by Alice Taylor
Across the road from the Bleach is the Church of Ireland church, and on the front lawn ladies dressed in elegant finery served tea to the reverend ministers of both churches. The table was draped with a lace cloth, and tea was poured from a silver teapot into fine bone china and served with cucumber sandwiches and iced sponge cakes. It was a little cameo from an earlier time when gracious living was the order of the day. All these leisurely scenes were acted out as fast-moving traffic thundered relentlessly through our small village, but for just one day the whole parish enjoyed a leisurely trip down memory lane.
CHAPTER 6
My Two Wise Men
“What are you looking for?” the builder demanded.
“Two wise men,” I told him hesitantly.
“Hard job that now,” he informed me. “They could be scarce.”
“Well, they were here,” I said, stubbornly poking around in the rubble.
“When?” he demanded.
“About two years ago, I think, was the last time I saw them,” I told him vaguely. “They were part of the old crib.”
“Missus, what planet are you off?” he demanded in amazement, rolling his eyes to heaven. “Don’t you know that everything ‘walks’ nowadays?” Then he had second thoughts: “Although wise men could be left. There would be few people needing them. No place for wise men in today’s world.”
We were up in the gallery of St Mary’s, our church that was being restored. It had been vacated months previously when we moved down into Christ Church. Our Church of Ireland brethren had very generously offered us the use of their church, and St Mary’s was now a building site and anything of value had been cleared off site—with the exception of the missing wise men; but apparently not everybody considered them very valuable.
When you came up the circular iron staircase that curved into the gallery, and stepped on to the wooden floor, the prevailing smell was of mould and rotting wood. Climbing up the tiered gallery it was necessary to watch your step as you edged around an accumulation of odds and ends that had been dumped there over the years. If we were encumbered down in the church with shaky seats, odd vases or any homeless article, they were carried up to the gallery, and it was a case of out of sight, out of mind.
In the early 1960s, the parish had invested in a new set of crib figures. Nurse Murphy, who had been district nurse here for years and had always looked after the crib, had decided we needed a new set of figures and had a quick whip-around to pay for them. The new figures were bright, light and very mobile, whereas the old plaster ones were solid and cumbersome. The old set was relegated to the gallery where, on a deep windowsill at the back, a year-round crib was created. Over the years I had sometimes seen them and had vaguely noted that they were decreasing in number, and in recent years all that remained were the two wise men
In some way, that crib had appealed to the long-lost child in me because it was a replica of the crib in the church in North Cork where I had dropped in my brown pennies on Christmas morning. I remembered hoping that Holy Mary would buy some warm clothes for the baby with my money.
Now I looked around the gallery that was strewn with planks and an assortment of miscellaneous rubbish. I struggled to the windowsill, carefully picking my steps in between old heaters and dehumidifiers, but my journey was in vain, as the deep sill housed only torn hymn books and a broken kneeler. Now, where were my two wise men? Or had they walked? Maybe not, because on last sighting they were in a bad state. Very few would have wanted them in that condition. Maybe they were left there in the first place because they were not as appealing as the others. Everyone would have wanted Mary and even Joseph, and of course the Baby Jesus was probably first out the door, and there is something very nice about a spare donkey, not to mention an extra cow; the shepherds and sheep, too, would have added a yuletide atmosphere to any Christmas scene. But no one must have felt the need to take home a haughty king in a long dress, not to mention a black one with a gold ear-ring. So, perhaps they had just slowly crumbled in the damp.
“What’s going to happen to them if they are still here?” I asked.
“Skip,” he informed me.
“I’m taking them,” I told him.
“Well, I’m sure no one will outbid you,” he answered smartly.
“But first we must find them,” I told him.
“You mean, you must find them,” he pronounced as he clattered down the gallery stairs.
I pulled and dragged planks of timber and broken seats, disturbing long-legged black spiders who for years had had undisputed possession. An ancient organ would not be moved so I went down on my hands and knees to peer under it, but all that was to be seen was a mummified mouse. He had probably died of pneumonia or of hunger and he was not a very smart mouse to have been up here in the first place. Then it dawned on me that if a mouse had found his way up here, so too could a rat, and a shudder ran down my spine. From then on, I moved things gingerly, in nervous anticipation, but when I peered between the organ and the wall and saw a gold ear-ring glint in the shadows, I had to take my courage in both hands and reach into the darkness and haul out a heavy black king by the scruff of the neck. He was minus one leg and had a gaping hole in his backbone. The back of his head had crumbled and he was minus all regal garb. But his remains were all mine, and the chances were that his travelling companion could be somewhere as well.
I found the second king in a far worse state than the first because he had no head at all. I searched around for his lost head but it was nowhere to be found. I felt that the head had to be around somewhere so I searched on doggedly and all fear of rats dead or alive evaporated in my determination to find the lost head. As the search continued, my builder friend clattered up the stairs.
“Any luck?” he inquired with a smirk on his face.
“I’m looking for a head,” I told him.
“Yerra, half the country is functioning without one of them,” he told me. “What would an ould king want one for?”
“Still, he’d look better with it,” I informed him.
“Maybe,” he agreed; “though I see some faces around here and people would be better off without them.”
I decided at this point that he was not very sympathetic to my situation, but I was too quick in my judgment because just then he shifted a kneeler and there was the head, or rather half a head, as all the poor king had was a face with nothing behind it. My friend was off again.
“Just the job,” he declared. “Most people are operating with half a head anyway.”
“I’m going to restore him,” I informed him smugly.
“There’s one born every day,” he declared, shaking his head at the stupidity of his fellow humans.
“Will you help me carry them down the stairs?” I requested.
“Missus, you don’t need two wise men; you need two strong men.”
But despite his protestations he manoeuvred the two battered wise men down the winding narrow stairs.
They were heavy so I brought up the wheelbarrow to carry them and their spare parts down the hill to their new home. I steered the wheelbarrow in the back door, wrapped my arms around each king in turn and eased him on to the hall table. It was probably as near as I would ever come to hugging a royal. However, these were two weighty royals and each move tested the strength of my muscles.
When they were anchored on the table, I stood back and surveyed them. They were a sorry sight but one day they must have been quite beautiful. They had been forced to abdicate in the mid-1960s and had been in the crib for about forty years before that, so my two kings were almost one hundred years old. And they looked every year of it! I brought out the Hoover and sucked all the dust off their outsides and then went down the throat of the headless one and cleaned out his insides. Then I rang a local potter about the possibility of moulding a head for my wise man, but I knew after a short conversation that he did not consider it a viable project and wanted to get rid of me. It would have to be a “little red hen” job.
After the Christmas dinner, I dragged my two wise men up to the attic where I while away many hours pretending that I am an artist. I had big plans for them but I was also open to inspiration from them. My sister Ellen, who also likes to paint, decided to adopt one of them. I parted with the small black fellow sporting the traces of a gold ear-ring. The evidence that he was originally black was pitted around his elbow and knee while the rest of him was a sludge grey.
Our first problem was to give my wise man a new head and a new foot, but the head was the big problem. Amazingly enough, with a wooden spoon down his neck and an Irish linen tea towel for a brain, he was moulded into shape with a wonderful gun-full of gooey clay. When the back of his head had been shaped and covered with long flowing hair his face was put into position. When the clay dried, his face was secure and he had a sound head on his shoulders. With similar methods we created a leg and he finished up with a well-turned ankle and five elegant toes. With all his body parts in position the next step was to drape him in royal finery.
Once we started mixing paints, memories of the wise men of my childhood crib began to awaken and I felt as I painted that the colour scheme was almost decided by memory, and the royal man himself influenced my decision as well. When he was finally dressed, he was resplendent in a glowing robe and crimson cloak, with a golden crown on his black flowing tresses, and holding a jewelled casket of frankincense between his elegant royal fingers. His dark companion turned out as handsome but, while my royal was upright and bearing gifts, his friend was down on one knee and in obvious awe at some unseen wonder. He was dark and intriguing and full of eastern mystery, and his ear-ring glistened with newly polished gold. Their restoration had been a journey back to the old crib, a journey full of the challenge that had made Christmas easier. This was our first Christmas without Con and I was learning that creativity is part of the healing process.
Having restored the two wise men, I had to decide what to do with them. Nobody, it seemed, felt in need of two ancient kings. But our house is old and roomy and over the years an assortment of odds and ends has accumulated, so two wise men would not be out of place. At each side of our front door are two half pillars and these were the perfect perches for them. So now a pair of retired kings guards our front door.
CHAPTER 7
Will You Buy a Ticket?
Selling tickets is not for the faint-hearted. The local garage gave the parish the gift of a car, and the finance committee felt that we needed to go outside the parish to sell sufficient tickets. The decision about the price of the raffle ticket led to long and protracted discussions, with some people thinking that €5 was enough and others going for €20. After much argument and counter-argument a conclusion was finally reached and it came down on the side of €20. So then began the programme of events known as “Will you buy a ticket?”
It turned out to be an experience from which I learnt many things. The first was that the media do not always represent the thinking of the ordinary people and that the chattering minority obliterates the silent majority. The country was awash with the scandal of clerical abuse and we were very apprehensive about the reception we would receive when we went out selling tickets in aid of church restoration. But we discovered that the people did not hold the majority of priests guilty for the sins of the few. They saw the church as belonging to them and many times greeted us with the comment: “Oh, we must support the church!” That was the first surprise, and there were many more to follow.
Our first venue was the Innishannon Steam Rally, which is held every June bank holiday weekend and draws crowds from all around the country. There is a huge interest in vintage steam engines, and once a year all the faithful pour into our parish. We enthusiastically set up a table beside our shining new car at the best vantage point in the rally field; after all, it was our parish and we, of course, demanded the prime location.
Our car was surrounded by vibrant posters proclaiming the wonders of winning a brand-new model for only €20, and we waited full of happy anticipation for the eager buyers to line up. But we waited and waited and waited. Only a tiny minority of the flowing tide of people ventured in our direction. We were discovering that if you go fishing, the fish do not come looking for your bait! You have to cast your net out into the deep. So up we got up off our backsides and sallied out into the flowing throngs, offering our wares and engaging people in conversation.
The first step in selling tickets is that you have to believe that the populace is lucky to get this opportunity to buy your ticket and, having convinced yourself of that, you must then convince the punter. You quickly learn to read faces, but you discover as you go along that it is very easy to get it wrong and that a large, jovial talkative man does not necessarily guarantee that you will have a sale at the end of the conversation. It could be that he just likes the sound of his own voice and, having let many other potential customers pass you by, you discover that though his mouth was open, his wallet was tightly zipped. Sometimes a distracted woman dragging a shoal of children behind her might look an unlikely prospect but she could surprise you and decide to take a sporting chance. We found out that a big heart is always more important than a big wallet. By the third day of the rally, we were no longer green beginners but learning fast the art of selling tickets.
The steam rally provided our launching pad, but it was only the beginning in a long list of venues. John was the man in charge of the entire enterprise and he proved an inspired choice because he was a hard worker who never made hard work out of anything. A day selling tickets with this fast-thinking and witty man was a day was full of fun and hilarity. Having been an active member of Macra na Feirme for many years, which involved chairing a debating team to great success around the country, he was also a life-long ardent member of Fine Gael, so he knew more people than Bertie Ahern, and that is a great plus when you go out selling tickets. To me John seemed to know the whole country, and if he was snookered by an approaching stranger, he would whisper under his breath, “Do you know this fella?” and if I said no, he invariable approached them with the opening salutation “And how are we now?” So whenever I heard that salute I knew that John did not have a clue who the person was, but within minutes he would have solved that problem. The ultimate networker, he invariably knew someone belonging to them or someone from their home place. Needless to mention, he knew the whole Fine Gael fraternity and if one of them did not buy, he looked askance—“And he’s one of ours,” he’d say in exasperation. But he very seldom drew a blank.
At one venue a pernickety woman challenged us as to the newness of our car, seeing as how we were parading it all around the country. She was determined to pick holes in our project. It was late in the evening and we were too tired to argue with her so we agreed with all her arguments, which drove her mad; eventually in frustration she told us that we were “a right shower of chancers”.
As we progressed, we fine-tuned our act and instead of dragging the car around with us, we took posters, which was far easier. We also had an oil painting of the church, which we mounted on an easel, and we discovered that people are very interested in anything mounted on an easel. They regard it as a work in progress, and indeed our church was just that and we had large photographs of the scaffolded steeple to prove it. People were interested in the whole enterprise and enjoyed looking at the painting and photographs and hearing of our fundraising effort
s.
The best buyers were the people who had at some point in their own lives sold tickets as a fundraiser. Many of them told us, “Oh, God, we had to do this and it was a tough project.” And indeed it was, but with a good positive crew on board we also had a lot of fun.
One of our most enjoyable outings was to Listowel Races. We had arranged with the Listowel Council that we could pitch our camp in the small square where all streets converge, and this placed us in the centre of the crowds on the way to the races. This is the square from which John B. Keane now surveys his town. A racing crowd out for the day are in a jubilant mood and most of them are by nature prepared to take a gamble, so they were our kind of people. We set up our posters, easel and photographs and got ourselves ready for the day; we were blessed with the weather, which was kind. We were in for the long haul as three of us had booked into a local guesthouse and reserve troops were to come down daily from home.
The first day would tell a lot. We had a bonanza! One of the reserves who came down that day was Jane who is a race-goer, and when the punters wanted to know if we had a winner, Jane gave one man Monty’s Pass who went on to win. When this man came back that evening, he handed us his betting slip to draw the winnings. It was a magnanimous gesture and we were delighted, but he was gone in the crowd before we could thank him properly. Later that night, he passed on his way to the pub and we asked him about his generosity. “I was born outside this town,” he said, “and my family hadn’t much but when I got to Dublin I did law at night and now I have my own law firm. This town was good to me and it’s good to be good to where you came from. As well as that, it’s great to see people going out and making an effort for their own place.” That man made my day.