John McGahern - Amongst Women

In an hour Moran had all the fields rowed. Hours of hard dreary raking in by hand had been saved. After he climbed from the tractor to join the others gathering the rows he spent some time examining the adjustments Rodden had made. They told him little. In his heart he knew that he would never find that setting again except by luck. As soon as he took his place with the others gathering and pitching in the rows he saw that Sheila and Sean were missing. ‘Where is the pair gone?’ Moran asked sharply.

‘They’ve gone to the house.’ he was told evasively.

‘What for?’

‘They didn’t say. They just went.’

After only an hour Sean’s hands were blistered and raw. The girls’ hands were blistered too but they knew how to handle the tools. When Sean rose from the midday tea and sandwiches he was so stiff he could hardly move. He told Sheila — of all the girls she had most resented this work as a child — and she led him to a separate row where they could gather at their own speed. Alone they were happy. They were so absorbed in one another that they seemed to be unaware of the others pitching and gathering furiously in rows only a few yards away. They exchanged whispers, laughing as they leaned their foreheads together and then Sean tipped Sheila slyly sideways into the little pile of hay they had gathered. She rose blushing and flustered, still hardly aware of the others, and soon they were laughing together as before. As a defence against the couple the others tried to shut them out by driving themselves harder but already they were flagging in the still heat of the midday. Sheila and her husband were crossing the fence on the edge of the field before they were noticed leaving. They walked hand in hand. When they thought the copper beech hid them from the meadows Sean drew Sheila towards him by the shoulder and kissed her long on the mouth. Everyone in the field except Moran saw them kiss by the copper beech and then go arm in arm towards the house. No one spoke in the intense uneasiness, but they were forced to follow them in their minds into the house, how they must be shedding clothes, going naked towards one another …, as the forks sent a rustle through the drying hay. They hated that they had to follow it this way. It was more disturbingly present than if it were taking place in the meadow before their very eyes. It was even there when they tried to shut it out. ‘You’d think they could have waited,’ Michael said quietly, in agreement with the resentment he felt all about him. It was as if the couple were together disregarding the inviolability of the house, its true virginity, with a selfish absorption.

‘Mark has friends in London, the Creegans. We were at their wedding,’ Maggie said. ‘Once when Mark was away I went to visit them and missed the last train. They had one room and a large bed. I wanted to sleep on the floor but Rita wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted I sleep next to her on the outside of the bed, Creggie in at the wall. After a long time I heard Creggie say, “Is she asleep?” and Rita, “Can’t you wait?” I was afraid to breathe. The shaking was awful. Someone’s leg touched me and I had to stuff the bedclothes in my mouth. I nearly died.’

‘Poor Maggie,’ Rose said with humour as well as sympathy. ‘The things you have to put up with once you leave home.’

As soon as Moran stopped the tractor the haymakers split into separate groups. Rose and Moran worked together. Mona and Maggie gathered in for Michael to build a separate row. They built at much the same pace. Michael was now stronger in the meadow than Moran. The haycocks started to spring up faster in the rows than at any time since morning.

‘That pair must intend spending the rest of the day in the house,’ Moran said irritably after a long while.

‘Sean’s hands were all blistered. I’m afraid the meadow was a bit of a shock,’ Rose tried to make light of their absence.

‘He wasn’t much use though the poor fellow tried his best. He was brought up to be the priesteen.’

When the couple did come back to the meadow they were washed and combed and dressed in new clothes. Sheila brought a can of sweetened tea. Everyone drank from the can and avoided looking at them or meeting their eyes except for Moran.

‘Sean’s hands are blistered from the forks. We’re going over to Mrs Rodden for tea.’ Sheila’s voice quavered as she explained.

‘Mrs Rodden will have many a story to tell,’ Rose was the only one to speak to them as they left.

Sheila was defiant and determined not to be bullied. In a simple way she was already staking out her position within the family. She would belong to the family but not on any terms. She knew instinctively that she could not live without it: she would need it, she would use it, but she would not be used by it except in the way she wanted.

‘Were you told about the moonlight bathing parties at Kil- ronan when she was young?’ Rose asked when they came back from the tea.

‘We were,’ Sheila said. ‘And how they did everything then that the smart ones think they are doing now for the first time.’

It had grown cooler in the meadow. The couple tried to help but they were not wanted. Everybody was too tired to talk. So that they did not feel ostracized Rose asked them to help bring more tea and sandwiches from the house.

The shadows of the beech trees lengthened across the rows and they worked on without knowing what they were doing, pitching and sweeping mechanically. Sometimes they would be so tired that they would find themselves just standing in the field, staring up the rows in a trance. It was relief and peace when the light began to fail and when they found their clothes becoming damp they stopped. The sky looked safe. When they were fresh again in the morning they would get what was left up in a few hours; then they would have an easy day heading and tying down the cocks. Moran and Michael were the last to leave the meadow.

‘God bless you, son. That was a great day.’

Out on the road passing cars had their headlamps on. Across the road, somewhere in the demesne, a single pigeon was still cooing its hoarse throaty call as they dragged their feet through the orchard to the lighted house.

In the morning they all ached but there was no rush of work. Around noon, slowly and leisurely, they put what was left of the rows into cocks. The weather held. Then they raked and tidied, combing and heading the haycocks already up, tying them down with binder twine. At the weekend the weather broke. As the warm rain swept across the fields and beat against the windows there was just time enough to savour the safety of the hay in the meadows, the rain slipping down the combed sides of the cocks. They did not need good weather any more. In a week or two they could be taken to the shed between showers on any windy day. Rose and Moran would have to do that alone.

As soon as the rain came the house began to scatter. A telegram came for Maggie to go back to London. Her son was not well and she left at once. During the rearing of hay it was as if she had almost forgotten that she had ever gone away from Great Meadow and married. All the others except Michael went with her to the airport. He stayed on alone for most of a week, helping Moran at odd jobs round the house during the part of the day he was out of bed and they got on well together. The evening he left, Rose said reflectively to Moran before they knelt for the Rosary, ‘I suppose it’ll be long before the house is ever as full again.’

Moran looked at her as if it were wrong or unlucky to say such things. The house was to be as full again only once more.

Nothing but the years changed in Great Meadow. Rain came down outside for days at a time as Rose moved carefully about within. When the soaked ground dried in hard winds and Moran moved slowly about outside she had breathing space again.