Cider

I forget my exact age during the Christmas in question but I must have been at least seventeen for, dare I say it gentle reader, I was greatly addicted to cider and foolishly believed that I could drink any amount of it. Addicted though I was I drank it but rarely and always discreetly. My father had his suspicions but he never caught me in the act and always I made sure to steal into bed when I was intoxicated. With companions of my own age I would indulge in secret sessions on certain feast days and holy days about five times a year in all and once at Christmas. That would have been the Christmas I saw and heard the banshee.

The banshee was heard only when a person with an O or a Mac in the surname passed away. Originally my family were O’Kanes and none was surer than myself that this plaintive and panic-inducing apparition would not be duped by the minor deviation in name.

I had heard the banshee in the past. We would be sitting by the fire late at night, my mother darning socks, my father reading the newspaper of the day and we, the children, readying ourselves for bed.

‘Hush!’ my mother would suddenly raise a hand for absolute silence. In moments the requisite hush would have descended and then, fully alerted, we would wait for the inevitable with looks of alarm on our faces. From afar would come the supernatural wailing, spine-chilling and pitiful, not belonging to this world. My mother would make the sign of the cross while we all followed suit except my father.

‘Another poor soul on its way to the great beyond,’ my mother would whisper.

‘Another sex-starved greyhound,’ my father would announce with a good-humoured shake of his head.

Time rolled on and the family grew. One month I would be five feet six and by the end of the following month I would be five feet seven. It was growing time. By the time Christmas arrived I was five feet ten inches and rapidly heading for six feet.

It had been agreed that my father, my mother and the girls would assemble in the kitchen at eleven-thirty so that all would be in time for midnight mass at the church of St Mary’s. Earlier we had partaken of lemonade and biscuits in honour of the season. After the turkey had been trussed and stuffed in readiness for Christmas Day my father was declared exempt from further involvement in the household chores. He headed at once for the neighbourhood pub where most of his cronies would already have ensconced themselves. For days before I had strenuously argued that I had grown too old to be a part of the familistic excursion to the church reminding my parents of my great age and height and pointing out that all my friends had received permission to attend mass on their own or with their chosen companions.

My sisters took my part but my father was adamant saying it had come to his ears that the teenagers of the parish were more interested in cider and porter than in the pursuance of their Christmas duties. In the end he relented but only when my mother forcibly reminded him that he had been young himself.

‘Very well so,’ I remember his words well as he clasped his hands behind his back, ‘but if it comes to my attention that you place the consumption of cider before the fulfilment of your religious duties I will confine you to your room for twenty-four hours, without recourse to appeal, and in addition I will kick your posterior so hard that your front teeth will fall out as a result.’

‘Cider!’ I spat out the word disdainfully as though it were the last thought in my head.

Two hours before midnight I slipped out of the house by the back door and joined my friends in Moorey’s public house. The only light in the tiny bar was from a flickering candle. The limbs of the law were abroad on public house duty and Moorey spoke in whispers.

‘Happy Christmas!’ he said and handed me a pint of cider on the house.

Moorey was old as the hills, grey as a slate, ribald, randy and irreligious but he was a generous soul and no other publican in town would serve us for fear of reprisals from parents and the custodians of the peace. Despite this my mother and the other matrons of the street liked him. They had known his late wife. He had apparently loved her dearly and had always shown it in his treatment of her while she was alive. He had not remarried although she had been dead for thirty years. Every Sunday he would place fresh flowers on her grave. Like ourselves he was addicted to cider with the difference that he would lace his pints with dollops of whiskey and yet we never saw him drunk. Sometimes there would be the barest suggestion of a lurch but nothing remotely resembling the phenomenal staggers executed by seemingly indestructible drunkards when the pubs were closed for the night.

While we sat quietly drinking pint after pint of cider we spoke for the most part about girls, sometimes maliciously and sometimes boastfully which is the way of youth.

As the midnight hour drew near we could hear the hurrying footsteps outside the window as young and old made their way to midnight mass. As if by common consent there was no conversation, no laughter, none of the raucous cries one associates with crowds or noisy clatter of boots and shoes. Such was the love and respect for the celebratory season that unnecessary noises were regarded in the same light as profanities.

At ten minutes to twelve Moorey announced that it was time to go. At such an hour, on any other night of the year, the session would only be starting but as Moorey explained gently: ‘Because of the night that’s in it boys I think it’s time to douse the candle.’

We finished our pints in the pitch dark promising to meet again on St Stephen’s night. In turn we shook hands with Moorey and extended to him the compliments of season. Outside on the street only the stragglers remained.

We had earlier decided against mass for a number of reasons; if our parents saw us they would immediately recognise our state of intoxication. Then there was the possibility that one or more of us would be nauseated by the heat of the church and the burning incense, which could well bring on a fit of vomiting. Then there was the most important factor of all and that was the likelihood that one or more of us would be obliged to lessen the strain on brimming bladders and to do this it would be necessary to stand up in the full view of the congregation and make one’s way to the end of one’s pew and thence up the long aisle under the suspicious stares of friends, neighbours, parents and strangers. Many would smirk knowingly, aware of our plight and destination, which would of necessity be the convenient back wall of the holy sanctuary which was attached to the rear of the church. Our parents, of course, would be infuriated, knowing full well that we would have to be truly cider-smitten to run such a gauntlet!

We went our separate ways with none of the boisterous farewells in which we would indulge on less devotional occasions. At home the kitchen was strangely silent. On the mantelpiece the clock, unheard throughout the day, was having its full say at last. A burned-out turf sod crumbled softly into the overflowing ash-pan of the Stanley Number 8.

I suddenly felt a profound longing for the girls and for my parents. Supposing they never came back! I dismissed the terrible thought and counted the twelve intrusions which introduced the midnight hour. The final chime extended itself to the ultimate limits where silence lay waiting to receive its spirit. Then, from the rear of the house, came a long, low, wailing sound which made the hairs stand to attention on that area of the head nearest to my forehead. I had known these hairs all my life and I can swear that they never behaved in such a fashion before. While I waited for them to resume their normal stance there came, stealing through the partly opened back door of the kitchen, the same wailing sound. My hairs remained alert while my heart raced and my whole frame shivered. Suddenly I grew less tense. This new state was no doubt induced by a mixture of cider and youthful bravado!

The wailing started again, this time more protracted and pitiful, as though the soul of the voice box from which it originated had been recently drowned in the unfathomable depths of black despair.

Again my heart raced and the hairs already standing were joined by their brethren from every quarter of the head. Such was their consistency that they would have served as a bed of nails for a novice fakir. Only the wailing of the banshee could stiffen human hairs to such a degree.

Then, for the first time in my entire life, my knees knocked and I was obliged to place my hands on the table for support. There came almost immediately a sustained high-pitched pillalooing of such intensity that I was obliged to stuff my fingers in my ears lest my hearing be permanently damaged. It was as though the ghostly proprietress of such unearthly vocal organs was endeavouring to reach notes never attained before. Their pitch seemed to far exceed the range of the most accomplished soprano and then, unexpectedly, came a collapsing and a crumbling followed by a mixture of base trebles and last of all by the most musical grunts and groans imaginable as though the banshee in question was about to give birth.

Emboldened by the cider I cautiously made my way into our back yard. The sickle moon shone fitfully, its pale glow frequently impaired by heedless clouds. Slowly I advanced towards the back door of the out-house where the winter’s supply of turf was stored.

I had frequently heard of the silence of the grave when older folk spoke reverently of the dead and such indeed was the silence of the out-house at that point in time on that unforgettable night. I was not prepared for what happened next. I was standing close to the rickety door straining my ears for tell-tale sounds when I head the uneven breathing of some creature in the immediate vicinity of the door’s exterior. On second thoughts, panting might be a more apt word. Then came a horrifying caterwauling as terrifying as it was unexpected. It exploded right into my ear which was pressed against the door. I was paralysed, my feet like hundred-weights of lead, my heart thumping as though, at any minute, it would burst through the walls of my chest. I would have taken off that instant but my legs refused to budge. I was tied down by my own terror. I prayed silently to the Blessed Virgin.

‘Mother of the Sacred Jesus,’ I whispered imploringly, ‘come to my aid this night.’

Suddenly my natural courage, scant as it was, surfaced and with a mighty roar I opened the door. The creature tumbled in on top of me and we both fell in a heap astride the turf sods scattered around the floor. She persisted with her lamentations as she lay on the ground writhing and kicking out in torment.

It was as much as I could do to get to my feet. When I did I fell a second time on top of the black-shawled creature from the spirit world. I had accidentally stood on a turf sod which spun beneath my foot, capsizing me. This time I rolled over on my side in a desperate effort to escape the clutches of the hideous creature with the overpowering smell.

At that moment a wayward moon shaft entered the out-house through its only window and highlighted the features of the awful apparition which would surely tear my eyes out if she could but lay her filthy talons on me.

The moon shaft rested for a moment on the bloodshot eyes before drifting downwards to the almost toothless mouth, redeemed from emptiness by the presence of a solitary black fang from which venom dripped as she tried in vain to smite me.

In anguish I cried out to the heavens for help and the heavens in their mercy answered. I dived through the out-house window and into the back yard where my head struck a stone so that I was rendered half unconscious.

Fuming and screaming and uttering unmentionable maledictions she towered over me. A number of small bones materialised in her grimy paws. These she flung at me with all her might but most whizzed harmlessly by. One struck me just above the eye. There was no doubt about its origin. It was a human finger bone as were the others which lay scattered about the back yard.

I managed to crawl away from her towards the door of the kitchen. Curiously she made no attempt to follow me. On all fours, like a wounded animal, I made for the sanctuary of the kitchen.

I bolted the door behind me and ran up the stairs to bed where I pulled the clothes over my head without disrobing. I lay there shaking and moaning, beseeching the Blessed Mother of God to succour and comfort me.

After a while I slunk from the bed to the window which commanded a full view of the back yard and out-house. The moon had just unloaded a cargo of ghastly light. There was no sign of the banshee.

Making the Sign of the Cross I returned to my bed and promptly fell asleep. No doubt the shock of the night’s happenings played a part in my sudden collapse into deep slumber. The next sound I heard was my mother’s voice calling me in the half light of the morning.

‘Hurry!’ she was saying, ‘and you’ll just be on time for ten o’clock mass.’

I lay on my bed fervently wishing that I had not consumed so much of Moorey’s cider. It was only then that the awful happenings of the night came flooding back. I hurried downstairs. My father sat at the head of the table smoking his pipe. He threw me a withering look before the commencement of his interrogation.

Before he had time to pose a single question I blurted out my story. Horrified, my poor mother clutched her bosom and flopped into the chair which my father had instantly provided lest she fall on the floor. As I revealed the full details of my horrific encounter my mother’s face grew paler and paler. My father puffed upon his pipe at a furious rate. There was a cloud of blue smoke underhanging the ceiling by the time I finished.

‘The banshee you say!’ My father emptied the bowl of his pipe into the ash-pan of the Stanley.

‘Without question,’ I replied as we both waited for my mother to stop shaking her head. The shaking was accompanied by the most holy of spiritual aspirations, all directed upwards in thanksgiving for my salvation.

My father sighed deeply which meant that he was also thinking deeply. Without another word he filled his pipe while I waited for his verdict. There was none forthcoming. Instead he rose without a word and went into the back yard where he spent a considerable time. When he returned his hands were clasped behind his back.

‘You say,’ he opened, ‘that the bones she flung at you were finger bones!’

‘Yes,’ came my ready answer.

‘Human fingers?’

‘Yes.’

He took his right hand from behind his back and threw a fistful of small bones on the table.

‘These,’ he announced solemnly, ‘are the very bones which lay scattered around the yard just now. Will you confirm that these are the bones which were flung at you last night by the banshee?’

‘There’s no doubt in my mind,’ I replied.

Guardedly I fingered the bones which still retained some tissue and a residue of meat. It was clear that they had been well and truly gnawed.

‘And you say they are human?’ My father was now at his most inquisitorial. All the family knew that he secretly fancied himself as a prosecutor. He was always at the head and tail of every domestic investigation, strutting around the kitchen with his hands clasped behind his back, taking them apart occasionally and joining them together at the uppermost point of his paunch as he listened to evidence and submissions.

Sometimes he would close his eyes as he questioned a hostile witness. Other times he would stand silently for long periods, his eyes firmly fixed upon the defendant who was generally myself. This tactic nearly always worked with the girls who would readily confess to anything, just to be free of his accusing eye. I must say that the entire household enjoyed such trials at the end of which everybody, except yours truly, was acquitted and exonerated. When convicted I would be confined to my bedroom for periods of one hour to a maximum of four although the possibility of a twenty-four-hour sentence was always on the cards.

‘My Lord!’ he unexpectedly addressed himself to my mother who had sufficiently recovered her composure to acknowledge the surprise judicial appointment, ‘these bones you see before you which the defendant claims are human finger bones are nothing of the sort. They are, in fact, bones from a pig’s foot or crubín which is the local term affectionately applied to this particular extension of the pig’s anatomy.’

My mother rose to examine the evidence, nodded her head in agreement and resumed her seat.

‘Not only is the defendant a pathological liar,’ my father was continuing, ‘but he is a deceitful scoundrel as well.’

‘Please proceed!’ was all my mother said.

My father cleared his throat.

‘You are aware,’ said he, ‘of the existence of a woman known as Madgeen Buggerworth?’

‘Yes!’ I replied with a laugh.

‘You will respect the court sir!’ my father cautioned, ‘or you’ll be fined for contempt.’

I bent my head submissively and tried to look contrite. This wasn’t easy, for the very mention of Madgeen Buggerworth’s name was enough to make anyone laugh. She was a local beggar-woman and it was frequently said of her that she never drew a sober breath. On reflection it would be true to say that I had never seen her sober.

Madgeen was a powerful virago of a woman. Her husband had died after siring the final member of her thirteen-strong family and the family, the moment they were fledged, took off for foreign parts and were never seen again and small blame to them because she was never done with scolding and beating them.

Her favourite pose was when she spread her legs apart in the middle of the roadway and threw off the black shawl which truly covered multitudes. Up then would go the front of her skirts so that her bare midriff was exposed to the world. Then would come the drunken boast as she touched her navel with the index finger of her right hand: ‘There now,’ she would call out at the top of her voice for all to hear, ‘there now is a belly that never reared a bastard!’

She would rant and rave, skirts aloft until the civic guards came on the scene and ushered her homewards. Other times she was to be seen lying in one of the town’s laneways with her back to a wall, fast asleep, snoring in drunken abandon. Given enough drink she could sleep anywhere, regardless of wind or rain. She was to be seen too late at night staggering from one doorway to another singing at the top of her voice, if singing it could be called.

‘If it please the court I would request that your worship and the defendant follow me to the out-house where I shall provide incontrovertible evidence that this man,’ my father pointed a finger in my direction, ‘was so bereft of sense from the consumption of cider that he confused our friend Madgeen Buggerworth with the banshee.’

He led the way into the back yard and on to the out-house where we were greeted by deep snoring punctuated now and then by outbreaks of spluttering and wheezing. There on the ground, partly covered by turf sods, lay Madgeen Buggerworth. By her side there lay an uneaten crubín.

‘We’ll let her sleep for the present,’ my father announced, ‘later,’ again he pointed in my direction, ‘when she wakes you will serve her with dinner and afterwards you will take her home.’

I hoped that this would be his last word on the matter but there was more to follow.

‘Let us return to the kitchen,’ he said solemnly, ‘where your sentence will be handed down. Meanwhile I suggest you pray for mercy.’

So saying he preceded us into the kitchen where he announced that he was relieving my mother of all judicial responsibilities on the grounds that she would be incapable because of her known affection for the defendant of meting out a just sentence.

I stood with my back to the Stanley awaiting the pleasure of the court. My father stood at the doorway, hands clasped behind back. My mother sat in a neutral corner.

‘I find you guilty of drunkenness in the first degree,’ he said, ‘and I hereby sentence you to twenty-four hours’ solitary confinement in your room.’

I stood aghast! It was the toughest sentence he had ever handed down. I would have to admit that I expected no less. He was clearing his throat again.

‘There are, however,’ he proceeded solemnly, ‘mitigating circumstances. This day as you know is the birthday of a great and good man who was once wrongly convicted and subsequently crucified. As a small measure of atonement for that woeful miscarriage of justice I hereby suspend the sentence imposed upon you. You are, therefore, entitled to walk from this court a free man.’

On my way home from mass I met him walking down the street against me. It had turned unexpectedly into the mildest of days.

‘Let’s have a stroll before dinner,’ he suggested.

We took the pathway to the river which was in modest flood. He spoke about other Christmases, of his father and grandfather and of great wobbling geese especially stall fed for the Christmas dinner, of whiskey drinking, great-uncles and carol singing and the innocent pranks of his youth. We walked through the oak wood, marvelling at the splendid contributions of the songbirds despite the greyness of the day and the leafless trees and hedgerows.

We reentered the town at the end farthest from where we left it and proceeded down the long thoroughfare known as Church Street. We turned off into a laneway and found ourselves at the rear door of Moorey’s premises. I was astonished to discover that my father was familiar with the sesame of admission, two knocks and a pause, two knocks a pause and finally three knocks. The door opened after a short wait and Moorey stood there, surprise showing on his face.

‘Long time no see, Master!’ he said with a smile.

Inside we sat on stools at the bar counter.

‘Do you think this man has graduated from cider Moorey?’ my father asked.

Moorey considered the question carefully before answering. Then after a while he said: ‘Just about.’

‘Then,’ said my father as he laid a hand on my shoulder, ‘we’ll have two pints of stout to sharpen the appetite.’