December
Barney Doyle sat at his cluttered workbench, attempting to fix Olaf Andersen’s ancient power mower for the fourth time in seven years. He had the cylinder head off and was judging the propriety of pronouncing last rites on the machine – he expected the good fathers over at St Catherine’s wouldn’t approve. The head was cracked – which was why Olaf couldn’t get it started – and the cylinder walls were almost paper-thin from wear and a previous rebore. The best thing Andersen could do would be to invest in one of those Toro grass cutters, with all the fancy bells and whistles, and put this old machine out to rust. Barney knew Olaf would raise Cain about having to buy a new one, but that was Olaf’s lookout. Barney also knew getting a dime out of Andersen for making such a judgement would be close to a miracle. It would be to the benefit of all parties concerned if Barney could coax one last summer’s labour from the nearly terminal machine. Barney absently took a sharpener to the blades while he pondered. He could take one more crack at it. An oversized cylinder ring might do the trick – and he could weld the small crack; he could get back most of the compression. But if he didn’t pull it off, he’d lose both the time and the money spent on parts. No, he decided at last, better tell Andersen to make plans for a funeral.
A hot, damp gust of wind rattled the half-open window. Barney absently pulled the sticky shirt away from his chest. Meggie McCorly, he thought suddenly, a smile coming to his lined face. She had been a vision of beauty in simple cotton, the taut fabric stretched across ripe, swaying hips and ample breasts as she walked home from school each day. For a moment he was struck by a rush of memories so vivid he felt an echo of lust rising in his old loins. Barney took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. He savoured the spring scents, the hot muggy night smells, so much like those that blew through the orchards and across the fields of County Wexford. Barney thought of the night he and Meggie had fled from the dance, from the crowded, stuffy hall, slipping away unnoticed as the town celebrated Paddy O’Shea and Mary McMannah’s wedding. The sultry memories caused Barney to dab again at his forehead as a stirring visited his groin. Chuckling to himself, Barney thought there’s some life yet in this old boyo.
Barney stayed lost in memories of half-forgotten passions for long minutes, then discovered he was still running the sharpener over a blade on Andersen’s mower and had brought the edge to a silvery gleam. He set the sharpener down, wondering what had come over him. He hadn’t thought of Meggie McCorly since he’d immigrated to America, back in ’38. Last he’d heard, she’d married one of the Cammack lads over in Enniscorthy. He couldn’t remember which one, and that made him feel sad.
Barney caught a flicker of movement through the small window of his work shed. He put down the sharpener and went to peer out into the evening’s fading light. Not making out what it was that had caught his attention, Barney moved back towards his workbench. Just as his field of vision left the window, he again glimpsed something from the corner of his eye. Barney opened the door to his work shed and took a single step outside. Then he stopped.
Old images, half-remembered tales, and songs from his boyhood rushed forward to overwhelm him as he slowly stepped backward into his shed. Feelings of joy and terror so beautiful they brought tears to his eyes flowed through Barney, breaking past every rational barrier. The implements of society left for his ministrations, broken toasters, the mower, the blender with the burned-out motor, his little television for the baseball games, all were vanquished in an instant as a heritage so ancient it predated man’s society appeared just outside Barney’s shed. Not taking his eyes from what he beheld beyond the door, he retreated slowly, half stumbling, until his back was against the workbench. Reaching up and back, Barney pulled a dusty bottle off the shelf. Twenty-two years before, when he had taken the pledge, Barney had placed the bottle of Jameson’s whisky atop the shelf as a reminder and a challenge. In twenty-two years he had come to ignore the presence of the bottle, had come to shut out its siren call, until it had become simply another feature of the little shed where he worked.
Slowly he pulled the cork, breaking the brittle paper of the old federal tax stamp. Without moving his head, without taking his gaze from the door, Barney lifted the bottle to the side of his mouth and began to drink.
‘Stop it, you two!’
Gloria Hastings stood with hands on hips, delivering the Look. Sean and Patrick stopped their bickering over who was entitled to the baseball bat. Their large blue eyes regarded their mother for a moment before, as one, they judged it close to the point of no return where her patience was concerned. They reached an accord with their peculiar, silent communication. Sean conceded custody of the bat to Patrick and led the escape outside.
‘Don’t wander too far off!’ Gloria shouted after them. She listened to the sounds of eight-year-olds dashing down the ancient front steps and for a moment considered the almost preternatural bond between her boys. The old stories of twins and their empathy in likes and looks had seemed folktales to her before giving birth, but now she conceded that there was something there out of the ordinary, a closeness beyond what was expected of siblings.
Putting aside her musing, she looked at the mess the movers had left and considered, not for the first time, the wisdom of all this. She wandered aimlessly among the opened crates of personal belongings and felt nearly overwhelmed by the simple demands of sorting out the hundreds of small things they had brought with them from California. Just deciding where each item should go seemed a Sisyphean task.
She glanced around the room, as if expecting it to have somehow changed since her last inspection. Deep-grained hardwood floors, freshly polished – which would need polishing again as soon as the crates and boxes were hauled outside – hinted at a style of living alien to Gloria. She regarded the huge fireplace with its ancient hand-carved façade as something from another planet, a stark contrast to the rough brick and stone ranch-house-style hearths of her California childhood. The stairs in the hallway, with their polished maple banisters, and the sliding doors to the den and dining room were relics of another era, conjuring up images of William Powell as Clarence Day or Clifton Webb in Cheaper by the Dozen. This house called for – no, demanded, she amended – high starched collars in an age of designer jeans. Gloria absently brushed back an errant strand of blonde hair attempting an escape from under the red kerchief tied about her head, and fought back a nearly overwhelming homesickness. Casting about for a place to start in the seemingly endless mess, she threw her hands up in resignation. ‘This is not what Oscar winners are supposed to be doing! Phil!’
When no answer was forthcoming, she left the large living
