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

‘I suppose we might as well try and stay put for a time,’ I answered, and when he looked at me sharply I added, for the sake of my own peace, ‘that is, until things settle a bit, and we can find our feet again, and think.’

The books and files had been taken out but no one yet had stopped him from entering his office. Tired of sitting alone listening to the rain beat on the iron, he came out on the platform where he could look down on the long queue of tractors towing in the steel tanks, the wipers making furious, relentless arcs across the windscreens as they waited. He knew all the men sitting behind the glass of the cabs by name; that he had made his first business when he came to manage the creamery years before. Often on a wet summer’s day, when there could be no rush at hay, many of them would pull in below the platform to sit and talk. The rough, childish faces would look up in a glow of pleasure at the recognition when he shouted out their names. Some would flash their lights.

Today no one looked up, but he could see them observing him in their mirrors after they had passed. They probably already knew more precisely than he what awaited him. Even with that knowledge he would have preferred it if they looked up. All his life he had the weakness of wanting to please and give pleasure.

When the Angelus bell rang from Cootehall, he began to think that they might have put off coming for him for another day, but soon after the last stroke he heard heavy boots crossing the cement. A low knock came on the door. Guard Casey was in the doorway but there was no sign of the Sergeant. Guard Guider was the other guard.

‘You know why we’re here, Jim,’ Guard Casey said.

‘I know, Ned.’ Quickly the Guard read out the statement of arrest.

‘You’ll come with us, then?’

‘Sure I’ll come.’

‘I’m sorry to have to do this but they’re the rules.’ He brought out a pair of bright handcuffs with a small green ribbon on the linking bar. Guider quickly handcuffed him to Casey and withdrew the key. The bar with the green ribbon kept the wrists apart but the hands and elbows touched. This caused them to walk stiffly and hesitantly and in step. The cement had been hosed clean but the people who worked for him were out of sight. The electric hum of the separators drowned their footsteps as they crossed to the squad car.

In the barracks the Sergeant was waiting for him with a peace commissioner, a teacher from the other end of the parish, and they began committal proceedings at once. The Sergeant was grim-faced and inscrutable.

‘I’m sorry for that Sunday in Clones,’ the creamery manager blurted out in nervousness. ‘I only meant it as a day out together.’

The grimness of the Sergeant’s face did not relent; it was as if he had never spoken. He was asked if he had a solicitor. He had none. Did he want to be represented? Did he need to be? he responded. It was not necessary at this stage, he was told. In that case, they could begin. Anything he said, he was warned, could be used against him. He would say nothing. Though it directly concerned him, it seemed to be hardly about him at all, and it did not take long. Tonight he’d spend in the barracks. The cell was already prepared for him. Tomorrow he’d be transferred to Mountjoy to await his trial. The proceedings for the present were at an end. There was a mild air of relief. He felt like a railway carriage that had been pushed by handdown rails into some siding. It suited him well enough. He had never been assertive and he had no hope of being acquitted.

Less than a month before, he had bought stand tickets for the Ulster Final and had taken the Sergeant and Guard Casey to Clones. He already knew then that the end couldn’t be far off. It must have been cowardice and an old need to ingratiate. Now it was the only part of the whole business that made him cringe.

They had set off in the Sergeant’s small Ford, Guard Casey sitting with the Sergeant in the front. They were both big men, Casey running to flesh, but the Sergeant retained some of an athlete’s spareness of feature. He had played three or four times for Cavan and had been on the fringe of the team for a few seasons several years before.

‘You were a terrible man to go and buy those stand tickets, Jim,’ Casey had said for the fifth time as the car travelled over the dusty white roads.

‘What’s terrible about it? Aren’t we all Ulster men even if we are stranded in the west? It’s a day out, a day out of all our lives. And the Sergeant here even played for Cavan.’

‘Once or twice. Once or twice. Trial runs. You could hardly call it played . I just wasn’t good enough.’

‘You were more than good enough by all accounts. There was a clique.’

‘You’re blaming the selectors now. The selectors had a job to do. They couldn’t pick everybody.’

‘More than me has said they were a clique. They had their favourites. You weren’t called “the boiler” for nothing.’

A car parked round the corner forced the Sergeant to swerve out into the road. Nothing was coming.

‘You’d think the car was specially parked there to deliver an accident.’

‘They’re all driving around in cars,’ Casey said, ‘but the mentality is still of the jennet and cart.’

It had been a sort of suffering to keep the talk going, but silence was even worse. There were many small flowers in the grass margins of the roadside.

They took their seats in the stand halfway through the minor game. There was one grace: though he came from close to Clones, there wasn’t a single person he knew sitting in any of the nearby seats. The minor game ended. Once the seniors came on the field he started at the sudden power and speed with which the ball was driven about. The game was never close. Cavan drew gradually ahead to win easily. Such was the air of unreality he felt, of three men watching themselves watch a game, that he was glad to buy oranges from a seller moving between seats, to hand the fruit around, to peel the skin away, to taste the bitter juice. Only once did he start and stir uncomfortably, when Guard Casey remarked about the powerful Cavan full-back who was roughing up the Tyrone forwards: ‘The Gunner is taking no prisoners today.’

He was not so lucky on leaving the game. In the packed streets of the town a voice called out, ‘Is it not Jimmy McCarron?’ And at once the whole street seemed to know him. They stood in his path, put arms around him, drew him to the bars. ‘An Ulster Final, look at the evening we’ll have, and it’s only starting.’

‘Another time, Mick. Another time, Joe. Great to see you but we have to get back.’ He had pushed desperately on, not introducing his two companions.

‘You seem to be the most popular man in town,’ the Sergeant said sarcastically once they were clear.

‘I’m from round here.’

‘It’s better to be popular anyhow than buried away out of sight,’ Casey came to his defence.

‘Up to a point. Up to a point,’ the Sergeant said. ‘Everything has its point.’

They stopped for tea at the Lawn Hotel in Belturbet. By slipping out to the reception desk while they were eating he managed to pay for the meal. Except for the Sergeant’s petrol he had paid for the entire day. This was brought up as they parted outside the barracks in the early evening.

‘It was a great day. We’ll have to make an annual day of the Ulster Final. But next year will be our day. Next year you’ll not be allowed spend a penny,’ the Sergeant said, but still he could see their satisfaction that the whole outing had cost them nothing.

Now that the committal proceedings were at an end an air of uncertainty crept into the dayroom. Did they feel compromised by the day? He did not look at their faces. The door on the river had to be unlocked in order to allow the peace commissioner to leave and was again locked after he left. He caught the Sergeant and Guard Casey looking at one another.