John McGahern - Amongst Women

It seemed that Sean Flynn had won her father’s approval. ‘That’ll do now,’ Sheila said, hiding her confusion and pleasure by arranging things in the back of the car.

Michael was pale and apprehensive in the house but Moran did not as much as look at him.

‘That Sean Flynn seems an intelligent, well brought up young man,’ Moran said as he took out his beads for the Rosary.

‘I’m glad for Sheila,’ Rose said. ‘She needs someone quiet.’

‘Your bed is aired,’ she said very gently to Michael after the prayers were said. ‘I’m sure you must be worn out.’

‘I think I’ll go to bed then,’ the boy said. He didn’t know whether to slip away or to go up to his father as usual and try to kiss him good night.

‘Go up and kiss Daddy,’ Rose whispered when she saw him hesitate.

Moran held up his face to be kissed. His eyes were almost closed. The whole aspect was one of invoking some higher power to help him fulfil his fatherly duty. The boy touched the stubble more than the lips before backing away.

‘Good night, Daddy.’

‘Good night, son. God bless you.’

The very next day he had to face back into school. He was welcomed by the Brothers as if he had come back after a very long illness, for Sheila had called at the monastery on her way to Dublin and blamed his absence on some difficulty at home.

‘You know yourself that you have one of the best heads in the whole school,’ Brother Superior Gerald flattered him gently. ‘If you get down to study now you can do anything. You’ll have the whole world before you. But if you throw in the towel you’ll be nothing.’

The words were like an old refrain that he was sick of. The new attention, even adulation, from the other boys he found irksome. He could not endure the school — filing into classrooms, listening to arid words, watching meaningless diagrams chalked on the blackboard: it was as if everything was specially designed to drive him crazy. He knew he could not go on like this. Nell had gone. All his life seemed to be elsewhere.

On the road her blue car passed him. One of the younger Morahans was driving. They waved but made no effort to stop. Alone, he cried out and cursed. The small alder and sally trees along the road, the brown clumps of dead rushes down to the flood waters of Drumharlow did not appear to bow in the friendly way of long familiarity. They were just bushes; worse than hostile, they were useless. He could not stay. He could not go away. Without any definite plan he would act in such a way that they would be forced to drive him away.

That evening Michael dropped the deferential air he had always worn in front of Moran. He was not openly impolite but withdrawn and heavy. Moran was irritated by the conduct, watched carefully but held his peace. This went on for several days. School continued to be intolerable. His schoolfellows found him self-absorbed and violent when he joined in games. They ignored him. In a dull fog of self-pity he went in and out of class. In the house each day grew more tense. Rose was on edge. All she could do was to try bouts of amiable prattling that drew no response from either father or son. The very air felt as if it was being so stretched out that it had to change or break: as small a thing as a salt cruet eventually brought all that was between them to a head.

‘That salt,’ Moran demanded.

‘What salt?’

‘Are there two salts? Pass that salt!’

Instead of lifting the small cruet, Michael pushed it across the table towards his father. Moran seethed as he watched. As it was pushed, the small glass cruet touched a fold in the tablecloth and overturned.

‘You wouldn’t pass salt that way to a dog,’ Moran rose from the table. ‘Have you any idea who you are passing that salt to?’

‘I didn’t mean for it to overturn.’ Michael was at an intolerable disadvantage sitting down.

‘You just shoved it over to the dog.’

‘I tell you I didn’t mean …’

‘I’ll teach you to mean something!’ Moran struck him violently but he managed partly to avert the blow, the chair falling over as he jumped to his feet. ‘You needn’t think you’re going to Lord-Muck-it round here for the rest of your days.’

The second blow he took on the arms but it still forced him to back against the sewing machine. He felt the metal against his back but no injury or fear. Using the old foot machine as a springboard he jumped forward and held Moran’s hand as it came down again. In the short, silent struggle he was the stronger. Moran went down, dragging the boy with him but he wasn’t able to dash him sideways against the dresser as he fell. They struggled blindly, rolling about. Eventually it was the boy who pinned the father to the floor; but as he tried holding him by the arms, on rising he received several violent blows to the head from above. Shouting out with pain he let his grip go and jumped to one side. Rose was between the two men with a heavy brush in her hands.

‘I’m surprised at you, Michael,’ she accused and then went to Moran’s aid. ‘Are you all right, Daddy? Are you all right?’

Brushing her help aside, he staggered to his feet and breathing very heavily went to sit in the chair.

‘Are you all right, Daddy?’ she asked again.

‘I’ll be all right in a minute,’ he said. ‘And I’m far from finished with that gentleman. If that gentleman thinks he can do anything he likes now in this house I’m telling him he’ll soon have another think coming.’

It was then, coldly and deliberately, that he fixed his eyes on the shotgun where it stood beside the back door in the far corner of the room. Whether he was seriously thinking of using the gun or that he wanted Michael to think he would use it would never be known. If he just wanted Michael to think he might use it he succeeded absolutely. For the rest of that evening his son stayed dose to the gun. Any time Moran moved between him and the back door he found himself tensed to spring. He would have given anything to discover if the gun was loaded but he couldn’t check it. He reassured himself that Moran had always insisted that a gun should always be unloaded when approaching a house or climbing across a fence.

If it hadn’t been for the heavy rain Michael would probably have left that night. In the morning he would leave and this time he would not come back. All he had to do was to get through the night. Obediently he went through the remaining gestures. Moran did not speak at all except to say the Rosary. Michael said good night to Rose but it was clear that he did not have to say good night to Moran any more. As soon as he got to his room he moved the bed so that it stood against the door and unlatched the window. He breathed a little easier when he heard his father and Rose go to bed but still he didn’t sleep. Towards morning, an hour or so before Rose usually got up, he stole towards the kitchen. All the doors were ajar and he could pass through them without sound. He could hear the pounding of his heart as he reached into the corner and slowly lifted the shotgun. He took it into the hallway before opening the breach. As it made a small click he listened intently but he could hear no sound from the far bedroom. He expected to find the breach empty. The gun shook in his hands when he saw the brass of the shell. If it was loaded it went against everything Moran had preached about guns all his life; but when he took the shell from the breach he found that it was empty. Breathing much easier he put the empty shell back and returned the gun silently to its corner. In bed again he fell into a heavy sleep. Rose had to shake him awake. He dressed quickly and made a small bundle of the few clothes he wanted to take. In the living room with Rose he was careful and silent and a bit depressed. He would never repeat these small acts of morning in this room again. The youthful self-absorption was comic. He would never take the top off his boiled egg again while looking across the fields to McCabe’s wall. Sentimentally, through each small act he found himself taking leave of his youth. Rose took his silence and faint air of depression as contriteness over the clash with Moran.