John McGahern - The Barracks

A mad surge of strength rose in Reegan, desire to break the whole mess up into its first chaos: there was no order, only the police force. He sent Mullins to the church gate to help Casey direct the traffic, he said he’d do the last round of the village on his own. He felt the naked baton in his own pocket and began to curse as he walked away.

It was later than two in the Christmas morning when they were finished: the last of the cars directed away from the church, the roads patrolled for drunks, the reports filled into the books in the dayroom. No one slept on the iron bed against the wall of the lockup during Christmas. Reegan put a chair against the door so that he’d be able to hear the phone or anyone knocking from his own bedroom. He drank the barley water that Elizabeth had left covered beside the raked fire, believing that it cleansed his blood, something he’d brought with him from his childhood. Then he climbed the stairs in his stockinged feet, carrying the green glass oil-lamp, and placed a boot quietly against the bedroom door to make sure it stayed open. Elizabeth was awake. “Is it late?” she asked.

“Ten to three,” he took out his watch, and she heard him winding. “There’s rain and showers of hailstones. It’d skin a monkey outside tonight.”

He threw off his clothes and she shivered as his feet touched her getting into bed.

“You didn’t sleep?”

“No,” and she was quick to change. “Did anything happen?”

“No, except Mullins, the ass, found some one pissin’ against the churchyard wall outside McDermott’s and a Reverend Mother wouldn’t have made more noise about it.”

“And was he drunk?”

“Not Mullins; the man was. They considered it a bit of a joke in the pub that Mullins should want to put them out and that drove him wild.”

“He had to take it out on something,” she supposed quietly.

“He near landed me and the unfortunate he caught in a nice mess, they’d like nothin’ better than to laugh themselves sick at a case like that in the town. Man convicted of indecent exposure Christmas Eve.

“There’s no law and order, only the police force,” he repeated. “And if you were as long with the lunatics that make it up as I am you’d wonder how it lasts together for even an hour.”

“It seems to manage to go on, no matter what happens,” she said but he was too hot and restless to hear.

“Only Quirke didn’t show his rat’s face round the place this time and that’s some relief,” his words flinted on his own shifting thoughts.

“What does it matter about him, even if he did! Better keep them out of your mind, care about the things you want, and ignore Quirke and those things,” she spoke out of herself for once.

“But they won’t ignore you, that’s the trouble,” Reegan argued hotly. “And if you have to mix with them, day-in day-out, and put up with them, whether you like it or not, what can you do?”

“Agree with them. Tell them always that they’re right, that they’re wonderful people. No one will want to disagree with you about that. If you feel that some one expects you to behave well because of their good opinion of you it’s always harder to do otherwise: every one gets seduced by the feeling of responsibility.”

He didn’t understand and didn’t want, though most of the words seemed simple enough, but he felt blindly and passionately against.

“No. That’s not right,” he said. “They’re scum and nothin’ can change that. They put on a nice face till you turn your back and then it’s the knife. They should be all put down and tramped on and the arse-lickers,” he had driven his way into inarticulacy, and then she caught his hand.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

He felt the warm flesh of her hand and the frustrated direction of his feelings changed to desire for her, he felt the still smooth flesh of the shoulders with his hands, her thighs: her hair brushed the grain of his throat, he’d lie on her and forget. Mouth pressed on mouth, old words of endearment were panted out of their quick breathing, the loins rose and fell in rhythm, and then died in the fulfilment of the seed beating. The act did not fully end there, the kindness of undesiring hands passing over the flesh remained, stroking, waiting; they’d try to fall apart without noticing much wrench, and lie in the animal warmth and loving kindness of each other against the silence of the room with its door open to the phone or anyone knocking, the wild noises of the midwinter night outside. And they were together here. It didn’t have to mean anything more than that, it’d be sufficient for this night. She took his face between her hands, and kissed it softly, in gratitude. She was mindless now of all things, suffused through and through and lost in contentment, and in its gentleness and tiredness they fell into deep sleep together.

Before eight she had to wake to go with the children to first Mass and struggle into the morning. He lay on: he’d stood at the back of the church in his uniform through midnight Mass, officially on duty there, and getting much satisfaction of the fact that he was fulfilling two obligations at the one time. He rose for breakfast when he heard them return, and asked, “Was there anything strange at the Mass?” He listened to her voice, “No. There was only a handful in the church, nearly every one must have gone to midnight Mass. The priest didn’t keep us long because of the cold.”

“That itself was a piece of luck,” he listened to himself inanely remark, and then they had their breakfast, some sausages and bacon, the dinner would be the next meal and late. When they’d eaten he hung idle about the kitchen in Elizabeth’s way. He tried to enthuse with the children over their presents, read through the long lists of programmes in the newspaper supplement for Christmas, nothing that he’d walk ten paces to hear, and then he went to the window to watch the grey winter light outside and the withered river grass through the meshes of the netting-wire. How black and silent and purposeful the river flowed, a water-hen close to the far bank, scatters of small brown birds, whose names never interested him, about the whitethorns half-way up the hill beyond, the fields bare and dark with hoof-tracks. His eyes tried to follow the radio aerial from where it left the kitchen at the corner of the window till it disappeared into the sycamore branches, it broke in stormy weather and was often left trail in the earth for days. Tired looking out the window, he went down to the dayroom to search idly through the books, and watched the few people come from last Mass, the sky full of rain or snow. Not even Quirke would come today. All day the doors to the dayroom would remain open. All day they’d have to be alone with each other in the kitchen.

The day passed quickly for Elizabeth, her whole attention absorbed in the cooking of the dinner; she’d forgotten her sickness in looking forward to their enjoyment; the excitement of the children about her, asking her so many questions, telling her so much about their presents.

By three it was ready and laid on the bleached white table-cloth and they bowed their heads and, with joined hands, murmured, Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which of thy bounty we are about to receive through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Reegan carved the turkey and handed out the helpings. The children’s faces shone throughout and they cried for more and more. The delf was tidied away at the end and they stood to repeat with Reegan, We give thee thanks, O Almighty God, for all thy benefits, who livest and reignest, world without end. Amen .

At so many tables over the world, at this moment, the same words of thanksgiving were being uttered, as the Mass in the same way was being celebrated, and it couldn’t be all blind habit, a few minds must be astonished by such as World without end . Never did the table-cloth appear so bright as on this day, not until this day next year would they have roasted meat, and it was unlikely that they’d sit to a meal for another year at which such marvellous courtesy and ceremony were observed. Even the children said, “Please pass me this and that”; everybody was considered and waited on; there was even a formal exactness in the way they lifted the salt and pepper cruets, and the meal began and ended in the highest form of all human celebration, prayer. It was a mere meal no longer with table and table-cloth and delf and food, it was that perfectly, but it was above and beyond and besides the wondrous act of their reality. All other meals throughout the year might be hurried and disjointed, each one eating because of their animal necessity, but this day and meal were put aside for celebration.