John McGahern - Amongst Women

‘Do you think they will grow here?’ he asked, impressed that they had come all the way from London.

A big box of soft-centred chocolates was handed round. Tea was made. She was the centre of the table. They asked her greedily about London.

‘What’s Luke like now?’ Sheila burst out.

Silence fell at once. Everyone looked towards Moran who held his own pained silence.

‘He’s just the same,’ Maggie said and continued on about the nurses’ home while Sheila bit her tongue.

Such was the excitement and focus on Maggie that in spite of Rose’s care to draw him into the conversation Moran began to feel out of it and grew bored.

‘I think it’s time to say the Rosary,’ he said earlier than usual, taking out his beads. They put newspapers down and knelt. This night Moran enunciated each repetitious word with a slow clarity and force as if the very dwelling on suffering, death and human supplication would scatter all flimsy vanities of a greater world; and the muted responses giving back their acceptance of human servitude did not improve his humour. The coughing, the rustling of the newspapers, the rasp of coat buttons on table or chair exasperated his brooding. The high spirits round the tea table had gone. Then, like a shoal of fish moving within a net, Rose and the girls started to clear the table, to brush away crumbs, to wash, to dry, to return each thing to its own place, all done with a muted energy; whispers, jokes, little scolding asides — ‘No, that goes in the other place’ or reminisce how they had made the same mistake before in order to soften any harshness in the scold, bending low in apologetic laughter. Ingratiating smiles and words were threaded in and out of the whole whirl of busyness. Amid it all was their constant awareness of Moran’s watching presence, sharpening everything they did with the danger of letting something fall and break and bring the weight of his disapproval into the small chain. All their movements were based more on habit and instinct and fear than any real threat but none the less it was an actual physical state. They would wash up the same way even if they were not watched.

As looking down from great heights brings the urge to fall and end the terror of falling, so his very watching put pressure on them to make a slip as they dried and stacked the plates and cups. There were several alarms, bringing laughing giggles of relief when they came to nothing. Then they quietly washed and dried their own hands and returned to the general room. Moran sat on, brooding in the car chair, his thumbs idly revolving around one another.

‘I think we should have a cup of tea,’ Rose said with jollying encouragement towards Moran but when he only looked back out at her she just continued talking as she got kettle and teapot. ‘Maggie will want an early night. I know how tired she must be after the journey. That night boat is the worst of all, and the waiting.’ Whether it was the suggestion or pure tiredness Maggie was yawning as if in her support.

The girls rose late the following morning. Moran had gone out already into the fields. During the long luxurious breakfast Maggie told Rose and Sheila and Mona more details of her life in London than she was able to the night before — the parties, the dances, the different bands and singers, the boys she met, her girlfriends.

Rose had her own girlhood in Glasgow to share. Mona and Sheila were so poised on the edge of their own lives that they listened as if hearing about the living stream they were about to enter. After the long breakfast the three girls went out to visit Moran in the fields.

They had worked so hard as children in the fields that each field and tree had become a dear presence, especially the hedges. Maggie looked for the old damson tree by McCabe’s, the crab and wild cherry. The sky overhead was cloudless. No wind stirred. Small birds flitted in the shade of the branches and bees were crawling over the red and white clover. They found Moran by the sound of malleting. He was replacing broken stakes in a barbed-wire fence in one of the meadows. The sight of his daughters in sleeveless dresses was relief from the lonely tedium of the work.

‘I’m planning to knock this meadow before the evening is out,’ he told them before they left and joked, ‘You’ll have to harden your hands before you leave.’

‘They are not that soft, Daddy.’

As they walked away from him through the greenness, the pale blue above them, Maggie said, her voice thick with emotion, ‘Daddy is just lovely when he’s like that.’

‘There’s nobody who can hold a candle to him,’ Mona added. The girls in their different ways wanted to gather their father and the whole, true, heartbreaking day into their arms.

By evening Moran’s mood had completely turned again. He changed his boots and clothes in downcast silence and ate without speaking. Whatever was bothering him was gnawing at him as he ate. They knew him so well that everyone fell into a hush and appeared to move around him on tiptoes.

‘Do you ever see that brother of yours at all?’ he asked without looking up as he finished, drawing his chair roughly back from the table.

‘I do but not all that much.’

‘How do you mean not all that much?’

‘He met me at the station …’

‘God, don’t you think I know that?’

‘He came out to the hospital every weekend after I first came but since then it’s only every so often he comes out. Once I met him in the West End and we went to the pictures.’ Maggie wanted to please and pacify him on this her holiday at any cost.

‘How does he look?’

‘He looks fine. He looks no different than when he was here.’

‘Did you mention when you wrote that he is in with some Cockney riff-raff?’

‘It’s something to do with converting old houses. I’m not certain what it is.’

‘Believe me, he wouldn’t tell what it is.’

‘He goes to night school though,’ she defended uneasily.

‘Doing what?’

‘Accountancy. He’ll be qualified before too long.’

‘Does he ask about us at all?’

‘He asks if we have any news.’

‘Does he ever talk about coming home?’

‘No.’

‘And did he not send any word to anybody when he knew you were coming home?’

‘Yes. He sent word. He wishes everybody the best.’

‘God, I don’t know what’s wrong with this house,’ Moran rose, preparing to go out. ‘Getting information from anybody is like trying to extract teeth.’

‘We don’t know any more than that,’ Maggie protested to Rose after he had gone. ‘I told Daddy everything we know about Luke.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Rose hushed. ‘Daddy’s like that. He takes all these things far too seriously.’

When he came in for the night some hours later he was still agitated and fretting. ‘I don’t know,’ he said as he sat to the table. ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve it. I don’t know why things can’t be the same in this house as in every other house in the country. I don’t know why it is always me that has to be singled out.’

Rose fussed discreetly around him but he could not remain the centre of attention for long. Maggie was going to a dance and she was taking Mona and Sheila. All three girls were dressing and their youthful excitement pulsed through the house. Rose too was caught up in the preparations.

‘Be careful,’ Moran advised when he kissed each of them in turn as they were ready to leave. ‘Be careful never to do anything to let yourselves or the house down.’

‘We’d never do that, Daddy.’

‘Enjoy yourselves,’ Rose advised them simply.

After they had gone a complete silence that only reflected itself settled down like lead and was broken only by the sound of Moran removing his boots to go to bed early.