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

‘We want to forget everything, Kate. We’ll start all over again, as if nothing happened.’

She could find no words. She was grateful for the noise of a passing car. ‘It’s too sudden,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘We want you to think about it anyhow. The children want that as well.’ Later he asked, ‘Have you thought about it, Kate?’

‘For the children I’d do anything, but I don’t see how we …’ Mercifully she was able to leave the rest unsaid.

‘Will you think about it? We all want to get back to square one. All the children as much as myself.’

Harkin and the children were there every time she called that week. The friendliness increased. Her nervousness grew intense. She had to force herself to go to the house.

‘Will you be coming back to the house at the end of the week, Mammy?’ young Kate asked as they were playing draughts together before their bedtime. She’d been playing badly, and the girls were beating her easily.

‘I don’t think so, love.’

‘Daddy said we’d all be happy again,’ little Kate added.

‘I know,’ she said.

She told Jerome Callaghan about the new pressure she had come under to return to the marriage, the way the whole weather of the house had turned.

‘What will you do?’

‘I can’t go back. I know everything is about to change. That is all I know.’

‘Do you think you should go to the house at all?’

‘I have no choice. I have no other way to see the children.’

The next day Maggie came into town, and they spent a long time talking. They agreed to go together the following week to see a young solicitor Jerome Callaghan had recommended, no matter what happened. When Kate went to see the children that evening, it was Callaghan who drove Maggie out to the lake. Kate was sick at work the next day but couldn’t be persuaded to go home. In the evening Jerome Callaghan insisted on driving her to her rooms, and she allowed him to come with her into the house in full view of the busy evening street. She seemed to be past caring; but when he offered to drive her to the bungalow after they had tea together she responded fiercely. ‘You must be out of your mind.’

‘In that case, I’m waiting here, and if you’re not back before eleven I’m coming to look for you.’

‘I’ll be back before eleven,’ she said.

As soon as she entered the house, she saw the strain in Harkin’s friendliness.

‘Well, have you made up your mind?’

She was calmer now. She said it was impossible. She felt the stone-faced silence return. Only by shutting everything out and going from moment to small moment with the children was she able to get through the long evening which suddenly started to race as the time to leave drew near.

The two girls were reserved as she kissed them goodnight. She was afraid the boy would cling to her so she lifted him high in the air. Beforehand she had been eating currants nervously from a glass jar on the sideboard and she lifted him awkwardly because the currants were still in her hand and she did not want them to scatter.

‘I want you to know that if you leave tonight you’ll never set foot in this house again.’

She bowed her head. ‘I’ll have to take that risk.’ As she turned her back she heard a sharp click but did not turn to see him lift the gun. One hand was reaching for the door when she fell, the other closed tight. When it was opened, it held a fistful of small black currants.

Jerome Callaghan sat waiting without moving in the one chair. Not until after ten did he begin to grow anxious. At half past ten he moved to the window. Several times he went to leave, then held back, but once the hand of his watch moved past eleven, he ran down the stairs and drove to Harkin’s house. A Garda car already blocked the entrance to the short road. There were other police cars in the street. The guard and Callaghan knew one another well.

‘There’s been a shooting. Mrs Harkin …’

‘Is she …?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Guard Sullivan said.

Callaghan restrained the urge to rush to her, the futile wish to help and succour what can be helped no longer, and turned slowly back to his car. Numbly he turned the car around and found himself driving out to the lake, parking at the gate. As he got out, he disturbed wildfowl in the reeds along the shore, and they scattered, shrieking, towards the centre. There was no moon but there were clear reflections on the water. Never did life seem so mysterious and inhospitable. They might as well all be out there in the middle of the lake with the wildfowl.

The lights were on in the house. When he knocked, Maggie came to the door. Later when the guards called at the house with word of the death, it was Callaghan who answered the knock.

After being charged, Harkin was transferred to a mental institution for a psychiatric report as part of the preparations for his trial. He took great interest in his case and consulted regularly with his solicitor. He tried but was unable to prevent the children from going to Maggie. Other than his solicitor, the only person he asked to see was Guard McCarthy, who had fought back to back with him against the tinkers on that terrible night years before.

McCarthy had settled in Cork and married a teacher. When Harkin’s letter arrived, he was alarmed and took it straight to his sergeant, who consulted his superiors. To McCarthy’s dismay, he was asked to visit his old friend and to write down everything that was said during the visit in case it could be of use in the forthcoming trial. All the expenses of the visit would be paid by the State.

On a summer’s day the two men met and were allowed through locked doors into a walled ornamental garden. They sat on a wooden bench by a small fountain. Almost playfully Harkin examined McCarthy’s ear for stitchmarks and asked, ‘Do you think Cork has much of a chance in the All-Ireland this year?’

‘Not much,’ McCarthy answered. A silence followed that seemed to take a great age. The visit could not end quickly enough for him.

‘What makes you say that?’ Harkin eventually asked.

‘The team is uneven. They’re short of at least two forwards.’

‘I’d hate to see Dublin winning it again.’

‘They have the population,’ McCarthy said. ‘They have the pick.’

There was another long silence until Harkin asked, ‘How do you think my case will go?’

In the heart-stopping pause that followed, McCarthy could hear the water splashing from the fountain, the birds singing. He said he had no earthly clue. The silence returned, but nothing came to break it. ‘Was there anything in particular you wanted to see me about, Michael?’ he ventured cautiously.

‘No. Nothing. I just wanted to get a look at you again after all these years,’ and he placed his hand on the guard’s shoulder as they both rose.

McCarthy wrote down everything that Harkin said, but it was never used as evidence. That same evening Harkin swallowed an array of tablets that he had managed to conceal, and before he slipped into unconsciousness he reached beneath the scar on his chest to tear out the mechanism that regulated his heartbeat.

A silence came down around all that happened. Nobody complained about the normal quiet. Bird cries were sweet. The wing-beat of the swan crossing the house gave strength. The long light of day crossing the lake steeped us in privilege and mystery and infinite reflections that nobody wanted to break or question.

Gradually the sense of quiet weakened. The fact that nothing much was happening ceased to comfort. A craving for change began again. The silence around the murder was broken. All sorts of blame was apportioned as we noticed each year that passed across the face of the lake, quickening and gathering speed before swinging round again, until crowds of years seemed suddenly in the air above the lake, all gathering for flight.