John McGahern - The Collected Stories

‘What made you take up teaching?’ he asked. ‘I know the hours are good enough, and there’s the long holidays, but what the hell good is it without money?’

‘I don’t know why,’ I answered. ‘Some notion of service … of doing good.’

‘It’s easy to see that you’re young. Teaching is a lousy, tiring old job, and it gets worse as you get older. A new bunch comes at you year after year. They stay the same but you start to go down. You’ll not get thanked for service in this world. There were no jobs when I was young. It was considered a bloody miracle to have any sort of a job with a salary. If I was in your boots now I’d do something like dentistry or engineering, even if I had to scrape for the money.’

The time had already gone several minutes past the lunchtime. The children were whirling about us on the concrete in loud abandon, for them the minutes of play stolen from the school day were pure sweetness.

‘Still, if I had had those chances, I wouldn’t have gone to Sligo and I’d never have met her,’ he mused.

I was in my room in the digs after tea one evening when a daughter of the house in the blouse and gymfrock of the convent secondary school knocked and said, ‘There’s a visitor for you in the front room downstairs.’

A frail, grey-haired man rose as soon as I entered. He had an engaging handshake and smile.

‘I’m Owen Beirne, branch secretary of the INTO. I just called in to welcome you to the town and to invite you to our meeting on Friday night. I teach in a small school out in the country. Forgive the speech.’ He smiled as he sat down.

I explained briefly that I had joined the union already and suggested that we move from the stiff front room.

‘We’ll cross in a minute to the Bridge Bar. They always have a nice fire, but it’s safer to say what I have to say here. I suppose you don’t know about your Principal and the union.’

‘He told me he wasn’t a member.’

‘Did he try to stop you joining?’ he asked sharply.

‘No. I told him I’d joined already.’

‘Well, he was a member before the strike but he refused to come out on strike. For several months he crossed that picket line, while the church and de Valera tried to starve us to our knees.’

There was nothing for me to say.

‘As far as we are concerned, I mean the rest of the teachers around here, Kennedy doesn’t exist. You’re in a different position. He’s your Principal. You have to work with the man. But if we were to meet the two of you together, you might find yourself blackballed as well.’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘It means nothing as far as you are concerned. You just go your own way and notice nothing. But should he try to pull the heavy on you in school — he did with one of your predecessors — let us know and we’ll fall on him like the proverbial load of bricks.’ He had risen. ‘That’s what I wanted to get out of the way.’

The bar was empty, but there was a bright fire of logs at one end. Owen Beirne ordered a hot whiskey with cloves and lemon. The barman seemed to like and respect him. I had a glass of lemonade.

‘Don’t you take a drink?’

‘Seldom.’

‘I drink too much. It’s expensive and a waste of time. During the times I don’t drink I read far more and feel better in every way. Unfortunately, it’s very pleasant.’

He told me his father had been a teacher. ‘My poor father had to go to the back door of the presbytery every month for his pay. The priest’s housekeeper gave it to him. It was four pounds in those days. I’ll never forget my mother’s face when he came back from the presbytery one night with three pounds instead of four. The housekeeper had held back a pound because the priest had decided to paint the church that month. One of the great early things the INTO got for the teacher was for the salary to be paid directly into his own hands — to get it through the post instead of from the priest or his housekeeper.

‘All that was changed by my time. The inspectors, the dear inspectors, were our hairshirts. A recurring nightmare I have is walking up and down in front of a class with an inspector sitting at the back quietly taking notes. Some were the roaring boys. One rode the bucking mule in Duffy’s Circus in Ballinasloe, got badly thrown, but was still out before nine the next morning to check if the particular teacher he’d been drinking with was on time. They were like lords or judges. Full-grown men trembled in front of them at these annual inspections. Women were often in tears. The best hams and fruit cakes were brought out at lunchtime. For some there had to be the whiskey bottle and stout in the schoolhouse after school.

‘Then, during the war, the Emergency, we had an inspector in Limerick called Deasy, a fairly young man. I was teaching in his area at the time. He was a real rat. In Newcastle West there was an old landed family, a racehorse and gambling crowd, down on their luck. An uncle was the Bishop of Cashel. One of the sons was a failed medical student, and God knows what else, and as part of a rehabilitation scheme didn’t the Bishop get him a temporary teaching job. Deasy was his inspector. I’m sure the teaching was choice, and what Deasy didn’t say to his man wasn’t worth saying. This crowd wasn’t used to being talked to like that. He just walked out of the school without saying a word. Deasy sat down to his tea and ham sandwiches and fruit cake with the schoolmistress. They were still having lunch when your man arrived back. He sat down with them, opened his coat nice and quietly, produced the shotgun and gave Deasy both barrels. He wasn’t even offered the Act of Contrition. I was in the cathedral in Limerick the night Deasy’s body was brought in. It was a sad sight, the widow and seven children behind the coffin. Every inspector in the country was at the funeral. Things were noticeably easier afterwards.’

‘What happened to your man?’

‘He was up for murder. He’d have swung at the time but for the Bishop, who got him certified. They say that after a few years he was spirited away to Australia. He was as sane as I was.’

‘It seems to be a more decent time now,’ I said.

‘It’s by no means great, but it’s certainly better than it was.’

A few people had come into the bar by this time. They looked our way but no one joined us at the fire. He’d had four drinks, and his face was flushed and excited. He wanted to know what poets my generation was reading. He seemed unimpressed by the names I mentioned. His own favourite was Horace. ‘Sometimes I translate him for fun, as a kind of discipline. I always feel in good spirits afterwards.’

Almost absently he spilled out a number of coloured capsules from a small plastic container on to the table, got a glass of water from the bar. ‘It’s the old ticker. I’m afraid it’s wobbly. But I hope not to embarrass my friends,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry. That’s lousy luck to have.’

‘There’s no need,’ he answered laughing as we took leave of one another. ‘I’ve had a good innings.’

Kennedy didn’t call to the digs next morning, and I made my own way to the school. As I came through the gates I saw that he had all the classes lined up on the concrete, and he was looking so demonstratively at his watch that I checked the time on my own watch. I was in time but only just. Before I got any closer he’d marched his own classes in, disappearing behind a closed door. Instead of coming round with the roll books that morning, he sent one of the senior boys, and at the mid-morning break I found myself alone on the concrete for several minutes, but when he did join me his grievance spilled out at once.

‘I heard yourself and Mr Beirne had a long session in the Bridge House last night.’