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

‘What sort of work?’

‘In the mart — in the office,’ she answered quickly.

‘Who gave you this work?’

‘They were looking for someone in a hurry. Mr McNulty gave me the work.’

‘So Horsey McNulty is a mister now all of a sudden. Did you need the money?’

‘No. We’ve never had so much money.’

‘Were you short of money before?’

‘We were never short.’

‘Why did you want the work?’

‘The children are growing up. It was a chance to get out of the house.’

‘Of course I didn’t need to be consulted.’

‘I tried to put off taking the job till you came home, but they couldn’t give me the time. They needed somebody that week.’

The mood of the house changed. Instead of trying to postpone their bedtime, the three children were anxious to be away and under the blankets. When the doors of their rooms were closed, he took a whiskey bottle from the press and poured a

large glass. She was always apprehensive when she saw him drink whiskey.

‘Those crowd of wide boys knew well what they were doing. As well as McNulty, Jerome Callaghan is stuck to his elbows in the mart and he’s nosing after the one thing.’ He suddenly drained the glass but didn’t reach for the bottle again. ‘You’ll have to throw it up. That’s all. I’m not going to have my wife working up in the cow shit with a pack of wide boys. It’s not as if I don’t make enough money. You’ll give it up tomorrow and get the hell out of the place.’

She said she couldn’t. She liked the work, and it didn’t interfere with the running of the house or the children. She said that the people were pleasant, especially the two women who worked with her in the office, and she had given them her word.

With the empty glass in his hand he rose and came towards her. It was as if all the resentments he’d held half in check over years had gathered into a fist. He had married her when he could have had his pick of women. He had given her a house, car, children, clothes — everything a woman could want. What had she given back? Nothing, nothing. She had given him no help at all. Their life had been a dog’s life. He hadn’t even the life of a dog. ‘Have you ever asked yourself if there’s anything wrong with you?’ He didn’t seem to know or care what he said.

‘Be careful, you’re saying too much,’ she warned, but he did not hear her.

‘I’ll bring you up to date. I’ll soon bring you up to date. Two nights ago I went to a hotel in the Black Forest. The Germans aren’t stuck in the dark ages. We were ten couples. A divorced woman was with me. Helga. Every man had two keys to his room. After drinks, each man threw a key on the table and went to his room. The women stayed behind to pick up a key. The woman who came to my room said when she opened the door, “I won the prize. I got the Irishman.” We did everything man or beast can do and we were the last couple to come down. Everybody clapped as soon as we came into the bar and wanted to buy us drinks. You mightn’t think much of these people, but they know what I am worth.’

‘This time you’ve gone too far,’ she said.

‘Not half far enough.’ He came towards her. ‘You’ll either do what you’re supposed to do in this house or get out.’ He seized her with both hands and raced her to the door. She tried to stop herself falling as she was flung but before she realized what had happened she found herself reeling to a stop in the middle of the small lawn. She didn’t fall. Behind her she heard the door lock.

It was cold and later than she thought. She was wearing a cardigan over a light dress. Not a single television set flickered behind the curtains of the little road. No music played anywhere. She thought of the children. She knew they would be safe and she could not go back to the house again. A car went slowly past on the main road. She would walk. She went out from the bungalows into the centre of town. A man was standing at one of the corners and shifted his feet and coughed as she passed. A full moon above the roofs shone down.

She started to sob, then to laugh headily before she regained a sort of calm. Once she left the street lamps of the town, the moon gave her a long shadow for company. Now and then she broke into short runs. The cold never quite left her shoulders.

So intent was she on getting to her mother’s house that it closed out all other thoughts. Close to the lake she smelt the rank waterweed and the sharp wild mint. The moon was amazing on the lake, flooding the water in yellow light, making it appear as deep as the sky. The path through the fields was sharp and clear above the lake. Around the house it was like day. She tapped on the bedroom window, but Maggie was already awake.

As she told her mother what happened, Kate was suddenly so tired that listening to her own voice was like listening to the voice of another. Even with the children there, awake or sleeping, the bungalow that had been locked against her seemed as far away as Africa.

*

As Michael Doherty hadn’t a car at that time, Maggie cycled round the lake to ask if I’d drive them into town the next morning. There was trouble and Kate needed to see the solicitor. They were waiting at the lake gate an hour later. Kate looked pale but beautiful that morning. She was unusual in that she grew more beautiful with age. Maggie’s face was always interesting but never beautiful. Except for paleness and tiredness nobody could have guessed from either of them that anything was wrong.

We stopped at the mart on the way into town. The great spaces were empty. A few beasts waiting within the sheds were lowing and listening before lowing again. Compared to the bellowing of market days, the lowing of the isolated animals sounded hollow and lonely and futile. When Kate came from the mart she told us that she had telephoned the school. Their father had taken the children to school that morning. From the mart Maggie and Kate went together to the solicitor’s.

Old Mr Gannon received them. He was now partly retired but had been very fond of Kate ever since she’d worked for him as a young woman, but the advice he had to give them wasn’t good. By leaving the matrimonial home, Kate had forfeited all her rights. She couldn’t, though, be stopped from entering their house to see the children. Neither could her husband prevent her from leaving the house.

Kate went to work in the mart, and I drove Maggie home. She told me everything on the way. ‘I know you won’t talk.’ Kate was going straight from work to see the children. I said I’d drive them anywhere they wanted to be driven to over the next few days. That is how I came to take Kate and her belongings from the house late that same night.

Maggie asked me to stay in the car while she went into the bungalow. Kate opened the door and it was kept open. I saw the children near the door and once I thought I saw Harkin’s shadow fall across the light. The two women started carrying loose clothes and a suitcase out of the house. It was a relief to get out of the car, to open the boot and the back doors, besides sitting and watching in the mirrors. I only got back into the car when I saw the women kissing the children. The boy was clinging to them, but the two girls looked withdrawn.

It wasn’t anything you’d want to watch too often. Kate cried in the back all the way out, but at the lake she was the first out to open that gate. She told us not to wait while she closed the gate. She wanted to walk the rest of the way in. Maggie and I had all her belongings taken from the car by the time she crossed the yard. She had stopped crying.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said to me as she came in.

‘There’s nothing to be sorry about.’

‘I should have more control,’ she said as she reached into the press for the whiskey bottle and poured me a large glass. Neither Kate nor Maggie ever drank. I dislike drinking on my own, but it was easier to drink than to refuse. I drank the whiskey down and left. I could see that the two women were tired out of their minds.