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

‘What makes you think I’d be any better?’

‘You’re young. You’re qualified. You’re ambitious. It’s a very good job for someone of your age. I’d give you all the backing you’d want. You’d have every reason to make a go of it. With you there, I’d feel my children would still be in with a chance. In another year or two even that’ll be gone.’

‘I don’t see why you want my word at this stage,’ I said evasively, hoping to slip away from it all. I saw his face return to its natural look of shrewdness in what was left of the late summer light.

‘If I go to the Canon now it’ll be just another complaint in a long line of complaints. If I can go to him and say that things can’t be allowed to go on as they have been going and we have a young man here, from a good family, a local, more than qualified, who’s willing to take the job, who has everyone’s backing, it’s a different proposition entirely. And I can guarantee you here this very evening that you’ll be the Principal of that school when it opens in September.’

For the first time it was all coming clear to me.

‘What’ll happen to the Master? What’ll he do?’

‘What I’m more concerned about is what’ll my children do if he stays,’ he burst out again. ‘But you don’t have to concern yourself about it. It’ll be all taken care of.’

*

I had called on the Master three evenings before, walking beyond the village to the big ramshackle farmhouse. He was just rising, having taken all his meals of the day in bed, and was shaving and dressing upstairs, one time calling down for a towel, and again for a laundered shirt.

‘Is that young Moran?’ He must have recognized my voice or name. ‘Make him a good cup of tea. And he’ll be able to be back up the road with myself.’

A very old mongrel greyhound was routed from the leather armchair one side of the fire, and I was given tea and slices of buttered bread. The Master’s wife, who was small and frail with pale skin and lovely brown eyes, kept up a cheerful chatter that required no response as she busied herself about the enormous cluttered kitchen which seemed not to possess a square foot of room. There were buckets everywhere, all sorts of chairs, basins, bags of meal and flour, cats, the greyhound, pots and pans. The pattern had faded from the bulging wallpaper, a dark ochre, and some of the several calendars that hung around the walls had faded into the paper. It would have been difficult to find space for an extra cup or saucer on the long wooden table. Plainly there were no set meal times. Two of the Master’s sons, now grown men, came singly in from the fields while I waited. Plates of food were served at once, bacon and liver, a mug of tea. They took from the plate of bread already on the table, the butter, the sugar, the salt, the bottle of sauce. They spent no more than a few minutes over the meal, blessing themselves at its end, leaving as suddenly as they’d entered, smiling and nodding in a friendly way in my direction but making little attempt at conversation, though Gerald did ask, before he reached for his hat — a hat I recognized as having belonged to the Master back in my school days, a brown hat with a blue teal’s feather and a small hole burned in its side — ‘Well, how are things getting along in the big smoke?’ The whole effect was of a garden and orchard gone completely wild, but happily.

‘You couldn’t have come at a better time. We’ll be able to be up the road together,’ the Master said as he came heavily down the stairs in his stockinged feet. He’d shaved, was dressed in a grey suit, with a collar and tie, the old watch-chain crossing a heavy paunch. He had failed since last I’d seen him, the face red and puffy, the white hair thinned, and there was a bruise on the cheekbone where he must have fallen. The old hound went towards him, licking at his hand.

‘Good boy! Good boy,’ he said as he came towards me, patting the hound. As soon as we shook hands he slipped his feet into shoes which had stood beside the leather chair. He did not bend or sit, and as he talked I saw the small bird-like woman at his feet, tying up the laces.

‘It’s a very nice thing to see old pupils coming back. Though not many of them bring me laurels like yourself, it’s still a very nice thing. Loyalty is a fine quality. A very fine quality.’

‘Now,’ his wife stood by his side, ‘all you need is your hat and stick,’ and she went and brought them.

‘Thank you. Thank you indeed. I don’t know what I’d do but for my dear wife,’ he said.

‘Do you hear him now! He was never stuck for the charm. Off with you now before you get the back of me hand,’ she bantered, and called as we went slowly towards the gate, ‘Do you want me to send any of the boys up for you?’

‘No. Not unless they have some business of their own to attend to in the village. No,’ he said gravely, turning very slowly.

He spoke the whole way on the slow walk to the village. All the time he seemed to lag behind my snail’s pace, sometimes standing because he was out of breath, tapping at the road with the cane. Even when the walk slowed to a virtual standstill it seemed to be still far too energetic for him.

‘I always refer to you as my star pupil. When the whole enterprise seems to be going more or less askew, I always point to young Moran: that’s one good job I turned out. Let the fools prate.’

I walked, stooping by his side, restraining myself within the slow walk, embarrassed, ashamed, confused. I had once looked to him in pure infatuation, would rush to his defence against every careless whisper. He had shone like a clear star. I was in love with what I hardly dared to hope I might become. It seemed horrible now that I might come to this.

‘None of my own family were clever,’ he confided. ‘It was a great disappointment. And yet they may well be happier for it. Life is an extraordinary thing. A very great mystery. Wonderful … shocking … thing.’

Each halting speech seemed to lead in some haphazard way into the next.

‘Now that you’re coming out into the world you’ll have to be constantly on your guard. You’ll have to be on your guard first of all against intellectual pride. That’s the worst sin, the sin of Satan. And always be kind to women. Help them. Women are weak. They’ll be attracted to you.’ I had to smile ruefully, never having noticed much of a stampede in my direction. ‘There was this girl I left home from a dance once,’ he continued. ‘And as we were getting closer to her house I noticed her growing steadily more amorous until I had to say, “None of that now, girl. It is not the proper time!” Later, when we were both old and married, she thanked me. She said I was a true gentleman.’

The short walk seemed to take a deep age, but once outside Ryan’s door he took quick leave of me. ‘I won’t invite you inside. Though I set poor enough of an example, I want to bring no one with me. I say to all my pupils: Beware of the high stool. The downward slope from the high stool is longer and steeper than from the top of Everest. God bless and guard you, young Moran. Come and see me again before you head back to the city.’ And with that he left me. I stood facing the opaque glass of the door, the small print of the notice above it: Seven Days Licence to Sell Wine, Beer, Spirits . How can he know what he knows and still do what he does, I say to the sudden silence before turning away.

‘Do you mean the Master’ll be out on the road, then?’ I asked Senator Reegan from the boat, disturbed by the turn the conversation had taken.

‘You need have no fear of that. There’s a whole union behind him. Well, what do you say?’

‘I’ll have to think about it.’

‘It’s a very fine position for a young man like yourself starting out in life.’