The Village (8 page)

T
HERE HAD BEEN
three farmyards in Innishannon, and as their land lay on the outskirts of the village the cows were brought in twice daily for milking. I liked to see the cows amble through the village, but when the roads became too busy for slow-moving cows the village farmers built cow-sheds on their farms or sold their cows, and the village sheds were put to other uses. One became the home of an old man, who had worked in different jobs all his life but had no home of his own. It was a small stone building with a cobblestone floor; the roof and the door were made of galvanised iron. The only furniture was a bed and a table, and the shed had neither electricity nor water.

Despite his rough living conditions Jim was always in good humour and had perfected his own routine of survival. He got up late in the day and went to a friendly neighbour down the street where he had his dinner. She also gave him two large flasks of tea and two parcels of sandwiches. One lot was for his supper back in the shed later that night, the other for his breakfast the following morning. After his dinner, Jim went into one of the pubs, where he stayed until closing time, relishing the companionship and the pints.

The principal male meeting-point was the village corner, where the men gathered in the evenings and after Mass on Sunday. They stood in a row with their backs to the wall, holding
sideways conversations with their neighbours. As nobody altered the back-to-the-wall stance for long periods, I often wondered if the entire row shared the same conversation by passing it along, or at what point it was decided to change topics. Life was observed and commented upon from the corner, where the row of philosophers provided a constant news programme for the village. Jim was always in the middle of this row, and if you wanted to know whether the bus had gone past or the time of someone’s funeral, the result of a match or any other detail of local activity, then Jim could be relied upon to know.

He was a broad, low-sized man who wore a long gabardine coat that hit off his heels, and as he seldom tied his big, heavy boots he gave the impression that he was going to walk out of them. The laces trailed down the sides of the boots and the iron tips rattled off the pavement. He had a slight limp and used a walking-stick, which added to the clatter as he went along. Irrespective of the weather he always wore an open-necked shirt and a cap that was an old friend, and his grey hair curled out around it. His smiling face had a well-scrubbed look. He was pleasant and jovial and enjoyed a joke and a good yarn.

Despite the fact that Jim never complained it was the general consensus of opinion in the village that his living conditions were atrocious. When a hard, cold winter came and there was snow on the ground, it was decided that Jim should go into an old people’s home in Cork where he would be warm and comfortable. Jim was delighted with the suggestion and gathered his few bits and pieces together. Fr Mick, our local curate, gave me money to buy anything that Jim might need. Amongst the items that Jim asked me to get was a new set of underwear, and I went into Bandon to buy his requirements. In the draper-shop Jimmy Desmond, who was an old friend of both Jacky’s and Jim’s, put all the items on the counter while we discussed how great it was that Jim was at last to get in out of the cold. Jimmy stretched a pair of long-johns
out on the counter-top.

“These are very warm,” he said. “Jim always wears these – likes the pure wool.”

“Why is there a pocket in front?” I asked absentmindedly. Jimmy roared with laughter.

“Ask Jim when you go home,” he said.

I told Jim about my offhand question as we packed his case, and he enjoyed a chuckle at my expense. When we were ready Fr Mick took him to his new home and we were all delighted for him.

The following Sunday I went to see Jim. I pushed open the heavy oak door of the home and a wave of comfortable heat and a lovely smell of wax polish enfolded me. I enquired as to Jim’s whereabouts and was directed to a room on the first floor. I walked up the polished wooden staircase, looking around me with satisfaction, and thought how comfortable and warm this place was compared to the cold stone shed that Jim had left behind. The room to which I had been directed was large and airy, divided into four sections by bright floral curtains. Each corner had a bed, locker, chair, wash-basin and wardrobe. It was bright and cheery but empty, so I went along the corridor looking for Jim.

I turned the corner in the long corridor and there he stood, looking out the window. “Hello, Jim!” I called. “How are you?”

He turned, and I could hardly believe what I saw. Gone was the happy, pleasant expression, and the light had died in his eyes. All his facial vitality had drained away; it was as if somebody had quenched a spark that had always glowed inside him.

He was so glad to see me and wanted to talk about nothing but the village and his friends. Even though his body was there in the old people’s home, his mind and his heart were still back in the village. He never complained, never said that he was
lonely, but his eyes told the whole story. He had lived all his life in and around the village; he knew everybody there and always had friends and neighbours around him to share his interests. Now he was isolated from everything that was familiar to him, and he missed his old haunts and friends.

Soon afterwards he died but something more important than Jim’s body had died the day that he left the shed. At his funeral Fr Mick said to me, “Jim was like an old tree, it was too late to transplant him. We killed his roots.”

P
RIESTS TO ME
had always been remote figures on high altars who preached sermons with little relevance to everyday life and dispensed absolution in the musty shadows of the confessional, but Fr Mick changed all that. He was a lovable character with a good understanding of the weakness of human nature, and he would have made a wily politician.

When our parish hall began to fall down around us he decided to build a new one. The big showbands of the sixties were packing out dance-halls around the country, but in our old hall music was provided free of charge by locals playing a piano-accordion or two. Because one of them often played the organ in the church, the dancers sometimes found themselves waltzing to the strains of a hymn such as “Hail Queen of Heaven” when the relaxed musician mixed up his venues.

Parish funds were scarce, however, so Fr Mick decided to build the hall with voluntary labour, which he proceeded to organise. The secret of his success in this tactic, which he also used to clean up the local cemetery every year, was that he never stinted on praise and was always telling people just how wonderful they were. Every Sunday he stood on the altar and called out lists of names, mostly of local farmers, whose assistance he required the following week. As well as calling out their names he told them what implements to bring. He would call
from the altar: “Will Bill Finn come and bring his tractor, and Batty Lynch bring a shovel and Tom Hallihan a wheelbarrow?”

So it continued every Sunday, townland by townland. It certainly brought an added dimension to church-going and some of our guests were fascinated by the extra trimmings attached to our Sunday Mass. If a helper failed to turn up his name was called out again the following Sunday, with a mild surmise as to the reason for his absence, and the hope was expressed that whatever obstacle had prevented his arrival had by now disappeared.

Jerry and Davey were put in charge of operations. Every man in the parish gave a few days work and anyone with building experience or skills in a particular trade was expected to give extra help. Fr Mick arranged meals for them in our kitchen and took them to the pub every evening for a round of drinks. Sometimes he used our phone to order goods and when deliveries were late he shouted colourful abuse over the phone at suppliers: I could sympathise with his frustration after my recent experience.

Gradually the hall took shape. Various clubs in the parish took responsibility for different sections; the dramatic society took charge of stage design and raised funds for a pair of rich red velvet curtains for the stage. Opening night was a big event. It was accompanied, naturally enough, with a good deal of the usual parochial wrangling, but all in all there was a great sense of achievement for a job well done. That night I stood at the door, filled with awe at the impressive sight that was our new hall. The wooden floor had a waxen yellow sheen, the walls glowed creamy white, contrasting with the the red curtains. The light was soft and subdued and the pleasant smell of fresh timber-work filled the air. It was a marvellous achievement for all concerned. In beside me came a local farmer, and we stood together taking it all in.

“Isn't it just beautiful?” I said, so as to give him an opportunity to voice his praise. “What do you think of it, Jack?”

He drew a deep breath before he began. “Well,” he said heavily, “the hall is too small, the stage is too big and the windows are too high.” And after delivering this pronouncement he drove his hands into his pockets and strode away.

“By God, Jack,” I thought, “you could never be accused of swimming with the tide.”

Fr Mick was delighted with the new hall, as indeed he might be, though it did have some growing pains. A very correct single lady who lived not far from the hall sought him out regularly to complain about a young couple who used her doorway for a courting session after the dances. Finally, in an effort to rekindle old memories, he asked in frustration, “Wisha, Mary, did nobody ever cuddle you up against a door?” She was not amused, and complained him to the parish priest.

He went to all the dances in the new hall and kept track of the local romances, and, indeed, was not beyond giving a reluctant swain a nudge in the right direction if things were slow in getting off the ground. Once, however, Fr Mick was faced with a situation that had progressed faster than he had anticipated – though he was not quite sure what the exact position was. Outside the village a mature couple had moved in together; nobody knew if this was just for financial reasons or otherwise. Fr Mick was equally unsure but in an effort to “tidy things up”, as he called it, he visited Dick one day and as tactfully as possible enquired, “Have Kitty and yourself any notion of calling up to see me?”

“Well, do you know something, Father,” Dick declared, “weren't Kitty and I talking about it in bed last night.”

But though Dick's words spelled things out for Fr Mick he never succeeded in getting them “to tidy things up”. Kitty maintained that Dick was so harmless in bed that it did not
justify a marriage ceremony, and that she really only slept with him to keep her back warm.

The priest visited each house in the parish regularly, and so he knew everybody. One of his friends was an old man who lived out in the country and who had married late in life. For reasons best known to herself, his new and not very young wife decided that her husband was far from well, so she promptly put him to bed and kept him there. She treated him like a pet parrot, drawing trays of food to him and keeping a big fire in the bedroom for his comfort. One day when she thought that he was going to die, she summoned Fr Mick to anoint him. When he turned up the bedclothes at the end of the bed to anoint old Johnny's feet, the terrier who was asleep on the bed went for Fr Mick and would not leave his post until Johnny – who was supposed to be dying – caught him by the scruff of the neck and threw him out the window.

Also on his calling list were two old brothers who had a problem with rats in their remote farmhouse. They solved it with iron traps called “back-breakers”, which snapped shut on their victims with a loud bang. One day Fr Mick sat hearing the confession of one of the old men, who was not feeling too well and lay in bed upstairs. In the middle of the confession the penitent heard a loud crash and promptly suspended operations to shout down to his brother: “Dan, we have the bastard!” before continuing his confession. Even confessions in the church could take an unusual turn. One night when he had his misdemeanours disposed of one old man announced, “Father, I have a turnip here for you,” and, slipping out of his side of the confession box, he opened Fr Mick's section and landed a big purple turnip in his lap where it oozed mud onto his black soutane.

A popular song at the time recalled, “It takes so long to say goodbye, goodbye is a long long time,” and I always thought it could have been written with Fr Mick in mind. When leaving
after any visit it took him at least half an hour from the time he got up off the chair until he closed the door behind him. He stood up first, and then remembered something he should have told you. Then he took a few steps and thought of something else. A few more steps brought another story until finally he reached the door. There he spent five minutes talking before he opened the door, and when he had it open he stood for another session, which was unfortunate if it happened to be a cold night. All in all it took him a long time to say goodbye.

One night he sat in our kitchen as I prepared breakfast trays for the morning when an imperious guest knocked on the kitchen door and demanded, “Could I have a carafe of water in my room?”

I explained that the water from the kitchen was exactly the same as the water in his bedroom and that all the house water was perfect for drinking. He was not satisfied, however, and because the customer is always right, though some are less right than others, I assured him that I would bring his carafe of water up to him. When he had gone, Fr Mick sat there with a faraway look on his face.

“Alice, the last time I saw a craft of water,” he said, “was when my mother turned a jam-pot upside down into a saucer for the chickens.”

Shortly after that I saw another side to Fr Mick. One day Margaret and I went to Cork shopping for her trousseau where we had a great day and came home in high spirits. We had tea in her house across the road while her father, Jimmy, sat by the fire and chatted with us. Late that night a loud knocking came to our door. It was Margaret. She stood there, white-faced and in shock: Jimmy had just had a heart attack. We rushed across the road to find him obviously near to death. Fr Mick and the doctor came, but it was all over in a few minutes. We were all shattered by his sudden death. It was one o'clock and a long sad
night stretched ahead, yet Fr Mick sat there all night, chatting and comforting the family, until it was time for him to leave to say his early morning Mass. He was a tower of strength when he was needed.

While Fr Mick would admit that some men could be a bad lot, he deemed nothing to equal the havoc that could be wrought by a completely selfish woman. Rare though they were, they could be, as he put it, “a terrification”. Yet, though he understood men very well, he loved women. His only other criticism of them was that they would “marry anything”. In all his years as a priest he maintained that he never ceased to be amazed at the hopeless cases that some fine women married. He said to me once, “If a woman walked up the aisle to me one day with a cock of hay, it would not surprise me.”