T
HE NEXT DAY WAS NEW AND FREE, NO BURDEN OF SCHOOL. HE
found old work-clothes and went back with Mahoney to the fields, malleting stakes into the ground to hang barbed wire to split the pastures, and he was painfully soft, arms leaden by the afternoon, barely able to drag feet by night, pissing on the hands and letting the piss dry in an attempt to get the blistering skin hardened. Not able to stay awake after tea, and the night one unconscious sleep till he was woken by clattering buckets late in the yard in the morning, groaning with the ache of the muscles as he put on clothes, out for another day.
Haytime came, the blades of grass shivering on the tractor arm, the turning and the shaking, its dry crackle against the teeth of the raker, the constant rattle of the teeth down again on the hard meadow after lifting free. The fragrance of new hay drenched the evening once the dew started and they were building high the cocks. Joy of a clean field at nightfall as they
roofed the last cocks with green grass and tied them down against the wind.
The smell of frying bacon blew from the house as they finished, hay and hayseed tangled in their hair and over their clothes as they walked towards the house, a gentle ache of tiredness. They shared something real at last. They’d striven through the day together, the day was over. No thought or worry anywhere, too tired and at peace to think. The dew was coming down, a white ground mist rising after the heat, a moon pale and quiet above the mushroom shapes of the beeches.
“Twenty cocks in the Big Meadow. Sixteen in the Rock. It’ll more than fill the shed. We’ll have to throw up a small rick besides. It’ll take an Atom Bomb to starve the cattle this winter. No snow will do it,” Mahoney laughed his satisfaction into the evening.
“We did a good day,” he was content, brown with sun, touched by the extraordinary peace and richness, even the huge docks under the apple trees, of the evening.
There was the delight of power and ease in every muscle now, he’d grown fit and hard, he’d worked into the unawareness of a man’s day.
“There’s not many would keep pace with the two of us. You’ve come into your own since the exam.”
A hare looped out of the mist and stood. It raised itself, forepaws in the air, one paw crooked, the ears erect. The vague swirl of mist about it seemed to freeze into the intensity of the listening as they stood dead to watch.
It seemed as if it must shudder in the air with the intensity before it fell quietly down again, uncertain, not knowing what way to flee.
“Hulla, hulla, hulla,” Mahoney suddenly shouted and it bounded away, disappearing between the green oaks vague at the head of the meadow.
The sleepy cries of the pigeons sounded from Oakport.
“The wood’s full of them pigeons. They’ll not leave a pick of cabbage on the stumps if they get a chance. They give me the creeps. Cuckoos with hoarse throats.”
The tracks of boots left vivid wet splashes on the grass. The frying bacon came stronger, the saliva already too eagerly filling the mouth. Pleasure of drenching the face and arms, the back of the neck, with cold water outside, sitting fresh to the meal on the kitchen table; as later sleep would come before the heaven of a mattress and cool sheets could be enjoyed.
Never was so much work done, fences fixed and egg bushes rooted up, usually left to the winter to do. There was a savage delight in this power and animal strength, the total unconsciousness of the night afterwards. Sundays were spent at football in Charlie’s field, the same dogtiredness after, not a shadow of thought. He was a man. He was among men. He was able to take a man’s place.
What was strange to notice was that Mahoney was growing old. He’d stop and lean on the pick, panting, “Take it easy. No need to burst yourself. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
The cattle got ringworm. They were driven into the cobbled yard, and the wooden gate reinforced with iron bars. Their hooves slid on the cobbles, their eyes great with fear, milling around. For the first time he was their match, he was no longer afraid of a crushing, he had strength enough. He’d coax near, then get an arm around the throats, keep his feet in the first rush till he’d wear them into a corner and grip the sensitive ridge of the nostril between finger and thumb to draw the head up and back, the whites of the eyes rolling, the mouth dripping. He’d hold the heaving flanks of the beast that way against the wall while Mahoney daubed green paint into the sores with a brush.
Mahoney was far the more cautious, a long remove from
the days he used shout and bluster on these same cobbles, while the son stood terrified of the charging cattle with the box of green paint and the brush in his hand.
“Watch now. Better men than you got hurt. He’d crack your ribs like a shot against that wall. Maybe we better leave him, and take a chance he’ll get alright without the paint, he’s too strong,” he counselled now.
“No. I think we’ll get him. You can put the paint down, and push him into the wall once I catch him. I’ll be able to hold him once we get him against the wall.”
“But watch, watch, he’s as strong as a bull.”
The animal was caught and held. Mahoney daubed in the paint. The gate was opened. They all pushed out with the green paint on the sores.
“There’s nothing the two of us mightn’t do together,” Mahoney said as they went, blobs of sweat on his forehead, a weariness in the set of the body, the eyes hunted. He was growing old. Hard to imagine this was the same man who’d made the winters a nightmare over the squalid boots, the beatings and the continual complaining.
They threw away the old raincoats that had protected their clothes, and washed hands and arms in the same basin of hot water with Dettol to kill infection. He watched him there old, and remembered. The looking moved from the cruelty of detachment out into the incomprehension, no one finally knew anything about himself or anybody, even moods of hatred or contempt were passing, were of no necessary consequence.
T
HE EXAM RESULT ARRIVED THE FIRST WEEK IN AUGUST. DAYS
of pestering the postman out on the road ended.
“Anything today?”
The voice shook but tried laughably not to betray its obvious care, it was an unconcerned question.
“No. Nothing today,” he cycled past the gate, amusement in his voice, mixture of contempt and the superiority of understanding, the green braid on his tunic.
The day he produced the letter he was forgotten, neither “Good-bye” nor “Thank you” nor anything. There was no need to open it to know what it was, the postmark was plain, Benedict’s hand. He just stared at it, the world reduced to its few square inches. He didn’t notice the postman noisily mount his bike again and cycle off. The problem was how to open it, it shook violently in his hands. He tore it clumsily at last and
he had to rest it against the gate, his hands were shaking so much, in order to read. His eyes clutched up and down at the words and marks as if to gulp it with the one look into the brain.
It was only slowly it grew clear, the whole body trembling, he’d got the Scholarship, everything. The blue crest of the school crowned the notepaper, Presentation of the Child in the Temple. He started to tremble laughing, tears in the eyes, and then he rested against the gate, it couldn’t be true. He read it again.
“I got it. I got it,” he burst into the kitchen to Mahoney, hysterically laughing.
“What?”
“The Scholarship, all honours, everything.”
Mahoney seized it and read.
“Bejesus, you did it, you did it, strike me pink.”
The excitement was changing, he was crying, joy and generosity flowing towards the whole world. He wanted to catch hands and kiss everyone, and dance. He’d buy them presents, bring them places, they were all beautiful. They’d share joy, the world was a beautiful place, all its people beautiful.
“You did it. There’s marks for you. That’s what’ll show them who has the brains round here,” Mahoney shouted as he read.
“Congratulations,” he shook his hand in the manner of a drama. “Come and congratulate your brother.”
They came and shook his hand and smiled up at him with round eyes, and that was the first cooling. They looked at him as different, and he knew he was the same person as before, he’d been given a lucky grace, he wanted it to be theirs as much as his, but he was changed in their eyes, they’d not accept he was the same.
“We’ll go to town, the pair of us,’ Mahoney was shouting.
“This is no day for work. A day like this won’t arrive many times in our lives.”
They dressed and went to town. Mahoney talked nonstop on the way, there was nothing to do but be silent and listen. The flood of generosity was choked. He was playing a part in Mahoney’s joy, he was celebrating Mahoney’s joy and not his own. He grew bored and restless but that was the way the day was going to go.
Let it happen, let it happen, and let it be over as quickly as possible.
“What we’ll have to get you first is clothes and shoes. You’re someone now. We can’t have you looking the part of the ragman.”
They went to Curleys, shop of the horror boots for winter.
“Can we help you?” after the shaking of hands.
“We want a whole new outfit for this fellow, he’s after getting first place in the University. Scholarship and all Honours in his Leaving. So we can’t have him going round like a ragman. Expense is no object. He’s going to be someone in the world, not like us.”
“Congratulations, it’s not every day we have a genius among us.”
He went red, such a swamp of embarrassment, he looked round frantic to hide first. Hatred swept against Mahoney: could he not shut his mouth. Three girls in the uniform of black skirt and cardigan were smiling from the women’s counter. He thought they were laughing at his cloddish father.
A grey suit was bought, black shoes, a white shirt, and matching wine tie.
“You must be proud today,” the manager said to the father. “You deserve great credit for the way you brought these children up.”
“We only try to do our best, what more can we do,” he diminished but he bloomed in the praise.
“There’s more than that to it. And now I want to make my own contribution to the happy occasion,” and he presented brown leather gloves with the compliments of the house.
“The best shop in the town is Curleys. We got everything we ever wanted here, the best shop in the town.”
“We do our best. We value and appreciate our good customers,” the manager was pleased too before his staff and came smiling with them to the door.
“The next time it’ll be for his father he’ll be buying for, we hope, and driving round in a car,” Mahoney joked as he backed through the door, so absorbed that he almost flattened a woman passing with parcels. It brought him slightly down to earth, he restored a fallen parcel, and said, “Sorry,” to her murderous stare and mutterings.
He was determined on a round of the town, every shop they were known in.
Flynn’s where they got
Ireland’s Own
.
O’Loan’s, the hardware shop.
Even Cassidy’s where they got the luxuries of oranges and raisins for Christmas and Easter.
“They have the money but not the brains. This’ll be a shake-up for them,” he boasted between the shops.
“O’Carroll of Cavan had a son in St. Patrick’s and he could be learned nothing. As thick as a solid ditch. So the Reverend President sent for O’Carroll and said, ‘You better take away your son, Mr. O’Carroll, we can make nothing of him here,’” he began to recount.
“‘That’s alright,’ said O’Carroll. ‘I’ll pay you what you want.’
“‘But he has no brains, Mr. O’Carroll,’ the Reverend President said.
“‘Brains, what does he want brains for, I’ll buy him brains, the best brains in the country. So keep him.’”
Mahoney laughed loudly at his own story as they paused at
the Public Lavatory in the Shambles, the cobbler’s shop in the archway and straw about an abandoned raker in Foley’s yard, the cattle pens all around, and lorries from Donegal with bags of cheap potatoes.
“That’s one thing can’t be bought is brains. Only God can give brains. And they don’t come off the wind either.”
He made no answer except some phrase of agreement. There was a certain cruelty in the way he watched his father caper but there was the pleasure of attention mixed with the frightful embarrassment of these capers from shop to shop, he was uncomfortable but half-pleased centre of praise.
“The one thing to beware of is a swelled head. That’s the ruination of brains. Pride! But if you can keep a cool head you’ll show some of them round here how it’s done.”
T
HE DAY WOULD NOT END PROPERLY WITHOUT THE ROYAL
Hotel, its promise of celebration in style. One day they’d dress up and go to town and dine in the Royal Hotel, it was come true at last.
Mahoney ran the comb through his hair, smoothed his lapels, before he pushed through the swing-doors. He demanded the whereabouts of the dining-room from the girl at the cash-desk, trying to cover his unease by aggressiveness. The dining-room was half full, anglers from England for the Arrow trout, commercial travellers, people breaking their journeys. They looked about for a retreat in a corner, or by the river windows, but there were none vacant, and when they did settle for a table they found it was engaged.
“First in first served. There’s no fence around it, is there?”
Mahoney attracted the attention of the room by complaining loudly as the waitress led them to another table.
There Mahoney sat at bay, handing the menu card across the table with an assertive flourish.
“Pick what you want. It’s your day. It’s not every day people get a University Scholarship,” he said loud enough for the room to hear, a show of mild interest creeping over the faces, smile of condescending understanding.
Why, why could he not be quiet, why had he to attract attention? What need was there to come here at all, the strain was too shocking, why couldn’t they have eaten in a cheap place or gone home? Resentment grew with hot embarrassment. He was beginning to hate the Scholarship. It had been dragged sick through town all day. Now everyone knew here too.
“Whatever you think but shut up about the Scholarship,” the first direct protest came.
“You care too much about what people know or think, that’s what’s wrong with you.”
“I don’t care and shut up.”
“Alright. Alright but there’s no need to get so hot. It’s your day.”
He called the waitress, he was bothered and disturbed, the strange atmosphere, there was no union between them.
“We want the best in the house,” he said.
“The chicken is extremely good, sir. Or the duck?” her face remained impassive. He saw on the menu that the duck was the more expensive.
“Duck. Duck for two,” he said.
“What will you have with it, sir?” And the rest of the meal was laboriously chosen.
It was not easy to sit through in quiet. Why had the father to try and bulldoze everything through by brute force? The girl was a person too even though she wore the uniform of a
waitress. Could he not be quiet just as easy, and ask for what he wanted, the other person had need of dignity too, and he’d get his meal the same in the end.
“You’ll have to learn to have more confidence in yourself if you’re to be anything in the world. People take you at your own face value. You must stand up for your rights. Never be afraid to go into any place and ask for what you want long as you have money in your pocket. I’m not afraid,” he said while she was away.
He didn’t answer. This brute assertion made him sick.
“She’s a person too,” he wanted to say but watched instead the shallow river flowing broken on its stones through the windows, long tresses of green weed swaying in the flow.
The meal was served, embarrassment of not knowing how to use the different knives and forks. They’d been told in school to begin on the outside and work in, but if there happened to be a fault in the arranging, one knife where it shouldn’t be, he couldn’t think what a country ass he’d seem.
He waited for Mahoney but he plainly didn’t know either, watching covertly round at the other tables to see what they were using, joking to cover his unease.
“You’d be able to manufacture a carcass with all this machinery never mind a piece of bloody duck. But this is a meal in style. It must be one of the best hotels this in the West.”
Mahoney was in the Royal Hotel, silver and a meal with sauces, he’d have to pay dear, he was determined that he was going to enjoy it. As people left their tables and others came, as the meal wore, he relaxed into a kind of pondering sentimentality.
“We got to the Royal Hotel at last, after all the years. It’s a fine meal and a happy day. We’ve come into our own at last. We’re celebrating in style and something to celebrate at last.”
“It’s a fine meal. Thank you for bringing me.”
A vision of how happy the others must be with their tea and bread, free in the house, no burden of what they were not accustomed to.
“No, no thanks at all, it’s your day. We’ve had our differences over the years, there’s no house that hasn’t, but that’s not what counts.”
“No. That’s not what counts.”
“We still love each other after all the years.”
“We do.”
“We’ve not been rich but there’s love and no hard feelings and that’s all that matters. That’s what Christ preached.”
“Yes. That’s all that matters,” pressure of Mahoney was driving him crazy, ground underfoot by it, and the walls of the room and people closing round, he’d have to get out of here, if it was only to see the empty street and gulp air on the bridge or watch the river flow out into Key and Rockingham.
“Do you think we could go?”
“It’s time I suppose. We’ll just get the bill.”
He stood. Mahoney was left with no choice. He didn’t wait to watch the paying of the bill but waited out in the hall. He felt freer there, but he couldn’t be out of the place half quick enough, on the streets with air and people watching or going about their business.
“Do you know what that cost?” Mahoney joined him.
“No.”
“Guess.”
He guessed deliberately below the price and Mahoney thrust the bill into his hands.
“A disgrace, no wonder they’re rotten rich. You pay for the silver and the ‘Sir’, and the view of the river as if you never saw a river before. Think of all the loaves of bread you could buy for the price of them two meals.”
The shops were closing, a grey gentleness entering the light, and the blinds of the pubs were down. People who had
no status to uphold were coming out to sit on the bridge. Girls with an air of secrecy about them were going somewhere dressed for the evening. Young men with oil plastering down their hair had come in from the country and stood at the corners with bicycle-clips in their trousers. Girls were sure to pass. Someone might get drunk and make a fool of himself. There might be even a fight or car crash.
“It was a cost but we had to do it. We had to celebrate it. And it’s one you’ll remember no matter how high you go in the world.”
He had to look solemn but he felt free after the hotel and wanted to laugh. He watched his father cycle by his side home, the head low into the wind over the dynamo lamp, pushing. He waited for him to pass the graveyard.
“It gives me the creeps, that place! No matter what happens it winds up there. And you wouldn’t mind only there’s people dying to get into it,” everybody repeated themselves but suddenly at the old joke he wanted to laugh with him and say,
“You are marvellous, my father.”