An Irish Country Christmas

by Patrick Taylor

  Barry’s nostrils were filled with the scent of incense. The last time he’d been aware of that aroma had been at the wedding of a Catholic friend the previous year. He’d thought Freddy, a classmate, was too young to be getting married. Maybe Freddy had been right, but Patricia had said to him at Sonny and Maggie’s wedding in August that marriage wasn’t in her stars—not yet.

  Barry hung his coat on a peg and looked around.

  He stood in a small vestibule with a parquet floor and wood-panelled walls like those in the great hall of his old school, Campbell College.

  O’Reilly had opened one of a set of double doors, which Barry could see led to the hall proper. A wooden crucifix was fastened to the door lintel. “Right,” said O’Reilly, “let’s have a peek inside, see if we can root out Cissie and let her know we are men of our word.”

  As Children with Their Play

  “Come in, come in.” Reverend Robinson, who stood at the back of the hall, spoke softly. His voice was barely audible over the harmonium and the children’s voices. Barry remembered meeting him for the first time at Sonny and Maggie’s wedding.

  “Mr. Robinson,” Barry said in muted tones, marvelling at the presence of a Protestant man of the cloth in what in many parts of Ulster would be regarded as the territory of the Antichrist. “How are you?”

  The minister smiled, shook his head, and held a finger to his lips.

  Barry understood and nodded in agreement. He looked around and saw that he was standing in a single room. The walls were yellow-painted breeze block, and the triangular trusses supporting the roof were visible above him. Coloured paper chains hung from them in loops.

  “Fear not,” said he, for mighty dread had seized their troubled mind . . .

  He smiled. So they were rehearsing “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night.” His friends at primary school always called that one “While Shepherds Washed Their Socks by Night.”

  “Glad tidings of great joy I bring to you, and all mankind.”

  Some of the little boys clearly had as much feeling for the notes as he’d had as a child. Their off-key warblings were distinctly heard over the more tuneful efforts of their classmates.

  Barry could remember his own childhood pageants. He’d been allowed into the choir but had received strict instructions to mouth the words silently. His music teacher, Miss Fanshawe, had seemed to be under the impression she was rehearsing the famous Belfast Harlandic Male Voice Choir instead of a group of youngsters.

  The young woman who was conducting today was a distinct improvement over the angular Miss Fanshawe. She stood with her back to Barry. He could see shoulders, a narrow waist to which tumbled a single plait of long copper hair, slim hips, and a pair of shapely calves beneath the hem of her black knee-length skirt.

  Barry was quite willing to remain silent and hope she would turn around once the carol was over. He’d very much like to see her face.

  “To you, in David’s town, this day, is born of David’s line . . .”

  He managed to stop staring at the woman and looked down to where Father O’Toole, wearing a rollneck sweater and corduroy trousers, sat at a harmonium below and in front of the stage. He pedalled furiously and thumped on the keyboard. Barry could see beads of perspiration on the priest’s forehead.

  “The heavenly Babe you there shall find . . .”

  He glanced at the Reverend Robinson, who was smiling and keeping time with one hand. Considering the unrelenting sectarian hatred that disfigured so much of the Six Counties, the presence of these two men under one roof seemed to Barry to be a sign that there might be a flicker of hope for the future. It was a hope that the violence that had been done for centuries—and that could break out again in the name of that heavenly babe, the gentle Jesus meek and mild—would one day stop.

  And it wasn’t only the priest and the pastor who could get along. Barry saw rank upon rank of folding chairs that marched over a wooden-plank floor with a central aisle between the ranks.

  Next Monday night those chairs would be filled with parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles from both denominations. There’d be teachers from MacNeill Primary, the Protestant school that years ago had been endowed in the family name by an earlier Marquis of Ballybucklebo. They’d be sitting with the nuns who taught at the Catholic school attached to their convent of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows.

  When would somebody wake up to the fact that one of the first steps to religious misunderstanding was to educate the children separately? Barry wondered.

  He noticed Flo Bishop and Mrs. Brown sitting in the front row. Cissie Sloan sat between them. From back here he couldn’t make out if Cissie was talking, but judging by the way her companions seemed to be listening to nothing but the music, perhaps she was, for once, resting her jaws.

  “Good-will henceforth from heaven to men Begin, and never ceeee-ease.”

  The conductor turned. Barry’s eyes widened. He couldn’t make out her features clearly, but she seemed to have an oval face and, as best he could determine, green eyes. He tried to get a better view by leaning forward, but soon he was aware that O’Reilly was saying something. He turned so he could hear.

  “It’s a good thing, goodwill,” O’Reilly said sotto voce. “Mind you, I’m finding it hard to go heavy on the goodwill when it comes to Fitzpatrick.” He sighed, “Still, it is Christmas, I suppose.”

  Clearly O’Reilly was still stewing over how to deal with the man. Barry said, “I agree,” but he didn’t think O’Reilly heard him. At that moment Father O’Toole called out, “Very good, children. Very good,” and stood to applaud. When he stopped clapping, the priest said, “Now everybody run along, and we’ll have a wee small break while the actors in the Nativity play get ready.”

  The children trooped off stage right. Barry recognized Colin Brown. As usual, one of his socks was at half-mast, halfway down his shin and crumpled over his shoe. His mother rose and went through a door at the side of the stage.

  “They’re really rather good,” said Reverend Robinson. “I always enjoy children’s choirs.” He waved down to Father O’Toole, who waved back. “I must have a word with Turloch.” He started down the central aisle.

  “And there wouldn’t be a kiddies’ choir or any Christmas pageant,” O’Reilly said, “but for those two and their predecessors, priests and Presbyterian ministers. There aren’t enough kids of each denomination to make up separate choirs, but together there are enough to make one.” He fished out his pipe.

  “Not long before I came here, the two churches got together and decided that just for that once, in the spirit of the season, they’d get the chisellers together for a carol evening. There was some opposition, but the Presbyterian elders, the more Christian ones, managed to persuade their congregation to give it a try, and more power to their wheels, I say. When the service was over, everyone had enjoyed it so much that it was decided to make it an annual event.”

  “Why? Why would they do a sensible thing like that?” Barry frowned. “It seems unbelievable. Ireland’s been divided for hundreds of years.”

  O’Reilly’s voice suddenly became wistful. “Do you know what happened in nineteen forty-one? At Easter?”

  Barry shook his head. “I was only six months old.”

  “The Luftwaffe bombed Belfast.”

  Jesus. Barry suddenly remembered Kinky telling him that O’Reilly’s young wife had been killed in those air raids. “That’s terrible, Fingal.”

  “Aye,” O’Reilly said and looked away. Barry heard him sniff. When he turned back, his eyes glittered. He was sucking his unlit pipe, much, Barry thought, as a baby sucks its dummy tit.

  O’Reilly continued, “Thousands of people were evacuated to the countryside. All over Ulster the barriers came down. Catholics sheltered Protestants and vice versa. A group of Catholics came to Ballybucklebo. It didn’t matter. Everyone helped. Some of the evacuees were billeted in the Orange Lodge. When Christmas came, the priest of the time, Fath
er Moynihan, wanted to have a carol service of thanksgiving, and he approached the minister, a Mr. Holmes . . .”

  “That’s wonderful.” Barry felt a little lump in his throat. He abhorred sectarian violence and to hear O’Reilly’s words had moved him deeply. “Thank you for telling me, Fingal.” Barry knew how horribly that blitz had affected the big man.

  O’Reilly shrugged. “The next year somebody suggested that, in for a penny, in for a pound, they’d go the whole hog and have a pageant, carols, Nativity play, and all. The two churches have taken it in turns year about to host the pageant ever since.”

  “That’s marvellous.”

  “I think,” said O’Reilly, shoving his pipe back in his pocket, “it’s what the fellah who had his birthday at Christmas would have wanted. It’s certainly why”—he pointed to the front row—“you’ll see Father O’Toole and Mr. Robinson with their heads together and the wife of Bertie Bishop, worshipful master of the local Orange Lodge, sitting in a Catholic chapel hall happily chatting to Cissie Sloan, this year’s secretary of the Ballybucklebo branch of the Catholic Women’s League.”

  Barry looked. By the way Cissie’s jaw was working, Flo wasn’t so much being talked to as talked at. He laughed. “We came to see Cissie—”

  “Aye,” said O’Reilly, starting to stride down the aisle. “We did.”

  Barry followed. He noticed a beautifully wrought crèche that stood at the right side, and above the stage an engraved wooden arc announced: “Peace on Earth. Good will to all men.” It must be a prop trotted out year after year, Barry thought.

  “Hello, Flo. Cissie,” O’Reilly said. “Grand to see you both.”

  The ladies, obviously deep in conversation, nodded back before turning to each other again.

  Father O’Toole turned from his conversation with Mr. Robinson and held out his hand to O’Reilly, who shook it; then the priest offered his hand to Barry. “And what brings you two men of healing here today?”

  “Cissie Sloan,” said O’Reilly. “She wanted us to see how the preparations are coming along.”

  “She and the other ladies have done a marvellous job. The decorating’s all done, so, and the choir is well rehearsed. The set needs to be painted and the play needs a bit more rehearsing, but Miss Nolan, bless her, is working like a Trojan. Here she comes now.”

  Barry could get a decent look at her. She was petite and slim, but well contoured beneath her white open-necked blouse. Her eyes, widely set above a snub nose, were hauntingly green. She walked with the erect fluidity of a catwalk model but without the exaggerated stride.

  “Miss Susan Nolan,” said the priest, “I’d like you to meet Doctor O’Reilly and Doctor Laverty.”

  The young teacher held her hands demurely in front of her skirt and inclined her head to O’Reilly and then to Barry. “I am pleased to meet you, gentlemen,” she said. Her voice was soft, musical, and Barry thought he heard a hint of the distinctive County Antrim accent with its lengthened vowels. “Please call me Sue.”

  It was as far as she got.

  Cissie had risen and invited herself into the conversation. “Begod, saving your presence, Father, it’s a delight to see you both, Doctors dear.”

  Barry nodded to her.

  “And how do you like the hall? I think it’s decorated to perfection, and the stage set is nearly built—”

  “I can see that,” O’Reilly said. “Who’s doing the—”

  Barry wasn’t sure if O’Reilly was going to say “carpentry” or “painting.”

  “Aye,” Cissie said. “The backdrop, it’s just roughed in now. It’ll be the stalls at the back of a stable. Sammy McCoubrey, him that’s a house painter by trade, is going to do animals’ heads, a horse, and a couple of oxen hanging over stable half doors. Stage left’ll be the front door to an inn.” She nudged O’Reilly and said conspiratorially. “He’ll do a big sign to go over the door, so he will. It’ll say, Bethlehem Inn, in capital letters . . .”—Barry thought she sounded as if she was speaking in capitals—“for the sake of the slow-to-recognize-things brigade. There’s one or two about, you know.”

  “I’m sure it will be wonderful, Cissie,” O’Reilly said. “Wonderful.”

  If Fingal had been hoping to slow her down, Barry thought, Fingal might as well have chucked a few pebbles in the torrent from a recently breached dam.

  “I was just telling Aggie . . . her backside’s better now since her fall on the frozen milk . . . I was just saying to Aggie . . .”

  Barry, who was still eyeing the teacher, caught her eye and mouthed silently, “My cousin with the six toes,” in unison with Cissie. He was rewarded with a lovely smile, and he guessed Sue Nolan had already heard of the famous cousin.

  “I was just telling her that this year’s pageant’ll be the best ever. Did you like the choir?” Cissie asked. “I think they’re cracker, so they are. They do ‘Scarlet Ribbons for Her Hair’ a treat . . .”

  “And I don’t think they should do it at all.” Flo Bishop stood foursquare, arms folded across her chest. “It’s not a carol, so it’s not. What do you think, Doctor O’Reilly? I know you approve, Father. It’d not be in the program if you didn’t. I like it right enough, but it’s not a carol and I think it should be carols only.”

  This could be interesting, Barry thought. Would a medical degree trump ordination in the Catholic Church on what seemed to be an ecclesiastical matter? He wasn’t given a chance to find out. Before O’Reilly could answer, Cissie bored on. “Aye, but it’s lovely. The way your man Harry Belly Fronty done it would bring tears to a stone . . . wee girl not getting nothing for Christmas because her daddy was too poor . . .”

  Barry well remembered Harry Belafonte’s version, which had been released in 1956. He’d still been a schoolboy. Back then he’d never dreamed that he’d be a country GP with a senior colleague, a Doctor Fingal O’Reilly, who would be helping to provide presents for the children of a needy mother.

  Cissie flowed on, with the force of a tsunami. “Him and his calypsos too. ‘Day-o, Day-o, daylight come . . . ’ ”

  Barry saw Miss Nolan’s lips moving and heard a soft sweet soprano. “ ‘And me wan’ go home.’ ” She inclined her head to one side. He followed her along one of the rows between chairs until Cissie’s voice was a muted muttering.

  Susan Nolan turned, and he saw a look of sympathetic amusement on her face. It wasn’t quite a smile, but the corners of her eyes creased and her nose wrinkled. It was most attractive.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Cissie has a heart of corn, but she does go on, and she’s been here at every rehearsal. I’ve listened to her a lot, and by the look on your face you’ve heard her in full flight too. I thought you could use a break.”

  “You were right.” Barry laughed. “Oh, were you right. I know Cissie well. I think she was vaccinated with a gramophone needle.”

  He was gratified when Sue Nolan laughed. She’d probably heard the old chestnut before, but she was gracious enough to pretend she found it funny. He liked that. It was amazing how easily she had made him, a lad who was notoriously awkward with women, feel so at ease. “So,” he asked, “how long have you been teaching here, Sue?”

  “Since I finished at Stranmillis teacher-training college two years ago. I come from Broughshane in County Antrim . . .” So he’d been right about her accent. “It’s a small place too. I like the country and I love it here. The children seem to want to learn and are so obedient.”

  “All of them?”

  She laughed again. “Weeeelll, most of them. One or two . . .” She rocked her outstretched hand from side to side.

  He noticed how slim her fingers were and that she wore no ring on her left hand. He knew its absence shouldn’t be of any interest to him, but it was.

  She raised her right eyebrow almost imperceptibly. “You know what boys are like.”

  “Boys like Colin Brown?”

  Her chuckle was like very deep, warm chocolate. “Doctor Laverty, that would be
breaching a professional confidence.”

  He leant closer to her and was aware of a subtle perfume. He lowered his voice. “Not from one professional to another.”

  She looked directly into his eyes and held his gaze for perhaps a second too long. “I suppose we could share secrets . . . professionally, of course.” Laugh lines ran out from the corners of her remarkable green eyes.

  Barry swallowed. He knew his pulse rate had quickened. “Indeed.” Perhaps, he thought, I should get back to safer small talk. “And do you live in Ballybucklebo? I haven’t seen you about the place.” If I had, I would have remembered, he thought. She really was quite stunning.

  “No,” she said. “In term time I board in Holywood and take the train.”

  “That’s only a couple of stops up the line,” he said. “Not much of a commute.” But there were good GPs in Holywood, so she’d be unlikely ever to be one of his patients.

  “Where do you live in the holidays?”

  “With my parents on their farm. The Glens of Antrim are quite close by. It’s such a beautiful area . . .”

  Barry had heard of the Glens, a high plateau scored by wooded glens and glacial green valleys that swept down to the sea. A friend of his at school had even hinted that there was something mystical about the place. It certainly had its share of ancient sites. He’d always meant to visit them.

  “I’ve never been there, but I’ve been told it’s lovely.”

  Sue Nolan looked at him intently, as if gauging his sincerity. Then she dropped her gaze to the floor and said carefully, “I’d be happy to show you round, although I’ll be staying in Holywood until after the pageant.”

  Barry wished she would look up again so he could see her eyes. Was this just a polite, seasonal invitation? People were always more hospitable at this time of year. Still, she was definitely not one of his patients, so there was no professional reason not to ask her out. And he seemed sure she was telling him she’d be amenable to such a suggestion.

  He chided himself for even thinking such a thing, but she really was lovely. And damn it, he was a healthy young man, not a monk in holy orders. It hadn’t been much of a struggle to say a chaste good-night to Peggy after the nurses’ dance, but this Sue Nolan was different. It was a bloody good thing Kinky was so sure Patricia was coming home soon. And yet what if she didn’t? Or what if she did and, perish the thought, had cooled toward him?