John McGahern - Amongst Women

There were no letters or telegrams to be read out. The priest, with folded hands and closed eyes, recited Grace, and the meal began: soup served by a daughter of the same sister of Rose’s who had been taking the photos; chicken and ham, with salad. The wedding cake was cut. The priest made a short speech praising the families and the outstanding simplicity of the wedding feast. There was too much emphasis nowadays on show, on Rolls-Royces and big hotels, wasteful, expensive display. It was pleasant to see people returning to the old ways, he said. There was wine and whiskey and beer for the toast. The best man said he wasn’t used to speeches, he nearly hadn’t arrived at all himself, but he just wanted to thank Father here for all he had done and the people of the bride here for this feast and all the trouble they had gone to, and then he proposed the toast. The brother who had given Rose away responded even more briefly and soon afterwards the priest left.

Gradually the wedding breakfast was breaking up. One of Rose’s tall silent brothers went around the tables with a bottle of wine and a bottle of whiskey but they drank sparingly. When the best man cleared his throat and announced that he was going to fix the puncture he had before leaving, all Moran’s children followed him out to the road and stood around as he got levers and patches and solution. When he came back to the house he refused to take a chair or a drink.

‘I better be making a start. I have a run to do yet this evening.’

‘We might as well go with you so,’ Moran said and Rose got up eagerly. She had all her going-away things packed. The remaining things she could come back for any day. Her mother and sisters and brothers all embraced her but she showed no emotion. The whole household walked them out to the big Ford at the end of the lane. They embraced Rose a second time and everybody shook hands. At the bridge Moran and Rose changed to their own small blue car and the uncle drove the children home. He waited at the house until the bride and groom arrived but he could not be persuaded to enter the house.

The whole of Rose’s family walked back down the lane to their house in silence. ‘She had many admirers,’ the old mother said as they neared the house in a tone of puzzlement and of mourning. ‘Many admirers … Many admirers …’

‘Nothing could stop her. She was determined on it. Now it’s her life,’ her married sister said gently.

‘I hope she’ll be lucky,’ the wife of one of the brothers said without any feeling.

The four tall brothers walked in stooped silence but their wives chatted agreeably. A daughter held the mother’s hand in sympathy.

When they entered the house one of the brothers reached for the bottle of whiskey and poured four large glasses for the first time that day. They were a very close family but in the years to come no gathering or wedding, not even simple gatherings, was ever held in any one of their houses. They went to big hotels as if determined never again to experience anything like this house wedding in all their mortal lives. Neither Rose nor Moran ever attended any of the gatherings. They were never invited. They would not have gone if they were.

‘I don’t know about anybody else but I’d love a nice hot cup of tea,’ Rose said as soon as they were all in the house. At once she set a tone that would not be easily wrested from her. Moran watched in silence.

All the girls helped her to get the fire going, spread the tablecloth, put out the cups and plates, laughing and whispering and bustling about as they showed her the places and secrets of the kitchen, the room that was now her room. There was a touch of hysteria in the frantic busyness. Their exaggeration of the small tasks betrayed that they were more involved with Moran than in what they were doing. Sometimes they would accidentally bring it to crisis by letting a plate or cup smash on the floor. As they showed her the house, Rose seemed to enter completely into the terrible awareness of Moran now sitting in the car chair meditatively rotating his thumbs about one another. On this his wedding day he seemed strangely at peace. It was as if he needed this quality of attention to be fixed upon him in order to be completely silent.

During the entire day he felt a violent, dissatisfied feeling that his whole life was taking place in front of his eyes without anything at all taking place. Distances were walked. Words were said. Rings were exchanged. The party moved from church to house. All seemed a kind of mockery. It was as if nothing at all had happened. He was tired of wrestling with it, brooding about it, sometimes looking at his bride’s back with violent puzzlement; but now, surrounded by this covert attention, he was glad to let it go: he would take tea like a lord with his family.

Was there milk enough or a little too much in his tea? They could add more tea once he had taken a few sips. He didn’t take sugar any more. Would he have the plain bread or the bread with the blackcurrant jam or a piece of the apple tart? ‘The tea was all right,’ he protested and they knew he was far from displeased. ‘It’ll do for the man it is for. I’ve already eaten enough today to do a man for a week. I’d explode if I was to put as much as one morsel more in my mouth.’

Rose and the girls smiled as the tea and the plates circled around him. They were already conspirators. They were mastered and yet they were controlling together what they were mastered by.

‘Thanks,’ he put his cup away. ‘I’ll go out to the fields for a few hours to try to work off some of this.’

He changed into his old clothes and left. They washed and dried the cups and plates and put them away. A quiet that was close to let-down replaced the wild bustle of the preparation but they were enjoying each other’s company, the animal comfort of other presences, banishment of loneliness.

Outside, Moran thinned several small ash trees from the hedge that ran along the foot of the orchard. He liked mechanical things and he was pleased that the chainsaw he had had to dismantle several times in the past seemed to run perfectly. ‘It must have been the timing that was out all along.’ The felling, trimming, cutting, absorbed him completely and because of the ferocity of the running chain it demanded his undivided attention. Michael followed him out and helped pile the waste branches into heaps for burning and then they stacked the scattered lengths of the firewood.

Inside, the girls showed Rose all over the house. After that she began to tell them a little about her life in Scotland, particularly her life with the Rosenblooms.

‘Sometimes at the weekend Mr Rosenbloom would come and ask me to iron his shirts. He had hundreds of shirts and why he ever wanted me to iron them I’ll never know. Mrs Rosenbloom nearly always found out about it and she would be mad that he had taken me from my work with the children. There’d be a battle royal all morning. After lunch he’d go into the city and come back with a whole armful of roses, the price of many shirts.’

‘Would she be satisfied with that?’ the girls demanded greedily.

‘She’d hold out for a while but it would always be made up after he came back with the roses. He’d swear of course that he’d never again steal me from my proper duties with the children. She’d cut and arrange the roses. They’d dress up then and go out to dinner to some restaurant, laughing and talking together as if nothing at all had happened.’

‘What would they be talking about, Rose?’

‘About what they’d eat that evening in the restaurant and what wines they’d drink. You would wonder how they could eat at all after the amount of time they spent talking about food.’

When Moran came in from the field with Michael he was in high good humour.