John McGahern - By the Lake

Ruttledge left Jamesie and Mary to the early morning train. They were going to Dublin for the whole week of Christmas. Though he arrived early at the house they were already waiting, their suitcases and parcels on the doorsteps, the two dogs crying in their house, the key in the outside of the door ready to be locked, the brown hens shut in their house within the netting wire.

“Put yourselves to no trouble,” Jamesie raised his hand in a gesture that meant Ruttledge was free to do whatever he wanted to do about the place while they were absent.

Among all the bags and parcels on their doorstep there was only one medium-sized suitcase with their own belongings and clothes. Everything else was presents, the plucked turkey, the plum pudding, even the rare bottle of White Powers.

“We’ll taste it in Dublin. Too good for us. No good for us here on our own.”

Since they went to Dublin for their son’s wedding seventeen years ago, a single night hadn’t been spent away from the house. There was about them a spiritual quality, as if they were going forth as supplicants or communicants rather than to the small diesel train that would take them to Dublin in a couple of hours.

“The poor fellas,” Mary said of the protesting dogs as they drove away. “They don’t like to be closed in. They know full well that something is happening.” Then she withdrew into herself, but Jamesie named every house they passed, not with his usual fierce interest but as if it were a recitation of prayer, until it began to irritate Mary. “You’d think it was to America he was going.”

“Or to heaven,” Ruttledge said.

“Much more likely the other place.”

After getting the tickets they waited with the rest of the passengers on the white gravel of the platform though the potbellied stove in the waiting room was red. There was a lighted Christmas tree in the opposite corner. Not many people were going to Dublin. They could see down a whole mile of track. In a field across the tracks an old horse and a few cows were eating hay together.

“Have you heard from Johnny?” Ruttledge asked as they waited.

“We had a card,” Mary said. “The poor fella even put in a note for us to have a Christmas drink on him.”

“He’s away to Birmingham to the Connors,” Jamesie said. “He’s in great fettle. After Christmas he takes up in his new place.”

“Will Patrick Ryan stay away or will he be home at Christmas?”

“He’ll be home,” Jamesie answered with total confidence. “On Christmas day he goes to the Harneys in Boyle. They come for him in a car. They’re cousins but I hear they are sick enough of the whole performance. Every Christmas starts off all right but then he has to try to put the whole house under him. That’s Patrick.”

“They’ll come for him all the same,” Mary said sharply.

“They’ll come. It’s just one day. They’re not going to stop now.”

“I might wander up to the house to see how he is or if he’s there,” Ruttledge said.

“You’ll see a choice house if you do,” Mary said. For the first time that morning she laughed. “All modern comforts and appliances.”

The signal fell at the end of the platform and the snub nose of the little diesel train came into view far down the tracks. The young stationmaster locked the ticket office and walked down the platform towards the signal box. He was carrying a white hoop and nodded and smiled at the passengers he knew.

“He didn’t even notice us,” Jamesie joked to hide his excitement, all his attention was fixed on the approaching train.

The train drew in, and with a few nervous words they were gone.

On Christmas Eve, Kate had some last-minute shopping. Ruttledge said he would go with her to the town and call on the Shah. It was late. He dropped her under the tricolour flying over Jimmy Joe McKiernan’s and drove slowly through the stars and crowns and trees and streamers and the chaotic parking of the town. The crib was floodlit on the steps of the church and the windows were ablaze with light for Midnight Mass. For this night anyhow, its modern ugliness had disappeared and it resembled a great lighted ship set to sail out of the solid middle of the town into all that surrounds our life. There was a white star above the entrance of the Central Hotel encircled by beads of coloured lights. When he reached the Shah’s domain, suddenly all was in darkness except for the street lamps. The scrapyard and big sheds were closed and there wasn’t a light or Christmas decoration in sight. The big light above the door of the station house was on and the light of televisions came through the windows of the cottages. As he approached the station house, the door suddenly opened and was held open while his uncle said goodbye to Father Conroy. When the door closed, the priest and Ruttledge stood face to face.

“This is a surprise,” Ruttledge said as they shook hands.

“There’s nothing wrong,” the priest said. “Every Christmas I come to the house to hear his Confession. We must be doing it for four or five years now.”

“You gave him Absolution?”

“And Communion,” the priest responded with equal lightness. “You’ll find him white as the driven snow.”

“A happy Christmas.”

“Many happy returns.”

When Ruttledge rang the bell, his uncle was plainly surprised to have a second caller and didn’t open the door until he recognized the voice.

“You’re some boy hauling our poor priest in from the country to hear your Confession instead of going down to the church like everybody else,” Ruttledge said.

“You met the man,” he responded defensively. “By all accounts you don’t bother him too much yourself.”

“The man is overworked with people like you.”

“That’ll do you now,” he began to shake with laughter. “It’s more than you do anyhow and that poor man you met going out needs a lock of pounds from time to time like everybody else.” He was enjoying the display of the power that could draw the priest to his house for an individual Confession. He wanted Ruttledge to delay. He swung open his liquor cabinet to display a formidable array of bottles. “You might as well have something now that it’s Christmas.”

Ruttledge shook his head. “Kate will be waiting. I just dropped in to say we’ll not be eating till around four tomorrow. But come out whenever suits you. We’ll be there all along.”

“Will it be all right to bring Himself?” he indicated the sheepdog stretched in front of the hot fire.

“Of course. Doesn’t he come every Christmas?”

The dog rose from the fire and looking first at his master trotted over to Ruttledge to be petted.

“He knows. He makes no mistake, I’m telling you. He knows,” he said triumphantly.

“I find it hard to believe it is Christmas Day and that there are just the two of us,” Kate said when they rose in the morning. “When I was little all my aunts and uncles and their families used to gather at my dear grandfather’s house. The best part of Christmas Day was the morning when we drove to church, knowing that the long morning was ahead of us — the presents under the tree, the traditional lunch. Cousins, servants, an adored German shepherd, my grandmother’s cats, all of us milling around during drinks, taking stock of the presents; then the solemn prayer before the feast began. I was usually asked to sing ‘God Bless America,’ my grandfather’s eyes misting at the sight of little Kate singing. After that, it was downhill all the way. The old resentments and antagonisms surfaced, barely kept in check by my grandfather’s Edwardian presence.”

“What would he think to see you here this Christmas morning?”