The telegram came in the late afternoon on a rainy Tuesday in late April, 1958.
Jimmy Dunphy had been delivering the mail to this remote farmhouse in the Wicklow Mountains for over 30 years, but he still felt a tingle of excitement each time that distinctive little green envelope showed up in his bundle. Hogan’s of Rathdargan was the last stop on his route, and he always looked forward to a relaxed chat with Kitty Hogan, full-figured woman of the house. Sometimes—if she was in a good mood—she’d invite him in for a cup of tea and a scone to fuel the long, uphill bike ride home to his cottage on the other side of Sugarloaf Mountain.
Telegram presentation was one of Jimmy’s specialties, one he’d polished to a performance art. Unlike regular mail, telegrams meant something was up —and Jimmy loved to watch the faces of people in the grip of suspense. Today he was bitterly disappointed to see that only young Myles, not his mother, was there to share the moment. Was he going to have to waste a performance on this fourteen-year-old upstart? This younger generation had no appreciation of true dramatic talent; most had never even heard of O’Casey, Behan or Bernie (aka, “George Bernard”) Shaw, born just over the mountain in Carlow. Too busy trapsing to American cowboy pictures and dance halls. Then, again, how were they ever going to learn if their elders didn’t show them?
Peering through the rain under his shiny postman’s cap and black parka, Jimmy grinned and stepped boldly on to the stage—his own Abbey Theatre. First, he held the prized envelope high for inspection—like a trophy ready for presentation. Rolling it over several times in his arthritic hands, puffing vainly on his unlit pipe, he held the telegram aloft one last time before the final moment of exchange.
This is the first installment of a collection of serialized short stories, beginning with “Hard Truths.” The story was one of 20 stories selected nationally for inclusion in the anthology, “Best American Mystery Stories, 2012.” We will publish one installment each Friday for the remainder of 2022, then continue with a new series in 2023.