John McGahern - Amongst Women

He took to writing letters again. There wasn’t a week he didn’t write to Maggie in London or to Michael. He still went to the post office to post letters and collect mail but Rose drove him there and waited outside in the car. Annie and Lizzie continued to run the post office and it still shone. Their aversion to dirt had now acquired the force of law and anybody with dirty boots or wellingtons no longer tried to enter but conducted their business from outside, the door opened for their orders and money to be handed in and opened again for groceries or letters or change to be handed out to them by the clean-heeled customers waiting within. The floor was incredibly worn but it had taken on the soft glowing white of endlessly scrubbed deal. Annie and Moran observed a careful neutrality in one another’s presence. By now they knew one another too well but once he left the little room he was no longer safe. Few were.

‘How is Mr Moran nowadays?’ a customer asked slyly as soon as he left.

‘Not well. He was never well but he was always good at taking care of himself, God bless him,’ Annie held her head low over the book of stamps until the ripple of appreciative laughter died. ‘They say there wasn’t a thing wrong with him when their place flooded last week but he hadn’t time to think about himself for two whole days .’

The burst of laughter was so carelessly dismissive that it seemed to destroy at once an idea that Moran had tried to impose with ferocious will all his life.

In case the laughter could spread to her own authority Annie was quick to rein it in. ‘Maybe he isn’t all that well any more. I’m afraid he is going now like the rest of us, God help us all.’

‘Do you remember when we first met at Annie’s?’ Rose said out of memory and affection one wet evening they were driving away from the post office.

He did not answer. She changed the gears awkwardly to slow down while crossing the narrow bridge. ‘God, Oh God, woman, can’t you concentrate on what you’re doing? Haven’t I told you day in, day out to put your foot all the way down to the floor if you don’t want to tear the guts out of the gearbox.’ His aversion to the past was as strong as ever and their early life together was now the past.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’

‘Well, start to think now. Did you ever think, I’d like to ask. Blessed will be the day when you do start to think.’ His exasperation blazed on its own impetus and she did not challenge. She drove slowly on in the rain, wishing the car would never reach Cox’s Hill when she would have to change gears again.

One wet day it was she who proposed that they go to Strandhill for the day. She hoped to allay his restlessness. He scoffed at the idea at first but then suddenly agreed to go. They took a flask of tea and sandwiches. They walked part of the links. They looked at shops. They sat in the car, drank tea and watched the ocean falling. Before they left he insisted playfully that they walk down to the tideline. There he stooped to put his hand in the last spent run of a wave and brought it to his lips to taste the salt and then gave it to Rose to taste as well.

‘Well, that was a nice outing.’ There was a note of relief in Rose’s voice when they got home.

‘It was better than being cooped up in the house all day for nothing.’

On the next outing they went north across the border to Enniskillen. Increasingly they leaned on these outings to escape the claustrophobia of the interminable day. They were shut up in days. Gradually they visited all the towns and places Nell Morahan and Michael had passed indolent days in years before.

The changeless image of itself that the house so fiercely held to was now being threatened in small ways by the different reality the untutored and uncaring outside world saw. Instead of passing the day in Strandhill or Enniskillen Moran decided to go into the bank to get the manager’s advice on whether to sell or keep certain government bonds he held.

When Rose and Moran went to the counter to ask to see the manager none of the staff knew who either of them were. They were asked to sit down and wait outside the manager’s office.

‘You’d think we were looking for Confession on Christmas Eve,’ Moran complained to Rose after a long while had passed. ‘It can’t be long now. There must be some business keeping him.’

When the manager emerged he was in affable conversation with a customer as he courteously showed him to the main entrance. One of the counter staff indicated the old couple waiting on the chairs. When he returned he asked them into the office. He was tall and grey haired and did not know them. As he was searching for Moran’s file, a girl knocked and entered with a cup and saucer. They could smell the coffee. Two fig roll biscuits were balanced on the rim of the saucer. Then the phone rang. As soon as the manager discovered who the caller was he abandoned his search for the file and pulled his chair up to the desk. A long conversation began about a golf club election during which the manager ate both fig rolls and drank the cup of coffee. Several times Rose looked anxiously at Moran. If this had happened when they first met he would have been up and out of both office and bank long ago. Instead he continued sitting dejectedly and a little tiredly, not looking around him. He was still there when the manager put down the phone and apologized. Somehow he seemed to think that their business had been concluded and proceeded to show them out the door quite graciously. They left without a word. Once out on the pavement it was Rose who was beside herself with anger.

‘I never saw such manners in all my life,’

‘Who cares anyhow?’ Moran said. ‘Nobody cares.’

‘I care,’ she said passionately.

‘That doesn’t count. Nobody bothers these days.’

At the weekend Rose complained so much about the incident to Mona that Mona grew enraged. She was intent on taking the Monday off and going to the bank to attack the manager.

‘I’m telling you there was a time he wouldn’t have done that to Daddy. By the time I’m finished with him he’ll know something. And I’ll report him.’

‘Don’t waste a day on him,’ Rose now found herself counselling. ‘Let it go. If he’s that ignorant, you’d only be contributing to his education,’ she began her old laugh.

‘There was a time Daddy would have brought him up fairly short.’

‘I’m going to report him,’ Mona said. But she never did.

During the long nights as he once again added up the monies that he had or wrote to Michael or Michael’s wife or one of the girls, he kept repeating to Rose how he felt that he had only really failed with one of his children and that it troubled him more than any of his other dealings throughout his life.

‘I think he feels I did him some wrong or harm.’

‘You know that’s not true. Luke always took those things too personally. Differences take place in every family but no one pays heed to them the way he does,’ Rose said.

‘I’d like to see him but I know he won’t come. I have nothing against him. For my part I forgive him everything. If I write him that, at least I’ll feel that the fault won’t be mine. He won’t be on my conscience.’

He spent several nights writing the letter. Some of his old fire and anger returned as he wrote. The finished letter was short. He did not show it to Rose. ‘There are times in my life when I have pondered my sanity,’ it began. ‘“They are all mad but me and thee and I have doubts of me.” Rose thinks that we are as good or bad as anyone in life and my life is now too short to keep a grudge, real or imaginary. My present capabilities are of little matter. Let me say I had no wish to harm you in the past and I have no wish to harm you in the future and if I have done so in thought, word or deed I am sorry. The daffodils are nearly in bloom, also shrubs, flowers, fruit, etc. It’ll soon be time for planting. Tired now and of that thought, who cares anyhow? Daddy.’