John McGahern - The Barracks

“No. I’ll not inform on any man,” Mullins said.

“No,” Casey said too. “We’ll just have to see that we do our own jobs properly and then we can’t be blamed. No such a thing as reporting though, that’d not be playin’ the game, some of us here are a long time under his baton and he reported no man.”

“We’ll watch our own ends, that’s all, but no skunkin’,” Mullins said last, and Brennan felt chastised and shamed and angry.

So the next early morning inspection found Mullins and Casey and Brennan lined up the other side of the table before Quirke and their faces and boots and uniform shining clean, but Reegan was still in bed. There was sense of real occasion, and tension; something would have to happen today. It was the children who brought Reegan first news of Quirke’s presence.

“Daddy, the Super’s car is outside,” they had already caught the fear of authority in their voices.

“So he’s come,” Reegan said, and they were shocked by his casualness; another time the news would have stirred him into some kind of action.

“He’s in the dayroom, Daddy!”

“That’s all right, don’t worry,” he said, but there was a shake in the voice; and then Casey pounded upstairs to tap at the bedroom door.

“The Super’s down below, Sergeant,” he said, the pallid skin as white as ever death would make it. “He wants to know if you’re reportin’ sick or comin’ down.”

“Tell him I’m comin’ down,” Reegan said.

“I’ll tell him you’re comin’ down,” Casey wanted it to be confirmed.

“Do.”

“Right, Sergeant,” Casey shuffled uneasily away as Reegan pulled back the bedclothes and swung his feet out on the floor.

He dressed hurriedly and came downstairs and into the kitchen in his socks, there he laced on his boots, and very quietly got notepaper and envelopes and pen and ink and wrote his resignation. He took much time and when he had the envelope closed, he called Willie and told him to run to post it, now.

“It’s finished and done at last,” he said to the uncompre-hending children, and then went down to the dayroom in a royal state of disorder, unshaven, the hair tousled, the whistle-chain hanging loose, and the tunic wide open on the dirty flannel shirt that was open without collar on the throat.

Both Quirke and the three policemen were in a state of nervous tension when he opened the door; there had been a ridiculous parody of an inspection after Casey’s return; their whole minds on Reegan’s feet padding downstairs; and what in the name of Christ could he be doing in the kitchen. Quirke was writing when he entered, the three policemen standing in a stupid line the other side of the table, so many red and black inkstains on the bare deal, the official pens and books of foolscap and stampers and pads; seams of dirt in the cracks between the scrubbed boards. Quirke did not look up, he continued writing, as if no one had entered; but Reegan went and leaned against the corner of the table, deliberately jogging it so that Quirke had to take notice before he intended. He surveyed Reegan’s appearance and demanded an explanation in as unemotional a tone as he could master. He got none.

“So you have no explanation to offer, Sergeant,” he had to say, he’d already lost much of his calm.

All Reegan did was drawl, “No,” and lounge more fully on the table.

“Stand to attention, Sergeant!” Quirke shouted, white at the insult, and losing all control.

“Stand yourself,” Reegan said in utter contempt.

“I’ll have you dismissed! Do you realize that?” Quirke pounded.

“I’ve resigned, so do you want me to stand to attention, sir,” he raised his voice to parody Quirke.

“I’ll see you are disciplined. I’ll see you get your deserts, you pup,” Quirke hardly knew what he said. Reegan moved closer, the mocking mood gone at that last mouthing insult, and the three policemen grew afraid, they knew how dangerous Reegan was.

“No, you can’t,” and the ring of hatred that came hissing on the voice now even chilled Quirke. “No, you can’t. I wore the Sam Browne too, the one time it was dangerous to wear it in this balls of a country. And I wore it to command — men, soldiers, and not to motor round to see if a few harmless poor bastards of policemen would lick me fat arse, while I shit about law and order. And the sight of a belt on somebody else never struck me blind!

“Now get out before I smash you,” Reegan ground.

He was dangerous, there could be no doubt, and he’d shocked and overawed the younger officer. Quirke had never been confronted with a situation anything like this: he’d lost sight of whether he should go and report or stand on his authority, and he saw that the line of three across the table would be no use to anyone. He rose with as much dignity as he could keep.

“You’re obviously in no condition to listen to reason but you’ve not heard the last of this, resignation or no resignation,” he stumbled.

“I’m tellin’ you to get out,” Reegan said and crowded him to the door and kicked it shut on his heels.

He was pale as death when he came in to them in the kitchen. They were startled when he spoke but it was only to ask the boy if he had posted the letter. Then he dressed himself properly and went out and round by the window on the high policeman’s bicycle and he was away all day, nearly night when he returned to his meal that was spoiled with waiting.

The dayroom door opened as he ate and Mullins ventured up the hallway to tap on the door and wait for Reegan’s “Come in.”

“I just wandered up,” he stated. “A man’d get the willies down in that joint on his own.”

He was given a chair at the fire but wasn’t easy till he got “Jasus!” out at last. “I never saw the bate of this mornin’ in all me life. ’Twas as good as a month’s salary. Some of the stations were on the phone already for particulars. Jasus, you have him rightly humped, Sergeant; they’ll have to give him an office job in the Depot; this day’ll follow him round for the rest of his life.”

Reegan was quiet, a sort of bitterness and contempt on the face that leaned towards the fire in the failing light, and then he stared into Mullins’s face and said, “It’s always easy to make a Cuchulainn outa the other fella, isn’t it, John?”

“What? What do you mean, Sergeant?” Mullins ejaculated, either unable or unwilling to understand, a shade of terror on his face.

“No, nothing, don’t mind, John,” Reegan laughed sharply. “I was only sort of talkin’ to meself, you know, jokin’.”

The night had come, the scarlets of the religious pictures faded, their glass glittered in the flashes of firelight and there seemed a red scattering of dust from the Sacred Heart lamp before the crib on the mantelpiece. “And is it time to light the lamp yet, Daddy?” the boy’s voice ventured.

“Yes,” Reegan answered without thought.

He was silent with Mullins, and the silence seemed to absorb itself in the nightly lighting of the paraffin lamp. All the years were over now, and the kitchen was quick and full with movement. The head was unscrewed off the lamp, the charred wicks trimmed, the tin of paraffin and the wide funnel got from the scullery, the smoked globe shone with twisted brown paper, the boy running from the fire to touch the turned-up wicks into flame, and the two girls racing to the windows to drag down the blinds on another night.

“My blind was down the first,” they shouted.

“No! My blind was down the first!”

“Wasn’t my blind down the first, Guard Mullins?” as the boy adjusted the wicks down to a steady yellow flame and fixed the lamp in its place — one side of the delf on the small white table-cloth.