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

As soon as Brother Benedict appeared, they shook hands, introducing themselves; and, when the Colonel explained what had brought him, the Brother showed him into a large dining-room full of mahogany and leather, an array of polished silver on the heavy sideboard.

‘He does some work for us on Saturdays. Mrs Sinclair and I are quite impressed with him and would like to help him, if that’s possible. We just wondered how able is he. He is the type that doesn’t give much away.’

‘He’s the best student we’ve had for some years.’ Brother Benedict smiled. He was from the south, with a clever, handsome face. He wore rimless steel spectacles which he had the habit of polishing from time to time with a pocket handkerchief kept up his sleeve for that purpose alone, holding the spectacles at full length after polishing, while weighing up a situation or person. When not wearing spectacles he seemed to be always smiling, but there was calculation behind the smile. He had heard about the Colonel’s visits to Charlie’s and was curious to meet him. He was very fond of good whiskey himself and thought it a proper occasion to produce his own. From a large bunch hanging from his belt he selected a small key, unlocked the sideboard, took out a bottle of Redbreast, and poured two large measures. ‘So, naturally, we are interested in him too. The old Sergeant is our problem. He’s forever trying to push Johnny into what he calls “gainful” employment. But for all his quiet, he shouldn’t be underestimated. He’s a survivor and far from being without guile. Like the rest of the country he has a great store of negative capability. He’d much prefer not to.’

‘He certainly seemed positive enough about the army.’

After a second Redbreast, the Colonel left well satisfied and drove directly to the parsonage.

‘The boy is as bright as we suspected,’ he told Mrs Sinclair. ‘His headmaster turned out to be quite a remarkable man.’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, clever, civilized, decent, very clever, in fact. Sort of man you’d expect to find high up in the army. He keeps an excellent whiskey. We mustn’t forget to leave him a bottle of Black Bush for Christmas. They don’t seem to live badly at all in there.’

That evening the Sinclairs left for Charlie’s a half-hour early. They did not have to go all the way to the barrack gate. The Sergeant was digging potatoes inside the line of sycamores. When he saw the Jaguar stop in the avenue, at once he came up to the wall, bringing the spade to lean on, a glow of pleasure on his face at the unexpected break in the evening’s work.

‘Just digging out the few potatoes,’ he said to the Colonel, who got out of the car. ‘A real sign that the old year is almost done.’

‘Very good ones they seem to be too,’ the Colonel responded, and at once began his proposition.

At first, the Sergeant listened smiling. Obscurely, he had always felt that some benefit would flow from the association with the Sinclairs. Soon it grew clear that what was being proposed was no benefit at all. He was not a man to look for any abstraction in the sparrow’s fall. If that small disturbance of the air was to earn a moment’s attention, he would want to know at once what effect it would have on him or that larger version of himself that he was fond of referring to as ‘my family’. By the time the Colonel had finished he was speechless with rage.

‘It’d mean he’d come out of all that as a British army officer?’

‘Precisely. That is, of course, if he is accepted, and proves satisfactory.’

‘He couldn’t.’ He was so choked with emotion that he was barely able to get out the words.

‘He seemed to have no objection to the idea.’

‘He can’t. That’s the end and the be-all.’

‘Very well, then. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Goodbye, Sergeant.’

The Sergeant didn’t know what to do with his rage as he watched the black car back out the avenue, turn and snake round by the bridge to Charlie’s. He did not move till the post office shut the car from sight, and then, mouthing curses, started to beat the sides of ridges with the spade, only stopping when he felt the handle crack, realizing that he could be seen by someone passing the road. There was no one passing, but even if there were he could always pretend that it was a rat he had been pursuing among the furrows.

The Sergeant waited until the barrack orderly came back on duty and the dayroom door shut again before he went in search of the boy.

‘I hear we’re about to have a young Sassenach on our hands, an officer and gentleman to boot, not just the usual fool of an Irishman who rushes to the railway station at the first news of a war,’ he opened.

‘It was Colonel Sinclair who brought it up. I told him he’d have to ask you.’

‘And I’m told you’re favourably inclined to the idea.’

‘I said you’d have to be asked first.’

‘Well, then. I have news for you. You’re going to no Sandhurst whether they’d have you or not, and I even doubt if the Empire is that hard up. And you’re not going to the Sinclairs’ this Saturday or any other Saturday, for that matter. I was a fool to countenance the idea in the first place. Well, what do you have to say for yourself?’

‘I say that I’m not going,’ the boy said, barely able to speak with disappointment and anger.

‘And you can say it again if you want,’ and the father left him, well satisfied with the damaging restraint of his performance, his self-esteem completely restored.

The following Saturday the Sinclairs lingered a long time over breakfast but at ten-thirty the Colonel rose. ‘He’s not coming. He was always punctual. He’s been stopped.’

‘There’s a chance he may be ill,’ Mrs Sinclair said.

‘That would be too much of a coincidence.’

They prepared as usual for the garden, but neither had heart for their separate tasks. They found themselves straying into one another’s company, until Mrs Sinclair smiled sadly and said what they had been avoiding. ‘It’s a hurt.’

‘Yes. It is.’

‘That’s the trouble. We can’t help but get attached,’ she added quietly. It was the end of no world, they had been through too much for that, but these small hurts seemed to gather with the hurts that had gone before to form a weight that was dispiriting; and, with the perfect tact that is a kind of mind-reading, she said, ‘Why don’t we forget the garden? I know we have a rule against drinking during the day, but I think we can make an exception today. I promise to try to make an especially nice lunch.’

‘What kind of wine?’ he asked.

‘Red wine,’ she said at once.

‘I suppose the lesson is that we should have let well enough alone,’ he said.

‘I had my doubts all along but, I suppose, I was hoping they weren’t true. I don’t really think we’d have managed to get him into Sandhurst in the first place; but if we had, his trouble would have just begun — his whole background, his accent most of all. It’s hopeless to even contemplate. Let’s make lunch.’

The boy hung about the gravel outside the barracks that morning. Casey was the barrack orderly again. All the others were out on patrol. After he had finished the Independent , Casey came out to join the boy on the gravel.

‘This must be the first Saturday in a long time you aren’t away helping the Colonel,’ Guard Casey probed gently.

‘I was stopped,’ he replied with open bitterness.

‘I suppose it’ll be the end of the free fruit and vegetables. I hear they were threatening to make a British officer out of you.’

‘I wouldn’t have minded. Many go from here to England to work.’

‘Your father would never have been able to live with that. You really have to be born into that class of people. You don’t ever find robins feeding with the sparrows.’