John McGahern - Amongst Women

‘I had the stopwatch on you from behind one of the windows. I followed every step. I was afraid you’d get to the slope too soon. I was afraid you could run into our fire if you got too far up on the slope.’

‘The gates were closed. The train came puffing in. The fucking band struck up “God Save the King”. There were three fir trees beside the platform. They said they never grew right because of the smoke and steam. The sergeant major was shouting. They were all standing to attention. The colonel or general or whatever he was came down the platform. There was another officer with him holding a sword upright. I kept pushing the trolley, praying to Jesus the bloody wheels wouldn’t come loose. No one even looked at me or the trolley. The pair came along inspecting the troops. The one holding the sword was young. The colonel was a big stoutish man with red eyebrows. All I remember thinking of as I pushed the trolley and looked at the red face and eyebrows was, My friend, you are about to take the longest journey a man ever takes in this life. He took the full blast. The other man was still holding the sword upright as he went down. I pulled the pin out of the grenade. The line of soldiers was still half standing to attention when I went through them. I hadn’t to use the revolver. As soon as I got to the other side of the bank I threw myself down and started to roll.’

‘That’s all I was watching for. As soon as I saw you go down I gave the order to fire,’ Moran said. ‘Some of them were still standing to attention as they fell. They hadn’t a clue where the fire was coming from. Then a few soldiers up at the goods store fired into their own men.’

‘By the time I rolled to the bottom of the slope I could see the steady fire coming from the windows. I waited to get my breath before cutting across the road. I don’t think I was fired on once. The first thing I did when I got behind the houses was to get out of Nibs’s clothes.’

‘They were beginning to fire back from behind the station. Michael Sweeney was hit in the shoulder. I gave the order to file out. Myles Reilly and McDermott stayed at the windows. They were our two best riflemen. When we got to Donoghue’s Cross the road was cut and trees knocked. We waited for Reilly and McDermott at the cross. Then we split up, half of us for the safe houses round the lakes and the rest of us headed into the mountains. We mightn’t have bothered.’

‘They were afraid to put their heads out and when they did they came in a whole convoy, shooting at women and children.’

‘They were never the same again,’ Moran said. ‘News of it spread throughout the whole country.’

‘You had a great head on you, Michael,’

‘Only for you it couldn’t have come to anything.’

‘I remember clearer than yesterday his eyebrows. Not often you see an Englishman with red eyebrows. I had so much time to look at him I can hardly believe it still, pushing the trolley, standing up in Nibs’s clothes. I had already loosened the overcoat and was thinking as I looked at him, This very minute you are going on the longest journey a man ever takes and you haven’t a frigging clue. Then I fired.’

‘I was watching you with the stopwatch.’

‘We didn’t have to split up that day. They were afraid of their shite to come out of the towns. The country was ours again. Next we had the Treaty. Then we fought one another.’

‘Look where it brought us. Look at the country now. Run by a crowd of small-minded gangsters out for their own good. It was better if it never had happened.’

‘I couldn’t agree with that,’ McQuaid said. ‘The country is ours now anyhow. Maybe the next crowd will be better than this mixture of druids and crooks that we’re stuck with.’

‘Leave the priests out of it,’ Moran said sharply.

‘I’ll leave nobody out of it. They all got on our backs.’

Moran did not answer. An angry brooding silence filled the room. McQuaid felt for the authority he had slowly made his own over the years, an authority that had outgrown Moran’s. He would not move. Moran rose and went outside. McQuaid did not respond to him in any way when he came in again.

When Maggie returned she found them locked in the strained silence. Beforehand she had combed her hair by the light of the flashlamp, smoothed and rearranged her clothes but even if she hadn’t Moran would not have noticed this evening. At once, in the silence, she began to make tea and sandwiches. Mona came down from upstairs and after whispering with Maggie disappeared again upstairs with a small jug of milk and some sandwiches. At last, out of the silence, Moran noticed McQuaid’s glass was empty and attempted to pour him more whiskey.

‘Cap it,’ McQuaid said and covered his glass with his hand.

‘There were years when you were able for most of the bottle.’

‘Those years are gone. We’ll have the tea Maggie is making.’

Reluctantly Moran screwed the cap back on the bottle and returned it behind the curtains of the medicine press. The tone in which Cap it had been said smarted like a cut.

‘Do you remember Eddie McIniff in Maguire’s garden on night watch?’ McQuaid asked. ‘He could see all the roads from Maguire’s garden. We were watching in case the Tans would try to infiltrate the lakes at night. Eddie used to shoot a lot of duck and could stand like a stone. One of the Maguire girls — Ellie or Molly, I think it was Molly, they were all fine looking, tall women — came out to do her morning business and hunkered down under an apple tree a few feet away from Eddie. All Eddie did was to wait a bit and then lean over without a sound and lay the gun barrel across her back cheeks. I’d love to have seen her face when she jumped,’ McQuaid laughed out loud. ‘There must be nothing colder on a bare arse than a gun barrel that was out all night.’

Moran did not laugh. He looked helpless with the weight of his own disapproval. His two thumbs rotated about one another as they always did when he was agitated and looking for a way to strike.

‘McIniff was blackguard enough to do that but you’d think that at least he’d be ashamed to tell it.’

‘What was it but fun?’ McQuaid brushed the criticism aside. ‘Didn’t you have something to do with one of those Maguire girls? The rest of us had to scrape and scrounge for the girls, Michael, but whatever you had they always fell into your hands like ripe plums.’

‘That was all talk,’ Moran said, angry as ever at any baring of the inviolate secrecy he instinctively kept around himself.

‘Your father was a hard man for the women in his day,’ McQuaid said addressing the two girls.

‘I think Mr McQuaid does himself less than credit with that talk,’ Moran said with quiet dignity.

‘There’s even rumours that you’re courting again. Are you thinking of taking the plunge, Michael?’

Moran held a pointed silence. The girls brought tea and sandwiches.

‘Ah, these girls will make some man happy,’ McQuaid said. ‘But you’re a brave man, Michael. If anything were to happen to my old dosey I’m afraid I’d live out my days in peace.’

The girls were able to laugh openly at last without any risk. The idea of the fat old cattle dealer emerging as a romantic possibility was so preposterous that even Moran smiled.

‘I’d take that pension, Michael. You earned it. Take what they’ll give you. Never question the colour of money.’ The talk turned to easier waters as they drank tea.

‘I’ve got on without it long enough. Why should I take it from them now?’ It was plain from the blustering way he spoke that he wasn’t so sure.

‘It never did me no harm. There were times when I was starting in at the cattle that it stood between me and the road. It doesn’t make much difference now but a hell of a sight of worse things come through the letterbox at the end of every month.’