From his inside pocket he withdrew Tom Hallon’s Curriculum Vitae and read it for the second time. Written on a lined page neatly extracted from a school exercise book it was clearly the work of his daughter Dolly. The spelling was correct but the accomplishments were few. He had worked in the mill but nowhere else. He had lost his job through no fault of his own. Thus far it could have been the story of any unemployed man within a radius of three miles but then the similarities ended for it was revealed that Tom Hallon had successfully played the role of Santa Claus for as long as Dolly Hallon could remember. While the gifts he delivered were home-made and lacking in craftsmanship his arrival had brought happiness unbounded to the Hallon family and to the several other poverty-stricken families in Hog Lane.
‘Surely,’ Fred Spellacy addressed himself in the privacy of the snug, ‘if this man can play the role of Santa Claus then so can I. If he can bear gifts I can bear gifts.’
He rose and buttoned his coat. He pulled up his socks and finished his stout before proceeding unsteadily but resolutely towards the abode of Dolly Hallon in Hog Lane.
He had been prepared, although not fully, for the repercussions. The unsuccessful applicants, their families, friends and handlers, all made their dissatisfaction clear in the run-up to Christmas. They had cast doubts upon his integrity and ancestry in language so malevolent and scurrilous that he was beyond blushing by the time all had their say.
One man had to be physically restrained and the wife of another had spat into his face. He might not have endured the sustained barrage at all but for one redeeming incident. It wanted but three days for Christmas. A long queue had formed at the post office counter, many of its participants hostile, the remainder impatient.
From upstairs came the woebegone cronawning of his obstructive spouse and when the cronawning ceased there came, down the stairs, shower after shower of the most bitter recriminations, sharper and more piercing than driving hail. He was very nearly at the end of his tether.
‘Yes!’ he asked of the beaming face which now stood at the head of the ever-lengthening queue. There was no request for stamps nor was there a parcel to be posted. Dolly Hallon just stood there, her pale face transformed by the most angelic and pleasing of smiles. She uttered not a single word but her gratitude beamed from her radiant countenance.
Fred Spellacy felt as though he had been included in the communion of saints. His cares vanished. His heart soared. Then, impassively, she winked at him. Fred Spellacy produced a handkerchief and loudly blew his nose.
16
THE REEK
The bog was a mixture of browns and greys, grey where the sun had bleached the exposed turf banks and the misshapen reeks of yesteryear which stood along the margin of the roadway. In the moonlight the grey turned to silver but the brown remained sombre even when stars danced and the heavens seemed on fire. When the weather was fine the bog was my playground. Every goat-path, bog-hole and goosenest was as familiar to me as the lanes and streets of the nearby town where I lived. I knew the titles of the turf banks and the names of the reek owners. I knew the sod depth of every bank and the quagmires where asses and ponies sank to their haunches. This was because I spent most of the summer days with two ancient relatives who lived in a tiny thatched house on the edge of the bog. They were brothers. Their names were Mr Chamberlain and Sir Stafford Cripps. These, of course, were not their real names. Rather were they sobriquets invented by the locals on account of the resemblance the pair bore to the British politicians Neville Chamberlain and Stafford Cripps. The Second World War was well under way when I discovered the bog and there was an abundance of Rommells, Montys and McArthurs so christened because of forecasts they might have made regarding the outcome of the war or because of certain characteristics relating to the famous generals.
Mr Chamberlain was the older of the two brothers. He was lean as a whippet, bald as a coot and reticent to the point of muteness. Sir Stafford on the other hand was as talkative as he was outgoing. Both were on the old age pension. It was Sir Stafford who tackled the ass and went to town on Fridays to cash the pension vouchers. Mr Chamberlain would not demean himself with such mundane matters and only went to town on Sundays to attend Mass. The pair got on famously. Sometimes there were disagreements but these were shortlived. I remember one such. It was early September. The turf was harvested and new reeks were beginning to appear daily on the roadway. The brothers had earlier cut, stooked and restooked two sleans of turf and this stood now in donkey stoolins in the bog on the heather-covered turf bank which had supplied them with turf for generations. It would have to be transported from the bank to the roadway where it would be built into a reek.
Mid-August to mid-September was the recognised time for drawing out. The passages to the turf banks were dry and firm but later they might be rendered impassable by heavy rains. When this happened the turf remained in the bog until the late spring of the following year and the owners had to make do with the remains of old reeks and occasional sacks laboriously drawn on their backs from the stranded stoolins.
‘It’s time,’ Mr Chamberlain announced as we sat on the low wall which fronted the house.
‘And I say it’s not time,’ Sir Stafford countered.
‘And why so do you say that?’ Mr Chamberlain asked, ‘when I say otherwise.’
‘I say that,’ said Sir Stafford, ‘because the man on Hanafin’s wireless made a forecast of rain.’
‘And what do he know?’ Mr Chamberlain asked derisively, ‘that couldn’t tell one end of this bog from the other no more nor the ass.’
‘He knows plenty,’ Sir Stafford persisted.
‘There will be no rain tomorrow,’ Mr Chamberlain spoke with finality. ‘The wind is from the right point and there’s heating in it and if there’s heating in it then by all the laws the sun will be along after the wind.’
To give confirmation to his belief he raised his head and turned his thin, sensitive nose into the wind. I did likewise. The sea was less than five miles distant as the crow flies and sometimes there was a tang of salt in the air. Other times, especially after high tides, there would be a strong fragrance of sea wrack. Often there was the unmistakable odour of decay but it was always possible for a man of experience and judgement to smell out any rain that might be likely to move inland in the course of time.
‘There’s no rain in that, no rain at all.’ So saying Mr Chamberlain rose unsteadily from his seat and sauntered down the roadway towards the passage which led to the turf bank. He had aged more during this summer than he had in all the years since I knew him. He still walked erectly if somewhat irresolutely. There were hints of debilitation in all his steps.
‘There’s a stagger to him,’ Stafford Cripps whispered. I knew what this meant. A stagger was taken to mean that a man was nearing his end, maybe not immediately nor for a considerable time. It was a telling factor, however, from which there was no reprieve.
Later that evening I was invited to participate in the drawing out. I was to be in charge of transport. Cripps was to be posted on the turf bank where he would assist in filling the ass rails. Mr Chamberlain was designated reek maker. He had somewhat of a reputation in this field and it would have been unthinkable to have invested him with a less onerous task.
The following day broke bright and clear. There was little or no wind but the air was crisp and cool. The sky was free of cloud and it looked as if the day would be a fine one. Mr Chamberlain had been correct in his forecast for as the morning wore on and the sun climbed higher in the sky it grew distinctly warmer. Each time I heeled the ass cart and emptied a fresh load Mr Chamberlain nodded his appreciation but made no attempt to start building the reek. He merely indicated where he wanted the cart heeled. He knew exactly what he was doing of course. Earlier he had counted the donkey stoolins and made an estimate of the space he would need to contain the entire harvest. He measured his ground with even paces and then with boot lengths for exactitude until a rectangular base was plotted. I had seen
him make reeks before. There was no more meticulous builder in the bog. This time he seemed to be more fastidious than ever. He weighed the turf sods with greater care and occasionally he placed a particularly large and well-shaped brick to one side. These would be used later in the clamping.
All morning we worked and as we did the September sun ascended the cloudless heavens. For every step it took upwards the reek took another. At noon we broke for food. This had been painstakingly prepared by the brothers. Mr Chamberlain had lighted a fire during one of my journeys to the turf bank. Atop it sat a kettle of boiling water, a continuous jet of steam shooting from its shapely spout. Wrapped in white muslin was a sizeable wedge of boiled bacon and in another cloth was a pound or so of fresh cheese. There was also a loaf of home-made bread and a solid slab of butter. As soon as the tea was drawn we set about eating. In between mouthfuls Sir Stafford would make a pronouncement.
‘There is no sauce like bog air.’
I was too preoccupied to comment one way or the other.
‘Plain food is the best food,’ from Sir Stafford again. It went on like this until we had eaten and drank our fill. Then we sat back and relaxed awhile. This was the best part of the day. Other men who were occupied as we were came to join us in order to debate the course of the war. Mingled scents of heather and woodbine imposed themselves fleetingly over the pedestrian odours of the roadway. There was time to savour the sunlit beauty of the bogland while the men spoke on and on of important happenings. Endlessly larks rose carolling from hidden haunts in the heather. The air was clear as far as the eye could see. The little haze there was had long since been burned up by the hot sun. The talk now dwelt on the subject of townspeople.
‘I have seen them,’ Sir Stafford was saying, ‘and they racking their hair before stooking the turf. I have seen them and they wearing low shoes only fit for dancing and they trying to operate a slean.’
Here Mr Chamberlain made one of his very rare contributions to the proceedings.
‘I seen the first of the turf-cutting townies at the start of the war,’ he said. ‘They came in droves when the coal got scarce. I seen strange things but I never before seen the likes of these men. They had bread with meat in the middle of it. You could only see the edge of the meat. The rest was covered by bread above and below. There is no way you could inveigle me to eat meat I couldn’t see.’
‘It must be sandwiches you’re talking about,’ Sir Stafford put in.
‘The very thing. The very thing indeed. That was the name given to them.’
The talk wore on. It was of times gone by when men worked for coppers and promises and often turned over in their beds at night in an effort to dispel the hollow growling of hunger in empty stomachs. They spoke of spailpíns and labourers who worked from dawn till dark and who had nothing at all to show for their labours in the end, nothing but stooped backs and strained limbs. They spoke of the immeasurable value of book-learning as the one true avenue of escape from drudgery and expressed regrets for the way they had neglected their books in favour of youthful dalliance.
‘A schoolmaster now,’ someone said, ‘he earns a sovereign a day and he don’t bend his back.’
‘No wonder they’re cracked,’ Sir Stafford commented, ‘money like that would go to any man’s head.’
Elsewhere the fate of the world was being decided. Far away in Cairo, Churchill and Roosevelt were meeting with Chiang Kai Shek and in southern Italy fierce battles were raging as the Allies endeavoured to advance north-wards. We sat drowsily in the lee of the reek grateful for the warm sunshine. The conversation started to flag with the realisation that the time had come to resume work. Later there would be another break for what was known as ‘the evening tay’. This consisted of a panny of tea and a slice or two of bread and butter. It was generally a hurried affair at which no time was wasted. There was still some talk but the conversation had lost much of its sparkle. I was despatched in search of the donkey. He had not ventured far. There was an abundance of good grass and wild clover at hand on the margins of the roadway. He allowed himself to be recaptured without resistance as though he knew instinctively that the day was far from being down and there was no point in prolonging his legal recess. I tackled him to the cart without difficulty and in a short while we were working as a unit once more. The pace had quickened as if by agreement although not a word passed between us. There was an urgency to the work now. The pressure would have to be maintained if we were to finish by evening. After ‘the evening tay’ the old men seemed to grow tired. So did I but it would never do to give the impression that one was unable to pull one’s weight. The pace was relentless now but no quarter was asked or given. It would not be too long before the last of the stoolins was on the roadway. It was heartening to see the decrease in their number.
The reek was really taking shape now, assuming that peculiar symmetry with which only a countryman could invest it. There was something here above and beyond blueprints and drawing boards. There was an instinctive insight into the secret shape of the land itself and into this was fitted unobstructively the dark contours of the reek. Instead of standing out it fitted in like a patch into a quilt. I noticed too that it did not run in a precise parallel line with the roadway. Its strongest shoulder better buttressed than the others stood in the face of the prevailing south-westerly wind. Immense knowledge about the peculiar tantrums and exact route of this wind was essential if the reek was to survive the vicissitudes of winter and any reek, no matter how large, was, after all, only as strong as its weakest point. From time to time Mr Chamberlain would walk slowly round its base searching for inadequacies. Often too he would remove himself from the immediate vicinity of the reek and survey it with a critical eye from a distance. He observed it from every angle and from every posture. One moment he would be standing on the tips of his toes and the next he would be lying prone. He inspected it from his haunches and he went so far as to kneel in the centre of the roadway to determine if the upward inclination was gradual enough. Nothing was left to chance. Never before had he been so finical. As the evening wore on he grew somewhat irritable but this passed when the reek reached a certain stage in its development.
Sod by sod, foot by foot it rose to its smoothly tapering roof until the last ass-load had been deposited on the roadway. All that was left on the turf bank was a carpet of dust and tiny cadhrawns. Sir Stafford and I untackled the ass. At once he rolled over and over on the dusty roadway, braying ecstatically. When he had rolled his fill he flicked his hind legs defiantly and cantered down a narrow causeway where a green patch of good grass advertised itself. The reek was finished except for a few final touches. The clamping was impeccable. Hardly the width of a grass blade divided sod from sod. Sir Stafford now took a turn around it, pausing to inspect a particularly impressive piece of cornering. With the aid of the ass-cart Mr Chamberlain mounted the reek and sat astride its roof. I stood by with a gabhail of assorted sods. Occasionally there would be a surgical extension of his hand and I would tender a sod. He might or might not accept it, favouring another of different size or shape. It seemed to me that he was overdoing it. Now with hindsight I know that he was merely a thorough and conscientious craftsman who selected sods and parts of sods the way a poet might select words or phrases essential to the immaculate completion of the work in hand.
Also the finished work would be submitted for critical analysis although it would be true to say that the most just and impartial critics of all would be the north-easterly and south-westerly winds. These were the lads who wouldn’t be long pinpointing flaws. The accredited critics came that very evening. These were accomplished reekers themselves. All the reviews were favourable with the exception of the usual carper or two whose own reeks could never stand up to penetrating criticism.
‘That won’t be knocked aisy,’ one white-haired on-looker essayed.
‘That,’ said Sir Stafford Cripps pointedly, ‘won’t be knocked at all.’
The days passed. Autumn went its way in
a flurry of russets and winter appeared, unexpected as always but predictably harsh and cold with mighty storms that ranted and raged cross the countryside. The reek was not found wanting under the onslaught. It was its maker who was to prove suspect. In January he contracted a heavy cold and because he would accept advice from nobody and stay indoors like a sensible fellow he developed pneumonia and had to be removed to hospital. His condition weakened and one spring morning when the last of the wild geese were winging their way northward he died in his sleep. Shortly after Mr Chamberlain’s demise Sir Stafford was smitten by influenza but the neighbours, fearful lest he should be swept away like his brother, maintained a constant vigil and by the middle of March he was on his feet once more, hale and hearty. The reek stood for the remainder of that year without interference. Sir Stafford made do with old turf which lay in a shed at the rear of the cottage. When the season for turf-cutting was under way he hired three young men from the locality to cut a brace of sleans. The reek he left untouched. His decision was not questioned. Artistically it was the best designed and most shapely fabrication of its kind to have been constructed on the roadway for generations. During its third year there was considerable shrinkage but such was the character of the design in the original structure that there was still no unevenness nor was there the slightest evidence of depression from end to end. Now denuded of its original brown by the years of wind and rain, its bleached exterior gave the impression that it had been frosted all over. On clear nights, under an unshrouded moon, it seemed as if it were a great rampart of silver.
Then of a gusty March evening a large band of travelling people appeared at the entrance to the bog. They liked what they saw. They were impressed by the green of the cutaway and if it was a faded green itself the ponies, horses and asses of which the train was mainly comprised were anything but choosy. Down the road they came in three multicoloured, horse-drawn caravans, flanked and trailed by a motley assortment of the most heterogeneous mongrels imaginable. It was a swift-moving but silent caravan. Its occupants, animal and human, were feeling their way. The faces of the menfolk who led the caravan horses were blue with cold. Their noses ran freely. From time to time they would press a finger against one side and expel the rheumy contents of the free nostril with snorts and grunts. As they approached the reek a flock of children suddenly appeared from the interior of the caravans and started to play games on the roadway, contriving, at the same time, to stay in front of the three caravans. When all had passed it was plain to be seen that the reek would never be the same again. There were gaping black holes and cavities along the side nearest to the roadway. Sir Stafford had never taken his eyes from the passing train. Still he had been caught napping by the children’s diversions. He knew from long experience that a search of the caravans would reveal nothing. The stolen turf would be instantly and secretively jettisoned at the first sign of danger. Sir Stafford was furious. The reek was now scarred and ulcerous and prey to rain and storm. It would collapse completely in a matter of weeks particularly since it was now certain that further inroads would be made into its already gutted side.
The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland Page 15