He was ‘hanging’ a scythe in the kitchen the next morning to mow around the rocks and corners in the hay-field, when looking out the back window he saw the Parish Priest himself coming up the road. He was walking slowly and the hauteur of his sided head as he strode between the poplars took away some of the terror. He was making up his mind to have it out with Father Daly unknown to his mother, if he could keep her out of it. He felt that outside the destructive influence of his mother he could put himself over big with the priest. On an entirely new high level of literature and scholarship.
Whether his mother came on the scene or not that was the way he was going to talk. The more a man stuck to the gutter the more he was stuck in it and he was not going to be the wet gutter reflecting the sky of truth if he could help it. His mother was over in the potato field at the time and he had high hopes that she would not return till the priest had left. In this he was disappointed. Just then the dog – which was an irreligious beast – began to bark wildly from the haggard and in a moment he was galloping across the street in front of the door. The mother who was coming across the meadow on her way back from the field saw the dog and rushed ahead just in time to prevent the priest from being attacked by the mongrel.
Tarry was in the house screwing his courage to the sticking place and indifferent to the dog’s behaviour.
‘You’re welcome, father. Chu father – dog.’
Father Daly had his hand on the bar of the gate. The woman was in a terrible state, shaking like jelly. The presence of the avowed and sacred celibate is a terror to womankind. No chink in the heart.
‘Chu – father – dog – to hell – father.’
The priest kept his dignity and never relaxed the hauteur of his sided head. He seemed to be staring at the chimney of the house.
The woman succeeded in getting a kick at the dog, and this and the sound of Eusebius’ cart coming down the road drew the animal away, for the dog had a warm regard for Eusebius, preferring him to his own master.
Having bid the woman the time of day Father Daly said: ‘In the words of Shakespeare, Mrs Flynn:
A little learning is a dangerous thing,
Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring.’
‘Pope,’ said Tarry under his breath, too low for the priest to hear, but loud enough to flatter his own ego.
‘Yes, father,’ whimpered the woman.
The cart approaching had stopped among the bushes and its stopping drew attention to its presence.
‘Finnegan’s cart,’ remarked the priest.
‘Or Eusebius’,’ said the mother.
‘Finnegan’s,’ dogmatized the priest, who took a great delight in knowing ordinary things.
Neither mother nor son contradicted him. Tarry was pleased at the priest’s attitude. He was going to argue on the higher plane and that suited Tarry perfectly. He was not so pleased when Father Daly said in a declamatory tone: ‘This son of yours is a perfect fool, Mrs Flynn. A perfect fool. Yes, he takes on to know things that men have spent years in colleges to learn. Why don’t you get him a wife? The other night, I understand he was at this cross-roads of Drumnay sowing the seeds of doubt in the minds of decent men.’
‘But –’ Tarry was about to defend himself, but his mother standing one side of the priest gave him a look of mingled hate and pity that killed the spirit in him.
‘Oh my God, father,’ said the mother piteously.
‘Yes, Mrs Flynn, talking about religion to fools, that is what we spend years in colleges for.’
During a pause in the priest’s remarks the woman was able to get in a bit of flattery. ‘I heard people to say, father, that out from the bishop you were the educatedest man in the diocese.’
Father Daly smiled. ‘The bishop is a very great scholar, Mrs Flynn, a very great scholar. You’ll be doing a fine job for God and Ireland, Mrs Flynn, if you get this man married and settled down.’
‘Isn’t that what I’d like, father,’ said she. ‘But sure God help us I can’t see much future for girls in this place at all. If the girls were married I’d be only too glad to see him bringing in a wife. None of the other marriageable men of this place believe in making a move at all. What do you make of them, father?’
Up against this problem of the decay of the will to continue the human species theology was helpless, and the priest changed the conversation sharply to the weather and the crops.
The woman was disappointed in the priest. She thought him as blind to the ways of the world as her son. She had wanted to raise the question of the Finnegans and the Carlins and other matters of political importance, but he was beyond such details.
‘We’re having some trouble with the Finnegans,’ said she.
‘Very hot tempered indeed,’ said he casually.
Tarry sidled away and the woman and the priest began to discuss the fowl, a subject in which Father Daly took an interest.
Tarry listened from the doorway of the hen house, pretending to be examining the hinges of the door.
Eusebius was delaying up the road till the priest went away. Tarry took the scythe and went to the hay-field.
As he went off he could see the priest’s face beam with pleasure. Father Daly liked to see a man going to do his day’s work.
As far as he could now gather, his mother was trying to impress upon the priest the importance of getting the deed of the farm through as well as the lesser matters of keeping Joe Finnegan quiet and stirring the men to get married.
Death was in the atmosphere.
Only the yellow weeds in the meadow were excited by living.
That was May Callan now on her bicycle going off to work in the factory.
The next day Paddy Reilly sent a man with a pair of horses and a mowing machine to cut Flynn’s hay, that being the arrangement come to when Tarry helped at the spraying of Reilly’s potatoes.
The day after that was the fair day and his mother and two sisters, Mary and Aggie, went to the town.
Bridie was in great humour at the idea of the other sisters leaving to start a restaurant in the town.
‘That’ll be the cooking that slept without,’ said she.
He went to the hay-field to make the hay, making it up in windrows, where it was light on the heights. Tomorrow he would have his sisters to help him. The dry earth under his feet was slippery, but the mown hay was filled with memories of life. The scent of the wild woodbine in the hedge bedrugged his mind until he felt no worry. He was a very tiny creature in the middle of a large field.
Beyond the hedge was Brady’s, but today nobody was about the house. He concluded that they had gone to the fair. Even if they were at home he was determined to have no more to do with Molly.
He watched the bright yellow frogs leaping about on the dry earth, and the insects that crawled in the ruts. He got down on his knees and began to study a beetle that lay on its back. For no reason at all but only because it existed and he existed.
The hoarse caw of hungry crows sounded from the plantations in the Whitestone Park.
The whole world was gone to the fair and he had it all to himself.
That day when he went home for his dinner he found a letter awaiting him on the dresser. The letter was from his uncle Petey, who to Tarry’s knowledge had only written about twice in twenty-five years. He was then, according to the letter, with a circus in Tullamore – Ringmaster.
What would Mrs Flynn say if she heard about that? The uncle hinted that he might call if in the vicinity.
The mother and two daughters came home filled with excitement. They had rented a shop in the main street and were planning to have a restaurant going for the next fair day.
‘Waiting for the bleddy geldings to make a move,’ said the mother, ‘is nothing but foolishness. An odd bag of praties or a few heads of cabbage and little things like that will put a bone in your business,’ she said, the feeling of prosperity in her expression. ‘No need for new-fangled cooking. Give the men then-fill and that’s all they want. Lord O! Come here.’
She was looking out the back window. Tarry went to help her to look. Eusebius was coming up the road driving a number of bullocks before him. ‘One – two – three, four, five, six,’ the mother counted. ‘That’s the man will make a spoon or spoil a horn. I must go out and have a talk with him to see how much he gave for them.’
Tarry followed her out, for he wanted to have a word with Eusebius too.
‘Ah ha, it’s you that’s the right industrious boy that’ll have a thing, not like this man of mine that I don’t know what class of a sling-slang he is. You gave a brave penny for them, Eusebius.’
Eusebius let the cattle wander up the road and he continued talking with great enthusiasm when they broke into Callan’s field of oats.
‘How much do you think, Mary?’
‘Did you give ten apiece, Eusebius?’
‘I did and the rest, Mary.’
‘And they’re worth it. When they get a bit of grass they’ll be wonderful animals, Eusebius. There’s no doubt about it we’re only in the ha’penny place with you, Eusebius. In the ha’penny place. You don’t be at the curse-o’-God books, troth you do not – This man here –’
‘We’re only in the ha’penny place with him, Mary.’
There was a hardness about Eusebius’ speech and behaviour this evening. He gave the idea of power and seemed to be losing his soft feminine way of going on.
‘I’ll see you later,’ said he to Tarry who, when he got the opportunity, had a word in private with his neighbour. ‘I’ll be down the road in about an hour.’
‘I wouldn’t let them about me place,’ said the mother later to her son, referring to Eusebius’ cattle. She murmured to herself: ‘Five of as hungry a cattle as ever I saw. Must have bought them from some of the long-nosed scutch-grass farmers of Monaghan. Give us a hand off with this pot.’ They shifted the pot. ‘Why don’t you take pattern by Eusebius?’ said the mother. ‘The song the blackbird sang to Paddy MacNamee is the truest song ever sung – “have it or do without it”. These pair will be going to Shercock one of these days to start an eating-house and in no time you’d have a free house here. I think you’ll have rain, for I have this corn on me wee toe and it’s at me again. I wonder would you get the razor blade and pare it for me…
‘Oh, that’s the boy that’ill have a thing when we’re all going hungry behind the hay. Mind now, don’t draw the blood. I think, now, I put a sprag in the Finnegans’ wheel over that law case. Between ourselves you could have worse neighbours. I’d rather them a damn sight than this sneaky Eusebius that you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Oh, it’s you that could have the good time here. You know I’m not too contented about that solicitor, though Father Daly said he’d see about it. O, please God it will come all right. You that could be the independent man…’
The mother brought the crocks up from the dairy and cleaned them in the kitchen so that she could enjoy the gossip with her son who was now, in her own words, ‘coming to his milk’.
In a sing-song dreamy voice she began to build up a picture of his future for him.
‘I wouldn’t prevent you bringing in a woman here and I wouldn’t be too stiff about money either. Sure there’s not one in the parish cares less for money than I do or would more like to see you with your pockets full when you went out – so long as you wouldn’t spend it.
‘If the Lord spared us all you could have your nice pony and trap to bring us to Mass of a Sunday and devil than the beggars. I wouldn’t have to be looking at them galloping past me the way they do. Mind you I wouldn’t say a ha’porth to an odd little read of the books so long as you didn’t make a male of them. This house will be empty shortly, these pair are going to Shercock next Wednesday – and in here again they’ll never show their noses if I can help it. Could keep a pair of horses and a pony all the year round… I wonder what the devil’s father them people wanted to know about the hen. The same inspectors have us polluted, if it’s not the washing of the eggs, it’s the bulls. There’s a wee grain of rice there in the pot if you’d like it. Oh, it’s you that could tell them all to kiss your arse.’
She carried the two crocks to the dairy with an air of deepest contentment, her talk wandering on towards the fulfilment of her dream as she groped about in the dairy.
Outside it was raining on the leaves of the lilac and the stones in the street glistened. The world that stretched east was so sorrowful this evening; and yet so beautiful.
If a man could only get his desire he could enjoy life and all the magic that was in common earth. But Tarry was a sensitive man, not a countryman, but merely a man living. And life was the same everywhere. He walked in a maze through the street, leaned over the bars of the road gate. He was always expecting something. Down that silent road something or someone different, not of this world, seemed to be about to come. That bend hid – what did it hide? His destiny, perhaps.
On the Thursday following he drove into Shercock with a load of new potatoes and other things for his sisters. The sisters left home the day before. The evening before they were due to leave Petey Meegan called and did his best to persuade them to stay. There was no future in an eating-house in a small town like Shercock that hadn’t even a railway running to it.
Mary pointed out that there were the buses now. And anyhow she wouldn’t stay if he was thirty years younger ‘and that wouldn’t be so very young.’
‘Go home and buy yourself a blessed candle,’ said she to him.
‘I don’t mind what you were up to this… ’ he started to say but she cut him off.
‘You poor fool, it’s the Last Sacraments you ought to be thinking of. You and your fifty! You’re not trusting to sixty.’
‘It’s a long road there’s not a turn on,’ said Petey going out the door with his tail between his legs.
‘A short one there’s not a cow-dung on,’ retorted Mary. ‘Thanks be to God,’ she sighed when he had gone. ‘I never felt in such good form.’
‘I don’t know so much about that,’ said the mother.
‘You know well,’ said the girl, ‘and it’s not his age either, old as he is. There’s something unnatural about that man. I heard Eusebius talking about his carry-on. I wouldn’t like to eat the eggs his hens lay.’
Tarry, sitting on the load of meal, vegetables and new potatoes remembered that hint of Eusebius’ and wondered what he meant.
Then he forgot as he turned at Drumnay cross-roads and the song of the axle changed to a low solemn hum on the dusty silent road.
It was the day after the market and the town was deserted. He delivered his load, bought the paper, a packet of cigarettes and three sweet buns. The sisters gave him tea.
He was bringing home two bags of cement and a couple of boards for the repair of the stables. In the hardware shop he met a man who said to him: ‘I saw a friend of yours in Longford a week ago, an uncle of yours, I think.’
That uncle was coming nearer to his native place. Mrs Flynn would not be pleased.
Father Markey’s car was standing outside the post office. The priest himself came out as Tarry was passing on his way home and Tarry tried to look as decent as possible. The priest was making preparations for the big concert and dance that was to be held in the hall the following Sunday night and in the quietness of his proud heart Tarry had dreams of being invited by Father Markey to take part. He felt that he would be able to rehabilitate himself with Mary Reilly if he once got the chance to flower forth in his real colours of genius. In spite of what he might pretend the priest was hardly blind to the fact that Tarry was well above the average man in ability. He could scarcely pass him over. The thing would be too obvious.
The priest gave him a quick glance as he entered his car and he did not seem too unfriendly.
In his conversations with Eusebius and his own mother he passed the coming event over as a thing unworthy of his consideration. ‘Just a bunch of poor ignorant people trying to amuse themselves,’ was how he described it.
Privately he was dreaming, dreaming. This was a great cultural event and right into his barrow.
Sometimes he took an unholy pleasure in imagining that he had been passed over for one of the leading parts on the stage – it showed them all up as a crowd of ignoramuses. This self-pitying torture was too great to endure for long and he returned to his dreams. That had been going on for the previous two weeks since the news of the event had become warm. Day after day he had been expecting the curate’s car to come up the road and the curate to ask him to get ready for the big role.
On the day that Father Daly had called he did himself fair justice, he thought. He had put himself well forward in the priest’s good books. But as the big event approached and he was neither asked to take part nor was in possession of any inside information as to what was being planned, he had that awkward, embarrassing feeling that comes over a man when he finds that his talents are not indispensable to mankind. It seemed that the utterly ridiculous was about to happen – he not to be asked.
Saturday evening came. Meeting Eusebius – who, as far as he knew was in the same boat – he threw out a few hints about the concert in the hope that Eusebius would talk without realizing that Tarry was in the dark.
‘I hear all the tickets are gone,’ said Eusebius.
‘What!’ said Tarry.
‘Did you not get one?’
‘I wouldn’t be seen dead at an affair of that kind. You didn’t chance to hear who’s going to be performing, Eusebius?’
‘Don’t you know, the usual – all the educated people, the three schoolmasters, the stationmaster and the postman that’s what-you-might-call the right singer. You know you want a bit of education to go up on a stage,’ Eusebius said without irony. He was quite sincere.
He said he heard that notable artistes had been booked from places as far distant as Castleblaney and Dundalk – and the band was coming all the way from Clones. Tarry was choked with grief and humiliation.
‘Wouldn’t you be as good on the stage as any of them?’ he managed to say.
‘Jabus now, sure wouldn’t you be as good as me?’
Wasn’t Eusebius the pitiful fellow, lacking any self-respect or regard for the inner qualities of a man. Tarry never breathed a word about his own ambitions, and all he could do as he went about his work that evening was to carry on the favourite and futile tradition of the Gaelic race – cursing the concert and the promoters of it. He wished that it might rain bucketfuls on the Sunday evening, and in his spiteful day-dream and ill-wish he saw two car-loads of the principal artistes in a fatal accident just outside the village. The accident would have to happen before the event so that they wouldn’t have the pleasure of collecting the money. He hated Father Markey and he was determined to let the cat out of the bag as to his knowledge of the Church, and how It was not sound. He could ruin the Faith in that parish.
Eusebius hadn’t told his companion everything, for the next evening when Tarry went down to the village, in the last forlorn hope that before it was too late the curate, the police, the schoolmasters and the stationmaster might see the light and realize the laughing-stock they were making of themselves, he found that Eusebius had been offered a job at the concert – carrying water from the pump to make tea for the visitors, and making himself generally useful. Eusebius had scarcely an eye for Tarry as he hurried to the pump beside the graveyard for ‘water for the tay for the swanks’.
‘And why the hell didn’t you tell a fella? you’re too bleddy mean.’
Eusebius laid down his two cans of water with the consciousness of the honour which had been conferred upon him and slowly lit a cigarette.
‘Didn’t I tell you that Father Markey asked me three weeks ago, the day I was coming from the mill? You could be on this job if you had to mention it to me at the time.’
‘Who the hell said I wanted the job?’
‘There you are now,’ said Eusebius very independently and picked up his cans.
Eusebius so proud pushed his way through the crowd that was rushing to and fro around the door trying to get in. The hall was packed. John Magan with his palms upraised came to the door and appealed to the crowd to go home ‘like good Catholics and go to bed’.
Tarry stood on the edge of the crowd and was pushed about more than most because he had his eyes on the vision of himself as he ought to have been – up on the stage reciting The Outlaw of Loch Leine.
Cars pulled up and men and women tremendous with airs of self-confidence. Car doors were banged, women were escorted by their men companions and they swept through the crowd around the door with a dominating flourish.
Through the open windows of the concrete hall the blare of the latest dance tunes came and the crooked little men, small farmers, standing in knots on the roadway chewing tobacco declared that the music was ‘damn good’.
‘And why wouldn’t it and it after coming from Clones? Every man jack of that band gets a pound and a kick for his night.’
‘A week’s wages,’ said someone else. ‘Easy earned money.’
Tarry wanted much to go home but the old weakness which held him to the place of the insult kept him there waiting for kicks. He was hoping to be able to see Eusebius who might be able to get him a free pass in or even a ticket for money; so desperate was he at this moment that he would only be too glad to pay the half crown entrance.
Everybody that was anybody appeared to be coming that evening. The publican’s wife, splay-footed, made her way through the throng at the door, the stationmaster and all his family came, there was a member of the County Council and others of fame. Tarry’s ego receded till he could scarcely feel it at all.
A group of the village boys were groping along the hall trying to get a look in the windows and Tarry was tempted to join them. If he could get one look in he would be satisfied.
A sudden silence fell upon the rowdy crowd and Tarry, looking round, found Father Markey pushing his way towards the door, carrying in his hand a valise. With him was the village schoolmaster’s son and – Mary Reilly.
Tarry stood in to avoid being seen.
Now, thought he, I must get in at all costs. What was keeping that Eusebius? He couldn’t but know the predicament Tarry was in. Tarry walked along the sidewall of the hall in utterest misery. He was uneasy too at the presence in the tobacco-chewing crowd of Larry Finnegan. Larry had been standing at the back of the crowd against the wall as still as a post but taking everything in. Tarry sensed danger. In the porch the priest and some other men were counting the money taken at the door.
‘Be a great stunt to rob him,’ someone remarked.
‘Must have made thirty-five quid.’
Another car-load pulled up and emptied itself out. It appeared that some member of this car-load made a complaint when he got into the hall, for the curate came out and ordered the crowd to disperse at once. The crowd shivered a little and retreated a few yards but when the priest went back to count the rest of the money everyone had moved forward again. Next thing was someone at the back flung Tarry’s cap into the porch. Tarry had a notion that it was Larry Finnegan but he pretended not to know, not wanting to raise a row. He went after his cap and as he did so the crowd surged forward and he was driven into the porch right into the small of Father Markey’s back. The priest jumped up and Tarry tried to escape, but was jammed in a corner.
‘You’re the cause of all the trouble,’ declared the priest, catching him by the shoulder.
Tarry saw at a glance that all the respectable eyes in the vicinity of the door inside the hall were upon him, and every eye said the same thing: ‘Who is the half-wit?’
He was thrown out without ceremony to the loud laughter of the crowd outside. But home he would not go. Worse than this could not happen to him.
Two men from the nearest town whom Tarry knew crossed the road on their way to the hall to perform; they were dressed as Laurel and Hardy.
Within the hall he could now hear the start of what he had most hoped to take part in – the Question Time. Nobody in that hall would have had a look in with him in a competition of this kind and yet here he was cast out into exterior darkness. Again the curate appeared in the doorway of the hall. He said: ‘Anybody outside who hasn’t a ticket must go away at once. Anyone who isn’t away within five minutes will be forcibly driven off by the police.’
Old men nudged one another and said: ‘Are you coming?’
‘I suppose we’re better.’
The crowd dribbled away and Tarry was left by himself waiting there in the hope that his companion would yet appear. The priest saw him and came out. ‘What are you doing here?’ he snarled. ‘Did I not tell you to get away?’
‘I’m waiting for somebody, father,’ he pleaded.
‘Flynn, I’m giving you another minute to make yourself scarce.’
A group of oily-haired young men, shop-boys and cattle-dealers and factory workers lounged in the doorway smoking and observing the peasant being shoved around.
How Tarry vowed destruction to society on that occasion. He would have struck the priest if he didn’t know that to do so would be as good as committing suicide; those slick townsmen would pounce upon him in a flash.
‘Hook it, now,’ said the priest.
‘Don’t push me, I am going.’
‘Well, keep going, keep going.’
He moved away towards the village and as he did he could hear the giggle of the priest and the young men in the doorway.
‘Who is he?’ one asked, and the priest said: ‘He’s an idiot called Flynn.’ There was more laughter at this and then the group in the doorway went inside.
At the corner of the public house many of the crowd who had been lounging around the hall waited. Tarry was too depressed to join them. He decided to return to the hall just for once. He might see Eusebius or some of the others who would be coming out for a mouthful of fresh air.
As luck would have it he ran into Eusebius on his way to the pump for more water.
‘God, these swanks drink the devil’s amount of tay,’ said Eusebius. ‘Do you know what’ said he when he found that Tarry did not appreciate his joke, ‘I’m looking for you all night. Where did you go?’
‘Who’s inside?’ asked Tarry in desperation.
‘All the boys, all the boys.’
‘But what women?’
‘The usual. Have a fag.’
‘No. Wait till I hear.’
‘Take one of these cans and you can snaffle your way in.’
‘I wouldn’t chance it. Father Markey’s there and he’d only go for me.’
‘He’ll be going off with the money shortly and you can get in when he’s away.’
This was as good a proposition as any. But the priest would be coming back as soon as he had left the money safely in the Parochial House, and that would only take him ten minutes in the car. ‘Give me one of them cans, Eusebius.’
Going up to the door of the hall Tarry was elated and he was filled with goodwill towards Eusebius.
They left the cans of water in the little room off the doorway where a number of the local women, Molly included, were cooking for the artists and stewards. It was impossible to get past the crowd that jammed the doorway so Tarry had to be content with a perch at the back among the old men.
The concert was coming to an end by this time. Two little girls were tap dancing as the dancers danced on the films. In his happier moments Tarry would have been inclined to think this form of step-dancing vulgar, but so pleased was he to have got in at all that he thought it the most delightful entertainment.
He was settling down to enjoy himself and was putting his ego together again when the schoolmaster’s son got up on the stage and announced that the next item on the programme would be a song by Mr. Christopher accompanied on the piano by Miss Mary Reilly.
Does your mother come from Ireland?
Sure there’s something in you Irish…
There was a patriotic hush as Father Markey’s brother rendered this song, everyone except Tarry thinking it patriotic in the extreme. Tarry had to hide his critical thoughts and look happy when the man sang as an encore:
The hills of Donegal
To me you ever call
In every wind that wanders o’er
The wide and lonesome sea…
In the loud applause that followed Tarry did not hear the voice of Father Markey as he returned. He inquired if anyone had rushed the door in his absence or if they had had any trouble. The answer being no he went into the cooking department and was loud in laughing conversation with the women in no time.
The next announcement was that the hall had to be cleared for the dance and that only those with the special green tickets could regain admission without paying an extra half crown.
Tarry hurriedly searched his pockets. He had only two shillings and twopence. He would be only too glad to pay this sum to get to the dance though he didn’t dance, for he wanted to see how the affair would end and he had a particular interest in one girl present.
But where would he get the extra fourpence? Fourpence wasn’t much when a man had it but when he hadn’t twopence was as hard to get as two pounds. How would he ask for it and whom? The men on the door might take the two and two and they might decide to make a show of him; and if Father Markey was there he would be sure to make a show of him and tell him to go home and frame his two and twopence.
Charlie Trainor going out in a gabble of conversation was too busy to stop. A man like Charlie, it seemed to Tarry, could tell by instinct when a man was trying to borrow him. He could ask his sister Bridie only he wouldn’t give her the gratification. She wouldn’t wait till morning to tell the mother about his ‘begging’.
He found Eusebius. ‘Eusebius, I wonder could you lend us fourpence till the morrow.’ Tarry laughed as he said this just to show the ridiculosity of his asking such a small sum.
Eusebius hadn’t a penny on him. He gave the last ha’penny he had for a packet of fags before he came in.
‘Throw them the two and two, it’s good enough for them.’
‘Only give them the chance to laugh at me.’
‘If I had it you’d get it, Tarry, you know that.’
‘Oh, I know that,’ said Tarry bitterly.
He watched the crowds re-enter for the dance and listened carefully to hear if any of the ‘hard chaws’ of the place would try to make a bargain at the door as he often heard them doing. But on this occasion every man of them shelled out his half crown as if he were only too glad to do so.
It was clear to Tarry, and the priest was standing in the porch talking to the doorman, that if he tried to get in for the two and two he would only create a scene. So he made up his mind to wait outside and pick up as much of the pleasurable emotion of the dance as filtered through the windows and door. He would be satisfied now if the priest left him alone.
The dance was in full swing now.
Couples began to drift out and make for the graveyard. Among these he was almost certain he noticed Charlie and Molly. He had a mind to follow them and find out for sure, but at that moment Father Markey wandered out to the middle of the road and looked up and down, so Tarry stood in the shadow of the hedge and lay low. Some time later Eusebius came out for two more cans of water and Tarry ran out eagerly to speak to him.
‘How is it going on, Eusebius?’
‘A few nice bulling heifers in there, right enough.’
‘Who’s Mary Reilly dancing with?’
Eusebius considered for a moment and then thought that as far as he could remember she wasn’t there at all. ‘I don’t think she waited for the dance. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘A lot of the swanks didn’t wait, you know.’
‘If I had that extra fourpence… ’
‘Hardly worth your while now.’
It was after midnight, a beautiful starlit summer night. The belfry of the chapel stood out in the ghostly night light of the western sky. The white of women’s legs could be seen straddled on graves. In the distance dogs barked and from the direction of Drumnay the hoarse voices of men going home echoed across the still night valleys.
Alone in the shadow of the hedge the thought of the farm came back to Tarry. His mother was the wisest of them all. He saw this night what would happen to a man who went down the banks. As his mother often said – ‘what the blackbird whistled to Paddy McNamee was true – have it or do without it.’
Eusebius wouldn’t lend him a bare fourpence and he had it on him.
Tarry was planning the next day’s work. He would not let his stuff go to loss in future. He promised himself to stop smoking. He threw away the butt he had in his mouth as a tribute to his promise.
One of the couples returned from the graveyard, the man with his raincoat wrapped over the heads of himself and the girl. Charlie had a raincoat just like that, but you couldn’t be sure.
A briar bent down and touched him on the nose. The briars were friendly. He took it as a warning to move off a distance. If he were seen lingering there for long someone might say he was up to nothing good. If one of the bicycles were stolen he might be blamed.
A number of men who had been up in the public house returned to the hall half drunk. Among them was the priest’s brother and Mary. If Tarry hadn’t been fully engaged thinking of his farm and the hay which he had to rope the next day, he would have been more worried.
His mother would find a big change in him tomorrow. No more nonsense. The land. He began to hum a poem that was in one of his school books.
Oh the summer night has a smile of light
As she sits on her sapphire throne.
The words applied to this night. The hills silhouetted against the horizon of pale stars belonged to a world where men like the men whom Tarry knew did not exist. The scent of the woodbine and the richer smell of the potato-stalks came across the valley and he knew something that made a man happy in the midst of desolation. Another group now began to congregate around the door of the dance hall to see the swanks emerge.
Larry Finnegan was there and Tarry could not help thinking that he, an old married man, was hardly waiting merely to see the dancers come out. Two of his own daughters were at the dance but it was unlikely that he would be watching them. No, there was only one thing could have kept him out of his bed and that was the chance of getting a kick at Tarry.
It turned out that the Finnegans did not want to injure their case by an attack on Tarry and the result was that they fell between two stools.
The dancers poured out from the hall.
Tarry watched the girls happy in the knowledge that the only one he really cared for had no boy friend with her. It seemed almost too good to be true. Eusebius did not appear though Tarry waited till the last person had come out. He was about to go home when staring sharply into a gap in the hedge where bicycles were stacked he saw Eusebius drag his bicycle out and after that a girl’s machine. Without pretending that he saw his friend, Eusebius took the two bicycles and went off in the opposite direction. The girl’s bicycle was Mary Reilly’s; he could tell the whirr of its free-wheel.
Tarry was too tired to feel the worst pains of jealousy; and he was inclined to be glad that it was Eusebius who was leaving the girl home. Eusebius was a decent fellow whatever else he was – and he was sure to bore the girl.
I’ll bet, mused Tarry as he went home, that Eusebius will talk poetry to her. He was experienced enough to know that only those who did not feel the spirit deeply could make it pay romantic dividends.
With loving hands he was drawing the light American rake round the last of the hay cocks, his mind relishing the thought that a finer built cock of hay than the one he had just headed and roped he had not seen for a long time. All the seventeen cocks were well built – and the right well-saved hay it was; those cocks wouldn’t take a bit of hurt if they were left out for a month. He stood out from the cock and ran his eye up and down the sides of it. A grand job. There would be about seven hundredweight of hay in every cock. He dropped the rake and pulled out a wisp of the hay and sniffed it.
May alive, that was hay. The cow that would be fed on that wouldn’t take a founder – she would not.
The shame and degradation of the night before was being buried in a pile of fresh sweet-smelling hay. What might he care about a bunch of ignorant fools that would hardly know when they’d have their fill eaten. He was in the best of form; he never felt as fit in his life.
What about putting up a high jump?
He stood the fork in the hard ground and put the rake standing while he made a thumb-rope of the hay. He took pride in his skill at making a thumb-rope. As he drew the hay out of the cock and twisted it with his thumb and with a second movement wound the rope into a ball, he knew that as well as knowing the magic that was in the world he could show the best of the farmers a thing or two. There was a thumb-rope and a half, as thin as a plough-rein – Aw, man!
He made the rope the cross-bar of the high jump at a height which reached the third button of his waistcoat – or where the third button would be if he were wearing his waistcoat. It couldn’t be less than four feet ten or eleven. If he could get over that jump he’d be in good form.
He slipped off his boots and danced about gingerly on the silvery stubbles. The ground was a bit too hard for jumping, but two or three tries couldn’t kill him. On his first attempt he failed. He knew he could do it. There was nobody about. Nobody could see him here – except by a miracle, the Bradys – so he took off his trousers and knotted his shirt between his legs. He built his will up till his imagination towered over the jump. He knew he could do it now. Lovely, lovely, he said to himself as he crossed the jump cleanly and came down on one leg facing it. He let himself sprawl away to get the full pleasure out of his feat. He raised the rope. This time he would try a jump the height of his chin. If he could get over that one he might well say he was in form. How about taking off the shirt? It wasn’t very heavy but it hobbled him somewhat about the legs. He was stripped to the skin. Before making the attempt he searched the thin places in the hedge and scanned the point of McKenna’s hill to make sure that no one was looking.
Oh, good God! Molly was standing on top of the dunghill and she surely could see through a hole in the hedge. She was watching, there was no doubt about it. Well, let her look away, thought he: she can’t see very much from that range. Yet, it might be as well if he put on his trousers. It was always a risk going about in one’s pelt. He remembered how he was caught one morning before when he got up at about four of a summer’s morning to see about the mare due to foal and he didn’t bother putting a stitch on him – and May Callan saw him as he ran across the meadow. She was coming from a dance.
Better be on the safe side. He put on his trousers and his boots and decided to abandon athletics for the day. He let the jump remain so that he could contemplate his prowess. He was very proud of his jump.
He sat down beside the cock, took a drink out of the little can of thick milk and lit a cigarette. He crawled away from the cock to where his jacket lay and got out the book on phrenology, which was folded in the inside pocket. He read about Wendell Phillips, ‘the silver-tongued orator’, and as he read, dreaming that he was that ‘silver-tongued orator’, he felt his skull but doubted if it was the right shape and size.
‘Hello.’
He swung round on his backside.
It was Molly.
‘How did you get here?’ he asked, displeased.
‘I climbed through the bushes at the top.’
He did not want to see the trollop. His mind was hard and clear and the athlete in him had no interest in short-legged women.
‘Don’t sit down there or you’ll put the cock to the hollow. If you want to sit at all sit on the hill-side of it.’
The hill-side of the cock was a bunch of briars and Molly had to stand.
‘My mother,’ said Molly, ‘asked me to ask you if you could lend us the rake to gather the bog bedding that we got cut last week.’
‘I couldn’t give you the good American rake, Molly, but there’s a thick-set wire-toothed one at home – if it would be any use to yous.’
Molly said that that rake would do fine. The rake was only an excuse.
‘I’m going away,’ said she suddenly.
‘What the hell are you doing that for?’
‘Amn’t I as well? Look at the way your two sisters went. There’s nothing for a lassie in these parts.’ She hesitated a moment and then said: ‘Do you remember that evening we were together up the oul’ road, Tarry?’
‘What night?’ said he sourly.
‘You know well, Tarry.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, I just don’t know what you’re talking about. I do know that you were out one or two nights with Charlie, but you were never out with me.’
He was disturbed. This sort of thing took all the good out of life. He didn’t like the attitude the girl adopted. There was a toughness about her, like the toughness of one who in her own defence would swear a man’s life away, and he was afraid. He was afraid to think what he was thinking and he shoved the thought back into his mind.
The girl straggled off and he let her go without another word of farewell or of anything.
This was only one of the worries that were congregating around his happiness, trying to drive it away. There were the Finnegans, both families, who were only waiting to attack him; there was the question of the new farm with the transfer deed still not completed, and now this.
He put his hand in his trouser pocket and looked at his one and sixpence. He had often said it before and he said it now again – the whole problem was scarcity of money. If he had some money he could go away for a week and when he’d have come back all the cares would have dispersed.
He chewed at a weed. He watched a beetle creeping through the rutted earth. He lifted a flat stone and underneath was a nest of pismires. A pity he hadn’t got Molly to sit on them.
Clouds blew across the blue sky. He wouldn’t mind if it rained now that he had his hay safe and Eusebius had not.
‘Tarry, are you alive or dead?’
He sprang to his feet and grabbed the fork and rake on hearing his mother’s voice. She had brought him his tea.
She was in good humour, very pleased and proud as she surveyed the field full of cocks. ‘I can only count sixteen,’ she said and she had her palm edged over her brow.
He put the navvy can of tea beside him and swallowed the bread in a hurry. ‘There’s seventeen if you count again,’ he said.
‘Aw yes, the one in the corner.’
‘The best hay in your country,’ he said.
‘Let others do the praising, Tarry. Nothing I hate as much as a man that’s always boasting about his own things. There’s that Mrs Callan and nobody has anything but her to hear her talking. Her three skinny cows give more milk and butter than anyone else’s. I say – Did this May get much of a show at the dance last night?’
‘She was only danced three times,’ said Tarry to please his mother.
‘And what about our Bridie?’
‘She got a great show.’
‘That atself. Was this slob on the hill at it?’
‘I didn’t see her.’
‘Poor slob. Keep away from her anyway. Last Sunday her mother had hardly an eye to see me coming from Mass and… What had you the thumb-rope for?’
‘Doing a bit of measuring, aye.’
‘Aye, too. Were you speaking to Father Markey last night?’
‘Of course I was. Don’t you know very well I was?’
‘I’m glad to hear it. I like keeping in with the priests. You never know when you’d want one of them to do you a good turn. And God forgive me some of them could do you a bad turn as quick as a good one. Don’t stay too long, I may want you to give me a hand with the churning. I hope these ones of ours make a fist of the eating-house. You’ll not be long.’
‘Be home in an hour.’
When she had gone a short distance she turned and called back, ‘Do you know, I was told that one of the Dillon’s was having another youngster. Did you hear anything about it?’
He didn’t.
‘There may be nothing about it. Ah, God protect everybody’s rearing. I got Bridie to drive up the two-year-old bullocks to Carlin’s this morning, what was the use letting the grass go to loss?’
‘I’ll be home shortly,’ Tarry said to get her away.
‘Mind you don’t leave the fork or rake behind you for someone to whip.’
‘They’ll be safe.’
He went home feeling more at ease with the world than he had felt for a long time. In spite of all his worries the warm and gay heart of life was beating for him. New flowers were coming up and new scents and smells.
Around the house, for a wonder, there was peace. He threw the old book in a corner of the horses’ stable and went into the house.
His mother was sitting by the hearth with her head between her palms on her knees. His sister, Mary, had come out from the town and was sitting with a pout near the bottom of the stairs.
‘What the devil’s wrong?’ he asked on entering.
‘This is more of your reading of the books,’ said the mother without raising her head. ‘Two of the darling bullocks that nothing would do you but to leave up in Carlin’s are bad with the blackleg.’
‘The blackleg, good God! It can’t be cured,’ he said.
‘Just when things were going to pick up,’ lamented the mother.
‘That’s a terror. I better get the rest of them vaccinated.’
‘I sent for a man to do it,’ said the mother. ‘I suppose, like everything else, you’d take on to do that too.’
‘That’s a terror,’ Tarry kept repeating.
‘There’s always some trouble here,’ said the mother. ‘If it’s not one thing it’s the other. I only came back from the hay-field when Bridie had this news for me. And to add to me trouble this one here is back from the town saying that they can’t get any trade – with all their cookery books.’
The mother had sent Bridie up to Cassidy’s to ask Eusebius to put the vaccination pellets in the remaining cattle, Eusebius having a punch for that purpose. She had also made plans to get Charlie to take the dead beasts which would be cheaper than burying them; and it would do Charlie a good turn, for by all accounts in the new butcher’s shop which he had opened he needed no slaughterhouse.
‘I’m chucking the whole damn thing,’ he said to Eusebius when they were vaccinating the cattle.
‘Keep a good grip on them horns, Tarry,’ said Eusebius. ‘Chucking what?’
‘Drumnay.’
‘You are in me arse?’
‘I am,’ said Tarry, without really meaning what he was saying – at least he did not think he meant it. ‘And then you can have all the women to yourself, and all the land as well. I don’t give a tuppeny damn for the whole thing.’
Eusebius registered pleasure, Tarry could see that. He would be pleased to see a man leave the district, one rival less.
That day passed and another day and something was wrong in Tarry’s life, something was driving him – where, he did not know. Something was pulling him back, but he did know what that was, and he was seeing it now when he lifted his eyes to the lonely hills.