6
THRIFT
It was his father’s miserliness that killed John Cutler. That’s what the neighbours said afterwards. That was what Mick Kelly the postman said and Mick knew the Cutlers better than anybody. His cottage stood at the entrance to their farm. When John Cutler reached his thirty-fifth year he confronted his father with the fact that he was at the halfway stage in his life’s span with nothing to show for it.
‘A few more years,’ he complained, ‘and I’ll be an old man.’
His father nodded but did not otherwise commit himself.
‘I have a notion of getting married.’ He threw the bait out hopefully but the older man refused to rise to it.
While John stood waiting for some expression of sympathy or approval his mother entered the kitchen. At once she sensed there was a showdown in progress. She busied herself by the fireplace silently praying that her industry would exempt her from taking sides.
‘What do you expect me to do?’ Tom Cutler rose from his chair and went to the open door where he absently surveyed the distant hills.
‘You could sign over the place,’ John suggested.
‘Can’t do that. Damn well you know I can’t do that.’
‘But why not?’
‘Why not he asks and he knowing well. What’s to become of your mother and me if you bring another woman in here?’
‘Ye can have a room.’
‘A room eh! A whole room to ourselves! And what about our feeding and a bit of money?’
‘There will be guarantees in the agreement. The solicitor will see to that.’
‘And will the solicitor be here every day to see that the guarantees are carried out? There is no way I would allow another woman in here without five thousand pounds. I’d also want a separate dwelling on the land, nothing fancy, mind you, just a simple cot for two. That’s not asking a lot now is it?’
John threw his hands upwards in a gesture of total despair. ‘Where would I get five thousand pounds,’ he cried out angrily, ‘and the money to build a house?’
‘If your future wife had a fortune it would help.’
‘My future wife as you call her has no money.’
‘You could borrow,’ the old man said.
‘I couldn’t,’ John told him, ‘not that kind of money; a few thousand yes but not what you ask.’
Tom Cutler shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s tough,’ he said, ‘but I have to think of myself and your mother. If I don’t nobody else will. That’s been proved a thousand times over. Now if you’ve finished you might do down and turn in the cows.’
‘So that’s to be the end of it is it? My future is on the line and you want me to turn in the cows. Have you no more to say to me?’
‘What more is there to say except that you have yourself to thank for the way you are today.’
‘Myself to thank!’ the words exploded from John’s mouth.
‘Oh now face up to the truth my boy. You didn’t miss a night in the pub these last fifteen years.’
‘Oh come off it,’ John shouted. ‘A few pints was the most I ever had and the beggars on the road had that.’
‘A few pints every night,’ his father pointed out, ‘is a lot of pints come the end of the week. A thrifty man would have a nice pile put by at this time of his life.’
‘What could I put by out of the miserable few pounds you paid me? After a packet of cigarettes and a drink there was nothing left. Nothing.’ He spat out the words and brushed by his father with clenched fists.
‘Drink and cigarettes, sure recipes for poverty,’ the old man flung the words after him like stones after a worthless hound. He stood silently for a long while in the doorway. Then he turned to his wife.
‘What do you make of that?’ he asked. They were a wizened pair, looking older by far than their years. Both had sallow, pinched faces, stooped frames and decaying teeth. They presented an overall picture of neglect and want.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Minnie Cutler responded.
Tom shook his head at the outrageousness of it all.
‘Do you think he has a woman itself?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ she answered after a while, ‘leastways not a regular one.’
‘I thought as much. All he wants is to get his hands on the place then drink it out.’
‘Maybe if you were to give it over to him he’d come by a woman. No one will take with him unless the place is his own.’
‘I can’t do that. We both know it won’t work.’
‘But we have enough Tom. God knows how much you have in the banks.’
‘You couldn’t have enough for this world you foolish woman. When I go the place will be his but till that time he’ll draw his wage and dance to my tune. I broke my back for this place and so did you. He’ll bide his time.’
‘I don’t know Tom.’ Minnie Cutler folded her arms. ‘He’s thirty-five. He’s going to seed. Most men of his age have their own places or at least they have the handling of the money.’
‘It won’t work Minnie,’ Tom Cutler was adamant. ‘Look around you. Look what happened to them that signed over.’
‘Some have it good Tom.’
‘God’s sake woman will you not be codding yourself. They’re only letting on to have it good. Most of them are prisoners in the homes they once owned.’
‘But isn’t that the whole cause of the trouble Tom? Those that bought houses in the town or rented rooms are content enough. It’s only when you have two women under the one roof that the trouble starts.’
‘Do you want me to spend every penny I possess on a house. Is that it?’
‘It needn’t be big.’
‘Of course it needn’t be big but the money will be big and we’ll end up paupers depending on a daughter-in-law for handouts.’
‘If you signed over we’d have our old age pensions.’
‘Will you get it into your head woman that I will not sign over. Do you think I’m mad. You want me to part with all I have in this world with one stroke of a pen.’
‘You could go halves with him.’
‘Won’t work. The place isn’t big enough to support two families.’
‘Would you not tell him that you’d be prepared to sign over after a year or two?’
‘No I would not, nor after twenty years if I live that long. There’s a bit of a want in that fellow. He’s a man for the good times. All he wants is drink and fags and carousing.’
‘Still he’s a good worker.’
‘Is he now and pray how do you think he’d fare without me managing the place?’
‘A woman would manage it for him quick enough.’
‘This place calls for a thrifty man, a man that won’t squander money foolishly. Let him wait. He’ll appreciate it all the more when ’tis his. I’m away to the cows.‘
‘Who’s to say but you’re right,’ Minnie Cutler conceded. Experience had taught her that it was prudent to concede ground which she knew she could not win anyway. Consequently there was never conflict between them, at least not of late.
For years too she had not mentioned his tight-fistedness. She took it for granted. According to him there was never anything to spare for clothes or holidays or titbits. He would always provide enough for the bare necessities but nothing more. In time she had stopped asking. It made for a peaceful atmosphere and in her estimation that was worth all the deprivation. Waste not want not had been Tom Cutler’s strategy from the day he assumed ownership of the farm. It had been heavily in debt. Minnie’s modest fortune had not been enough to compensate but non-stop penny-pinching had. Now they had cash in the bank and the land was stocked to its capacity. As the money mounted Tom would regularly repeat a phrase which he had coined the day he discovered he was out of the red. ‘Thrift won’t lose,’ he would say, ‘because thrift can’t lose’. The logic of his composition appealed more and more to him as the years went by.
He was well aware that his neighbours and those who knew him further afield criticised him constantly for what he considered to be one of the great virtues. His parsimony had become something of a local joke. Those who conducted church gate collections for various charities would nudge each other when Tom Cutler approached. He never subscribed no matter how worthy the cause. As soon as he had passed the collection tables he would permit himself the faintest of smiles. He smiled purely and simply because he still had his money. That, to Tom Cutler, was a genuine cause for mirth. He really relished such incidents. They were the only luxuries in which he indulged.
His son John, on the other hand, was known as a decent type. He hadn’t much, his neighbours said, but by God that much was yours if you wanted it.
‘He didn’t bring it from his father,’ Mick Kelly would say, “tis from the grandfather he brought it, his father’s father. Now there was your decent man. Give you the shirt off his back he would.‘
Inevitably these assessments of his son would be relayed back one way or another to Tom. They occasioned him many a smile. So John was like his grandfather, was he, the same grandfather who drank himself to death and mortgaged the farm up to the hilt, the same grandfather who couldn’t call on a shilling to bury the wife who died prematurely from shame. Tom had been forced to surrender the few pounds he had saved through his teens to buy a cheap coffin and have High Mass said for his mother. It had been a bitter lesson. His father had shamed him into putting up the money. He resolved immediately after his mother’s funeral that his financial standing would never be revealed to anybody again, not even to his wife. Oh she knew he had money and she might guess rightly that it was a tidy bit but in this respect she would be closemouthed because no matter how much she might crave after a commodity her need for security outweighed all else. From the start she had wanted him to part with his money. First the curtains hadn’t been good enough, then the furniture, then the wallpaper and inevitably the house itself. He had always heard her out patiently. He would put her off with promises but as the years passed and he began to accumulate a little money he was able to boast that his frugality was paying off. In time she began to see that he had been right.
‘Wouldn’t we be in a nice way now,’ he often told her, ‘if I had given in.’
He had another son Willie, a subcontractor in England. A thrifty man was Willie. On the day of his departure Tom had handed him his fare and a ten pound note.
‘If you have any sense,’ he warned him, ‘you’ll not break that note needlessly. Put it aside and soon you’ll have another to keep it company.’
And how much had Willie today? Willie had plenty because he had listened. More important nobody but Willie himself knew how much Willie had. That was the trouble about possessing money. You might spend years saving it while your very own kin had no thought but to squander it while you’d say Jack Robinson.
John Cutler’s attitude towards his parents changed dramatically after the confrontation. It had been his wont each night upon returning home from the pub to impart the latest gossip going the rounds and to give an account of the activities of the pub’s patrons if such activities warranted it. His parents looked forward to this nightly report, especially his father although he never commented, whatever the content. He enjoyed it all the more because it cost nothing. They would have retired before his arrival but the bedroom door would be partly open in expectation.
Now there was no communication between them. Tom and Minnie were not unduly worried. He had sulked before but had come out of it after a few days. This time it was to be different. Weeks went by and then months until Tom closed the bedroom door to show that he didn’t care. Around this time John started to grow careless about his appearance. Frequently too he came home drunk from the pub. Some mornings he was unable to rise for the milking. Minnie grew worried when she over-heard him talking in his room. She relayed the news to Tom who put it down to drink.
‘Wasn’t I the wise man.’ he told her, ‘to hold on to what I had. Wouldn’t we be in a nice way now depending on a drunkard.’
The rift became worse when John demanded an increase in wages.
‘What do you want it for?’ his father asked curtly.
‘I need it to keep pace,’ John answered patiently.
‘To keep pace with what, the price of drink is it?’
‘There’s more than drink gone up and well you know it. I need a new suit and a few shirts. My best shoes are beyond repair.’
‘Wait till the fall of the year,’ had been Tom Cutler’s response. ‘I’ll know better where I stand.’
‘And the rise?’
‘I don’t see what you need a rise for unless ’tis drink.‘
The old man had gone to the bedroom and locked himself in to avoid further argument. In despair John went straight to the pub where he stayed till midnight. When he came home he tried to open the bedroom door but it was still locked. They could hear him in the kitchen talking to himself. Neither said a word for a long while. Finally Minnie broke the silence. She spoke in a whisper not wishing her voice to carry.
‘Would it not be better to relent a little?’ she suggested.
‘No.’ Tom’s reply was emphatic.
‘But he’s acting so queerly.’
‘You want me to give in to a madman is that it?’
‘No, no, that’s not it at all. All I want is for you to make a concession.’
‘I’ll make no concession to drink woman and that is that. Now go to sleep.’
Minnie Cutler sighed. After a while she spoke for the last time before falling asleep.
‘Who’s to say but you’re right,’ she said.
The following evening Mick Kelly the postman called. He came in his Sunday clothes. The old folk welcomed him. There was no sign of John.
‘Sit down, sit down.’ Tom Cutler pulled a chair from under the table and placed it near the fire.
‘And how’s herself?’ Minnie Cutler asked.
‘Never better missus thank you,’ Mick Kelly replied cheerfully.
In any other house in the neighbourhood he would have been royally received. The whiskey bottle would have appeared. The kettle would have been put down to boil. Minnie who was never embarrassed by similar situations fumbled for words on this occasion but could find none. Mick Kelly was a good neighbour. For once she would have liked to offer him something. Her husband read her thoughts.
‘I daresay you’ve had your supper Mick,’ he said with forced joviality.
‘Just after rising from the table,’ came the answer.
‘You’re welcome to eat, you know that,’ Minnie spoke half-heartedly.
‘Oh I know that missus,’ came the reassuring reply, ‘I know that well.’
He made it sound convincing to put Minnie at her ease. He could not recall ever having received as much as a mouthful of tea at Cutler’s. Neither could anybody else. Even the beggars of the roadway gave the place a wide berth. Some said there were barely visible scratches on the gate piers down by the main road, the secret sign language of the tinker folk: ‘Pass by’ the scratches said or so it was believed.
For an hour or more the three spoke of weather, crops and cattle, then of the neighbours and lastly of the great wide world. The ancient Stanley range had grown cold for want of fuelling. There were a few embers buried in the ashes but to stoke the firebox would be to despatch its entire contents into the ashpan beneath. Mick Kelly knew that it would be unthinkable for the Cutlers to replenish the fire so late in the evening.
‘Well,’ said he and he rose from his chair, ‘I’ll have to be going but before I do I had better bring out what brought me.’ He cleared his throat and rubbed his large hands together, this to intimate that his mission was a delicate one.
‘I’ve come about John,’ he said. ‘You may tell me it’s none of my business but I have known the three of you all my life and I feel I have earned the right to bring this matter to your notice.’ Here he paused waiting for word to proceed.
‘What is it about John?’ Tom Cutler asked.
‘He’s not himself these days,’ Mick Kelly answered. ‘He’s drinking too much and he’s in debt poor fellow. It’s not a lot, a few pounds here and there. He owes myself a tenner but that’s not why I’m here and I’d gladly forget it if I thought it would help the man.’
‘Let him stop drinking and he’ll soon have his debts paid,’ Tom cut in.
‘I’m afraid,’ Mick Kelly spoke ruefully, ‘most of the drink comes from people who are sorry for him.’
‘He’s turned into a bum then has he?’
‘No. That isn’t so at all. Most people will throw a drink a fellow’s way if they think he has a problem. It’s their way of sympathising.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Rise his wage for a start. Give the poor fellow a few hundred to pay his debts. That’s all. I promise you won’t know the man after.’
‘I’ll tell you something now Mick Kelly and I’ll tell you no more.’ Tom Cutler rose and faced him. He moistened his thin lips before he spoke. ‘When I took over here there was a crippling debt. I was advised to sell but I stuck it out whatever. It took the best years of my life to pay back the money my father squandered. It was a terrible burden for a young man and now when I’m old you want me to pay my son’s debts as well. Is that to be the story of my life, to pay back the debts of two drunkards, my father and my son?’
‘I can’t counsel you further Tom,’ Mick Kelly said quietly. ‘I can only tell you that all is not well with your son.’
‘It’s not my doing Mick.’
‘I didn’t say it was Tom. The poor fellow is demented and what harm but he could have enough if he wanted but he’s too bloody honest.’
‘I don’t follow you,’ Tom Cutler frowned.
‘He could be selling the odd bag of corn behind your back and he could be transferring a gallon or two of milk to a crony. There’s a lot doing it and getting away with it but not John Cutler. He could be lifting the occasional bag of spuds.’
Tom Cutler stamped the concrete floor with his right foot. ‘He could in his eye,’ he whipped back. ‘If there was a grain of corn taken, or a single spud or a solitary pint of milk I’d know about it. He knows that. You know that and I know that and that’s the reason he hasn’t lifted anything so far. His first time would be his last time. I have another son, remember, a man who wouldn’t be long answering my call if I sent for him.’
‘I beg of you Tom not to renege on John.’ Mick Kelly’s appeal was fervent.
‘I never reneged on him. He had cattle of his own remember. He drank the proceeds every time.’
‘And I tell you he drank no more than anybody else.’ Mick Kelly stuck to his purpose.
‘I’m tired, Mick.’ Tom Cutler returned to his chair.
He was making it clear that as far as he was concerned the discussion was closed. Mick Kelly looked from husband to wife. For a moment he considered making a final appeal but thought better of it. The eyes of both were now focused on the ashpan of the Stanley. They leaned forward on their chairs the better to gaze upon it. As well as dismissing him the pose also suggested a show of solidarity.
‘Goodnight,’ Mick Kelly threw back as he opened the kitchen door.
‘Goodnight Mick,’ they spoke in unison without averting their heads. Mick felt as if he had closed the door on a tomb. He hurried home to his wife. He had promised to tell her how he fared before going to the pub.
As soon as the fall of the year had established itself John Cutler laid it on the line for the old man.
‘I need decking out from head to toes,’ he said, ‘and it cannot be put off any longer. You will also double the money you are paying me now. Nothing less will do. Any farmer in the neighbourhood would do better by me.’
‘Let me think about that one for a while,’ Tom Cutler had told him. ‘The fall isn’t full out yet you know.’
It was the way the old man had said it that nettled John. It was as though he had made some outrageously childish claim and had not been taken seriously, had been humorously rebuffed. Was his father playing for time and if so why? The old fellow had been acting too independently of late, not caring whether John rose or slept it out in the mornings, whistling to himself and walking off whenever John grumbled about his lot. It was a totally new and inexplicable phase in their relationship. Had the old man something up his sleeve? John grew moodier as the autumn drew to a close. He was no longer asked to go to the village for farm or household necessities. He suspected he was being subtly isolated. Whenever he entered the kitchen they busied themselves ostentatiously with needless chores or if they were engaged in conversation it was immediately terminated when he put in an appearance. It was as though his father wished him to know that he had better tread warily, that there might be more strings to his bow than were apparent. There could only be one answer. They had contacted Willie with a view to bringing him home but how to be sure, how to make certain? Mick Kelly would know.
‘It’s a question I am not at liberty to answer,’ Mick Kelly told him firmly when John Cutler demanded to know if there had been any exchange of letters between his father and Willie.
‘Then there is!’ John banged his pint glass triumphantly on the bar counter.
‘No,’ Mick assured him, ‘there isn’t. Take my word for it. You have nothing to worry about from that quarter, at least as far as I know.’
John shook his head glumly. ‘He has some ace in the hole,’ he said, ‘it has to be Willie.’
The Cutlers did not possess a motor car. The only concession Tom Cutler had made to modernisation was to invest in a second-hand tractor and he did this reluctantly. Until the arrival of the tractor he depended on a pair of horses. He greatly deprecated the disposal of these but compensated himself with the purchase of a pony. He refused to buy a motor car. He had a light cart made for the pony and used it to convey himself and Minnie to Mass, for occasional trips to the village and for work in the bog during the turf harvesting. The tractor with a trailer attached was used chiefly for conveying the milk to the village creamery and for general farm work although John used it regularly to get to and from the pub.
As they breakfasted one morning towards the end of September the old man addressed his wife.
‘As soon as you’ve finished the washing-up,’ he informed her, ‘I’ll tackle the pony for you. There’s a few items to be got from the village.’
Minnie nodded obediently.
‘You’ll bring the usual groceries, a quarter pound of three inch nails and eight yards of rope. ’Tis time the turf was drawn out. The laths on the rail need securing and a new reins will be wanted.‘
Again Minnie nodded dutifully. ‘Will that be all?’ she asked.
‘That will be all,’ Tom Cutler said.
‘Bring a handful of fags as well will you?’ John added.
The old couple exchanged looks but no comment was forthcoming. Tom arose and went towards the door. Before going out he turned. ‘You will bring back the items I ordered,’ he said, ‘and no more.’ Hands in pockets he went whistling into the sunlight.
Without a word John rose and followed. His mother would have restrained him but he was gone before she could speak. What she wanted to tell him was that she would bring a few packets of cigarettes unknown to his father but the words just wouldn’t come out. She had been frightened by the look on John’s face as he left. At first she feared that he would waylay his father and have it out with him but no, he had gone straight to the tractor, started it and driven off. Mick Kelly’s words came back to her. ‘I can’t counsel you further,’ he had said. ‘I can only tell you that all is not well with your son.’
From force of habit she refused to ponder on the problem, concentrating instead on the trip to the village. She sensed, however, that events were coming to a head. Her intuition told her that something would have to be done if a calamity were to be avoided. There was no point in bringing the matter up with her husband. She had tried repeatedly since Mick Kelly’s visit but he had smothered every effort at the outset. She resorted to the only means of succour remaining to her. Rummaging in her apron pocket she withdrew her Rosary beads and silently began the long count of Hail Marys. She would pray the whole way to and from the village and she would light candles in the parish church. The thought consoled her. The peace and beauty of the candle altar would be a tonic in itself, the very thing to bring her out of herself. She was unaccustomed to such treats. As she led the pony towards the roadway there was a lightness in her step that she hadn’t experienced for months. In the village she saw a tractor which looked like John’s outside one of the public houses but her new found elation was such that she felt able to ignore the implications involved. In the church she would find refuge from all embarrassments. There was no doubt in her mind about that and was not this as it should be? Was it not her entitlement?
Mick Kelly dismounted from his motor cycle at the entrance to the Cutler farm. He didn’t have a letter but he had resolved to face up to Tom Cutler a second time. The day before he had encountered Minnie on her way from the village but she had not reined up to talk. Neither had she returned his salute. He had noticed the beads entwined about her fingers. He had remounted then and gone about his business. He had planned a new approach for this second appeal. This time he would draw Minnie into the thick of things whether she wished it or not. He believed that deep down she sympathised with John and he would be depending on this. It would be to his advantage if she were alone when he arrived but failing that he would involve her anyway. As he neared the house he sensed there was something wrong, something disproportionate. There was a new and terrible dimension to the area left of the house where the last leaves on a stand of ash trees whispered in the morning wind. There was an ominous addition to the familiar landscape and yet, though he was curious, he could not bring himself to look. This, however, could be that he already knew the awful nature of the intrusion. Slowly he forced his eyes to the left, eyes that started to fill with terror the moment he decided to confirm his worst fears. What he saw before him was the ultimate in physical distortion. The body of John Cutler hung from a stout branch extending from one of the ash trees. Around his neck was the shining new rope his mother had purchased in the village the day before. He was barefoot. His shoes had fallen to the ground. They lay directly beneath his feet. Mick Kelly made the sign of the cross and threw the cycle to one side. His next reaction was to pound the kitchen door. Instead he drew a deep breath and knocked gently. The door was opened at once by Tom Cutler.
‘I have bad news.’ Mick Kelly bent his head to avoid the rheumy eyes. Tom Cutler made his task easy.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘I was just going for help.’
He had, he explained, been changing into a fresh shirt. His shortcoat lay in readiness on the table. Minnie sat soundlessly by the Stanley, her beads clutched in her hands, her body rocking forward and backwards on the chair. All the time her lips moved in prayer.
‘Will you take him down?’ Tom Cutler asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ Mick answered, surprised by the old man’s matter-of-factness. Despite the shock which he must have undergone he seemed to be his everyday self.
‘You’ll need a ladder,’ Tom Cutler said.
‘And a knife,’ Mick enjoined.
‘What do you want with a knife?’ Tom asked.
‘To cut the rope,’ Mick responded.
‘A saw is what you want,’ Tom reminded him. ‘A saw to cut the branch.’
Mick listened with growing wonder as the old man explained. ‘A branch can be had for nothing,’ he said, ‘a rope costs money. Besides ’tis wanted for a reins.‘
Buttoning his shortcoat he led the way to a small outhouse. He emerged with a short ladder which he handed to Mick. He re-entered the house and emerged with a rusty saw. He motioned a bemused Mick Kelly to follow him towards the ash grove. Overhead the dry leaves flickered around his dead son. Some fell to the ground to join the others already rotting there.