Carême in Brighton — a mystery novel - 9. Chapter 8, Part Two: “Here and Now”

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Chapter 8, Part Two: “Here and Now”

In a non-descript section of Brighton, fronting an also-ran street, stood a public house of untold importance to the life of one of the town’s populations. Evanescent as the numbers of patrons might have been, the Irish-owned pub functioned throughout the year as an information hub, a social venue, and a place to get some traditional fare and drinks. But on nights like this – this holy Christmas Eve – many sought out their own community under the sign of “The Barrel” because the Law barred them from gathering later under the sign of the cross. There were no Catholic Midnight Masses in Britain, at least not ones officially regarded as anything but criminal if not licensed by Whitehall, and those were few and – by design – far between.

Nevertheless, what one found on ordinary days was present this night in gleeful abundance, including the aromas of roasting meats and vegetables, along with potent bottles of Whiskies on the back-bar shelf and nearly explosive barrels of beer in the cool cellar below. What would any visit to an Irish pub be without an expertly pulled pint of stout? A glass filled so perspicaciously, it’s topped off with a head of foam as savoury-sweet as a dollop of whipped cream. “It’s all in the wrist”—the wrist working the tap handle—“and I’m the best,” any barman worth his salt will tell you.

As François Distré approached “The Barrel” from the outside, bundled against the snow on the ground and the damp coldness rolling in from the sea, he saw it was the only building on the block with a lit candle in its front window. “Is this the place?”

“It is indeed!” replied Audrey Keenan, two paces out in front with her husband.

James strode up manfully, opening the door inwards to let spouse and guest enter before he did. When François caught the man’s eyes to nod ‘thank you,’ the maitre-d’ noticed a vibrant wreath of holly behind Keenan’s head; the one hung on the outside of the pub’s door.

While the three shed their outer layer of cold-weather attire to hang on hooks in the vestibule, François was amazed by the life and vitality emerging from the taproom just beyond. He never would have guessed it from the staid, mostly dark exterior of the establishment.

“Where will we sit?” Audrey was already scanning for a spot.

“There!” James pointed to a table near the back.

They made their way through the crowded bar area, the Frenchman surprised to see children ‘round about.

“Harry!” James called to the barman above the ruckus “Three pints,” and pointed to their final destination.

The barman grinned and held up his free hand to acknowledge the order.

Once they’d settled at their table, François renewed his inspection. Near them, on a table pushed against the back wall, stood a manger scene with simple but brightly painted figures. Oddly though – and the maitre-d’ had to look twice to make sure he saw what he saw – an empty, up-turned crate stood on the floor in front of the crèche.

Another glance around him took in a bit of greenery on the far-end of the bar closest to them. It was a wreath of evergreens laid flat and appointed on the inside with several stubby candlesticks – four lit tapers of purple and pink, and an unlighted fifth candle of white standing in the centre. Oddly, here too stood a discordant element in the form of broad-mouthed snuffers lying at the back of the burning candles. Their placement was all-too obviously planned for in advance.

A barmaid turned up with three overflowing pewter tankards. She set them down with a hurried, “Here you go.”

“Three for dinner too, love,” said Audrey.

“Set course?”

“Yes.”

“Coming right up.” The maid went her way.

James picked up his glass, inviting the others to do likewise. “So, I’ll say – here’s to—”

“—New friends!” His wife finished his thought.

“Cheers!”

François waited for a moment as the couple drank deeply with obvious enjoyment. He more cautiously brought the beverage up to his nose. He sipped some foam, pleased with the creamy texture. Then he drank and was less satisfied with the taste.

James asked, “Do they have much beer in France? I don’t even know.”

François wiped the froth from his lip. “No, not much. In Alsace, yes; in Paris, not so much. Although Lambic beer from Flanders is starting to be seen.”

“What’s that like,” enquired Audrey.

“Fruity, because to normal ale they add fruit juice to give a second fermentation.”

“So it’s stronger too,” observed James.

“Yes, that is true. Which is why Parisians are needing it these days.” He chuckled.

The couple exchanged non-committal looks.

François asked, “What is it you have ordered to eat?”

“Oh, you’ll soon see.” It was Audrey’s turn to chuckle.

James replied enthusiastically, “It’s none of that pouncy stuff for the Regent’s table. It’s real food tonight! Genuine Irish fare.”

That was it; François took the comment as fair warning to stay away from the subject. He’d have to grin and bear whatever was placed before him.

Suddenly, one of the little girls in the room ran up to the crib. She climbed on top of the upturned wooden box to get the best view.

“Ah!” François said. “So the crate is there for this reason. I wondered.”

Audrey handled this one – after glancing at her husband first. “That and, another more, practical reason.”

François was all ears.

“You see,” explained Audrey, “these so-called ‘papal displays’ are outlawed. If, and just if, the fine dishonest men of the Brighton Constabulary decide to try and slip one of their spies in here tonight—”

“—So they can later send the mob to bust down the door looking for Christmas crimes—” supplied James.

“—The crate can pop up and hide the manger; the stranger gets shown the door; the decorations get swept up and hid in the cellar, so we stay safe.”

François saw the light. “Oh. Same with the Advent Wreath: candles ready to be snuffed, and candlesticks which can be quickly moved away from the greenery.”

“Precisely,” Audrey confirmed. “We’ve been made fugitives in this so-called open society where we dare not be open about anything!” Her laugh, at-tempting to enforce an air of levity, fell flat. In fact, the hollow sound of it wound up reinforcing how serious her ‘humour’ had been.

François sighed, moving closer to his beer. “I wish the world were more free.”

“I’ll drink to that!” James raised his tankard with a grin, inviting the Frenchman to do the same. The little party of three drank deeply, and François even began to appreciate the malty flavour.

Their waitress arrived with an opening cold course to be shared amongst the table occupants. As soon as she set it down, François could see neatly trimmed slices of clove-studded ham dominating the platter, around which were piles of pickled cucumbers, radish pods, and pearl onions no bigger than fat cherries. Off to one edge of the dish was a healthy dollop of mustard to be taken with the meat as desired.

“Let me play ‘Mam’,” Audrey said, already using her knife and fork to lift a choice hunk of ham; it was bound for the Frenchman’s plate, so he held it up to receive it. “The pickles and condiment,” she added, “you can take as you see fit.”

Audrey served James next, and François took small helpings of each of the preserved vegetables. The mustard looked formidable, so he lightly coated the tine-end of his clean fork to taste it first. It wasn’t too over-powering, so he took some more and spread it over his slice of ham.

Everyone was served now, so James said, “Let’s eat. How do you say . . . Bone?”

“Bon appétit.”

“Bone appa-tea,” the couple repeated.

They ate in silence for a while, and the life and noise of the pub around them reasserted themselves.

The little girl at the crib had long since drifted off. Now a pair of roisterous boys were playing a make-shift game of tag, running helter-skelter beneath tables and ducking out of one another’s touch with uproarious laughter.

One of the boys’ mothers came up and took both by an upper arm. “Stop actin’ the maggot, you two! Behave yourselves.” She guided them back to the booths their parents were occupying.

François gestured with his knife. “I’m surprised to see young ones around. Is this always the case?”

“No; no,” James said. “It’s just for tonight – or, more correctly – for nights like this one.”

“How so?”

Audrey took over explaining. “You see, normally, back home, we’d socialize in each other’s front rooms, and then meet up as a community for Mass at Midnight. But, here, no. So on special nights of the year, including the Saturday before Easter, this pub functions as a more wholesome meeting house for the regulars to bring their children.”

“Yes,” James added, “but they’re strictly to be on ‘best behaviour’ only.”

They tucked in again, and in no time, their plates were bare.

“How was it?” Audrey enquired cautiously.

François sputtered his lips. “Good. The ham was moist, though still a bit salty. The pickles? D’accord; but I truly like the radish pods. This is a vegetable I will be taking back to France with me.” After a pause, he added, “Eventually.” He drank some of his beer.

The couple displayed obvious joy in having fed the maitre-d’ something ‘good’.

“Speaking of France,” James slyly inveigled, “what was it like growing up there – when and where you did.”

François felt he was being pumped for information, so stayed generic in his reply. “Awful, and wonderful.”

“The Terror, you mean?” asked Audrey.

“The Terror. I was just a little boy, but everyone I knew growing up had been touched by it. Like a madness in the blood, first flowing through Robespierre and his Committee, then from his henchmen to their victims; and then worst of all – the madness jumped to the victims’ survivors as paranoia, as lust for vendetta . . . for blood; blood; blood.”

François had sobered himself, so it was a relief when a mug boy showed up just then with fresh pints for them to take. The Frenchman didn’t mind the taste now, and quick swallowed a third of his tankard in one go.

James had eyed him oddly. He finally asked, “And ‘wonderful’ – what was wonderful?”

François grinned like a little kid. He wiped the foam off of his lips before saying, “Napoléon. Not only for France – defeating, crushing the Austrians right away, but the hope he represented – a United Europe. A democratic community of equals he was willing to fight to achieve. That. Him. He was the French Revolution redone a second time; a right way.”

The Irish couple paused.

Audrey asked, “Then, what happened? He was guilty of atrocities, in Syria and elsewhere.”

“Oui; oui; oui! My boyhood icon was gold leaf and not gold. He shattered the heart of my nation a second time. But what does it matter? We children of the Terror weren’t allowed to have childhoods, and not allowed to live as free, grown men. So maybe one like me, of my age and homeland, goes back in our memories to the few, brief springs of optimism.”

James reached out and warmly jostled François by the upper arm. “We’re really not so different, you know.”

“How so?”

“You may not be up on your Irish history – and trust me, there’s a shit-show – but when Audrey and me was coming up, our folks, everyone we knew, was still traumatized by the Irish ‘Rebellion’ of 1789.”

“Touched,” Audrey added, “just like you say. People walked around with hollow eyes, dug out it seems by the horrors they witnessed – and hearts too heavy to bear.”

“They were sad?” François asked.

“No,” James replied. “They were angry. Angry and full of a sense of subjugation. I mean, what was the British lion doing on the throat of the Irish people in the first place!”

“And the aftermath was something awful.” Audrey grew upset.

James explained her thoughts. “Not only were the actual lads involved in the fighting round up and shot, but so were all the intellectuals. All of them; a whole generation. You see, they’d set their names to a document – like the Yanks did to their Declaration of Independence – only, just as Ben. Franklin boasted, the patriots of freedom would either ‘hang together, or be hanged one by one,’ and the signers from Trinity College in Dublin were strung up in the University’s courtyard.” Now James was upset.

“So”—Audrey picked up the ball—“your Terror, and our Freedom Struggle of ’89 – it just means we grew up pretty much the same way.”

Their waitress arrived and scooped up the empty entree platter. Right behind her was the barman. He had an oval dish piled high with pieces of roast goose, around which were brown-butter mushrooms.

The waitress came back with a covered vegetable tureen. She unlidded it, and familiar smells wafted out to François. He righted himself a bit in his seat to see inside. “What is it, please?”

The barman supplied the answer as he set down the gravy boat of creamy bread sauce. “Them is potato rounds cooked low and slow in the renderings from the goose.”

“Pomme au fondant!” François was clearly pleased. “Wonderful.”

“He’s French,” James explained to the barman, who was parting with a queer look for the other man at the table.

This time, François didn’t play ‘Mam,’ but he did play maître d’hôtel, standing and making quick work of carving the goose and dishing it up. Almost absent-mindedly, he asked, “And kids? Don’t you have any?”

Being busy, hungry and a bit buzzed, François missed the on-rushing veil of sadness wash over Audrey. He did catch James’ hand reaching out to rest atop his wife’s. “Soon after we were married, Audrey was . . . with child. But, come a few months later, we lost the baby.”

“Oh, mon dieu. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s all right.” Audrey had bucked up. “What matters is the here and now. A Christmas Eve in a foreign land: we share that in common too. We’ve been removed from our mother cultures by circumstances, but we have one another to lean on.”

François, still standing, was taken by surprise. Despite his ingrained caution regarding ‘outsiders,’ he felt a warmth build towards the couple. He set down his cutlery, picked up his stout. “I’ll drink to that. That, and to a happier future.”

“A more equitable future,” James amended.

The three touched rims and drank. Feeling just a tiny bit warmer inside than before, François half wondered if it were the beer and not sentiments heating him up.

Audrey rose too and spooned out a couple of potato rounds onto each plate.

As they sat down to dig in, someone near the window at the front of the pub began playing a concertina. The tones were slow and sombre, and yet imbued with a diffuse spirituality.

“Some of the little ones will sing now,” said James.

“Sing and busk,” corrected his wife.

“Busk?”

“Yes,” continued Audrey. “Back home, child carollers will go door to door in the villages and cities and collect a few coins for their Christmas cheer the next day.”

“But here,” said James, “they carol from table to table, collecting more than a few pennies!”

Now a group of fine-looking children stood patient as angels before a booth and started putting lyrics to the haunting melody coming from the squeezebox.

“Good people all, this Christmas time,

Consider well and bear in mind . . . ”

Enjoying his roast goose, but more specially, his potatoes, François asked, “What song is this?”

“The Wexford Carol,” replied Audrey.

“It’s beautiful.”

The undercooks nodded agreement as they continued to eat.

“Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep

Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep . . . ”

“There are no English carols this old. This song dates from the 1400s and it’s been sung every Christmastime in Ireland from its day to ours.”

François let James’ words sink in. It was so different in France, where le Noël was an issue more than a holiday, buffeted by political and conservative winds to the point that any true sentiments surrounding the ceremonies were lost to almost everyone.

While he was musing these ‘grand,’ public-wide considerations, a quiet scene at the bar caught his attention. A young couple – working class, by their tidy-but-worn attire – stood oblivious to the hurly-burly going on around them. Close together, in fact, face to face, the young man extracted a small bundle from his coat pocket. The brown paper- and twine-wrapped gift was gently placed in the young woman’s hand. She kissed him briefly and then unwrapped – but François could not see whatever the gift was.

“Good people all, this Christmas time,

Consider well and bear in mind . . . ”

It made him sad. Sad that Christmas was ever politicized in France in the first place. For it was at essence no more than this: people sharing intimate moments with the ones they loved.

François drained the rest of his beer, looking away.

James suddenly laughed; he’d been observing the Frenchman. “And where’s the boss-man tonight?”

“Honestly,” said François, “I don’t know or care.”

Audrey laughed too, her tone joking, “Maybe Carême’s with his new convert!”

“Who?” François puzzled.

“Thomas Daniels!” James blurted.

“Yes, he’s taken particular shine to a certain ashen-haired youth. Better watch out . . . . ”

Although Audrey continued in the spirit of levity, it all became too much for François. He set his silverware down. He stared at his plate. “I fear I will be set aside; replaced. Replaced just as I ‘replaced’ Carême’s old protégé. He makes me feel alone, but I care for him no matter how often he leaves me to go hobnob with Kitchiner and the English gentry.”

The couple were taken aback.

François regarded them with brimming eyes. “You can’t understand how much he’s done for me . . . things closer than any brother would do—” François tried to gather his thoughts. “How great a love must a person have to do that for another?”

James and Audrey may not have understood the drink-laden and mawkish words, but they drank down the intelligence greedily.

“Perhaps,” suggested Audrey, “you are too much under his sway. Maybe he dominates you without you realizing—”

“You do not understand l’égalitarisme. No two men are more equal than Carême and I, and I owe him everything.”

The carollers drew closer to their table while they finished up with the Wexford Carol.

James reached out to take François’ hand. He said very slowly, “You, mon ami, have tippled a bit too much stout.” Then he laughed, patting the hand before pulling back. “We should indulge in another old Irish Christmas tradition.”

“What’s that,” François said, gathering himself to wipe his eyes.

“A jump in the sea! Nothing better than a cold-water plunge to drive off the doldrums!”

François chuckled despite himself. A dip in the sea didn’t sound half bad. He wasn’t used to being emotional with strangers. When he glanced up, the five children of the singing group stood at their table with the concertina player a few paces off by the bar. This man struck up a fresh tune.

The new melody unfolded at a slow walking measure. It had an underlying beat like a soldier’s drum.

All the room grew hushed as a five-year-old boy started off in solo.

“The Minstrel-boy to war is gone,

In the ranks of death you’ll find him;

His father’s sword he has girded on,

And his wild harp slung behind him—”

The other children sang the chorus.

“‘Land of song!’ – said the warrior-bard,

‘Though all the world betray thee,

One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,

One faithful harp shall praise thee!’

The Minstrel fell! – but the foeman’s chain

Could not bring his proud soul under;

The harp he loved ne’er spoke again,

For he tore its chords asunder.”

François’ emotions swelled as the little boy continued on to the climax of his solo verse.

“And said, ‘No chains shall sully thee,

Thou soul of love and bravery!

Thy songs were made for the Brave and Free,

And shall never sound in slavery!’”

After several moments of moved silence, applause began from the front of the taproom. It made its way back, and soon, the little party of three Pavilion workers were on their feet. Audrey wiped her tears, and the men fished out a generous supply of coins, which they made sure to press into each child’s hand.

By the time the ruckus died down, and they’d re-taken their seats, the little ensemble had moved to another corner of the establishment to continue their serenading. This coincided with the moment the table was cleared of the main-course dishes and a plate of three single-portion-sized pies was set down. In addition, the empty stout tankards were taken away and replaced with a trio of whiskey tumblers.

To François’ inquisitive glance at the pastry, James replied, “Mince tarts. It wouldn’t be Christmas without having at least one a year. Help yourself!”

François took one, but Audrey proposed a toast. She raised her glass, waiting for the other two to do likewise – and said, “Again, let us drink to a brighter future to come – and to a liberated Ireland!”

“Amen,” muttered James, with a steely glint in his eyes.

After they downed the amber drought in one go, François felt the burn and sliding warmth move from throat to belly.

“ . . . With the poor, the mean, the lowly,

Lived on Earth our Saviour Holy . . . ”

Just then, Audrey turned serious. “And, François, remember the words of Jeremiah. ‘For it shall come to pass,’ saith the Lord of Hosts, ‘that his yoke about your neck will break; that his rope about your arms will burst; that by him you shall no longer be enslaved to foreign powers.’ Take control, like James and I have.”

“Get freedom at any price. All means justify the ends.” The dark cast was back upon James Keenan’s eyes, but François didn’t have time to think about it.

“ . . . And our eyes at last shall see him,

Through his own redeeming love . . . ”

The regulator clock on the wall above the bar began to strike twelve. All in the room fell silent, except the now a cappella children.

“We shall see him but in heaven,

Set at God’s right hand on high,

When like stars his children will be crowned

All in white and gathered close around.”

The midnight hour was struck with the chorale’s crescendo. Slowly, voices all about the room began wishing a low and earnest “Nollaig shona dhuit” to their loved ones.

James and Audrey did too, briefly kissing before turning to François. In unison, they said:

“And a Happy Christmas to you.”

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