Michael John put his head down to battle against the driving sleet, gripped the collar of his tweed overcoat tightly across his chest and trudged onwards towards Brady’s. He could hear the steady crunch under his heavy blackthorn boots on the gravelled bohereen.
The scrape and bite of the hob nails underfoot, gaining traction on the stone surface, reassured him as the swirling sleet stung his eyes.
Momentarily, he revisited the wisdom of making the two-mile walk on a night like this but knew that it was a better place to spend the next few hours. At home, the anxieties and racing thoughts would take over. He wanted to avoid that. “Maybe there’ll be a few rounds of cards before Seán closes up,” he thought.
Since Pakie died, three years ago now, Michael John lived alone in the outdated Land Commission cottage with its lime-green walls, the matching tall green-and-cream kitchen press with its two glass doors and sliding, pull-down worktop, the two rows of black and white tiles behind the kitchen sink.
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His bedroom was sparse, with its bare 40-watt bulb and flimsy patterned curtains billowing in the draughts around the condensation-prone window. The Stanley 8 was his only comfort but the smoke didn’t help, nor did the slow ticking wall-clock. It irked him, dividing time into artificial segments rather than allowing the slow continuum of life flow like a lowland stream. Then he could mark such notable moments as anniversaries, mart days, or Mass on Sundays, at his own choosing.
Michael John knew better than to respond. To strike the right retort at this stage could be difficult and leave him open to more stinging banter
Michael John had turned 60. Pakie was his older brother and Michael John always deferred to him in the way of younger siblings. Neither had married, both having tended the small farm and looked after their ailing parents, dutifully, until the end.
Then, one day he returned from the hay-barn and found Pakie facedown on the kitchen floor, the contents of a sugar bowl spilled across the red quarry tiles. There was a small touch of vomit drooling from the corner of his mouth. That was a tough time, with the wills and title to the lands still not resolved.
After Pakie’s death Michael John’s touchstone was gone. He had never been conscious of silence and loneliness before. He enjoyed the chatter and laughter of the neighbours’ children when they passed his gate but, without Pakie, the wiser counsel and daylong repartee was missing. To help escape his solitude, and inner turmoil, he had developed a routine of a few pints in Brady’s on Sunday nights.
He reached the main road. The sleet had turned to snow and lay in a thin, white fleece on the black-tarred roadway. His cheeks had now numbed and stiffened as if a cold steel mask had been clamped across his face. As he passed the graveyard he quickly blessed himself and promptly returned his hands to the warmth of his pockets. Only another half-mile and he’d be warmed again.
When he opened the door of Brady’s all six customers seated at the bar turned to him. “It’s Frosty the Snowman,” was a greeting. Michael John knew better than to respond. To strike the right retort at this stage, when the group was perhaps already on a theme as yet unknown to him, could be difficult and leave him open to more stinging banter.
He removed his cap, brushed the snow from his shoulders and folded his coat over a wooden barrel near the large open fire. He uttered a brief “evening all”, with a nod towards Seán that confirmed his usual was already on the way.
He let his mind drift with it into the depths of swirling oblivion unfolding through the freshly-filled porter
A warm comforting glow and the familiar peat-scent emanated from the embers on the hearth. The sepia-lit bar presented a balanced palette of chestnut-brown timber beams and deep-ochre wainscoting. The teak countertop, with its tawny golden-yellow swathes, complemented with bright brass fittings, all combined to present a comforting ambience in this cocoon of public refuge.
Brady’s was a pleasant place. In the way of most traditional public houses, its availability made a positive contribution to the weave of community fabric in this more remote, isolated corner of rural Ireland.
At first Michael John sat patiently at the counter in vacant contemplation of the freshly-filled pint, while he pondered the settling motion.
He let his mind drift with it into the depths of swirling oblivion unfolding through the freshly-filled porter, as before his eyes the creamy brown mesmeric miasma tumbled and rolled, churned and swayed, in a wave that filtered upwards through the glass and transmuted from the chaos of turmoil and turbulence to a stable settled, definitively proportioned black and white pint of stout – a metaphorical portrayal of his own disquiets and ultimate journey to serenity.
Though he had observed the same hypnotic transformation many times over, it never failed to impart an inner calm, as he reflected quietly on his own lonely turmoil for a moment. Consolation. Then, he lifted the glass to his lips, swallowed the first satisfying mouthful and reoriented his position on the barstool. That indicated his readiness to join the company.
John Tiernan is a retired Roscommon county manager. This is an excerpt from his recently published book, Tell Tale Townie, sales of which, to date, have raised almost €10,000 for Unicef’s Gaza Children’s Fund. Copies at john.d.tiernan@gmail.com
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