John McGahern - Amongst Women

‘Don’t worry, Michael,’ she said. ‘All you have to say is that you’re sorry when you come from school and that’ll be the end of it. Your father thinks the world of you.’

‘It wasn’t my fault. The salt just overturned. I did nothing.’

‘You know it wasn’t just the salt, Michael.’

‘He never lets up at me for a minute lately.’

‘You know your father. He’ll not change now. All you have to do is appear to give in to him and he’d do anything for you after that. He wants nothing but good for the whole house.’

‘Thanks, Rose,’ he smiled as he got up from the table. Her whole little speech brought him close to tears. He wanted to get out of the house before they began. Rose saw the tears and they brought tears to her own eyes. She was sure everything would be all right again. She would have a word with Moran about his early morning contriteness as soon as he got up and make certain that everything moved towards reconciliation and the unquestioning love she herself felt with her whole heart.

An early morning bread van took Michael as far as Longford, a cattle truck brought him from there to Maynooth. For a long time he had to hang around Maynooth until a priest gave him a lift into the city. It was past lunch time and he felt weak with hunger when he walked from O’Connell Bridge to the big government offices where Sheila worked. A porter who remembered him from the last time took him up in a lift to Sheila’s office.

‘What are you doing here again?’ she demanded sternly though she already knew.

‘I’m going to England,’ he said.

‘When?’

‘Tonight if I can.’

He told her of the fight, Rose beating him about the head with the brush and Moran sitting staring at the gun in the corner of the room. It was all too familiar to be mere invention. She telephoned Mona who would come over from her office and meet them in the canteen. He had already said he was weak with hunger. She left him with an enormous plate of chips, eggs, sausages, black pudding and tea and went back upstairs to try to telephone Maggie in London. She found her at once. Maggie would take the day off from work and meet the morning train at Euston.

‘So the nest is clear at last,’ Maggie said when everything was arranged. ‘All the birds have flown. It’s sort of sad to think of it after all the years’; but Sheila was too upset to respond. Then she rang Sean Flynn who said he would leave work and come over to meet them in the canteen. Such is the primacy of the idea of the family that everyone was able to leave work at once without incurring displeasure. In fact their superiors thought the sisters’ involvement was admirable. Sheila won much sympathy and received many offers of help. ‘You can make up the old work any time,’ they said.

Mona was already with Michael when Sheila returned to the canteen. Soon after, Sean Flynn joined the little group. He was smiling complaisantly, glad to be part of the family drama.

‘He’ll be met at Euston in the morning,’ Sheila announced.

‘Will we all put him on the boat then?’ Mona asked importantly.

‘Some of us will have to anyhow,’ Sheila said and then turned to Michael. ‘You didn’t make much of a go of it after us taking you home and everything.’

‘I did my best,’ he said.

‘I doubt it was very much. How did we manage when we were your age?’

‘The whole lot of you were there then.’

‘He fell at the last hurdle,’ Sean Flynn said and laughed.

Sheila met his laughter with a withering stare. He might be allowed through her into the family but it did not mean that he belonged. No outsider was allowed to laugh at anything so sacrosanct as the family.

There was not much time. The boat sailed at eight-forty. They left the table to go to the early boat train. At the harbour Sheila took charge as usual. She bought the ticket, gave him money for the journey and forced her way on board the boat where she found a purser who promised to look after Michael and to put him on the London train. By the time the boat reached Holyhead everyone he met was helpful once the story was known: it was as if everybody at one time or another had run away from home themselves or had wanted to run away.

The three of them watched the boat for a long time after it left the harbour. There were tears in the girls’ eyes and Sean Flynn put his arm round Sheila’s shoulders as they turned away from the sea and the granite wall with the small mica glints.

‘We’ve all gone now,’ Sheila said between low sobs.

‘It had to happen some time or other though maybe it could have happened in a better way,’ Mona said.

‘Maybe there’s no good way,’ a scolding note had come into Sheila’s voice.

Wisely, Sean Flynn was silent.

Around the same time that the boat was sailing for Holyhead Moran was kneeling to say the Rosary.

‘It doesn’t look as if he’ll come now,’ Rose said anxiously. She had kept his dinner warm for him in the slow oven though the food was already tasteless. ‘He must have gone to the girls again,’ Rose continued nervously. ‘He was always a great one to look for sympathy. We’ll probably hear from them tomorrow. Perhaps they’ll bring him back at the weekend.’

‘I’m afraid he’ll have to change his tune if he intends to stay here again.’

‘I don’t know what came over him. He told me he was sorry this morning. He was going to apologize this evening.’

‘We better say the Rosary in the name of God.’

Moran took out his beads and rattled them impatiently. The light was dimming between the big trees but the stone wall along McCabe’s still stood out pale and solid. Moran had to recite the Third Decade because of the boy’s absence. Afterwards he sat morosely in the chair, not wishing to speak at all, just watching the light disappear. Rose turned on the lights and drew the curtains and started to make tea. Moran went to switch on the radio. Music played. He stood listening to it for a while, his hand on the knob and then, as abruptly, turned it off again. As soon as he had taken the tea and bread he stopped to loosen his boot laces.

‘He’s gone,’ he brooded. ‘They’re all gone now.’

‘Maybe he’ll be back no later than tomorrow,’ Rose tried to soothe.

‘Who wants him back? Who wants any of them back? They’re all gone now and who cares anyhow!’

Mona and Sheila dithered about whether to write or telegram the news home. They decided against the telegram because of its alarmist associations and wrote a short note saying that Michael had gone to London and they would be down at the weekend to tell them about the whole business. They came together on the train.

Usually Moran was on the platform to meet the train and if he was in good humour he often made little jokes as soon as he met them but this Friday night there was no sight of him even after the platform emptied. Finally they found him sitting in the car outside the station.

‘We thought you hadn’t come,’ Mona said nervously but he didn’t answer. He started the car and drove studiously out of the town.

‘Michael went to London,’ Sheila blurted out against the silence. ‘We tried to get him to come home but this time it was no use. There was no talking to him. He’d made up his mind to go. It wasn’t like the last time at all.’

‘Where did he get the fare then?’ Moran asked tersely.

‘We gave him the fare. We had to. He threatened to go without it and he’d give Luke’s name in London if he got caught.’

‘He might find it wasn’t that easy if he got caught.’

‘Anyhow he was going to go and we felt we had to give him the fare. We rang Maggie so that he’d be met on the other side.’

‘I suppose he has my name well blackened.’