The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland by John B. Keane Page A

the notes were pocketed. Home then to change into slacks, pullover and sandals. Garage next for a petrol fill and a hasty check of elementals. Thence to the nearest city or, if the season was right, to a distant holiday resort. His customers received news of these breaks with amusement. They knew the drill or thought they did. There had to be a woman or women. Why else would he go on his own? A good man’s case this. Not even a stepmother would blame him. Many envied him the manner in which he took off in the first place. He needed nobody’s permission and best of all he could come back when it suited him. On his return he never tendered the least information as to
how he had fared, a sure sign, this his friends said, that a debauch had taken place.
    The truth was that Jimmy Bowen did no more than sleep out in the mornings. The remainder of the day he spent inspecting the neighbourhood pubs and hotels. Sometimes he drank on his own. Other times he joined up with single gentleman like himself or became involved in sing-songs. By midnight it would be as much as he could do to locate his room under his own steam. This then was the pattern of his respite. There had never been any serious involvement with a woman. He remained faithful to his river side fantasies and would fall into a happy if drunken sleep recalling the enchanting images of his favourite place or endeavouring to trace the shadowy features of the lovely creature who had thus far failed to realise herself from the place in question. Always he slept soundly, not waking till the chambermaids knocked on his door at a time when the morning was well advanced. He never surfaced before noon. By the time he had read through the morning papers lunch would have become available. Having partaken he would sit for a while before indulging in the only physical exercise of the day. This consisted of an hour long stroll after which he felt free to indulge himself in the first drink of the day. After a sojourn of four to five days his appetite for change would be sated and he would return home. There would be no drink on the day of the homecoming. He also made a point of arriving at the shop after dark. After a snack he would make straight for his bed where he stayed until the effects of the prolonged booze had worn off. As a rule this took no more than a sleep out until the late afternoon of the following day when he would arise refreshed and ready to resume his normal way of life. This was not to say that he was abstemious
between skites. Most nights after returning from the river he stopped off at the Anglers’ Rest where he allowed himself a whiskey or two before polishing off a few pints of draught stout. He never drank alone. There was always a crony or two in attendance and invariably he joined up with these until time was called.
    Shortly after his sixtieth birthday he embarked upon the longest and most intensive skite of his career. He departed the town early on Monday afternoon and was not seen again in its vicinity for a period of ten days. What transpired during that time will never be fully revealed. Even with the aid of Miss Miller, if Jimmy Bowen ever endeavoured to itemise the events which took place, the task would be impossible for the excellent reason that they were beyond recall. To be more accurate it could be said that they had foundered irrevocably in an alcoholic haze. Occasionally in later years glimpses of that foggy interlude would be borne back to him but none of sufficient duration or clarity to enlighten him. It was, as he intimated to his cronies not long after his return, the father and mother of all skites and the cronies to give them their due accepted this evaluation without question. Jimmy Bowen was not a man to exaggerate. There was no doubt that he had been on the skite of a lifetime. What he did remember most vividly at that, was waking up on the final day. His head throbbed with a pain so over-powering that he despaired of ever