John McGahern - The Barracks

She heard the bustle of the dayroom and Reegan go down the hallway after he’d gone; the banging of the dayroom door. The roll would be called and she had the sense, as always, from that bang of the door at nine that the morning was over, the day had started.

“I am Elizabeth Reegan and another day of my life is beginning,” she said to herself. “I am lying here in bed. I’ve been five weeks sick in bed, and there is no sign of me getting better. Though there’s little pain, which is lucky, and the worst is fear and remorse and often the horrible meaning-lessness of it all. Sometimes meaning and peace come but I lose them again, nothing in life is ever resolved once and for all but changes with the changing life, calm had to be fought for through pain, and always when it was given it was both different and the same, every loss had changed it, and she could be sure it never came to stay, because she was still alive.

“The same but different, Elizabeth,” that was Halliday and she could only smile and turn.

It was the day, the stale day of this room. The saws were singing, the stone-crusher. She heard a motor, the noise was like the green mail van’s, and ten minutes later the postman was at the dayroom door. “Nothing else today,” she thought she heard him say. Probably he had no letters except the official brown ones with the black harp, addressed to the Sergeant-in-charge, that no one wanted.

“Jesus! Jesus tonight! Jesus this day,” she muttered, hard to know whether it was a curse or prayer, as she heard the postman’s feet fade away on the gravel.

The roll call was over, Casey installed as b.o. for the day and night, Recgan coming upstairs to tell her he was going out on patrol.

“To the bog, I suppose?” she managed to smile.

“To the bog,” he affirmed, a secret musing on his features that she thought was beautiful.

“Quirke’s been quiet these last days?” she asked.

“Aye. A calm before a storm I wouldn’t wonder. He’ll pester us then for days: some other poor bugger must have distracted him. The gentleman’s nature is so busy that if he didn’t manage to be all the time on somebody’s tail he’d probably have to jump into the river or something.”

She laughed: it brought such relief and he was leaving.

“You don’t want me to get you anything outa the shops?”

“No. Nothing.”

“And if I’m not back when the doctor comes you’ll mention to him about the nurse?”

He was gone, nothing but wait for his bicycle to go past beneath the window on the gravel, even now so many distractions to look forward to, far more still to remember if she looked back. She’d probably never have to meet herself alone in the awfulness of the living moment, stranded on a crumbling ridge over the abysses, her life rising to a scream as she fell.

He was gone, the morning of spring light moved alive in the room, she drank water.

Mrs Casey was in the dayroom: she did not stay long there, but came upstairs, leaving the dayroom door open behind her so that Casey could go for his newspapers. She’d have to dash down to call him if the phone rang and there’d be one wild moment of panic but it was unlikely that anything would stir while he was away.

“I’m here at last and Ned is just gone for the papers,” she stated, and the same questions were asked, the same answers given, the same encouragements and hopes. The good weather was coming to stay for ever. With relief Elizabeth saw her find a duster and brush, tie a blue scarf over her hair, and she hummed between snatches of talk as she tidied the room.

Casey returned with the newspapers, and roared from the bottom of the stairs that he’d not go up till they’d finished their gossip.

“Go and read your precious paper, you’re not wanted here,” his wife bantered back.

“It’s worse than a harem up there so,” he shouted, and Elizabeth wondered how long the little game of sexual titivation would continue.

“Go and read your paper, you and your harems, nice talk in a Christian country,” Mrs Casey laughed.

“Oh, why did I ever get married, that’s when I met me Waterloo; no man can get the better of a woman,” he went grumbling loudly and happily back into the dayroom to smile with general goodwill and well-being out in the direction of the garden and bridge before he fixed the cushion on his chair in front of the fire and opened the newspapers with exaggerated slowness, as if every motion was a beautiful end in itself.

Mrs Casey hummed as she swept and dusted the room, opened fully the window to let out the stale air Elizabeth seldom noticed any more and then left to empty the slops. With her quick young movements and humming she seemed a kind of sunlight to Elizabeth.

“We have it right for the doctor now,” she said when she returned. “We’ll not be disgraced no matter who comes now.”

“It’s marvellous, though it’s so much trouble for you, you have to do everything for us nowadays,” Elizabeth apologized.

“It’s no trouble at all. I haven’t felt so well for ages. Only yesterday Ned said I never looked so well since I fooled him,” she laughed. “It’s those four walls in that joint of ours that gets me down. When you’ve hardly anything to do it’s the worst, you start broodin’ and then your nerves go. Everything frightens you, that’s the worst. I almost think I could sleep on me own tonight if I had to, but it’s wonderful then to have Una or somebody.” She seemed very happy as she left to get the dinner. She went into the dayroom to Casey on her way to the kitchen, and soon he came upstairs with the newspaper to tap as he always did on the open door before he entered.

“You look powerful today, Elizabeth. You’ll be out and about before any time and I brought you the paper,” he said and left it beside her hand on the eiderdown.

“Is there anything strange in it today?” she asked to change his conversation away from herself, she couldn’t endure much more of it. Why had they all to say the same things, or were all lies one thing as truth was one thing too?

“Nothin’ strange,” Casey laughed. “Never anything strange but you buy them all the same, don’t you? I think the day wouldn’t be the same without them, even the hand-lin’ of them and that gives you the feelin’ that God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world. Jay, Elizabeth, we used to have to fairly sweat to learn the lines out of the auld school-books and you find them all the time, even the ones you forgot, comin’ back and back. It’s a terror, isn’t it?”

“I find the same myself: everybody does I think,” she said.

“But they won’t admit it,” he cried with some excitement.

“No, no,” she lingered.

“Only yesterday I was talkin’ to Mullins,” he was begining when he heard Mrs Casey come with the cups of tea and he changed, “Well, didn’t I manage it well, to be here when the tea landed. It shows you how jealous she was of the two of us talkin’ alone and she had to find some excuse,” and the eternal game started between them again till Casey said, “Men are the same as women I suppose. They can’t be got on without and you can’t get on with them, so what are you to do?” and then the doctor’s car was heard. Casey rushed to be downstairs in the dayroom. She put a few last tidying touches to the room and met the doctor on her way down with the tray. They exchanged a few polite words before he climbed the stairs to Elizabeth.

“How is the patient today?” he smiled. He put his bag breezily down on the bed, took off his gloves, and shook her hand.

She didn’t know how to answer, and she knew it made no difference whether she answered or not.

“How are you today, Doctor?” she asked.

“Wonderful: there’s not even the rain to complain about so far today, though it was quite heavy last night. You don’t do much complaining yourself, do you?”