An Irish Christmas Feast, page 36
Every time there is a Christmas in the offing my thoughts unfailingly turn to geese. Some people prefer turkeys while more have a preference for ducks and drakes and cockerels but it’s the goose for me, the roast stuffed goose preceded by giblet soup. My mouth waters as I summon up remembrance of bygone ganders. Just before this very Christmas I engaged two from a country cousin, a woman of impeccable credentials in the matter of geese and ganders. In dark moments and troublesome times I think of these very geese, browned and roasted, and my heart soars like an uprising lark.
If you have ever been taken down in the purchase of a goose, that is to say if you buy an old goose thinking it to be a young goose, you will never again engage geese hastily nor will you buy at random from any Tom, Dick or Harry. To be quite candid I would put the same amount of preparation and planning into the purchase of a goose as I would into the robbing of a bank. Too many times in the past I was taken down by otherwise honest people. In the countryside it was never considered a dishonest act to dispose of elderly or decrepit geese to gullible townies. Old geese must be sold and who better to sell them to than townies. Few townies knew the identities or dwelling-places of goose producers so the producer is generally safe from retaliation. In addition nearly all people who sold geese looked alike. That is to say they were possessed of kind, honest faces especially these who foisted off ancient birds on the unwary and unsuspecting.
In my boyhood Christmases you would always find the rogue producers in that corner of the market where the donkey and pony transports were thickest and the smiling saleswomen would always call you sir, even if you were the biggest rogue in the world. Luckily for me I have now, near the end of my days, accrued some experience in the engaging and purchase of geese.
At the tender age of twelve I was sent to the market-place in my native town having been commissioned to invest in a prime goose for an elderly neighbour who should have known better. She was too old to go herself and even at the age of eighty she still had a good deal of faith in humanity. It was foolishly presumed at the time that I was street-wise. The word had yet to make its way into our everyday vocabulary. Crafty was the word used in those days but unfortunately I was not crafty enough to match the wily and seasoned dealers anxious to dispose of ancient geese.
Earlier that morning I received a short instruction in the ways of geese. Old geese, for instance, like their human counterparts were somewhat listless. Their eyes too were lack-lustre. Their beaks were worn down and were of a darker hue than those of young geese. The laipeens were wrinkled and coarse. These were some of the better-known defects to be found in geese and ganders of advanced years. This information was conveyed to me by the husband of the good lady who liked a goose for Christmas. He reminded me too that young ganders were aggressive, raucous chaps who liked to flap their wings and intimidate people going about their lawful business. Armed with this vast array of knowledge and clutching two florins in my trousers’ pocket I entered the market. In those days trousers generally accommodated only one pocket and the lining was never truly trustworthy. Holes infiltrated and coins disappeared. Heartbreak followed and hunger too and all sorts of deprivation especially if the sum was substantial.
Great was the clamour of geese and turkeys in the market-place not to mention ducks, drakes, hens and chickens. For once there were more women than men. It was held by even the most hostile of males in those days that turkey money was female money and should be used by females as they saw fit but the truth was that most of the money was spent on special commodities which would sweeten and brighten Christmas in the home.
As I moved here and there I was obliged to pick my steps. Ass- and pony-rails cluttered the scene. Everywhere bargains were being struck and satisfied clients were departing with cross-winged braces of prime fowl. So numerous were the geese on every side that I hardly knew where to begin. I was almost overcome by the great and colourful array of transports and country folk, by the quick-fire exchanges of notes and silver, by the back-slapping and hand-slapping as bargains were struck and by the many minor altercations which eventually came to nought. It was almost too much for me and I fervently wished that I hadn’t been saddled with so much responsibility.
‘Ah!’ said a friendly voice behind me. ‘It’s yourself is it’ – with that he thrust out his hand and almost shook it free from my elbow joint with the shaking he gave it. I had never seen him before in my life but the more I examined his friendly face the more I began to recognise certain familiar traits. I didn’t know it then but what I recognised were constituents common to the universal face of roguery. It was the friendliness of his smile that disarmed me and exposed my defence.
‘I know what brought you,’ he said, ‘you’re looking for a turkey for your mother.’
‘No,’ I told him, ‘I’m looking for a goose for oul’ Maggie Sullivan.’
‘If you are,’ said he, ‘you’d better draw away from here,’ and he winked in the most conspiratorial way you ever saw. I followed him past rails of gobbling turkeys, quacking ducks and hissing ganders.
‘Half of these,’ my new-found friend announced, indicating the owners of the fowl all around us, ‘would nick the eye out of your head or,’ said he in a loud whisper into my ear, ‘if you was innocent enough to stick out your tongue that’s the very last you’d see of it.’
He stopped at a corner of the market where an elderly, shawled woman with a wrinkled face was attending to an ass-rail of geese. She had, I recall to this very day, the kindest and homeliest face one could wish to see. Her voice was soft and sweet and as near to Gaelic in sound and rhythm as English could be. More to the point she had geese for sale.
‘Stall-fed, every one of ’em,’ she boasted, ‘and not one of ’em that isn’t a Michaelmas goose for sure.’
I had heard of Michaelmas geese or Green geese before this. What the term meant was that they had matured and would have been ready to eat at Michaelmas which falls on 29 September. However for extra substance and flavour they would have been confined to stalls or small out-houses till it was time for the Christmas market. The confinement meant that they would be unable to move about as much as geese normally do in the grazing area out of doors. Consequently the thighs would be less muscular and far more edible when cooked and also that the breast would be possessed of more meat and would be more succulent.
My newly acquired friend was now standing in the rail conducting a closer inspection of its occupants. They hissed and honked as he lifted them one by one to make sure that there was no impostor among them. When he had concluded his examination he explained my predicament, how my purchasing power was restricted to four shillings and how I had been warned about dishonest vendors who would think nothing of fobbing off an elderly goose on an innocent townie.
‘Oh may the good God succour us all,’ said the old woman, ‘and may God in his mercy preserve us, the young and the old and the innocent, from them that would wrong law-abiding people. May the flames of hell singe their yalla hides and may St Peter turn ’em back at the gates of heaven and keep them waiting for a hundred years.’ She made the sign of the cross with her Rosary beads and would have continued with her excoriation had not my friend raised his hand to his lips to remind her that the evening light would soon be fading and there was a long road home.
‘This man is a townie,’ he explained, ‘and you may be sure he has other business that needs looking after.’
‘What about this one?’ my friend was asking.
‘No, no, no,’ she was quick to reply, ‘that oul’ codger only came along as a companion so’s the others wouldn’t be too nervous on the journey. There’s a sweet young gander over in the corner,’ she went on, ‘in the peak of condition and only out of the stall this morning.’
‘Is this the lad?’ my friend asked as he lifted aloft a large, hissing specimen for my approval.
‘Oh the weight of him!’ he cried, ‘and the tenderness of him! How much are you asking for him?’
‘Oh he can’t be sold at all,’ said the old woman, ‘he’s engaged by the superintendent of the civic guards.’
‘Tell us what you’re asking for him anyway?’
‘I’m asking four shillings,’ she replied reluctantly, ‘but ’twould want to be handed over straightaway in case the superintendent comes along and demands what’s rightfully his.’
‘Sealed!’ My friend extended a grimy hand for my two florins and when they had been transferred to his I found myself with the gander in my hands. My friend hurried me out of the market by a circuitous route lest, as he put it himself, I wind up in the dungeon. All the time he kept his eyes open for the presence of the superintendent and his minions.
‘We’ll do ’em yet!’ he kept shouting, ‘we’ll do ’em yet!’ and so we did for in a very few minutes I found myself at Maggie Sullivan’s door clutching my prize.
‘May God comfort us this night,’ she cried out when she beheld the gander. She stood back from the pair of us to have a better look at my purchase.
‘He’s one age with myself,’ she wept, ‘if he isn’t older and look at the beak worn away by him.’ She called her husband and between them they set up a frightening lamentation. There was nothing for it but to return to the market, recover our two florins and invest in a younger specimen. In the market I led Maggie and her husband to the corner where the old woman had her rail but there was no sign of her. We searched the three other corners but she was nowhere to be seen. The bother was that all the old women we saw wore shawls and all had wrinkled, innocent, homely faces and you’d never believe from looking at them that any single one of them was capable of fobbing off an elderly gander on an innocent townie.
The Hermit of Scartnabrock
Dr Matt Coumer could hardly believe his ears. The man who stood before him, as far as he knew, was the sanest and soberest in the parish. Matt had known him for most of his life. Gerry Severs lived in a small cottage by the river. He lived alone since his wife Pegeen had slipped away on him. That was the way Gerry, with his quaint turn of speech, put it whenever he was asked how his wife died. ‘She slipped away on me’, he would answer mournfully and then he would move hastily on lest further elaboration be required.
Matt had risen to his feet the moment Gerry entered his surgery.
‘Well Gerry?’ Matt asked as he proffered a hand to the young man. Not that much younger he thought, seven years, no more and no less, twenty-five years since he taught him how to cast a line and what a pupil he had been! He could land a fly in Matt’s extended cap as they fished either side of the river.
‘Sit down and I’ll take your blood pressure.’
When Gerry failed to respond to the offer Matt countered by assuring him that there wouldn’t be any charge.
‘It’s not blood pressure that’s troubling me.’ Gerry vacantly studied an anatomy chart on the wall opposite and searched for the opening words which would eventually disclose his unusual dilemma. Should he begin by telling his friend that his late, lamented wife Pegeen had been the scourge of his life from the day he had married her, that she had reviled him, spat on him, even beaten him, yes beaten him and savagely at that and that he had never reacted physically, never once. He had accepted every taunt and every jibe with resignation in the hope that she would change back into the gentle girl she had been before they married.
‘I know all about Pegeen if that is what’s troubling you or,’ Matt paused, ‘at least enough about her to know that you have suffered more than your share in your marriage.’
Gerry without turning felt for the chair he knew to be somewhere behind him. Locating it he gratefully sat and waited for the sudden giddiness which had visited him after Matt’s revelation to disappear.
Matt sat behind his desk and waited until some of Gerry’s composure returned. After a decent interval he informed his friend how some of Gerry’s neighbours who chanced to be patients of his had asked him to intervene.
‘She’s a street angel and a house devil’, one of Gerry’s elderly neighbours had been the first to mention Pegeen’s vicious behaviour. Others would follow before Matt decided to move. On that afternoon several years before as he and Gerry were fishing Matt asked him if all was well in his marriage.
‘Couldn’t be better,’ Gerry had answered breezily.
‘I’m told,’ Matt would not be deterred, ‘that there are serious rows.’
‘A marriage without a row is like an egg without salt.’
It was the light-hearted way his friend answered that eased Matt’s worries and, of course, there was the fact that neighbours exaggerated especially when they had nothing better to do.
Then one March morning earlier that year when the river was in flood, Pegeen stood barefoot on a parapet and threw herself into the swirling waters below.
‘Christmas was her worst time,’ Gerry spoke matter-of-factly. ‘There was never a Christmas dinner but there was no scarcity of abuse. She heaped it on all through the twelve days and I took it.’
The disclosure was followed by a long silence.
‘How long is she dead now?’ Matt wondered if it was the right question.
‘Nine months and three days,’ came the forthright answer, ‘and I’ll tell you this Matt, I’ve never had such peace or at least I never had such peace until last night.’
‘What happened last night?’ Matt asked anxiously.
‘I saw her,’ came the prompt reply.
‘You saw Pegeen?’ Matt prompted.
‘That’s right,’ from Gerry.
‘Tell me about it.’ Matt studied his friend’s face for signs of instability, anything that would tell him about his mental state, studied the averted eyes for tell-tale indications of derangement and his hands for tell-tale jerks or contractions. There was nothing whatsoever to suggest that Gerry was anything other than the same, solid citizen he had always been.
‘It was about half-twelve,’ Gerry recalled, ‘I could not sleep so I took a stroll down by the river. On my way back I felt a cold shiver all over my body. I often heard about cold shivers but I didn’t believe about them until last night. A cold shiver is a nasty visitor but it’s not as bad as an unnatural tremor because that’s exactly what I felt shaking hands with me next.’
‘An unnatural tremor you say?’ Matt savoured the expression.
‘Exactly,’ Gerry went on, ‘and on top of that I felt as if somebody had tugged at my coat but when I turned around to have a look there was nobody there or at least nobody near enough to have touched my coat. The nearest person to me at the time was a female standing under a lamp-post. My heart missed a beat Matt because she was dressed exactly like Pegeen.’
‘How far away was she exactly?’ Matt asked.
‘Forty yards to be exact,’ Gerry answered without a moment’s hesitation, ‘and I ought to know because I played centre forward long enough to know the distance. It was then I started to shake all over. I was like a cob-web in a breeze and when I lifted my left leg to get out of there fast it wouldn’t move and neither would my right leg. I was stuck there. Then a black cat came slinking out of the shadows and he passed by where the woman stood or ghost or demon or whatever because I didn’t know for sure who it was at that stage. As the cat drew near the power returned to my legs but by then a courting couple had entered the square and a car also drew up close by so I felt the terror quenching itself inside of me. I said to myself I’ll have a look at this woman because I’m Gerry Severs and if you ask anybody in this town what sort of bloke I am they’ll tell you I’m as sound as bell metal and that I don’t spin yarns. I made my way towards the dame under the pole but when I drew near to her she turned her head away. I couldn’t make out her features but then the lights of the car shone full on her face and the next thing you know I was staring into her two weepers. It was Pegeen. One minute it wasn’t her face and the next minute it was and when her features were exposed by the car lights there was no doubt in my mind. The blood drained out of my body and the whole square seemed to start going round in a circle. I found my balance deserting me and the sight seemed to leave my eyes. Then I began to stagger and then I fell out on my face and eyes. Look, there’s a bump on my forehead and there’s a cut on my poll.’
When Gerry came round he was sitting in a chair in the kitchen of a neighbour. The courting couple had seen him lying on the ground and had seen the woman walk away and had partially revived him, enough to be able to drag him to the nearest cottage in the laneway which led from the square to the river.
Matt leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes in concentration as Gerry proceeded with his tale. Satisfied that there was no mental problem and that Gerry had been the victim of some minor hallucination which might well have been induced by the flashing car lights, he prescribed some sedatives and told him he would expect him to call around the same time on the morrow. ‘And by the way,’ Matt went on, ‘I will expect you to join my wife Maggie and myself for Christmas dinner, that’s if you’re free on the occasion.’
‘Oh I’ll manage to fit you in,’ Gerry laughed, grateful of the offer because he always felt at ease in the presence of Maggie Coumer and Matt was a trusted friend of long standing. That night Matt told the whole story to Maggie.
Normally he would never disclose the contents of any exchanges whatsoever between his patients and himself but Maggie was herself a professional having qualified as a nurse many years before. ‘There’s no doubt but that Gerry saw a girl but there’s also no doubt she could not have been his wife because if you remember it was I who laid her out when her body was recovered and it was I who helped coffin her and she was as dead as mutton you can take it from me. I’ll make a few enquiries tomorrow and I’ll get to the bottom of this as sure as my name is Maggie Coumer.’
That night Gerry slept soundly thanks to the sleeping capsules which his friend had given him. In the Coumer household the good doctor and his partner whispered into the morning, careful not to awaken their three young children in rooms nearby.
