My recent death

Patrick Skene Catling

Ahakista, Co. Cork There was an unexpected knock at the 1. door on Sunday after lunch. P. J. Barry, a local undertaker in his thirties with the alert features of a ferret, had driven the 12 miles or so from his Bantry embalming studio to ask the lady of the house, he explained, whether she would like his help with the arrangements for my funeral.

As I had opened the door to him myself, in the flesh, it was quite easy to convince him that I was not ready for his services. It was not so easy to console him for his wasted time and petrol.

In the drawing room, where the season has come for me to construct in the grate each day a miniature facsimile of hell (after the end of the summer, many things murmur 'memento mori), Mr Barry stayed long enough only to account for his unre- quested visit. He declined the offers of a chair and a glass of wine.

'I'm on the dry,' he said with significant emphasis. 'Haven't touched a drop for three months. I came here because there's a rumour going round Durrus [a village near here], and it just got to Bantry, that Patrick dropped dead in Cork yesterday. I thought I'd drop in to find out what I could do. I see there was nothing to it so.' He frowned in perplexity and then in- gratiatingly smiled. 'Of course, Durrus is a fierce place for rumours. There've even been rumours about me that I wouldn't want to repeat.'

'I know,' I assured him. 'I've heard some of them.'

Rumours do breeze through West Cork, as through many other rural areas, with the ardour of bush fires, rumours of all sorts of bizarre scandals and misadventures, not all of them untrue. They originate as myster- iously as dirty jokes and gain in orna- mentation as they progress.

I wondered last year who had invented the fiction, printed as fact in the Diary of the Times, that a dingo had savaged my backside in the Australian outback. I suggested that the erroneous news item was unfair to dingoes, which had been libelled enough already, and the Times kindly published a retraction. One can imagine a hard-pressed journalist retelling an anecdote of that sort to fill a hole in a column on a dull day. But it is difficult to imagine the mental processes which de- liberately inaugurate a false report of somebody's death. In many cases the survivors do not want it.

Once the car of the frustrated under- taker had disappeared down the drive, Diana turned to me and said: 'You didn't have anything to do with the rumours, did you?' I assured her, I assure you, that I did not. I am too superstitious to play pranks which would depend for their success on belief that I were dead. As a matter of fact, I don't like even being in the same sent- ence as that word.

However, I must admit to feeling a slight pang of regret that the rumours would now be discredited without my having had an opportunity to exploit them to the full. If I had not been the one who opened the door, I might have left the country quietly that night, hidden abroad while growing a beard, and returned here eventually as my own bereaved brother.

'Too bad about Patrick,' I could have commented in public places. 'He made no provision for the settlement of his debts.'

James Hegarty, the proprietor of a local supermarket, partly shared my disappoint- ment.

'You could have claimed your life insur- ance,' he pointed out. 'There's no chance of your getting it now. They don't pay on non-starters.'

The thought of suddenly dying without Preparation reminded me of some neg- lected responsibilities. The next day I went to Bantry. I returned a book to the public library. Gerry Shallow, the assistant mana- ger of the Bank of Ireland there, visibly Sighed with relief and gave me an excep- tionally cordial welcome. There is business between us which, when properly com- Pleted, will be of some benefit to the bank.

'You're alive!' he said, as people say 'You're back!' when you go back some- where.

William O'Donnell, the innkeeper of The Anchor, was one of several people who reminded me that day of Mark Twain's remark that reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated.

A couple of friends bought me celebra- tory pints of stout, which was especially generous of them, considering that I had cheated them of, or at least postponed, the prolonged conviviality which customarily follows an Irish funeral.

On the way home, I called on Frances Barry, who runs a restaurant and bar in Durrus. When I told her my side of the story, she offered me a drink on the house. I asked for a large Green Chartreuse. I think it is the most expensive drink in the place. Mrs Barry is the undertaker's wife.