The Village

by Alice Taylor

  Another flooded room was occupied by a young American who said, “Gee, honey, when I came to Ireland I didn’t expect Niagara to come down my wall!” The other two rooms were occupied by two English girls who thought it all “frightfully amusing.”

  That day passed in a frenzy of mopping-up and carpet changing. Our plumber, Kevin, who had come to disconnect our waterfall, spent the entire day shifting beds and carpets with us. Because we had great neighbours who could always be relied on in an emergency, we were somehow back to normal that night.

  Our guests loved the quiet roads and half-empty beaches of West Cork and came back in the evenings brimming with praise for the beauties of Gougane Barra, Glengarriff and Mizen Head. If they just wanted a lazy day they went to the local beach at Garretstown or rambled around nearby Kinsale with its narrow streets and historic forts, while those who wanted to do nothing simply sat by the river or went to the wood for the day. At night they visited the pubs where they met the locals; the favourite pub was Kate’s where they, too, obeyed the ring of the alarm clock.

  Andy was delighted with the tourists and was always strategically placed if bags had to be carried in from cars. One evening towards the end of summer a girl arrived on the bus laden with a case full of books – she was coming to teach in the local school. Andy dashed to her rescue and swept the case from her, drowning her protestations about being able to carry it herself. Later, in the dining-room she remarked on his gallantry. In the months that followed when she came to know him better, and had paid well for his consideration, she often laughed about that first evening. But she always insisted that he had made a great impression on her arrival.

  LITTLE BITS OF PAPER

  THE LATE SIXTIES and early seventies were boom years for Irish tourism. The English holiday-makers turned their faces towards Ireland, and every morning when the Cork-Swansea ferry berthed streams of GB cars drove into West Cork. People from the North of Ireland came south, and the summer that the first of the Northern troubles started our guest-house was full of Northern Unionists, many of whom had come on the recommendation of friends who had stayed previously.

  Some English families came back year after year. The English made wonderful guests: they were punctual, considerate and appreciative. But some held very strange ideas about Ireland. One elderly couple who came to us via Rosslare were amazed at the distance they had had to travel. The husband said, “I thought that we could walk from Rosslare to your guest-house. I actually though that we could drive around the whole of Ireland in an hour.” Another dapper little man with a BBC accent kept referring to “the mainland” in conversation. It took me a while to figure out that to him England was the mainland, and that we were just an off-shore island.

  As the Northern troubles gathered momentum the flow of English tourists trickled to a halt, and a door closed firmly between North and South. By then our family of two sons had increased to four and Uncle Jacky had suffered a slight heart-attack. Between the guest-house, the post office and the shop we were over-stretched; our workload would have to be reduced somehow, and Jacky needed more help in the shop. As the shop had been in the family for five generations it took precedence over the guest-house, which did not have the same historical roots. We decided to convert part of the guest-house into flats and so reduce the amount of time and work it demanded.

  That winter I went back to help in the shop, and the first thing Jacky said to me was, “Alice, will you sort out the accounts for the blessed tax crowd?” A few years previously turnover tax – the forerunner of VAT – had reared its ugly head and Jacky, like a lot of older shopkeepers in rural Ireland, had no idea how to handle it. Though quite willing to pay, they had no accounting system to assess what they owed. Jacky handed over boxes and boxes of invoices with a sigh of relief. “Thanks be to God to be rid of these, they have the life worried out of me,” he said.

  So began days of sorting cardboard boxes, and trying to bring some kind of order to years of invoices. As days turned into weeks the boxes emptied, while all around our sitting-room floor and over the furniture mountains of invoices rose, sorted under the names of different firms. Our children trod carefully between the paper mountains, and kept me at a safe distance. Their normally tranquil mother was fast turning into a paper-sorting maniac who talked aloud to herself and used language “that the strangers do not know”.

  When all was sorted we bought a large filing cabinet and gradually our sitting-room reappeared as hills do when a thaw comes after snow. But then the real work began, as I tried to pull together some shape or form of accounts. This went on for weeks until my nerves started to fray from the continual concentration. Jacky would come to the door with a worried look on his face and ask with concern, “How are you getting on?” And because I would not upset him for the world, I would say, “Grand altogether, it will all work out fine.”

  But I had my doubts and finally one evening when weeks of work and sheets of figures would not balance, I threw the cash-book on the floor and stormed out to the guest-house kitchen. There my mother who was on one of her regular visits stood in front of the Aga, serenely stirring rice for the children. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.

  “Mom!” I shouted, pounding the table with my fist, “The accounts are driving me crazy! They just will not balance out.”

  She said nothing for a few minutes and let me rant on. When I had finished she smiled and said, “Sit down there now and have a cup of tea and I’ll make toast for you.” She always had great faith in the comforting power of warm toast. As we sat having our tea and toast she said quietly, “Alice, I never thought I’d see the day that you’d get so upset about little bits of paper. Don’t ever forget that’s all they are – little bits of paper.” I started to laugh, and in the face of her simple logic the problem came into perspective.

  Eventually I brought the shop accounts up to date, and Jacky was so relieved that it made all the effort worthwhile.

  It was Aunty Peg as usual who had the last word. “I’ll tell you something,” she said, shaking her finger at me. “You’re learning to do too much. It’s a big mistake! The more you can do the more you will have to do.”

  But I was glad to be back in the shop with Jacky, who was so very much in touch with the people and everything that went on in the village, including one of the great loves of his life, the GAA.

  “COME ON THE ROVERS”

  THERE WERE TWO religious denominations in the village, Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic, and while they prayed in separate churches they came together on every other occasion. When the local GAA team, the Valley Rovers, was playing they prayed together on the sideline for victory, and the ecumenical hymn that sometimes rose to fever pitch was “Come on the Rovers.”

  There was one pair of vocal cords that rose above all others and pierced the air with the velocity of a zooming sliotar: Joe’s “Come on the Rovers” was sometimes more effective in winning matches than all the pep-talks and pre-match instructions put together. He had another refrain which was heard at every match. As soon as a ball headed for the sideline he would forecast “Tha-a-at’s a Roov-ers’ baawl!” Though it was advisable, out of respect for your eardrums, not to stand too close to him, Joe brought an inimitable flavour to the matches.

  Every Sunday after Mass a crowd gathered at the corner and the available cars were packed to capacity to carry people to the matches. There was no question of leaving anybody behind, even if they had to be crammed into the boot. On Monday morning the replay started early in our shop with the arrival of the postmen to sort the mail. It continued all day. The match under discussion could be a Rovers or a Bandon game, or indeed any game that had been played the day before. Frees were retaken, referees’ decisions questioned and every kick of the game analysed. Commercial travellers and delivery men joined the post mortems and GAA stalwarts called in to air their views. Late that night when Jacky’s old buddies came in, the final count was held. Then, after closing the shop, Jacky took all the daily
papers and read every match report; afterwards he and Gabriel analysed the reporters’ analyses of the game. Next to God the GAA was the most important thing in the house, or indeed the village. Jacky had played, refereed and been on the local and divisional boards at different stages of his life, and Gabriel followed in his footsteps.

  I had never even been at a GAA match before getting married, so I was mesmerised by all this dedication which hit me with the ferocity of a gale-force wind. To maintain a sane balance in the house, I decided that I should keep my distance from the athletic activities. But Aunty Peg rocked my detachment when she threw a box of Rovers jerseys into the kitchen saying, “I’ve been minding these long enough; it’s about time someone else took over.” So on many Mondays when I wanted to hang out my washing, it had to take second place to rows of Rovers jerseys fluttering in the breeze. Gradually, however, I became drawn into this sea of enthusiasm and was caught up in the match fever. The people who attended the games were equally fascinating. It was amazing to watch dour men, men who would normally hardly pass the time of day with you, explode in a frenzy of exultation that caused them to shoot into the air like rockets whenever their side scored. Bring together hundreds of such men and you have the dynamic atmosphere of a Munster or All-Ireland Final.

  On my first visit to Dublin’s GAA Mecca, Croke Park, we went into the restaurant under the stands, and while Gabriel queued for tea and cakes I became absorbed in watching the people around me. I saw the well-fed city business man, his overflowing paunch controlled by a well-cut suit, out for the day with “the boys”. The hardy, weather-beaten country bachelor in his ten-year-old suit had made the journey on his own, and carried his sandwiches wrapped in brown paper under his arm. Used to solitary living, he needed no one to share his day. There was the professional from the country accompanied by his expensively-dressed, sun-tanned wife wearing good shoes and pricey jewellery; in tow a bored teenager. Then came a little woman with a plastic bag full of sandwiches, followed by a row of children, “himself” bringing up the rear in a brown suit and hand-knitted pullover. She fussed around making sure that they were all well fed, while the eldest ferried cups of tea to the family and himself pulled on a cigarette, his mind occupied with greater things. A thin, self-sufficient Christian Brother catered for himself in another corner; his black beret poked out of his pocket and a plastic mac lay folded neatly beside him.

  A group of tanned young country fellows broke on the scene, laughing and shouting together, trying to outdo one another in acting the “hard man”. Next to them stood two gorgeous girls in floral sun-dresses with long blonde hair. An overweight priest pontificated in a loud voice as if he were still giving the morning sermon, while a hard-faced, strident woman belted talk into the face of a resigned husband, who looked around hoping to see someone he might know. Out for the day a father and son, not sure if they were boys together or men.

  Behind me two countrymen discussed the match. “Our fellows are bigger and stronger; that should count for something,” one man asserted confidently.

  “That’s not the way it goes,” his friend cautioned. “The other lads are small and handy and could be hard to handle. If we are to win today, our fellows might have to lower the blade a bit!”

  The Artane Boys Band thundered by on their way to the playing pitch, and we all filed out and up the steps into the blazing excitement of the All-Ireland Final.

  When Fr Mick had been transferred to another parish he was replaced by Fr Seamus, a keen sports enthusiast. He trained the schoolchildren and the under-age GAA shot into prominence; we fielded under-12s, -14s, and -16s and they went on to win not only divisional but county championships. Women like myself, who up until then hardly knew the difference between a sliotar and a football, became sideline experts overnight. One evening Gabriel was refereeing a Rovers game, and he was bending over backwards not to show favouritism to the local side. When he overlooked a bit of rough play by the opposing team, totally taken up with the game I shouted, “Hi! Ref, did you see that?” Coming off the field afterwards, Fr Seamus and himself were discussing the game. “Everyone seemed to be happy enough with the way things went,” Gabriel said. “There was only one objection during the whole match.”

  “That,” Fr Seamus informed him, “was from your own wife.”

  The Rovers practised in many fields around the parish until they bought their own pitch. Beautifully situated at the western end of the village by the river, it was never called the football field, but was known simply as “the Bleach”. It was here that Adderley had had his linen bleached in former times. It had a slight problem in that the river, which was tidal, caused occasional flooding, but in time that was overcome. Later a stately row of elms inside the Bleach wall near the pitch was considered dangerous to passing traffic, and a felling order was sought. Feelings about the trees ran high in the village so a meeting was called, but in the end it was agreed that the trees had to go. The day that the trees came down our village lost some if its grandeur: they had towered over the western end for almost a hundred years.

  The Valley Rovers hurling and football teams brought much enjoyment to the people of the parish; there was no mistaking how much it meant on the day that they won the County Final for the first time. As I walked through the village that night the faces along the street were alive with delight. Old Rovers in the winter of their years were laughing and dancing around like boys. Playing the game had been one of the highlights of their young lives and now in old age this club victory was giving them a new sense of excitement. Women who had cheered on brothers, boyfriends and sons from the sideline were out to celebrate with their menfolk in the pubs and the parish hall. It was a great night for the Valley Rovers and the parish.

  The parish hall and the Bleach provided excellent facilities for the people of the parish. A generous parishioner donated a tennis court and later the Rovers built dressing rooms behind the hall. When the little Church of Ireland school across the road ceased to function because the students were transferred to nearby Bandon, the building, known as the Bridge hall, became available for table-tennis, music and art classes.

  Paddy was the man who kept his eye on all parish property. He was caretaker of the parish hall but his duties did not end there. He kept track of everything around the village, collecting newspapers off the bus, digging gardens for the old ladies – even forecasting the weather. He kept a large tory-top on his window-sill: the pinecone opened wide if the weather was going to be fine and closed up in preparation for rain. It was seldom wrong.

  When Gabriel was refereeing Paddy always acted as one of the linesmen, and no one questioned Paddy’s decisions because he had the temperament of a wasp. Yet he had a wonderful way with children – the baby in our family travelled to the matches on his knee. The village children visited Paddy regularly, and he told them far-fetched stories about “Herself Upstairs.” Though they never saw her they believed that he had a wife upstairs because he told them such great stories about her. They behaved beautifully while they were in the house because Paddy had them warned that “Herself was a holy terror” and that if they misbehaved she would come down and wallop them.

  His small stone house, which he painted every year with yellow ochre, was right across the road from our back gate, so Paddy supervised all our comings and goings. When we had a rather strange lady come to stay, he had a busy time keeping track of her.

  THE CASE UNDER THE BED

  IT WAS A morning in late September and I was sitting in an armchair in the kitchen with my feet up, reading the paper. Breakfast was over, the dining-room had been cleared and the guest-rooms tidied and I was enjoying the leisure and relaxation of the moment when the service bell buzzed in the kitchen. I reluctantly dragged myself out of the armchair and as I walked along the corridor made a mental check of the accommodation available. The five bedrooms were full and I had only one holiday flat free, but as we were closing down for the season at the end of the month it was only available for a week.
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  When I rounded the corner leading into the front hallway I saw a petite figure with bobbed silver-blonde or grey hair standing before me. With the light from the glass door behind her I could not be certain of her hair colour, or indeed of her age. She could have been anything between twenty-five and fifty-five; her face was childlike and ageless, and she had about her a waif-like appearance. She wore a bright red jacket over a long black skirt and had the figure of a slim teenager.

  “Have you got a furnished flat to let?” she asked in a precise upper-class English accent.

  She did not address her question directly to me but to some vague point in the air above my head. Her eyes were a deep golden brown but they did not seem to focus; they drifted away to a distant place where her mind had wandered. There was something almost unreal about this woman: though her body was before me her mind and concentration had floated away somewhere else.

  “Well, we have one holiday flat but it’s only available for one week as we will be closing for the season,” I told her.

  “May I see it?” she lisped in a childish voice.

  I led her upstairs and as she inspected the rooms her face remained expressionless.

  “For how long do you need a flat?” I asked in an effort to get some facts established.

  “Difficult to know,” she answered vaguely.

  “Well,” I repeated, “this is only available for one week. Do you need long-term accommodation?”