The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland (8 page)

‘But isn't that the whole cause of the trouble Tom? Those that bought houses in the town or rented rooms are content enough. It's only when you have two women under the one roof that the trouble starts.'

‘Do you want me to spend every penny I possess on a house. Is that it?'

‘It needn't be big.'

‘Of course it needn't be big but the money will be big and we'll end up paupers depending on a daughter-in-law for handouts.'

‘If you signed over we'd have our old age pensions.'

‘Will you get it into your head woman that I will not sign over. Do you think I'm mad. You want me to part with all I have in this world with one stroke of a pen.'

‘You could go halves with him.'

‘Won't work. The place isn't big enough to support two families.'

‘Would you not tell him that you'd be prepared to sign over after a year or two?'

‘No I would not, nor after twenty years if I live that long. There's a bit of a want in that fellow. He's a man for the good times. All he wants is drink and fags and carousing.'

‘Still he's a good worker.'

‘Is he now and pray how do you think he'd fare without me managing the place?'

‘A woman would manage it for him quick enough.'

‘This place calls for a thrifty man, a man that won't squander money foolishly. Let him wait. He'll appreciate it all the more when 'tis his. I'm away to the cows.‘

‘Who's to say but you're right,' Minnie Cutler conceded. Experience had taught her that it was prudent to concede ground which she knew she could not win anyway. Consequently there was never conflict between them, at least not of late.

For years too she had not mentioned his tight-fistedness. She took it for granted. According to him there was never anything to spare for clothes or holidays or titbits. He would always provide enough for the bare necessities but nothing more. In time she had stopped asking. It made for a peaceful atmosphere and in her estimation that was worth all the deprivation. Waste not want not had been Tom Cutler's strategy from the day he assumed ownership of the farm. It had been heavily in debt. Minnie's modest fortune had not been enough to compensate but non-stop penny-pinching had. Now they had cash in the bank and the land was stocked to its capacity. As the money mounted Tom would regularly repeat a phrase which he had coined the day he discovered he was out of the red. ‘Thrift won't lose,' he would say, ‘because thrift can't lose'. The logic of his composition appealed more and more to him as the years went by.

He was well aware that his neighbours and those who knew him further afield criticised him constantly for what he considered to be one of the great virtues. His parsimony had
become something of a local joke. Those who conducted church gate collections for various charities would nudge each other when Tom Cutler approached. He never subscribed no matter how worthy the cause. As soon as he had passed the collection tables he would permit himself the faintest of smiles. He smiled purely and simply because he still had his money. That, to Tom Cutler, was a genuine cause for mirth. He really relished such incidents. They were the only luxuries in which he indulged.

His son John, on the other hand, was known as a decent type. He hadn't much, his neighbours said, but by God that much was yours if you wanted it.

‘He didn't bring it from his father,' Mick Kelly would say, “tis from the grandfather he brought it, his father's father. Now there was your decent man. Give you the shirt off his back he would.‘

Inevitably these assessments of his son would be relayed back one way or another to Tom. They occasioned him many a smile. So John was like his grandfather, was he, the same grandfather who drank himself to death and mortgaged the farm up to the hilt, the same grandfather who couldn't call on a shilling to bury the wife who died prematurely from shame. Tom had been forced to surrender the few pounds he had saved through his teens to buy a cheap coffin and have High Mass said for his mother. It had been a bitter lesson. His father had shamed him into putting up the money. He resolved immediately after his mother's funeral that his financial standing would never be revealed to anybody again, not even to his wife. Oh she knew he had money and she might guess rightly that it was a tidy bit but in this respect she would be closemouthed because no matter how much she might crave after a
commodity her need for security outweighed all else. From the start she had wanted him to part with his money. First the curtains hadn't been good enough, then the furniture, then the wallpaper and inevitably the house itself. He had always heard her out patiently. He would put her off with promises but as the years passed and he began to accumulate a little money he was able to boast that his frugality was paying off. In time she began to see that he had been right.

‘Wouldn't we be in a nice way now,' he often told her, ‘if I had given in.'

He had another son Willie, a subcontractor in England. A thrifty man was Willie. On the day of his departure Tom had handed him his fare and a ten pound note.

‘If you have any sense,' he warned him, ‘you'll not break that note needlessly. Put it aside and soon you'll have another to keep it company.'

And how much had Willie today? Willie had plenty because he had listened. More important nobody but Willie himself knew how much Willie had. That was the trouble about possessing money. You might spend years saving it while your very own kin had no thought but to squander it while you'd say Jack Robinson.

John Cutler's attitude towards his parents changed dramatically after the confrontation. It had been his wont each night upon returning home from the pub to impart the latest gossip going the rounds and to give an account of the activities of the pub's patrons if such activities warranted it. His parents looked forward to this nightly report, especially his father although he never commented, whatever the content. He enjoyed it all the more because it cost nothing. They would have retired before his arrival but the bedroom door would be
partly open in expectation.

Now there was no communication between them. Tom and Minnie were not unduly worried. He had sulked before but had come out of it after a few days. This time it was to be different. Weeks went by and then months until Tom closed the bedroom door to show that he didn't care. Around this time John started to grow careless about his appearance. Frequently too he came home drunk from the pub. Some mornings he was unable to rise for the milking. Minnie grew worried when she over-heard him talking in his room. She relayed the news to Tom who put it down to drink.

‘Wasn't I the wise man.' he told her, ‘to hold on to what I had. Wouldn't we be in a nice way now depending on a drunkard.'

The rift became worse when John demanded an increase in wages.

‘What do you want it for?' his father asked curtly.

‘I need it to keep pace,' John answered patiently.

‘To keep pace with what, the price of drink is it?'

‘There's more than drink gone up and well you know it. I need a new suit and a few shirts. My best shoes are beyond repair.'

‘Wait till the fall of the year,' had been Tom Cutler's response. ‘I'll know better where I stand.'

‘And the rise?'

‘I don't see what you need a rise for unless 'tis drink.‘

The old man had gone to the bedroom and locked himself in to avoid further argument. In despair John went straight to the pub where he stayed till midnight. When he came home he tried to open the bedroom door but it was still locked. They could hear him in the kitchen talking to himself. Neither said
a word for a long while. Finally Minnie broke the silence. She spoke in a whisper not wishing her voice to carry.

‘Would it not be better to relent a little?' she suggested.

‘No.' Tom's reply was emphatic.

‘But he's acting so queerly.'

‘You want me to give in to a madman is that it?'

‘No, no, that's not it at all. All I want is for you to make a concession.'

‘I'll make no concession to drink woman and that is that. Now go to sleep.'

Minnie Cutler sighed. After a while she spoke for the last time before falling asleep.

‘Who's to say but you're right,' she said.

The following evening Mick Kelly the postman called. He came in his Sunday clothes. The old folk welcomed him. There was no sign of John.

‘Sit down, sit down.' Tom Cutler pulled a chair from under the table and placed it near the fire.

‘And how's herself?' Minnie Cutler asked.

‘Never better missus thank you,' Mick Kelly replied cheerfully.

In any other house in the neighbourhood he would have been royally received. The whiskey bottle would have appeared. The kettle would have been put down to boil. Minnie who was never embarrassed by similar situations fumbled for words on this occasion but could find none. Mick Kelly was a good neighbour. For once she would have liked to offer him something. Her husband read her thoughts.

‘I daresay you've had your supper Mick,' he said with forced joviality.

‘Just after rising from the table,' came the answer.

‘You're welcome to eat, you know that,' Minnie spoke half-heartedly.

‘Oh I know that missus,' came the reassuring reply, ‘I know that well.'

He made it sound convincing to put Minnie at her ease. He could not recall ever having received as much as a mouthful of tea at Cutler's. Neither could anybody else. Even the beggars of the roadway gave the place a wide berth. Some said there were barely visible scratches on the gate piers down by the main road, the secret sign language of the tinker folk: ‘Pass by' the scratches said or so it was believed.

For an hour or more the three spoke of weather, crops and cattle, then of the neighbours and lastly of the great wide world. The ancient Stanley range had grown cold for want of fuelling. There were a few embers buried in the ashes but to stoke the firebox would be to despatch its entire contents into the ashpan beneath. Mick Kelly knew that it would be unthinkable for the Cutlers to replenish the fire so late in the evening.

‘Well,' said he and he rose from his chair, ‘I'll have to be going but before I do I had better bring out what brought me.' He cleared his throat and rubbed his large hands together, this to intimate that his mission was a delicate one.

‘I've come about John,' he said. ‘You may tell me it's none of my business but I have known the three of you all my life and I feel I have earned the right to bring this matter to your notice.' Here he paused waiting for word to proceed.

‘What is it about John?' Tom Cutler asked.

‘He's not himself these days,' Mick Kelly answered. ‘He's drinking too much and he's in debt poor fellow. It's not a lot, a few pounds here and there. He owes myself a tenner but that's
not why I'm here and I'd gladly forget it if I thought it would help the man.'

‘Let him stop drinking and he'll soon have his debts paid,' Tom cut in.

‘I'm afraid,' Mick Kelly spoke ruefully, ‘most of the drink comes from people who are sorry for him.'

‘He's turned into a bum then has he?'

‘No. That isn't so at all. Most people will throw a drink a fellow's way if they think he has a problem. It's their way of sympathising.'

‘What do you want me to do?'

‘Rise his wage for a start. Give the poor fellow a few hundred to pay his debts. That's all. I promise you won't know the man after.'

‘I'll tell you something now Mick Kelly and I'll tell you no more.' Tom Cutler rose and faced him. He moistened his thin lips before he spoke. ‘When I took over here there was a crippling debt. I was advised to sell but I stuck it out whatever. It took the best years of my life to pay back the money my father squandered. It was a terrible burden for a young man and now when I'm old you want me to pay my son's debts as well. Is that to be the story of my life, to pay back the debts of two drunkards, my father and my son?'

‘I can't counsel you further Tom,' Mick Kelly said quietly. ‘I can only tell you that all is not well with your son.'

‘It's not my doing Mick.'

‘I didn't say it was Tom. The poor fellow is demented and what harm but he could have enough if he wanted but he's too bloody honest.'

‘I don't follow you,' Tom Cutler frowned.

‘He could be selling the odd bag of corn behind your back
and he could be transferring a gallon or two of milk to a crony. There's a lot doing it and getting away with it but not John Cutler. He could be lifting the occasional bag of spuds.'

Tom Cutler stamped the concrete floor with his right foot. ‘He could in his eye,' he whipped back. ‘If there was a grain of corn taken, or a single spud or a solitary pint of milk I'd know about it. He knows that. You know that and I know that and that's the reason he hasn't lifted anything so far. His first time would be his last time. I have another son, remember, a man who wouldn't be long answering my call if I sent for him.'

‘I beg of you Tom not to renege on John.' Mick Kelly's appeal was fervent.

‘I never reneged on him. He had cattle of his own remember. He drank the proceeds every time.'

‘And I tell you he drank no more than anybody else.' Mick Kelly stuck to his purpose.

‘I'm tired, Mick.' Tom Cutler returned to his chair.

He was making it clear that as far as he was concerned the discussion was closed. Mick Kelly looked from husband to wife. For a moment he considered making a final appeal but thought better of it. The eyes of both were now focused on the ashpan of the Stanley. They leaned forward on their chairs the better to gaze upon it. As well as dismissing him the pose also suggested a show of solidarity.