An Irish Christmas Feast Read Online Free PDF

had long believed, as I did, that the disfiguring weal around John J.’s neck was caused by a hangman’s noose but now we both knew better and hoped to be enlightened as to the true origins of the unprepossessing blemish before we were much older.
    When John J. returned he resumed his position on the stool, swallowed from his glass and cleared his throat. We presumed foolishly that the clearing was the prelude to the remaining disclosures but not a solitary word was forthcoming. It was as though he had suddenly taken a vow of silence. Mikey Joe was first to get the message.
    â€˜Finish that,’ he indicated John J.’s almost empty glass. As soon as the refill was placed in his hand John J. cleared his throat a second time, sniffed the whiskey, frowned, pondered, approved and sipped. He proceeded with his tale.
    Apparently his grandfather Jacko was not above taking a drink now and then in the privacy of his kitchen. He always drank alone. On the morning of Christmas Eve he betook himself to the woods which surrounded the town and did not return till dark. He took with him the usual provisions and spent the day observing coot and heron as well as mallard and diver. He would have fished had the season been open. He listened without appreciation to the wide variety of songbirds who poured forth their tiny hearts as though they knew of the great celebration that was at hand. When Jacko came to the river he sat on an oak stump and, not for the first time, considered the dismal solution the depths below offered. As always he dismissed the thought but he would have to admit that the temptation grew stronger as the years went by.
    A shiver went through him when he imagined his lifeless body laid out on a slab in the local morgue where he had once seen the decaying remains of a boy who had accidentally drowned some years before.
    â€˜I haven’t the courage.’ He spoke the words out loud and no sooner had they departed his lips than a hunting stoat wriggled its way urgently upwards from a small declivity at his feet before disappearing into the undergrowth.
    He rose quickly, his dreary reverie suspended yet again. Shortly afterwards dusk began to infiltrate the woodlands. The face of the river darkened. Overhead the stars began to twinkle. The moon brightened as the sun dipped beneath the tree-tops to the west. From the depths of the woods came the unmistakable sounds of rooting badgers, heedless now that the evening shadows were merging into one.
    Jacko Mulholland gathered himself and followed the river bank towards the lights of the town. A bell rang sweetly, its sacred tones carrying far up the placid river. Jacko Mulholland thrust his fingers into his ears and stood stock still. He would wait until the infernal pealing came to an end.
    As he left the wood and entered the town the dark in all its fullness had fallen. In the kitchen of his silent home he stoked the range fire which he had earlier packed carefully with wet turf sods as well as dry to ensure its survival until his return. He lit the paraffin lamp and looked at the calendar which hung nearby. He took a pencil from the windowsill and crossed out the offending date, 24 December 1922. A few days now and the whole fraud would be over, the entire shambles brushed aside to make way for the new year. He decided to postpone his supper till nearer bedtime. Anyway he had eaten his fill in the woodlands before the arrival of dusk. He added several small dry sods to the fire and sat in the ancient walnut rocking-chair which had been in use since his great-grandfather’s time and which was the nearest thing to a family heirloom one would find if one searched every house in the street.
    There was a long night ahead. It would be the longest in the fourteen years since the disaster if normal progression was anything to go by. He rocked for a while in the vain hope that slumber would come. He knew in advance that it would be a futile bid. He rose and added