John McGahern - The Collected Stories

Suddenly he was startled by the noise of a car coming very fast up the narrow lane and braking to a stop behind the hearse. A priest in a long black soutane and white surplice with a purple stole over his shoulders got out of the car carrying a fat black breviary. Seeing Fonsie, he saluted briskly as he went through the open gate. Then, bent almost double, he started to climb quickly like an enormous black-and-white crab after the coffin. Watching him climb, Fonsie laughed harshly before starting to fiddle with the car radio.

After a long interval the priest was the first to come down the hill, accompanied by two middle-aged men, the most solid looking and conventional of the mourners. The priest carried his surplice and stole on his arm. The long black soutane looked strangely menacing between the two attentive men in suits as they came down. Fonsie reached over to turn off the rock and roll playing on the radio as they drew close, but, in a sudden reversal, he turned it up louder still. The three men looked towards the loud music as they came through the gate but did not salute or nod. They got into the priest’s car and, as there was no turning place between the hearse and the Mercedes, it proceeded to back out of the narrow lane. Then in straggles of twos and threes, people started to come down the hill. The two brothers and Jim Cullen were the last to come down. As soon as Philly got into the Mercedes he turned off the radio.

‘You’d think you’d show a bit more respect.’

‘The radio station didn’t know about the funeral.’

‘I’m not talking about the radio station,’ Philly said.

‘That Jim Cullen is a nice man,’ John said in order to steer the talk away from what he saw as an imminent clash. ‘He’s intelligent as well as decent. Peter was lucky in his neighbour.’

‘The Cullens,’ Philly said as if searching for a phrase. ‘You couldn’t, you couldn’t if you tried get better people than the Cullens.’

They drove straight from Killeelan to the Royal for lunch. Not many people came, just the Cullens among the close neighbours and a few far-out cousins of the dead man. Philly bought a round for everyone and when he found no takers to his offer of a second round he did not press.

‘Our friend seems to be restraining himself for once,’ Fonsie remarked sarcastically to John as they moved from the bar to the restaurant.

‘He’s taking his cue from Jim Cullen. Philly is all right,’ John said. ‘It’s those months and months out in the oil fields and then the excitement of coming home with all that money. It has to have an effect. Wouldn’t it be worse if he got fond of the money?’

‘It’s still too much. It’s not a wanting,’ Fonsie continued doggedly through a blurred recognition of all that Philly had given to their mother and to the small house over the years, and it caused him to stir uncomfortably.

The set meal was simple and good: hot vegetable soup, lamb chops with turnip and roast potatoes and peas, apple tart and cream, tea or coffee. While they were eating, the three gravediggers came into the dining-room and were given a separate table by one of the river windows. Philly got up as soon as they arrived to ensure that drinks were brought to their table.

When the meal ended, the three brothers drove back behind the Cullens’ car to Gloria Bog. There they put all that was left of the booze back into the car. The Cullens accepted what food was left over but wouldn’t hear of taking any more of the drink. ‘We’re not planning on holding another wake for a long time yet,’ they said half humorously, half sadly. John helped with the boxes, Fonsie did not leave the car. As soon as Philly gave Jim Cullen the keys to the house John shook his hand and got back into the car with Fonsie and the boxes of booze, but still Philly continued talking to Jim Cullen outside the open house. In the rear mirror they saw Philly thrust a fistful of notes towards Jim Cullen. They noticed how large the old farmer’s hands were as they gripped Philly by the wrist and pushed the hand and notes down into his jacket pocket, refusing stubbornly to accept any money. When John took his eyes from the mirror and the small sharp struggle between the two men, what met his eyes across the waste of pale sedge and heather was the rich dark waiting evergreens inside the back wall of Killeelan where they had buried Peter beside his father and mother only a few hours before. The colour of laughter is black. How dark is the end of all of life. Yet others carried the burden in the bright day on the hill. His shoulders shuddered slightly in revulsion and he wished himself back in the semi-detached suburbs with rosebeds outside in the garden.

‘I thought you’d never finish,’ Fonsie accused Philly when the big car began to move slowly out the bog road.

‘There was things to be tidied up,’ Philly said absently. ‘Jim is going to take care of the place till I get back,’ and as Fonsie was about to answer he found John’s hands pressing his shoulders from the back seat in a plea not to speak. When they parked beside the door of the bar there was just place enough for another car to pass inside the church wall.

‘Not that a car is likely to pass,’ Philly joked as he and John carried the boxes in. When they had placed all of them on the counter they saw Luke reach for a brandy bottle on the high shelf.

‘No, Luke,’ Philly said. ‘I’ll have a pint if that’s what you have in mind.’

‘John’ll have a pint, then, too.’

‘I don’t know,’ John said in alarm. ‘I haven’t drunk as much in my life as the last few days. I feel poisoned.’

‘Still, we’re unlikely to have a day like this ever again,’ Philly said as Luke pulled three pints.

‘I don’t think I’d survive many more such days,’ John said.

‘Wouldn’t it be better to bring Fonsie in than to have him drinking out there in the car? It’ll take me a while to make up all this. One thing I will say,’ he said as he started to count the returned bottles. ‘There was no danger of anybody running dry at Peter’s wake.’

Fonsie protested when Philly went out to the car. It was too much trouble to get the wheelchair out of the boot. He didn’t need drink. ‘I’ll take you in.’ Philly offered his stooped neck and carried Fonsie into the bar like a child as he’d done many times when they were young and later when they were on certain sprees. He set him down in an armchair in front of the empty fireplace and brought his pint from the counter. It took Luke a long time to make up the bill, and when he eventually presented it to Philly, after many extra countings and checkings, he was full of apologies at what it had all come to.

‘It’d be twice as much in the city,’ Philly said energetically as he paid.

‘I suppose it’d be as much anyhow,’ Luke grumbled happily with relief and then at once started to draw another round of drinks which he insisted they take.

‘It’s on the house. It’s not every day or year brings you down.’

Fonsie and Philly drank the second pint easily. John was already fuddled and unhappy and he drank reluctantly.

‘I won’t say goodbye.’ Luke accompanied them out to the car when they left. ‘You’ll have to be down again before long.’

‘It’ll not be long till we’re down,’ Philly answered firmly for all of them.

In Longford and Mullingar and Enfield Philly stopped on their way back to Dublin. John complained each time, but it was Philly who had command of the car. Each time he carried Fonsie into the bars — and in all of them the two drank pints — John refused to have anything in Mullingar or Longford but took a reluctant glass in Enfield.

‘What’ll you do if you have an accident and get breathalysed?’

‘I’ll not have an accident. And they can send the summons all the way out to the Saudis if I do.’