John McGahern - By the Lake

“Don’t tell me, Jamesie. Look how excited they are to meet one another.”

“Money, Kate. Money.”

“I suppose we should leave them to one another,” Ruttledge said.

“He’ll suck when he gets hungry. They know their own business best.”

There was a great feeling of relief. She was safe with her calf for another year. The relief was like peace.

“How did you come to be here, Jamesie?” Kate asked suddenly as they went towards the house. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask until now.

“The sleepy fox, that’s how, Kate,” he said defensively. “You’ll be sick of the sight of me. Twice in the same day.”

“That could never happen.”

“You must have been here all the time. You must have been watching while I was looking for the cow. You are something. You were watching me all that time? Why didn’t you call?”

In response, he gave a sharp guffaw. “Where did you leave Patrick Ryan?” he asked.

“How did you know I was away with Patrick?”

“I saw him go round the shore. I saw the car head for Carrick. I knew well what Patrick wanted. He wanted to go to the hospital. I knew the cow was sick. I didn’t expect you home so soon. Better men than you failed to get Patrick out of the town.”

“I left him in the village. He didn’t want me.”

“Don’t tell me. I know too well.”

With difficulty they persuaded him to enter the house. “Twice drinking whiskey in a house the same day. I’ll be the talk of the country.”

“Not every day the old Shorthorn calves.” Ruttledge gripped his shoulder in a sign of gratitude and affection.

The drinks were poured. They spoke of the visit to the hospital, Edmund’s great courtesy, the difference in character between the two brothers with the same father and mother and the same upbringing in the same small place.

“Would never harm a fly, ‘How are yous all round the lake. You were very good to come.’ I can hear his voice,” Jamesie said.

“Patrick shouldn’t have shaken him awake,” Kate said.

“No, Kate. You can quit. Patrick never had value on Edmund. He just wanted to say that he made the visit in case it could be upcasted. All he cared about was that he was seen talking to Edmund. When the parents were going, it was Patrick this and Patrick that and Edmund wasn’t even noticed. The sun shone out of Patrick.”

“That’s not right.”

“Right or wrong, Kate? There’s nothing right or wrong in this world. Only what happens. I’ll be beating away,” he said, draining the whiskey and refusing the offer of more. “Mary’s over in Mulvey’s on her Sunday ceilidhe . She warned me not to be late. We’ll come back home across the bog together. She wouldn’t cross that bog on her own even if it was the end of the world.”

They walked to where he had left his bicycle down by the lake. The moon was high above the lake. Scents of the wild mint and honeysuckle were sharp and sweet on the night air. The full trees stood high and still, dark and magnificent against the moonlit water.

“I doubt but poor Edmund will ever go these roads again,” Jamesie said quietly as he prepared to cycle away. “I doubt he’ll ever see the lake again.”

Late that night they walked through the heavy dew to the plantation. The calf had sucked and was sleeping by the mother. She let out a sharp, anxious moo as they approached through the branches. When they spoke to her she was quiet and gave the sleeping calf a few sharp, casual licks as if to show her pride. They appeared now as if they had been together for ever. The black cat followed them over the fields. As they retraced their steps she made little runs and darts across their path, a ruse to get herself lifted from the wet grass and carried. Eventually Ruttledge picked her up, and she rode back to the house on his shoulder.

The warm weather came with its own ills. The maggot fly had struck, each stricken sheep or lamb standing comically still as if in scholarly thought. Then suddenly they would try to bite back at the dark, moistened patch of wool tantalisingly out of reach. They were run into the shed. A bath was prepared. The infected sheep and lambs were picked out and the parts dipped in poison. The fat white maggots writhed underneath the wool and on the ground around the bath. The sheep and lambs bounded free, rid of their deadly guests.

From the plantation the Shorthorn guided her stumbling calf down to the herd by the water’s edge. They all gathered dutifully to sniff and snort and poke the new calf while the mother stood proudly by. When the cows returned to their grazing, the calves approached their new companion in the expectation of frolics and play but he just sank wearily to his knees, exhausted after his long journey. Ruttledge was surprised to hear voices when he reached the house and stood to listen. Patrick Ryan had come. He and Kate were talking.

“I hear Edmund isn’t well.”

“He’s finished.”

“He could get well again.”

“No, girl. He’s finished.”

Patrick Ryan was seated at the table, his cap beside his hand on the tablecloth. He was eating a boiled egg and buttered toast with a big mug of tea. Kate faced him across a separate table where she was putting together frames for the hives. She often resorted to such tasks when Patrick Ryan was in the house.

“I’m in heaven here with a great boiled egg,” he greeted Ruttledge with sunny amiability.

“We’ve been talking about Edmund,” Kate said.

“It’s no use. I told her our lad is finished. There’s no use talking or pretending otherwise,” he asserted darkly. “I suppose ye were hardly expecting to see me?”

“We are glad to see you,” Ruttledge said. “We expect you, Patrick, when we see you.”

“There’s no surer way as far as expecting goes.”

“Was there much fun in the village last night?”

“It went on too late. Somebody gave me a lift to the corner of the lake. We sat too long in the car — discussing. Fuck all these late-night discussions. They never go anywhere. There was a moon as big as a saucepan when I had to climb the hill to the Tomb. I think it must have been six weeks since I last slept in the house. Anyway there was no little woman there to give out.”

“That was good,” Ruttledge said.

“You wouldn’t know. She wasn’t there anyhow. This woman here is looking to her bees. If people were as busy and organized as the bees we’d have paradise on earth.”

“The bees can be rough too in their way. They make short work of the drones,” Kate said.

“That’s what should be done with our layabouts as well,” he said vigorously, taking his cap from the tablecloth. “We better be making a start. Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“We’ll proceed, then, in the name of God.”

The timbers, the angle irons, the long nails, the nuts and bolts, the sheets of iron had lain about in the shed since they had been bought two years before. They took a long time to find and arrange in order.

Patrick Ryan worked slowly but meticulously. He measured each beam several times before drawing the line with a set square and a stub of a pencil and checked again before taking the saw.

Late in the day they heard a heavy motor come slowly in round the shore and turn uphill towards the house.

“It looks as if we may have a visitor, lad,” Patrick Ryan said with excitement as they lifted their heads from the measuring and checking.

“It’s the Shah,” Patrick Ryan said with obvious disappointment when the new black Mercedes entered the shade, towing a covered cattle trailer. The two men knew one another too well. “You better go and attend to him. He’s unlikely to leave me any washers. I wonder what the hell he’s doing with a cattle trailer,” he said sourly.