The Collar (3 page)

Tom and Sean went outside the door. They talked in low voices. Ned could not catch what they were saying. Then young Niall O'Donnell came in with his girl, one of the Deignans from up the hill. The Deignan girl was plump and pert; she had been in service in town. Niall was a well-built boy with a soft, wild-eyed, sensuous face, and a deep mellow voice of great power.

Barbara laid the meal for Ned and his brother in the sitting room. She was very proud of her parlour. It was a long, bare room with a table and three broken-backed, upholstered chairs. Two or three small family photographs had been placed at a height of eight feet so that the details of them were invisible.

‘Oh, my treasure, isn't it the pity I didn't know ye were coming and I'd have had something better than this for ye,' Barbara complained. With joined hands she stood before Ned and surveyed him with adoring eyes.

‘It is so,' said Tom with pretended indignation.

‘Ah, Father Tom, you were always a great joker.'

Sean leaned against the wall, cap over his eyes and hands behind his back, and whenever he looked at Ned he smiled the same mysterious smile and dropped his eyes. Through the back window they could see Niall and Delia Deignan standing on the high ground. He was asking her something but she, more interested in watching the sitting-room window, only shook her head.

After the two young men had had their meal all of them went across the yard to the other house.

‘You only just missed your father,' said their Uncle Maurice, shaking a hand of each.

‘How so?' asked Tom.

‘He went off to Ownie Pat's only a couple of minutes ago.'

‘The divil he did,' said Tom. ‘I knew damn well he was out to dodge me.'

They had their dinner with Maurice and his family. Tom took the place of honour. He was clearly the favourite. He remembered everyone, and every detail of the days he had spent there in boyhood, fishing and shooting with Sean. Through the doorway into the bedroom could be seen a big, old-fashioned bed and on the whiteness of a raised pillow a white, skeleton face surrounded by a halo of smoke-blue hair and surmounted in a distinctly odd way by a mauve tea-cosy. Sometimes the white face would begin to stir and everyone fell silent while Niall translated the scarcely audible whisper for the priest. Sometimes Niall would go in and repeat one of Tom's jokes for the old man in his drawling powerful bass. The hens stepped daintily about the feet of the diners, poking officious heads between them, and rushing out the door with a flutter and shriek whenever they were hooshed at.

‘Listen here to me,' said Tom, with a look of mock concern at Niall. ‘Is that young fellow courting Delia Deignan?'

‘Was he with Delia again?' asked Maurice.

‘He was. Is any of them married yet?'

‘The Deignans? No.'

‘Because I want to make a match for Ned with one of them. He's not safe up there in Dublin by himself. Now, seriously, seriously, which of them will I make the match with?'

‘Cait! Cait! Cait!' shouted half a dozen voices, the deep voice of young Niall loudest of all.

‘Well, now, Delia looks a smart little piece.'

‘No, Cait! Cait! Delia isn't the same since she went to a situation. Let him marry Cait!'

‘Is she a quiet sort of girl?'

‘She is, she is, she's a grand girl!'

Suddenly Sean rose and walked to the door with a grin.

‘Damn well he knows she's a quiet girl. No one else would have put up with him, the way he used to maul her.'

Tom sat stiff with mock indignation while the whole gathering rocked. Niall rose and repeated the joke to the old man in the bed. The mauve tea-cosy shook; it was the only indication of the ancient's amusement.

4

Before returning to the Caheraghs they decided to call at the Deignans ‘to choose a wife for Ned', as Tom proclaimed. The purpose of the visit excited so much amusement and Tom was such a favourite that they had a following. Sean and two of the O'Donnell girls came as well. Niall preferred to remain at home.

The Deignans' house was on top of a hill over the road and commanded a view of the countryside for more than a mile on every side. They went to it up a winding muddy boreen whose walls of unmortared stone rose here and there against the sky like lacework. On their way they met another procession coming from a house some distance from the Deignans'. It was headed by the father and the island woman, arm in arm, and it numbered two locals as well as Dempsey and Red Patrick. Their father was already drunk. That was plain when he rushed forward to shake them both by the hand and ask how they were. In answer to Tom's good-humoured queries he said that devil such honourable and kindly people as the people of Carriganassa were to be found in the whole created world, and that the O'Donnells were kings and sons of kings and you could see that same at a glance. He promised to be at the boat within twenty minutes. He had only one more call to make.

They looked in over the Deignans' half door. The kitchen was empty. It was a beautiful room, the woodwork and furniture painted a bright red-brown and the dresser shining with pretty ware. Over the fireplace was a row of caps and hats of different colours and sizes. They entered and began to look about them. Nothing was to be heard but the ticking of the cheap alarm clock over the fireplace. One of the O'Donnell girls began to giggle. Sean raised his voice.

‘Is there anyone in?'

There was silence for a moment. Then a quick step resounded upstairs and a girl descended at a run, drawing a knitted black shawl more tightly about her shoulders. She was perhaps twenty-eight or thirty with a narrow face and blue, nervous eyes. She stepped across the kitchen in an awkward manner, sideways, giving the customary greetings but without once raising her eyes.

‘A hundred welcomes before you!… How are you?… 'Tis a fine day.'

The same girl who had laughed first made herself objectionable again. Nora Deignan looked at her in surprise, nervously biting the tassel of her shawl.

‘What is it?'

‘Musha, stop your old antics and tell us where's Cait from you,' said Tom.

‘Cait!' called Nora in a low voice, clearly glad to share such an embarrassing position. There was the same quick step upstairs and another girl came down. It was only afterwards that it struck Ned that he had never seen a more lovely creature. She had the same narrow face as her sister, the same slight features sharpened by an animal delicacy, the same blue eyes with the startled brightness, but her complexion was as fresh as morning and the blush that covered it made it seem fresher still. She entered the kitchen in the same embarrassed, hostile way.

‘Have you nothing to say to me, Cait?' asked the priest with a grin.

‘Oh, a hundred welcomes before you.' Her blue eyes rested on him for a moment with a fierce candour and penetration and then wandered past him to the open door. The rain was beginning to fall outside.

‘Is that all?'

‘How are you?'

‘The politeness is suffocating you. Where's Delia?'

‘Here I am,' said a low voice, and Delia was observed standing in the doorway, immediately behind him. It was so unexpected that everyone began to laugh. And then the silence fell again.

‘The reason we called,' said Tom, clearing his throat, ‘was this young brother of mine looking for a wife, and I told him I'd show him the three prettiest girls in Carriganassa.'

‘Leave him take me,' said Delia.

‘Why? Aren't there your two sisters before you?'

‘Even so, I want to get up to Dublin … Would you treat me to lemonade, mister?' she asked Ned. ‘This is a rotten hole. I'd go to America if I could.'

‘You don't have to make up your mind, Ned,' said the priest. ‘Write and tell them. I have to be rushing not to keep my father waiting.'

‘We'll go with you,' said Nora unexpectedly.

The three girls took down three black shawls from inside the door.

‘I'll go under the shawl with you, Cait,' said Tom.

‘You will not,' she said, starting back.

‘She'd rather the young man,' said Delia.

‘She had enough of the other,' said Sean.

Cait looked at them both angrily and then began to laugh. She stretched out her shawl for Ned. Outside it was raining, a mild, persistent drizzle, and a strong wind was blowing. Everything had darkened and grown lonely about them, and under the blinding shawl Ned felt he had dropped out of Time's pocket.

They sat waiting in the Caheraghs' kitchen. The old man sat in one chimney corner and the little boy in the other. The dim blue light poured down the chimney upon their heads with the delicacy of light on old china, and between them the fire burned a bright orange in the great white hearth and the rain fell softly, almost soundlessly outside the half door. The twenty minutes had already strung themselves out to an hour. Tom was again the life and soul of the company, but even he was clearly beginning to be anxious. Two of the little boys were sent off to search for Tomas. All the while Ned could scarcely take his eyes off Cait Deignan who with her elder sister occupied the form against the rere wall, the black shawl drawn across her chin, the white wall behind. Sometimes she caught his eye and laughed softly; then she sank back again into pensiveness. Pensiveness or utter vacancy? He found it hard to say, but while he looked at her narrow face with the animal instinctiveness of its over-delicate features he was seeing, as if painted, the half door, the rain falling, the rocks and hills and angry sea – all that had given it birth.

The first to arrive was Red Patrick. After him came the island woman. Each of these had apparently last seen Tomas in different places. Then came Dempsey. Dempsey was glad the rain was falling. It would quiet the bay. The only question was, would Tomas be in a state to take a boat anywhere? Opinions varied. The Deignans said it made no difference. They would make room for Ned. Cait laughed and looked away. Tom began to grow angry. And then Tomas appeared.

He entered like a seawind, scattering all before him. He rushed to Tom and shook him heartily by the hand, asking him passionately if he were well. He did the same by Ned who only laughed. ‘In God's name,' he shouted, waving his arms, ‘let us be going now before the night comes.'

The rain was still falling. The tide had dropped. Tomas grabbed an oar and pushed the boat on to a rock. Then he raised the sail, let it fall again and had to be extricated from its folds. They shouted their goodbyes to the little group of figures revealed upon the naked rock against a grey background of drifting rain. For a long time Ned continued to wave back at Cait Deignan. A strange feeling of exaltation and loss descended upon him. Huddled up in his overcoat he sat at the stern with Dempsey, not speaking.

‘It was a great day,' Tomas declared, swinging himself to and fro, tugging at his moustache, dragging the peak of his cap farther down over his ear. His gestures betrayed a certain lack of rhythmical cohesion, they began and finished abruptly. ‘Dempsey, my darling, wasn't it a grand day?'

‘It was a grand day for you,' shrieked Dempsey as though his throat would burst.

‘It was, my treasure, it was, a grand day for me. I got an honourable reception and my sons got an honourable reception.' Flat on his belly, one leg on the edge of the boat he stretched a hot hand to Tom and then to Ned. ‘I got porter and I got whiskey and I got poteen. I did so, Tom, my calf. Ned, my brightness, I went to seven houses, and in every house I got seven drinks, and with every drink I got seven welcomes. And the O'Donnells are honourable people. It was no slight they put on me at all, even if I was nothing but a landless man. No slight, Tom, my treasure, no slight at all.'

Darkness had fallen, the rain had calmed the sea, and nothing was to be heard in all the waste of water but the splush, splush of the boat's sides, and Tomas's voice raised in song.

5

Ned was the first to wake. He struck a match and lit the candle. It was time to rise. It was just after dawn and at half past nine he would be in his old place in the schoolroom. He lit a cigarette and closed his eyes. The lurch of the boat was still in his blood and the face of Cait Deignan refused to be put out of mind.

He heard his brother mumble something and nudged him. Tom moaned and was still. He looked fat and big and helpless with his fair head rolled sideways and his open mouth dribbling onto his shirtsleeve. Ned slipped out of bed quietly, put on his trousers and went to the window. He drew aside the curtains and let the cold, thin daylight enter. The bay was just visible and seemed perfectly still. Tom began to mumble again, crying moodily and whining. Ned shook him. He started up with an exclamation of fright. He looked first at Ned, then at the candle and drowsily brushed his eyes.

‘Is it time to be going?' he asked in alarm.

‘No hurry. It's only that you were whining about something.'

‘What the hell? Did you hear me say anything?'

‘Not a word.'

‘Are you sure?' the priest asked suspiciously.

‘Certain,' said Ned with his soft laugh. ‘The secret is safe. Were you dreaming?'

‘Oh, God!' Tom shivered and stretched out his arm for a cigarette. He lit it at the candle flame, his drowsy face puckered and distraught. ‘I slept rotten.'

‘Did you?'

‘I didn't sleep properly for months.'

‘Why? What's up?'

‘Every bloody thing!'

‘Tell me,' stammered Ned, sitting on the bed with his powerful hands resting on his knees. The priest looked away.

‘Do you remember that Scotch dame in Portona?'

‘The young one – I do.'

‘She was in town over Christmas.'

‘Did you see her?'

‘I did. I didn't let on to you I was in town. For your own sake.'

‘I know, I know. Ye got friendly, so.'

‘We did. She's a damned nice girl – worse luck. She wouldn't take no for an answer.'