The twins Mickelow, Patcheen and Pius, were lookalikes, proportionately built, robust and round and standing at five feet two inches in their stockinged feet.
‘They don’t chase work,’ their parish priest Canon Mulgrave confided to a new curate, ‘but they won’t avoid it either so that you couldn’t very well call them ne’er do wells.’
‘Would you call them easy-going then?’ the curate had suggested respectfully.
‘Yes,’ the canon conceded after some consideration, ‘easy-going would be a fair characterisation.’
For the most part the twins worked for local farmers on a temporary basis. They were paid at the going rate at the end of each day. These modest but undisclosed earnings were supplemented by the weekly dole which the state provided all the year round.
By parochial standards the twins Mickelow would be classified as comfortable. They also had a cow. She provided milk and, as a consequence, sufficient butter for their needs.
The cow grazed throughout most of the spring, summer and autumn in the one-acre haggard at the rear of the house. In the winter she was transferred to the Long Acre except in the direst circumstances when the weather became unbearable, when she would be temporarily housed with a limited supply of fodder. On the Long Acre which in this instance extended to the nearest crossroads at either side of the house her search for grass would be supervised by one of the brothers. There was always the danger that in her eagerness to locate choice pickings she would over-reach herself and end up in one of the roadside dykes, very often filled with water during the months of January and February. Sometimes in areas of high risk she would be tethered as she sought sustenance beneath the bare hedgerows which sheltered the grassy margins of the narrow roadway.
In many ways the twins enjoyed an idyllic existence untroubled by strife or want. A small garden, sheltered from the prevailing wind by a narrow stand of Sitkas, provided potatoes and the more common vegetables such as turnip and cabbage. A latticed hen-coop overhung the wall above the front door in the kitchen and a sturdy hen-house of the lean-to variety rested against the rear of the house next to the back door. It had successfully resisted countless incursions from fox and otter since its erection. There were surplus eggs throughout most of the year and these could be exchanged for provisions when the itinerant egg buyer made his weekly call. Gentle and mild-mannered, the twins seldom or ever entertained conflicting opinions. Among strangers they were deferential and meek unless drawn into conversation. Even among those they knew they would be the last to initiate any form of communication.
Fuel for their fires was to be found in abundance in the adjacent bogland where they enjoyed turbary rights for generations. The quality was excellent and a small extra rick was held over until the week before Christmas when it would be disposed of to a local buyer who sold lorry loads to customers in the nearest town.
On Friday nights and Sunday nights they would unfailingly make their companionable way to the crossroads public house which was situated a little over a mile from their thatched abode. Arriving at nine they would depart at twelve. Four pints of stout was their nightly intake. Neither smoked or gambled. Neither paid court to females or fornicated in any way and neither visited the nearest town which nestled comfortably at the centre of a large fertile valley fifteen miles distant over dirt roads and tar roads. As a result they were never short of the wherewithal to indulge their crossroads excursions provided, they often reminded each other, that they stayed within the constraints agreed by themselves. These self-imposed limitations ordained that they attach themselves to no company other than their own. However if a drink chanced to come their way from some drunken or other well-meaning benefactor they allowed themselves the liberty to accept so long as it was clearly understood that nothing was to be expected in return.
There were always bountiful times in the height of summer when Yanks and English exiles came home on holiday. Then the drink would flow freely and there would be morning hangovers but nothing else and by this was meant, as far as the twins Mickelow were concerned, that there had been no extra financial outlay.
Those who came from England in particular spent heedlessly until all their hard-earned money was gone and they were obliged to return to the construction sites where abundant overtime had helped to finance the holiday in the first place. Full credit to them, they never mourned after their vanished earnings nor did they expect anything in return for their profligacy. They seem resigned, even content in themselves that their pockets were empty.
The twins had often been tempted to call a drink for their one-time benefactors, now possessed of nothing save a return ticket, but after weighing the merits and demerits thought better of it and resigned themselves to the prevailing attitude that such misplaced kindness might only result in a demeaning postponement of the exile’s departure.
There had, in fact, been at least one occasion when the exile had remained behind as a result of not one but several acts of misplaced charity. After a week he became a travesty of the carefree holidaymaker who had breezed in the door a few short weeks before. Eventually for his own good he was frozen out and, all too long after his allotted time, departed the scene an abject and pathetic reject, the victim of ill-considered philanthropy.
‘Never go against the tide boy,’ Pius Mickelow had warned his brother Patcheen at the time. From the opposite side of the hearth Patcheen had nodded emphatically in total agreement.
Then came a particularly bitter winter of ice and snow and great sweeping gales, a winter that imposed a heavier than usual levy on the vulnerable and the elderly. The twins would remind each other that such winters were to be expected from time to time, winters that gave no quarter and for some winters against which there was no defence.
Several old folk would pass on before the snows melted on the more elevated hilltops. Among these was a neighbour of the Mickelows, an eighty-five-year-old cottier and widower, one Daniel Doody, who had been nursed throughout the final weeks of his illness by his forty-five-year-old daughter who had given up her position as a domestic in the distant city of Cork and come home to attend to her ailing parent.
He bore his suffering bravely and all were agreed that his only offspring Kitty was truly a ministering angel if ever there was one.
Night and day she cared for him, luring him to upright positions on what would eventually be his death-bed with tit-bits and delicacies which had been prepared with love and devotion.
When, eventually, he expired, holding her hand, the hearts of the entire countryside went out to her but none more so than those of the twins Mickelow who had kept themselves discreetly at hand at all times when the old man strove to hang on forever to that which had been no more than a brief loan in the first place.
Patcheen Mickelow, in particular, was frequently moved beyond words as Kitty Doody tiptoed quietly to and fro uncomplainingly. Never once did she make mention of her position in the city of Cork or of her lifestyle there. Rumour had it that she had once been friendly with a soldier but that he had left her for another after several fruitless years of courtship. Others had it that she had been a cook in a convent before leaving to take up a housekeeping post with an elderly schoolmaster. Still more maintained that she had worked as a drudge in an establishment of disrepute. There were other more fanciful tales but, as with all such idle speculation, another topic would displace it in no time at all.
Shortly after the moment of expiry on the fateful night Kitty Doody, her blue eyes filled with anguish, looked helplessly at the Mickelow twins who had been in close attendance all night. She had summoned them that evening in the realisation that the old man was nearing his end. He had been anointed the day before by Canon Mulgrave. The elderly cleric had advised Kitty that she should be prepared for the worst and in consolatory tones assured her that her father would surely see heaven. A last feeble cry followed by a low choking sound heralded his passing.
‘I’ll go for the priest,’ Patcheen Mickelow had announced with fitting solemnity.
‘And I’ll go for the neighbours,’ Pius had volunteered.
During the wake which followed, in the absence of relatives, the twins Mickelow acted as chief stewards and masters of ceremonies. It was they who distributed the wine, whiskey and stout and it was they who polished and shone the holders for the death candles. It was they who replenished the traditional saucers of snuff on mantelpiece, table and cranny all though the long night and morning.
During the wake Pius drank his fill but never allowed himself to cross the threshold of drunkenness. For his part Patcheen allowed not a tint of liquor to pass his lips.
Afterwards when the whole business was at an end Patcheen would partake of a drink or two but for the duration of the wake proper and while it was in progress he resolved that he would be the most responsible man at that wake. Of the twins he was by far the more resolute. It was he who decided that the town should be out of bounds after Pius was struck on the jaw one night many years before with a dustered fist for no reason whatsoever. The blackguards he encountered in the gents toilet had never seen him before nor had he seen them. Patcheen quite properly deduced that the only reasons why his twin was felled were his small stature and inoffensive manner. His pockets had not been rifled and he had not spoken a word.
‘He is the sort,’ Patcheen confided to the publican in whose premises the assault had taken place, ‘who draws trouble on himself because of the way God made him.’ He counted himself lucky to have escaped similar treatment himself at the hands of the many drunken blackguards who pack-hunted in large towns after dark.
Pius agreed instantly when Patcheen suggested that they stick thereafter to familiar haunts where they were known and respected.
After the burial of Daniel Doody the Mickelows decided that they would not present themselves at the Doody household until such time as they were invited. Fine, they felt, to have made themselves available during the latter stages of the old man’s illness but it would not be altogether appropriate to do so now without good reason.
Spring would be well advanced with the wild daffodils withdrawn and brown before such an invitation would be extended. In between they occasionally met Kitty on the roadway and they nodded respectfully towards each other after mass on Sundays. Sometimes there would be words but these, for the most part, would be confined to views about the weather although Patcheen suspected that a more protracted exchange might not be unwelcome as far as Kitty Doody was concerned. For all that he played his cards in the conventional way and felt himself well rewarded when the invitation came on the final day of April. Pius was mightily pleased in his own way although the twins knew full well that the reason behind the summons was most likely related to the cutting and harvesting of the turf supply for the winter ahead.
For some years before his death as infirmity rendered him less active they had been hired by the late Daniel Doody to cut, foot and draw home the dry crop in their ancient but still serviceable ass-rail.
The drawing home was usually accomplished in less than a week and at the end of that time Daniel Doody’s turf shed would be full to the rafters.
When they arrived at the Doody house they were made welcome at the doorway by the sole occupant, the beaming Kitty, who took note of their sheepishness by seating them near the hearth and handing each a freshly opened bottle of stout.
The Mickelows were pleased to learn that it was fresh and in prime condition. They would have been just as pleased to accept stout left over from the wake but this, they would be at pains to explain, was not Kitty’s way at all.
She sat herself by the large, wooden table while the visitors drew on their bottles. They spoke about many matters. Every subject, in fact, was up for discussion save the one which brought them. That would be aired in its own time. It would have been a blatant breach of good manners to bring it up prematurely.
When a second bottle of stout and all the conventional topics had been exhausted Kitty Doody spoke for the first time about turf.
‘I was wondering,’ she said as her sad blue eyes swept the kitchen and finally the hearth-place where the twins were seated, ‘what I should do about the winter’s firing?’
‘Turf is it you’re worried about?’ It was Patcheen who spoke on behalf of the pair.
‘Turf it is,’ Kitty confirmed.
‘Let turf be the least of your worries,’ Patcheen assured her.
‘The very least of your worries,’ his brother Pius added lest there be the slightest doubt about it.
‘Her turf will be cut won’t it boy?’ Patcheen turned to Pius knowing full well what the answer would be. They had discussed the subject often enough across the winter nights.
‘Let someone else try to cut it,’ Pius had whispered to himself with uncharacteristic ferocity. Now the words gushed forth like a torrent as he pledged his commitment.
‘We will first clean the turf-bank of scraws,’ he said, ‘and then we will cut it and foot it and refoot it and then we will make it up into donkey stoolins and then come September when it will be well seasoned we will fill your shed to the rafters.’
‘That is exactly what we will do,’ Patcheen concurred proudly. He was about to add further reassurances of his own but Pius had not yet finished.
‘We will not be charging you a brown penny,’ he rushed out the words lest he suddenly dry up, ‘for we would be poor neighbours if we did not help a lady in a pucker.’
‘Oh we can’t have that,’ Kitty tried not to sound half-hearted, ‘we can’t have that at all. The labourer is worthy of his hire.’
‘Not these labourers!’ Patcheen cut across, ‘these labourers is doing it out of the goodness of their hearts so there will be no more talk about hire.’
Relieved that her predicament had been shouldered by such a doughty pair she rose from the table and wiped a tear from her eyes with a corner of her apron. Her visitors had the good grace to turn their heads and used the opportunity to carefully examine the glinting soot which adorned the back wall of the chimney.
‘If ye will come to the table now,’ Kitty suggested without the least sign of stress or worry in her voice, ‘I will grease the griddle and we’ll have fresh pancakes for supper.’
After that April visit the twins called regularly across the summer to render a progress report on their turf-cutting activities. Always there would be fresh pancakes and then one glorious day in the middle of June she made her way to the bog in order to see for herself the advances being made and to invite her champions home for supper.
The sun shone from a cloudless sky and from every quarter of the boglands the larks sang loudly especially when the sun departed the centre of the heavens and moved slowly down the sky.
‘On such a day as this,’ Patcheen Mickelow spoke with awe in his tone, ‘God do give his voice to the larks and then the larks do tell us about God.’
‘Oh well spoke brother, well spoke!’ Pius made the sign of the cross reverentially and turned to Kitty whose sparkling blue eyes radiated appreciation of the heavenly sentiments expressed by Patcheen.
‘Was it not well spoke Kitty?’ Pius asked and then he fell silent as he awaited Kitty’s reaction.
‘It was well spoke,’ Kitty agreed, ‘in fact it could not be better spoke if it was spoke about forever.’
Pius marvelled at the wisdom of her answer. For some time he had the feeling that the pair had a special relationship, nothing that he could put his finger on except that he knew it to be there.
‘It’s there,’ he said to himself, ‘as sure as there’s frogs in the bog-pools and hares in the heather.’
‘Oh you may say it was well spoke,’ Kitty turned the full force of her blue eyes on Patcheen but he could no more look directly into their depths than he could at the blazing sun which adorned the heavens. Modestly he bent his tousled grey head and sought refuge in the heather. Pius now knew for certain that there were exciting stirrings in the hearts that beat close by and that when the stirrings comingled there would be a rare song in the air.
‘Wouldn’t it be lovely,’ Kitty whispered the hope half to herself, half to the twins, ‘if this day could go on forever.’
The brothers were immediately arrested by the sentiment, impractical though it might sound.
‘Yes, yes,’ they whispered fervently, ‘it would be lovely.’
For the remainder of the day Kitty helped with the making and clamping of the donkey stoolins and it was not she who cried halt as the shadows lengthened.
‘If I don’t eat soon,’ Patcheen announced, ‘my belly will never again converse with my gob.’
Taking each by an arm Kitty led them to a spongy passageway and thence to the dirt road which would take then to her home.
The summer passed uneventfully thereafter and then came the time for the drawing home of the turf. They made light work of the task and by the end of the second week in September the Doody shed was filled to capacity as promised. The turf was of the highest quality and properly utilised would keep the winter cold firmly in its place.
As usual the twins paid their biweekly visit to the pub at the crossroads and it was here one night that they overheard strange tidings which alarmed them no end.
‘She’ll pine for the ways of the city, you’ll see,’ a local farmer informed another, ‘and it’s my guess,’ he continued, unaware that he had an interested audience only a few yards away, ‘that she’ll make tracks as soon as her year’s mourning is down.’
‘What makes you say that?’ the second farmer asked.
‘I say that,’ said the first farmer, ‘because she has stopped wearing the black at mass and when women stops wearing the black they gets anxious about the future and then they’re likely to pull up stakes and to move or to marry as the humour catches them.’
That very night at the request of Pius the twins departed the pub after the second pint.
‘Follow me,’ he said, ‘and don’t ask no questions like a good man.’
Although slightly irritated Patcheen was curious. Silently he followed his twin into the night. Despite his best efforts he found himself unable to draw abreast of his brother. He wanted to ask why they were making a detour and why he had been obliged to forego half of his normal intake but could not catch up, so determined was Pius to reach his goal.
Eventually they found themselves at the gate which opened on to the Doody laneway.
‘It’s up to you now boy,’ Pius confronted his brother, ‘you better go in there and state your case or we might never see her again.’
‘Look at the hour of the night we have!’ Patcheen argued.
‘’Tis the right hour for what you have to do,’ Pius insisted, ‘and isn’t there a light in the kitchen window which means she’s still up.’
Patcheen hesitated. If he was to tell the absolute truth he would admit to having considered the precise manoeuvre on which his brother wished him to embark on many an occasion but implementing it was another matter altogether.
‘I won’t know how to put it,’ he complained.
‘It will all come to you when you face up to her,’ Pius assured him as he pushed him towards the gateway. At that moment the door opened and Kitty appeared.
‘Who’s out there?’ she called.
‘It’s only us,’ Pius returned.
‘I’m so relieved,’ Kitty called back as she placed a shaking hand under her throat. The brothers stood silently side by side, Pius nudging Patcheen to give an account of himself and the latter temporarily tongue-tied.
‘Is there anything wrong?’ Kitty asked anxiously after she had advanced a few paces.
‘This poor man has something wrong with him all right,’ Pius pushed Patcheen forward, ‘but he’ll be telling you all about it himself for I would say that it’s been playing on his mind for some time.’
‘Oh dear!’ came the sympathetic response, ‘there is none of God’s creatures without some kind of a cross.’ So saying she bent her head meekly and went indoors, making sure as she did that the door remained ajar behind her. At the same moment Pius Mickelow turned on his heel and disappeared into the night.
‘Sit up to the fire,’ Kitty removed a bundle of knitting from a chair near the hearth and sat herself on a chair nearby, nearer his chair Patcheen noticed than she had ever ventured before. His heart soared but then it flopped awkwardly downward into its rightful resting place when he considered the unpredictable ways of the opposite sex.
So far as Patcheen knew, and it was also believed by other eminent authorities, members of the opposite sex for reasons best known to themselves did not always make themselves quite clear in matters of the heart.
Faced with this dilemma he bided his time. Caution was called for and he would be the first to admit that he had no experience in dealing with women.
So profound was the silence in the kitchen, apart from the ticking of the mantelpiece clock, that the only sound to be heard came from the gentle criss-crossing of the knitting needles which Patcheen had never before seen so speedily and skilfully employed. Thus they sat for what seemed ages. From time to time he adjusted himself on the chair but there was no move from his companion saving the bewildering complexities of the knitting fingers. As far as he could see she seemed to be in a jovial mood. However, limited and all as his experience was, he knew that females often tended to make their meaning clear too late in the day, with disastrous consequences.
Occasionally she would lift the blue eyes from her work and smile at him as if it was the most natural thing in the world that the two of them should be sitting together.
Then surprisingly she moved her chair nearer to his, so near that their bodies brushed whenever they adjusted themselves. It was a hopeful sign surely but she gave no other and as the night wore on it seemed that she might not move till dawn brightened the landscape beyond the curtained window.
‘Unless I make a move now,’ Patcheen told himself, ‘I will never make one.’
‘Do you know what I’m thinking?’ he whispered confidentially.
‘No,’ came the conspiratorial reply.
‘I was thinking,’ said he, ‘of what a waste it is to see two fires in two different houses when you could have just one fire in one house.’
‘I know what you mean indeed,’ she agreed, ‘for it was often the same thought occurred to myself.’
‘Waste not,’ Patcheen recalled the first half of the ancient maxim.
‘Want not!’ she concluded it for him.
‘Then there’s the upkeep of the two houses.’ He pressed his advantage. She nodded eagerly in accord.
‘There’s no telling the advantages,’ he went on, at which she laughed and so did he.
‘One of the houses would have to go,’ she said.
‘You mean for pour oul’ Pius to stay here with us then?’ he asked, hardly daring to believe his ears.
‘We couldn’t very well leave the poor creature on his own,’ she replied, ‘and isn’t there a room to spare. We would have our room and he would have his, that’s if he’ll agree!’
‘Oh he’ll agree.’ Patcheen assured her, ‘there’s nothing he’d like better.’
‘That’s good to hear.’ She laid the knitting aside.
‘All Pius ever wanted from the day he met you,’ Patcheen informed her, ‘was to see the two of us settled. He worries that you may go off and leave us and never come back.’
‘I won’t be leaving,’ she whispered as she turned the devastatingly blue eyes upward and in so doing presented her pursed lips for approval. Only a man of iron would have by-passed such an opportunity. Kiss her he did, not once but several times and not just on the lips but all over her face and her throat and her nose and her nape and her ears. It was the blue eyes that he wondered at most of all. They seemed never to be without a sparkle and they were filled too with wonder or so it seemed every time he gazed into them.
When they had kissed their fill she laid the table for tea. They drank cup after cup and spoke for hours. Canon Mulgrave would have to be consulted. They both knew that he would approve, for was he not night and day vociferating his views about the absolute necessity for more marriages in the seriously depopulated parish and while discriminating pundits might argue that Kitty was past it, others would counter by insisting that where there was life there was hope.
As things turned out there would be no issue but otherwise it was as happy a marriage as one could find in the parish or the many parishes beyond. As for the arrangement with Pius, he treated his sister-in-law with the utmost respect and was at pains at all times to show her that he knew his place and could be trusted beyond words.
Certain of their immediate neighbours who believed themselves to be possessed of rare powers of prognostication let it be known that it was their belief that the bi-weekly visits to the crossroads pub and to other harmless activities would be seriously curtailed when the twins moved into the Doody homestead. They were to be proved totally wrong.
As always the pair showed up at the crossroads and they were to be seen at football matches and coursing meetings in the many enterprising townlands and villages which hosted such events in their seasons.
It was noted too by interested parties who had made close studies of the affairs of others on the grounds that it was beneficial to the community as a whole that the twins looked better, were sprightlier of step and were never without the price of a drink in their pockets.
Time passed and the old ways of the countryside began to undergo changes. Donkey and carts began to disappear from the roadways and the bog passages. Tractors and trailers began to replace them.
Small, serviceable motor-cars replaced the horse and pony carts and the family traps as a means of transport to mass and to village and occasionally to the town in the far away valley.
The twins Mickelow kept to the old ways for as long as was practicable but eventually, after years of subtle prompting from Kitty, submitted to the new craze and invested in a venerable Morris Minor which both brothers learned to drive.
From a financial point of view they were never as well off so the belated purchase of the car did not leave them in debt. All three had reached pensionable age before eventually deciding to invest in the Morris.
All around, other exciting changes were taking place in the villages and towns throughout the countryside. The old, musty, male-dominated public houses were being reconstructed and glamorous lounge bars began to replace them.
The crossroads pub, frequented by the twins, was among the last to conform to the modern style and the first female to accompany her men on a crossroads excursion on a Sunday night was the brave Kitty, wife of Patcheen Mickelow. In no time at all other females followed suit.
In short order came singalongs and dance music and even the clergy for once, somewhat confused by the transition, kept their opinions to themselves and allowed the parish free rein in its appetite for modern entertainment.
The twins, lookalike as ever, grew frailer but retained both their rude health and appetite for enjoyment. Their tousled heads whitened in the face of the advancing years but their capacity for consuming stout declined not at all. Kitty kept the white and the grey at bay with various tints and lotions. The happiness the trio enjoyed from the day Patcheen married had mellowed into a pleasant contentment. Whatever the neighbours might opine they could never say that the Mickelows were poorly off. When the three old-age pensions were tallied they realised a considerable income.
Then, alas, Kitty took ill and after a short illness passed away. The twins very nearly succumbed to the grief which followed. In the course of time the sorrow would be assuaged a little but they might never have visited the crossroads pub again had it not been for what Pius would later term heavenly intervention.
It transpired that shortly before Kitty died she summoned Patcheen to their bedroom. She bade him be seated on the sole plush-covered chair which, up until this moment, had never been used to fill the role for which it had been designed. Coats, blouses, trousers and other articles of clothing had been draped across its back or dumped on the seat but it had never, in the course of its existence, been sat upon. It had none of the sturdiness of the kitchen chairs, was frail and rickety but was, after all, ornamental.
Patcheen sat awkwardly and listened intently to his wife’s carefully prepared recital. She wished to be buried in the same grave as her late parents and she made him promise that when his time came for leaving the world he would join her there and Pius too if he so wished. He assured her that it would be their dearest wish. She next handed him a slip of paper with instructions for the smooth administration of her wake and funeral. On it was meticulously pencilled all that would be required in the line of drink and edibles. A silence followed. It was as though the business of briefing him had exhausted her. After a long pause she informed him that it was her wish to be laid out in her navy blue costume and white silk blouse.
‘In the drawer over yonder,’ she pointed weakly in the direction of the dressing table, ‘you will find a blue ribbon to bind my hair.’ Patcheen nodded. Her wish would be carried out were the heavens to fall.
‘In the bottom drawer,’ she continued hoarsely, ‘you will find two envelopes. In one which is marked wake money you will find sufficient to cover the cost of my wake and funeral and in the other which is addressed to Canon Mulgrave is the money to pay for the special masses for the repose of my soul and all the poor souls wherever they may be.’
During the long spring and summer which followed, the twins kept to themselves and were seen abroad only when they shopped at the crossroads or attended mass.
Despite the provision made by Kitty they found themselves in debt. Instead of the modest oak coffin for which she had allowed in her calculations they opted for the most expensive walnut with the most ornate trappings.
They found themselves faced with two choices: to sell the Morris Minor or abstain from intoxicating drink until the undertaker was paid. In the space of a year according to Pius’s reckoning they should be free of debt and also free to resume their visits to the crossroads pub. Then came the heavenly intervention referred to by Pius.
It so happened that after the funeral mass when Patcheen approached Canon Mulgrave to pay for the mass the canon had expressed reluctance in accepting the extra money for the masses which would be said for Kitty and the poor souls.
‘Now, now,’ Canon Mulgrave said, ‘there’s no need at all for that. You’ve paid for the high mass and that in itself is sufficient.’
Patcheen would have none of it. Mindful of his wife’s clearly expressed instructions he forced the envelope upon the canon and hurried from the scene.
Later that afternoon when the canon opened the envelope he was surprised at the amount therein. Normally he would have been gratified if a pound or two had been forthcoming but he was truly astonished when he beheld the neatly folded twenty-pound note. His conscience dictated that the money would have to be returned with the suggestion that a pound or two would do nicely in its stead. He knew for a certainty that the twenty-pound note was far and away beyond the means of the twins. He resolved to return the note intact at the earliest opportunity. Some time would pass before he did. He would agonise every time he looked inside the envelope which he kept atop the mahogany desk in his study. He dithered for several months. There were times when he told himself that the money had been given with a good heart and there were other times when he tried to convince himself that it would be against the spirit of the dead woman’s intent if he did not accept the money. He decided that the masses should be celebrated without more ado and he also decided that further cogitation would be required before he finally decided on the destination of the twenty-pound note.
It turned out that shortly before Christmas the canon’s letter box was flooded by a deluge of neglected bills. He withdrew the twenty-pound note from its envelope. With infinite care he smoothed it on top of his desk. It would go a long way towards discharging his debts. Then he manfully reminded himself that the Christmas dues would shortly commence to replenish the presbytery coffers. This left him with only one choice. The twenty-pound note would have to be returned.
He chided himself for his long-term tardiness and lack of Christian resolution. He sat in his car and drove to the abode of the Mickelows. Pius it was who greeted him at the door. The canon gracefully declined the invitation to enter.
The canon, like all the canons and curates before him, had long since given up the impossible task of telling the twins apart. However, as far as this particular mission was concerned, one twin was as good as the other.
Earlier that morning Patcheen had set out for a distant grove where he would cull a sufficiency of holly and ivy to decorate the crib and the kitchen.
‘Now my dear man,’ Canon Mulgrave held the twenty-pound note aloft, ‘I must tell you that this note you see before you is rightfully yours. It was far too much and I am conscience-bound to return it.’
Mystified, Pius Mickelow gazed with open mouth at the money and when he had gazed his fill he gazed secondly at his visitor. When the canon thrust the twenty-pound note into the gnarled hand Pius decided to play along although his mystification had greatly increased and he was now convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the canon had succumbed to the dotage which few escape at the end of their days.
‘Not a word now sir!’ the canon raised an admonishing finger, ‘not a word no matter what. This is strictly between you and I. The masses have been said so you can set your mind at rest. The money is yours to do with as you please. I’ll be on my way now and I sincerely hope that you and your brother enjoy a happy and a holy Christmas.’
The canon would relish the forthcoming Christmas. His conscience had been salved. He had acted as a true Christian.
On the Sunday evening before Christmas the twins sat at either side of the hearth. They had sat for over an hour without exchanging a word. It was Pius who broke the silence.
‘What say we go to the pub,’ he suggested matter-o- factly. Thinking that he had not heard aright, Patcheen inclined his head.
‘What’s that you say?’ he asked.
‘The pub,’ Pius threw back.
‘And what will we use for money?’ Patcheen asked sarcastically. Pius produced the twenty-pound note for the first time.
‘Is it real?’ Patcheen asked as he took the note in his hand. Satisfied that it was the genuine article he asked where it came from.
‘I am not at liberty to say,’ Pius answered solemnly, ‘but it wasn’t found and it wasn’t stolen. The man who gave it to me made me promise that I would never tell.’
‘Let’s move,’ Patcheen rose and donned his overcoat. Pius followed suit.
‘And you can’t say where it came from?’
‘Can’t say,’ came the reply, ‘but this I will say, ‘it came from God through man and if it came from God you may be sure that Kitty had a hand in it.’