The Parish Read online

  At the top of our garden stands an old stone, ivy-covered building that we call the Old Hall because it was once a Methodist preaching hall. It faces south, and in front of it is a raised pathway cushioned by years of falling leaves. Along this pathway Con’s hives stood in a row. The first tree I planted in the garden was a lime because a lime tree provides as rich a harvest for the bees as an acre of clover. It was a totally impractical step because a lime tree is far too big for an ordinary-sized garden and now it acts as an umbrella for a large portion of the lawn. The day I planted that little tree I sat beside it and wrote a poem.

  The Honey Tree

  The day was soft and mellow,

  Growth was in the ground;

  I went into the garden,

  Climbed to the honey sound,

  Eased my spade through the fallen leaves

  Of golden brown and red

  And as I lifted out the earth

  I made a soft brown bed.

  Mother nature opened wide

  Her arms of velvet brown

  And on her maternal lap

  I laid my young tree down.

  All around the soft young roots

  I folded mother earth

  And when my baby tree stood tall

  I felt joy as in a birth.

  I tied her to a firm stake

  To hold her in the sways,

  A seasoned piece of older wood

  To guard her growing days.

  Con became a dedicated beekeeper, and some summers Gabriel and himself went off to Gormanstown to take beekeeping courses; Con spent much of his long holidays caring for the bees and making hives. He passed many contented hours at the top of the garden, his white-suited figure moving quietly between the hives. When they swarmed, the bees usually hung off the same branch in the garden and then we circled around them, but gone were the days of bell-ringing and mayhem. A swarm of bees hanging off a branch is a fascinating sight, and often customers from the shop came into the garden to admire them.

  When I became a gardener, the bees and I often had a running battle which they always won because their ammunition was a good deal sharper than anything I could muster. On a fine day, when they were busy collecting honey, there was no way they were going to allow me to weed around their territory. I was an obstacle that had to be moved, and often I had to make a hasty run for the back door, but sometimes they got me before I made my escape. Con was always amused by their persistence in getting rid of me and advised waiting until late evening to weed around them. But I was always prepared to take a chance and often paid the price for my obstinacy with a few painful stings. Con would smile and say, “You can’t get the better of the bees.”

  Extracting time was Con’s harvest and he gloried in the different kinds of honey: the clover honey and the hawthorn honey and the different taste of each. He would hold the jars up to the light of the window the better to savour their colour and texture, and when we stored them in a deep cupboard they glowed with a rich golden warmth.

  Stored Summer

  Bridal hedges of whitethorn

  Cascade on to green fields;

  Under bulging wings

  The gliding bees

  Collect their nectar,

  Bearing it back

  To humming hives.

  Extraction time,

  The pregnant combs

  Release their ripened treasure,

  Pouring golden liquid

  Into sparkling jars.

  In a deep cupboard

  Spirit of warm days

  Bring to barren winter

  The taste of whitethorn honey.

  We sold some of the honey in the shop and once people got the taste of it, demand exceeded supply and so we took bookings for “Con’s Honey”, which was usually sold out in advance of extraction.

  One of the by-products of honey is wax and, when this had accumulated into vast amounts, we decided one Christmas that we would make wax candles. First, the wax had to be melted down, which Con did in a special tray over the Aga. It was a messy, smelly job but resulted in round slabs of yellow wax that gave off the beautiful rich smell of honey. Then began the slow, precise process of candle-making. If I was tempted to take a short cut, Con stepped in and insisted that we observe the correct process, which paid off in the end as we produced perfectly formed honey-coloured candles. When lit, they had a balanced flame and filled the room with their calming scent. Any undertaking that Con took on had the hallmarks of perfection.

  In the early 1970s, due to ill-health, Uncle Jacky semi-retired from the family business, and this increased the workload on Gabriel. This meant that I needed to spend more time in the shop; meanwhile, our three sons had increased to four, so things were busier on the home front as well. Work had to be pruned back and the guesthouse was the obvious place, so we closed it, but Con remained with us. He was now so much part of the family that we could not imagine our lives without him. He was a quiet pool of calm in the midst of our busy household. Then, in the late 1970s, our house was filled with delight when a little girl arrived on the scene. Aunty Peg had died the previous March, shortly after Uncle Jacky, and she had always regretted that there was no girl in our family. So, in many ways I felt that this was their gift. She was christened Lena Shelia Máiréad to cover her two grandmothers and Aunty Peg.

  From the first day that she came home from the nursing home, Lena and Con became inseparable. He talked to her when her only response was a gurgle, and as soon as she could form words, she christened him Condy, and so he remained during her growing years. Because Gabriel and I were often busy in the shop, Con became her foster parent. He read her stories and took her for drives in his car. They went to the beach together when she was barely able to waddle into the water, and he passed on to her his love of the sea. One of the first films they watched together on TV was Titanic, and halfway through the film, when the ship was destined to sink, Con heard loud sobs coming from the couch beside him. From this developed a huge mutual interest in the Titanic, and the subsequent buying of many books on the subject.

  Books became a bone of contention between the two of them as they went to Cork bookshops many Saturdays and she later complained that he was enough to turn her off books because she spent so many hours of her childhood sitting on the doorsteps of bookshops while he selected books. Con had an insatiable thirst for books and it was his one great extravagance. He could not resist a well-bound, well-presented volume on any subject that was of interest to him, and as he had varied interests, it led to the purchase of many books. He always examined hardback editions to see if they were stitched, as he disliked glued books. It was a joy to visit a bookshop with him because he was never in a hurry, something to which Lena as a child strongly objected, but often she was coaxed into toleration with the promise of a later treat.

  Even though he taught Maths and Science at St Brogan’s, Con was also gifted with his hands, and one of his first creations was a doll’s house for Lena, which Santa brought one Christmas. Early on the morning of that Christmas Eve, Con and I visited an old cottage that he was restoring outside the village. There, in the grey dawn, he put the finishing touches to the doll’s house which later that night was to appear in perfect condition under the Christmas tree. Because it was large enough to house many dolls and other bits and pieces it provided years of playing and became part of her bedroom furniture. It was many years before she discovered that Con was the Santa who had made her doll’s house.

  When our kitchen table, which we had inherited from my sister, began to disintegrate, Con decided to design and make a new one. The plan was for a table large enough to seat our extended household. Our numbers varied but were never small because, as well as ourselves and Con and visiting family and friends, the staff from the adjoining shop often came in to eat. I declared that the table had to be solid, firm and look good. “A tall order,” he told me.

  When the table was made, it filled all the required specifications. It had the happy knack of n
ot being too large for two or three but still able to sit twelve if necessary. Afterwards Con made a work bench for the back porch, which turned this corner into a workshop for the making of beehives and the repair of miscellaneous objects for the house and the children.

  As the boys grew up, Conn became a friend and adviser, and when Gearóid and Diarmuid came to secondary-school age, they travelled to St Brogan’s with him; when Seán later studied history, the two of them enjoyed long and complicated discussions about ancient civilisations. Con was always amused by the fact that in family discussion where heated exchanges often took place, our eldest, Micheal, never used two words where one would do.

  At the age of eight, Lena took up horse riding, and Con often drove her to the local stables. On going back to collect her, he would wait patiently while her friend Sage was bedded down for the night. When she started into competitive riding and tack had to be polished, he never objected if saddles and bridles were strewn around his feet, emitting aroma of horse, as he watched the nightly news on TV. Her brothers were not as tolerant, but if an argument ensued, Con backed Lena up, and if that situation was reversed, she was in his corner.

  Many problems that arose during her teenage years were discussed with Con, and often it was months later that Gabriel and I heard of something that had worried her. All her school subject choices and problems were sorted between the two of them as they travelled together every day before he dropped her off at her convent school in Bandon. They decided on her choice of course in UCC and the points necessary to get it, and on the day when her Leaving Cert results came out, she and I collected them in the morning but they remained unopened on the kitchen table until Con came from school that evening. Gabriel and I could understand her need for Con to be there, as they had shared the preparation and now she wanted him there for the results, be they good or bad. Fortunately they were good and both were equally thrilled.

  Over the years, Con had become the tried and trusted friend of the whole family, and Gabriel and he often laughed when they recalled the first day he had come and my announcement that he could stay for only a week.

  Since then, he had become one of us. Because he was so closely woven into the family fabric, he was immersed in all our ups and downs and was often the one to pour oil on troubled waters. He was completely non-judgmental. At the other end of the scale, we had a family member who thought that the main aim of the rest of us was to make his life a misery. The result was that when that relation visited, we all bent over backwards not to say the wrong thing. After one such visit, as we all breathed a collective sigh of relief, Con said quietly: “Now we can all go back to being ourselves.”

  When Gabriel and I first visited Kenny’s bookshop in Galway, we knew straight away that this would be Con’s idea of heaven. I had to travel the country every time I had a new book out, to do signings at bookshops, so any time I had a book signing in Galway, Con and I set off early in the morning so that he could enjoy a long day in Kenny’s. He loved that shop and always smiled ruefully before setting out for Galway, declaring that it was going to be an expensive visit. He knew that he could never resist the wonderful old books on offer. When we visited Kenny’s during the summer of 2000, he brought along his old copy of the Rev. Diggs bible on beekeeping, The Practical Bee Guide, to have it bound in hardback.

  Just before that Christmas, Con got what we thought was a bad flu, but Ellen, my sister, who is a nurse and was home from Canada, insisted that he go to the doctor, who sent him to hospital for a check-up. The result of the tests was shattering: terminal cancer, with a very short projected lifespan. Medically there was nothing to be done, and Con came home two days before Christmas for what we believed might be at least a few months, though we were hoping for longer and praying for a miracle.

  His two brothers, Fr Denis and Fr Pat, came to spend Christmas with us, knowing that it would be their last with Con. Like Con, they are gentle and unassuming. It was a Christmas full of pain, spirituality and an awareness that we were walking on the edge of a precipice.

  We knew that we would be able to take good care of Con at home because we had medical expertise in the house, Fr Denis being a doctor and Ellen a nurse. But, in the event, long-term care was not required as Con died on 3 January 2001. His death, like his life, was full of peace and tranquillity.

  Con’s illness and death had all happened so quickly that many of his fellow teachers and students in St Brogan’s, where he had taught up to the Christmas holidays, were taken completely unawares. They poured into our front room with grief-stricken faces, and stood beside his coffin where he was laid out in his best grey suit. His coffin, surrounded by lit candles in Aunty Peg’s brass candlesticks, stood in the corner where for many years he had sat correcting exam papers, reading his books or doing the Irish Times crossword. It was heart-breaking to see his young students gaze unbelieving into the coffin at the teacher they had loved. For all of us it was a cruel blow, but my heart bled especially for Lena, to whom he had been a loving friend and mentor.

  Friends took over the kitchen and fed all comers. The neighbours who had known and loved Con, and the members of the local bridge club where he had been a member for many years, all came to say goodbye. Even though he had been a blow-in like myself, he had become very much part of parish life.

  The following evening, through a cold, bleak January landscape, we followed his hearse back along the road through Macroom and Carriganima to his home in Boherbue where he was laid to rest beside his parents. Our great grandmothers had been sisters and it was that family connection that had brought him to Innishannon the first day. Over the years, he had enriched our home with many blessings.

  Afterwards

  His room

  A book

  The story

  Of his life.

  Each crevice

  Filled to capacity,

  A beehive

  Of remembrances.

  A collector

  Of coins

  Family history

  Rare books

  And stamps.

  His room.

  As his life

  A book of interest.

  I turned back

  The pages of his life

  Back to his childhood

  This man’s treasure

  His love of little things

  I walked on sacred ground

  Back through his years.

  CHAPTER 4

  Decades of Damp

  His intense concentration on his surroundings caught my attention. He was not in my direct line of vision but slightly to my right as he sat in front of me at mass. His eyes roamed around the church. He began with the sanctuary area, taking in the blotched walls. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. Up and down his glance swept like a giant brush along the walls, and then his eyes locked on to a patch in the middle of the stained-glass window, above the altar. I recognised his problem. It was very difficult to be sure if it was the stained glass or the real sky that boasted that particular shade of blue. I felt tempted to lean forward and assure him, “It is a hole.” But I knew when he nodded his head thoughtfully that he had figured it out for himself.

  Then he moved down along the aisle walls where navy-blue and grey mildew had battled through layers of ancient green plaster. The plaster had surrendered many years previously. He noted the cracks in the latticed windows and the frayed sash ropes swaying aimlessly in mid-air, and then he tilted back his head and took in the arching ceiling with its fractured cornice mouldings and grey cobwebs hanging lankly from high-flying bulbs. When these bulbs needed to be replaced, it was necessary to erect scaffolding, or a brave parishioner—usually Gabriel—tied two tall ladders together and risked life and limb to replace them.

  After mass I waited for our visitor to leave the church. I followed him down the aisle as he tilted back his head to take in the sloping overhead gallery where exposed rotted rafters crawled like black snakes along the gaping ceiling. In the back porch he frowned at a modern
PVC window in an old gothic arch. As he came out the door I knew that any attention he might have given to the ceremony had been overwhelmed by the condition of our parish church.

  Suddenly he turned and caught my eye: “Are you the woman who writes the books?” he demanded, and when I nodded, he shook his head and informed me grimly: “Ye have a lovely little village but ye’r church is a bloody disgrace!”

  I could not contradict him. It was an embarrassment at funerals and weddings to watch outsiders look around our church in disbelief. After all, ours was not a poor parish. Brides before they walked up the aisle fought bravely to improve the look of the place, but it is difficult to put a good face on a tired old lady whose bone structure has collapsed. One posh prospective bridegroom had inquired in a plummy English accent: “Could one not give this place a lick of paint before one commences proceedings?” Unfortunately we were long gone past the remedy of a quick lick of paint.

  There is nothing more likely to cause trouble in any parish than the restoration of the parish church. Because it is everybody’s church it is everybody’s business, and even if you never darken the door of the place it is still your church. We all know what is best for this place where we were baptised, got our first holy communion and were possibly married—though that could be a double-edged sword. Above all, the chances are that when our race is run it is in here we will be brought for a final farewell. So this is our place and doing it up is akin to doing up the family home. We all need to air our opinion, to have it heard and acknowledged. The man in charge of this job is usually the parish priest, and for his future peace of mind he had better get it right.