyed by the human species. Truly they had become part of the night. Truly were they at one with the riverside scene. There were times when they leaned forward eagerly in anticipation and times when they partially rose to their feet but it was no more than the river changing its tune as it did when the levels began to lower themselves and the lessening variations presented a different concert.

From the belfry of the parish church the midnight chimes rang pleasantly and clearly. Ned and his friend made the sign of the cross. As the final chime sounded they were both on their feet, ears strained, their faces taut.

‘Did you hear a splash?' the whispered question came from Ned.

‘I heard something,' his fellow poacher responded.

‘Then,' said Ned Muddle, a note of confidence in his tone, ‘we had better take a look!'

They waded through the shallow water and there, gleaming far brighter than any of the stars over their heads, imprisoned in the cage, was a freshly arrived salmon. It turned out to be a splendid cock fish unblemished as far as they could see and shining with a radiance that belongs only to creatures of the sea. Such lustre would inevitably be dulled by a long sojourn in the upper reaches of the river but now the sea silver flashed and glittered. For a moment the creature explored its new surrounds and finding no escape began to thresh and flail for all it was worth. All, alas, was to no avail. Once a salmon enters a properly designed cage its fate is sealed.

‘He's ten pounds!' Ned Muddle exclaimed with delight.

‘He's twelve if he's an ounce,' his companion insisted.

Without further argument they lifted the cage and between them brought it ashore. It was Ned who extracted the struggling fish by its gills and it was Ned who located a large stone with which he smote upon the creature's poll after he had laid it on the gravelled shore and restricted its movements by holding its tail in a vice-like grip. Hands on hips, a stance copied by his companion, he stood for a while admiring the symmetry of his capture. Apart from an occasional, barely perceptible spasm, there was no movement from the fish.

‘Hurry,' Ned Muddle urged his partner, ‘hurry because where there's one there's more.'

‘We should go while the going is good,' Fred contradicted.

‘No!' Ned was adamant. Then with a chuckle he added, ‘we'll hide this fellow in the bushes and go looking for his missus.'

He had but barely spoken when a whistle blew close at hand. The sound was loud and shrill and shattered not only the silence of the night but the shocked poachers as well. They stood paralysed, rooted to the ground, unable to move. The next sound to intrude upon the quiet of the night was a shot. It exploded deafeningly from a bush nearby. It was followed by a second shot. It electrified the lifeless cage-maker and his acolyte. The latter was the first to take off. Like any hunted creature he ran up the riverside. Ned Muddle who was the very personification of cowardice ran down towards the town.

‘Halt in the name of the law!' The stentorian tones came from the same bush as the shots. The command only served to spur the fleeing pair to greater efforts. They ran for their lives. Finding himself unwounded after a hundred paces Ned now directed himself to where the sound of human voices in melodic union emanated sweetly from the parish church. His eyes bulging with terror he puffed his way to the only sanctuary available to him. He knew not the moment when his life might be ended with a bullet in the back. It did not occur to him at the time that the water-keepers of the Bradawn River were not licensed to bear arms nor would the local civic guards resort to such murderous tactics. It would dawn on him at a later stage that the underworld of Ballybradawn, as he was to dub the local poachers, was responsible.

As he drew nearer the church the sound of five hundred voices raised in the
Adeste
urged him to greater effort. Breathlessly he entered the blessed refuge of light and sound. In the pulpit the parish priest, venerable and portly, conducted the singing with fervour and total commitment. He suddenly lowered his hands when he beheld the stricken, dishevelled figure of Ned Muddle, poacher, wife-beater, lout and drunkard. He knew Ned well, had known him for years as a godless wretch and sacrilegious scoundrel. The parish priest's mouth opened but no sound came forth. His vast choir, without direction, was silenced as every member of the surprised congregation followed his amazed stare. They beheld Ned, his perspiring face as contrite as ever had been the face of any sinner, great or small. There were members of the gathering who could not make up their minds whether to laugh or cry. They looked to their parish priest for delivery from their indecision.

‘Mirabile dictu!'
the parish priest intoned the words while his eyes filled with tears. Great was the rejoicing as the congregation echoed the Latin phrase. Most were not sure of its meaning but Latin it was and as such was sacred.

After the mass, Ned Muddle went forth into the world in peace. Need it be added that he mended his ways and came to possess the grace of God, that he became a model parent and husband and that his neighbours flocked to him when they found themselves in need of counsel or solace. He ended his days a parochial sacristan which, after the position of junior curate, is the highest ecclesiastical office in the village of Ballybradawn.

Martin Scubble and his wife Mary lived on the verge of the boglands. Their cottage was the last thatched habitation of its kind in that part of the world known as Tubberscubble. For generations the Scubbles had farmed the twenty acres of deep cutaway which was the total extent of their soggy holding.

Martin was the last of the Scubbles. He would say that he never missed not having children and Mary would say that she had a child.

‘What is Martin,' she would ask, ‘but an overgrown child that wouldn't be here nor there without me?'

Childless they might be but theirs was a house that was never without children because of the constant activity in the boglands throughout most of the year. There was never a day in the summer when tea-making time came around that some boy or girl from the town or surrounding countryside did not call for hot water which was always freely available from Mary Scubble. Happy groups of turf-footers, turf-turners and stoolin-makers of all ages would seat themselves on turf sods or heather clumps under the open sky and relish every mouthful of the simple fare.

‘Whatever it is about the bogland air,' the elders would say, ‘it has no equal for improving the appetite.'

‘I could eat frost-nails after it,' another might be heard to say.

Then in the late winter and early spring the proprietors of the bogland's many turf reeks would arrive with their horses and rails or donkeys and rails to replenish depleted stocks in the sheds and gable-reeks adjoining their homes. Always when a thunderstorm suddenly intruded or when the rain proved too drenching there was shelter and scalding tea to be had under the thatched roof of the Scubble farmhouse.

Martin and Mary Scubble were generous to a fault. All comers were welcome to their humble abode. There was, thanks be to the good God revered by both, never a cross word between them, never that is except Christmas alone when the solace beneath the thatched roof was fractured and when their conformable personalities changed utterly. Mercifully the transformation was of brief duration but it had succeeded in attracting the interest of young folk far and wide. They would arrive, unfailingly, to the boglands shortly before darkness on the Sunday before Christmas and conceal themselves in the decrepit out-houses which surrounded the farmhouse.

The annual event was known to the young generation as the Scubblething. According to their elders it had taken place for over two score years and had begun shortly after Mary Scubble had established herself as the new mistress of the Scubble holding. Some insisted that it had survived because the Scubbles had nothing else to do but the older and more perceptive of the neighbours would argue otherwise. As the neighbours grew older they paid scant attention to the goings-on at Scubbles. For them the novelty had worn off and they had come to take the whole business for granted. Not so the young folk who would nod and wink at each other eagerly as the Sunday in question approached.

‘See you at the Scubblething,' they would whisper with a laugh. Many had built meaningful relationships on a first meeting at the event and there were a considerable number who had eventually married as a result. Such was its drawing power that upwards of two score of youngsters would present themselves at the Scubble environs, unknown to the principals, shortly before the winter sun reclined in, and sank into, the western horizon.

In the early years no more than a handful would hide themselves from the ageing pair, taking great care to maintain the strictest of silences before the curtain went up on the annual drama. Then as the years went by and the Scubbles grew older and feebler there was hardly any need to sustain the earlier lulls which had been so essential if they were to avoid detection by Martin and Mary.

Now in later years, the older teenagers would arrive with packs of beer and containers of Vodka. Smoking too was rife and although there was a general tipsiness to the occasion there was enough control over the proceedings to ensure that detection was avoided. Indoors Martin and Mary would settle down for the night after they had partaken of supper. Then would they seat themselves at either side of the open hearth while the rising flames from the roaring turf fire filled the kitchen with flickering tongues of light and mysterious ever-changing shadows. It could fairly be called a cosy time. Outside the young folk would silently leave their hiding places and advance to the front door and windows where they would crouch together in comforting closeness, swigging happily but noiselessly from their many bottles. Inside the ritual continued with Martin bringing his palms together and sitting erect on his
súgán
chair the better to fire the opening salvos.

‘Do you remember last year,' said he, ‘when we had that woeful argument?'

Patiently he awaited his wife's reply and when there was none he spat noisily into the fire before framing his second question.

‘Do you remember,' he asked in a louder and more aggressive tone, ‘the battle we had this very Sunday in this very spot at this very time?'

Still no answer from Mary. He regarded her silence as the most provocative ever imposed by a female on a long-suffering spouse and he stamped his feet noisily, one after the other, the better to register his protest.

‘Dammit!' he exclaimed bitterly, ‘are you deaf or what! Will you have me talking to myself for the rest of the night?'

He looked at her, his face screwed up now with hatred. It seemed for a moment that he must seize her by the throat and put an end to her gross incitement. He rose from his chair, speechless with rage.

‘I'll ask you this once,' he screeched, ‘and I'll ask you no more. Do you or do you not remember our fracas last year when we argued whether it was a duck or a drake that scuttered on top of the bed when we left open the window?'

‘I remember nothing of the kind,' she spat back with all the vehemence she could muster. ‘I'll tell you what I remember though and it is this. It was no duck and it was no drake. What we were arguing about was whether it was a cock or a hen and ducks and drakes have nothing to do with it.'

‘Damn you for a pernickety oul' woman,' Martin cried out. ‘It was ducks and drakes.' He pounded the rickety kitchen table with both fists. ‘I will go into any court in the land where I will swear on the Holy Book that it was ducks and drakes.'

‘It costs nothing to swear,' Mary replied calmly, ‘if you're a born perjurer to begin with and I'll tell you this you black-toothed oul' devil! You can swear till the book lights in your grimy paw but it won't change the fact that we were arguing about a cock and a hen.'

‘Blasht you for a liar,' he shouted. ‘If tables and chairs could talk and windows could give evidence you'd be transported for perjury and you'd never see hide nor light of this country again.'

Outside in the cold night air the young people hugged themselves and each other with glee. The exchanges had not lost any of their bitterness or rancour since the year before and it seemed that in spite of their great ages the Scubbles were more venomous than ever.

Inside, a short silence held sway while they recharged themselves for a renewal of the conflict. They would not mention that they had the very same argument as far back as they could remember. What mattered now was to reach the climax without obstruction and to maximise their hostility towards each other. On the resumption their voices reached fever pitch. Outside the young people began to worry lest the extreme vocal exertions affect the larynxes of the contestants and bring a premature end to the performances. It happened on one occasion several years previously. The recriminations had been at their height when Mary's voice suddenly turned hoarse leaving the field of battle solely to her husband and frustrating both the Scubbles and their listeners to such a degree that all would claim later it had been the most disappointing build-up to Christmas that any of those involved could remember.

It was as though the Scubbles had suddenly realised that such a calamity was once again in the offing for, by tacit agreement, both unexpectedly paused in their detractions and defamations and drew rein as it were so that their over-worked vocal chords might recuperate. The listeners sensed that the best was about to come and they readied themselves for the final act by finishing off their near-empty bottles and lighting fresh cigarettes.

Indoors there followed barrage after barrage of the most intense, most damaging free-for-alls.

‘The devil's a darling,' Mary was to say to the delight of her numerous fans on the outside. ‘Oh the devil's a sweet commodity entirely when compared to some that I know, some that isn't a spit away from where I sit.'

Altogether incensed by this monstrous comparison Martin held forth with unprecedented spite.

‘Repeat that before my face,' he bawled with all his might, ‘repeat it that's a bitch and a backbiter's and a beggarman's baggage. Repeat it you barefaced bouncer that never wore a slip or a knickers till she was twenty-five years of age. Repeat it you virago and I promise you that I'll be vexed no more for I'll baptise you proper with a two pound pot of raspberry jam and the full chamber pot that you forgot to empty for weeks, all down on the crown of your lousy head!'

Mary Scubble rose to her feet and folded her arms in a frightening pose. She threw back her grey head so that more authority might be added to her next bombardment.

‘I'll do as I please,' she replied at the top of her voice, a voice that showed no sign whatsoever of weakening, ‘and while I have two feet I won't be daunted by blackguards with jam pots for my seed and breed didn't take it from the Black and Tans not to mind taking it from you and we didn't take it from the Peelers you dirty dago that would begrudge his own mother the colouring of her tea. If you don't stop your ranting straightaway, you balding battle-axe, I'll snip off your withering tassel with a stainless steel scissors.'

‘Will you listen to her,' Martin extended a hand as if he was calling upon the fire in the hearth to bear witness. ‘Oh what a mangy maggoty mongrel she is,' his tone soared in derision. ‘Oh there is no gander as vulgar, there's no magpie as raucous and there's no badger as grey or mottled and to think she calls herself Christian!'

‘Listen to what's talking,' Mary responded quickly before he had time to strengthen his advantage, ‘with his rotten poll and his withered head that didn't host a black hair in forty full years and wrinkles all over him like they'd be ploughed by horses. Consecration is the only thing now that'll save you, consecration by the bishop and by the four canons of the diocese and then to steep the wretch in a barrel of holy water for nine days and nine nights till the evil inside and outside is washed away and then to have the water turned into steam and fanned away to the ends of the world for fear he'd contaminate the whole of humanity.'

Suddenly Martin cut across his wife and it seemed that he must surely strike her but no! He resorted once more to the spoken word.

‘'Tis not in my breeding,' said he coldly and murderously, ‘to spill female blood but yours will flow like water if you don't put a reins on that runaway tongue of yours, that black tongue that should be hauled out by the roots and ground into mince!'

Mary circled her husband like a cat contemplating a mouse.

‘He's gone mental this time for sure,' she informed the tongs which she had taken into her hands. She swung the cumbersome instrument dervish-like around her head before smashing it into the fire. The bright structure collapsed about the hearth sending showers of sparks upwards and outwards. Martin withdrew towards the doorway in alarm, his hands covering his head.

‘In the asylum you should be,' he thundered, finding himself safely out of reach of the deadly weapon which his unpredictable spouse now twirled around her midriff, ‘but what asylum would take you with your name for mischief and agitation! 'Tis no one but myself would endure you and when I face St Peter he'll surely say to me: “Come in, come in Martin Scubble, my poor unfortunate man for 'tis you surely has your hell suffered down below!”'

‘Houl', houl', you bothersome oul' fool,' his wife called back, ‘houl', don't I catch your rotten tongue with the tongs and pull it from your festering oul' puss!'

‘Shut up you harridan,' Martin shouted back but it was clear he was tiring as indeed was Mary for she had dropped the tongs and was now circling the kitchen with her head in her hands. Her next act was to place her withered hands on the table and to raise her head ceiling-wards before indulging herself in a fit of high-pitched, protracted pillalooing.

Martin sat himself wearily in a chair, his legs out-stretched, his hands hanging limply by his sides, his mouth open. He looked the very epitome of exhaustion and dejection.

Outside, in the crisp night air, the listeners covered their laughing mouths with their hands lest their mirth filter through to the aching, exhausted couple in the kitchen.

In the surrounding countryside greyhounds and collies, terriers and beagles, filled the night with dutiful responses to Mary's lamentations. No dog barked. Rather did they cry soulfully to the moon and stars with compassion and commiseration as though they understood the plight of the demented creature from whom the sounds originated. The wailing lasted for several minutes and gradually subsided until there was silence abroad and silence indoors.

The young listeners gathered around the front door of the Scubble abode. One of the older girls knocked gently thereon but failing to elicit a response, gently lifted the latch and entered into the half-light followed by her companions. They were not surprised to see Martin Scubble seated on a chair near the fire and they were less surprised to see Mary seated on his lap. Benign smiles wreathed both their ancient faces while Martin gently stroked the grey hair of his contented spouse.

‘Happy Christmas,' the young folk called out in unison.