An Irish Christmas Feast, page 44
‘It couldn’t have been a patient,’ the observer said, ‘because Matt would never drive like that on his way to see a patient. It must have been something really important.’
All of a sudden the lights were dimmed in the bar and the sound of eerie music drifted downwards from somewhere in the ceiling. It was undoubtedly the soundtrack from a horror movie.
‘What’s it from Sam?’ Bill asked his colleague.
‘It’s from Dracula’s Daughter meets the Werewolf’s Son,’ Sam answered without a moment’s hesitation.
‘All knowledge is useful,’ Bill pointed out as he lifted his glass and concentrated his vision on the main doorway.
Just then the bar lights were extinguished altogether and the pub’s only spotlight shone on the doorway which seemed to hold so much interest for the sergeant. The music ceased and a roll of drums sharpened the interest of everybody present, most notably the three McCraw brothers. Cowards at heart they dreaded the darkness even when surrounded by other humans.
The roll of the drums intensified and there was the sound of a protracted scream from the doorway. The pub cat, a fat and less than frisky tabby, shrieked her way out of doors and was not seen for days. Silence again prevailed.
Nervously the McCraw brothers raised their glasses but lowered them untouched when a low and ghastly moan came from the direction of the doorway. Enter a dark stranger. He wore a black beard and moustache and was garbed like an Elizabethan gentleman. Slung over his shoulder was a large satchel woven from golden threads. When he laid it on the floor one couple could plainly hear the mewing and the bleating and the aforementioned moans coming from within.
Delia slipped silently from her chair on to the floor in a dead faint. Her exit from consciousness went unnoticed so absorbed was every watcher by the unbelievable goings-on at the doorway.
The table where the McCraw brothers sat began to shake as the trembling wretches transmitted their terror to the lifeless wooden surface where the glasses now tinkled and jumped and rolled over as though electrified. The brothers could have exited in a flash but so overcome were they by terror that their legs refused to move. On the other hand Hiccups was elated and quite carried away by recent events.
Hot on the heels of the Elizabethan satchel-carrier came a tall, stately if somewhat gaunt woman dressed completely in black with a ruff round her neck and a silver comb thrust deep into the bun of her tightly drawn hair.
‘Is she ...’ Mick asked in terror, his voice shaking, ‘is she Been-been from Coolnaleen the queen of the Crabapple Hill fairies?’
‘None other!’ came the proud response from Hiccups.
‘And is the creature in the satchel,’ Mick asked, ‘the same hare yourself and the waist-coat coursed that first time you climbed Crabapple Hill?’
‘She is one and the same hare!’
Again there was pride in Hiccups’ voice.
‘And, and, and,’ Slick asked brokenly, ‘will she be changed tonight into a princess.’
‘Yes. Yes,’ Hiccups answered impatiently.
‘Hear ye! O hear ye!’ came the awesome and ponderous voice of the Elizabethan satchel-carrier. ‘Behold the transformed white hare of Crabapple Hill.’
The words had no sooner left his lips than the queen of the Crabapple fairies knelt on one knee and opened the golden satchel. Extending her hands she commanded the creature in the satchel to come forth. Forth she came, a dazzling and beautifully shaped young lady with a glittering diamond tiara on her brow and golden slippers on her shapely feet.
‘Behold!’ said the Elizabethan satchel-carrier, ‘the Princess Awlingal, rightful sovereign of Cunnackeenamadra and all parts west.’
The McCraws could not contain their shuddering and agitation. When Mick spoke his speech was slurred and broken.
Meanwhile Hiccups had noticed his wife’s plight and placed her on a chair beside his own. He poured brandy into her mouth and she regained consciousness. They looked into each other’s eyes and wondrous smiles appeared on their faces.
‘What in God’s name are you blabbering about man?’ Hiccups with a newly discovered confidence asked his distraught brother-in-law.
Mick McCraw asked if the woman at the doorway was the same Been-been from Coolnaleen he had met on Crabapple Hill and if the transformed hare was really Awlingal the sovereign Princess of Cunnackeenamadra and all parts west.
‘That’s who she is for sure,’ Hiccups answered still growing in confidence from watching the abject terror of his brothers-in-law.
‘There is one sure way to find out,’ Slick put in as he found his coherency returning to him.
‘And what way would that be?’ asked Dick who had been frothing at the mouth in fear a few short moments before.
‘You remember,’ Slick reminded his brothers, ‘how Hiccups here told us he bit the back of the white hare as they coursed over Crabapple Hill and how he brought a clump of hair away with him. Now if that be so there surely has to be a mark on the back of the princess.’
As though their words had carried to all within the room the spotlight was turned off and the full bar lights turned on. Led by the Elizabethan satchel-carrier the queen of all the Crabapple Hill fairies and the Princess of Cunnackeenamadra and all parts west marched towards the table of the McCraws, the stout heels of their knee-length leather boots striking the timber floor in unison and bringing a sense of majesty to the occasion. The Elizabethan satchel-carrier raised a gloved hand imperiously and spoke in ringing tones: ‘Hear ye! Oh hear ye!’ He cast his stern countenance in the direction of Slick.
‘Rise knaves!’ he commanded at which the three brothers struggled terror-stricken to their feet and doffed their filthy caps in the direction of the royal pair.
‘Now speak lest I draw my blade and disembowel the three of ye,’ the Elizabethan satchel-carrier commanded. The cowardly trio at once began to blame each other and denied having any interest in seeking the hidden evidence which would prove forever that the Princess of Cunnackeenamadra was indeed the rightful sovereign of the territories attributed to her. Suddenly there was a flash of steel as the satchel-carrier withdrew his sword from his scabbard. He pointed the blade at the Adam’s apple of Slick and informed him that he would cut his head off if he did not speak.
‘All I want to know sir,’ said the cringing Slick, ‘is whether or not there is a mark on the back of this girl, a mark made by human teeth to be exact?’
‘On thy knees thou most disrespectful of wretches where my hungry blade may relieve thee of thy head.’
‘Nay, nay!’ said the princess in voice most melodious and with that she raised her dress and revealed a scantily clad but shapely posterior without blemish of any kind. A gasp escaped the audience. It was not occasioned by the undeniable shapeliness of the royal rump but rather by the fact that there was a dark red disfiguration on the small of the back just over the the right cheek of Princess Awlingal’s rear.
‘What say you now sir?’ asked the Elizabethan.
‘I say was it caused by the teeth of a human?’ Slick was surprised at his own audacity.
‘If I may!’ Sergeant Ruttle rose to his feet and handed his cap to Sam.
‘My Lord!’ he addressed himself to the Elizabethan who graciously acknowledged his presence with an economical but respectful curtsy.
‘I am obliged to say at the outset,’ Bill opened, ‘that the mark on this most attractive area was not caused by human teeth, by teeth yes but not by teeth that grow in the mouth of a human. Rather was the mark made by these.’ He extended his hand towards Hiccups who extracted his dentures from his mouth and handed them to the sergeant. Bill ordered all the interested parties to gather round the Princess of Cunnackeenamadra. He held Hiccups’ false teeth aloft and slowly lowering them placed them over the disfiguration at the top of the right buttock.
‘Are they a fit?’ Slick asked.
‘They are,’ said the sergeant triumphantly, ‘a precise fit and that concludes the evidence My Lord.’
Bill and the Elizabethan exchanged the most civil of nods.
When it dawned fully on the McCraw brothers that their brother-in-law had proven connections with the underworld they pushed their chairs back from the table in order to put as much distance between themselves and the lorgadán as possible. They eyed their sister with suspicion and for the first time began to perceive out of their fear and ignorance underworld subtleties and fairy-like fragilities transforming her placid features. Slowly, noiselessly, stealthily they rose from their seats and stood momentarily transfixed. Then at a signal from the oldest brother Mick they ran from the bar, overturning chairs, tables and stools and beseeching the great God of their fathers to save them.
In Crutleys there was unconfined delight. The participants in the charade turned out to be members of the Trallock Amateur Drama Group with the following cast in order of appearance:
Elizabethan Satchel-carrier Matt Coumer
Been-been Coolnaleen Roseanna Ruane
Princess Awlingal Bridget Ruane
Counsel Bill Ruttle
Producer Maggie Coumer
Lighting Canon Coodle
Stage Manager Dotie Tupper
Music Tom Mackson
Costumes Mickey Mokely
Dotie Tupper
Front of House Fred Crutley
Concept Mental Nossery
In the years ahead the brothers gave Hiccups and Delia a wide berth and covered their faces with their hands whenever they met lest they make contact with the eyes of either and be consigned forever to supernatural botheration.
When the two adopted sons of Hiccups and Delia reached boyhood a reconciliation was effected and the McCraw brothers devoted their lives to their nephews’ upbringing.
The Sacred Calf
If you were suddenly to leap from behind a furze bush, seize my throat in both hands and threaten me with strangulation if I didn’t tell you the truth, I could hardly tell a lie could I!
If you were to ask me as your grip tightened which was the most memorable Christmas in the history of our parish I would say without hesitation that it was the Christmas of the sacred calf. You will no doubt have heard and read of sacred cows but I’ll lay a fat goose to a starving sparrow that it’s the first time you’ve come across a sacred calf; golden calves yes, castrated calves yes, fatted calves yes, but sacred calves no!
The calf in question was born on St Patrick’s Day, a spindly, knock-kneed chap the image of his grandfather and this is where the catch comes in. The father, if you get my drift, was suspect or if you like he was rejected for procreational purposes by an inspector from the Department of Agriculture on the grounds that his shoulders were exaggerated and he was also, alas, possessed of a somewhat contracted rump, features indeed which were often highly prized in his human counterparts by certain females, at least in this parish or so it is claimed by those who should know. Although the sacred calf himself suffered from no such so-called defects he might nevertheless be branded as undesirable for breeding purposes.
The sacred calf’s owner, one Jackeen Coyne, was undecided about the creature’s future. ‘I could,’ he told his wife, ‘deprive him of his population stick and turn him into a prime bullock in the course of time or I could hold on to him and let him take his chances with the inspectors from the department.’
‘You could sell him in a few weeks for veal or you could hold on to him until Christmas when he’d be just right for baby beef. Baby beef is all the go now,’ his wife reminded him, ‘but by that time he might be shaping towards a passable bull so you wouldn’t have anything to lose.’
Jackeen, like most of the farmers in the district, always paid heed to what his wife suggested. Wives had no vested interests like butchers or calf-jobbers. They listened to the agricultural programmes on the radio and had a fair idea of what was going on. So it was that Jackeen opted for baby beef.
It had all begun the previous summer when a scrub bull or a Walkeen Aisy as he would be known locally entered the scene or rather broke into the well-fenced acres of Jackeen. The owner of the marauding scrub was a happy-go-lucky sort, one Mickey Martin, who rarely mended his fences and might never have done so had not Jackeen threatened him with the law on numerous occasions. It was left to Jackeen to secure his heifers by constant fence-mending and extreme vigilance by himself and his wife all day and all night from early springtime onwards. Jackeen’s pure-bred Friesian heifers, eight in number, were separated from the remainder of the mixed herd for breeding purposes and were truly the apples of their proprietor’s eye. He walked among them morning and evening after the herd had been milked. He noted their sprightliness and playfulness and allowed that they were a prime lot well worth the time invested in them.
When the scrub bull could no longer contain himself he became increasingly agitated. Normally this agitation might not appear until the late autumn when he would have expended all his energies. This particular form of agitation, however, was different. It was, if you’ll forgive the pun, born out of mounting frustration. He was a young bull and had already accounted for all of his master’s cows and heifers.
Jackeen redoubled his labours at the fences and would look apprehensively through the well-stitched thorn hedge at the restless fornicator who rarely took his eyes off the forbidden fruit in the next field. Jackeen decided to change his charges to more distant pastures at the earliest opportunity. On the other hand Mickey Martin cared not a whit for the state of his fences or the sexual ardour of his scrub. When Jackeen spotted him one evening on his way to town he shouted after him that he should move the scrub to another field.
‘You get your Friesians to stop teasing him,’ Mickey called back before disappearing through a gap in another pasture. Meanwhile Jackeen fretted and fumed as he awaited the arrival of the department inseminator, an industrious young man already working round the clock in order to fulfil his many commissions. Jackeen’s nights were sleepless. He would rise several times from his bed as would his wife. From their upstairs window their eyes swept the moon-lit fields but the bull was nowhere to be seen. Occasionally they would hear him bellow and there came a time when Jackeen would hear bellowing in his imagination until black rings began to appear under his eyes.
So jaded had he and his wife become from their sapping vigils that they went straight to bed after the evening milking and rarely visited the cavorting Friesians who taunted their mesmerised admirer with swishing tails and fancy steps. Then of a sudden when he could endure the anguish no longer the scrub found a gap in the hedge. It was only a small gap but by the time he had forced his way through it was considerably larger, certainly large enough for the pure-bred Friesians, no longer mindful of their vaunted pedigrees, to pay return visits to the paddock of their less exalted pursuer. In record time Mickey’s tireless impregnator accommodated each and every one of the eight heifers. Amazingly he showed no loss of taspy after his endeavours but he did, according to a boastful Mickey, have a long and sound sleep for himself, in case he might be called into action again.
In the spring of the following year the cows calved. One of the five bull calves presented to the world by the pedigreed Friesians stood out above the others. Although spindly and knock-kneed at birth as we have said he assumed his true pose and carriage after a few days.
Eventually Christmas began to advertise its proximity. The streets of the nearby town took on a carnival atmosphere and indulgent parents made haste to book their personal Santa Clauses in advance of the great feast day. There was an air of excitement abroad and a heart-warming type of burgeoning goodwill which only Christmas can generate. Then came the great Christmas cattle fair, an annual event which drew cattle of all ages and breeds from far and wide. The great square in the nearby town was the traditional venue and although the square boasted two churches, one Catholic and the other Protestant, it was conceded by reverent and irreverent alike that no other place had the capacity to accommodate the large numbers of livestock and their owners.
Jackeen and his wife Maryanne were plain to be seen. Maryanne’s presence was imperative if the eight weanlings they offered for sale were to be prevented from straying. Jackeen and Maryanne carried light hazel sticks more for intimidation than physical punishment. Brandishing was sufficient, for the most part, although from time to time the more adventurous had to be rounded up and returned to the preserved area outside the main entrance to the Catholic church. It was here that all the generations of Coynes as far back as anybody could remember were known to have traditional standing rights for their stock. With Christmas only a week away, and money scarce or so the farmers maintained, the Coynes were anxious to dispose of their weanlings before the fair ended and darkness fell. Their Christmas shopping would follow.
They had arrived at their small domain outside the church at seven o’clock and, as the early-morning hours lightened, the jobbers were afforded better conditions to inspect what was on offer. There had been several tentative approaches from first light. None was satisfactory although there was a farmland saying about an owner being better advised to accept the morning price. Jackeen, however, suspected that the adage was originally invented by the jobbers. It would be true to say that farmers always suspected jobbers in the first place and would bide their time until the market settled and the vendors had consulted each other about prices.
Maryanne was already well versed in such matters having been tuned in to the agricultural programmes on radio and television for weeks before. It was she who put an asking price on the eight weanlings consisting of five bull calves and three heifers. As expected the buyers wanted only the special bull calf who was a far more attractive specimen of his species than his brothers or sisters.
