The valley folk knew that Dinny O’Shea’s wake was going to be a big one. As Dinny’s death was not a surprise, there had been time to organise the formalities. He’d been transported down to the town for the embalming, a decent coffin had been procured and all that remained was to prepare the cottage and buy in the necessaries for the wake.
It was decided to put Dinny in the coffin for the wake and not leave him on top of the sheets on his cot, purely as a space-saving consideration, for his was a very small cottage. He’d been dressed in his favourite suit and looked immaculate as he lay nice and comfy in his dark wooden box.
The cottage consisted of two rooms. There was a lean-to out the back which had served for Dinny’s ablutions, but that wouldn’t count for tonight’s do. The great outdoors would suffice as a receptacle for the processed alcohol. Dinny in his coffin was laid out on the table in the middle of the bedroom, with a few other sticks of furniture and chairs making the small room seem smaller. The single lightbulb was left on, swinging directly over Dinny’s corpse.
The refreshments were hardcore, the only nod at food being a few bags of crisps scattered on the living room table and a plate of ham sandwiches donated by a neighbour. The night’s conviviality was contained in the crates and crates of booze stacked around the walls. Everything else had been moved out of the room except for the traditional Irish settle.
Unsurprisingly, Jimmy Foley and Ned Liddy were the first to arrive. Ned had made a special effort for the occasion, notching up at least as many razor nicks on his face as Jimmy Foley, though Ned’s were festooned with pink toilet paper.
Ned’s excitement at the drink-till-you-drop party plan showed in the rest of his grooming too. He had plastered back his long, matted hair with Brylcreem and he looked like a washed-up beatnik with measles. When the rest of the boyos arrived and noted Ned’s decorations, Dinny was forgotten and the craic (fun) was on. Ned didn’t really understand their laughter, but he joined in all the same.
Jimmy Foley took up position on the seat and began ferreting about in the corner with the bottles but Paul came over, warned him off and threw a blanket over the pile. The priest had arrived to say a few words. The men shuffled unwillingly but obediently through to Dinny to hear what a fine and blessed fellow their absent host had been. The priest knew that if he was to drag it out, he’d have even more work to do on the stragglers in his flock, and on a personal level, he wanted to show that he was man of the world enough to know what tonight was really all about. A few Hail Marys and a can of Coke later, and the priest had departed breathing a sigh of relief. He was always nervous when there were no women about.
Tonight, there were very few, because Dinny had never had much to do with women. And so Dinny’s wake felt more and more like a bachelor’s party than the end of a life.
The boyos took up residence in the living room close to the crates, leaving Dinny to amuse himself in his bedroom. The room was filling up. Patty Sheahan was there, the whole Boon gang — Big Joe, Little Joe, Conal, Tommy, Eoin, Breda and Donal and Dinny Houlihan. So was Thady and Muiris Mór, Jimmy Breen and Mikey Coffey. Even Finbar Feneran had torn himself away from the pub to pay his last respects.
Little Joe Boon was telling a story about the day he’d been driving back to his farm, behind another car he didn’t recognise. The strange car had taken off down the narrow lane fronting Joe’s house, at the side of which his two sheep dogs were sitting. Joe watched in disbelief as the car deliberately swerved to run over the two dogs. Little Joe stopped, but the dogs were dead, so he took off after the vehicle which stopped some miles away on another farm. He hopped out of the car and confronted the man.
“Killed a couple strays in the road,” said the culprit, getting out of his car.
“Those weren’t strays, those were my sheep dogs,” Joe said.
“Not my problem,” said the man. “But it sounds like it’s yours.” And with that the stranger opened the boot and lifted out a shotgun lying on a blanket. Little Joe wisely decided not to make anything of it, though he did make a mental note of the place and the man’s face: this was business to be finished at a later date when the playing field would be more even.
The boyos looked deeply into their glasses. They all remembered those dogs.
“That pup was from the same litter as my dog,” said Jimmy Breen.
“Was that the pup from the same litter as that bitch who works in the bank?” shouted Patty Sheahan, and the assembled gang roared and filled up their glasses.
The stories went round and round, the volume got louder and louder, the glasses were clinking, the howls of laughter were a warm oasis in the drizzly black night. Darkness had already fallen for Jimmy Foley. In customary style he had already passed out on the settle in the corner, and the men were having difficulty reaching the crates, even after he fell off the seat and lay prone on the floor. Muiris Mór got a cheer when he put one of Jimmy Foley’s feet under each arm and dragged him through to join Dinny O’Shea in the next room.
The black night outside was punctured by the headlights of a car winding its way down the gravel lane to Dinny’s cottage. The lights were clearly visible through the tiny window of the living room, and Paul thought he’d better go and check on the newcomer’s identity: the arrival of a relative might require a sudden gear shift in the wake’s trajectory.
Sure enough, it was an old aunt of Dinny’s, somebody who hadn’t been seen in these parts for years, but who had a reputation for being extremely capable for a woman of her advanced years.
Paul shot back inside, warned the boyos to calm down, and promised to try to get rid of her as fast as possible. The lads hatched another plan while Paul helped the old lady out of her car. She entered the house and was greeted by a throng of desperately sad-looking locals. The whole house had a melancholy quietness to it, punctuated only by one of the boyos hiding behind his hand and appearing to sneeze. Paul introduced the old lady to everyone there, one by one, according to the custom.
“Remember Muiris Mór, from Gortnagreenane?”
“I do, I do, and how’s young Fionnuala, Muiris?”
“Just fine, a bonny girl now, I’d say, thank you.”
“I bet she is.”
Finally, she asked: “Now where’s young Dinny, may the good God bless his soul.” Paul ushered her through to the bedroom, where the light had been turned off and a single candle lit.
The coffin lid had been closed and the boys had laid Jimmy Foley on top, crossed his arms and neatened him up. The aunt gave a little gasp, and went up close saying a silent prayer, fingers clutching the cross around her neck. The boys crowded into the room behind her, not wanting to miss a single second of the action.
“If I didn’t know it was him, I wouldn’t have recognised the poor boy,” exclaimed the aunt turning to Paul.
The boys all started coughing at once.
“He doesn’t look well, God bless the poor cratur,” she said, putting two fingers to his cheek.
“He’s dead, ma’am,” said Paul.
Jimmy Foley breathed faintly.
“Oh look,” she said, “there’s a little bit of air in him.”
Paul pressed his hands together and agreed. “A little bit of air left in him yet, ma’am.”
Fortunately someone was retching violently and audibly outside the front door.
“Don’t trouble yourself any further,” Paul said to the old aunt, who allowed herself to be guided through to the living room and presented with a Coke. Someone had managed to retrieve a couple of serviceable ham sandwiches from the floor for presentation to the special visitor. The old aunt departed, the merriment in the small cottage reached fever pitch shortly thereafter and by three in the morning half the party had joined Jimmy Foley passed out wherever they happened to be positioned as the last swigs went down.
Others attempted the ride home. Muiris Mór never made it; he was found passed out in his car, which, after travelling some way in the opposite direction from home, he’d crashed into a ditch.
The hard men, Finbar Feneran, Ned Liddy and Jimmy Foley, returned home two days later, only when every drop of booze had been consumed according to Dinny O’Shea’s last wishes and objective: to turn his wake into the stuff of local legend.