An Irish Christmas Feast (45 page)

In the estuary the first salmon began to show themselves before moving upriver and the lapwings, birds of the five names as they were called locally, began to break up into smaller flocks preparatory to mating. The names were lapwing, green plover, crested plover, peewit and pilibeen. The last were two Gaelic names resembling the cries of the bird in question depending on how skilled the human interpretation might be. Showers of hail became more common and there were flurries of snow but by and large it was a moderate winter. Snowdrops brightened the sheltered areas and there were signs that the more adventurous of the daffodils would bloom in the weeks ahead. All in all there were ample signs that spring was just around the corner.

Then on the fourth day of the new season, thirty-two days after he had taken the pledge for life, Walter Aloysius Rogan went back on the booze. Word spread quickly and those who always said so said, ‘I knew it would happen any day now.' He had managed to save a sizeable part of his dole money and, because he had been well fed and well looked after during his sojourn in the world of sobriety, he made an all-out assault on liquor for three days which saw him stretched on the third night under the blind eye of Trallock Bridge in a state of semi-consciousness. Nobody ever found out how he got there. None could recall having seen him in the vicinity of the bridge and the Wrenboy himself had no recollection whatsoever. When he was discovered by two salmon poachers they firmly believed that he was dead but when they dragged him to high ground they heard the moans which told them that he was still in the land of the living.

When the Wrenboy opened his eyes in a bed in Trallock District Hospital the first face he saw was that of Canon Cornelius Coodle.

‘The last time I saw you I gave you the pledge,' the canon told him, ‘and just now I've anointed you. What have you to say for yourself at all you unfortunate creature?'

‘Drink, canon,' the Wrenboy replied before he closed his eyes to sleep as he had never slept before.

The Wrenboy spent several days recuperating. Not once did he speak of the events which very nearly led to his demise under the blind eye of the bridge where at least two errant drunkards had died from exposure within living memory. For hours at a time he had padded round the hospital in a pair of new bedroom slippers bought for him by the epic poet Mental Nossery. They were the first bedroom slippers he ever owned. When he believed that his full health had returned to him he made his plans. After counting his remaining money he came to the conclusion that he had sufficient for a comprehensive two-day booze. The Wrenboy counted his resources in drinks. His dole money for instance, after a few minor items such as food and electricity were deducted, amounted to six half-whiskeys and eleven pints of stout with the price of a box or two of matches left over.

On the day of his departure from Trallock District Hospital he was visited by Sergeant Bill Ruttle who asked for a personal favour.

‘I won't put a tooth in it,' Bill Ruttle opened, ‘I have come here to see you for one reason only and that is to ask you for a personal favour.'

‘I'll do anything for you,' the Wrenboy promised.

‘Will you go off the drink for me?' Bill asked.

‘That's a different story.' The Wrenboy's face grew serious.

‘Will you or won't you go off the drink for me?'

‘I could try,' from the Wrenboy.

‘That's not good enough,' the sergeant told him.

‘What's gotten into you?' the Wrenboy asked while he studied his friend's face.

‘Nothing's gotten into me,' the sergeant looked out the widow into the bleak afternoon beyond.

‘You really want me to go off the drink on a permanent basis?'

‘What I really want,' the sergeant turned on him, ‘is to see you hold on to your life for a few more years.'

‘I'll take the pledge,' the Wrenboy volunteered.

‘No you won't,' Bill Ruttle injected a new inflexibility into his tone. ‘I am asking you to give me your word as a gentleman that you will never put an intoxicating drink to your lips again.'

‘I am not a gentleman,' came the evasive reply.

‘Then,' said Bill, ‘I'm asking you on the word of a man.'

‘I'm not much of a man,' came the equally evasive reply.

‘I'm beginning to see that,' the sergeant observed angrily.

A silence followed. It was that kind of silence where the wrong word could bring negotiations to an immediate end.

‘All right,' Bill was now using a more reasonable tone, ‘I'm asking you on the word of a wrenboy.'

There would be no evasion this time and Bill knew it. The sounds from the nearby corridors and wards became more pronounced as the silence between the two men became more pronounced. The Wrenboy sat on the side of the bed on which he had been lying and covered his face with his hands. He felt like saying to his friend that what was being asked was grossly unfair, that it was totally impossible, that it was not in his capacity or character to make such a promise, that he just didn't have the will-power. Instead he said nothing at all. He just sat there looking at Bill's beefy side-face. Then he rose and took his friend's hand. As he shook it he spoke: ‘On the world of a wrenboy,' he said.

No other words passed between them at that time but Bill Ruttle said many years later as he and Matt Coumer looked down at the coffin of Walter Aloysius Rogan that a wrenboy's word was his bond.

Masterman sipped his whiskey elegantly knowing that he was being watched by the tall grey-haired lady who had just entered the hotel's plush bar. He noticed her earlier in the foyer and, from her easy air of proprietorship, guessed that she was a member of the staff.

More than likely she was a supervisor of some sort. It wouldn't surprise him if she turned out to be the manageress. He guessed she would be in her mid-fifties. While she continued to take stock of him he produced a spotless white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his second-best suit. He did not blow his nose. He never did so publicly. Rather did he remove some non-existent specks from the sleeves of his coat.

She was moving about now, outside the counter, but at the far end of the bar. The barmaid followed her to the outside and rang the Waterford glass time-up bell which she carried in her hand. The older woman left the bar, stately as a sailing ship and erect as any mast.

Masterman noted the trim figure and especially the way her buttocks flickered tantalisingly as she passed by. She favoured him with the barest of nods as though nods were at a premium at that time. Then she paused briefly and with a hint of a smile informed him in low tones that he was to ignore the bell and stay where he was until she returned. He nodded eagerly and looked at his watch. In a mere ten minutes it would be Christmas Day, the twenty-eighth such day he had spent in a world which, he felt, still owed him something substantial for his years of sexual frustration and general all-round suffering.

He might have married but on the two occasions where matters had taken a turn towards permanence he had withdrawn from the relationships. His sister had married and was coming home for Christmas. The reason he found himself in the hotel on Christmas Eve was due to the fact that his in-laws, notably his brother-in-law, a despicable wretch perverted and mean, were spending Christmas in the family home where he himself had spent the previous twenty-seven Christmases. The hotel he had chosen attracted him for two reasons. Firstly it was at the opposite end of the country to his family home and secondly the rates were more than reasonable for the Christmas period. His in-laws would be departing the family home on the day after St Stephen's Day and this would give him the opportunity to spend a day with his parents.

His thoughts returned to the hotel manageress who, he had by now deduced, she undoubtedly must be. He looked at his watch. Half-past twelve. Over a half-hour had passed since she intimated that she would be returning. No sign of her. Customers had been vacating the bar on a regular basis in the interim, wishing each other the compliments of the season. None had over-looked him as they exited. All had extended to him Christmas greetings and he had dutifully responded.

At last the bar was emptied and he turned his thoughts for a second time to the manageress, sophisticated and mature without doubt and immaculately preserved to boot, he imagined she would have a lot to offer if the mood caught her but, of course, she could have asked him to stay for any number of reasons.

He had heard from other commercials that women of her ilk and age were at the top of the scale, skilled, practised, discreet and totally abandoned once they had committed themselves.

Masterman recalled similar females he had encountered in his travels. He had been singularly unsuccessful in engaging the attention of a solitary one. In fact he had found them gruff and even surly when they discovered what was on his mind. Why then, he asked himself, should this particular one ask him to remain behind until she returned?

He looked at his watch a second time and then he drifted into a deep sleep induced unexpectedly by the hundreds of miles he had travelled that day and by the countless whiskeys he had drunk.

In his sleep he dreamed of far-off days when youth held little care. He dreamed of the same dark-haired nymph who led him countless merry dances through radiant summer scenes and when he woke up several hours later he found himself looking into cold grey eyes set in beautiful, if rather severe, features.

He closed his eyes temporarily to make sure that the visage over-looking him was not part of the dream sequence he had just experienced. When he reopened his eyes the over-hanging face was still there. The rich red lips which were the outstanding feature of the face opened and from there issued forth a soft vocal chain of apology. She had meant to return but had fallen asleep herself explaining that she had spent seventeen hours on her feet throughout Christmas Eve. Would he forgive her and join her for breakfast in the dining-room? She took him gently by the hand lest he refuse and led him into a corner where a smart young waitress with a beaming smile awaited their instructions.

Full Irish for two and no frills. As they waited he observed that her lips were impeccably lip-sticked but that she wore no other make-up. There was about her a crispness and a freshness which he had never before encountered in a female. It was as if she had spent the preceding hours at nothing else but immersing herself in fragrant waters, drying herself and re-immersing herself until her full vigour had been restored.

The lights of the dining-room shone brightly for it was still dark outside but she shone brighter albeit in a different way.

‘I had the night porter keep an eye on you,' she confided, ‘can you guess how long you've been sleeping?'

He shook his head for it was not in his power to produce a spoken reply. He was, as he was to confide afterwards to a fellow-commercial, in a trance. ‘I felt,' he had said at the time, ‘like one of those romantic Gaelic poets who has been discovered in the wilderness by a beautiful goddess in the dead of night.'

The woman who sat opposite him at the table was now in full vocal spate, had been widowed some ten years before, heart attack, no children, lived presently with her sister and doting husband and three young children, four, six and eight, the younger, girls, the oldest a boy. Dream kids all, fun-loving and sweet.

When breakfast arrived she ceased talking for a moment in order to pour the scalding tea. As he wolfed down his food she proceeded with her life's tale. Now in her early fifties she had never considered remarrying. She had found happiness with her sister and her family. She had resumed her hotel career a few short weeks after her husband's death and this had been a blessing in that she worked herself into total exhaustion every day and night so that sleep presented no problem and she didn't have time for self-pity.

Promotion followed and she was now the hotel's manageress. As she spoke she reminded him sometimes of a nun, sometimes of a schoolmistress, sometimes of a madame and occasionally of a sergeant-major. there was no denying one important factor however. She was still a beautifully preserved woman.

‘You must have noticed that I spent more time than I should watching you in the bar last night,' she told him coyly. Before he could answer she explained that she had good reason. She went on to tell him that she would not go into it there and then.

‘All will be revealed,' she assured him, ‘and I promise you will be pleased and fulfilled.'

It was the language that baffled Masterman. It had religious undertones when it shouldn't. Then he reminded himself of commercial tales about prim, prudish women who exceeded themselves when the chips were down, unbelievable tales but authentic as any tale could be and verified by the fathers of commercial rooms up and down the country ever since sales representatives forgathered to exchange business experiences and gripping yarns of sweet romance.

‘Now,' she said with finality as she looked at her watch, ‘it's twenty minutes to eight and,' here she paused briefly, ‘at ten minutes to the hour we will leave here and hasten to the church which happens to be just around the corner.'

Before he could utter a single word she placed a finger firmly on his lips and cautioned him to silence. ‘Speak not,' she whispered fervently as she looked into his rather bloodshot eyes. ‘Speak not,' she begged, ‘or my dream will fade.'

Masterman submitted himself once more to the trance world he had occupied earlier. Dutifully he followed her and found himself shortly afterwards seated in the very front pew of the church ablaze with light and reverently hymnal all around.

Masterman, if he was asked by a colleague, would admit that he hadn't seen the inside of a church since his sister's wedding ten years before.

When mass was over they returned to the hotel and in the foyer she faced him with a strange revelation.

‘I'm asking you to do something for me now,' she said, ‘and afterwards there won't be a single word to anybody. It will be our secret.'

Masterman nodded eagerly and did not object when she took him by the hand and led him upstairs to the door-way of his very own bedroom.

Masterman's astonishment did not show on his face. It would never do, he told himself, to behave as if such a thing had never happened before. She handed him the key which she had earlier collected at reception. It was she who led the way into the room where, immediately, he endeavoured to place his trembling hands around her.

‘Patience,' she admonished. he dropped his hands to his sides.

‘Now,' she spoke curtly, ‘take off your coat and your shirt and I'll be back in a minute.' So saying she lifted the key from the bed where he had flung it, and vacated the room.

Masterman sat baffled on the side of the bed which he hoped to utilise to its fullest before the morning took its course. Without further reflection he jumped to his feet. First things first, he told himself. He would do as she had told him. Off would come coat and shirt and he would await further instructions. When the door opened after a gentle preliminary knock she entered bearing a large plastic bag. From it she withdrew a tasselled, crimson Santa Claus hat and an equally crimson, outsized Santa Claus coat.

‘Now,' she said with her sergeant-major voice, ‘get these on you and we'll head for my sister's.'