An Irish Christmas Feast (7 page)

Mary and Martin sat as though in a reverie. The young folk rearranged the fire and trooped out noiselessly. On the way home they would agree that it had been the best Scubblething ever, that there were times when it had been almost unbearably uproarious. There were some who sensed that it could be retained as an episode in their lives which would be beneficial in the long run, as a tale to be told or an experience to be savoured over and over. Others, the more sensitive, could see themselves cast in the roles of Martin and Mary in given circumstances.

All would faithfully relay the ups-and-downs of the purification ceremony which had come to be known as the Scubblething and all, no matter how insensitive or how heedless the majority might be, would conclude that maybe their own abodes could do with scubblethings in the runup to Christmas – their own safe, solid, seemingly happy and yet somehow lack-lustre habitations by comparison. Some would not wish such a thing for the world or so they would say. The more thoughtful believed, however, that if people burdened with the great ages of Martin and Mary needed the Scubblething on an annual basis then it would be logical to assume that everybody might need it, on some scale, especially those who insisted they didn't although not necessarily for the general delight and benefit of the young folk in the homes contiguous to Tubberscubble.

As well as being a Christmas tale the following is also a story of romance, love and no little debauchery from the bird world. As stories go it is as true as any and it happened in my native town some time between the disappearance of the swallowtail coat and the closure of the Lartigue Railway.

It so happened that two young ladies of the so-called Ascendancy classes arrived at the Arms Hotel one September morning and asked if they might see the manager. In carefully cultivated tones from a mixture of non-Celtic origins they informed him that they required the services of the porter. On being assured that he was available they gave instructions that he was to go at once to the local railway station.

There he would collect a crate which had come all the way from Paris. The crate contained two French doves, gentler than a summer dawn and whiter than the untrodden snow.

Duly, the porter returned to the hotel where he deposited the crate upon a reading table in the foyer.

The young misses of the long-since ousted Ascendancy were delighted and, assuming that the birds must surely be starving procured, again with the aid of the porter, the appropriate birdseed.

The doves, however, refused to dine so it was decided that they should be taken from the crate and examined. Great care was taken since it was widely accepted even then that birds had a preference for the outdoors over the indoors and would frequently take to the skies when opportunity presented itself.

Tenderly they were extracted from the crate and there was great exultation when it was discovered that they were hale and hearty and none the worse for their long journey.

The young misses had planned to take the birds to their suburban home and then, after they had familiarised themselves with the new surrounds, they would be released. It was expected that they would take speedily to their fresh environs and, in the course of time, assume the nationality of their new country. So much for the best laid schemes of doves and damsels!

In the foyer the doves were much admired but unfortunately were being passed rapidly from one pair of inexperienced hands to another so that, eventually, the inevitable happened. A
garsún
accidentally mishandled the cock of the pair. Did I say they were cock and hen? The cock grasped his chance and flew out of the open door.

There was consternation. A well-known fainter in the company promptly collapsed so that a young lady who held the second dove in her hands lost her concentration. She had also attempted to obstruct the escape of the cock and in so doing gave the French hen the opportunity she had been waiting for. With a gentle fluttering of wings she followed her companion into the sunlight which had begun to brighten the scene outside.

In a flash the crowd in the foyer had emptied itself into the square. There was no sign of the doves. Spotters were dispatched to various parts of the town and to the nearby wood of Gurtenard which was a favourite haunt of local pigeons. Although the search went on all afternoon there was no sign of the missing pair. In their absence life was obliged to go on regardless. The afternoon drifted by and when evening arrived all hope was abandoned.

After all they were innocent strangers with no knowledge of local hawks. How then could they be expected to survive!

However, an observant corner-boy whose wont it was to gaze at the sky all day spotted them on the roof of the hotel, their gleaming whiteness contrasting sublimely with the dark grey slates.

Vainly did the hotel owner, the porter, the two Ascendancy misses and numerous other well-wishers seek to lure them down from their perches. Then one Dinny Cronin appeared on the scene for the first time. Dinny was a local pigeon-fancier and was possessed of a few magnificent specimens. Indeed in those pollution-free days the sky over the dreaming town frequently played host to large flocks of pigeons. The back-yards boasted many pigeon coops and in the mornings the townspeople were frequently serenaded by soft chortlings and other manifestations of pigeonly affection.

Dinny Cronin took stock of the situation for several minutes and eventually came up with the solution.

‘At home,' said he, ‘I have one of the handsomest cock birds ever seen in this neck of the woods.'

On hearing that the visitors were French, Dinny was taken aback but not for long.

‘My bird might have no French,' said he, ‘but he has the looks and he has the carriage.'

With everybody's approval he went home for the cock and returned in jig time with the pride of his flock in his coat pocket. As cocks went he was a strapping fellow, a biller and a cooer, forceful yet demure, a winner and a wooer and a charmer of pigeons from Listowel to Knockanure. Upon beholding the French arrivals he flew upwards till he was out of sight and then tumbled crazily downwards scorning all danger in the service of courtship.

After several such amorous sallies, all calculated to win the heart of the female Frenchie, he alighted on the roof. There followed some intimate bird patter, indistinguishable to all but themselves. It was apparent that there was no language barrier.

‘They speak the language of love,' said Dinny Cronin, ‘and that's the same in every land under the sun.' After the tender, verbal formalities Dinny's cock bird flew off and circled the nearby Catholic church three times. The Frenchies followed suit leaving the onlookers to believe that they subscribed to the same persuasion as Dinny's cock bird.

Then the trio disappeared into the fading light and were forgotten for the moment. However, when a week went by without a sign of the vanished ménage there was widespread alarm.

In the ancient town business went on as usual but around the pigeon coops there was little billing and less cooing. Dinny Cronin's bird was sorely missed. Dinny himself was heartbroken for the missing cock was the pride of his flock.

Then a letter arrived from Paris for the young misses who had ordered the doves in the first place. The letter stated that the pair of doves had arrived back in the French capital accompanied by a dark stranger, a rude fellow with country manners but much admired by members of the opposite sex. There was widespread mourning for it was taken for granted that the Cronin cock would never leave the romantic capital of the known world and who could blame him!

Slowly but surely Christmas drew near with an abundance of freshly revealed humanity and goodwill. Dinny was disconsolate. It looked as if he would never see his pride and joy again. He sat towards the evening of Christmas Eve by the kitchen window pondering the joys of the past and the emptiness of the future.

Then his heart soared. He sat upright when he head the familiar chortle that had melted the hearts of a hundred doves. It was weak and it was hoarse but it was unmistakable. It was his missing cock bird. Dinny jumped to his feet and opened the kitchen window. There on the sill lay his friend, worn and exhausted after his journey from France and from countless other engagements too delicate to disclose and too numerous to mention.

He was received with joy and tears.

‘My poor oul' cratur,' said Dinny, ‘them Frenchies went near being the death of you.'

‘Hush!' said his wife, ‘mustn't youth have its fling.' Thereafter there was joy in the pigeon coops of Listowel and Dinny Cronin's prize cock wandered afar no more.

The decision to hold the Tubbernablaw wren-dance earlier than usual was brought about by a number of factors, the chief of which was an ominous forecast in
Old Moore's Almanac
concerning dire events in early January. First would come a blizzard so dense and driving that foolhardy travellers would not be able to see their own outstretched palms out of doors. This, according to
Old Moore,
would be followed in short order by a veritable deluge of rain and in the wake of these calamitous events there would come a frost so sharp that it would freeze the bark off the trees.

‘I see nothing for it,' Billy Bonner the king of the Tubbernablaw wrenboys informed his wife on the night after St Stephen's Day, ‘but to hold the dance tomorrow night. Otherwise we might have to wait until the spring and whoever heard of a wrenboys' dance in the springtime!'

The second factor to influence the decision was a sermon delivered by the parish priest in the nearby town on the Sunday before Christmas. He had begun as usual by admonishing wrenboys young and old and, as the sermon proceeded, whipped himself up into a frenzy while he denounced the debauchery and the drunkenness which were part and parcel of such orgies.

‘If it comes to my attention,' said he, ‘that a single wren-dance takes place in the New Year then woe betide the instigators. There can be no luck in a parish that allows these monstrous activities to take place. Therefore let it be known,' he concluded with upraised hands and tone hoarse with fury, ‘that I shall come a-calling if word comes to my ear that the laws of church and state are being flouted.'

‘If,' Billy Bonner addressed his wife who lay beside him in the bed, ‘we hold no dance in the New Year we will be flouting no laws, whatever the blazes flouting is.' Beside him his wife murmured agreement. ‘I therefore propose,' he declared solemnly as though he were addressing an assembly of wrenboys, ‘that we go ahead with our dance tomorrow night and have done with it.'

‘I second that,' his wife agreed with matching solemnity and with that she placed her arms round his neck and enquired if there was any law of church or state which might proscribe the unmentionable activities which her proximity suggested.

‘Not that I know of,' Billy replied as he took her in his arms and implanted a gentle kiss on her receptive lips.

Early next morning the king of the Tubbernablaw wrenboys mounted his ancient bicycle and went westwards into his dominions in order to notify the wren-boys and wren-girls of his decision to advance the date of the wren-dance. The decree was widely applauded and in every abode to which he called he was graciously received as befitted a man of such stature. While ordinary mortals might be offered stout or beer or even whiskey out of Christmas stocks Billy was obliged to walk home leaning on his bicycle for support after the vast quantities of brandy which had been thrust upon him. Others, less valuable in the community and to the business in hand, would travel far and wide in his stead, spreading the news of the royal pronouncement. There was no dissenting voice. Billy arrived back at his home in Tubbernablaw shortly after noon. He slept for several hours before his wife deemed it prudent to rouse him from where they had cavorted so wantonly the night before. Two trusted deputies had already tackled the black mare to the common cart. All three set out earnestly for the town where they would purchase the wines, whiskeys, cordials, minerals and the indispensable two half-tierces of stout which should see them safely through the festivities which would end at the breaking of day on the following morning.

Maggie Bonner had already visited the town with the wives of the two viceroys. Cooked gammons,
crubíns
, dozens of shop loaves freshly baked, Yorkshire relish, sweet cakes and barm bracks had all been safely deposited in the vast kitchen of the Bonner farmhouse and presently the preparations for the most important element of the entire proceedings would be complete. A huge cauldron rested atop the great table. Inside sat four hocks of prime beef and a stone of freshly peeled potatoes. The three females chopped great bundles of carrots and parsnips preparatory to adding them to the cauldron's contents. A stone of onions, hard and mature and of uniform golf-ball size were peeled and quartered and then added. The Bonner soup was always the
pièce de résistance
of the wren-dance and was praised far and wide for its richness and sobering effects. When all the groodles had been added the three women lifted the cauldron between them and bore it to a great fire which burned brightly beneath an iron grid specially designed and wrought by the local smith. The soup would be allowed to boil and simmer for the duration of the wren-dance until all the constituents had disintegrated and become part of the mouth-watering mixture.

‘The groodles is what does it,' Billy would proclaim to his cronies as they savoured the first delicious mouthfuls of the much-lauded soup.

‘Groodles,' he would go on in his homely way, ‘especially parsnips, is the backbone of all soups. As faith without good works is dead so also soup without groodles is dead.'

By eight o'clock in the evening all the guests had arrived. They were carefully vetted by Billy from his vantage point in the doorway of his house and by the great grey tomcat which sat astride the warm chimney on the thatched roof of the rambling farmhouse.

There were fiddlers and melodeon players, saw and
bodhrán
players, didlers and concertina players, comb players and bones' tippers. There were, in fact, all kinds of traditional musicians and exponents of horn-pipe, jig and reel.

In the early part of the night unwanted gate-crashers and known trouble-makers were ejected without ceremony by the king and his faithful subjects. During these minor skirmishes which were quickly quelled several black eyes were sustained and one of the invaders' noses was broken but otherwise the wren-dance was a most harmonious occasion which was enjoyed by all who attended.

Even the intelligence officer for the local Catholic Church, also the part-time parish clerk, in his verbal report to the parish priest spent several minutes describing the character and natural consistency of the soup.

‘You would want to brief the housekeeper in that respect,' the parish priest interjected jokingly. Only the clerk knew how serious he was. The parish clerk's report also included an account of the drinking and philandering although truth to tell there was little of the latter and an expected excess of the former. There had been several proposals of marriage but since these came chiefly from octo- and nonagenarians as well as several drunken gentlemen who forgot that they were already married, no great notice was taken. Matters proceeded happily until midnight when the Rosary was said. Not a solitary titter was heard while the holy recital was in progress.

With regard to the serving of the food there was no formal procedure. Buffet rules were loosely applied but there was no evidence of the hogging one associates with such activities at higher levels.

Meanwhile on the outside the contents of the huge cauldron gurgled and spluttered propitiously. From time to time the king of the wrenboys and his queen, the gracious Maggie, inspected the interior and intimated to interested parties that all was going according to expectations.

Now all this happened at a time when motor-cars first began to make their appearance all over the countryside so that the wives of the inexperienced drivers entertained genuine worries about the fitness of their partners to handle the highly deceptive vehicles when under the influence. To counteract the effects of the night's drinking Billy Bonner hit upon the idea of the soup. This was the third year of the innovation. It had proved highly successful. There had been no accidents and no injuries and if drivers ended up in dykes and ditches no great harm was done to the cars' occupants. In part this would have been due to the shallowness of the roadside hazards but it was generally accepted that it was largely due to the reviving concoction so carefully prepared by the wives of the wrenboys.

It was widely believed also that Billy added a secret ingredient to the cauldron during the latter stages of the boiling but whether this was true or not was never really determined. There was, however, on this particular occasion an unexpected addition to the concoction. It was a most fortuitous supplementation and it came about in a most unusual manner.

The top of the cauldron was covered with two flat slabs of bogdeal. These would be removed from time to time to facilitate stirring with a specially rinsed, long-handled coarse brush which Billy and Maggie Bonner used with an expertise that made no concession to the clotting or cloying which is so detrimental to the consistency of all such mixtures.

Now it so happened that the large grey cat which spent most of its time stretching itself and licking its whiskers in the vicinity of the rooftop chimney was possessed of that curious streak which is part and parcel of the feline make-up. As cats go, the grey tom was a respected figure in the countryside. In his younger days he was known to roam far and wide in search of diversion, sometimes disappearing for days at a time. Now well advanced in years he had become more of an ogler than an adventurer and contented himself by maintaining his rooftop vigil during the day and, the occasional romantic saunter apart, hugging the kitchen hearth by night. He found as many tomcats do when the years mount up that dabbling suits their age and temperament far better than the full-time fornicating in which young toms wantonly indulge.

From early morning on the eventful day he knew that something was afoot. In his younger days he would have made non-stop forays to the kitchen, making a general nuisance of himself and as a result testing the patience of his mistress and her co-workers. Nowadays nothing short of a cat invasion would lure him from the cosy precincts of the chimney when squatted in one of his reveries. Towards evening he betook himself leisurely downwards and did the rounds of his domain. Elderly cats never indulge in the exaggerated slinking or the fancy oscillations to which younger cats are addicted. They tend to slouch and sit. They start to take things for granted and this is always a mistake.

For all his years the grey tom leapt without difficulty on to the bogdeal slabs which covered the cauldron. The contents had not yet begun to simmer but an appetising odour issued upwards nevertheless. He peered between the bogdeal slabs but only darkness greeted his gaze. He sniffed appreciatively and would have sat for a while had not a female flung a wet dish-cloth in his direction advising him at the same time that he should make himself scarce if he knew what was good for him. Unhurriedly he leaped downward and made his way to an outhouse where there was always the outside chance of an encounter with an unwary mouse. The outhouse was empty so he sat for a while preening himself in the shadows. He recalled past encounters with pretty pussies beyond the bounds of Tubbernablaw and nearer home as the passing years confined him. Darkness fell while he sat immobile. With the darkness came a hard frost which decided him on his next move. He would discreetly explore the kitchen and partake of some supper before returning to lie in the lee of the chimney for an hour or two.

Indoors the festivities were at their height. The younger members of The Tubbernablaw Wrenboys' Band circulated on a regular basis with freshly filled buckets of stout drawn from the second half-tierce which had just been broached.

Pannies, mugs and cups as well as glasses, canisters, jam-pots and ewers were pressed into service. Even the grey tomcat was drawn into the revelry. He mewed for more after he had lapped up a partially-filled saucer of stout. He took his time over the second saucer, purring with uncharacteristic abandon as the drink began to take hold. Finishing the saucer he staggered out into the moonlit night. Stars twinkled in every corner of the heavens and a full moon shed its pale light on the cobbled yard where simmered the life-saving soup on its iron grid. The tomcat leaped and landed on the smaller of the bogdeal slabs. He was assailed by giddiness for a moment or two but recovered almost at once and sat himself on the larger of the slabs. He savoured the tantalising odour and held his head over the space between the slabs from where the odour emanated. Finding the larger slab a trifle too hot he removed himself to the smaller and arched himself drunkenly before composing himself catlike for a short sojourn away from the hustle and bustle of the kitchen. For the second time that day he lapsed into a reverie which saw him in his heyday seducing she-cats at every hand's turn and devouring fish and fresh liver between bouts of concupiscence. It could truthfully be claimed that there wasn't a happier tomcat in the whole of Tubbernablaw that night.

Then the hand of chance imposed itself on the blissful scene. The sleeping tom felt neither its fingers or its shadow. He slept, impervious to the comings and goings near the house. He did not see the pair of drunken youths who had entered the moon-drenched haggard for no other purpose than to ease the strain on their over-pressed bladders.

When the business was complete they yelled loudly in unison at the unimpressionable moon and, finding that no response was forthcoming from that quarter, looked around for some other form of diversion. It was then they beheld the sleeping cat.

‘Look,' said the drunker of the pair, ‘at the neck of that cat, sleeping on top of the soup.'

‘Let him be,' said the other, ‘what harm is he doing?'

‘Suppose,' said his companion in an outraged tone, ‘that he piddles into the soup or maybe even worse!'

The pair tiptoed noiselessly until they reached the turf rick which dominated the far end of the haggard. Here they located two small black turf sods and, taking aim, dispatched both in the direction of the slumbering tom. The chance of either reaching the target, in any reckoning, must surely attract odds of thirty-three to one. The first of the small but rock-hard missiles veered left and landed harmlessly on the farmyard dung-heap. The second sped unerringly towards the victim as it raised its head, instinctively alerted by a sixth sense. It was, alas, too late. The sod landed on the crown of its head and laid it senseless. It slumped and then slid between the bogdeal slabs. It subsided without a miaow into the simmering soup.