Setting: A thatched cottage somewhere in the west of Ireland.
It was January 1947… The Year Of The Big Freeze.
Scene: Nine years old Tim arrives home from school to find the kitchen of the little cottage divided by sheets slung across a cloths-line…something odd was happening behind the curtain. This is Tim’s story.
I pulled back the curtain and saw a coffin with a body sitting in it. That’s all I was allowed to see because the strong arm of my uncle Pat grabbed me and I was shoved into a corner and told to stay there. He told me ”Be quiet and do your homework.”
I was quiet but I didn’t do any homework, I couldn’t see what was going on but I had good hearing.
“We’ll never get him to lie down I tell you, he won’t lie flat” Murphy said.
“Maybe we could break his legs.” O’Sullivan suggested.
“You can’t go breaking his legs.” Casey said, “We must show some respect.”
“He wouldn’t feel anything, he’s dead.” O’Sullivan retorted.
“Maybe we should try a bigger rock, that one might be too light, what do you think?” my grandmothers voice.
“No it wouldn’t do any good, don’t matter what size rock we use, as soon as we put the weight on his knees he sits up. Using a bigger rock wouldn’t make any difference.” Murphy declared.
“We could lie him on his side, O’Sullivan suggested, but then he wouldn’t know which way to go, he mightn’t be able to turn around.”
“Don’t be silly, Dinny you can’t bury him on his side…Father Mack would have something to say about that.” They all agreed.
“We might have to do something like that.” Murphy reckoned. “It’s a pity we didn’t find him yesterday, before he froze to death. He could have died in a nice warm bed beside the fire and we wouldn’t have this problem.”
“The poor man was too proud to beg for shelter, I heard my grandmother say, he spent his life on the roads, he wasn’t one to live in any house, a hayshed was a grand hotel to poor Tom. We all know the story of the travelling people…Tom was the last of his kind.”
“Now we must give him a decent burial, he has no family of his own, we are all his family, and he was a more regular visitor than some of our own. A harmless little man carrying his basket filled with shoelaces and polish, matches and safety pins, he never asked anyone to buy his stuff, because it didn’t have a price, but we always needed something.” Grandmother continued.
“Now we must look after him, it’s our Christian duty.”
“We’ve got to get him to lie down in the coffin before we can think of burying him. Murphy insisted. “That rock is no good, it’s been on his knees for ages, we have to think of something soon, maybe we should break his legs, it might be the only way to get him to lie flat.”
“There’s no need to do anything so drastic.” I heard the voice of Mick Kelly, who had just arrived.
Mick is a man with the gift of knowing what to do…always. He was ready to help in any emergency and could be relied on to make the correct decisions.
“Thank God you’re here Mick.” Grandmother prayed. “We don’t know how to get him to lie down, he’s all stiff.”
“We need to cut the tendons behind his knees and with any luck his legs will lay flat.” Mick used his trusty Swiss Army Pocket-knife to slice the rigid tendons; the legs slowly sank under the weight of the rock and stayed down.
“It’s looking good, at least he’s lying down. I heard Murphy say but we still can’t the lid on…his head is sticking-up too high, I think we’ll have to do something about his hump.”
And once again Mick Kelly came to the rescue with a bright idea. He cut a section out of the coffin lid then he glued a pane of glass over the cutout.
Old Tom had a decent Christian burial after-all; hundreds of friends and people from all around the county came to see the old fellow laid to rest in a quiet corner of the cemetery, under a large oak tree.
His epitaph reads.
HIS LONG WALK IS FINALLY OVER
TOM DUFFY
LAST OF THE TRAVELLING PEOPLE
THE FIRST TO HAVE A COFFIN WITH A WINDOW
RIP