The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland Read Free

Reeves,’ she intoned the names solemnly. ‘Riley, Romney, Rutledge. There’s no Rimble here.’
    â€˜I know Fred Rimble,’ Jim said. ‘Fred hates any sort of a show. The funeral would, of course, be private. That’s why it’s not in the papers.’
    â€˜We’ll send him a telegram then,’ Maggie insisted, ‘and a letter of sympathy. I’ll write it myself.’
    â€˜Of course,’ Jim agreed. ‘I’ll send the telegram this very morning. You go ahead and write your letter and I’ll post it for you during the lunch break.’
    At his office in the creamery Jim burned the letter. A week later he typed a reply using a fictitious Dublin address. The letter proved the best tonic Maggie ever received. It kept her out of bed for several weeks. When its effects wore off he did away with the other children pair by pair, the first by food poisoning, the second by a car accident and the third by fire. Indeed Fred Rimble himself had been lucky to escape the conflagration
with his life. The last proved to be a wise choice. Since the family home had been razed to the ground Fred was left without a permanent address.
    The deaths of the Rimble children had a profound effect on Maggie. She took to attending early mass on a regular basis. Regardless of the weather she never once opted out. She enquired daily after Fred but news was scant. He had, it was reported, left the country and taken up work in Australia.
    â€˜Too many memories in the home place,’ Maggie had observed when Jim informed her of Fred’s departure. ‘I imagine that if it were me I would do the very same thing,’ she said wistfully.
    Summer passed. Autumn russetted the leaves and the winds laid them out lovingly on the soft earth. Jim Conlon grew fat and content.
    â€˜There’s a shine to you lately Jim boy,’ Matt Weir told him one night.
    Then winter came and inevitably Maggie Conlon took to the bed. In spite of assurances from her own doctor and from a specialist she became convinced that she was suffering from cancer of the throat. She submitted herself to X-rays and to countless other tests. The net result was that there was no evidence whatsoever to show that there was the least trace of the dread disease of which she complained. The weeks passed and when no decline set in she became even more insistent that cancer had taken hold of her windpipe. To prove it she fell back upon a comprehensive repertoire of wheezes, many of them spine-chilling, others weak and pathetic.
    The contentment to which Jim Conlon had grown accustomed became a thing of the past. He lost weight. All the old tensions with some new ones in their wake returned to bedevil
him. He tried every ruse to rouse his mother but all to no avail. She became so morbid in herself that she made him go for the parish priest every week. When the last rites were administered she would close her eyes as if resigning herself to death. In the end Jim was driven to his wit’s end. One night he returned from the pub in what seemed to be a highly agitated state. In reality he was playing the last trump left in his hand.
    â€˜I’ve just had some dreadful news,’ he informed his mother.
    The lacklustre eyes showed no change nor did she adjust her position in the bed.
    â€˜Fred Rimble is dead,’ Jim told her.
    The news had the desired effect. At once she sat upright.
    â€˜How did it happen?’ she asked after she had crossed herself and begged God’s mercy on his soul.
    â€˜They say he died of a broken heart,’ Jim informed her.
    â€˜A broken heart!’ she exclaimed tearfully and wondered why she had never thought of this novel way out herself.
    â€˜That’s what they said,’ Jim spoke with appropriate sadness.
    â€˜Well it’s all behind him now the poor man,’ Maggie Conlon spoke resignedly. A few days later at Maggie’s insistence they had a High Mass said for Fred