The Last of the Prendergasts

The road on which Hector Prendergast lived was a tunnel of oak trees with large houses behind ivy covered walls. It curved up a steep hill leaving the small town sagging in the swampy valley below. The small town was a mess of cracked buildings in which sourpuss merchants fed, watered and clothed a muddy and scowling citizenry who crept in from little sinking houses circling its one long street. The street was most of the time covered in a heavy fug that wafted from the swamp.

Difficult existence was numbed by a clatter of taverns littered with forgetful drinkers, half remembered shanties and imprudent romances. Hector never stepped into any of them, he rarely went into town, he seldom left his home. Hector didn’t like interruptions. He liked his work. He liked pottering around his large empty house. He kept his big iron gates closed all the time. The little bell on the outside wall was only ever rung by the Tesco delivery driver once a week and the postman Jimmy Darling carrying Amazon bought books. Both did their best to squint past the overgrown garden and rusting Mercedes-Benz into the house to glean something, anything to take back to the town. Hector never engaged them in chat. They always left with nothing. They just made something up.

The Prendergast’s had been making folk curious in the small town for decades. Everyone had a Prendergast story. Professor Prendergast had arrived in the small town alone. He was Professor of Ancient Classics at a university in the city. He drove to and from his post each day. For a reason that nobody ever understood he had chosen to live in the small town. Years later the enchanting Mrs. Prendergast moved in with him. Together they had five children. Except for Hector, all the Prendergast’s were now dead or had long since moved elsewhere. For years, the Prendergast’s had provided one of the few things that everyone in the small town agreed upon – the Prendergast’s were odd. Folk had a shared interest in the Prendergast’s. It was a hobby to chat and wonder about them. The behavior of the Prendergast’s was the small town’s own soap opera. However, the remaining Prendergast was a disappointment to the small town. He did nothing.

Jimmy Darling finishing his shift at the bar of The Pious Pelican, bemoaned the state of Prendergast, “Nothing. The man does absolutely nothing. You’d nearly miss Rocky setting fire to Powers.”

Rocky was Hector Prendergast’s eldest brother. He was fierce. He used to drink the town dry and fight his way home. He would break the lock on poor Power’s petrol pumps, spray the forecourt and fling his cigarette into the slick.

“Rocky,” chuckled Bob Precious, proprietor of The Pious Pelican, “he often put out my front window.”

“At least he gave us the gossip,” said Jimmy Darling.

The Pious Pelican fell into fond Prendergast reminiscence. They spoke about the time Florence Prendergast went to her debs in her bathing suit. They laughed about Hunter Prendergast riding a horse into Jolly Company for a pint but agreed that it wasn’t funny at the time. They ogled over Maud Prendergast who once had three dates the one night and was going from one table to the other keeping the charade going. They marveled about Professor Prendergast driving to Paris one-week end to buy a brand of cigarettes he liked. They lamented the absence of Mrs. Prendergast with her Hollywood looks and flirtatious tongue.

“The only one Prendergast you wouldn’t want is Hector and who do we get?” asked Jimmy Darling.

“Hector,” they all chorused.

“He’s like a boil on your arse, he never goes away” said Bob Precious and everyone laughed.

Hector Prendergast was clueless about all the citizenry in the small town. Much stuff that came easily to most people didn’t come so easy to Hector. Stuff that everyone struggled with came easy to Hector. He possessed his father’s ability for the Classics, both could read Latin and Greek. Hector went beyond. He mastered Arabic and classical Chinese. He knew his way around Sanskrit.

Hector left the small town as soon as he could. First to Oxford, then to Harvard. Buried in the Classical Department at Harvard, he forgot about the small town. It wasn’t that he didn’t think about it. He clean forgot about it. Its memory got pushed out. He lived mostly in millennia beyond. And no one in the small town cared about him anymore.

For many years his family had provided juicy gossip to the small town. But one by one they died or moved on. Rocky rocked about the town raising Cain, eventually taking it beyond too far, the small town couldn’t forgive him it and he fled. Maud fell in love with a man three times her age and went to live in his castle. Florence was killed doing two hundred miles an hour having drunk a lake. Hunter became famous for something and lived a life that everyone dreamed about somewhere in California. Mrs. Prendergast died still beautiful and the Professor toddled after her soon later. The Prendergast house fell quiet and feral.

Years passed. Hector returned. The small town decried his bachelor status. A wife and little Prendergast’s would have held promise of shenanigans and tales. But Prendergast, the useless shite, was to end the line of their most cherished family. The small town believed if Hector Prendergast acted like a Prendergast, they would be all the better for it. But he did nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Hector was not in time with them. He was beyond the fall of Rome. Wandering with Odysseus. Escaping with Aeneas. Balancing Ovid. Seeking happiness with Aristotle. Finding solace with Pentheus. The small town bemoaned the Fall of the Prendergast’s.

That was the way of things when a newly married couple bought the old Morrison house beside the Prendergast place. They were Trevor and Kate Costello. They had big jobs in the city. Nobody was entirely sure what the jobs were but everyone knew they were big. The Morrison place did not come cheap. Nothing on that road came cheap and the Costello’s piled a heap more dough into renovating it. They kept themselves pretty much to themselves. Worked hard Monday to Friday, commuting up and down from the city. Weekends were spent working on the house and gardens. Jimmy Darling had little to report. They got pretty much the same post as everyone else. Kate got the odd large box, the Pious Pelican discussed what would be in the boxes. They reckoned snazzy clothes that she could not buy in the small town for she was always turned out ‘real well’. They ventured lingerie for they were wondering what lay underneath.

The Costello’s were disappointed with the Prendergast house. They had fallen in love with the Morrison place at first sight but the Prendergast’s wild gardens and crumbling house delayed them for a long time in making a bid. The auctioneer had filled them in at great length about the Prendergast’s. The Costello’s marvelled at the stories and legends but they wondered would Hector ever get to taking care of the house. The auctioneer assured them he would, that he just needed to find the right woman, a woman that would put things right. She added, that there was no shortage of money there to do it, “being a Prendergast, is a license to print money,” she told them.

They were months moved in before they even set eyes on Hector. Kate was walking their puppy past his gates when Hector was taking the Tesco delivery. She introduced herself. Hector grunted. The Tesco man rolled his eyes and grinned.

“Perhaps, you’d like to come over one of the evenings for dinner?” Kate asked.

“Who me?” Hector said.

The Tesco man winked at her and didn’t get into his van.

“Of course, you,” Kate laughed.

“Why Miss?” Hector said.

“Why, we’re neighbours,” Kate said.

“That’s no reason Miss,” Hector said.

She watched him struggle up the path with the box, “do you need a hand?” she called out but he did not answer her.

Kate felt Hector’s rejection of her keenly.

“Why are you so eager to have him in here?” Trevor asked, “the guy’s a freak.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You only want to make friends with him so he might do something with that bombshell.”

There was some truth in that but most of all she was intrigued with Hector. She wanted to see inside the Prendergast place. She wanted to hear stories about the Prendergast’s from a Prendergast. She wanted to know more about the beautiful Mrs. Prendergast. She was mad to hear more about sensual Maud and all her romances and know more about wild Rocky. She cried thinking about free Florence and her tragic end.

Kate was startled to find herself gazing over at the Prendergast place hoping to catch a glimpse of Hector. She thirsted for anything Prendergast. She felt she lucked out when she met and befriended Fatima Fury. A girl at college had once said of one of their lecturers - “that woman is built for sex.” Kate never fully understood what she meant until she started hanging out with Fatima. Kate had not thought Fatima attractive. She had pinched, almost mean features. Her beady green eyes shifted hungrily. Her hair was a dozen bottle blondes, which she tied up in knots and rarely bothered washing. It appeared that she dressed in the dark, everything was mismatched and there was always a lot of it, reams of fabric. And yet Kate saw the way many men looked at Fatima, the way that they spoke to her. They were turned on by her. Fatima had something that lured them in, something that alluded Kate. Until she realized that when she watched Fatima speak, drink and smoke, she could not help thinking that the expressions Fatima made would be the same when she was having sex.

They met randomly. Kate had run into Powers’ filling station to pick up a few bits. Fatima was at the counter buying cigarettes. Kate caught the words, “he’s a fucking prick.” Fatima passed Kate with a warm smile and stalled looking at the magazine stand. Kate judged her. Kate realized she had forgotten her purse after the cashier had bagged her goods. Fatima bailed her out with a tenner. They arranged to meet the following day at the same time to settle up. The next day Kate found herself in the woods across the road from Powers, giggling and smoking fags with Fatima Fury.

The unlikely pair became firm friends. Trevor commented continuously about it. He could not understand the fascination with Fatima, a forty something heavy drinker with a dirty tongue, it baffled him.

“I like her,” Kate would reply, “she’s more than she appears to you.”

Trevor scalded her, “don’t go native on me Kate.” He smiled but she could see through his smile, thinking he was all knowing and wanting her in her little place.

Kate did see more to Fatima, but she loved Fatima’s endless stock of Prendergast stories. Fatima had dated Rocky and Hunter and had partied some with Florence. She had slept in several Prendergast beds, had an eye for detail and spun a great yarn. Kate found herself spending many drunken hours in the Pious Pelican watching Fatima larrup rum and coke, smoke Silk Cut and stage whisper the antics of the Prendergast’s. She knew intimate details about them all, even the Professor, who seemed to have taken more than a shine to the young Fatima. Kate pictured Fatima back then, the years had hewn her some and she spoke rough but Kate reckoned the teenage Fatima would have turned all heads. She must have, to have bagged two Prendergast’s and have the entire family love her. Except Hector. Kate always tried to bring the conversation around to Hector.

“Never mind Hector,” Fatima would say, “he made the rest of the Prendergast’s look sane.”

“Was he ever with anyone?” Kate asked.

“Hector!” Fatima shrieked, “oh, no!”

Kate liked that. Hector was untouched.

“You like him!” Fatima said.

“No! Ugh! I would like him to get a woman to clean up the place, but God! No!”

“A woman? Never happen. Hector, no.”

Kate felt something stir in her belly.

*

To celebrate been a year in the small town, the Costello’s decided to throw a large party. They had hosted some friends from the city on a number of weekends and both their sets of parents and siblings had visited but this was the first big bash. Kate suggested to Trevor that they invite Hector. Trevor thought it unnecessary. Kate looked into the Prendergast place in dismay as she put the invitation into his letter-box. Hector never replied. Kate was surprised at how disappointed she felt.

On Saturday afternoon, Kate rang his bell. Hector did not come. She rang it again but still he did not come. She looked around and then rang it again. He did not come. She went home. Trevor and a work colleague who was overnighting went into town for a few drinks. Kate opened a bottle of wine. And then another. She found herself smoking cigarettes on the balcony looking over at the Prendergast place. It was in complete darkness. Kate stared into it. She went back out and rang the bell again and again and again. She almost wrenched it off the wall. Nobody stirred within. She looked around and climbed over the gate. Dropping over the far side, she stood a while and wondered at what she was doing but she continued up the driveway. There was no doorbell so she rapped on the front door. Nothing stirred. She found herself thumping it until her hand hurt. Nothing stirred. She groaned and tramped back down the drive. Halfway down, she heard the door open and Hector called out, “Hello?”

She almost ran away. She turned, “Hello Hector,” she said, and walked back towards him. He was a shadow in the doorway.

“What are you doing here Miss?”

“It’s Kate, Kate Costello, your neighbour.”

“What are you doing here Miss?” he repeated.

“I think your chimney is on fire,” she said looking up at the roof.

“Impossible,” he said, “I never light a fire.”

“Oh, but I think,” she said, stepped further back, throwing her head almost to her ass to look up at the non-puffing chimney. She almost fell backwards. She was dizzy.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Your chimney,” she said, “Hector, why won’t you come to my party?”

“Party?” he said.

“My party, the one I invited you to, why won’t you come to it?”

“I never go to parties.”

“You never light a fire, you never go to parties, what do you do Hector Prendergast?”

She thought he shrugged. “God man,” she laughed, “can you turn on a light or do you never do that?”

Something as powerful as a floodlight lit up the front garden, Kate could no longer see Hector in the glow. She stood peering in at him.

“Hector, I feel like I am on stage,” she said and did a little dance and bow routine.

“Okay Miss,” Hector said, “I’ll go to your party.”

“You will?” Kate laughed, “good man Hector, that makes me glad.”

Sundays in the small town always made Kate homesick for the city. She would never admit it to Trevor but she found them horrid. Before she even opened her eyes, she knew when it was Sunday. Sundays possessed a foreboding quietness bristling under dull skies. People in the small town slept late, killing the day, whiling away the afternoon in taverns, nursing hangovers, nursing existential crises. Kate possessed a vague notion that the ancient land under the small town reminded the citizenry every Sunday who was boss, that it was there before them and would be there after they were gone.

That Sunday she woke up anguished, remembering her antics of the night before. Her embarrassment was quelled somewhat with the knowledge that Hector had accepted her invitation.

“I still don’t know why you want him here,” Trevor said.

Trevor suspected nothing. A man such as Hector proved no threat to a man such as Trevor.

Everyone invited to the party, except Fatima and Hector were from out of town. There were colleagues from work, old college mates and a few old school friends. If everyone accepted, there would be nineteen people. Kate and Trevor both felt the pressure of it. Their decision to relocate to the small town had been met with more than mild surprise and even some derision. It was decided to keep the party out of town for the duration and let the house do the talking. They knew the house would bowl everybody over. Every detail was deliberated over. They decided to employ caterers from the city. They would have snacks and drinks when the guests arrived in the early evening, before a sit-down dinner which would take place in the large dining room. It would be a squeeze but they would make it work. They anguished over the music. They decided to hire a DJ from the city who would spin chill records for the first few hours and then after dinner ramp it up before finishing with cheesy, karaoke style numbers in the early hours. The monstrous hulk that was the Prendergast place panicked them. They decided that the best way of dealing with it was to ham it up, go full Miss. Havisham on it. Kate found herself laughing at Trevor’s description of Fatima Fury as a court jester, regaling the out of towners with wild tales of Prendergast debauchery.

But Trevor did think inviting Fatima a mistake and tried to persuade Kate to agree. Kate bristled in apprehension. She knew Trevor may be right. She was wary of Fatima telling her friends about their nights getting drunk in the Pious Pelican and the joint they smoked in the woods on the way home. Kate knew how her friends would see Fatima, it would be far from complimentary. Fatima would be a good sneer for them. Still, she knew that she could not get out of inviting Fatima and a good part of Kate wanted her there, even with the risk involved.

Things could not have gone better. Even the Barbizon’s were won over. At one stage, late on, Murray Barbizon sidled up to Trevor and whispered, “I want your life, Costello.” There was a freeze frame moment when Ali Lake half-shouted to Kate across the room, “what about that place next door, it looks abandoned?” Fatima Fury came to the rescue with a line which Kate and her would yell out in the Pious Pelican for months after - “When Hector finds true love, the House of Prendergast will rise again!” A huddle formed around Fatima as she told wild legends of the Prendergast’s. They were not the same stories she drunkenly whispered in the Pious Pelican. Instead, she conjured the Prendergast’s into cultured eccentric intellectuals. Fatima looked over and winked at Kate. Kate felt a surge of affection of her small-town friend mixed with a good deal of guilt.

At the end of the evening, Trevor and Kate even performed their party piece singing the John Prine, Iris DeMent duet, In Spite of Ourselves. Everyone adored it. Trevor and Kate both knew that they never appeared as sweet and together as when singing that song.

The party was a huge success but Kate found herself in the misty garden at four in the morning smoking and weeping, looking at the dark windows of the Prendergast place. She was furious that Hector Prendergast had not arrived. He had promised he would come, he could have dropped in, even for a few minutes.

A few weeks later, a mighty storm felled an ancient Prendergast oak tree. It walloped down on the old stone wall that ran between the Prendergast and Costello places. Kate watched all day, when Hector eventually came to survey the damage, she ran out to meet him.

“Hector! What a storm hey?”

Hector didn’t look up, he just shrugged and continued looking at the broken wall and fallen oak.

“Sad, isn’t it? How old was it, do you reckon?”

Hector shrugged, “old,” he said.

He walked off.

“I suppose we’ll need to fix it!” Kate called out.

Without turning, he said “I’ll take care of it Miss.’”

He didn’t take care of it. Trevor commented on it now and again and Kate said that she would look after it, but secretly she liked the gap in the wall. The following Spring, Kate fell pregnant. Hector almost faded out of her thoughts. She stopped meeting up with Fatima. Kate loved been pregnant and she found herself falling for Trevor again. Everything was perfect, except the baby couldn’t wait and came a day early on Christmas Eve. They named him Noel. Noel became a problem. He cried non-stop and never slept. Their parents said it would pass, but it did not. His maddening shrieks had Kate was at her wits end. Trevor came home later now from work and was gone at cockcrow. Time blurred for Kate. She would leave Noel in their top room, crawl to the backwall and smoke cigarettes. She could still hear him screeching. She needed a drink but didn’t want to drink, fearing where that may lead. Ten months in, she was as mad as a Prendergast. One day she almost struck Noel. She was terrified of herself. She rang Fatima,

“Hey hon,” she trembled, “what are you up to?”

“Kate! It’s so good to hear from you.”

“Listen. Strange request, but do you want to go on the piss?”

Twenty minutes later, she was thumping on Hector Prendergast’s door. He opened it bewildered.

“Hi Hector!” Kate yelled in at him, “I have a slight emergency, I need you to watch Noel.”

“Who?”

Kate pointed into the crib, “him, I’ll be just a few hours, thanks!”

Hector followed her down the drive, “but this is quite unorthodox, you can’t just leave it here.”

“Thanks Hector! You’re a gem! Just a few hours!”

“But I don’t know anything about them!” he called after her.

She turned, waved, mouthed “thanks” and jumped through the gap in the wall.

Hector looked down at the whining Noel, walked back into the house and closed the door and went back to work. Strangely, he found himself distracted. He could hear Noel crying outside. The day is dry, he thought, he will be fine. He lost himself in the work. A few hours later, he heard something vulgar snuffling around outside. He went back out, the crib was empty. He searched the gardens but there was no sign of Noel. He feared the return of the strange woman from next door. She was mad at the best of times. A missing baby was sure to drive her over the edge. Hector brought the crib inside. He searched the house. He found Gretchen, the large stuffed barn owl that Florence when she was small thought was her sister. Hector placed Gretchen in the crib.

It was dark when Kate stumbled up the driveway in the pouring rain.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Hector said handing her the crib.

“I know,” she cried, “I know, I’m sorry Hector, please forgive me Hector.”

“Go on home,” Hector said, “don’t come round here no more, please, I need to work.”

Kate clutched the crib, “I know, I’m sorry, never again,” and careened through the wall.

Hector was terrified of her reappearing. She did not. He was surprised to see her a few days later holding Noel, who did not appear altered. Hector watched Kate now and again from his windows. The years ticked by. He watched the Costello’s grow from three to seven. Two decades ticked by. He watched Noel grow up. He appeared fine. He looked fine. He did sometimes wander into the garden alone, look up at the windows and laugh deliriously before sprinting back into his house. But, other than that, nothing seemed askew and that was fine with Hector.

The Costello’s were throwing a huge Christmas Eve party. Hector was working when he thought he saw his mother drifting about the fuggy garden. He went down. He followed her towards the gap in the wall. Kate Costello was standing there.

“Hector,” she breathed.

“Miss,” Hector said.

“Merry Christmas Hector.”

“Merry Christmas Miss.”

“We are having a party, would you like to come across for a drink?”

“No thanks Miss.”

“You’re working,” she laughed.

“Yes.”

“Oh well, it must be done I suppose, well, if you change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

Hector walked away.

“A funny thing,” she called after him, he half turned, “it’s Noel’s twenty-first birthday tonight.”

“Wish him a happy birthday.”

“The strangest thing,” Kate said, her heart racing, “remember the day I left you with him?”

“Miss?”

“I shouldn’t have done that, he was tearing me apart, he wouldn’t stop crying but the strangest thing happened, after I found him he never cried again.”

“I’m glad Miss.”

Hector walked away.

“Merry Christmas Hector!” Kate called after him.

Hector disappeared into the house. Kate watched him, the last of the Prendergast’s, her heart bled for him. She blew him a kiss and went back to the party.