The Toynbee Convector

“It has been left, no doubt, to some damn lank drift-about cousin or nephew, corrupted by Borne, driven mad by Paris, who’ll jet in tomorrow, who’ll seize and drink, grab and run, and Kilcock and us left beggared and buggered on the road behind!” said Doone, all in one breath.

“Aye.” Their voices, like muffled dark velvet drums, marched toward the night. “Aye.”

“There are no relatives!” said Finn. “No dumb Yank nephews or dimwit nieces felling out of gondolas in Venice, but swimming this way. I have made it my business to know.”

Finn waited. It was his moment now. All stared. All leaned to hear his mighty proclamation.

“Why not, I been thinking, if Kilgotten, by God, left all ten thousand bottles of Burgundy and Bordeaux to the citizens of the loveliest town in Eire? To us!”

There was an antic uproar of comment on this, cut across when the front doorflaps burst wide and Finn’s wife, who rarely visited the sty, stepped in, glared around and snapped:

“Funeral’s in an hour!”

“An hour?” cried Finn. “Why, he’s only just cold—”

“Noon’s the time,” said the wife, growing taller the more she looked at this dreadful tribe. “The doc and the priest have just come from the Place. Quick funerals was his lordship’s will. ‘Uncivilized,’ said Father Kelly, ‘and no hole dug.’ ‘But there is!’ said the Doc. ‘Hanrahan was supposed to the yesterday but took on a fit of mean and survived the night I treated and treated him, but the man persists! Meanwhile, there’s his hole, unfilled. Kilgotten can have it, dirt and headstone.’ All’s invited. Move your bums!”

The double-wing doors whiffled shut. The mystic woman was gone.

“A funeral!” cried Doone, prepared to sprint.

“No!” Finn beamed. “Get out. Pub’s closed. A wake!”’

“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 hell’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 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,” sighed the priest “Get your ass through that gate. Don’t fell in the hole!”

Doone did just that. The others followed, their faces assuming a darker tone as they passed 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 God’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, trucks that stretched half down the hill in the now once more piercing light.

“What a procession!” cried Finn.

“I never seen the like!” cried Doone.

“Shut up,” said the priest, politely.

“My God,” said Finn. “Do you see the coffin?”

“We see, Finn, we see!” gasped all.