John McGahern - Amongst Women

‘This man and me are after slaughtering a few trees out there.’

Even the way he hung his hat was expansive, drawing the whole room in. The girls knew how soon this mood could change if it was not fully entered into.

‘I’m fit to tackle a live child again,’ he joked as they prepared to eat.

‘Now Michael, that’s hardly necessary,’ Rose scolded gently.

‘It might not be but it’s the godalmighty truth,’ he asserted so playfully back that the whole table laughed.

After the tea he suggested that they play cards, already shuffling the cards he took from the sill. They played Twenty-one; the scores were kept on the inside of a Lyons Green Label tea packet. Moran was the best player and mostly won but that night he attributed his winnings to the cards he had been dealt. They knelt to the Rosary. Moran began, ‘Thou, O Lord, wilt open my lips,’ as he began every evening. There was a pause when he ended the First Mystery. All their eyes were turned on Rose but she, with just a glance at Moran, took up the Second Mystery as if she had been saying it with them all the nights of their lives.

After the prayers they went up in turn and kissed Moran and then Rose who returned their kisses warmly, and they slipped away to their rooms. The boy was going to the boxroom and was clearly excited at possessing a room of his own for the first time. He too kissed Rose. Rose and Moran sat on alone in the room. They were not silent but only spoke after long intervals and what they said did not carry to the upstairs rooms. When the couple did go to their bedroom the girls became even more wide awake than before. They tried not to breathe as they listened. They were too nervous and frightened of life to react to or put into words the sounds they heard from the room where their father was sleeping with Rose.

Rose was up at seven the next morning, an hour before the house usually stirred. When the girls came down they found the room already warm, the fire lit, the kettle steaming. Rose was preparing to bring Moran a mug of tea.

‘Daddy wouldn’t hear of having his breakfast in bed,’ she said with a small engaging laugh. ‘But he might as well have this before getting up.’

She made an enormous difference in the house. Since their mother’s death it had been run by Maggie, with bits of help from Mona and Sheila. At first their mother’s sister had come from time to time but she and Moran had quarrelled. He was not interested in food other than it should not cost too much and wasn’t raw. The girls had never been taught to cook or housekeep. They could cook vegetables and meat simply, deal with eggs and bacon and porridge, and they were able to bake and housekeep, learning as they went along. They didn’t need to know much more.

Rose changed everything. She was able to organize her day so that even though she seemed to be less harassed than Maggie the meals were always delicious and on time. Then she began to clean and paint the house room by room. Moran complained about the unnecessary disturbance though it was the cost that he was secretly worried by. She pointed out that the plaster would soon fall away without paint. Whenever he complained too much about cost she went and bought what she needed with her own money. That he disliked even more. In the end he always gave what she asked but he resented the giving. She did not seem to mind and she was inordinately careful. ‘You know Daddy.’ she would laugh defensively with the girls. All the children helped her redecorate the house. When it was done the whole house had acquired a new pleasantness and comfort. Even Moran had to admit it though he dismissed it as well by saying that it would have done well enough for the likes of him as it had been.

What was also clear was that the house’s need of Maggie had disappeared. Rose brought this up very gently to Moran.

‘She’ll have a roof over her head as long as I’m above ground,’ he responded aggressively.

‘She’ll have that as long as I’m here too but I think she should have more.’

‘What more does she want?’

‘She’s almost nineteen. The day is gone when a girl waits around till some man needs a wife. She should have the protection of some work.’

‘What job of any good would she get here? She left school at fourteen. She wasn’t all that good at school either.’

‘There’s a shortage of nurses in England. I always regretted I never trained. I’ve spoken to her and she’s interested.’

‘You were very quick off the mark, weren’t you? A lot of our people go wrong in England.’

‘I was there for a while,’ she said pointedly but she was careful not to press too much. She had heard already from the girls how Luke had tried to get Maggie to go to England to learn nursing against Moran’s fierce opposition, how their older brother and Moran had fought, and when Maggie yielded to Moran and stayed, Luke had gone on his own without telling his father.

She waited until Moran himself had to come to talk about Maggie. Sheila and Mona were at the convent secondary school, Michael was finishing national school. Maggie had so little to do during the day that she spent much of the time chatting and gossiping with Rose. She would pretend to be busy whenever she heard Moran come. ‘Daddy hates to see anybody sitting down doing nothing.’ ‘Poor Daddy,’ Rose would smile with affection after he had gone again.

Moran began to see how little Maggie had to do in the house and that she needed money for dances and clothes now. He suspected Rose was letting her have some of her own money.

‘Do you still think that Maggie should go to England to nurse?’ he asked eventually.

‘I do. She’d always have something to fall back on. You never know what is going to happen in a life. It’s a profession.’

‘I don’t know. I was very much against it when that brother of hers wanted her to go. Of course he wasn’t interested in what was good or bad for the girls. He was doing it against me.’

‘I’m far from against you, you know that. I want it for her own good. This place will always be here for her to come home to as long as I breathe.’

Because of the shortages of girls for nursing, many ads were appearing in the daily papers. Rose helped Maggie to write away for the forms and then to fill in the forms when they came. To Moran’s surprise she was accepted for training by five hospitals. The whole house sat down after the Rosary one evening to pick the hospital she would go to. They chose the London Hospital because a few people from around were already working there. After they had reached that decision Michael began to cry and would not be consoled.

‘They’ll all be gone soon,’ he said to their humorous questioning. ‘It’s awful. It’s not fair.’

When Rose suggested that they write to Luke to ask him to meet Maggie off the train when she got to London Moran was furious.

‘Didn’t the hospital say they’d have her met?’

‘He’s her brother. It’d be natural for him to meet Maggie.’

‘There’s not a natural bone in that gentleman’s body. I wrote him several times and all the answer I ever got was I’m-well- here-and-I-hope-you-are-well-there. Is that natural after all the years of bringing him up?’

‘These things happen in families and then they pass,’ Rose said quietly. ‘An accident happens or a wedding. People are forced back together again. I know how you feel, Daddy, but maybe it is better not to take too strong a stand. Things are always changing. You never know how they’ll turn out. If you do the generous thing, then you can’t be blamed.’

‘I can be blamed. Make no mistake about that. In this case I can always be blamed.’

‘I know it is hard but it’s better to try to ignore what is said against you. If you can ignore it then you’ll know that you have nothing to blame yourself for. Do nothing in a hurry.’