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

‘I don’t expect to stay a guard for much longer,’ he said. ‘I’ve already passed the sergeant’s exam, and I expect to go much further.’

‘To get to be a sergeant is a big step,’ James responded. ‘Not many get that far in a whole lifetime.’

‘I expect to be a super or an inspector at the very least. The Force is awash with old fools. It needs a big shake-up.’

The young guard went on to ridicule his immediate superiors and to expand his sense of self to very attentive listeners. When he finished the free run of untrammelled self-expression, he was taken aback by how much time had flown.

The old couple walked their daughter and the guard all the way out to the car at the lake gate.

‘What do you think?’ James asked his wife anxiously as they made their slow way back to the house.

‘There’s no use worrying,’ Maggie said. ‘Kate will have her way. To go against him would only make her more determined.’

‘Kate isn’t going to have an easy life. She needs somebody easier.’

Maggie pressed his shoulder as they walked. ‘When we married, and you came in here, everybody was against it. Yet it worked out all right.’

‘I can’t help wishing she had found somebody easier. That poor young man is full of himself.’

‘There’s no use wishing,’ Maggie said. ‘We’ll have to make the best fist of it we can.’

‘Still, we sent her to school. She has pleasant work, plenty of friends. I wish … I wish …’ But Maggie did not encourage him to complete the wish.

All the people who lived around the lake were invited to the wedding. His people travelled from Mayo. They were tall and good-looking, forthright in their manner and very proud of Guard Harkin. Famous footballers came from all over the country and formed a guard of honour outside the church. Girls who had been to college with Kate in Dublin travelled from as far as New York and London to attend the wedding. The church was full. The whole town turned out. The crowds spilt into the church grounds and even on to the road, and the wedding was talked about long after the couple had gone to live in Athlone. Guards were transferred automatically once they married.

We saw little of them in the years that followed. Harkin’s football career was at its height. He was much in the newspapers, and there were pictures of Kate by his side at the celebratory dinners and dances. In all the photos she looked glamorous and happy. For a while Kate had temporary work in Athlone, but James told me that Harkin didn’t like to see his wife working. They came for short visits in the winter and a few times appeared with Maggie and James at Sunday Mass where they were the centre of all eyes. At the church gate after Mass people would crowd round them to grasp their hands, and the talk of what Kate was wearing and how she looked and what a nice plain man Harkin was in spite of everything would sound around the place for days. They were admired and envied. Once Kate did come for a visit on her own and must have stayed two or three weeks. I was over helping James with cattle, and we came together into the house. She was wearing a blue dress and sitting with her elbows on the table looking out of the back window towards the old apple tree heavy with green cooking apples. She was far more like a young girl dreaming about her life than a settled married woman. Once she noticed me, she rose quickly and smiled and stretched out her hand. We were cousins as well as good neighbours.

I was told that Harkin was studying hard for the new sergeant’s exam. The last time he passed but failed the interview. Now he was more determined than ever.

‘Kate says he finds it easier to study when he’s on his own in the house,’ Maggie said while James sat looking down at the floor without adding a single word.

That summer Mayo won the Connacht Championship and beat an Ulster team to reach the All-Ireland Final against Cork. James and Maggie were offered seats in the Hogan Stand, but used one excuse or another to get out of going. I walked round the lake to watch the match with them on television. Their near neighbour, Michael Doherty, had crossed the fields to watch the match as well. There was a long dry spell of weather that September. The Sunday was warm and golden. All the time I was in the house, the front door was left open on the yard. Outside the back window, the old Bramley was heavy again with cookers. Maggie poured us a large whiskey before the match began and filled our glasses at half-time. When it was over, we all had tea and sandwiches. Mayo lost, but Harkin had played his heart out at centrefield. If Mayo had had even one more player like him, they’d have won. Once we thought we saw Kate’s face in the rows of heads in the Hogan Stand. When I got up to leave, James took his hat and insisted on walking me all the way out to the lake gate. Michael Doherty stayed behind to chat with Maggie. We were going in different directions anyhow.

‘Thanks for the day, for everything. It would have crowned it had they won,’ I said as we parted.

‘What’s it but a game? We had the day. Thanks yourself for coming all the way over.’ James waved, and I saw him wait at the gate until I passed out of sight behind the alders along the shore.

That game and year must have been close to the very best of the Harkins’ life together. Kate was expecting their first child. In the new sergeant’s exam he came first in the whole of Ireland. He was certain he’d be promoted before the next year was out. Maggie went early to Athlone to help Kate around the birth, and James went for the little girl’s christening.

‘The little girl is a treasure,’ Maggie told me when they got back. ‘Outside that, though, things could be better.’

‘How could that be? Aren’t their whole lives in front of them? He’s going to be a sergeant before long?’ I asked though I wasn’t all that surprised by what she said.

‘He’s not so certain now. When he walked into the room for the interview, whom did he find sitting behind the table but the same officers who turned him down the first time.’

‘How could they turn him down after him coming first in the whole country?’

‘He says that if they’re against you enough they’ll turn you down no matter what. There were no older guards at the christening, just foolish young fellas who looked up to him as if he were God. Even if you have to come in first everywhere, you must learn to wait and bide your time along the way. A man can only do so much; after that, it’s people who do everything. When God made us, He didn’t allow for us all to be first all the time.’ The words were very strong coming from James.

I saw Maggie look hard at him as he spoke. When he caught her eye, he stopped; nothing more was said, and I asked nothing more. Harkin came with Kate and the child a few times to the farm that year but did not stay for long. They never appeared together at Mass. Another girl was born the following year. Maggie went to help Kate as before, but this time James refused to go to Athlone for the christening. Harkin was no longer playing football. A nagging knee injury had worsened, and he had no interest in continuing to play at club level. He joined a gun club with a new friend, Guard McCarthy. He also started to drink.

‘I couldn’t wait to get away,’ Maggie said when she came home. ‘I fear Kate knows now she has her work cut out.’

In spite of what she said, she went again to Athlone to help Kate with her third baby, a boy. It was a difficult birth, and Maggie was several weeks away. During this time, Michael Doherty crossed the fields nearly every night to sit with James for company. When Maggie was at home, he came to the house a number of nights each week but not as frequently as when she was away. Some weeks after Kate’s son was born, he stopped in fear when he came into the yard to find the house in darkness. The door was open. He switched on the lights. The rooms were all empty. There was a low fire in the cooker. Outside he heard a dog barking in the fields and then a tractor running. He found the body lying by the transport box. The ground all around was trampled, but the cattle hadn’t walked on the body. James had scattered the hay before falling. Each of the baler twines had been cut.