The Wake - Table of contents

The Wake - episode 48

“So do nothing then?” demanded Seamus. “Is that what you’re saying? What are you anyway? An Ulster Unionist? A Paiselyite?”

Bill’s cheeks flapped like a flibbering jib and his waistcoat swelled fit to burst threatening to send buffalo hoof buttons, for that indeed was what they were made of — I had this from Bill himself at the last staff do in the Castle Inn — ricocheting round the room like shrapnel. It was at this parlous juncture that Father Hourigan chose to make his entrance. Chairman of the Board, scourge of slacking teachers in the parish of Saint Eugene. I’m tempted to tell you that I was never as glad to see anybody in my life but since this would be a lie I’ll just say I was mighty relieved that a blazing row had been nipped in the bud.

I jumped to my feet like a squaddie when the sergeant comes in and the room began to swim in front of me butterfly style. In an instinctive attempt to remain upright I used what is known in the U S of A as the two-handed greeting — I’ve seen politicians in their presidential campaigns use it as a way of gaining support for their cause, Richard Nixon and George Wallace being the most obvious examples.

I suppose I should clarify here. The two-handed greeting is a vigorous handshake with the right hand while grasping the other person’s upper arm with the left. Support your local drunk. I was bit free with him I grant you, a bit touchy feely considering this was a man who lived by certain immutable doctrines on the matter of physical contact but what can you do, it was either hold on to his arm or fall by the wayside.

The cleric drew back like a scalded cat, then recovered his poise somewhat and gave me a long searching look down the length of his nose. Regular old trooper, never put out for too long. On the matter of his nose by the way. The hairs that sprout from it like curly weeds are grey as befits a man of his age but look at his hair, I mean to say the hair on his head. It’s as black as your boot. So there, what does that tell you? Vanity. That’s what I’m talking about. Vanity pure and simple.

He glanced round the rest of the company and nodded stiffly, reserving a greeting of sorts for Big Bill Braddock who, though still steaming from his interrupted altercation with the rebels, managed a good to see you Father in return. The priest then moved with great gravitas towards the coffin and as he did so a vicious stab at the base of the bladder told me how desperate I was to do my number one so taking advantage of the fact that Hourigan temporarily had his back to me and that I now found myself in a standing position I made my way carefully to the bathroom dislodging and miraculously catching and then replacing a flying duck in the process. Pointless things these ducks. I never liked them. You’d be better with a blank wall.