Spilt Wine by Michael Walsh

Author:Michael Walsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Michael Walsh
Published: 2017-10-03T14:17:30+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Wednesday 16 April 1986

David and Catherine arrived in Louhans a quarter hour before the service was scheduled to begin, and they walked down the centre of the church to a pew half a dozen rows from the front and sat next to the aisle. There were few others there yet, but soon by ones, twos and small groups, the number increased.

“That must be them, the family,” she whispered, squeezing his arm and nodding lightly toward the small group; five silver-haired women in black, being ushered to seats in the front row. “I’ve not met her, but you can see the resemblance in her mother — that has to be her mother.” She continued to whisper, “Those look like aunts, at least two of them do, the other two, I don’t know.”

“I don’t see any young people in the group,” David whispered back. “Sitting somewhere else? Maybe not here yet.”

“She told me she had only two brothers, both killed when they were barely out of their teens with the army at Dien Bien Phu. She had no sisters. Shhh, it’s starting.”

David sat back and watched the familiar ceremony. One of his frequent duties as an altar boy had been to serve at funerals. It was voluntary, but Grandmother had expected I always volunteer — I was the second son, destined for the priesthood.

He mused. The dreadfully mournful Catholic funeral is in such contrast with the Irish wake. One is a long drawn-out and structured downbeat ceremony, full of symbolism and often accented by a voice or two that could be recruited at short notice midweek to sing some dirges off key with a few trills and warbles in an attempt to disguise the lack of talent. The other is a celebration of life. What the Hell have religions done? His thoughts were interrupted by movement in the aisle.

As he watched the censer being swung back and forth on a slow circuit of the casket, he wondered if this priest would crash it into a corner and spill a glowing piece of charcoal onto the lacquered finish and start melting into it, like Father Lafitte had done so many years before. Nope, this censer has completed its circumnavigation unscathed.

As the priest droned on, David thought of later funerals he had attended. Those of retired Air Force and Navy friends or colleagues. So often he had gone to their retirement parties just a year or two or three before. They had made no plans for after retirement. Retirement was their plan, and they worked toward it, counting down the years, then the months, then the days to the big moment. They died of apparent boredom in their mid-fifties, early sixties.

David mused that musing like this was how he survived the church ceremonies he had been forced to attend. The Masses, the Vespers, the funerals, the weddings, oh, yes the weddings, they were the only ones I liked. He had volunteered for as many as he could. They were normally on Saturday mornings, and he could fit them in after delivering the Times and before heading out with the Star Weekly.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.