The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland (6 page)

‘I worked there at the time,' he began. ‘It was a fine place, carrying twenty milch cows and two score of dry stock. There was only the pair of them, Neddy and the sister. Tom had gone to the States to make his fortune. Neddy one night took it into his head to carry Dolly Mack home from a dance in the village. He made a habit of the thing after that and it was no time at all before the pair decided to marry. The trouble started the second day after the marriage. We were after coming in from the meadow. The new wife laid the table and put the eggs on to boil. Bridgeen sat near the fire darning a sock. Things was quiet and peaceful.

‘Will you eat one egg or two?' Dolly asked of Neddy.

‘Two if you please,' said he.

‘Will you eat one egg or two?' she says to me.

‘Two if you please,' said I.

‘Will you eat one egg or two?' she says to Bridgeen Leary, her sister-in-law.

‘Will I eat my own eggs is it?' she threw back at Dolly. That was the first shot to be fired between the two and of course Neddy was soon drawn into it. The teapots came out soon after that and from the looks of things today they'll stay out for all time.‘

Jimmy Bowen was by no means fastidious, yet every evening he would shave and wash meticulously before donning his best clothes in preparation for his trip to the river side. Having left the house he would stand in front of the shop window and take careful stock of himself. Should there be the slightest evidence of disorder anywhere on his person he would re-enter the house straightaway and set about correcting the imperfection. Having satisfied himself that every possible step had been taken regarding the reorganisation of his appearance he would present himself a second time to the shop window. Often he would stand there for several minutes pretending to be engrossed in a study of the window's contents whereas he was really searching for flaws in his appearance. When he was satisfied that no further improvement could be effected he would set off on his walk. The time he chose varied from season to season but always it would be roughly a half hour before darkness fell. First he would stroll leisurely through the streets before arriving at the laneway which led to the river side path. The moment he sighted the water his features underwent a change. His eyes grew brighter. His ears seemed to prick as though he were alerting himself for an exciting encounter. He became a different person.

At sixty Jimmy Bowen was a spare, grey-haired, lively man who moved with an athlete's facility. He was well off. Rumour had it that he never married because the girl he loved
was killed in a car accident or drowned or worse. Nobody was quite clear. He had left the town in his late teens and returned twenty years later to take over the family hardware business when his father was taken ill. He had never seen eye to eye with the old man although they had never lost touch or so it was said. When the elder Bowen died Jimmy assumed control. His mother passed on shortly afterwards and it seemed inevitable that he would take a wife. He was young enough. A fit man of forty with his reputed means should have no trouble. He remained single, however, and was the bane of the town's over-blossomed spinsters for several years. At sixty with his hair whitened by the years he was no longer regarded as a candidate for the marriage stakes. His business prospered and there was much conjecture as to what would happen when he grew too old to carry on. He had a first cousin in a distant town, a ne‘er-do-well with a large brood. Jimmy was persuaded by friends of the family that it would be an act of charity to bring the oldest boy into the business. It hadn't worked. The lad knew it all from the outset. He disappeared one day with several hundred pounds and was heard of no more.

The river side path which was the route of Jimmy's evening strolls was flanked on the one side by giant oaks and sycamores and on the other by the wide sweep of the river bank. It was a picturesque walk less frequented now than at any time in its history. Lovers no longer dallied there preferring to speed through the countryside in motor cars. Older people, unless the weather was exceptionally fine, chose to sit and watch television. Consequently the only people Jimmy Bowen met were the occasional fowler and fisherman. This was the way he liked it even though it must be said that he entertained other
secret aspirations. His favourite time was when darkness descended. To celebrate this delicate event he would stand unmoving under a favourite sycamore. It was best when no breezes blew. On these occasions of tranquillity he would stand entranced, utterly absorbed by what was happening. Sometimes the motionless lineaments of the river would be mottled with infinitesimal flecks of foam. Even the birds would be hushed. It would be that precise time of evening when light resigns itself to half light yielding finally to darkness and it seemed all nature was aware that consummate stillness was required if an honourable surrender was to take place. This was the very time when Jimmy Bowen longed for fulfilment of his secret aspirations. Quite simply what he hoped for was that a woman, the woman of his dreams, might emerge from the river side shadows and stand by his side to share in the romantic transition. It was, he knew, more than he was entitled to expect in such a place and at such a time. When as always she failed to materialise he would return the way he had come still cherishing the notion that she might appear before him out of one of the many bowers and groves along the way. At the back of his mind was the certainty that she would appear one evening. She would just happen to be there and that would be that. When it happened he would take her hand and they would return together towards the lights of the town. Words would be unnecessary.

The cold truth was that for twenty years Jimmy had returned to the town empty-handed but this had not succeeded in putting a damper on his expectations. He was as hopeful as ever. In the shop he worked with such earnest endeavour that no onlooker could possibly credit that the man's private life was founded on such improbable romantic notions. The very
opposite would seem to be far more likely. His staff consisted of two counter-hands, middle-aged brothers who had started their apprenticeships with his father. There was a federal factotum, an elderly fellow, another relict from his father's tenure and there was Miss Miller. It would be difficult to determine Miss Miller's exact age. Mousy Miller the customers called her. She had joined the staff at the time of his father's illness and spent her working hours in an elevated glass office where she could command a view of every corner of the shop. She dressed chastely, wore spectacles and rarely used make-up. She had few friends and seemed content to spend most of her free time with her landlady, an elderly widow. Originally she hailed from the midlands. Her people, it was believed, were modest farmers. Jimmy rarely entered the office. When he did it was at Miss Miller's invitation. She always stood when he entered and allowed him to take the seat which she had just vacated. Usually the visit would consist of inspecting a contractor's account which might have exceeded the stipulated limit or to discuss the necessity for consulting a solicitor over other unpaid accounts of long standing. She always called him Mr Bowen. He never called her anything but Miss Miller. Although he never objected to these occasional conferences he always felt that his presence was superfluous. She might appear to be mousy and effete but her knowledge of the business was astonishingly comprehensive. The books were immaculately kept. At a moment's notice she could provide an exact run-down of the firm's financial standing for any period. It was she who dealt with the auditors, saw to the stocktaking and staff bonuses, made up the weekly wage packets and took on the hundred and one other minor tasks which contributed to the running of a successful business. It could be said that she knew
her employer inside out. Jimmy knew her worth and paid her accordingly. Ask anywhere in the town and you would be told that, whatever else, Jimmy Bowen was first and foremost a decent man.

He had a somewhat different relationship with the rest of the staff. A casual customer would be hard put to know who was boss and who was counterhand. It worked well. The country people who patronised the shop liked a man without pretension, a man who would sit on the counter and pass the time of day. He had other traits which appealed to townspeople and country people alike. The chief of these was his tendency to take off on the occasional skite. He never took a conventional holiday. When the urge caught him, an urge which generally coincided with a fine spell, he would betake himself to the office pay slot and indicate his financial requirements to Miss Miller.

‘Slip us a few hundred,' he might say. The money, in fivers and tenners, would be forthcoming at once without comment of any kind from Miss Miller.

‘See you in a few days,' he would say as soon as the notes were pocketed. Home then to change into slacks, pullover and sandals. Garage next for a petrol fill and a hasty check of elementals. Thence to the nearest city or, if the season was right, to a distant holiday resort. His customers received news of these breaks with amusement. They knew the drill or thought they did. There had to be a woman or women. Why else would he go on his own? A good man's case this. Not even a stepmother would blame him. Many envied him the manner in which he took off in the first place. He needed nobody's permission and best of all he could come back when it suited him. On his return he never tendered the least information as to
how he had fared, a sure sign, this his friends said, that a debauch had taken place.

The truth was that Jimmy Bowen did no more than sleep out in the mornings. The remainder of the day he spent inspecting the neighbourhood pubs and hotels. Sometimes he drank on his own. Other times he joined up with single gentleman like himself or became involved in sing-songs. By midnight it would be as much as he could do to locate his room under his own steam. This then was the pattern of his respite. There had never been any serious involvement with a woman. He remained faithful to his river side fantasies and would fall into a happy if drunken sleep recalling the enchanting images of his favourite place or endeavouring to trace the shadowy features of the lovely creature who had thus far failed to realise herself from the place in question. Always he slept soundly, not waking till the chambermaids knocked on his door at a time when the morning was well advanced. He never surfaced before noon. By the time he had read through the morning papers lunch would have become available. Having partaken he would sit for a while before indulging in the only physical exercise of the day. This consisted of an hour long stroll after which he felt free to indulge himself in the first drink of the day. After a sojourn of four to five days his appetite for change would be sated and he would return home. There would be no drink on the day of the homecoming. He also made a point of arriving at the shop after dark. After a snack he would make straight for his bed where he stayed until the effects of the prolonged booze had worn off. As a rule this took no more than a sleep out until the late afternoon of the following day when he would arise refreshed and ready to resume his normal way of life. This was not to say that he was abstemious
between skites. Most nights after returning from the river he stopped off at the Anglers' Rest where he allowed himself a whiskey or two before polishing off a few pints of draught stout. He never drank alone. There was always a crony or two in attendance and invariably he joined up with these until time was called.

Shortly after his sixtieth birthday he embarked upon the longest and most intensive skite of his career. He departed the town early on Monday afternoon and was not seen again in its vicinity for a period of ten days. What transpired during that time will never be fully revealed. Even with the aid of Miss Miller, if Jimmy Bowen ever endeavoured to itemise the events which took place, the task would be impossible for the excellent reason that they were beyond recall. To be more accurate it could be said that they had foundered irrevocably in an alcoholic haze. Occasionally in later years glimpses of that foggy interlude would be borne back to him but none of sufficient duration or clarity to enlighten him. It was, as he intimated to his cronies not long after his return, the father and mother of all skites and the cronies to give them their due accepted this evaluation without question. Jimmy Bowen was not a man to exaggerate. There was no doubt that he had been on the skite of a lifetime. What he did remember most vividly at that, was waking up on the final day. His head throbbed with a pain so over-powering that he despaired of ever facing the world again. For hours he tossed and turned on the bed. Towards late afternoon he steeled himself with every ounce of resolve at his disposal and entered the bathroom. He filled the bath with cold water and stood nearby in his pelt waiting for it to fill. This will kill me or cure me he told himself. He did not ease himself into the water. It might be said that he plopped in.
He screamed when the first shock assailed him. Having barely survived it he shuddered and spluttered like a man demented as the cold touched every part of his body. Despairingly he started to sing. His voice trembled and shook. He could not sustain a single note no matter how hard he tried. There was one fearful moment when he felt totally paralysed. Panicstricken he erupted from the bath and landed on his behind on the slippery floor. Raising laboriously he dried himself thoroughly. After a few minutes he felt an improvement. His head still throbbed but the pain was now bearable. His hands were steady. He decided to risk a shave. Surprisingly he negotiated the business without a nick. He combed his hair and sat on the bed. He had no idea where he was. He was about to lift the phone when it occurred to him that he was naked. Hastily he pulled on his trousers. There was still some money in the fob; he was surprised at the amount. Probably cashed a cheque or two. All would be revealed in due course as the man said. He lifted the receiver and waited.