Celebrated Letters of John B. Keane, page 18
The only news of importance is that the postmistress’s niece, Sister Gabrielle, is spending a few days holiday with her beloved auntie. At night the pair sit in the kitchen and Katie reveals all that there is to be known about the fortunes of the people of the postal district of Ballyfee. To the casual listener it sounds as if a litany is being recited with the nun offering short responses every so often. What she is really doing is egging Katie on when she hesitates before the juicier parts of her revelations. She does not steam the letters open any more except on very rare occasions. Very seldom indeed do I come across a bum-flattened epistle these days. Every second house in the district has a telephone and all she has to do is listen. Sometimes, in an effort to catch her out, the party at the other end of the line might ask: ‘Are you there Katie?’
Her answer to this is: ‘You wouldn’t be on the line you fool if I was elsewhere.’
She misses nothing although she was nearly poisoned lately when she copied a cure for flatulence on to her pad. She keeps the pad handy when she is reciting for Sister Gabrielle. She looks to it for cues whenever she falters in the middle of a tale. The cure for flatulence consisted of a large dose of Cascara Sagrada mixed with boiled rhubarb. The whole thing was a set up by a pharmacist’s assistant working in Cork who happens to be doing an on-and-off line with a local flier. Otherwise she’s a lovely girl in every way. It just so happens that some women are born cold, others warm and a rare few hot, a very necessary and sobering few for the survival of the sanity of that awful conglomerate known as the human race. Anyway our man was one night talking to the flier whose name I won’t mention, not because I’m a gentleman or anything but because in my heyday I had a great appreciation for this type of young lady. While he was talking Katie was listening. Our man was at his most persuasive when our friend the flier expressed reluctance about spending a weekend in Cork. Our man reminded her of past joys and was becoming most elaborate in this respect when Katie cut him off without warning. She has her limits.
Our friend was thus forced to make the long journey to Lisnacoo. His timing was wrong so he returned to Cork unappeased. While in Lisnacoo the flier informed him of Katie Kersey’s doings and let it fall into the bargain that Katie was a chronic burper sounding off like a bullfrog as I can personally verify from one end of the day to the other. During the course of the flier’s next phone conversation with the pharmacist’s assistant she asked him if he knew of a cure for flatulence intimating that her grandmother was a martyr to this noisy malady. The pharmacist’s mate then related the cure which he said was prescribed for Rose Kennedy by a Harley Street specialist.
Subsequently in the course of the morning between the hours of nine-thirty and twelve Katie Kersey paid a record number of nineteen visits to the toilet and did not quite make it on two.
They sit now at night herself and the saintly Sister Gabrielle while Katie recounts the broken engagements, the cross-Channel abortions, the infidelities, the lusts and longings, the ups and downs of the Ballyfee subscribers and others further afield.
You may ask why people don’t report her. The answer, of course, is that they might be saddled with worse and anyway what harm is she doing. There are meaner ways of getting one’s kicks and but for the nun and I daresay a few of her cronies in the convent no one knows a damned thing. Another reason is that only part of what she hears is true and the young bucks of the parish have a habit of inventing unlikely tales for her titillation and their own amusement in the long winter nights. One day the parish priest’s housekeeper might be pregnant, a woman of sixty-three, another it might be the reverend mother of some convent. True or false Katie would absorb all and relate all to the nun.
Katie is also probably the last of her kind. Her likes were as common as bogwater and I starting out but now for better or for worse they are gone from the scene. Reasons? Today people prefer to live their own lives. In Katie’s heyday in rural Ireland for the want of fulfilment and involvement they were forced to live other people’s lives. It was that or go nuts. Only once ever did I see her lose her control. There’s a fishing village about seven miles from here with a crowd of resident trawlermen who would do anything for diversion when the weather is unfit for fishing. One night they coaxed a Spanish colleague into making a phone call to Katie announcing that he was the new Papal Nuncio, Doctor Elbrigandi. Katie burped in surprise into the mouthpiece to be informed in broken English by Doctor Elbrigandi that she was being excommunicated for farting. Involuntarily she spluttered back with injured innocence that she was a burper not a farter but by this time the Spaniard had hung up on her.
I’ll close now as I have to tie a few minnows for Sunday’s fishing. I have never lost so many. The river gets dirtier and snaggier every season and I often wonder how the salmon come upriver at all. You’ll be for Malta one of those days. Send a card if you think of it and while you’re at it will you engage in an act of charity and send one to Miss Nance Nolan, Sradbally Lower, Ballyfee. Don’t sign your own name. Just sign it ‘The Knight of Malta’.
As ever
Your oul’ segocia
Mocky Fondoo
***
Sarsfield Mews
Upper Shoe Street
Cork
Dear Mocky
A thousand thanks for your letter and for the twelve good rules as Shakespeare said when referring to the game of Goose. Your advice should be pinned up in every post office in the country. What you wrote came to mind only last Thursday. I was delivering a seed catalogue to a farmer when his daughter chimed in and asked me to stay for a drop of tea. She asked me if I liked griddle bread and I said I adored it which is the honest to God truth. Every day since there is a cup of tea and a few slices of freshly made griddle bread waiting for me around lunchtime. Lately she has taken to adding a nicely boiled fresh egg. I can handle her, however. Make no mistake about it. By the way lest I forget. You said nothing about dogs in your list. Already I’ve received two bites and was lucky to escape without several more. Every good wish to you and yours.
Sincerely
Frank O’Looney
***
Sradbally Lower
Ballyfee
Dear Mocky Fondoo
Bad cess to yourself and Katie the Steamer for the robbin’ thieves that the pair of ye are. That’s a great postboy is Micky Monsell that does the other route. There’s no fear he passes a door. An I payin’ Cronin the butcher yesterday for rack chops and buyin’ a bit of boilin’ that decent postboy lifted his cap and bade me the time of day. But I’m easy now about yourself or Katie for who should write to me only the Knight of Malta himself. You dassent interfere with royal post like that. Maybe now you’ll give the rest and spare me the bother of writin’ to the minister. No wonder Katie does be smilin’ and talkin’ to herself and she sittin’ on her rump in the chapel with her leather coat and who paid for your one’s trip to America?
Nance Nolan
***
The Ivy Cottage
Lisnacoo
Ballyfee
Dear Kitty
I am indeed sorry to report that there is no sign of a letter from Jack, registered or otherwise in this post office. The first light day’s post I get in the coming week I’ll call to Sradbally but maybe you’ll have news before that. I hope the matter will be straightened out by then. If not I shouldn’t worry. The postal system is not foolproof and a genuine mistake may have been made.
Your friend
Mocky
***
The Ivy Cottage
Lisnacoo
Ballyfee
Dear Frank
You’re not a month on the job yet and already you have broken one of my most important instructions. Don’t ever forget that I am fifty years at this caper. You say you can handle this farmer’s daughter who has the griddle bread and boiled eggs waiting for you every day. That griddle bread and those boiled eggs must be paid for and if you’re not careful my cocksure friend you’ll find yourself picking up the tab. What amuses me is your belief you can handle her. You will find to your cost if you’re not careful that it’s a lot easier to handle nitroglycerine. Can’t you see she’s spinning a web made of eggs and griddle bread, a web from which there is no escape once you tangle with the weakest strand? I know the pattern like the back of my hand. Next thing now you’ll be getting trifle or roasted apples or semolina pudding on top of the eggs and griddle bread or maybe you have a preference for something special like apple tart and cream or mandarin oranges. Have no worries. She’ll find out what it is and that will be another strand around your throat. Can’t you realise you’re walking a tightrope? Give yourself a chance, before you settle down, to wear the arse off one pair of pants at least. Remember what I said in my letter. Never take tea under the same roof two days in a row. Yet here you are taking tea and more besides in spite of all my warnings.
So you’ve been bitten by dogs. Will you tell me which postman has not? Every one of us must adopt his own strategy for dealing with this menace. No two dogs are alike but every dog, behind the facade of viciousness, is a coward. My predecessor, Willie Liddy, was badly bitten by a mongrel cow-dog on his first day out. Willie was anything but a patient man. After the bite he ignored the dog and went looking for its master. When he found him he left the impression of a size eleven boot on the fellow’s behind.
‘If that dog bites me again,’ Willie warned him, ‘you’re a dead man.’
The dog never bit him again.
In this business it is wrong to blame the dog. The master or mistress must always be held to blame. My colleague Micky Monsel who delivers in the northern half of the district is nicknamed Dogmeat for the simple reason that dogs will not leave him alone. Wandering curs recognise him when he’s off duty and single him out for attack. In uniform he has no peace at all. For some years now he wears wellingtons to protect his calves and ankles from the fangs of his tormentors. Certain postmen are unfortunate in this respect. Some aspect of their appearance, attitude or manner seems to bring out the worst in otherwise well-behaved dogs. Even suave, elderly, well-bred dogs with pedigrees are transformed into snarling savages the moment Dogmeat Monsell lifts the latch on the gate where they stand with innocent faces looking as if the last thought in their heads was the biting of a postman. Approval and welcome are written all over them. They are the types of dog one instinctively pats on the head, dogs with honest, good-natured faces, faces that inspire trust and confidence. Yet the moment Dogmeat turns his back a terrible transformation takes place. Dogmeat has a theory that people use postmen as guinea pigs in order to turn harmless curs into watchdogs.
With me it’s different. I like dogs and get on fairly well with all types. Occasionally I meet an exception but I have a prearranged strategy for dealing with these. I look them in the eye until they skulk off with hangdog looks. There are rare occasions when this does not work and when one meets a really nasty mongrel the owner must be confronted and told that until such time as the dog behaves deliveries must be suspended. With some dogs I have struck up lasting friendships and these follow me on my route until the domain of another dog is reached. Here I am handed over to the dog in charge who in turn will escort me to the bailiwick of the next dog. Often I have been attacked for no reason by pairs of dogs and on occasion by packs of three or four. The exercise here is to isolate the ringleader and concentrate all your energies on him.
However, no matter what precautions a postman may take there is no guarantee of immunity. Alas all the suspicion and mistrust is on one side. It is in the nature of a dog to express hostility towards callers but especially towards postmen so it has to be the uniform.
‘But,’ you may say, ‘has not a Civic Guard a uniform?’
He has but he also has a baton and whatever a dog may do it is not likely he will attack a man who has a weapon. More important, owners see to it that their dogs are on their best behaviour whenever a Civic Guard calls around so we may conclude that the owner is every bit as cunning as the dog. I am firmly of the belief that there should be some sort of compatibility or competence test before a person is allowed to take charge of a dog because I have often found that there is more animal in the man than there is in the dog. Often too a sensitive dog can read his master’s face and upon seeing worry or fear inscribed thereon, because of the impending visit of a postman, may foolishly presume that the postman is an enemy. Those who receive letters every day take letters for granted but a man who never receives a letter has good reason to fear one when it is delivered unexpectedly. Of course there is a chance in a million that he may have inherited money. More likely, however, it is a bill or some other request for money from friends or relations. Just as in newspapers and other forms of the communications media there is more bad news than good news in letters. Therefore, to the one-letter-a-year man the postman has to be the bearer of bad tidings. He may avoid the Civic Guard or the process server by the simple expedient of skipping out the back door and spending his day in the wilds until danger has passed. He cannot do this with the postman because there is always the outside chance that the letter may contain good tidings or because of the million to one chance that it may contain news of a legacy. While hope keeps springing in the human breast there is always the possibility that news of a legacy may spring from the postman’s bag.
That’s all for now except to issue a final warning. Better men than you were collared by tea and griddle bread.
As ever
Mocky Fondoo
PS It wasn’t Shakespeare who referred to the twelve good rules and the royal game of Goose. It was Oliver Goldsmith, the same man who referred to every fool in the countryside from swain to parson but made sure to say nothing about the postman. We have accounts of cripples, schoolmasters, spendthrifts, geese and watchdogs but no mention of you know who.
M. F.
***
Templebawn
Ballyfee
Dear Mister Fondoo
I hesitates ere I writes to you as my matter is most private. I was expecting a small parcel with special goods in it which has not come. As it was medicine would you treat it with care and not open it don’t all the good go out of it.
Your sincere friend
Catriona Cooney (Mrs)
***
Sradbally Upper
Ballyfee
Dear Mocky
I cannot thank you enough for calling and for your kind offer. I have written to my mother for help. She’s fairly well off. I’m certain that Jack is in hospital somewhere suffering from loss of memory. I have written to the parish priest of his district and to a few other people I know. It’s a bit too soon to notify the police. There were other times when a few weeks went by without hearing from him and once a month passed without my getting a copper. It was the time he hurt his leg. The letter you brought the last day was unsigned. It was from someone in the neighbourhood who seems to know an awful lot about me and about Jack. It was a dirty letter. Thanks again for all your help. I hope we hear from Jack soon as I’m getting really worried.
Yours sincerely
Kitty Norris
***
The Ivy Cottage
Lisnacoo
Ballyfee
Dear Hamish
I don’t know where to begin.The news has been piling up. The latest is that the last of the Burley sisters has married into another big farm west of Lisnacoo to a bachelor wild by the name of Jack Silky who is up to the top of his two hairy ears in debt. The Burley lady had the money, however, and the mystery here is where she came by it and indeed where did her sisters come by it for the four of them are married into the biggest farms in these parts. Many is the registered letter I delivered to their mother across the years but what could be inside I asked myself except a few pounds at most. The Burleys you see were illiterate and spent most of their growing years avoiding the classroom. Where then did they make the thousands when all that any of them spent in London was two years?
For me the mystery was solved the other night in the ‘Lisnacoo Elms’ when the last of the Burleys stood me a drink the night before the wedding, slipped me a fiver too and thanked me for the faithful way I had delivered her earnings to the mother. She was half drunk and as the night wore on she grew drunker still.
‘You did well in England,’ I said cautiously.
‘Better than I’d ever do here,’ she said.
‘Were you in service?’ I asked.
‘You might say I was,’ she replied with a smirk.
I smirked as well but I kept my mouth shut.
‘The Burleys mightn’t be able to work the brain so good,’ said she proud as you please, ‘but they makes up for it by working the other thing.’
I got the message but I feigned ignorance. She sighed at my innocence.
‘What I often gave away here,’ said she, ‘for a fist of gooseberries or a fag I gets a score of notes for over there.’
On the tragic side there’s a lovely woman living in Sradbally Upper. Her name is Kitty Norris and it would seem that her husband has deserted her. I think the truth may be dawning on her at last. She has also been receiving anonymous letters from a gentleman in the area. I think I may know who he is. He fakes the writing but it isn’t easy to pull the wool over the eyes of a postman.
Jack Norris was always a bit of a playboy. He gave up a good job here to go to England where he said the pickings were better. How any man could leave a woman like Kitty Norris is beyond me. I fear he has taken up residence with another woman which, alas, is not an uncommon practice with those who leave their wives behind when they go abroad. The trouble is that there was no need for Jack to go. He seems now to have deserted poor Kitty and from here on she will be dependent on her mother for the bite and sup or any other charity which might come her way. What a fall this is for a proud and lovely girl. I remember when she first came to Sradbally Upper as a young bride. She brightened the kitchen with her blushes and the countryside with the sound of her voice. What madness possesses grown men to forsake such beauty?
