The Woodcutter and his Family

by Frank McGuinness

  I heard him race into my room up to my bed and pretended still to be sound asleep so he’d shake me awake and plead with me, hope against hope I’d found the loot. I looked at him, my father nearly crying, and I pulled the wad out from where I’d hidden it. He threw his arms about me and called me his darling son. He slipped me a pound note, or was it ten shillings? I asked him would he be giving some to my mother, and he told me she would not go short, but it had to be returned to the man who owned it. Who’s he? I asked. Father Christmas, he joked and kissed my hair again, happy as Larry, happy as I’d ever seen him. And that morning I learned something about my father. Above all else, he loved money.

  Then why had he so little of it? Because he made an art of squandering, and we suffered for this art. To please him, I used to imagine how long we could all live on a loaf of bread, slicing it thinly, and when that was cut, dicing each morsel into maybe a single crumb, gathering it under my fingers, trying to make it last from the beginning of one month to the end, and when he saw how splendidly we could eke out our days and nights, how we could subsist on so very little, he would feel himself to be the finest provider in Dublin. He would smile on us and we would rejoice in our father’s happiness.

  Happy – our father, what a strange contact these words make – was the man ever anything but hell-bent on being forsaken by all he felt should love him most and who he did all in his power to make them hate him? What could have changed that? Who could have? Not my mother. If she’d put up more of a fight – if she had not withered – but she did all to please him, to serve her lord and master, and if she had to hide food to save it for us youngsters, then she would conceal it where she knew he’d find it, because he always did. What can I do against him? she would plead, he has only to open his mouth and I will obey, I have neither heart nor strength to resist him.

  And neither did I, certainly not this Christmas night and him rotten with whiskey. What’s happened to that song, youngster? he roared, will you not gladden your papa’s heart and humour the old fool when he asks you? I knew better than to play along and agree even in jest he was old or a fool, since truth be told he considered himself neither, but I struggled to find what should please him. If he disliked my choice, there was a chance all hell might break loose, and it may be wicked of me to admit I might be wanting such chaos. It could end the waiting for whatever might happen, depending on his mood. His fist hit the table – is the boy going to sing for me? I sang.

  When other lips and other hearts

  Their tales of love shall tell,

  In language whose excess imparts

  The power they feel so well:

  There may, perhaps, in such a scene

  Some recollection be

  Of days that have as happy been,

  And you’ll remember me.

  When coldness or deceit shall slight

  The beauty now they prize,

  And deem it but a faded light

  Which beams within your eyes;

  When hollow hearts shall wear a mask,

  ’Twill break your own to see:

  In such a moment I but ask

  That you’ll remember me!

  That you’ll remember … remember me.

  And now I start to weep for my father. Even on this, my bed of death, I see him as young, a fine figure of a man, raising his hand not to harm me but to caress, and if he could within his power remove this agony that consumes me, he would do so, giving for the relief of my suffering every penny in every pocket, in every lining where a few bob might be the saving grace, having slipped through a tear in a jacket sleeve and trouser pocket, falling to the ground like manna from heaven to pay for the hair of the dog or the one for the road, the best of the night – have you heard about the widow woman suckled a sheep which was said to be the sweetest mutton ever tasted and that’s not a word of a lie? Father, was there ever a word of a lie? Were you believed always and everywhere you travelled, whatever part of Dublin you chose to honour with your custom, never standing your round, for is that not the way of royalty around the world?

  He had me convinced we sprang from kings and counts, archdukes and earls, and that our domain stretched as far as Donnybrook or the Liberties – penury there was as exotic to him, in the big house of his birth, as Bangkok or Baghdad. Though such grandeur might be lost, still he told stories of my strict old grandmother, a bad rip of the highest order, whose estate consisted of the foulest tenements in Dublin city, houses held together by dirt, their bricks breathing out consumption. That mean-spirited madam, she insisted on collecting in person the coinage of rents owed, holding an orange stuck with cloves to her nose, carrying a stout bag where the pence were collected.

  She would stagger under the dead weight of these ill-gotten gains back to her mansion in Hatch Street, and there some little skivvy would pour boiling water into a tin bath, her job being to scald clean all the filthy shillings and dirty pence that were the foundation of our fortune. Grandmother watched like a hawk the girl at her work in case the temptation to pocket a tanner proved too much. Not much chance of that occurring – the old lady had already in her clever head counted the exact amount should be steeping under the steam, washing it pure as her soul, praying at three Masses on Sunday in the church called Adam and Eve’s. Yes, penny wise indeed, but was she pound foolish?

  Who did she leave it to? Her darling son. What did he do with it? Let it fly from him, fast as shite from a shovel, for so himself declared. And why not, boys, why not? Wasn’t there sport spending it, sport the old dear, his mother, could never have imagined, as she buried it down her drawers thinking it would rise with her, jangling on the Day of Judgement. Not a chance, Mother, whose lips never touched a drop, so didn’t I make up for it? Did you attend as much as a single Mass said for the repose of her soul? he was challenged. Indeed and I did, he defended himself, one single Mass. Wasn’t she holy herself in this life as a posse of Poor Clares? Will she spend a day in Purgatory?

  I doubt it, for when she reached the Pearly Gates, St Peter would have found himself demoted and her given the keys of the kingdom, reigning over all lands. Such blasphemy! Wasn’t that a dreadful way to be speaking of his dead mother, and her not cold in the clay? one cousin remarked. She added that she didn’t think the Poor Clare Order moved in posses, as if they were cattle to be herded about the ranch of the Kingdom of God on earth. Let me clarify things here, my father explained, I would no more waste my time in the company of nuns than I would stick my hand in a bucket of dung. If that offends, I’m sorry, he added, and I give my apologies to the bucket. That cleared the house of them.

  But soon they were gloating. You see, good luck couldn’t come of it, such mocking and sneering – downright devil worship. Hadn’t we lost the lot, or as much as meant they need never acknowledge us again? One bastard aunt paid a visit, seeking us out to prove to herself we were really penniless. Hardship makes even the mild less timorous, and my mother was working up to ask for a loan. But the flint-hearted relation hadn’t held on to her First Communion money for nothing. She was not so much up to any possible request for charity but well ahead of it, for wasn’t it just, at the very instant my mother was summoning all her courage to beg – that’s what it was, no need to be polite, it was begging – that’s precisely when our Lady Bountiful noticed she was not carrying her purse. Where could she have mislaid it?

  Oh now, she remembers, in the kitchen at home, she can see it clear as daylight, she had just paid the butcher who’d called to settle his bill – the price of meat, we’ll all soon be living on sausages – and there she’d put it down and quite forgotten it. As she had a few errands to run, would my mother be an absolute dear and loan her five shillings? She would send it back immediately.

  Did my mother scream, how dare you? She did not. Did my mother tell that hag, who burns now in hell, the children in the house would go hungry if this money were borrowed? She did not. Did my mother give the miserable whore what she asked for? She did, and why? Because I ha
te her, my mother confessed, and I never knew the precise reason why, but I do now. Five shillings is a small price to pay to be certain, absolutely certain, that my contempt was correct. Mother knew she’d never get a smell of that do-re-mi again, but she would also never have to endure the stench of that barren bitch with her tonsils hanging out, starving for gossip and the bitter word, as my father described his relation.

  Not that it stopped him approaching many others for whatever handouts he could garner. And my mother, she walked through Dublin, broken to the bone. She thanked the Sacred Heart I had brains to burn for winning scholarships and prizes that at times kept us fed. If I told my wife these stories, she’d laugh in my face, reminding me of what want was really like, no Dublin jackeen could have a notion of that, you needed to hail, as she and all her breed did, from the famished West of Ireland. She claimed a second cousin had, years before, married into a crowd that survived for seven months once upon a time on a diet of stones stolen from a wall in the Aran Islands, ground down into a paste, mixed with salt, pepper and water, with no more taste than grass.

  Where did they get the pepper? I asked her. If they were that destitute, how come they had access to such a luxury? It was given to them, she ascertained, and they were thankful for the kindness, not inclined to insult those generous enough to comfort. If the best that shower could rise to was a shake of pepper, I maintained, then their heads deserved to be chopped off and eaten for supper. Aren’t you the clever fellow? she jeered. I know for a fact they were given a whole drum of pepper and it made the soup more than a little palatable. Well, were that the case, I observed, they might have tried to swallow the slabs of the stone wall itself, to stop them indulging over much on its harshness, delicious and all as it might be. Jesus, woman, do you ever listen to yourself? I queried of her. There’s times you’d sicken a goat.

  We bred goats, you know, once upon a time, she remembered, God between us and all harm, but they’re disagreeable creatures. I used to spend the summer months living on the slopes of Nephin mountain, working as a goat herder with my uncle, Phonsie, who was a shepherd and never married, so devoted was he to his flock.

  You’re a confounded liar, I let her know, you’d no more touch a goat than you would a wasp. Where do your stories spring from?

  Well may you ask, she snapped back at me, and well may you answer, for aren’t you the expert on this matter? Isn’t my head turned trying to keep up with the ins and outs of all your flying fucks of what happens next and where is this all going? Aren’t you the one constantly leaving me lost as to what is and what is not, according to your imagination? Is my son capable of leaving the house without a bottle somewhere on his person? Is my daughter falling asunder? What kind of mad yahoos do they attract? A woman who doesn’t know if it’s morning, noon or night? A Protestant Sammy who doesn’t wash himself and smells like a fishing boat and its contents? I wouldn’t be breaking my neck paying for either wedding, if one ever is to happen by some miracle. But you ask me, where do my stories spring from? I’ll answer you – they’re from my life, unless you know differently. Do you?

  I didn’t, so I let it rest, though I had a good idea what was coming next, and it would touch on my daughter, Beatrice. When was the last time you entered a church door? Bertha wanted to know. But I was ready for her and, quick as lightning, I replied, I did stray into a synagogue not that long ago. Does that qualify? It does in my book, I let her know, just to prod her. You’ll be watched by all the enemies of Zion, she warned me, and there seems no shortage of those boyos in this day and age. Maybe it’s an honour, I replied, to be so watched. Tell me that the next time you’re stuffing your face with bacon and cabbage, she hissed. I’ll save you the cabbage, I offered her, you can wear it instead of lipstick. What was it I was called – by your mother or by your aunt – was it a painted hussy? Bertha asked, or was I just country cute, as they termed me? You should know, you carried the story with you. And I wonder what they’d say if the same ladies got a glimpse of our daughter in all her glory. What do you think would be their response?

  I would not rise to this, I kept my mouth shut. Do you think they’d be charmed? she continued. What would they make of her? Would they talk to her? What do you think they’d advise? Would they believe she needed a priest or a doctor? Haven’t you years ago trotted her out to all the mental homes and mind readers in Switzerland? Have they told us anything we don’t already know? Didn’t one say it all came down to dreams, her madness, and it was yours, not her own, that were troubling her? How can that happen? How have you entered her brain like that? What kind of badness – and badness it is – have you been stirring to succeed in pulling off such a strange trick, when it’s protecting the poor fool you should be, not leading her even more astray, giving her access to your musing and all its meandering. What are you at? Why don’t you stop it? Why don’t you give in? Me, I’d try anything to right what’s wrong with her.

  Why won’t you? she entreats. Why will you not take her to Mass? Why can we not ask a priest for help?

  She knows my answer. She cries a bit but recovers herself. So you won’t lower yourself, she repeats. But if I want to introduce my daughter to the powers of Satan, you will not stop me. Well, that’s a big help, she nods, a great help indeed, thank you, I’ll bear your advice in mind. Good Christ, I think you’re enjoying this, seeing me in such a state, and you as serene as she is. What else did he say, the Geneva doctor, if doctor he is? Did he tell you how she hates me? Hates her brother? Did he tell you she is doing what her father bids her? No answer to that, have you? That certainly shook you. Do you think I do not know your little arrangement? Once it was all right me reading your books and following whatever made head or tail as you decreed it should be, and I swallowed this to make some fist of what kind of man you are, but that had to stop when she took control of the reins and led your horse to water on what under Jesus was fabricated by the pair of you. I’m not saying you touched her where you shouldn’t – her tits, her woman, her arse, they went unmolested, although life might be a lot simpler if that were not the case.

  No, you went deeper, and you didn’t want to go alone. Did you know the destruction you were weaving? Did you know there might come a time she would not come back? She was your mind run riot, never knowing when to halt. You’re being very quiet – but tell me, am I right or am I wrong?

  Are you ever wrong? I ask her. Am I ever right? she corrects me. But is your brain not frazzled? I want to know. Worn down, not what it was, spinning on its axis. As it is this day while I am dying, daring my wife to challenge that.

  She does so with tears, tears of sorrow, of recrimination, all against herself. Our son enters and tries to embrace her, but she turns away. Where have you been? she asks him, how was I to manage here on my own? What if something happened?

  I went for a walk to the graveyard, he tells her, but she stops him, saying such talk could hasten the hour, it was unlucky. And what about my sister? he asks. What about her? she demands. What good can she do? He turns directly to his mother. Will we try to get her word? She should at least know. Should we try to bring her here?

  Are you as insane as she is? My wife now is furious. How do we get her from France across the Swiss border? And if we could arrange that miracle, what would we do with her? Could you nurse her? I certainly could not, she has the strength of a horse when the wildness is on her. It would take a team of six male nurses to hold her when she’s awry, and she is always now awry, isn’t she?

  She sees he is crying, she pats him on the shoulder, she says quietly, we did what we could, we saved her from herself.

  No, you saved her from myself, that is what you mean, isn’t it, Bertha? How wise women are when they are jealous. That is when they see things most clearly. When their suspicions let them smell the workings of all that’s sour, that’s rancid in the human heart. Did I desire my daughter? As she danced, did I out-Herod Herod? But what if I had such eyes, only for my son? What then would my wife say? Might she then a
dmit I was indeed her rival for his affections? If I am to stand accused in some mean or manner of incestuous thought, why should such a charge enter her head against me, if it had not already been present in her longing for our boy, as beautiful in his way as the sister he rivals? Were I to choose on which to lay loving hands, would my wife insist on removing such choice as her way of being in sole control of what fate could befall this strange family?

  Or is it so strange? What have I done to incur divine wrath? Is a thought a deed? An image, an action? My little ones, they run from me as if I would besmirch them, but I am an old man, paralysed by illness, his body broken by ague, his blood a weary stream running dry of tributaries. What rain falls from these bones is poor stuff indeed, perhaps a noxious mixture to poison carnations, the rose and sunflower, the glories of our garden that once did dazzle, sending all our swains and their Sylvias into each other’s arms, swearing eternal bondage, embracing their chains of beaten gold and enchanting silver, loosened from the very bowels of the moon, that if I could but release that matter from me, I might get up from this bed and stretch out my legs, my arms, my feet, my fingers, my toes. Let the eagles of Zeus carry me, feast on me, his Ganymede, an offering to my father, my heavenly father, that he can fuck me as he likes if that be his pleasure, as it was not my pleasure with son nor daughter, and for this filthy chastity, I am punished with death. There is no pleasing some.

  Marcel Proust there was no pleasing that time I met him. He would be intent on talking cricket, a subject not to my liking, yet meat and drink to my daughter’s young admirer, who hailed from Foxrock and played the game for Ireland, but as this bed I lie on could also play cricket for Ireland, I counted it, as he to his credit did, a small achievement.

  Not so Proust who proved himself, in the intricacy of their conversation on the topic, to be quite the expert on the odd and suggestive quality of the sport. Why this fascination? I inquired. He replied, their whites, the cricket whites, they transform the roughest beasts into cherubim. The colour obsessed him, and every recipe devised in his masterpiece Cooking for Phantoms, displayed through its multiple volumes that passion. Above all, he prided himself on his creation of a cheese sandwich, the gentlest brie, so pure its milk might never have touched a cow’s tit, served toasted, not on a slice a bread, but on a tarot card, the choice of whichever image from the pack specified the fate this greatest of chefs believed in store for his hungry guest.