John McGahern - Amongst Women

‘You’re not old,’ Rose said.

‘The mileage is up,’ he said. ‘You can’t turn it back.’

‘I wasn’t sure what you’d want to do,’ Rose said with the utmost caution, ‘and I brought a flask of tea and sandwiches just in case.’

‘That’s great.’ He had been dreading having to look for a place for lunch. He knew no cheap place here any more and he would have to search one out like a blind man. ‘We can go anywhere we want to afterwards,’ he added in case he was appearing stingy.

Rose opened the flask, spreading the sandwiches on the dashboard. ‘Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts …’ He ate and drank with relish, pointing out a fishing boat leaving Sligo harbour, remarking how Rosses Point across the bay had safe bathing while here you couldn’t stand in the water without feeling the currents pushing the sand out from under your feet. ‘But it’s dull at the old Point, Rose. The waves there are small even in a storm. Here you get the real feel of the ocean. That’s what I always used to say to the troops.’

‘It’s a wonderful place,’ she said.

‘I feel like a new man,’ he said as she put the flask away and combed the crumbs from the dashboard into her cupped hand. They both took up together, ‘We give Thee thanks, O Almighty God, for all Thy bounty which we have received through Christ Our Lord who liveth and reigneth world without end, amen.’ Cheerfully they got out of the car into the open day and went down the rocks to the strand and then out to the tideline. They walked along the tide’s edge for a mile. Rose picked some sea shells and rounded stones and Moran put bits of dilsk in his pocket. They turned back before reaching the roofless church in the middle of the old graveyard out on the edge of land.

‘The locals still bury there,’ he told her.

They came back along the path that threaded a way between the sand dunes. Some bees were already crawling on the early clover.

‘This place will have a lot of tents and caravans and people in a month’s time.’

‘It’s nicer walking here than on the strand. There’s a lovely spring in the turf.’

‘Except you have to watch for the rabbit holes. You could twist an ankle like nobody’s business.’

‘Aren’t we lucky to have met and to have this whole day to ourselves and the sea and the sky,’ Rose said enthusiastically.

‘It’s our life,’ he said harshly. She looked at him carefully. He was changing less predictably than the tide. Soon he would need to vent the anger she felt already gathering, and she was the nearest person. Her life was bound up completely with this man she so loved and whose darkness she feared. They should go home before the whole day was about them in ruins.

‘Maybe we should go to one of the hotels for tea or icecream?’ he asked fretfully, as if somehow sensing her withdrawal.

As if to point out that they were not entirely alone, a man with a white terrier came towards them from behind the sandhills. He carried a pale bone which he kept throwing out into the dune for the terrier to retrieve. Without speaking he lifted his cap as they passed.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I think we should go home. It’s easy to spoil the day by trying to do too much.’

‘Are you sure, Rose?’

‘I’m certain.’

‘We must do this more often, Rose,’ he said as he backed the Ford out from the ornamental cannon. There were now four people on the long wide stretch of strand. They looked small and black against the width of rushing water and pale sand.

‘We can but of course it won’t be as easy for us to get away once Maggie is gone,’ she said it in a pleasant way that sometimes humoured him and sometimes could put his teeth on edge. This time it seemed to please him. He would not have liked it if she seemed to be saying that they could get away any time they wanted to. Anything easy and pleasant aroused deep suspicion and people enjoying themselves were usually less inclined to pay attention to others.

Before the marriage Maggie had been little more than a drudge round the house. Rose set her free. She saw that she had pretty clothes like other girls her age and a little money of her own for going out. She listened to the stories of small triumphs brought back from the dances. Maggie had never received so much attention. With this new confidence she went willingly out to Moran in the fields. She helped him with chores, gathering branches or rounding up cattle, or just stayed to keep him company while he worked.

Soon she was leaving and it was easy for him to be charming. He never scolded except in passing fits of irritation. His instinct was to draw her closer to him. ‘Life is a peculiar venture,’ he was fond of saying. ‘You never know how low or high you’ll go. No matter how you rise in the world never look down on another. That way you can never go far wrong.’

‘Daddy is great,’ Maggie said with pride when she came in.

Rose remained silent but the pleasure showed in her features.

‘When he’s nice he can be that way,’ Mona looked up gravely from her schoolwork.

‘It’d be even nicer if he was always that way,’ Sheila added tartly.

‘Maybe we are not always that good ourselves if we look closer,’ Rose countered quickly.

Michael looked up from where he knelt on the floor in front of the old armchair, his books spread out on the chair. When he discovered their attention was not on him he went back to his books.

On Maggie’s last night in the house Rose gave a little party. The night before she had stayed out late saying goodbye to all her friends. Her last night belonged to the house.

Moran said the Rosary early, at the end of which he added a prayer for the girl’s safekeeping in the world she was about to enter. He said it with a heavy emphasis which brought them all close to tears but the mood was soon scattered by all the joyful preparations Rose had planned.

Bowls of the clear chicken soup they loved were put on the table. A roast chicken followed, with pale stuffing, a hot gravy and masses of floury roast potatoes. Lemonade was poured into glasses and the meal was toasted. ‘This is America at home,’ Moran boasted. Bowls of trifle followed. ‘We’ll burst!’ He and everybody were happy. Rose wanted to leave the washing-up for morning but the girls insisted on getting it over with. Then they played cards until stifled yawns and missed tricks told them that tiredness was now king. The three who had to go to school in the morning went to bed. After a decent interval Maggie followed them.

‘You’ll have a long day tomorrow,’ Rose encouraged.

‘God bless you and keep you safe,’ Moran said.

Maggie looked at him with the light of love as she kissed him good night. He was her first man, her father, as she faced for London and the further opening of her life.

The next day on the platform of the little station he was very fine. He dressed carefully in the brown suit he had been married in and he bought the ticket with quiet authority. As he wasn’t friendly with anyone present he had no occasion to speak to others waiting about on the white gravel. Rose knew many of the people on the platform even though she had spent half her life in Scotland and she responded to each greeting with warmth, careful to watch that her friendliness did not grate on Moran. Maggie was silent. She too, in spite of the dances and concerts they had been attending lately, knew far fewer people at the station than Rose. Maggie looked on this isolation he had built up around them as distinction and strength. In her heart she felt that Rose was a little common in knowing so many people. Moran stood erect and apart on the platform, totally separate as he gazed at the hill across the tracks where the stationmaster’s brown horse and a few cattle and sheep grazed.