Free The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland by John B. Keane Page A

son would be relayed back one way or another to Tom. They occasioned him many a smile. So John was like his grandfather, was he, the same grandfather who drank himself to death and mortgaged the farm up to the hilt, the same grandfather who couldn’t call on a shilling to bury the wife who died prematurely from shame. Tom had been forced to surrender the few pounds he had saved through his teens to buy a cheap coffin and have High Mass said for his mother. It had been a bitter lesson. His father had shamed him into putting up the money. He resolved immediately after his mother’s funeral that his financial standing would never be revealed to anybody again, not even to his wife. Oh she knew he had money and she might guess rightly that it was a tidy bit but in this respect she would be closemouthed because no matter how much she might crave after a
commodity her need for security outweighed all else. From the start she had wanted him to part with his money. First the curtains hadn’t been good enough, then the furniture, then the wallpaper and inevitably the house itself. He had always heard her out patiently. He would put her off with promises but as the years passed and he began to accumulate a little money he was able to boast that his frugality was paying off. In time she began to see that he had been right.
    â€˜Wouldn’t we be in a nice way now,’ he often told her, ‘if I had given in.’
    He had another son Willie, a subcontractor in England. A thrifty man was Willie. On the day of his departure Tom had handed him his fare and a ten pound note.
    â€˜If you have any sense,’ he warned him, ‘you’ll not break that note needlessly. Put it aside and soon you’ll have another to keep it company.’
    And how much had Willie today? Willie had plenty because he had listened. More important nobody but Willie himself knew how much Willie had. That was the trouble about possessing money. You might spend years saving it while your very own kin had no thought but to squander it while you’d say Jack Robinson.
    John Cutler’s attitude towards his parents changed dramatically after the confrontation. It had been his wont each night upon returning home from the pub to impart the latest gossip going the rounds and to give an account of the activities of the pub’s patrons if such activities warranted it. His parents looked forward to this nightly report, especially his father although he never commented, whatever the content. He enjoyed it all the more because it cost nothing. They would have retired before his arrival but the bedroom door would be
partly open in expectation.
    Now there was no communication between them. Tom and Minnie were not unduly worried. He had sulked before but had come out of it after a few days. This time it was to be different. Weeks went by and then months until Tom closed the bedroom door to show that he didn’t care. Around this time John started to grow careless about his appearance. Frequently too he came home drunk from the pub. Some mornings he was unable to rise for the milking. Minnie grew worried when she over-heard him talking in his room. She relayed the news to Tom who put it down to drink.
    â€˜Wasn’t I the wise man.’ he told her, ‘to hold on to what I had. Wouldn’t we be in a nice way now depending on a drunkard.’
    The rift became worse when John demanded an increase in wages.
    â€˜What do you want it for?’ his father asked curtly.
    â€˜I need it to keep pace,’ John answered patiently.
    â€˜To keep pace with what, the price of drink is it?’
    â€˜There’s more than drink gone up and well you know it. I need a new suit and a few shirts. My best shoes are beyond repair.’
    â€˜Wait till the fall of the year,’ had been Tom Cutler’s response. ‘I’ll know better where I stand.’
    â€˜And the rise?’
    â€˜I don’t see what you need a rise for