Collected Short Stories (19 page)

‘Please, sir,' she pleaded, ‘don't meddle with it! He has it marked!'

‘How – marked?'

‘He has a livin' fly in the inside of the canister, sir, and if she gets out he'll know somebody was at the tea.'

I took the lid off the canister and a fly rose out, circled round the lamp, and then flew up to the white ceiling to join her companions. Under my breath I damned the Master and wished that he had come in while I was making the tea. I sat on the table, drank the tea, and gorged myself with four thick slices of his loaf. The housekeeper joined and unjoined her hands, refused to take the tea I had poured out for her telling me that tea would put her off her sleep. Near midnight I left for home.

In the morning he was waiting for me in the school-porch. I smiled to him and he blazed at me with his narrow little eyes: ‘What right have you to interfere in my domestic affairs! Are you going to teach me how to manage my own house – a young pup from the city that knows nothing of country life or country people!' The sweat gleamed on his bald head; his celluloid collar was clammy on his neck and he wiped it with his handkerchief. He asked me to apologise and I walked in past him and signed my time heavily on the teachers' roll.

For a whole week we did not speak to one another and a week later I sent in my resignation and shortly afterwards returned home.

Yesterday the postman brought me a letter without a stamp. I looked at the familiar handwriting on the envelope and handed it back to the postman. But, being suspicious by nature, I've been wondering ever since what it was he had to say to me and why he still considers me as one of his ‘special friends'.

In the early hours of the night it had rained and the iron gate that led to the lightkeepers' houses had rattled loose in the wind, and as it cringed and banged it disturbed Mrs O'Brien's spaniel where he lay on a mat in the dark draughty hallway. Time and time again he gave a muffled growl, padded about the hall, and scratched at the door. His uneasiness and the noise of the wind had wakened Mrs O'Brien in the room above him, and she lay in bed wondering if she should go down and let him into the warm comfort of the kitchen. Beside her her husband was asleep, snoring loudly, unaware of her wakefulness or of the windows shaking in their heavy frames. The rain rattled like hailstones against the panes and raced in a flood into the zinc tank at the side of the house. God in Heaven, how anybody could sleep through that, she said – it was enough to waken the dead and there he was deep asleep as if it were a calm summer night. What kind of a man was he at all! You'd think he'd be worrying about his journey to the Rock in the morning and his long six weeks away from her. He was getting old – there was no mistake about that. She touched his feet – they were cold, as cold as a stone you'd find on a wintry beach.

The dog growled again, and throwing back the bedclothes she got up and groped on the table for the matchbox. She struck one match but it was a dead one, and she clicked her tongue in disapproval. She was never done telling Tom not to be putting his spent matches back into the box but he never heeded her. It was tidy he told her; it was exasperating if she knew anything. She struck three before coming upon a good one, and in the spurt of flame she glanced at the alarm-clock and saw that it was two hours after midnight. She slipped downstairs, lit the lamp, and let the dog into the kitchen. She patted his head and he jumped on the sofa, thumped it loudly with his tail and curled up on a cushion. On the floor Tom's hampers lay ready for the morning when the boatmen would come to row him out to the lighthouse to relieve young Frank Coady. She looked at the hampers with sharp calculation, wondering if she had packed everything he needed. She was always sure to forget something – boot polish or a pullover or a corkscrew or soap – and he was always sure to cast it up to her as soon as he stepped ashore for his two weeks leave. She could never remember a time when he arrived back without some complaint or other. But this time she was sure she had forgotten nothing for she had made a list and ticked each item off as she packed them into the cases. Yes, he wouldn't be able to launch any of his ill-humour on her this time!

She quenched the lamp, and returning to her room she stood at the window for a moment and saw the lighthouse beam shine on the clouds and sweep through the fine wire of falling rain. Tom was still asleep, heedless of his coming sojourn on that windy stub of rock. But maybe if the wind would hold during the night the boatmen would be unable to row him out in the morning. But even that would be no comfort – waiting, and waiting, and watching the boatmen sheltering all day in the lee of the boathouse expecting the sea to settle. It'd be better, after all, that they'd be able to take him. She got into bed and turned her back to him, and as she listened to the rain she thought of how it would wash the muddy paw-marks from the cement paths and save her the trouble of getting down on her hands and knees in the morning.

She awoke without aid of the alarm-clock, and from her bed she saw the washed blue of the sky, and in the stillness heard the hollow tumult of the distracted sea. He'd have to go out this morning – there was no doubt about that! But God grant he'd return to her in better form! She got up quietly, and buttoning her frock at the window she gazed down at the Coady's house. The door was open to the cold sun and Delia Coady was on her knees freshly whitening the doorstep that had been streaked in the night's rain. All her windows were open, the curtains bulging in the uneasy draught. Delia raised her head and looked around but Mrs O'Brien withdrew to the edge of the window and continued to watch her. Delia was singing now and going to the zinc tank at the side of the house for a bucket of water.

Tom stirred in his bed and threw one arm across the pillow.

‘Do you hear her?' his wife said.

‘Hear who?' he mumbled crossly and pulled the clothes up round his chest.

‘Delia Coady is singing like a lark.'

‘Well, let her sing. Isn't it a free country?'

The alarm clock buzzed on the table and she let it whirl out to the end of its spring.

Tom raised his head from the pillow and stared at her. ‘Isn't it a great wonder you didn't switch that damned thing off and you up before it?'

‘You better get up, Tom. Delia will think you're in no hurry to take her Frank off the rock.'

‘I'll go when it suits me – not a second faster. When young Coady's as long on the lights as I am he'll not hurry much. The way to get on in my job is to go slow, slow, slow – dead slow, snail slow, and always slow. Do you remember what one of the Commissioners said to me on the East Light in Rathlin? “Mister O'Brien,” he said, “there's not as much dust in the whole place as would fill a matchbox.” And the secret is – slow.'

‘No Commissioner would use such a word as “matchbox”.'

‘And do you think, woman, that I'm making up that story? What would you have him say?' and he affected a mincing feminine accent: ‘ “Lightkeeper O'Brien, there is not as much elemental dust in the hallowed precincts of this Lighthouse as would fill a silver snuff-box.” Is that what you would have him say?' he added crossly.

‘I don't think he'd pass any remark about dust or dirt.'

‘You don't think! You don't think! It's a wonder you didn't think of switching off the damned alarm-clock and you knowing I hate the sound of it.'

She said nothing. All their quarrels seemed to arise out of the simplest remarks – one remark following another, spreading out and involving them, before they were aware, in a quarrel of cold cruelty. She, herself, was to blame for many of them. She should have let him have his little story of ‘the matchbox'. What on earth possessed her to turn a word on him and this the last day she'd be speaking to him for six long weeks? She checked a long sigh, tidied the things in the room quietly, and all the time tried to find something to say that would soften her last words to him. She crossed to the window and put her hand to the snib to lower it. Delia was still singing and standing out from the door the better to see the freshly whitened window-sills and doorstep.

‘She has a lovely frock on,' she said over her shoulder. ‘I never saw her in that before; it fairly becomes her.'

‘Didn't I tell you she was married in blue! It'll be the same frock.'

‘She has a nice voice.'

‘I think you're jealous of her.”

‘Hm, I used to be able to sing very well myself.'

‘I must say I heard precious little of it.'

‘Maybe you didn't! Maybe you'd be interested to know I gave that up shortly after we were married – some twelve years ago.'

‘And whose fault was that?'

‘Oh, I don't know,' she said, controlling herself.

He pulled the clothes over his shoulder and she pleaded with him to get up and not be the sort that'd deprive another man of even one hour of his leave on shore.

‘Is it Frank Coady I'd hurry for! Not me! I'll take my time. I'm over thirty years on the lights and he's a bare half-dozen. He doesn't rush much if he's coming out to relieve me.'

‘You can't blame him and he not long married,' she said, scarcely knowing what she was saying as she spoke into the mirror and brushed her hair.

‘Last time he came out to relieve me I was waiting for the boat all morning and it didn't come to the afternoon. And what did he say as he stepped ashore? “God, Tom, I'm sorry the boat's late. I took a hellish pain in my stomach and had to lie down for a couple of hours.” That's what the scamp said to me instead of offering to give me an extra day on account of his hellish pains. Well, I feel tired this morning and I'm not stirring hand or foot for another hour at least!'

She turned round in her chair from the mirror: ‘I'm beginning to get tired of that word “tired” of yours. You were tired last night, tired the night before – always tired. You've said nothing else since you stepped ashore two weeks ago. Tired! – it's not out of any consideration you show me. Going off to the pub of an evening and waiting there till somebody gives you a lift home.'

‘And what do you want me to do? What do you want off me?'

‘Oh, nothing,' she almost cried, ‘nothing! I'm used to loneliness now! I'm used to my married widowhood! In my marriage! You won't come for a game of Bridge of an evening. You're tired – you always say. And if I go you won't wait up till I come back. You lower the lamp and go to your bed. Oh, it's no wonder my hair is beginning to turn grey at the temples.'

‘My own is white!'

‘What do you expect and you nearing sixty?'

‘You're lovely company!'

‘Company! Only for the companionship of the old dog I'd go out of my mind.'

‘If you'd go out of this room I might think of getting up.'

‘Oh, if I'd thought I was keeping you back I'd have gone long ago,' and she lifted the alarm-clock, the box of matches, and hastened from the room.

He stretched his arms and looked at the glass of water on the table. He'd not drink that! The stale taste of it would upset him – and what with his stomach upset and his mind upset he'd be in a nice fix for a journey on the sea. He'd smoke a cigarette – and stretching out to the chair for his coat, he lit one, and lay back on the pillows, frowning now and then at the cold air that blew through the open window. He could hear Delia singing and he wondered if Mag sang when she was expecting him home. He doubted it! She was more attached to that damned old dog, and she thought nothing of walking five miles of an evening for a game of cards and bringing the old dog with her. If she were on the rock for awhile it'd soon tether her, soon take the skip out of her step. Ah, he should have married somebody less flighty, somebody a bit older and settled, somebody that'd enjoy a glass of stout with you of an evening and not be wanting to drag you over the whole blasted country in search of a game of Bridge.

Downstairs he heard Mag opening the front door and letting out the dog for a run, and he heard her speak across to Delia and say how glad she was that it had cleared up in time for Frank's homecoming. Hm, he thought, she's greatly concerned about the neighbours. He looked at the cigarette in his hand, and from the bed he tried to throw it through the open window but it struck the pane and fell on the floor, and he had to get up and stamp on the lighted end.

His clothes were folded neatly for him on the edge of the table: a clean white shirt, his trousers creased and the brass buttons on his jacket brightly polished. He pulled on the cold starched shirt and gave a snort of contempt. He wished she'd be less particular – ye'd think he was expecting a visit from the Commissioners on the Rock. Damn the thing you ever saw out there except an exhausted pigeon or a dead cormorant that you'd have to kick into the sea to keep the blowfly from stalking around it. It's remarkable the nose a blowfly has for decaying flesh – flying two or three miles out to sea to lay its eggs on a dead sea bird. Nature's remarkable when you come to think about it – very remarkable!

Mag tapped the stairs with her knuckles and called out that his breakfast was ready, and when he came down, she glanced at him furtively, trying to read from his face the effect of her remark to him about his white hair. If only she could tell him that she was sorry. But it was better not to – it was better to let it pass and speak to him as if nothing had happened.

‘Oh, Tom,' she said brightly, ‘Delia was over to see what time you expected to go.'

‘And how the hell do I know at what time I'm expected to go? I'll wait till the boatmen call – and to my own slow and unhurried time.'

‘She has plenty of paint on, this morning,' she added to restore ease.

‘Who has?'

‘The old boat, I mean,' she flashed back.

There it was again: they were back to where they started from – chilling one another with silent hostility or with words that would spurt in bitter fury. Oh, she thought, if only he had shown some of his old love for her during the past two weeks they would not now be snapping at one another and there would be ease and satisfaction and longing in this leave-taking.

She brought a hot plate of rashers and eggs from the range and poured out tea for him.

‘Maybe, Tom, I should run over and tell Delia you'll be ready as soon as the boatmen arrive. I'd like to take the full of my eyes of her place as she does of ours. I always think there's a heavy smell of paraffin in her kitchen. Do you ever find it, Tom?'

‘That smell's been in my nose ever since I joined the Lights. Do you know what I'm going to tell you?' and he raised the fork in his hand as she sat down opposite him. ‘There's nothing as penetrating and as permanent as the smell of paraffin. It's remarkable. It seeps into the walls and it would ooze out again though two coats of new paint. It's in my nose and I wouldn't know the differs between it and the smell of a flower.'

She smiled for she at that moment caught sight of two cases of Guinness's stout on the floor and she yearned to tell him jokingly that he had a fine perfume for something else. But she repressed that desire and turned to the dog as he laid his nose on her lap. She threw him a few scraps from the table and he snapped at them greedily. She fondled his head and toyed with one of his ears, turning it inside out.

‘It's a great wonder you wouldn't put out that dog and let me get my breakfast in some sort of Christian decency. There's a bad smell from him.'