The Tay Is Wet (7 page)

The last time I saw one like that it had blue ribbons on it.’

They always performed this ritual when they met and the master would relate it later in the local pub to much laughter and amusement. The old master was approaching his ninety
second year when he, too, passed to his eternal reward. His nephew, James, whom I knew from university, telephoned me to tell me the sad news. James told me that the family had a problem regarding instructions which the old man had left as to how his funeral service was to be conducted.

He had specified that one of his former pupils should sing solo at the church but there was only two days in which to arrange this and no suitable singer was available.

‘Can you think of anyone who might fit the bill?’ James asked and he sounded a bit desperate.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I responded, ‘but I can’t guarantee anything.’

I told James that I would get back to him as soon as possible. One name kept ringing around in my head. Timmy Deery had a fine baritone voice but could he be relied upon to perform at such a serious event as a funeral? I had tried every other possibility, but, due to the time restriction, with no success. So Timmy
was my last resort. I found Timmy deep in manure as he cleaned
out the old cow-byre. I told him about the important job that I needed someone to perform. I knew about the strained relationship between Timmy’s family and the headmaster and was quite surprised by his response.

‘Leave that to me,’ he said.

‘Do you think you will be able for it?’

‘Consider it done,’ he said firmly.

Nearly the whole population of the village turned out for the schoolmaster’s funeral. Almost the only subject talked about after the service was Timmy Deery’s singing of the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee.” He sang a capella (without choral accompaniment) and all agreed that it was the most beautiful and heart-felt rendition they had ever heard.

On another occasion Timmy’s singing landed him in trouble with the clergy. It happened during the parish mission. This was a major annual event which generated as much excitement as the arrival of the threshing mill. Two strange priests (missioners) would come to give the local miscreants (all males over five) a good dressing down. These grim faced men aged around sixty
and with thick country accents would spread a kind of terror throughout the neighbourhood. They mostly appeared in autumn when the fields were in stubble or if the weather had been bad and the harvest was late, the uncut corn would be tinged with black and they might have a special night to pray for fine weather. The first week was for the women and regarded by some as only a warm-up for the “men’s week.” On this occasion a missioner was walking up Deery’s lane, looking for any malefactors he might find, when he heard a loud male singing voice coming from behind the hedge.

“Che sara sara, whatever will be will be!”

Timmy was giving full voice to the new Doris Day song as he “docked” sheep in the “lane field.” Suddenly this black-clad figure came through a gap in the hedge and shouted at him.

‘Stop, stop, my good man, that song you are singing is blasphemous.’

Timmy let go the sheep and stood open-mouthed with shears
in hand. The startled sheep shot back to her companions who
were in a makeshift pen and Timmy watched in dismay as the sheep pushed against the gate which toppled over and the frightened animals ran off down the field.

‘Damn, now I’ll have to round them up again,’ he growled. ‘Who are you? You scared off the sheep.’

‘Never mind the sheep, I am Fr O’Connor, your Redemptorist missioner and that song you were singing could send you to hell for all eternity. The words “whatever will be will be” are fatalistic, do you understand?’

Timmy shook his head. ‘That’s Doris Day’s latest song, do you not like it?’

‘It preaches “fatalism” and this is against church teaching, do you know what “fatalism” is?’

Timmy looked bemused.

‘Flaytalism, flaytalism, would it be anything to do with “flays”? Sonny says our old dog has “flays” and he has a touch of rheumatism as well. He’s going to spray him with “flay” powder.’

The veins on Fr O’Connor’s red face almost burst with annoy
ance. He wrongly assumed that Timmy was making fun of him.

‘When you come to the mission tonight I will make an example of you in front of the whole parish.’ His booming voice trembled with anger.

Timmy shrugged his shoulders. ‘Excuse me, father, but if I don’t get these sheep back I won’t have time for your mission.’

‘I never met such ignorance as there is in this backwoods god-forsaken place. I’ll save your soul in spite of yourself.’

The missioner sounded somewhat deflated as he hurried away, leaving a mystified Timmy to his sheep. If the good missioner thought Timmy was unusual he was soon to meet an even more out of the ordinary character. As he turned away from Deery’s lane a car shuddered to a halt beside him. A genial face festooned with a black handlebar moustache and heavily brylcreamed black hair shouted out of the window.

‘Can I gie ye a lift, I’m goin’ te yon toon o’ Roggart?’

‘Oh thank you so much. I must get away from this awful
godless place.’

Fr O’Connor got into the front passenger seat and was nearly knocked out by the overpowering smell of aftershave and hair oil.

‘Ah ken yr a mon o th’ cloth. Are ye here on yr’ holliers?’

‘Oh no, I’m giving a mission in St Forly’s. Are you a Scotsman?’

‘Hay did ye guess? Ah ma kilt gaye me awa. Ma name is Donald Dunlace, descended from the Dukes of Lammermoor and a distant relation o’ Robbie Burns, the greatest poet the world has ever knane. So, yr geen a mission tae the heathens o’ Roggart. Well my advice is gee them hell fire and brimstone.’

‘I believe you are right, Mr Dunlace, I sometimes wonder why they go to church at all.’

‘Like ma famous ancestor, I’ll answer you in rhyme.’

Some gae te kirk te sigh and pray,
Some gae tae pass the time o’ day,
Some gape at pictures on stained glass,
Some wink at every bonny lass.

‘Here we are in Roggart, Father, where do ye want te be dropped off?’

They were coming near the Parish Church.

‘This will be fine, Mr Dunlace, and thank you for such an interesting conversation.’

‘May the gude laird gae wi ye, father, and don’t forget, fire and brimstone.’

That evening Timmy arrived five minutes late for the mission and Fr O’Connor had already started his sermon when he spotted Timmy slipping in at the back near the choir.

‘Ah, here’s the man who sings modern songs,’ he called out.

‘Stand up, man, are you going to give us Doris Day tonight?’

‘Day tonight?’ Timmy repeated.

‘These pop songs or whatever you call them, they undermine the faith.’

‘Is it your faith you are seeking to undermine?’

‘Answer up, man, what do these songs undermine?’

‘Undermine?’ repeated Timmy.

‘Yes, undermine!’

‘Under yours?’ Timmy was losing track of the question.

‘What’s that, speak up man,’

‘Is it under yours or under mine?’ Timmy queried

‘It’s undermine.’

‘What is?’

By this time the congregation was at bursting point with laughter and realizing that he was going to lose their attention completely Fr O’Connor told Timmy to resume his seat and he himself, with great difficulty, completed his sermon. On his return from the mission in Roggart Fr O’Connor surprised everyone when he resigned from his order and left to join a strictly enclosed monastery where he remained for the rest of his life.

The queen came to Roggart each year

Her kin-folk all trembled with fear

But a former old flame

So affected this dame

She still carried a torch, that was clear.

‘Come out, Maloonys, she’s coming, she’s coming.’

Andy and Oilly Maloony were startled by loud shouting outside their house. They had just finished having their evening tea after a busy day dosing cattle. They both stopped in their tracks and their faces turned white as a sheet.

Timmy Deery’s booming voice continued, ‘Are yez deaf or what?, the queen is coming, the queen of Sheba, she’ll be here in ten minutes, she’s at the station.’

The queen referred to by Timmy was an older sister of Andy and Oilly whose name was Anne but was known as Queenie to her family and friends. Queenie had gone to England as a young girl to train as a nurse. She had been small in size and hoped to train in Ireland but the matron in the Dublin hospital said she would not be strong enough to lift and turn heavy male patients and other strenuous work which would be required. So she decided to apply for training in England where she was readily accepted and had trained and qualified to the highest level.

She had a romance going at the time with a young neigh-bour, Piro Callanan. She promised him faithfully that as soon as her training was finished she would come home to him and to Ireland. However, she had only been gone a few months when we heard that she had got married to a young Englishman but this had broken up after two years. They had no children and the young man had left Queenie and gone off with another woman. This was never spoken about by her brothers who were great friends with Piro.

As regards lifting heavy male patients this was no bother to Queenie, who was actually as tough as nails and was a great favourite of the male patients with whom she always exchanged lively banter, and they loved to see her in action as she reprimanded any of her fellow nurses who did not meet her high standards.

Unfortunately for Andy and Oilly she had a habit of coming back home to stay with them for a couple of weeks every year. She never gave them any prior warning of her visits and they dreaded her coming because she always did a blitzkrieg of cleaning, decorating and rearranging in the house. On a previous visit Timmy Deery had been at the bus station when she arrived and he was drafted in to carry some of her five or six pieces of luggage.

‘It’s like the arrival of a queen with all this bloomin’ luggage,’ Oilly complained.

‘Maybe she is a queen.’ Timmy said.

‘Yeah, she’s the queen of Sheba.’

From then onwards Oilly, Andy and Timmy referred to Queenie (when she was out of earshot) as the queen of Sheba.

The relaxed and lackadaisical atmosphere enjoyed by the Maloony household for eleven months of the year was suddenly shattered. She would shake their hands and hug each one at the gate, and then she would say, ‘Oliver and Andrew take two cases each and deposit in my room.’

Then, sweeping into the house, she would stand with arms folded in the middle of Oilly’s kitchen and give a shrill whistle through her teeth.

‘What a bloomin hovel, we have an enormous task ahead of us
getting this dump cleaned up. Now, will someone wet the tay?’

On this occasion she followed her usual procedure. She arrived wearing a bright red costume with tight skirt and high heeled shoes and with a figure which women half her age would die for. Timmy helped with the luggage. When they got into the kitchen Andy moved the kettle on the range to over the firebox.

Oilly said, ‘I’ll cut a few clipes of bread.’

‘Stop, stop, the pair of you.’ Queenie’s voice rose to a crescendo.

‘I don’t believe what I’m seeing, what on God’s earth is that?’

She pointed a shaking finger at a large pitchfork which she remembered being used in the cow-byre for bedding the cows with straw. It rested in a corner of the kitchen with prongs upward. Stuck on the prongs was what looked like a loaf of bread.

‘Tell me I’m hallucinating.’

‘What are you on about?’ said Oilly. ‘That’s a fresh loaf I got this morning.’

‘Why, oh why is it sitting up there on a blooming pitchfork?’

‘Well, I just hadn’t time to take it off.’

Queenie held her hands up to her head in astonishment.

‘Let me get this straight, are you telling me that you carried a loaf of bread home from the shop on a pitchfork?’

‘Of course, why not? Sure I had the fork with me.’

‘I give up, for the moment. Come on, put on that kettle, Andy, and wet the tay, I’m famished for a cuppa.’

The kettle, which had been sitting on top of the range, was already blowing out steam and when Andy stoked the fire the extra heat soon had it boiling.

‘Just give it a few minutes to draw. Oilly, will you get out the sugar and the butter and cut a few clipes of that oul loaf.

Queenie winced as Oilly wrenched the loaf off the pitchfork.

‘There you are sis, a pitchfork of bread for the “lads” or a pitchfork of straw for the cows, great yoke a pitchfork.’

‘Ay, that’s right.’ Timmy chimed in, ‘I use the handle sometimes to stir the milk in the churn.’

‘I don’t want to hear another word about that wretched fork, just get it out of this kitchen.’