The Village by Alice Taylor

front?” I asked absentmindedly. Jimmy roared with laughter.
    “Ask Jim when you go home,” he said.
    I told Jim about my offhand question as we packed his case, and he enjoyed a chuckle at my expense. When we were ready Fr Mick took him to his new home and we were all delighted for him.
    The following Sunday I went to see Jim. I pushed open the heavy oak door of the home and a wave of comfortable heat and a lovely smell of wax polish enfolded me. I enquired as to Jim’s whereabouts and was directed to a room on the first floor. I walked up the polished wooden staircase, looking around me with satisfaction, and thought how comfortable and warm this place was compared to the cold stone shed that Jim had left behind. The room to which I had been directed was large and airy, divided into four sections by bright floral curtains. Each corner had a bed, locker, chair, wash-basin and wardrobe. It was bright and cheery but empty, so I went along the corridor looking for Jim.
    I turned the corner in the long corridor and there he stood, looking out the window. “Hello, Jim!” I called. “How are you?”
    He turned, and I could hardly believe what I saw. Gone was the happy, pleasant expression, and the light had died in his eyes. All his facial vitality had drained away; it was as if somebody had quenched a spark that had always glowed inside him.
    He was so glad to see me and wanted to talk about nothing but the village and his friends. Even though his body was there in the old people’s home, his mind and his heart were still back in the village. He never complained, never said that he waslonely, but his eyes told the whole story. He had lived all his life in and around the village; he knew everybody there and always had friends and neighbours around him to share his interests. Now he was isolated from everything that was familiar to him, and he missed his old haunts and friends.
    Soon afterwards he died but something more important than Jim’s body had died the day that he left the shed. At his funeral Fr Mick said to me, “Jim was like an old tree, it was too late to transplant him. We killed his roots.”

G OD’S M AN IN THE V ILLAGE
    P RIESTS TO ME had always been remote figures on high altars who preached sermons with little relevance to everyday life and dispensed absolution in the musty shadows of the confessional, but Fr Mick changed all that. He was a lovable character with a good understanding of the weakness of human nature, and he would have made a wily politician.
    When our parish hall began to fall down around us he decided to build a new one. The big showbands of the sixties were packing out dance-halls around the country, but in our old hall music was provided free of charge by locals playing a piano-accordion or two. Because one of them often played the organ in the church, the dancers sometimes found themselves waltzing to the strains of a hymn such as “Hail Queen of Heaven” when the relaxed musician mixed up his venues.
    Parish funds were scarce, however, so Fr Mick decided to build the hall with voluntary labour, which he proceeded to organise. The secret of his success in this tactic, which he also used to clean up the local cemetery every year, was that he never stinted on praise and was always telling people just how wonderful they were. Every Sunday he stood on the altar and called out lists of names, mostly of local farmers, whose assistance he required the following week. As well as calling out their names he told them what implements to bring. He would callfrom the altar: “Will Bill Finn come and bring his tractor, and Batty Lynch bring a shovel and Tom Hallihan a wheelbarrow?”
    So it continued every Sunday, townland by townland. It certainly brought an added dimension to church-going and some of our guests were fascinated by the extra trimmings attached to our Sunday Mass. If a helper failed to turn up his name was called out again the following Sunday, with a mild surmise