John McGahern - Amongst Women

‘We’re home!’ Michael said as soon as the dark yew above the gate came into sight.

‘I’m dying for a cup of tea,’ Rose said and everyone in the car strained at the weariness and the relief of being able to stretch limbs and breathe in the open air and walk about.

Sheila and Sean spent the week of their honeymoon in Majorca and then came straight to Great Meadow to be with the others during the last week of their holidays. Not for years had the house been so full. Michael was moved to a storeroom at the back to make way for the couple. He was seldom in the house, always out late at dances or with girls, often sleeping well into the early afternoon. Moran and he got on well enough now, by ignoring one another mostly.

Moran was more focused on his new son-in-law. He asked him about his job, his ideas, his ambitions. Sean expected to be liked without effort. He answered Moran lazily, smiling with tolerant indulgence at his questioner. This irritated Moran intensely, and the cost of the wedding reception the week before was fresh in his mind. The attack came without warning.

‘What do you mean you don’t think much of the civil service?’

‘It’s a job. That’s all. You can’t say much more for it. It’s no big deal.’

‘You must be joking,’ Moran said derisively.

‘It’s not everything. There must be more to life than that.’

‘You mean a good dry job stretching to infinity with a pension at its end is of no importance? You must be talking of another world.’

‘I still think it is far from everything,’ Flynn defended as well as he was able.

‘I see you have a lot of growing up to do. You can think those things when you are single. You are a married man now. I expect more maturity than that from the members of my family.’

‘There’s more to life than security. There are even people who think it is the death of life,’ Sean tried still to defend his ground but Moran was content to retreat into silence.

Sheila was furious when she learned of the attack. ‘ I was never so insulted all the times I was in his house. Luke was right when he said years ago that he has the manners of a dog,’ she said emotionally to Rose.

‘Daddy didn’t mean anything,’ Rose said.

‘Didn’t mean anything?’ she repeated with angry sarcasm. ‘You must be joking.’

It was far from easy for her when she had to face Moran directly. ‘I see you are taking to cutting down your visitors to size nowadays as well.’

‘I said nothing to your husband other than to put him right about a few bald facts of life.’

‘You seem to forget he’s a visitor in your own house.’

‘He’s a member of the family now like everybody else.’

‘He is if he chooses to be,’ Sheila said hotly. ‘He’s not here to be insulted.’

He did not respect Sean. Now he despised him for running to a woman with his story. He was furious at his daughter’s defiance of his authority. ‘I’ll be hard up when I have to ask you what is good or bad manners in my own house.’

‘You might learn a few decencies if you did.’

‘I have meadows to cut,’ he ground out. ‘Go and trim that poor husband of yours if you want something to trim. I’d say you’re the man for the job all right.’ Before she had a chance to answer he had gone into the fields.

The forecasts promised several days of hot weather and because he had help in the house Moran decided to cut all the meadows. For hours they heard the clatter of the mowing arm circling the fields, the roar of the tractor closing and moving away. When Moran did not come in for his tea Rose and Maggie brought a can of sweetened tea and sandwiches out into the fields. They walked over the swards of two cut meadows. Only a thin strip was still standing in the centre of the third meadow and they waited on the headland, watching the grass shiver and fall in front of the arm. Two young hares bounded free as the grass narrowed into the last sward. ‘They just got out in the nick of time,’ Rose said with relief. ‘Daddy hates to kill them but they can’t be seen in the grass.’ The young hares paused in bewilderment for a moment after they had run clear but then, seeing the roaring tractor turning once again, they bounded from the field and were gone. Moran noticed the waiting women as he circled and as soon as he cut the last sward he stopped the engine. The cut field looked completely empty and clean. As Rose and the girls were crossing the swards to the tractor they almost stumbled over a hen pheasant sitting on her nest. They were startled that she didn’t fly until they saw feathers on the swards. The legs had been cut from under her while she sat. Her eyes were shining and alive, a taut stillness over the neck and body, petrified in her instinct.

‘The poor thing,’ Rose said. ‘Still sitting there.’ Neither could bring themselves to look again.

‘You got a hen,’ Rose said as she handed him a mug of tea, laying out the sandwiches on the red hood of the tractor.

‘I know. You can’t see them in the grass. Anyhow the hares escaped.’

‘Where’s the married couple?’ he asked as he finished eating.

‘They went for a walk.’

‘They’ll not need walks in the next few days. They’ll have their fill of exercise. There’s just the last meadow to knock. We’ll either win all or lose everything this week.’

As they gathered what was left of the sandwiches and tea, preparing to leave the meadow, the tractor spluttered but would not start. Moran had to get down from the tractor. He fiddled about with some wires and the fuel pump as Rose and Maggie waited by anxiously. It spluttered when he tried the starter a second time and then caught. ‘I think the only person that knows more than Daddy about that tractor is Henry Ford,’ Rose said as they left the meadow. It must have been a statement of pure feeling for Moran was not mechanically minded and the tractor was an old Porsche.

He let the swards lie there till the evening of the next day when he shook them out with the tedder. When he was younger he would have cut field by cautious field but now that there was help in the house he was prepared to risk them in one throw rather than to face the long drudgery alone with Rose.

All that was left of the hen was a little scattering of down and feathers on the drying swards. ‘A fox or a cat or a grey crow — who knows …?’

The next morning a white mist obscured the dark green shapes of the beech trees along the head of the meadows and their sandals made green splashes through the cobwebbed pastures. A white gossamer hung over the plum and apple trees in the orchard. A hot dry day was certain. Not even by evening would there be a threat of rain. No work could be done until the sun burned the mists away and dried the swards. Rose cooked a huge fry served with brown soda bread and a pot of steaming tea. They would not have another leisurely meal till night and by then they would be too tired to eat. Moran was happy at breakfast, enjoying the certainty of good weather, the house full of help and that his gamble with the weather looked like coming through. By evening most of the hay would be saved and it could be put out of mind for another year.

‘Did they make much hay in your part, Sean?’ he asked pleasantly as he picked carefully at the black pudding and sausage.

‘Hay and some silage when the summers were bad.’

‘You must be well used to it then?’

‘Not really. The others worked at the hay. I had to study in the summers.’

‘Study couldn’t have been much use to you in the summer,’ Moran said carelessly.

‘Great use. Texts could be read for the year ahead. It gave a great head start once classes began,’ he answered readily and it caused an uncomfortable silence. All the Morans had to help work the land since they were small. There had been clashes over the rival demands of school and harvesting, planting or cutting turf.