John McGahern - Creatures of the Earth - New and Selected Stories

‘Burns,’ Mulvey said savagely. ‘And there’s not a wave in sight. What do you think of old Burns?’ he said as he put the key in the door.

A red-eyed child in a nightdress met us. She was hungry. Claire Mulvey soothed her, started to get her some food from the cold press, and we took the sugar bags upstairs. There was no furniture of any kind in the room other than empty orange crates. There were plenty of books on the floor along the walls. The room was chilly, and Mulvey stamped on some of the orange crates until they were broken enough to fit into the grate. He lit them with newspaper and they quickly caught.

Eamonn Kelly was busy opening the bottles with a silver penknife. When Claire Mulvey joined us he had opened all the bottles in one of the sugar bags. The orange boxes had all burned down, taking the chill from the room, leaving delicate traceries of blackened wire in the grate.

‘She’s gone to sleep again. There was some milk and cereal,’ Claire Mulvey said.

We drank steadily. Eamonn Kelly opened more bottles. Mulvey lectured Kelly. Then he lectured me. The toilet in the corridor didn’t work. I fought sleep.

The room was full of early light when I awoke. I’d been placed on a mattress and given a pillow and rug. There was nobody else in the room. The books were scattered all along the walls. Empty bottles were everywhere, the room filled with the sour-sweet odour of decaying stout. The shapes of blackened wire stood in the empty grate.

It was the first morning without her, and I could hardly believe I’d slept. I got up, picked my way between the bottles to the outside toilet that didn’t work, ran the water in the sink, picked my way back to the mattress. The palest of crescent moons still lay on the dirty water of the canal.

Church bells started to beat the air. It was Sunday — seven o’clock. I got up and let myself out of the house. Everywhere people were going to Mass. I drifted with them as far as the church door, turning back into the empty streets once Mass had started, walking fast until I came to a quiet side street where I sat on the steps of one of the houses. There were five steps up to each house. The stone was granite. Many of the iron railings were painted blue. Across the street was a dishevelled lilac bush. They’d taught us to notice such things when young. They said it was the world. A lilac bush, railings, three milk bottles with silver caps, granite steps … I had to rise and walk to beat back a rush of anger. I’d have to learn the world all over again.

The Mulveys were sitting round the table in the kitchen when I got back. The child was eating cereal, the parents drinking tea from mugs.

‘I’m sorry I passed out, last night.’

‘It’s all right. You were tired.’ Mulvey smiled — often he could be charming in the morning.

‘Did Kelly go home?’

‘He always goes home no matter how drunk he is.’

I handed round newspapers I’d bought on the way back and was given tea. The child inspected me gravely from behind her spoon.

‘Can you lend me a fiver?’ Mulvey asked me about midday. ‘I’ll give it back to you as soon as I find Halloran.’

‘You don’t have to worry about that.’ It was a sort of freedom to be rid of the money.

‘There’s no reason I should be spending all your money. I’ll give it back to you this evening. We’re bound to unearth Halloran this evening,’ and the rest of the day was more or less arranged. We had drinks at a tiny local along the canal. The child had lemonade and crisps.

Stew was heated when we got back to the house. Then Mulvey shut himself upstairs to write a review. Claire Mulvey watched an old movie with Cary Grant on the black-and-white television. I played draughts with the child. It was four when Mulvey came down.

‘How did it go?’ I asked without looking up from the pieces on the board.

‘It didn’t go at all. I couldn’t get started with thinking of that damned Halloran. He’s ruined the day as well.’ He was plainly in foul humour.

We left the child to play with neighbours and set out towards Grafton Street to look for Halloran, Mulvey carrying the suitcase. He had been at his most affable and bluff-charming while handing over the child to the neighbours, but as soon as we were alone he started to seethe with resentment.

‘It’s an affront to expect someone to lug this thing round for two whole days.’

‘What harm is it?’ his wife made the mistake of saying. ‘He’s not a very happy person.’

‘What do you know about his happiness or unhappiness?’

‘He sweats a kind of unhappiness. He’s bald and huge and not much more than thirty.’

‘I never heard such rubbish. He’s probably in some good hotel down in Wicklow at this very moment, relaxing with a gin and tonic, watching the sun set from a deck-chair, regaling this boy with poetry or love or some other obscenity. I’m not carrying the fat ponce’s suitcase a yard farther,’ and he flung it from him, the suitcase sliding to a violent stop against the ledge of the area railing without breaking open.

‘I’ll carry it.’ His wife went and picked up the case, but Mulvey was already striding ahead.

‘When we were first together I used to hate these rows. I used to be ill afterwards, but Paddy taught me that there was nothing bad about them. He taught me that fights shouldn’t be taken too seriously. They often clear the air. They’re just another form of expression,’ she confided.

‘I hate rowing.’

‘I used to feel that way!’

This, I thought, was a true waste. If she was with me now we could be by the sea.

But we’d gone to the sea four Sundays before, to Dollymount. She’d been silent and withdrawn all that day. I was afraid to challenge her mood, too anxious just to have her near. She said we’d go over to the sandhills on the edge of the links, away from the wall and the crowded beach. She seemed to be searching for a particular place among the sandhills, and when she found it smiled that familiar roguish smile I hadn’t seen for months and took a photo from her handbag.

‘Willie Moran took the photo on this very spot,’ she said. ‘Do you recognize it at all?’

Willie Moran was a young solicitor she’d gone out with. She’d wanted to marry him. It had ended a few months before we met. After it ended she hadn’t been able to live alone and had gone back to an older sister’s house.

I used to be jealous of Willie Moran but by now even that had been burned away. I just thought him a fool for not marrying her, wished that I’d been he. I handed her back the photo. ‘You look beautiful in it.’

‘You see, it was afterwards it was taken. I’m well tousled.’ She laughed and drew me down. She wanted to make love there. There seemed to be no one passing. We covered ourselves with a white raincoat.

Her mood changed as quickly again as soon as we rose. She wanted to end the day, to separate.

‘We could go to one of the cinemas in O’Connell Street or to eat somewhere.’ I would offer anything.

‘No. Not this evening. I just want to have an early night. I’ve a kind of headache.’

It was then she pointed out that she’d lost an earring in the sandhills, one of a pair of silver pendants I’d given her for her birthday.

As soon as she left me I retracked my way back into the sandhills. Our shapes were still where we had lain in the loose sand. With a pocket comb I came on the pendant where the sand and long white grass met. I was happy, only too anxious to believe that it augured well, that it was a sign that the whole course of the affair had turned towards an impossible happiness. ‘We will be happy. We’ll be happy. It will turn out all right now.’ It was a dream of paradise.

But all the finding of the pendant did was to hold off this hell for four whole weeks. It was strange to think that but for coming on the simple earring in the sand, this day, this unendurable day, would have fallen four weeks ago. She had said so.