An Irish Country Christmas Part 46

He speared a piece of roast parsnip and looked around as Kinky came in.

She was carrying the iced, beribboned, and decorated Christmas cake on a large plate. It was accompanied by a serrated cake knife. She set them on the sideboard. "For later," she said.

Barry wondered if Kinky observed the same tradition as his folks, who cut the cake-"opened it," as the locals said-once they had come back from church.

"Mrs. Kincaid, you've done yourself proud," O'Reilly said. "The chestnut stuffing and applesauce set off your goose to perfection. Perfection."

"And," Barry added, "the roast potatoes were simply marvelous. Thank you, Kinky."

"I'm glad you enjoyed them, sir. I roasted them in the fat from the goose." She put the cake in front of O'Reilly. "I learned that trick from my mother down in Beal na mBlath in West Cork . . .

"Where the Big Fellah was shot?" Barry asked.

"Michael Collins himself, G.o.d rest him." Kinky paused. "He was a darlin' man, so." She lifted the plate on which rested the wreckage of the goose. "We always had a goose on Christmas Eve, but my aunty preferred to serve salted beef." She peered at O'Reilly's florid complexion. "I believe, sir, too much salt is not good for the blood pressure, so. Not even on Christmas Eve. That's why I never do it."

O'Reilly laughed. "All right, Kinky. You're right."

"That's why," Kinky continued, "I've had tomorrow's ham soaking since eight o'clock last night, and I'll take it out at eight o'clock tonight.

"Twenty-four hours? Why so long?" Barry asked.

"To get all the salt out before I boil it tonight and then roast it tomorrow along with the turkey."

"How long will the boiling take?" O'Reilly pushed his now empty plate away.

"A ten-pound ham at twenty minutes per pound?" Kinky frowned and looked up before saying, "Three hours and ten minutes, so."

"So if you start boiling it at eight, you'll be done by eleven-thirty?" O'Reilly enquired.

"I will, sir. Why?"

"Doctor Laverty and I are going to midnight ma.s.s. I know you usually go with Flo Bishop, but this year we thought you might like to come with us."

She pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. "I'd like that," she said. "I've to finish the house cleaning, but I'll be done in time."

"House cleaning? On Christmas Eve?" Barry said. "It seems a bit of an extra ch.o.r.e to me."

"Oh, no, sir," she said quite seriously, "it's no trouble at all, at all. Country folks everywhere in Ireland do it. It's for the same reason we leave a candle burning in the front window."

"Why's that, Kinky?"

"Our Lord came at Christmastide once before. He'd nowhere to stay. You'd want the house to be ready if he comes again." She looked him directly in the eye. "And not only him. You never know who might be coming to stay tomorrow."

Barry felt tingly. The locals would say he felt as if a goose had walked over his grave. A strange idea, considering he'd just finished eating a goose. Kinky couldn't mean Patricia, who'd already told him that coming home wasn't physically possible.

"Well," said O'Reilly, "you carry on, Kinky, but don't worry that Miss O'Hallorhan'll be staying. She's just coming for the dinner."

"There'll be plenty for all. I'll see to that," she said, still looking at Barry. "And there'll be room here even if there was no room at the inn once-"

O'Reilly chuckled and said, "Twice, if you count the pageant."

"True, sir, but at Number One we'll be ready no matter who comes." She lifted the cake. "But we'll not be ready if I don't go and get on now."

"Leave the cake, Kinky." O'Reilly had half risen.

"Sure, sir," she said, moving the plate out of his range. "I think maybe we should observe another of my mother's traditions. We'll open the cake tomorrow morning when the three of us get back from the ma.s.s."

Although the moon was not many days past full, there was no moon glow nor any stars to be seen when O'Reilly parked at the chapel. Barry got out and inhaled the scent of the sea borne on a chilly northeaster. The bells in the steeple pealed, chimed, and merrily ding-donged in the out-of-sequence cadence of hand-pulled church bells. He could picture the ringers hauling on the bell ropes.

He opened the car's back door for Mrs. Kincaid; then they both followed O'Reilly through the high-arched, oak front door and into the narthex. Incense filled the air. Inside the chapel, someone was playing the harmonium. Saint Columba's was too small to afford an organ.

"That's Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," O'Reilly remarked quietly, as he removed his hat and stepped aside to give a parishioner access to the font of holy water. The man dipped his fingers, crossed himself, and genuflected toward the altar.

O'Reilly led the way into the nave, nodding greetings to those seated patients he recognized and receiving their nods and smiles in return. The place was packed.

It was unlike his senior colleague, Barry thought, but Fingal indicated a pew one row from the back. Ordinarily he'd head straight for the front of anything and expect s.p.a.ce to be made for him. He bowed to the altar and sidled into the half-empty pew. Barry bowed, followed O'Reilly, and let Kinky bring up the rear. Barry took his seat and for a few moments closed his eyes and lowered his head.

He opened his eyes and sat up. "Good evening, Doctor Laverty." He turned to see that he was seated beside the Finnegans-Fergus the jockey, his brother Declan, and Declan's French wife Melanie. "Joyeux Noel," she said. It was too dim to see Declan's face clearly, but Barry knew it would be nearly expressionless because of his Parkinson's disease.

Barry struggled but managed to say, "Et a vous et votre famille, Madame." French had not been Barry's long suit at school.

"Merci, Monsieur le Docteur."

Barry nodded his thanks, smiled, and looked around.

The chapel was small, intimate. There was no transept. The chancel was separated from the nave by three low steps, at the top of which was the communion rail. Behind it on his right side was a dark wood lectern; to his left, the pulpit. The communion table, immediately behind the low wooden railing and in front of the altar, was flanked by two enormous wrought-bra.s.s candlesticks. Barry reckoned they must be at least five feet tall. In each candlestick a large white wax candle flamed and cast fluttering shadows, as tiny draughts swirled into the church from the open door. Candles seemed to burn everywhere; they illuminated the garishly painted wooden crucifix that hung from the far wall and inclined out over the altar.

The harmonium music died, and as it was reborn as the first chords of "Once in Royal David's City," the congregation rose. Barry turned to watch the processional.

Father O'Toole led. He was resplendent in his red cope with a gold midback seam running up the centre and splitting at shoulder-blade height into two arms that reached the tips of his shoulders. Beneath he wore a surplice, white for Christmas. In his vestments, he personified the panoply of the Catholic church so denigrated by the Nonconformists, yet so much a part of the ancient ritual.

He was immediately ahead of two altar boys in white surplices. Each swung a censer, and as they pa.s.sed, the aroma of incense became more powerful. The members of the little choir-six boy trebles, four altos, eight tenors, and four ba.s.ses-were robed in white, but sported scarlet, ruffled, high collars. Each held his hymnbook before him.

Father O'Toole stopped just before the altar rail, turned, and faced the congregation. His right arm was outstretched above his head. The choir filed into their stalls behind the altar rails to Barry's right. The hymn ended, and as all the Catholics present crossed themselves, the priest made the sign and said, "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."

Barry, who had had to pa.s.s an examination in Latin to gain admittance to medical school, had no trouble translating, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

He joined in the communal "Amen" and sat along with everyone else.

The service continued with a greeting, an invitation to partake in an act of penitence, and a communal confession.

"Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini . . ." and on until the final "mea maxima culpa."

Barry found the sonorousness of the Latin words for "I confess to Almighty G.o.d, to Blessed Mary ever Virgin," right through to "my most grievous fault," dignified and comforting even to him, an agnostic.

The priest p.r.o.nounced the prayer of absolution.

The congregation responded in song. "Kyrie eleison . . . Christe eleison . . ." Their heartfelt tones carried a palpable feeling of relief for sins forgiven and for the promise of the new day and, at this season, of a new year to come. He remembered O'Reilly's explanation for why the last surgery of the year had been packed with people getting rid of their old year's ailments.

Barry looked around at the backs of the heads of familiar people. Donal's carroty tuft beside Julie's shining gold. Miss Moloney's pepper-and-salt, Helen Hewitt's red. He smiled as he glanced sideways to see Kinky's shining silver half hidden by her green hat. He noticed the Reverend Robinson and his wife. The Presbyterian service would have been over hours ago. Barry was not surprised to see the minister. He and Father O'Toole golfed together every Monday.

"Gloria in excelsis Deo. Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis . . ."

"Glory to G.o.d in the highest. And on earth peace to men of good will . . ." What a shame, Barry thought, that in September the second Vatican Council had published its report recommending that ma.s.s be said in the vernacular. There was a wonderful resonance to the Latin ma.s.s. But whether Latin or English, perhaps if only for this night, the men and the women of this congregation were all of good will, and peace did fill this hall.

Barry Laverty, outsider until five months ago, felt himself being silently absorbed by the body of the village while he was wrapped in the serenity and mystery of the ancient, changeless ma.s.s.

"Adoramus te. Glorificamus te." We worship Thee. We glorify Thee.

The Gloria ended, and the priest held silence for several moments.

After a short prayer, a lay reader, a man Barry recognized by his bulbous red nose as Mr. Coffin, the undertaker, walked to the pulpit and read from the book of Isaiah. "For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest . . ."

Barry allowed himself to flow with the congregation, rising, sitting, and kneeling with them as the service demanded.

He recited the prayers that he knew as best he could with his schoolboy Latin.

He sang the familiar hymns as best he could in his off-key voice.

He listened to the old words, the words he'd heard as a child, read as a boy and as a young man until they were part of his fabric. He could whisper them in concert with the reader.

"Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, G.o.d with us . . . And he knew her not till she brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus."

Barry Laverty closed his eyes and pictured Christmases past, happy and safe in the fold of his family, and he wondered about Christmases yet to come. He hoped they would be celebrated here with his new, larger family in Ballybucklebo. He knew his eyes were not entirely dry.

When the time came, neither Barry nor O'Reilly nor Kinky took communion, as they were not confirmed in the Catholic faith. Barry watched the procession to the altar rail, noting the reverence of the communicants as each received the bread and wine. He saw Kinky with a gentle smile on her open face.

O'Reilly looked somehow different, and it took Barry a moment to realize that the man's ordinarily craggy and wrinkled visage had somehow become smooth and frown-line free. Soon the service ended, as the priest faced the congregation and said, "Ite, missa est." Go, you are dismissed.

Barry rose with the rest of the worshippers and joined l.u.s.tily in the recessional hymn.

G.o.d rest ye merry, gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay,

Remember Christ, our Savior,

Was born on Christmas day . . .

Because they were in a rear pew, Barry, O'Reilly, and Kinky were among the first to leave the church.

As Barry stepped out into the dark night, the chill nipped at his cheeks, his nose. Yet Barry's heart was warmed by the joyous pealing of the bells above and the gentle swirling of the snowflakes that tumbled from a pitch-dark sky and told him that when he awoke later this morning, Christmas 1964 would indeed be white.

Glorious Morning Have I Seen.

The pealing of the chapel bells summoning the faithful to morning ma.s.s woke Barry. He rubbed his eyes, rolled out of bed, stumbled to the attic window, and opened the curtains. The glare being reflected from the pure white carpet that covered O'Reilly's back garden forced Barry to narrow his just-awake eyes. The snow that had fallen last night had not begun to melt.

There'd be no snow where his parents were celebrating Christmas, not in the middle of the Australian summer. He had no other relatives in Ulster, so he might have been spending a lonely Christmas on his own had he not been lucky enough to land this position at Number 1. It wasn't just a job. Barry had been made to feel as much one of O'Reilly's peculiar family as Arthur Guinness-whose tracks Barry could now see leading from his kennel to the hidden vegetable garden where the apple trees bowed low under their snowy burden.

Some branches had been torn from the horse chestnut tree by the weight of the snow. It didn't seem like five months had pa.s.sed since revellers at Seamus Galvin's going-away party had sought shade under its leafy boughs. That was the day he had made his decision to stay on as O'Reilly's a.s.sistant. He had no regrets about his choice.

Beyond the tree, looking like a fine painting, the white roofs of the houses behind Number 1 Main Street drew an irregular margin against the rolling Ballybucklebo Hills. From the chimneys the smoke rose vertically into an azure, cloudless sky, the black smudges the only blemishes on the cleanly rendered canvas.

Barry hoped the country roads wouldn't be closed. He was looking forward to the marquis's open house later today. Still wondering who he would see there, Barry wandered to the bathroom. Ten minutes later, he was scrubbed and dressed and heading downstairs.

O'Reilly sat at the head of the dining room table. He grinned, rose, and held out his hand. "Merry Christmas, Barry."

Barry walked to the head of the table and shook O'Reilly's hand. "Merry Christmas, Fingal." The grasp was not one of O'Reilly's bone crushers. "And thank you for having me here."

"Rubbish." O'Reilly released Barry's hand. "You live here, don't you? You work here?" The words sounded harsh, but O'Reilly's grin did not fade.

"Yes." He was a hard man to thank for anything. At least, as Barry was learning, that was how O'Reilly liked to seem to be.

"Get your breakfast into you; we've a busy day ahead of us." O'Reilly spooned Mrs. Kincaid's homemade strawberry jam over warm b.u.t.termilk pancakes.

Barry went to the sideboard. There was barely room for the chafing dish among the paper-wrapped, bottle-shaped parcels, all of which had been delivered by grateful patients two days ago. The parcels stood out like a row of sunflowers in a densely packed field where Christmas cards were multihued pansies.

Barry served himself and poured a cup of tea. "Busy? I thought the shop was closed today." He took his accustomed place.

"Of course it is, you eejit." O'Reilly dabbed a red smear from his chin. "I'm on call today; you're not, but that doesn't mean you won't be busy."

"Fine." If Patricia had been coming, Barry might not have acquiesced so easily, but what the h.e.l.l? "What do you want me to do? Walk Arthur? Wash the Rover?"

"Don't be daft. The water would freeze."

Lord, Barry thought, he thinks I'm seriously offering to wash his car.

"We'll walk Arthur together," O'Reilly said. He bent, reached under the table, and produced four wrapped parcels. "I brought these down from under the tree." He pushed two to one side, moved one closer to himself, and slid the last the length of the table. "Yours."

Barry lifted the parcel with its red bow and read the message on the tag. O'Reilly's bold pen strokes read: To Barry Laverty, the finest a.s.sistant I could wish for. With my very best wishes and my thanks, Fingal.

Before he could open the gift, Kinky appeared. She was wearing her coat and best hat.

"Merry Christmas, Kinky," Barry said.