let a real woman do the job!”
Pat slowly raised his head. His words were measured and steady and considered.
“You want it, do you? Is that what you want—the fork?”
Mary stiffened, her reply attaining a new level of ungenerous acidity.
“Why, yes—I believe I do!” she sneered.
“Well then—here it is!” was Pat’s reply as he plunged the three prongs directly into the center of her abdomen. The moonlight swamped her face—liberally daubed with Pond’s Cold Cream—as she lay astride the cold unsteaming dung heap.
There were those—as we have seen—who derided Pat as a “complete and utter oddity,” if not a “lunatic of the highest order.” But those making such comments—whether in Sullivan’s Select Bar or anywhere else—knew nothing of the personality of Pat McNab. They would never know of the emotional turmoil and deep, impenetrable hurt which had led him to commit what were, incontrovertibly, by “normal society” classified as “unspeakable acts.” Never know of the tenderness he was capable of displaying as he tended the anonymous resting places here and there arrayed throughout his garden. They were not to know of the thoughts that went through his mind as he moved some leaves with his foot and silently—chokingly—murmured the words: “What’s saddening is that it could have been so beautiful, Mary. We didn’t even have to be married. We could have all lived here, because I liked you, all three of you. Maybe in time even Mammy would have understood.”
It was ironic that Jo and Ann should have ended up so close to their so-called “mortal enemy,” Mary (which she wasn’t really!), having come upon the scene only moments after Mary’s nocturnal altercation with Pat. But then, it was sad the way everything happened, wasn’t it, thought Pat McNab, as he forsook his laurel patch (a triumvirate of shrubs now fresh and tender!) and turned to go back inside, in his mind the sound of three gorgeous young girls singing, fragrant, and flower tender in their crisp print frocks, their tuneful melody of “Three Lovely Lassies in Bannion” as a posy of perfect pink cast out across the shining blue of a heart-lifting, shimmering summer’s day.
The Little Drummer Boy
Come, they told me, pa rup pup pum pum
A new born king to see, pa rup pup pum pum
Our finest gifts to bring, pa rup pup pum pum
To lay before the king, pa rup pup pum pum
Rup pup pum pum, rup pup pum pum
So to honor him pa rup pup pum pum
When we come.
Baby Jesus, pa rup pup pum pum
I’m a poor boy too, pa rup pup pum pum
I have no gifts to bring, pa rup pup pum pum
That’s fit to give our king, pa rup pum pum pum
Shall I play for you, pa rup pum pum pum
On my drum?
There can be very little doubt, even on a December morning so hard and glassy, starched and invigorating, that there are very few people indeed who would be capable of evincing with any measure of accuracy the breathtakingly optimistic inner contentment which is evident at this moment on the face of Mr. Pat McNab as he breezes (whizzes, indeed, might be a more apposite verb!) about his kitchen—tastefully decorated, in honor of the Yuletide season, in dazzling primary colors. The heretofore unremarkable room is, in fact, now a veritable riot of color. As Pat—beads of sweat a-glinting on that old forehead which bears also a speck or two of dusty flour—flits hither and thither and roundabout, with “a hundred and one things to do,” as he gasps to himself, and no time in which to do them. Is it any wonder that he’d pause and sigh, run a flour-gloved paw through his excited hair, and go, “Phew! Is there ever any end to it—that’s what I’d like to know!” Then smile and reflect as he shook his head, and like many another across the world, remarked with affection, “Ah, but it’s for the kids really!”
Which is why, with renewed zest sometime later, a party hat appears, in radiant crimson crepe. (“The very exact same as Captain Pugwash’s, I do declare!” Pat is to be heard observing in the quiet sitting room as onto his head it is placed.) Quite how many sponge cakes were completed in the space of three or four hours, it is impossible to say. Somewhere in the region of fifty-seven. Very close to the amount of confections which were consumed (illicitly!) by the preoccupied party-maker! Is it possible for a grown person to consume Cadbury’s Lucky Numbers in such quantities?