An Irish Christmas Feast by John B. Keane

Author:John B. Keane [Keane, John B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Short Stories, Short Stories (Single Author), Fiction
ISBN: 9781616084301
Publisher: Mercier Press
Published: 2011-10-01T12:44:17+00:00

The Best Christmas Dinner

As Wally Pooley cycled through the countryside his faith in the goodness of his fellow humans began to waver. Wally had not eaten a bite in twenty-four hours. Hard to imagine, he thought, that the great festival of Christmas is not yet over and still there are men and women who turn the needy and the starving away from their doors.

Wally had expected the spirit of Christmas to burgeon rather than diminish as the prescribed Twelve Days slowly expired. The feast of the Epiphany, due to fall on the morrow, would see the sacred period draw to its official close and that would be that, Wally exclaimed bitterly to a fettered donkey which sought in vain for grass or vetch or any form of sustenance along the inhospitable margins of the roadway.

In many ways you and I are alike Mister Donkey, Wally concluded as he pedalled laboriously uphill; we search, often fruitlessly, for the fill of our bellies while the less worthy grow fat behind closed doors. It never occurred to him that it might be his calling that gave rise to the hostility he had experienced since setting out from his tiny house that morning. Then there was the indisputable fact that he was a townie, and townies, let them be saints in their hearts, were always suspect when they ventured into the countryside.

Wally Pooley was a process server with ultimate responsibility to the minister for justice although it is doubtful if the minister in question had ever exchanged the time of day with Wally or with any other process server, such was the gap that existed between the upper echelons of the ministry and the lower ranks.

Strictly speaking Wally was not obliged to serve summons until the Christmas period had passed but the pangs of hunger which had assailed him since he set out that morning might well not be assuaged until the processes were delivered and the affidavits of service signed. Then and only then would remuneration for his labours be forthcoming from the lawyers who employed him in the first place although in this instance there was only one lawyer, J. P. Holligan.

Before setting out that morning Wally had phoned his employer and acknowledged the several processes which he had received by post several days before Christmas, processes which should have been delivered immediately after their arrival but, as Wally pointed out to J. P. Holligan, he just did not have the heart to inflict so much misery on his fellow human beings with Christmas just around the corner. The truth of the matter was that Wally had been unable to rise from his lonely bed to admit the postman who would have been well acquainted with Wally’s ways. When his knock failed to draw an immediate response the postman simply stood on his toes and dropped the mail through the partially opened window of Wally’s bedroom. As the letters drifted downwards Wally cursed his companions of the night before, drunken wretches every one, who would not hear of his departure while he had the price of a round left in his pocket.

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