Looking Under Stones

by Joe O'Toole

  ‘Minding the shop’ meant that we handled money at a very young age. Teresa worked on the basis of us getting used to being surrounded by temptation. I did not have permission to take a sweet without asking, even if I had been working in the shop for hours. There was very little difficulty in getting that permission, but the discipline was that it had to be sought. She would also caution about new people being in the shop. Nobody was ever allowed behind the counter.

  ‘You are used to dealing with amounts of money and will not be tempted. Most people have never been responsible for, or handled other people’s money. It’s not fair to put them in a situation where they might be on their own in a room, with a bundle of money sitting there. You shouldn’t do it to them.’

  I knew that my mother was being realistic, and, when you think of it, doing no more than obeying the wish expressed in the Lord’s Prayer: lead us not into temptation.

  Some of our customers were very poorly off – people from families that relied on the few shillings to be earned from casual labouring work by the father and maybe from a couple of hours of housework by the mother. They really did live from hand to mouth, and putting bread on the table was a daily worry. Even though the shop was run on a strictly ‘no tick’ basis, there were a few trusted customers who had a credit arrangement. For these customers we kept a ‘tick book’. When one of them bought a pound of butter or a tin of beans, details of the purchase were entered into the book there and then, in their presence. This had to be done no matter how busy the shop, so that there would be no doubt or dispute when it came to settling the bill. The bills would be paid in full, weekly or fortnightly, usually at a quiet time of the week. The ‘settling up’ was a pageant all to itself. In those times, before copiers or calculators, the cash book was opened on the counter and Teresa would go through the individual items with the customer. In order that they could both see the page and neither had to read upside down, the book was placed so that each looked at it from their own side of the counter. Customer and shopkeeper would be bent over the book, checking it, line by line and tête-à-tête. Teresa disliked the process and as soon as I had the confidence and authority to carry it off, the task was delegated to me. Needless to say, the responsibility came surrounded by a multitude of instructions and cautions: Check each item and confirm the price. If there is a query, remember what you have been told – ‘Be polite but firm.’ Usually, my explanation would be accepted with good grace by the customers and just the odd time a purchase had to be deleted when a customer was certain it was entered in error, even though we knew for a fact that it was correct. This was a concession to an honest mistake rather than an attempt to defraud. How we came to that judgement I can’t explain, but I suppose it arose from knowing the customers very well and from the fact that any customer with a tick book was considered to be above suspicion in the first place.

  Totting up the bill was generally done as Gaeilge. Nobody in Dingle had ever learned arithmetic through English. The addition had to be done aloud so that the customer could hear and check. Those long tots were a test in themselves, with the customer listening to every word and mentally making their own calculation.

  ‘Cúig agus a h-ocht sin a trí déag, agus a seacht sin a fiche … sin naochadh-sé pingin ar fad, sin ocht scilling; cur síos an náid agus tóg an h-ocht.’

  And so carry on to the next page. Sometimes the customer would correct an error I had made when perhaps distracted by the arrival of another customer.

  ‘I think you added that “seacht” twice.’

  ‘Oh sorry, you’re right.’ No harm done.

  Now and again, if it appeared someone was a bit embarrassed about correcting me for the sake of a few pence, I might deliberately skip a figure in the next tot so the customer could say, ‘Oh, Joseph, you’re doing yourself there; you never added the six. Teresa will sack you.’

  Sometimes I might do it just to see if he would point out the error, and if he didn’t, well, there was a lot to be learned from that too. And it was very easy to appear to lose track towards the end of the page, and with a sigh start again, ensuring the pick-up of the dropped figure this time. No loss recorded but much intelligence gained.

  Sometimes a helpful customer might make the offer: ‘Here, I’ll add it up for you.’ I might have been happy to let them at it, but I had been warned: ‘Always do the tot yourself.’

  Why? Because otherwise you are going to have to correct the customer when he makes a mistake, and that is not good. There was always a reason. That was the way it was in the shop. Always checking, always balancing.

  Teresa kept the books with scrupulous honesty. Charge for everything, but no customer should be charged even a halfpenny too much. Now and again the system would fail. You could nearly see it coming. A quiet nod of greeting from the woman as she comes into the shop. She is looking at various things while you are dealing with customers. But when it comes to her turn, she defers to a customer who has arrived after her. Finally, when the shop is empty, she makes her request.

  ‘A quarter of tea please, Joseph.’

  And you get it and you put it on the counter and she puts her hand on it. Then she looks uncomfortable and says matter-of-factly but with a slight quiver in her voice, ‘Will that be all right until Saturday? Tommy is out and I have no change with me.’

  Now, you saw Tommy go in home ten minutes ago and you know that Teresa has warned you ‘no tick’, but you know the woman is as honest as the day is long and you know that she has nothing and that a refusal will hurt and embarrass her interminably. You know she knows this, and you see she is desperate enough to risk it. You say, ‘Don’t forget on Saturday.’

  ‘God bless you, boyeen.’

  When you tell Teresa she just nods. The woman returns on Saturday.

  In my memory, people’s poverty never made them dishonest. The association of crime and dishonesty with poor people and what would now be called ‘disadvantaged areas’ was never a factor growing up in Dingle. It is a lesson I have never forgotten, that poverty and criminality are not two sides of the same coin and neither are wealth and honesty. I also learned that some of the most intelligent people I met were people who had dropped out of formal education at a young age. Intelligence and education are not joined at the hip, and usually, in your dealings with someone, if you are more aware of their qualification or position than their ability, then you can probably put a question-mark over their level of intelligence. Maybe that judgement is a bit hard, but I don’t think it is too wide of the mark.

  Mind you, we were often put to the test by our own. Uncle Jonty, handsome, gruff and wild-eyed, was full of devilment. He would come into the shop when Teresa was missing.

  ‘Is Teresa in?’

  ‘She’s upstairs, Uncle Jonty.’

  ‘That’s all right. Look, just give me ten Players Medium and I’ll pay you tonight.’

  ‘Sorry, Uncle Jonty, I can’t do that.’

  His eyes would flame with anger. Then, just as I was about to wilt, he would laugh and throw the half-crown on the counter.

  ‘You’ll do fine, boyeen. Give me twenty altogether, so. Will you come down below the hill to look after the butcher’s shop for me for a few weeks in the summer?’

  Looking at Uncle Jonty, who was one of the hardest and toughest and hot-tempered men around, it was difficult to reconcile that image with the fact that, by rights, he should not have been alive at all. Always the wild one of the family and never looking after himself, he developed rheumatic fever as a young lad. That passed and no more thought was given to it. He regularly suffered from septic throats afterwards but not much notice was taken of them. As Aunty Phyl said, ‘Sure he was always in some achrann anyway.’

  It all returned to haunt him at the beginning of the 1950s, when he was in his twenties, and his heart valves became less and less efficient. Local doctors and county physicians were brought into the case, but his health deteriorated rapidly. The prognosis was bad. Seán the Grove and Bridgy Fitz were to
ld that their son would die. The family were devastated. Was there any point in going to Dublin or London? Money was no problem. But no, there was nothing to be done. The family started praying. Someone suggested that they make a novena to an Italian nun who was about to be canonised in Rome.

  Bridgy Fitz decided to bring Jonty to Dublin anyway. The physician they met was a young man called Risteard Mulcahy; he was up-to-date with the most modern of techniques. In his view, a new type of operation, called open-heart surgery, might help Jonty. The problem was that the surgery was in its infancy and was not yet available in Ireland nor was there much experience of it anywhere else. He was urged to do his best, and following consultation with the surgeons, he concluded that the operation could be effective. He could not be certain that Jonty would survive, even though, apart from the heart condition, he was physically very strong. If it were done, it would be the first time the surgery had been undertaken in Ireland. For the family, watching Jonty deteriorate by the week, there was no choice really. They opted for the operation.

  Meanwhile half of Dingle was praying and making novenas to the new Italian saint. When the operation was a total success, some put it down to modern medicine, others to the power of prayer.

  On the first visit to the recovering Jonty, he was shown a photograph of the saintly nun. Religion had never been high on Jonty’s agenda. His eyes widened. ‘Show me that again,’ he demanded and they gave him a better look at the saint.

  ‘That’s the woman I saw in my mad dreams during the anaesthetic. Who is she?’

  Well, she was Saint Mary Mazzarello, canonised on 24 June 1951, and after that she got full credit for the miracle of Jonty’s recovery. Two babies were born into the extended family the next month, and in thanksgiving they were called after the saint. So we got Mazzarella O’Flaherty (I assume they changed the ‘o’ to ‘a’ as it would have been a bit of a mouthful coming ahead of O’Flaherty) and Norella Moriarty – the latter being a combination of Nora and Mazzarella to avoid the confusion of having two Mazzarellas and also to recognise Norella’s grandmother, Nora McCarthy. That’s how my two first cousins, Mazzarella and Norella, two lovely women and well-known in their own right, came to be named.

  Despite the many times my siblings and myself roundly cursed the shop and the hours of captivity we endured when we would have given anything to be outside with our pals, in retrospect it was a very valuable training for life and for many of the situations I later found myself confronted with. And, of course, it was another income. The shop was the difference between us being financially all right and financially comfortable. Myko’s garda salary would have provided for us, but the shop gave us the wherewithal for a bit of luxury. Over the years, we had a few Ford Anglias and a few Morris Minors. Myko and Teresa could afford the odd holiday abroad, we wore good clothes and there was always meat and bread on the table.

  All in all, there was a lot to be said for it.

  THREE CHEERS FOR OUR LADY OF FATIMA

  ‘Three cheers for Our Lady of Fatima,’ he shouted. A diligent Knight of Columbanus seeking to curry favour and ingratiate. It was the day of the inaugural blessing of the new shrine to Our Lady of Fatima in Green Street. The procession was huge, the enthusiasm great, but unfortunately the liturgy was somewhat dull. The knight had been seeking to rehabilitate himself following some ill-considered amorous adventure, details of which had leaked widely. What better way than to take a stand with the Mother of God?

  The procession had followed the traditional route around the town. Setting out from the church, it wound its way to Canon’s Corner and then proceeded down Main Street to the small bridge. It was longer than the Mall and the leaders had crossed Hudson’s bridge on to Holyground when the tail end was still only leaving the small bridge. At the root of the pier, where a number of gardaí had the traffic from the west halted for the duration, the procession swung right around, back towards Green Street and up to the church again. Every man, woman and child participated. As the Blessed Sacrament passed them, the gardaí came to rigid attention on the orders of the Superintendent and saluted. It was just like Corpus Christi. The walkers in the procession were segregated into groups: the grey-suited men of the men’s sodality, the black-shawled heads of the older women and then the dark mantillas of the women’s sodality. Muted blocks of serrated dullness were suddenly lifted by the bright blue cloaks of the Children of Mary. Then came that year’s First Communicants, dressed in immaculate white except for the splashes of red from the boys’ ties and the pastel colours of the girls’ sashes and ribbons. Each spotless child carried a basket of rose petals, which fluttered, one petal at a time, from their innocent fingers to scent and purify the ground.

  Immediately behind them the honour guard of Knights of Columbanus attended the large statue of Our Lady of Fatima that was being conveyed in an open carriage and for which the rose-petalled path had been laid down. The knights also had the privilege of holding a canopy over the priest, who carried the sacred host in a golden sunburst monstrance.

  Buntings stretched across the streets. Every second house displayed a window shrine with a little statue of the Virgin Mary flanked by two lighted candles and decorated with flowers in ornate vases and crêpe paper. Many flew yellow-and-white papal flags, bearing the Vatican insignia of crossed keys, from their upstairs windows.

  The procession brought the town to a silent standstill, capitalist commerce and compliant citizenry each ensnared by an ecclesiastical show of strength. It was a surreal sight; the roadways thronged by the muted mass of diligent faithful, line after line in military formation, marshalled by officious church-steward types, but framed by empty pavements. Hundreds of people, yet no talk or chat, the unnatural quiet relieved occasionally by the murmur of a decade of the rosary led by the Legion of Mary.

  ‘Hail Mary, full of grace …’

  The crowd would fall silent again and then the church choir would strike up one of the well-worn hymns:

  ‘O Sacrament Most Holy,

  O Sacrament Divine …’

  Everyone knew the words and joined in with full voice, reaching a satisfying crescendo on the last two lines:

  ‘All praise and all thanksgiving

  Be every moment thine.’

  The new shrine was built in a neo-Gothic style beside the church. When the procession finally reached it, the great statue was solemnly lifted from the carriage by the knights, brought carefully up the steps and set into its final resting place in the shrine. The crowd stretched to see the action. The canon spoke to them. He worried them with hints about what might be in the Third Secret of Fatima, which was reputed to be so ghastly that the visionaries had confided it to no one but the Pope. Its content, he said, was now held securely in a locked and sealed vault in the Vatican.

  Then there was the solemn blessing. And suddenly it was all over. The event that had been talked about for weeks was at an end. There was a palpable sense of anti-climax. The crowd was reluctant to disperse, hoping for something – anything – to prolong the moment. Then into the lacuna jumped our hero, the disgraced Knight of Columbanus. With an athletic leap he bounded to the top of the steps and called for ‘Three cheers for Our Lady of Fatima’. The crowd responded with enthusiasm. It made the day and made his day. He was back.

  A lot could be learned about the people of Dingle by looking at the way the congregation seated themselves at Sunday Mass. How far up the centre aisle someone chose to go was a fair indication of their view of themselves, status-wise, in the community. The back of the church, particularly the space between the outside door and the internal glass ones, was always the most popular. There was no class division down there. It invariably contained a most eclectic bunch, bonded together by a total lack of religious fervour and ready for a quick exit during Communion. Spiritually, they were too lethargic to be atheistic; indolent ‘census Catholics’, not assertive enough to stay at home. It was easier to go to Mass than to draw attention by not attending. Those who stopped going became targe
ts for evangelising visiting priests during the annual Mission. It was not an enviable experience. One Passionist father, with a thundering voice and a fire-and-brimstone approach to catechetics, was given the task of convincing one recalcitrant, who was considered an atheist, to return to the fold. He met the lost soul and set about convincing him of the error of his ways. In fact, he got very little satisfaction, but never one to admit defeat, he tried again. Eventually he gave a report to the parish priest, reassuring him that, ‘Donaleen is no atheist, he’s just too damn lazy to get out of bed for Mass on a Sunday morning.’

  The parish priest of the time was Canon Lyne. He was an important man and made sure everyone knew it. He came from a well-off family in East Kerry and his people were very involved in Kerry footballing circles. Without doubt he ruled the roost in Dingle. He commanded respect and not a little fear; he had scant tolerance for opposition or dissension. It was only the odd brave citizen who squared up to him. Before he came to Dingle he was parish priest in Annascaul, approximately ten miles east on the Tralee road. The parish had some property and land at Inch and the PP had a little market garden there, of which he was very proud. One day he discovered his garden produce eaten, trampled and ruined; he was inconsolable. He was also angry and frustrated because, though he could not prove the identity of the culprit animals or their owner, he had the strongest suspicions. He restarted operations and, the time of year being right, he put down cabbage plants. They came on well in the sandy soil of Inch. He minded and watered them in his spare time. Round about the time when he was planning to cut the fine heads, he arrived one morning to find the garden full of marauding goats who had satiated themselves on the juicy young cabbages. Overcome with rage, he strode into the nearby farmhouse of Pat Foley, the unfortunate owner of the goats. Correctly including the earlier episode in the list of transgressions, he laced into Pat, and as he was at it, he threatened him with bills, the law and the loss of his immortal soul. He left poor Pat shivering, cowering and grovelling. As for the PP, by the time he had reached home his anger had cooled and after a few days Pat had mended the fencing and the garden was replanted with some help from Pat and his family.