All Hallows' Eve
This was the evening
she swept out the hearth.
I helped,
sort of.
Once clean,
and perfect to her discerning eye,
(milky white, though the light behind them
was sharp and never dimmed),
she would set bread,
(brown soda always),
and salt
before the banked flames.
"For the visitors",
she would say,
whenever I asked,
as I did,
annually.
Her breath whistling
half heard prayers
she would go then
from room to room
straightening cushions,
flicking tables with tea-cloths,
to clear the last vestiges of dust from surfaces so well polished with age and use
they gleamed.
"The house should be clean when they call", she would say.
We would have tea then.
Waiting.
Sometimes she had cake or a ginger snap, (dunked to soften it for dentures.)
I had cake too.
Then she would sit in her stiff backed chair
in front of the fire.
Waiting.
I would sit beside her,
sometimes in the big green armchair
slowly sinking into the old feather filled cushions, so big my feet swung.
More often,
I perched on the stool
beside her chair
where I could watch the TV
with her.
But not this evening.
This was always different.
No RTE news.
No Crossroads.
No Coronation Street's plaintive trumpet.
Just sitting together
in the quiet.
Waiting.
Tonight there would be
just the fire,
and the bread,
and the salt
left out,
blessed and prayed over
and freely given
for the guests,
whenever they would come.
And then she would talk about them.
All of them.
Her mother and father, her aunts and uncles, and tales of Dublin so long ago
it seemed they should begin with
"Once upon a time!"
Her grandmother got special mention,
"They called her a sharp woman, wise, brought in for birth and death you know, she had the understanding", she would say,
and then say no more for a while.
Sometimes,
she would speak in a different voice,
reserved only for him,
of my grandfather Martin,
her husband,
gone an age ago to me,
but still so present to her heart;
and then her eye
looking across the flames
at faces I could not see
would bring to mind all those others too
who had already gone...
and she would go quiet.
"Where had they gone?"
I would ask.
"Home"
she would simply say.
But tonight,
they would visit.
Once,
just once,
it made me nervous to think of it.
She laughed then.
"Nervous of the dead?"
"Don't be silly."
"Aren't they family?"
"Aren't they friends?"
"Don't they pray for us!"
"Don't we pray for them?"
"You can fear the living," she would say,
a sharp smile playing about her wrinkled eyes, "but never the dead."
"A Christian never has to fear the dead."
"Sure don't we have the Blessed Virgin and all the saints around us too."
Then she would take my hand
and we would just sit.
Waiting.
She praying...
I wondering...
Feeling the wrinkled warmth
of her
loose skinned hand.
Safe.
Then she would say
it was time to go home.
So I would go then across the green.
Home to parties
and noise
and black bag wearing,
apple bobbing,
door knocking,
sparkler waving,
"Help the Halloween party!"
roaring fun.
Sometimes I would think of her.
Sitting in front of the fire.
Waiting.
But mostly I didn't.
Until the morning;
All Saints Day.
Off to Mass, a day off school too.
Then,
in the afternoon
I would drop over.
To find the telly on,
the chair turned now to face it once again,
The bread gone,
salt scattered to bless the house and garden.
"It's Richard, Gran!" I'd shout.
And I would hug her and tell her all about it;
the parties and the sweets, and the things we called wine-apples because we didn't know what a pomegranate was,
and the lady who always gave rotten Brazil nuts you couldn't crack,
(Christmas left-overs we were sure!),
and she would laugh and make the tea,
and we would sit again
side by side
and wait for "The Two Ronnies"
and then
I would remember and ask,
(During the ads of course)
"Did they come."
"Oh yes," she would say,
"They always come."
"What do you do when they come?"
"What does anyone do when visitors come?"
She replied, with a slow smile.
"You chat?" I'd say.
"Exactly", she glittered.
"Now be a good boy and turn up the telly."
And I was,
so I would.
A quarter of a century
has passed
since she went
home.
But still,
this night
always,
I welcome the visitors too.
Friars and family both now.
Sitting before the candle flame
breathing the blessed breath
of memory
and prayer.
Waiting.
Just as she
my first elder
taught me.
Waiting.
Until they arrive
once more,
and
she now
a visitor
too.
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