The Linnet's Wings | Page 21

WINTER ' FOURTEEN “Don’t drink too much,” said Da. “Stick to the stout, Cathal. Those shots you see the young ones downing would kill the quicks in a ditch, they would.” Da was practically a pioneer, a teetotaller. He rarely drank, except for the occasional hot whiskey made with Powers and administered as a medicinal nightcap or the obligatory case of MacArdles ale for Christmas. “Still can’t drink a pint of stout to this day,” said Da. “Our fella sickened me on it. Da and uncle Jemmy were divils for the drink, and me and Patsy got this idea that we’d see what all the fuss was about. I was fifteen, so that’d make Patsy sixteen. Me and our fella went to O’Hanlon’s bar in Mullaghbawn and got set up with a pint of the stuff each, and it went down a treat. And the great thing about the stuff was that it’d help you spin a yarn the length of your arm, not that our fella needs any help with that. So on we goes with the drinking not noticing how much we were having but the craic was ninety and we were having a great time of it, lit with the drink. “I see his face turn red as a turkey cock’s wattle and Patsy pukes his ring out all over the place. Doin it all in great style he was. Puked on people’s clothes, shirts, handbags, caps, the bar, tables, in people’s glasses – it was like a geyser. But it was the unexpected nature of this outpouring and unending voluminous quantity of the expectorant that must have gotten to me for the next thing I know I’m puking everything I’d drank up between my toes and I’m puking stuff I didn’t even know I’d eaten. I puked so much I puked air, so I did. “I had such a tumultuous time of it being sick, I made a compact with Patsy that we’d never touch the stuff again. And we were on our pledge for a week before we gave it another go. It took a few more times like that before I learned my lesson.” I laughed at that story of his until I had stitches in my side. “When the drink’s in the wit’s out,” I said. “Why is it you took over the farm and not Patsy?” Da didn’t answer for a long time. “Well, he was older and he’d left home, gone to London. I had to take it over. Da could hardly walk anymore with the arthritis. I had no choice. I was in my second year of apprenticeship as a stone mason and had to give it up.” I’d never heard him speak of this before and had never thought to ask about it until now. Da leaned on the shovel shaft and stared off into vacancy. “Cathal, I’ve always regretted not being a mason.” He took hold of the shovel and struck the point of a large piece of masonry from the old house that was obstructing the shore and would need to come out. “Shouldn’t let anything get in the way of your dreams, son.” He struck the shovel tip off the piece of masonry and listened to the ring of the steel. “It’ll have to come out.” He took the crowbar and wedged it into position and rocked the masonry. It was an unmistakable obstacle that would take the two of us a sizable amount of time to surmount. We wrestled at it for half an hour, an hour, even more. At times Da’s face was twisted in a rictus of exertion and, I thought, agony, but he did not stop and so I also did not stop. I pickaxed around the area to free it for movement and between the two of us we joggled it loose and it released into the bottom of the shore. We remained motionless and silent for a long time like the winner of a long distance race who has expelled all energy on the approach to the finish line. “That’s the goat’s toe,” said Da. [EXPLANATORY ASIDE] Note that I am neither a farrier nor a veterinarian and I cannot vouch for shod goats, particularly those with a penchant for wearing iron shoes, them being an equine-type creature with keratin exterior to the hoof, but it is believed by the author that the weighting of said phrase bears that of an exclamation The Linnet's Wings