John McGahern - The Barracks

That was the way it must be: but here in this lonely room it ran its course in her cursed life. Mrs Casey was moving downstairs. Why could she not come and break for her the lonely treadmill of this thinking? Was she too busy? She was getting their dinner ready, but couldn’t she spare minutes? Could she not come and say, “Is there anything you want, Elizabeth?” It wouldn’t take very long to do that much? Or did they care about her? What did they care, they were all right themselves, what did they care about her? She wanted to knock with rage on the floorboards and call, “Can you not come up? Have you forgotten me? Have you no consideration?”

She’d have to think up some lying excuse when they came: how could she say, “I want you to stay with me. Stay with me and don’t leave me alone with myself.” Mrs Casey would think she was raving. How could she expect her to come when she had to have the children’s dinner ready by half-twelve. She heard them come: a door banged; their bare feet pattered on the cement, excited chatter began and the rattle of delf and cutlery. She grew calmer as she imagined them at the table in the kitchen, how many times had she given them that same dinner? Soon they were rushing up the stairs to her, and gone as quickly, to try to snatch a few minutes of the play they hungered for before the bell rang.

Reegan didn’t return, he must have risked staying the day on the bog. The Caseys took their meal with her in the bedroom. Her rage and desperation of an hour ago seemed so silly now, they were eating with her when it would have been far more comfortable for them to have their meal downstairs.

“It’s very kind of you to come to have your dinner with me here,” she said and kept her brimming eyes turned away, afraid and ashamed to let them see the fullness of her gratitude; and then as she watched them eat and listened to their bantering talk she saw with some return of terror that they’d drive her even more quickly crazy if they were booked to sit here for ever than she’d drive herself alone, the one reason their company was exciting was that she knew it’d soon end, she’d not have to tolerate it, she’d lose it, it’d be taken away. A smile began to play suddenly deep in her eyes. What was certain was that her temperament would have to undergo a deep sea change before it was fitted for a life that’d be without end.

The day crawled much as other days into late afternoon. A large black fly with the blue sheen in its wings of oil when it floats on water buzzed so loud and long against the pane that she had to call to have it killed. Though nothing was changed when Mrs Casey finally battered it to death with a newspaper and the silence of the distant saws and stone-crusher had time to settle in the room again. Reegan returned late, tired and hungry from the bog, and as he took his tea another heart attack nearly ended Elizabeth’s life.

Afterwards the doctor told Reegan that he didn’t expect her to live through the summer. He considered that if it happened soon it’d be almost merciful, she’d get hardly more than the first cancer pains; ventricular failure would cheat the slow drugged agony of that death, he believed.

The green rushes the children had scattered for Our Lady’s Eve hadn’t been swept and now after the few weeks lay brown and rotting on the doorstep but it was May yet and the bells rang in the evenings for devotions. On the bog, where the white fluffs of cotton tossed, the barrows of turf were fit for handling. The potato leaves pushed their way out of the earth in the garden and Reegan covered them against the frost, but without much care, the turf was his whole care. Night and morning he had the radio on long before news-time to get the weather forecast, and he watched the skies always. If they kept fair he’d be able to go free without fear or worry in September.

The most Elizabeth saw of this spring and early summer was Reegan’s tiredness at night, loose clay on the policemen’s boots when they came to visit her, a little bunch of primroses Sheila brought. The birds were loud about the house all day, it was their mating-time, and life put even song to use. More flies gathered in the room. They had hung a yellow tape from the ceiling, where they stuck and struggled in its sweetness till they died into another motionless black speck. Mrs Lennon, the village nurse, began to come for a few hours night and morning and she made little difference to anything or any one in the house.

Elizabeth sank steadily, and she didn’t care. Sometimes she tried to imagine her own heart and breasts laid bare on the lurid anatomy charts in the Training Hospital; she’d try to imagine what had gone wrong or what could be done but soon that’d fail and she’d be listening to one of the Sister Tutors drone through an hour of words falling like light rain. And when she woke to vital life it was often to hate.

One night a door banged to frighten her to life. She’d been more in a stupor than asleep when the noise rocked through the house, and peeling flakes of whitewash fell from the walls. She woke in a state of panic and saw the children on the landing.

“Who banged that door?” she called as fierce as she was able.

They shifted on their feet and then explained, “We were tuggin’ and the door gev.”

“Can you give me no peace? Have you no consideration for anybody? Have you nothing else to do?” their explanation only roused her more.

Both Mrs Casey and Reegan came, attracted by the loud bang, and the commotion. “There’s nothing but noise and doors slamming. I was nearly frightened out of my senses,” she complained.

“Didn’t I tell ye not to make noise upstairs?” Mrs Casey reproached and Reegan said, “I thought the blasted house was comin’ down about our ears. What did ye think ye were doin’? What was goin’ on here?”

“We were playin’ and the door gev.”

“And have ye to behave like wild animals in the house?”

“We didn’t mean.”

“Ye were warned before, weren’t ye? This time you’ll have to be taught a lesson, long threatenin’ comes at last,” and he pushed them before him downstairs.

Her anger drained as she heard them go. She began to curse herself for not holding it in check. She heard their cries, they were being punished, and what was the futile use? Later she was overcome with shame when their tear-stained faces appeared in the doorway.

“Daddy sent us to say that we are sorry.”

“It’s all right, don’t worry. I lost my temper. It was my fault as much as yours.”

They stood there.

“It’s all right now, isn’t it? There’s sweets in this bag on the table. Will you take one?”

They smiled and accepted, it was over. No matter how she spoiled them she couldn’t take responsibility for causing more pain. Not so many evenings ago she’d flown at one of the girls because her piece of toast was burned black on one side and had a trace of ashes where it must have slipped from the fork. She must be careful. This fiendish resentment was ready to possess her at every petty chance. She’d make a hell for herself and every one about her if she didn’t watch. This petty world of hers wasn’t the whole world; each person was a world; and there were so many people. None of them had to move to her beck and call, they were all free. They came to her out of their generosity or loneliness; and surely she should try to meet them with some graciousness. That was the way it should be, she was certain. But it was hard to keep that before her mind with this body and room dragging her down till she could hardly tell one thing from another.

Though everything wasn’t black, even if it seemed so now, she’d want to affirm. Very late that same night, the house was asleep, Mullins brought down his bed. She had to smile as she heard his feet go downstairs for the second and last time, with the load of green-braided blankets surely, for she remembered how he used always bring the two pillows on top of the awkward mattress first. In spite of her discomfort there was rich enjoyment in her eyes: he’d hardly ever be likely to change that habit now! The dayroom door banged shut. “No concern for anybody, just lorry round the place,” Reegan would complain if he was awake. That door would be the last loud noise of the night, she could hear Reegan’s heavy breathing from the bed over at the fire-place, there was no sound from the children’s room, and then some place at the other end of the house began the quick, pattering race of mice on the boards of the ceiling.