Green Shadows, White Whale Part 16

"No!" Finn beamed. "Get out. Pub's closed. A wakel"

I followed them, glad to be silent myself.

"Even Christ," gasped Doone, mopping the sweat from his brow, "wouldn't climb down off the cross to walk on a day like this."

"The heat," said Mulligan, "is intolerable."

Coats off, they trudged up the hill, past the Kilgotten gatehouse, to encounter the town priest, Father Padraic Kelly, doing the same. He had all but his collar off, and was beet-faced in the bargain.

"It's h.e.l.l's own day," he agreed. "None of us will keep!"

"Why all the rush?" said Finn, matching fiery stride for stride with the holy man. "I smell a rat. What's up?"

"Aye," said the priest. "There was a secret codicil in the will-"

"I knew it!" said Finn.

"What?" asked the crowd, fermenting close behind in the sun.

"It would have caused a riot if it got out," was all Father Kelly would say, his eyes on the graveyard gates. "You'll find out at the penultimate moment."

"Is that the moment before or the moment after the end, Father?" asked Doone innocently.

"Ah, you're so dumb you're pitiful." The priest sighed. "Get your a.s.s through that gate. Don't fall in the hole!"

Doone did just that. The others followed, their faces a.s.suming a darker tone as they pa.s.sed through. The sun, as if to observe this, moved behind a cloud, and a sweet breeze came up for some moment of relief.

"There's the hole." The priest nodded. "Line up on both sides of the path, for G.o.d's sake, and fix your ties, if you have some, and check your flies, above all. Let's run a nice show for Kilgotten, and here he comes!"

And here, indeed, came Lord Kilgotten, in a box carried on the planks of one of his farm wagons, a simple good soul, to be sure, and behind that wagon, a procession of other vehicles, cars and trucks that stretched half down the hill in the now once more piercing light.

"What a parade," I said, but no one heard.

"I never seen the like!" cried Doone.

"Shut up," said the priest politely.

"My G.o.d," said Finn. "Do you see the coffin!"

"We see, Finn, we see" gasped all.

For the coffin, trundling by, was beautifully wrought, finely nailed together with silver and gold nails, but the special strange wood of it . . . ?

Plankings from wine crates, staves from boxes that had sailed from France, only to collide and sink in Lord Kilgotten's cellars!

A storm of exhalations swept the men from Finn's pub. They toppled on their heels. They seized each other's elbows.

"Fow know the words, Yank," whispered Doone. "Tell us the names"

I eyed the coffin made of vintage s.h.i.+pping crates and at last exhaled: "Good lord! There's Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Chateau Lafite Rothschild! Upside down, that label, Le Gorton! Downside up: La La-gune! What style, my G.o.d, what cla.s.s! I wouldn't so much mind being buried in burned-stamp-labeled wood like that myself!"

"I wonder," mused Doone. "Can he read the labels from insideT'

"Put a sock in it," muttered the priest. "Here comes the rest"

If the body in the box was not enough to pull clouds over the sun, this second arrival caused an even greater ripple of uneasiness to oil the sweating men.

"It reminds me of that wake," Doone murmured, "when someone slipped, fell in the grave, broke an ankle, and spoiled the whole afternoon!"

For the last part of the procession was a series of wagons and trucks ramshackle-loaded with French vineyard crates, and finally a great old brewery wagon from early Guinness days, drawn by a team of proud white horses, draped in black and sweating with the surprise they drew behind.

"I will be d.a.m.ned," said Finn. "Lord Kilgotten's brought his own wake with him!"

"Hurrah!" was the cry. "What a dear soul." "He must've known the day would ignite a nun, or kindle a priest, and our tongues out on our chests!" "Gangway! Let it pa.s.s!"

The men stood aside as all the vehicles, carrying strange labels from southern France and northern Italy, making tidal sounds of bulked liquids, lumbered into the churchyard.

"Someday," whispered Doone, "we must raise a statue to Kil-gotten, a philosopher of friends!"

"Pull up your socks," said the priest. "It's too soon to tell. For here comes something worse than an undertaker!" "What could be worse?" I blurted, then stepped back. With the last vehicle drawn up about the grave, a single man strode up the road, hat on, coat b.u.t.toned, cuffs properly shot, shoes polished against all reason, mustache waxed and cool, unmelted, a prim case like a lady's purse tucked under his clenched arm, and about him an air of the icehouse, a thing fresh born from a snowy vault, tongue like an icicle, stare like a frozen pond. "Jesus," said Finn. "It's a lawyer" said Doone. All stood aside.

The lawyer, for that is what it was, strode past like Moses as the Red Sea obeyed, or King Louis on a stroll, or the haughtiest tart on Piccadilly: choose one.

"It's Kilgotten's law," hissed Muldoon. "I seen him stalking Dublin like the Apocalypse. With a lie for a name: Clement! Half-a.s.s Irish, full-a.s.s Briton. The worst!"

"What can be worse than death?" I wondered.

"We," murmured the priest, "shall soon see."

"Gentlemen!"

A voice called. The mob turned.

Lawyer Clement, at the rim of the grave, took the prim briefcase from under his arm, opened it, and drew forth a symboled and ribboned doc.u.ment, the beauty of which bugged the eye and rammed and sank the heart.

"Before the obsequies," he said, "before Father Kelly orates, I have a message, this codicil in Lord Kilgotten's will, which I shall read aloud."

"I bet it's the Eleventh Commandment," murmured the priest, eyes down.

"What would the Eleventh Commandment be?' asked Doone, scowling.

"Why not: "Thou shalt shut up and listen,' " said the priest. "Shh."

For the lawyer was reading from his ribboned doc.u.ment, and his voice floated on the hot summer wind, like this: " 'And whereas my wines are the finest-' "

"They are that!" I whispered.

" '-and whereas the greatest labels from across the world fill my cellars, and whereas the people of this town, Kilc.o.c.k, do not appreciate such things, but prefer the-er-hard stuff-' "

"Who says!!" cried Doone.

"Back in your ditch," warned the priest, sotto voce.

" 'I do hereby proclaim and p.r.o.nounce,' " read the lawyer, with a great smarmy smirk of satisfaction, " 'that contrary to the old adage, a man can indeed take it with him. And I so order, write, and sign this codicil to my last will and testament in what might well be the final month of my life.' Signed, William, Lord Kilgotten."

The lawyer stopped, folded the paper, and stood, eyes shut, waiting for the thunderclap that would follow the lightning bolt.

"Does that mean," asked Doone, wincing, "that the lord intends to . . . ?"

Someone pulled a cork out of a bottle.

It was like a fusillade that shot all the men in their tracks.

It was only, of course, the good lawyer Clement, at the rim of the d.a.m.ned grave, corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and yanking open the plug from a bottle of La Vieille Ferme '49!

"Is this the wake, then?" Doone laughed nervously.

"It is not," mourned the priest.

With a smile of summer satisfaction, Clement, the lawyer, poured the wine, glug by glug, down into the grave, over the wine-carton box in which Lord Kilgotten's thirsty bones were hid.

"Hold on! He's gone mad! Grab the bottle! No!"

There was a vast explosion, like that from the crowd's throat that has just seen its soccer champion slain midfield!

"Wait! My G.o.d!"

"Quick. Run get the lord!"

"Dumb," muttered Finn. "His Lords.h.i.+p's in that box, and his wine is in the grave!"

Stunned by this unbelievable calamity, the mob and I could only stare as the last of the first bottle cascaded down into the holy earth.

Clement handed the bottle to Doone and uncorked a second.

"Now wait just one moment!" cried the voice of the Day of Judgment.

And it was, of course, Father Kelly, who stepped forth, bringing his higher law with him.

"Do you mean to say," cried the priest, his cheeks blazing, his eyes smoldering with bright sun, "you are going to dispense all that stuff in Kilgotten's pit?"

"That," said the lawyer, "is my intent."

He began to pour the second bottle. But the priest stiff-armed him, to tilt the wine back.

"And do you mean for us to just stand and watch your blasphemy?!''

"At a wake, yes, that would be the polite thing to do." The lawyer moved to pour again.

"Just hold it, right there!" The priest stared around, up, down, at his friends from the pub, at Finn their spiritual leader, at the sky where G.o.d hid, at the earth where Kilgotten lay playing Mum's the Word, and at last at lawyer Clement and his d.a.m.ned ribboned codicil. "Beware, man. You are provoking civil strife!"

"Yah!" cried everyone, atilt on the air, fists at their sides, grinding and ungrinding invisible rocks. "Yah!" I heard myself echo.

"What year is this wine?" Ignoring them, Clement calmly eyed the label in his hands. "Le Gorton, 1938. The best wine in the finest year. Excellent." He stepped free of the priest and let the wine spill.

"Do something!" shouted Doone. "Have you no curse handy?" "Priests do not curse," said Father Kelly. "But Finn, Doone, Hannahan, Burke. Jump! Knock heads."

The priest marched off, and the men and I rushed after to knock our heads in a bent-down ring and a great whisper with the father. In the midst of the conference the priest stood up to see what Clement was doing. The lawyer was on his third bottle.

"Quick!" cried Doone. "He'll waste the lotl"

A fourth cork popped, to another outcry from Finn's team, the Thirsty Warriors, as we would later dub ourselves.

"Finn!" the priest was heard to say, deep in the heads-together. "You're a genius!"

"I am!" agreed Finn, and the huddle broke and the priest hustled back to the grave.

"Would you mind, sir," he said, grabbing the bottle out of the lawyer's grip, "reading, one last time, that d.a.m.ned codicil?"

"Pleasure." And it was. The lawyer's smile flashed as he fluttered the ribbons and snapped the will.

" '. . . that contrary to the old adage, a man can indeed take it with him He finished and folded the paper, and tried another smile, which worked to his own satisfaction, at least. He reached for the bottle confiscated by the priest.

"Hold on." Father Kelly stepped back. He gave a look to the crowd who waited on each fine word. "Let me ask you a question, Mr. Lawyer, sir. Does it anywhere say there just how the wine is to get into the grave?"

"Into the grave is into the grave," said the lawyer.

"As long as it finally gets there, that's the important thing, do we agree?" asked the priest, with a strange smile.

"I can pour it over my shoulder, or toss it in the air," said the lawyer. "As long as it lights to either side or atop the coffin when it comes down, all's well."

"Good!" exclaimed the priest. "Men! One squad here. One battalion over there. Line up! Doone!"

"Sir?"

"Spread the rations. Jump!"

"Sir!" Doone jumped.

To a great uproar of men bustling and lining up.

"I," said the lawyer, "am going to find the police!"

"Which is me," said a man at the far side of the mob. "Officer Bannion. Your complaint?"

Stunned, lawyer Clement could only blink and at last, in a squashed voice, bleat: "I'm leaving."

"You'll not make it past the gate alive," said Doone cheerily. "I," said the lawyer, "am staying. But-" "But?" inquired Father Kelly, as the corks were pulled and the corkscrew flashed brightly along the line. "You go against the letter of the law!" "No," explained the priest calmly. "We but s.h.i.+ft the punctuation, cross new T's, dot new I's."