“I find it hard to believe it is Christmas Day and that there are just the two of us,” Kate said when they rose in the morning. “When I was little all my aunts and uncles and their families used to gather at my dear grandfather’s house. The best part of Christmas Day was the morning when we drove to church, knowing that the long morning was ahead of us—the presents under the tree, the traditional lunch. Cousins, servants, an adored German shepherd, my grandmother’s cats, all of us milling around during drinks, taking stock of the presents; then the solemn prayer before the feast began. I was usually asked to sing ‘God Bless America,’ my grandfather’s eyes misting at the sight of little Kate singing. After that, it was downhill all the way. The old resentments and antagonisms surfaced, barely kept in check by my grandfather’s Edwardian presence.”
“What would he think to see you here this Christmas morning?”
“He would be appalled. He never travelled outside America and thought it vulgar for people to go abroad since everything that anybody could want was in the greatest country on earth. He never forgave my mother for marrying an Englishman.”
“The greatest country in Ireland was always the world to come.”
“And all we have is the day.”
“We better make the most of it,” Ruttledge kissed her lightly as they rose.
He tended his own cattle and sheep. The work was pleasure. All the animals were healthy and the tasks took up little more than an hour. Then he walked round the lake to Jamesie’s, taking a bottle of whiskey. The heron rose lazily out of the reeds. Wildfowl scattered from the reeds to gather out in the middle of the lake. The two swans were fishing close to their old high nest in the thick reeds. The first bell for Mass came over the water but no cars could be heard starting up between the bells. Everyone had attended Midnight Mass and was still sleeping. At the house he was met by the furious barking of the closeted dogs, the expectant clucking of the hens, the lowing of the old cow. The brown hens were loosed and fed, then the excited dogs. The cowhouse had been recently whitewashed inside and out and the stone walls were a soft, glowing white. The two doors were painted bright red. Inside, the four cows were tied with chains to posts, their calves loose in a big wooden pen made from straight branches of ash taken from the hedge. Most of the bark had peeled or was worn away and the timber was so smooth it shone in places and was cool and polished to the hand. To the excited bawling of the calves, he fed each cow a measure of crushed oats from a sack on a raised stand, watered them and fed them the hay he had baled in summer. The bales had the sweet smell of hay saved without rain. With a graip and brush he quickly cleaned the house before letting out the calves to their suck. Despite Jamesie’s manly protestation that he had no interest in the cows other than the money they brought in, they were all placid and used to being handled. When the work was done and he had returned the calves to their pen, the brown hens and the dogs to their houses, he stood for a while on the street while a clock struck the hour from within the house: the whole place and everything about it was plain and beautiful. He then took the bottle of Powers, which he had left beside the pot of geraniums on the windowsill, and walked quickly towards the lake to see if Patrick Ryan was at home this Christmas morning.
The road he climbed from the lake was no longer passable other than on foot. Parts of it had been torn away by floods and never resurfaced. A rusted iron gate stood between two thick round stone piers but the entrance was choked with fuchsia and sally. There was a fresh gash in the ground where the gate had been pushed open and there were recent footprints. The whole street was grass-grown. Beside the door was a small pile of tins and bottles and plastic bags and milk cartons. Both the house and sheds were iron-roofed and solid but they hadn’t been touched by paint or whitewashed in years. Beyond the house, the old hayshed had been torn down in a storm. A mangled sheet of iron hung from an iron post like a dispirited brown flag. It was to this house Patrick Ryan had moved when he allowed the house he had grown up in to fall.
There was no answer to Ruttledge’s knock and call. The door was unlocked. Inside, the room mustn’t have changed in fifty or so years. It hadn’t changed since Ruttledge first saw it ten or fifteen years before, the brown dresser, the settlebed, the iron crook above the open hearth, the horse harness hanging between the religious pictures on the wall—the smiling Virgin, the blood-drip from the Crown of Thorns—all faded now with damp spots underneath the glass, the cheapness moving, since it too had been touched and held in depths of time. In the small window the stone walls were at least four feet thick. The naked electric bulb that hung from the ceiling answered to the switch. By the fireplace was a bale of peat briquettes and in the centre of the floor was a pile of dry branches. A brand-new red Bushman was thrown among the branches and here and there on the floor were little piles of sawdust. A bowl of sugar, unwashed cups, milk, part of a loaf, a sardine tin, a plate with eggshells, a half-full bottle of Powers, a bar of soap, butter, an empty packet of Silk Cut, red apples, a pot of marmalade, salt, matches, a brown jug, an open newspaper, a transistor radio, an alarm clock littered the table. In stark contrast, one small corner of the room was spare and neat. An iron rested on an ironing board. Two perfectly ironed white shirts were hung beside a pressed dark suit. A pair of fine black leather shoes that had been polished till they shone sat on a chair.
Ruttledge called again and was answered by an indefinite sound from the upper room. When he pushed open the door he saw a big iron bed with broken brass bells piled high with clothes and overcoats in a corner of the room. The only sign of a human presence in this mound of clothes was a nose, straight and sharp as a blade.
“What do you want?” The nose was joined to the rest of Patrick Ryan’s handsome head.
“Nothing.”
“What brought you, then?”
“To see how you were. Christmas.”
“Christmas brings out the eejit in everybody,” he said and suddenly swung out of the bed. Except for a shirt of rough material that fell to his hips he was naked. The strong body could have been the body of a younger man. This good-looking, vigorous man had lived all his life around the lake where nothing could be concealed, and he had never shown any sexual interest in another. “I don’t have to even countenance that job,” he joked once to Ruttledge. “John Quinn has agreed to do my share.”
“We’ll have to get up that shed one of these days, lad,” he said as he lifted a pair of trousers from the floor and pulled them on.
The alarm clock started up in the lower room as he was pulling on his socks. “Will you turn that clock off, lad?”
The old blue alarm clock was dancing on the table and he lifted it before turning off the alarm. He moved the bottle of Powers he had brought in beside the half-full bottle of whiskey on the crowded table and waited. When Patrick Ryan came down to the room he was wearing loose shoes and an old brown sweater, and was running his fingers through his thick grey hair. “You’ll have a drink, lad.”
“No thanks, Patrick, it’s too early.”
“It’s Christmas,” he said, and noticed the bottle of Powers. “What the fuck is this?”
“A bottle I brought for Christmas.”
“You’ll have to have a drink, then, lad.”
“It’s too early.”
“What do you want poisoning me for with what you won’t drink yourself?”
“I drink plenty … too much sometimes.”
“We all drink too much, lad. Would you see if you could get a bit of a fire started to see if we can make anything of this Christmas Day?”
With the Bushman Ruttledge sawed the dried branches. Using a fire-lighter he soon had a bright fire going under the black kettle on the crook. While they waited for the kettle to boil, Patrick Ryan ate the red apples and a few slices of buttered bread with a mug of milk into which he tipped a splash of whiskey. “Are you happy, lad?” he demanded.
Ruttledge had added turf briquettes to the fire and was looking silently into the flames.
&nb
sp; “I’m not unhappy,” he answered, surprised.
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not over the moon. I have health, for the time being, enough money, no immediate worries. That, I believe, is about as good as it gets. Are you happy?”
“I am in fuck. There are times I don’t know who I am from one minute to the next. That’s why I always liked the acting. You are someone else and always know what you are doing and why.”
He wanted boiling water not for tea or coffee but in order to shave and wash. He shaved with a yellow plastic razor in an old mirror he got from the dresser. Then he dressed in the pressed suit and ironed white shirt and brushed the thick head of hair.
“You wouldn’t think of getting an electric kettle? It’d be very handy,” Ruttledge said.
“No, lad. I’m not here often enough and the fire is no trouble and heats the place.”
“You heard that Mary and Jamesie have gone to Dublin for Christmas?”
“I heard.” Patrick laughed, mimicking Jamesie’s inarticulate wonderment. “Crowds, you see … creatures in thousands … all shapes … lights … buses.”
“And Johnny was made redundant at Ford’s but then sort of fell on his feet. He is going to caretake a block of flats.”
“I heard,” he said with unusual grimness. “Was it you wrote the letter for them?”
“No,” Ruttledge lied. “We talked about it. It would have been bad for everybody had he come home. It’s great how it all worked out.”
“Alphabetical,” he said sharply as he stared at Ruttledge, and then knotted his red silk tie and pulled on the jacket of the dark suit. He would not have looked out of place in the foyer of a great hotel. “Here. Take this back with you,” he tried to get Ruttledge to take back the bottle of Powers he had brought.
“No. Leave it. We’ll have a drink for Christmas from the other bottle.”
“That makes more sense, lad.”
Two measures were poured and the glasses raised to “A Happy Christmas.”
“I’m going to the Harneys above in Boyle for Christmas. I go to them every Christmas Day.” He told Ruttledge what he already knew. “I’ll bring them your bottle. What goes round comes round. The car could be arriving at the corner of the lake for me any minute now.” He slipped the bottle together with a small package wrapped in Christmas paper into a plastic carrier bag and then put in his shoes. He wore wellingtons to walk the rutted and torn path to the lake. “You see the wife and family,” he gestured towards his small herd of cattle which was sheltering under whitethorns on the far hill.
“They seem to be doing all right. They have a big run,” Ruttledge said carefully.
“I often come at night with whoever I happen to be working for. I get them to drive me and we throw them a bale,” he said somewhat defensively. “I suppose no more than ourselves, lad, it doesn’t make all that much differ whether they live or die.”
What do we have without life? What does love become but care? Ruttledge thought in opposition but did not speak.
At the lake, Patrick Ryan changed out of the Wellingtons into the pair of black shoes and hid the wellingtons upside down in thick blackthorns. Beyond the reeds, a car was already waiting at the corner of the lake. “I go to entertain them in their own houses,” he said as he walked towards the waiting car, carrying the plastic bag.
The Shah rolled up to the porch at his usual Sunday time with the sheepdog in the front seat that Christmas Day and they ate at four. Kate put out a tablecloth of embroidered linen and lit two candles in silver candlesticks. The black cat with the white paws sat high on the back of an armchair, surveying the sheepdog’s movements with a wary eye. The small roast turkey was carved in the kitchen and placed on a large white oval platter. The meal began with leek soup. There was a dry white and red wine and to their surprise the Shah asked for a glass of sweet white wine. There was little conversation. As with heavy people who can move with lightness on a dance floor, the Shah ate with great delicacy. His enjoyment was palpable and it was as much a pleasure to be part of as lively speech. Not until the plum pudding and cream arrived did he relax and ease back.
“I hope four o’clock wasn’t too late for you to eat,” Kate said. “It’s well past your usual time at the Central.”
“Myself and that woman went to Second Mass instead of First and had a late breakfast in the hotel. Both of us were fasting.”
He sighed with pleasure; then the talk turned to the sale and transfer of the business. The final papers had been agreed and were expected to be ready for signature as soon as the offices opened after the holidays.
“Will he be able for it though?” he asked several times.
“Anyhow you’re sitting pretty no matter what happens,” Ruttledge said.
“You can swear,” he said. He produced a few cigars and offered one to Kate.
“I’d love to but it’d be the same as if I never stopped.”
“They’re good. I was given them by a traveller.” He left two big cigars on the table. “They’ll be there for the other man. He won’t have any trouble.”
Ruttledge drank a brandy while the Shah smoked the cigar. Then the Shah called the sheepdog, rose and left without abruptness or awkwardness. They watched from the porch as the headlights turned on the water and went slowly out along the shore.
“He probably has another call to make. He could be on his way to see Monica.”
“I never guessed he’d become such a dear presence.”
“That’s what happens,” Ruttledge said, looking away.
Late in the evening a loud rapping sounded on the glass of the porch. It was Bill Evans. He was wearing shoes, and in his Mass clothes he looked well. He rested the heavy blackthorn stick against the side of the rocking chair. He wanted brandy. Downing the glass quickly, he demanded another. Ruttledge gave him three glasses, each time pouring a smaller measure, and then refused him any more. When he was leaving, he was given the two cigars and he tried to light the wrong end. Kate cut and lit the cigar for him. He watched her impatiently and when he took it started smoking furiously. Ruttledge walked him all the way up the hill in case he would fall.
“How do you feel now?” he asked when they were close to the house. In the darkness he could only see the outline of his shape and the red glow of the cigar.
“God, I feel lovely. Couldn’t feel better. A very happy Christmas to yourself.”
“And a happy Christmas yourself.”
The days were quiet. They did not feel particularly quiet or happy but through them ran the sense, like an underground river, that there would come a time when these days would be looked back on as happiness, all that life could give of contentment and peace. They would cross the lake together in the morning, let out the hens, loose and feed the pair of dogs, clean out and feed the cows, let the calves to their suck. Each morning the mule came to the little gate beside the pond and bared his teeth as he was thrown hay. As Kate was staying to make some sketches, the dogs did not have to be put back in the house and the brown hens could pick about in the dirt inside the netting wire. The place fascinated her and she was using their absence to work near the house undisturbed.
Because they were so bounded, the days of Christmas slipped by quickly. In the evenings they put down a fire in Jamesie and Mary’s yellowed Stanley to keep the dampness out and the house warm for their return, and wound the clocks. No two clocks were the same or told the same time but all were running. Each one had its separate presence and charm.
A few visitors called to the house. The Ruttledges spent an evening with Monica and her children. The Shah had visited her late on Christmas Day, bringing many presents.
On some days Bill Evans called twice to the house. When the brandy was no longer forthcoming, he took tea and cake and cigarettes without a murmur. The bus to the Home had been suspended for the week of Christmas. He was anxious that the trips might not resume once Christmas was over; what was once given could be taken back in the same mysteri
ous way it had come.
“It’s going to be a normal Thursday next week,” he predicted after the Thursday of Christmas had passed. “The bus will be back.” The words highlighted his anxiety.
“Jamesie will be back from Dublin by then as well.”
“Begod he will. He’ll have lots to tell,” he remarked without a flicker of interest.
Jamesie and Mary were returning on the early afternoon train from Dublin. Ruttledge dropped Kate at their gate on his way to the station. She was putting a fire down and bringing flowers to the house, a sheaf of red and yellow chrysanthemums.
The Christmas decorations were still up in the waiting room of the station. In the late evening light the green metal bridge that crossed the tracks glistened with raindrops from a recent shower. The rails were wet. Across the track the few cattle and the one horse sheltered under a thick whitethorn hedge at the far end of the field.
As soon as the small train drew in, he saw Jamesie’s head in the window of one of the doors, his great hand grappling inexpertly with the outside handle. Next he saw Mary’s face, smiling over her husband’s shoulder. When the door was opened and they stepped down on the gravel, Jamesie swung his suitcase away when Ruttledge went to take it from his hand.
“No. There’s nothing in it. It’s as light as a feather.”
Mary kissed Ruttledge warmly but Jamesie hardly felt the hand he gave. They both looked exhausted and walked to the car without a word.
“How are they all in Dublin?”
“Great. Couldn’t be better. They were all asking after you and Kate.”
“That was nice. You must have had a great Christmas.”
There was an uncertain silence until Mary said dismissively, with careful nonchalance, “It was all right. What does anything do but go by.”
“It was topping,” Jamesie echoed. “There wasn’t a single thing that could be faulted.”
“There was a big crowd for Christmas Day,” Mary said. “Her father and mother were there as well.”