‘Let me think about that one for a while,’ Tom Cutler had told him. ‘The fall isn’t full out yet you know.’
It was the way the old man had said it that nettled John. It was as though he had made some outrageously childish claim and had not been taken seriously, had been humorously rebuffed. Was his father playing for time and if so why? The old fellow had been acting too independently of late, not caring whether John rose or slept it out in the mornings, whistling to himself and walking off whenever John grumbled about his lot. It was a totally new and inexplicable phase in their relationship. Had the old man something up his sleeve? John grew moodier as the autumn drew to a close. He was no longer asked to go to the village for farm or household necessities. He suspected he was being subtly isolated. Whenever he entered the kitchen they busied themselves ostentatiously with needless chores or if they were engaged in conversation it was immediately terminated when he put in an appearance. It was as though his father wished him to know that he had better tread warily, that there might be more strings to his bow than were apparent. There could only be one answer. They had contacted Willie with a view to bringing him home but how to be sure, how to make certain? Mick Kelly would know.
‘It’s a question I am not at liberty to answer,’ Mick Kelly told him firmly when John Cutler demanded to know if there had been any exchange of letters between his father and Willie.
‘Then there is!’ John banged his pint glass triumphantly on the bar counter.
‘No,’ Mick assured him, ‘there isn’t. Take my word for it. You have nothing to worry about from that quarter, at least as far as I know.’
John shook his head glumly. ‘He has some ace in the hole,’ he said, ‘it has to be Willie.’
The Cutlers did not possess a motor car. The only concession Tom Cutler had made to modernisation was to invest in a second-hand tractor and he did this reluctantly. Until the arrival of the tractor he depended on a pair of horses. He greatly deprecated the disposal of these but compensated himself with the purchase of a pony. He refused to buy a motor car. He had a light cart made for the pony and used it to convey himself and Minnie to Mass, for occasional trips to the village and for work in the bog during the turf harvesting. The tractor with a trailer attached was used chiefly for conveying the milk to the village creamery and for general farm work although John used it regularly to get to and from the pub.
As they breakfasted one morning towards the end of September the old man addressed his wife.
‘As soon as you’ve finished the washing-up,’ he informed her, ‘I’ll tackle the pony for you. There’s a few items to be got from the village.’
Minnie nodded obediently.
‘You’ll bring the usual groceries, a quarter pound of three inch nails and eight yards of rope. ’Tis time the turf was drawn out. The laths on the rail need securing and a new reins will be wanted.‘
Again Minnie nodded dutifully. ‘Will that be all?’ she asked.
‘That will be all,’ Tom Cutler said.
‘Bring a handful of fags as well will you?’ John added.
The old couple exchanged looks but no comment was forthcoming. Tom arose and went towards the door. Before going out he turned. ‘You will bring back the items I ordered,’ he said, ‘and no more.’ Hands in pockets he went whistling into the sunlight.
Without a word John rose and followed. His mother would have restrained him but he was gone before she could speak. What she wanted to tell him was that she would bring a few packets of cigarettes unknown to his father but the words just wouldn’t come out. She had been frightened by the look on John’s face as he left. At first she feared that he would waylay his father and have it out with him but no, he had gone straight to the tractor, started it and driven off. Mick Kelly’s words came back to her. ‘I can’t counsel you further,’ he had said. ‘I can only tell you that all is not well with your son.’
From force of habit she refused to ponder on the problem, concentrating instead on the trip to the village. She sensed, however, that events were coming to a head. Her intuition told her that something would have to be done if a calamity were to be avoided. There was no point in bringing the matter up with her husband. She had tried repeatedly since Mick Kelly’s visit but he had smothered every effort at the outset. She resorted to the only means of succour remaining to her. Rummaging in her apron pocket she withdrew her Rosary beads and silently began the long count of Hail Marys. She would pray the whole way to and from the village and she would light candles in the parish church. The thought consoled her. The peace and beauty of the candle altar would be a tonic in itself, the very thing to bring her out of herself. She was unaccustomed to such treats. As she led the pony towards the roadway there was a lightness in her step that she hadn’t experienced for months. In the village she saw a tractor which looked like John’s outside one of the public houses but her new found elation was such that she felt able to ignore the implications involved. In the church she would find refuge from all embarrassments. There was no doubt in her mind about that and was not this as it should be? Was it not her entitlement?
Mick Kelly dismounted from his motor cycle at the entrance to the Cutler farm. He didn’t have a letter but he had resolved to face up to Tom Cutler a second time. The day before he had encountered Minnie on her way from the village but she had not reined up to talk. Neither had she returned his salute. He had noticed the beads entwined about her fingers. He had remounted then and gone about his business. He had planned a new approach for this second appeal. This time he would draw Minnie into the thick of things whether she wished it or not. He believed that deep down she sympathised with John and he would be depending on this. It would be to his advantage if she were alone when he arrived but failing that he would involve her anyway. As he neared the house he sensed there was something wrong, something disproportionate. There was a new and terrible dimension to the area left of the house where the last leaves on a stand of ash trees whispered in the morning wind. There was an ominous addition to the familiar landscape and yet, though he was curious, he could not bring himself to look. This, however, could be that he already knew the awful nature of the intrusion. Slowly he forced his eyes to the left, eyes that started to fill with terror the moment he decided to confirm his worst fears. What he saw before him was the ultimate in physical distortion. The body of John Cutler hung from a stout branch extending from one of the ash trees. Around his neck was the shining new rope his mother had purchased in the village the day before. He was barefoot. His shoes had fallen to the ground. They lay directly beneath his feet. Mick Kelly made the sign of the cross and threw the cycle to one side. His next reaction was to pound the kitchen door. Instead he drew a deep breath and knocked gently. The door was opened at once by Tom Cutler.
‘I have bad news.’ Mick Kelly bent his head to avoid the rheumy eyes. Tom Cutler made his task easy.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘I was just going for help.’
He had, he explained, been changing into a fresh shirt. His shortcoat lay in readiness on the table. Minnie sat soundlessly by the Stanley, her beads clutched in her hands, her body rocking forward and backwards on the chair. All the time her lips moved in prayer.
‘Will you take him down?’ Tom Cutler asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ Mick answered, surprised by the old man’s matter-of-factness. Despite the shock which he must have undergone he seemed to be his everyday self.
‘You’ll need a ladder,’ Tom Cutler said.
‘And a knife,’ Mick enjoined.
‘What do you want with a knife?’ Tom asked.
‘To cut the rope,’ Mick responded.
‘A saw is what you want,’ Tom reminded him. ‘A saw to cut the branch.’
Mick listened with growing wonder as the old man explained. ‘A branch can be had for nothing,’ he said, ‘a rope costs money. Besides ’tis wanted for a reins.‘
Buttoning his shortcoat he led the way to a small outhouse. He emerged with a short ladder wh
ich he handed to Mick. He re-entered the house and emerged with a rusty saw. He motioned a bemused Mick Kelly to follow him towards the ash grove. Overhead the dry leaves flickered around his dead son. Some fell to the ground to join the others already rotting there.
7
DOUSIE O‘DEA
If you were to ask anybody in the parish of Tanvally about Dousie O’Dea the answer would always be the same. She had no equal in the county when it came to the doing up of corpses. As she grew older she grew selective and practised her art on rare occasions only. Then there came an unhappy day when she announced that she was retiring altogether. Thereafter nothing could persuade her to continue. She declined even to indulge deathbed wishes.
It was in the little things that Dousie excelled. Where a wart dominated a certain area of the face when life throbbed in that face’s temples there would be no sign in death that a wart ever existed. Hair that in life seemed lank and incapable of curling assumed, under Dousie’s coiffeusage, a transfiguration so beauteous that seasoned corpse-viewers could only gasp upon beholding it. She had a special way with wrinkles. As she kneaded the ancient skin of pensioners these would vanish mysteriously one by one until the texture of the skin on the face of the subject assumed a girlish smoothness. Unsightly pimples were transformed into fetching beauty spots while minor distortions of the neck and ears were so skilfully adapted that they never failed to compliment the visage from which they once detracted.
Once and once only was her handiwork submitted for professional criticism. The cadaver in question was that of one Baldy Mullane, an aged agricultural labourer who suddenly made his farewell to this life while transplanting onions in a plot at the rear of his cottage. Dousie was called upon to ready him for his trip to the next world. This she did without fuss or delay. That night at Baldy Mullane’s wake there was porter in abundance. Two half tierces were on tap. Wine and whiskey flowed freely. It had been Baldy’s lifelong ambition to be waked decently. At the height of the mourning when the wake-room was crammed with sympathisers it was announced that an American holiday-maker by the name of Louis Blep had arrived for the dual purpose of paying his respects and inspecting the corpse. Blep was a small, fat, loquacious individual whose mother had been born and reared in Tanvally but was forced to emigrate to the United States in order to find employment. In Chicago she married a successful mortician of German extraction. His name was Ernst Blep. Louis was the sole outcome of the union. Ever since his Confirmation when his mother had first brought him on holiday to her parents’ home in Tanvally Louis had paid regular visits to the matemal homestead. His mother and grandparents were long since dead but there was no scarcity of relations. He would spend a few days with each until his three weeks’ holiday expired. Even if he had never heard of Dousie O‘Dea’s skills as an amateur mortician his presence would have been expected at the wake-house anyway.
He was greeted on arrival by Baldy Mullane’s daughter, Bessie. A brimming glass of whiskey was thrust into his hand. He swallowed it neat at one go. This was the custom. He would be presented with a second glass as soon as he regained his breath after the first. This would be drunk at a more leisurely rate while he sympathised with the relations. As soon as he moved towards the wake-room door the occupants of the kitchen pressed forward. There were many who wanted to hear him confirm what they had long believed, that Dousie O‘Dea was without peer when it came to the doing-up of corpses while others, a minority, hoped only that the visit would be a come-uppance for Dousie. Such is the price of fame and indeed in Tanvally as in other places there are always people who are incapable of saying a good word about anybody.
Preparatory to his entry Louis Blep handed his empty glass to Bessie Mullane. It would hardly have been in keeping with the occasion had he taken it into the wake-room. Handing it to Bessie was his guarantee that it would be filled upon his return to the kitchen. Louis hesitated for a moment at the wake-room door. He had already resolved to be uncritical of Dousie’s efforts. Neither would he over-praise. A pleasant smile and a gentle nod of approval should keep everybody happy. He was quite unprepared for the eye-catching artistry which confronted him from the death bed. Baldy Mullane did not look a day over forty. His head glinted under the light of the sacred candles which stood in their pewter sticks at either side of the bed. The serenity of sanctity shone from his flawless face. If the expression thereon could have been translated into words it would have read: ‘Gone straight to heaven. Signed Baldy Mullane’.
Louis knelt on one knee and whispered a hasty Lord’s Prayer for the soul of the deceased. A number of sombrely dressed, elderly women sat on sugawn chairs at the other side of the bed. Their trained eyes missed nothing. If Louis Blep’s inscrutable features were to register the most insignificant of changes it would be recorded at once and its character accurately interpreted. From time to time these frosty-faced fossils exchanged whispers, winks and nudges which spelt approval or disapproval of certain mourners. Otherwise they maintained a stony silence which helped immediately to chasten exuberant or drunken visitors. In fairness to them they helped to preserve the solemnity of the proceedings. Louis Blep rose and blessed himself, nodded respectfully in the direction of the vigilant elders and vacated the wake-room. A crowd gathered round him. He took momentary refuge in the full glass which Bessie Mullane handed him.
‘Well?’ A self-appointed spokesman for the group posed the question.
‘I seen mugs in my time,’ Louis Blep, having carefully considered the question, spoke from his heart, ‘but I ain’t never seen no mug like that in there. The guy’s positively beautiful. This dame, what’s her name?’
‘Dousie O’Dea,‘ everybody chorused.
‘She’s a natcheral. If she was in the States with a talent like that she’d be a millionaire in no time.’
This put the seal on Dousie O‘Dea’s already prestigious reputation. Word of Louis Blep’s commendation spread far and wide. From that night forth it was considered sacrilegious when unwittingly some innocent spoke disparagingly of Dousie. Her reputation was secure. That was why her retirement came as such a blow to those who had hoped for her ministrations at the end. Years passed but despite constant appeals she steadfastly refused to come out of retirement. As a result it greatly added to the respectability of a family if they could boast that one of their members had been done up by Dousie O’Dea. It was almost like owning a Stradivarius. It carried with it more esteem than a marble headstone or a Celtic Cross and it wasn’t that Dousie had lost her touch or that age had blunted her skill.
In her heart of hearts she knew that all her efforts, excellent and all as they were, had a sameness, an unchangeable texture, a sort of futile duplication. The cold truth was that no single one stood out above any other. No one would deny that they were all masterpieces and could not be bettered but was this enough? Should not there be one effort which crowned all the others? It was a niggling question and the older she got the more it vexed her. Hard as she tried she could not recall a particular corpse more pleasing to her than all the others. From her backward vantage point she had no way of knowing that the true artist can never be fully satisfied.
In time others came to take her place. She frequently viewed the end-products of her imitators. She had no choice. When neighbours died condolences had to be offered. This meant kneeling by the deathbed for as long as it took to intone a decade of the Rosary. She would have to be blind not to notice the bed’s occupant. Always upon rising she would pass the same comment: ‘A handsome corpse God bless her’, or if it was a man: ‘A noble corpse God bless him’. She was conceding nothing. Everybody else said exactly the same thing. It was part of the ritual of all wake-house visits. Sometimes when her imitators excelled themselves the grim-faced custodians of the wake-room would alert themselves for Dousie’s reaction. None save the customary comment was ever forthcoming. Then on a hail-ridden, windy night in mid-January Dousie O‘Dea had unexpected visitors. Her husband Jack it was who answered the timid knocking on the door. Ja
ck and Dousie had not been blessed with issue. For all that they were well content with themselves and had no great wish for company other than their own.
‘Who’s out?’ Jack O‘Dea called.
“Tis only us,‘ came the response from outside.
‘Yes,’ said Jack O‘Dea, ’but who is us?‘
‘Us is Thade and Donal Fizzell.’
Jack recognised Thade Fizzell’s booming voice.
‘I declare to God!’ Dousie spoke from her corner of the hearth, ‘there is nothing so sure as that their sister Jule is dead.’
In the doorway the brothers shook the hailstones from their caps and shoulders.
‘God bless all here.’ They spoke in unison.
‘Take off the coats and drive on up to the fire,’ Dousie welcomed them as she rose to take their coats.
“Tis unmerciful weather entirely,‘ Thade Fizzell spoke to no one in particular.
‘A coarse brush I wouldn’t put out this night,’ Donal, the smaller and younger of the pair spoke in support. When all were seated round the fire Dousie took a bottle and glasses from a well-concealed compartment high in the hearth wall. The bottle contained poitcheen. She poured until the brothers protested and then poured an extra dollop in case the protests were token. The brothers were well into their second glasses before conversation began in earnest. It touched first upon the vagaries of the winter weather, then upon the quality of fodder and potatoes until it centred upon the true purpose of the visit. The externals, however, had to be observed regardless of the importance of the news. These outward flourishes helped to emphasise the main item which in this case happened to be, as Dousie had predicted, the recent demise of Jule Fizzell. The brothers were both in their early seventies which meant that Jule who was the oldest of the family could well be eighty years of age.
‘Did she go quick the poor soul?’ Dousie enquired after her death had been announced.
The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland Page 7