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

‘Maybe we can still go?’

‘No. Not if you are doubtful. I think you should go home.’

‘Will you come back with me this evening?’

‘I have to have dinner with Jerry.’

‘When?’

‘At eight.’

‘We’ll have time. We can take a taxi.’

‘No, love.’ She was quite definite.

‘Will you meet me when I come back, then?’ I asked uncertainly.

‘Jerry comes back from London on Sunday.’

‘On Monday, then?’

‘All right, on Monday.’ There was no need to say where or when. She even said, ‘See you Monday,’ to the barman’s silent inquiry as we left, and he waved ‘Have a nice weekend,’ as he gathered in our glasses.

*

I was returning home: a last look at the telegram before throwing it away — an overnight bag, the ticket, the train — the old wheel turned and turned anew, wearing my life away; but if it wasn’t this wheel it would be another.

Rose, my stepmother, seemed glad to see me, smiling hard, speaking rapidly. ‘We even thought you might come on the late train last night. We said he might be very well on that train when we heard it pass. We kept the kettle on till after the news, and then we said you’ll hardly come now, but even then we didn’t go to bed till we were certain you’d not come.’

‘Is there something wrong?’

‘No. There’s nothing wrong.’

‘What does he want me for?’

‘I suppose he wants to see you. I didn’t know there was anything special, but he’s been worrying or brooding lately. I’m sure he’ll tell you himself. And now you’ll be wanting something to eat. He’s not been himself lately,’ she added conspiratorially. ‘If you can, go with him, do your best to humour him.’

We shook hands when he came, but did not speak, and Rose and myself carried the burden of the conversation during the meal. Suddenly, as we rose at the end of the meal, he said, ‘I want you to walk over with me and look at the walnuts.’

‘Why the walnuts?’

‘He’s thinking of selling the walnut trees,’ Rose said. ‘They’ve offered a great price. It’s for the veneer, but I said you wouldn’t want us to sell.’

‘A lot you’d know about that,’ he said to her in a half-snarl, but she covertly winked at me, and we left it that way.

‘Was the telegram about the selling of the walnut trees, then?’ I asked as we walked together towards the plantation. ‘Sell anything you want as far as I’m concerned.’

‘No. I have no intention of selling the walnuts. I threaten to sell them from time to time, just to stir things up. She’s fond of those damned walnuts. I just mentioned it as an excuse to get out. We can talk in peace here,’ he said, and I waited.

‘You know about this Act they’re bringing in?’ he began ponderously.

‘No.’

‘They’re giving it a first reading, but it’s not the law yet.’

‘What is this Act?’

‘It’s an Act that makes sure that the widow gets so much of a man’s property as makes no difference after he’s dead — whether he likes it or not.’

‘What’s this got to do with us?’

‘You can’t be that thick. I’ll not live for ever. After this Act who’ll get this place? Now do you get my drift? Rose will. And who’ll Rose give it to? Those damned relatives will be swarming all over this place before I’m even cold.’

‘How do you know that?’ I was asking questions now simply to gain time to think.

‘How do I know?’ he said with manic grievance. ‘Already the place is disappearing fast beneath our feet. Only a few weeks back the tractor was missing. Her damned nephew had it. Without as much as by my leave. They forgot to inform me. And she never goes near them that there’s not something missing from the house.’

‘That’s hardly fair. It’s usual to share things round in the country. She always brought more back than she took.’

I remembered the baskets of raspberries and plums she used to bring back from their mountain farm.

‘That’s right. Don’t take my word for it,’ he shouted. ‘Soon you’ll know.’

‘But what’s this got to do with the telegram?’ I asked, and he quietened.

‘I was in to see Callan the solicitor. That’s why I sent the telegram. If I transfer the place to you before that Act becomes law, then the Act can’t touch us. Do you get me now?’

I did — too well. He would disinherit Rose by signing the place over to me. I would inherit both Rose and the place if he died.

‘You won’t have it signed over to you, then?’

‘No, I won’t. Have you said any of this to Rose?’

‘Of course I haven’t. Do you take me for a fool or something? Are you saying to me for the last time that you won’t take it?’ And when I wouldn’t answer he said with great bitterness, ‘I should have known. You don’t even have respect for your own blood,’ and muttering, walked away towards the cattle gathered between the stone wall and the first of the walnut trees. Once or twice he moved as if he might turn back, but he did not. We did not speak any common language.

We avoided each other that evening, the tension making us prisoners of every small movement, and the next day I tried to slip quietly away.

‘Is it going you are?’ Rose said sharply when she saw me about to leave.

‘That’s right, Rose.’

‘You shouldn’t pass any heed on your father. You should let it go with him. He won’t change his ways now. You’re worse than he is, not to let it go with him.’

For a moment I wanted to ask her, ‘Do you know that he wanted to leave you at my sweet mercy after his death?’ but I knew she would answer, ‘What does that matter? You know he gets these ideas. You should let it go with him’; and when I said, ‘Goodbye, Rose,’ she did not answer.

As the train trundled across the bridges into Dublin and by the grey back of Croke Park, all I could do was stare. The weekend was over like a life. If it had happened differently it would still be over. Differently, we would have had our walks and drinks, made love in the curtained rooms, experimented in the ways of love, pretending we were taming instinct, imagining we were getting more out of it than had been intended, and afterwards … Where were we to go from there, our pleasure now its grinning head? And it would be over and not over. I had gone home instead, a grotesquerie of other homegoings, and it too was over now.

She would have met him at the airport, they would have had dinner, and if their evenings remained the same as when I used to meet them together they would now be having drinks in some bar. As the train came slowly into Amiens Street, I suddenly wanted to find them, to see us all together. They were not in any of the Grafton Street bars, and I was on the point of giving up the impulse — with gratitude that I hadn’t been able to satisfy it — when I found them in a hotel lounge by the river. They were sitting at the counter, picking at a bowl of salted peanuts between their drinks. He seemed glad to see me, getting off his stool, ‘I was just saying here how long it is since we last saw you,’ in his remorseless slow voice, as if my coming might lighten an already heavy-hanging evening. He was so friendly that I could easily have asked him how his interview had gone, amid the profusion of my lies, forgetting that I wasn’t supposed to know.

‘I’ve just come from London. We’ve had dinner at the airport.’ He began to tell me all that I already knew.

‘And will you take this job?’ I asked after he had told me at length about the weekend, without any attempt to select between details, other than to put the whole lot in.

‘It’s all arranged. It’ll be in the papers tomorrow. I leave in three weeks’ time,’ he said.