27 October 2008
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R. Linda:
Back in me native Ireland, Halloween is not celebrated like you find in the United States of America. No, indeed it is not. There are no lawns chock full of decorations enough to make the seasonal haunted house jealous, no instead perhaps you may find an old bed sheet that has a footy ball wrapped underneath it for a head, attached to a low tree branch, floating in the windy October weather. A jack o'lantern or gourd o'lantern here or there on a window sill, but not much else.
But one thing we do have, be spooky tales for a Hallows Eve or even a cold winter's night. Like this one, I be about to regale you with.
When I be a wee lad of seven I lived in the countryside on a run-down potato and sheep farm that me grandparents owned in Kildare. Me father was in the military service at the time, me Mam, sissy and meself lived instead with her parents on the old farm, until me Da came home and we moved back up to Newry in the North. The farm was a stark place, no landscaping like you see in the States, oh no, just old privet hedges here and there, but in the summer, me granny had the best veggie and flower garden you'd ever want to see. The adults would take tea out there in the afternoons, but seeing the old gardens in October, well there was no way to visualise such prettiness, no the garden had been turned under, the greenery long gone, the grass was always green year round, but not quite as green as in summer. This was Ireland you see, but there were always some grasses, longish swamp grass or bog grass as we called it, that turned to a reddish brown that co-mingles with the green, and the two combined made for an outlandish look, a look one might say that nature could not make up her mind whether to sleep or stick around.
The great black clods of soil and peat were a stark contrast against the tawny stucco of the cottage and thatch of the roof. An old lilac's branches scratched the side of the house when the wind gust and its spindly fingers tapped at me and me sister Sheila's window at the top of the house on windy nights as if saying it's too cold and wet, let me in! Yet in the springtime, the scent of the lilacs would perfume the air inside out. I missed the magic of the spring and summer and dreaded the fall and long dark winters, but I got through them as you can see by the fact that I be even writing this. Scenes like these would make us ripe for spooky stories, but snow was forecast and that, we told our grandda would put the damper on spookiness. We would be gathered round the peat fire on Halloween, and he had promised a spooky tale, we were sceptical, but he delivered.
He asked what we could see out our bedroom window. We said we could see some of the small village, the chimney tops from the upper bedroom mostly, particularly in the winter when the leaves were shorn of the trees, but more clearly than that, we could see the fine Catholic church, Saint Briget's with its ancient cemetery outlined starkly against the fall sky. Sheila and I found we could count the weathered tombstones from our window because the church was on a hill and stood out like a grey sentinel among the chimney tops. Among the blacked tombstones was one large vault. This vault was used mainly in the winter to house those who had the misfortune of passing on when the ground be too frozen to inter them. Into the vault, they'd be deposited until the spring when a proper burial would take place. This vault we could see very well from our vantage point and it gave Sheile and I the chills.
It did not help that me grandda told us many a tale of the inhabitants, alive and dead, mostly dead, who occupied the vault. But this snowy Halloween afternoon, he told us a tale of another snowy October that had to do with one particular occupant of the winter vault . . . alive or was he dead?
Well, that particular October was cold. Usually October be a mild month, but this one was unusually cold as the frost set in early, the leaves dropped off and the ground got hard with October coming in full vent like it does in other parts of the world, but still it was not the October the natives were used to. The people of the village got to their annual routine of putting up goods for the winter and settling in, in spite of the early cold. That early chill should have told them something was afoot.
Around the end of the month, the meanest man in the village, Ryan McCreedy dropped dead suddenly at the age of 92 of what else? Meanness of course. That was what everyone said. As it happened the ground was as hard as it gets in January and that meant old man McCreedy was destined to spend not only the fall but the winter months in the winter vault. The old ladies of the village said it was a fitting end and served him right it did, for being so miserly and mean.
A strange thing was coming, a snowstorm in October and it was heading in from off the ocean and it was a big one. The undertaker, William "Willie" McHugh knew he'd better get old man McCreedy over to the vault before the first flakes or he'd be stuck with the old geezer's corpse for longer than he wanted. McHugh looked over at the corpse he'd just prepared for internment and a chill went up his spine. Not something that comes often to an undertaker, but McCreedy was a mean-looking man in life and damn if he didn't look like Lucifer himself all pointy and sharp-featured in death!
McHugh called his assistant Paulie O'Keefe and they both looked at McCreedy then to the window.
"Why don't we just put em' outside," Paulie said, "Where he be goin' he'll just melt his way down."
McHugh laughed and then caught himself, "Because we don't want the devil up here looking fer em' so let's get moving before we get stuck out in that," McHugh pointed at the steady stream of fat flakes.
They slammed the metal casket shut, latched it or so they thought, and like two bungling old ladies they lifted the heavy metal coffin between them and shuffled on up the incline to the old lorry McHugh used for non-funeral events. The lorry made hauling off to the vault a lot easier than the hearse, and since it was old man McCreedy going to the vault, neither cared how he got there, in style or not.
Now mind you, this lorry was also used as a sort of ambulance. What it was being used for was determined by a magnet-type sign that adhered to the lorry door no matter which printed side was up. McHugh had forgotten he had the ambulance side on when he started on up the village's main street.
Mrs. McLaughlin was having tea with Mrs. Dalton when she saw the lorry slowly moving up the street. Her brow furrowed in confusion as she read the ambulance sign. She looked at Mrs. Dalton and said, "Bejayus me! You don't reckon old Ryan be still alive?"
"No, I don't think so dear, I do wonder if they left himself outside and frozen him up instead, might be what's happened." Mrs. Dalton surmised almost spilling her tea sideways as she craned her neck to watch the lorry drive by in the swirling snow.
McHugh drove on, big flakes had given flight to the small wet stuff that comes down like no tomorrow and it must have felt that way as the windscreen wipers scraped heavily against the icy flakes.
"Oh this is gonna be a bad un'," Paulie volunteered.
As they reached the cemetery, the snow was about a half-foot deep. The lorry gears ground in protest as McHugh jammed them into second and slowly made the hilltop where the vault was located. He had a great deal of trouble backing it up to the top of the vault where the trap door was. Paulie got out and guided the lorry in place. He opened the lorry's gate and slowly the two men pulled the metal casket which was now weighted down with almost a foot of snow towards the trap door. McHugh got the slings ready to lower the coffin but couldn't see for the snow. Once they had the casket on the slings, things were still not clear enough to see if they had it right or not.
"Paulie go in the back way and guide tis ting down will ya? I tink I can lower it slowly but you got to let me know when it's centred."
Paulie slid down the slope behind the vault and as he opened the backdoor the wind blew in and up causing the casket to swing before it dropped with a crash down below just missing Paulie's fingers, but hitting him in the head knocking him out and out of sight of McHugh. Unfortunately, the heavy casket broke not only the slings used to lower it, but the caisson below to hold it. The wooden caisson was nothing more than a pile of wood, but worse mean Ryan McCreedy was unceremoniously spilled from his coffin to a sitting position against the stone wall of the vault, directly opposite the unconscious Paulie.
McHugh took one look down, but all was dark and silent, and then over his shoulder at the lorry slowly rolling down the churchyard. In a muck sweat, he jumped up from his vantage point of looking into the vault to a run for all he was worth after the rolling lorry which was steadily picking up speed as it rolled backwards down the hill, clipping tombstones as it went.
Finally catching up to it he leapt for the open door, hung on somehow and with great difficulty manoeuvered his body to the other side and into the driver's seat, where he caught hold of the brake and managed to stop the lorry from any more damage to the churchyard.
Meanwhile, the wind had closed the trap door and slammed shut the back door below locking Paulie in with old man McCreedy. McHugh was licking his lips wishing for a pint, worried about the cost of the tombstones and so stressed he forgot about Paulie. Looking back seeing the vault shut up, he decided to make his way to O'Toole's Pub for a pint to steady his nerves and figure out what to do about the destruction.
Back at the vault, the wind was howling like a banshee around it. The snow had piled up to a foot and a half and was still roaring down. It was about this time that Paulie O'Keefe came to, his eyes adjusting to the dim light he realised he was face to face with the devil himself, one Ryan McCreedy, who sat staring straight at Paulie. With lightning speed, Paulie jumped up and shoved his weight against the back vault door to find it was shut by the build-up of snow and would not budge.
About this time, Mickie McGuire was on his way home from work at a woollen mill a village over. He had stopped at Doolin's Pub and had a few of what's good for you, before setting on home. On passing by the churchyard he happened to look up when he noticed the trap door to the vault open up and a ghostly figure in black rise up out of it, only to sink on back down through the trap door, the door slamming shut.
McGuire stood very still in the howling wind, the snow stinging his face, his mind was to get to O'Toole's for another pint quickly then one more rational thought took over as he wondered if Dr. McGee had made a hasty diagnosis and mean old McCreedy wasn't dead after all. With a shudder, he started off in the deep snow to O'Toole's for some comfort and peace of mind, which was to be found in a double Jameson straight up.
Donnie O'Toole noticed straight off something was amiss with McGuire. He inquired softly if there be some problem Mick wanted to share. Mick leaned into the bar top and whispered, "I just seen mean old man McCreedy climbin' outin' his vault at the cemetery."
Now Mick was not one to speak in a whisper, it be more a theatrical whisper it was. Mick was somewhat deaf from the machine noise at the mill, and so the other five patrons who had braved the storm for a pint or so, all overheard what he said to O'Toole.
Mick looked around at each one as they sat with drinks in mid-air, mouths agape. This was bad news as every single one of them owed the old geezer money and figured with him dead they were home free. Mick knew this and slugged down his whiskey.
With a sly grin, he looked at his mates, "If you'll hurry ya can stuff the old codger back in before anyone notices he ain't exactly dead."
McHugh realised he was quite alone by the time he was almost to O'Toole's. In a panic, he made a U-turn and headed back towards the churchyard to retrieve Paulie.
Paulie, in his panic that he had somehow died and gone to hell with McCreedy had used the overturned casket as a catalyst to lift himself up to the trap door and haul himself up and out, only to slip on the icy snow and fall backwards into the vault, the trap door slamming after him. This mishap was witnessed by the knackered and blurry-eyed Mickie McGuire, who's slow-moving brain deduced the figure he saw was one Ryan McCreedy the only dead person who would be in the vault at that time.
About fifteen minutes later, when Mick was well on his way to O'Toole's and McHugh had realised his mistake, Paulie had regained consciousness for the second time. He knew he couldn't get out of the vault, so to keep himself from freezing to death, Paulie, being an enterprising chappie, had gathered the wood from the broken caisson and seeing the sliver of icy light coming in from the trap door above, made himself a small fire to keep warm. He had also realised, once he calmed down and accepted the fact he was trapped in the vault and not actually in hell, that old man McCreedy was not actually staring at him. He had closed the old geezer's eyes and then righted the metal casket. With no ceremony whatsoever, he lifted McCreedy into the casket and this time made sure the hinges were set. Then he sat down to wait.
McHugh in his haste to get back to Paulie, who he was sure would be frozen meat and a corpse himself, missed the turn to the cemetery and he didn't realise his mistake until he was near out of town. He made another U-turn and as he backed the lorry up to straighten it, it bogged down and McHugh was stuck. Lucky for him, he had his shovel and this he put to use to unstuck himself.
At about the same time, O'Toole, McGuire and the motley five were at the cemetery gate looking up in the light cast by the snowy grey sky at the vault on the hill. Well, you can well imagine their chagrin at seeing smoke coming from the vault.
"I hope ye all went to service this morning," O'Toole said making the sign of the cross.
"Maybe we need faddah McManus,' Johnny Connor said, "Could be we need an exorcism."
"Not before I have another drink," McGuire said shakily.
No one needed to debate the issue, and with more agility than any of them had shown in a number of years, they all hoofed it back to O'Toole's.
As they were hoisting their twenty-third shot, McHugh had made it back up the churchyard. In almost waist-deep snow he trudged with shovel over his shoulder to the back of the vault. Then with as much muster as he could, he dug the snow from the back door.
Later back at the funeral palour, it took a long time to warm up Paulie O'Keefe. Paulie's chill was so bad he had a permanent chatter to his teeth from that day on. Once McHugh had Paulie settled and warming by the peat fire, he called Paulie's wife to come pick him up. He told her in detail what had transpired. Mary O'Keefe was a hard one she was, her comment to McHugh was, "Ya should've left himself there, probably be the highlight of his life it would."
And you know, it was.
It was in the wee hours of the morning when Father McManus stood at the back of the vault, bible in hand, squint-eyed at the open back door of the vault. The snow had filled in where McHugh had shovelled it out and all footsteps in the snow had been erased by the time the gang from O'Toole's had convinced Father McManus that they all saw McCreedy dancing around the cemetery.
I be sure they all believed it so bellied up in drink where the lot of them. Mick and Donnie had shovelled out the doorway and opened it wide for the good Father. Father McManus took a deep breath and walked in. There was nothing amiss, the wood fire had disintegrated to ash. There was no sign of the busted caisson having been consumed, only a latched metal casket.
"Look Faddah, ashes, the devil himself has been here, a clear sign it 'tis." This offered by Mick himself, hat in hand.
Well, a right fine exorcism took place that morn, and for all we know McCreedy was inside that casket grinning and laughing at the fools he knew the villagers all were. Me grandda said it was probably the only bit of joy he allowed himself in all his days.
After that, every time Sheila and I would look out our window at the vault, we got the chills we did.
Gabe
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