The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland (2 page)

A week after the accident Maggie took to the bed again. She blamed an old ankle injury which had been aggravated by a sudden change in the weather. Again Jim found himself fending for both of them. Maggie spent three full days in bed and might have spent three weeks had not Jim resorted to his friend Fred Rimble. When he returned for lunch on the third day he found her with the clothes tucked up to her chin. Her
head was almost completely muffled by the red flannelette. The martyred look had returned to her face. The room reeked of recently-applied embrocation and every so often there were the old familiar sighs of untold suffering.

‘This will be the death of me,' Maggie said.

Jim sat silently on the bed and carefully prepared his release.

‘God alone knows what I go through,' Maggie groaned.

‘Fred Rimble's wife left him.'

The announcement was made matter of factly. It took some time before Maggie was able to transfer from herself to this latest development.

‘Was there another man?' she asked after a while.

‘Afraid so; Jim said.

‘A neighbour I'll warrant.'

‘Right first time,' Jim confirmed. ‘His best friend to boot.'

Wisely Jim arose and left the room. Maggie's next question might prove too much for him. She was on her feet early the following morning. A fine breakfast awaited him when he came downstairs. While he dined Maggie spoke of the perfidy of neighbours. She roundly cursed the ruffian who stole Fred Rimble's wife.

Weeks were to pass before she took ill again, this time with nothing more than a crick in the neck. Maggie's cricks, however, were like no other. They might last for weeks or develop into far more sinister aches. Jim roused her by the simple expedient of telling her that Fred Rimble had broken both legs in another car crash. By the time the New Year was due Fred Rimble had, in addition to his earlier mishaps, broken his collar bone, both hands, numerous ribs and to crown his misfortune lost his second ear. It was the removal of the remaining
auricle which provided Jim with the happiest Christmas he had spent since childhood. Maggie went around all through the festive period shaking her head and bemoaning the terrible loss. Her Christmas was, however, pain-free.

When he informed her about the second ear Maggie suggested that he contact Fred and invite him and the children to spend Christmas with them.

‘No,' Jim had answered sagely. ‘I know Fred. He's the sort of man who would want to spend Christmas at home.'

‘But who's going to cook the Christmas dinner?'

‘No problem there,' Jim informed her. ‘The eldest girl is fifteen and then there's a woman nearby who looks in now and then.'

‘What woman nearby?' Maggie asked suspiciously.

‘Just a neighbour,' Jim replied.

Maggie searched his face to see if he was concealing anything. ‘She wouldn't be by any chance the missus of the man who went off with Fred's wife?'

‘No chance,' Jim assured her. ‘Fred isn't that sort.'

‘Of course not,' Maggie responded at once, ‘that was not what I meant.'

Spring came round before she complained again. Normally she would have spent the greater part of January in bed and the remainder muffled up downstairs. Every week or ten days Jim would dole out what he privately termed a Rimble ration. Maggie awaited the titbits eagerly and gobbled up each and every one with relish. In January Jim was obliged to dispose by drowning of the eldest daughter whose name was Cornelia and of the youngest who answered to the name of Trixie. He had good reason for resorting to such extremes. His mother had taken suddenly to the bed one wet afternoon on the
grounds that she had undergone a serious heart attack. Even the family doctor who knew her every gambit was perplexed.

‘It is just possible,' he confided to Jim, ‘that she may have suffered the mildest of coronaries.'

Jim sensed that a broken limb would not be sufficient this time nor indeed the loss of a hand or a leg. Her appetite had been whetted. She now needed stronger meat if a cure was to be effected. For this reason he felt obliged to dispose of Cornelia and Trixie. Maggie had jumped out of bed upon hearing the news, her heart miraculously cured.

‘That's one funeral I'm not going to miss,' she announced. Try as he might Jim could not dissuade her. The following morning she rose early and purchased a daily paper. Painstakingly she went through the death notices.

‘Rattigan, Remney, Reeves,' she intoned the names solemnly. ‘Riley, Romney, Rutledge. There's no Rimble here.'

‘I know Fred Rimble,' Jim said. ‘Fred hates any sort of a show. The funeral would, of course, be private. That's why it's not in the papers.'

‘We'll send him a telegram then,' Maggie insisted, ‘and a letter of sympathy. I'll write it myself.'

‘Of course,' Jim agreed. ‘I'll send the telegram this very morning. You go ahead and write your letter and I'll post it for you during the lunch break.'

At his office in the creamery Jim burned the letter. A week later he typed a reply using a fictitious Dublin address. The letter proved the best tonic Maggie ever received. It kept her out of bed for several weeks. When its effects wore off he did away with the other children pair by pair, the first by food poisoning, the second by a car accident and the third by fire. Indeed Fred Rimble himself had been lucky to escape the conflagration
with his life. The last proved to be a wise choice. Since the family home had been razed to the ground Fred was left without a permanent address.

The deaths of the Rimble children had a profound effect on Maggie. She took to attending early mass on a regular basis. Regardless of the weather she never once opted out. She enquired daily after Fred but news was scant. He had, it was reported, left the country and taken up work in Australia.

‘Too many memories in the home place,' Maggie had observed when Jim informed her of Fred's departure. ‘I imagine that if it were me I would do the very same thing,' she said wistfully.

Summer passed. Autumn russetted the leaves and the winds laid them out lovingly on the soft earth. Jim Conlon grew fat and content.

‘There's a shine to you lately Jim boy,' Matt Weir told him one night.

Then winter came and inevitably Maggie Conlon took to the bed. In spite of assurances from her own doctor and from a specialist she became convinced that she was suffering from cancer of the throat. She submitted herself to X-rays and to countless other tests. The net result was that there was no evidence whatsoever to show that there was the least trace of the dread disease of which she complained. The weeks passed and when no decline set in she became even more insistent that cancer had taken hold of her windpipe. To prove it she fell back upon a comprehensive repertoire of wheezes, many of them spine-chilling, others weak and pathetic.

The contentment to which Jim Conlon had grown accustomed became a thing of the past. He lost weight. All the old tensions with some new ones in their wake returned to bedevil
him. He tried every ruse to rouse his mother but all to no avail. She became so morbid in herself that she made him go for the parish priest every week. When the last rites were administered she would close her eyes as if resigning herself to death. In the end Jim was driven to his wit's end. One night he returned from the pub in what seemed to be a highly agitated state. In reality he was playing the last trump left in his hand.

‘I've just had some dreadful news,' he informed his mother.

The lacklustre eyes showed no change nor did she adjust her position in the bed.

‘Fred Rimble is dead,' Jim told her.

The news had the desired effect. At once she sat upright.

‘How did it happen?' she asked after she had crossed herself and begged God's mercy on his soul.

‘They say he died of a broken heart,' Jim informed her.

‘A broken heart!' she exclaimed tearfully and wondered why she had never thought of this novel way out herself.

‘That's what they said,' Jim spoke with appropriate sadness.

‘Well it's all behind him now the poor man,' Maggie Conlon spoke resignedly. A few days later at Maggie's insistence they had a High Mass said for Fred Rimble in Dirreenroe parish church. It was an unpretentious affair with no more than the three priests, the parish clerk and themselves involved. As soon as they arrived home Maggie prepared lunch and when they had eaten she went at once to her bed vowing that she would never leave it.

‘But what's wrong with you?' Jim asked in anguish. ‘You were fine ten minutes ago. You put away a feed fit for a ploughman.'

‘I know. I know,' she said weakly, ‘but the bitter truth is that I think my heart is beginning to break.'

‘This beats all,' Jim fumed.

‘Now, now,' said Maggie. ‘You mustn't let it upset you. It's not in the least like a coronary or angina. There's nothing like the pain. I'll just lie here now and wait for my time to come.'

She closed here eyes and a blissful look settled on her face.

In the tavern Jim sat on his own in a deserted corner. Midway through his third drink Matt Weir came from behind the counter and saluted him. When he didn't answer Matt asked if there was anything wrong.

‘Look at me Matt,' Jim spoke despondently. ‘Look at me and tell me what you see.'

‘I see a friend and a neighbour,' Matt Weir answered.

‘No Matt,' Jim countered. ‘What you see is a man who killed the best friend he ever had.'

The brothers Fly-Low lived in an ancient farmhouse astride a bare hillock which dominated their rushy fields. Tom Fly-Low was the oldest of the three. Next in age came Billy and lastly there was Jack.

Fly-Low, of course, was a sobriquet. The surname proper was Counihan. It was never used except by the parish priest once every five years when he read the Station lists.

In the year 1940 an Irish reconnaissance plane flew over the Fly-Low farm. At the time the brothers were in the meadow turning hay. As soon as the plane appeared they stopped work and lifting their hayforks aloft welcomed the unique intrusion. Acknowledging the salute the pilot dipped his wings.

‘Fly low,' Jack Counihan called.

‘Fly low,' shouted his brothers. ‘Fly low, fly low,' they all called together. Alas the pilot was unable to hear them. In a few moments the plane had disappeared from view never again to be seen by the brothers Fly-Low. In neighbouring fields other haymakers heard the din. It was only a matter of time before the Counihans would become known as the Fly-Lows. It was no more than the custom of the countryside. It made for easy identification there being several other Counihan families in the nearby townlands.

Years later at the end of the Second World War there came one of the worst winters in living memory. When it wasn't awash with drenching rain the winds blew searingly and searchingly. There were times when it froze and times when it
thawed, times too when it snowed till the hills turned white. In between there was sleet, that awful conglomeration which can never make up its mind whether it's rain, snow or good round hailstone. There had been ominous signs from October onwards. Gigantic geese barbs imprinted the skies from an early stage. The bigger the skeins the blacker the outlook or so the old people said. On blackthorn and white were superabundances of sloe and haw, sure auguries of stormy days ahead. All the time the moon, full and otherwise, was never without a shroud. Then came an awesome night in the middle of January. Before darkness fell cautionary ramparts of puce coloured, impenetrable cloud were seen to make dusty inroads into an ever-changing sky. The wind blew loudly and as night wore on it blew louder still.

At midnight a storm of unprecedented savagery ravaged the countryside. Wynds of hay were carried aloft and deposited in alien fields miles away. Trees were flattened and suspect haysheds gutted but of all the destructive acts perpetrated that night none was so capricious as that which swept the slates from the roof of Tom Fly-Low's bedroom. The rest of the house was left untouched. At half past one in the morning the oldest of the Fly-Low brothers found himself staring upwards into a swirling sky.

Wise man that he was he decided to stay abed till the storm spent itself. This it did as dawn broke mercifully over a devastated landscape.

After breakfast the brothers inspected the damage. Structurally there was nothing the matter. They came to the conclusion that a sufficiency of second-hand slates was all that was required to repair the roof. They knelt beside the kitchen fire and offered a Rosary in thanksgiving. Immediately afterwards
the youngest brother Jack was commissioned to undertake the journey to the distant town of Listowel, there to forage among the premises of builders' providers for the necessary materials. Tom Fly-Low who acted as treasurer to the household counted fifty pounds in single notes into Jack's hands while Billy went in search of the black mare. She would be tackled to the brothers' only transport, a large common cart with iron-banded wheels.

Jack shaved in the kitchen and changed into his Sunday clothes. He dipped a brace of calloused fingers in the holy water font which hung just inside the front door, made the Sign of the Cross and went out of doors to begin the eleven mile journey to the town. He was met in the cobbled yard by a fuming Billy. The mare had broken from the stable during the storm and was nowhere to be found. There was nothing for it but to walk to town and hope for a lift.

After the second mile Jack stopped and lit his pipe. He sat in the lee of a densely-ivied hedge and allowed himself a brief rest. Around him the light green of well-grazed fields mottled with dung-induced clumps of richer grass shone in the winter sunlight. Birds sang in roadside bushes. Wearily he got to his feet and continued on his journey. As he did an ancient Bedford truck appeared around a bend at his rear. Before he had time to hail it the drive had changed gears and brought it to a halt. Jack Fly-Low climbed into the cab.