'The Woman Who Hated Christmas'
Chapter One :
'The Christmas Enigma'
Beth Malone was in most folk's eyes a good woman who had never once been known to speak ill of anyone or go out of her way to offend another person intentionally. She was generally liked by most of the people in Portlaw and was always available to help out with this or that activity if asked by anybody in the community.
While she would willingly involve herself in helping with community events or in organising some other social function, her services were generally confined to those months of the year which did not begin with the letter 'D'. Although her charitable acts throughout the year would undoubtedly define Beth as a good Christian woman, she avoided organised religion and church attendance like the plague! Ask anyone in Portlaw who knew her and all would willingly agree that Beth was a 'good egg' who wouldn't harm a fly.
While she would willingly involve herself in helping with community events or in organising some other social function, her services were generally confined to those months of the year which did not begin with the letter 'D'. Although her charitable acts throughout the year would undoubtedly define Beth as a good Christian woman, she avoided organised religion and church attendance like the plague! Ask anyone in Portlaw who knew her and all would willingly agree that Beth was a 'good egg' who wouldn't harm a fly.
Beth was a woman of widow status who hadn't always lived in Portlaw. She'd arrived in the village some eight years earlier after her husband Dermot had died. Nobody knew her age precisely and at a guess they would have safely placed her in her mid fifties. However, had they done so, they would have been so adrift of the truth as she was now in her sixth decade on this earth.
In fact, had anyone in Portlaw attempted to fill in the probable background of Beth Malone, as indeed many had often speculated in discussion over the years during moments of idle gaossip, they would have finished up as far away from the truth as Paddy Grogan was said to be every time he made his confession to Father Mike and had forgotten to mention his nightly poaching up Curraghmore or the occasional beatings he gave his wife when drunk.
The simple truth was that, liked though she may have been, there was nothing about Beth Malone that the Portlaw residents could profess to know about her with any certainty that she didn't want them to know, other than the fact that she just wasn't a Christmas person. Indeed, if pushed to express an opinion upon the Widow Malone's attitude towards Christmas, the generally accepted view would have to be that Beth Malone and Christmas were just not natural bedfellows!
Every year when the festive season came around and a certain buzz of excitement and expectation could be clearly discerned in the village from mid December onwards, nobody ever set sight on Beth Malone out and about shopping, gossipping with neighbours or even walking the streets with her dog. Not once would she be seen out and about during the two weeks between December 18th and January 3rd; a period when she would effectively become a hermit.
The reason for her visible absence from village life during this period, which she found extremely hard to cope with was never known to others in Portlaw. All they knew was that getting Beth Malone to attend Sunday Mass represented a lesser prospect in the achieving than getting Thomas MeGahy to buy his missus a bunch of flowers on wage night in appreciation for all her hard work looking after him throughout the week or persuading him to thank her just once for making him his tea for the past thirty years. Thomas MeGahy was the most selfish man who'd ever walked the streets of Portlaw and he would prefer to spend a pound in the pub on a pint as much as give a street beggar an extra day of life. Indeed, he was a man so mean and spiteful that he would never give a word of praise where praise was due or spend one penny where a half penny would suffice.
So while both Beth Malone and Thomas MeGahy were both village characters of opposing disposition that nobody in Portlaw was ever likely to fathom, each were generally accepted without question as simply being strange characters by the population of the village.
So while both Beth Malone and Thomas MeGahy were both village characters of opposing disposition that nobody in Portlaw was ever likely to fathom, each were generally accepted without question as simply being strange characters by the population of the village.
After the 18th December and until the Christmas festivities had well and truly spilled over into the start of the New Year, Beth Malone never left her cottage once during the hours of daylight. Indeed, if anyone knocked on her door for whatever reason, they would go unanswered during this period of social hibernation.
Even Father Mike from the Catholic parish church (who was probably the friendliest man who'd ever lived in Portlaw) had been unable to gain entrance to Beth's home during this two-week period of her hermit existence in the Christmas period. For many years he had tried to encourage Beth to enter into the spirit of Christmas with the rest of the villagers, but whatever he did or said could not persuade her to the contrary.
You see, Beth Malone was a veritable enigma. She was a woman with a secret past who seemed unfathomable. Despite acting as the kindest and most charitable person who one was ever likely to encounter, none could know what it was about Christmas time that simply turned her off its celebration.
Throughout January to December every year without fail, despite displaying the most Christian of hearts in the parish of Portlaw, never once would Beth be seen to step inside the Catholic Church on any Sunday or indeed any day of the year. And come the two weeks prior to Christmas, at a time when Beth was the one person most in demand by the busy people of Portlaw, she was nowhere to be seen! Even on the holiest days of the year in the church calendar such as Easter Sunday and Christmas Day; even then the Widow Malone would refuse to attend church and give thanks to God as she had been taught to do so by her dearly beloved parents during her childhood years.
Not being a person to give up on his priestly duties so easily, on a number of occasions Father Mike had sought out Beth and had tried to broach the subject with the widow in an attempt to get to the bottom of the matter. However, each time he mentioned the word, 'Christmas' or 'Christ,' the widow would freeze up and after a few moments of steely silence beg her leave and hastily depart the scene. The priest could sense the presence of a resolute resistance emanate from the widow to even acknowledge the mere presence of Christ or Christmas, let alone speak their name. It was, he sensed, a resistance buttressed by a severe disappointment in Christ himself; the kind of resistance borne out of a traumatic experience in which the blame had been placed at the feet of Christ because of some tragic and unwelcome outcome that had once visited her. How close to the mark was Father Mike, had he but known the accuracy of his speculative sling shot.
Even Father Mike from the Catholic parish church (who was probably the friendliest man who'd ever lived in Portlaw) had been unable to gain entrance to Beth's home during this two-week period of her hermit existence in the Christmas period. For many years he had tried to encourage Beth to enter into the spirit of Christmas with the rest of the villagers, but whatever he did or said could not persuade her to the contrary.
You see, Beth Malone was a veritable enigma. She was a woman with a secret past who seemed unfathomable. Despite acting as the kindest and most charitable person who one was ever likely to encounter, none could know what it was about Christmas time that simply turned her off its celebration.
Throughout January to December every year without fail, despite displaying the most Christian of hearts in the parish of Portlaw, never once would Beth be seen to step inside the Catholic Church on any Sunday or indeed any day of the year. And come the two weeks prior to Christmas, at a time when Beth was the one person most in demand by the busy people of Portlaw, she was nowhere to be seen! Even on the holiest days of the year in the church calendar such as Easter Sunday and Christmas Day; even then the Widow Malone would refuse to attend church and give thanks to God as she had been taught to do so by her dearly beloved parents during her childhood years.
Not being a person to give up on his priestly duties so easily, on a number of occasions Father Mike had sought out Beth and had tried to broach the subject with the widow in an attempt to get to the bottom of the matter. However, each time he mentioned the word, 'Christmas' or 'Christ,' the widow would freeze up and after a few moments of steely silence beg her leave and hastily depart the scene. The priest could sense the presence of a resolute resistance emanate from the widow to even acknowledge the mere presence of Christ or Christmas, let alone speak their name. It was, he sensed, a resistance buttressed by a severe disappointment in Christ himself; the kind of resistance borne out of a traumatic experience in which the blame had been placed at the feet of Christ because of some tragic and unwelcome outcome that had once visited her. How close to the mark was Father Mike, had he but known the accuracy of his speculative sling shot.
From mid December each year when the postman would make his household delivery of letters and Christmas cards to the villagers, though Beth Malone would always receive some cards from her Portlaw neighbours, they would never be opened by her and would remain in their sealed envelopes until they were discarded by her into the bin after Christmas had been and gone.
For eight years, her neighbours had sent the widow a Christmas card greeting, but had not received one card in return. One by one as the years went on and their Christmas greetings to the Widow Malone went unacknowledged and unreciprocated, one more person would simply omit her from their Christmas postage list. Eventually the time came when all of her neighbours had stopped sending her a Christmas card. When the Christmas of 2002 arrived, not one Christmas card was either sent by the occupant of number 14, William Street or was received by Beth Malone!
Initially, the Widow Malone told herself that this year they seem to have finally got the message that she didn't like Christmas. At long last they had stopped trying to persuade her to their belief that Christmas was a time for celebration. The people of Portlaw had finally grasped the fact that she neither required nor wanted their constant stream of cheeriness and seasonal greetings every time someone passed her in the street or had occasion to speak to her during the month of December.
In fact, most Christmases that had ever been and gone since she'd been ten years old had come to represent a time that she'd been greatly hurt. Christmas was a time in her life that the widow hated and every year it arrived, she just wanted it to pass by as quickly as was humanly possible.
For eight years, her neighbours had sent the widow a Christmas card greeting, but had not received one card in return. One by one as the years went on and their Christmas greetings to the Widow Malone went unacknowledged and unreciprocated, one more person would simply omit her from their Christmas postage list. Eventually the time came when all of her neighbours had stopped sending her a Christmas card. When the Christmas of 2002 arrived, not one Christmas card was either sent by the occupant of number 14, William Street or was received by Beth Malone!
Initially, the Widow Malone told herself that this year they seem to have finally got the message that she didn't like Christmas. At long last they had stopped trying to persuade her to their belief that Christmas was a time for celebration. The people of Portlaw had finally grasped the fact that she neither required nor wanted their constant stream of cheeriness and seasonal greetings every time someone passed her in the street or had occasion to speak to her during the month of December.
In fact, most Christmases that had ever been and gone since she'd been ten years old had come to represent a time that she'd been greatly hurt. Christmas was a time in her life that the widow hated and every year it arrived, she just wanted it to pass by as quickly as was humanly possible.
Over the years since her husband's death, the twelve days of Christmas had come to pain the widow's memories to the quick. Come 11am each Christmas Eve morning, the widow would make herself up three hot water bottles and place them inside her bed. Then after selecting a few books that she intended to read, she and her dog, Shamus, would retire to her bed where they would remain for the best part for the next three days; rising only to replenish the water in the hot water bottles, obtain refreshments of cups of tea and dog biscuits, visit the toilet and wash one's face and hands. As for taking their daily walk outside the house, Beth and Shamus would walk around the fields of Curraghmore during the hours of darkness between midnight and 2am when the only person who might spot them out and about was Paddy Grogan the poacher.
As for the traditional seasonal dinner, forget the notion! For the past eight years, the only thing that would pass the widow's mouth throughout Christmas Eve was a slice of toast and the only food she ever ate for her Christmas dinner was a couple of kippers. While such behaviour was somewhat eccentric and parsimonious to have observed, the reason was easier to understand for anyone who could possibly have peered through her window when she had been a child aged ten and had witnessed what Beth was then experiencing!
