John McGahern - The Collected Stories

‘Unless the night wind gets up,’ he said anxiously.

‘Unless a night wind,’ I repeated.

As the boat moved through the calm water and the line slipped through his fingers over the side I’d never felt so close to him before, not even when he’d carried me on his shoulders above the laughing crowd to the Final. Each move he made I watched as closely as if I too had to prepare myself to murder.

When I knew Lavin he was close to the poorhouse but he’d still down mallet and cold chisel to limp after the young girls, crooked finger beckoning, calling, ‘Come, give us a peep, there must be a few little hairs beginning,’ and that strange inlooking smile came over the white stubbled face while the girls, shrieking with laughter, kept backing just fast enough to stay outside his reach.

When I heard people speak of Lavin it was in puzzlement that when young and handsome he had worked such cruel hours at his trade, though he had no need because his uncle had left him Willowfield, the richest farm around; and he had taken no interest in girls though he could have had his pick; and at a threshing or in a wheatfield he’d be found at nightfall gathering carelessly abandoned tools or closing gaps after the others had gone drinking or to dress for the dances. Neither could they understand his sudden heavy drinking in Billy Burns’s. Before that if he had to enter a pub he’d accept nothing but lemonade. Burns was blamed for giving him credit when his money ran out, and after he seized and held in the house the gypsy girl who sold him paper flowers with wire stems, it was the same Burns who gave him the money to buy the gypsies off in return for Willowfield. The gypsies had warned him that if he didn’t pay what they wanted they’d come and cut him with rusted iron. What money he was able to earn afterwards was from his trade, and that steadily dwindled as machinery replaced the horse. All of his roof had fallen in except above the kitchen, where oats and green weeds grew out of the thatch. Whatever work he got he did outside on the long hacked bench, except when it was too cold or wet.

The first time I stopped to watch him it was because of the attraction of what’s forbidden. He was shaping a section of a cart wheel, but he put down mallet and chisel to say, that strange smile I’ll always remember coming over his face, ‘Those sisters of yours are growing into fine sprigs. Have you looked to see if any of them have started a little thatch?’

‘No.’ His smile frightened me.

‘It should be soft, light, a shading.’ His voice lingered on the words. I felt his eyes did not see past the smiling.

‘I haven’t seen,’ I said and started to watch the roads for anybody coming.

‘You should keep your eyes skinned, then. All you have to do is to keep your eyes skinned, man.’ The voice was harder.

‘I don’t sleep in their rooms.’

‘No need to sleep in the same room, man. Just keep your eyes skinned. Wait till you hear them go to the pot and walk in by mistake. It’ll be cocked enough to see if it has started to thatch.’ The voice had grown rhythmical and hard.

It was more a desire to see into the strangeness behind his smile than this constant pestering that made me give him the information he sought.

‘The two eldest have hair but the others haven’t.’

‘The others have just a bald ridge with the slit,’ he pursued fiercely.

‘Yes.’ I wanted to escape but he seized me by the lapels.

‘The hair is fairer than on their heads?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fair and soft? A shade?’

‘Yes, but let me go.’

‘Soft and fair. The young ivy covering the slit.’ He let me go as the voice grew caressing and the smile flooded over the face. ‘So fair you can see the skin through it yet. A shading,’ he gloated, and then, ‘Will you come with me a minute inside?’

‘I have to go.’

He turned as if I was no longer there and limped, the boot tongueless and unlaced, to the door, and as I hurried away I heard the bolt scrape shut.

I avoided Lavin all that winter. I’d heard his foot was worse and that he was unlikely to see another winter outside the poorhouse. It should have assuaged my fear but it did not, and besides I’d fallen in love with Charley Casey.

Charley Casey was dull in school, but he was good at games, and popular, with a confident laugh and white teeth and blue-dark hair. He had two dark-haired sisters of seventeen and nineteen, who were both beautiful, and a young widowed mother, and there hung about him that glamour of a house of ripe women. I helped him at his exercises, and in return he partnered me in handball. We started to skate in the evenings together on the shallow pond and to go to the river when the days grew warmer. I was often sick with anxiety when he was absent, able to concentrate on nothing but the bell that would set me free to race to his house.

I tried to get him to read David Copperfield so that we could share a world, but always he had excuses. When the school closed and I had to go to the sea, he promised that he’d have it read by the time I got back. At the sea I spent most of my time alone among the sandhills imagining the conversations we’d have about David Copperfield on the riverbank when the slow week by the sea would be over.

The morning we got back I rushed to his house without waiting to eat. As I pursued him with questions it grew depressingly clear that he’d not read a word and he admitted, ‘I did my best to read it but I fell asleep. It’s too hot. I’ll read it when it rains.’

‘You promised,’ I accused.

‘Honest, I’ll read it when it rains. Why can’t we go to the river same as before!’

‘I don’t want to go to the river. Why don’t we go to see Lavin?’ I said in thirst for some perversity.

‘That’s a great idea.’ I was taken aback by his enthusiasm. ‘Why don’t we see old John?’

I walked slowly and sullenly to Lavin’s, resentful that he had fallen so easily in with my proposal.

Tools beginning to rust were outside on the old bench and the door was open. Lavin sat inside, his foot upon a footrest. The foot was wrapped in multicoloured rags that included red flannel and stank in the heat. Casey crossed the shavings-littered floor to the empty fireplace to ask, ‘How’s the old foot, John?’

‘Playing me up, Charley Boy, but Himself was never in better order.’

‘I’ve no doubt,’ Charley laughed loudly.

I stood close to the door in smouldering anger.

‘How are the two beauties of sisters? The thatch must be good and black and thick, eh? Brimmin’ with juice inside, or have they shaved?’ The smile came instantly, the repetitious fondling voice lingered on each word.

‘No. They didn’t shave it, John. It’s as thick as thatch. Not that thatch is going to be all that thick above your head for long,’ Casey laughed.

‘Never mind the roof now. How is little John Charles coming along? Sprouting nicely?’ He touched Casey’s fly gently with his fingertips.

‘You have to show me yours first. You never saw such a weapon as old John has.’ Casey laughed and winked towards me at the door.

‘No sooner said than done.’ Suddenly Lavin opened his trousers.

‘A fair weapon and as stiff as a stake.’ Casey gripped it in his fist.

‘Know the only place the stiffs get in — the cunt and the grave,’ Lavin joked, his mouth showing black stumps of teeth as he laughed.

‘I bet you put it stiff and hard into the gypsy, old Johnny Balls,’ Casey teased.

‘Yeah, and what about seeing little John Charles now?’

‘Fire ahead,’ Casey laughed. I wanted to shout but couldn’t as Lavin unbuttoned Casey’s fly and gently started to play with it in his fingers.