John McGahern - The Collected Stories

‘Hi there! Hi! Do you hear me, young Moran!’ The voice came with startling clarity over the water, was taken up by the fields across the lake, echoed back. ‘Hi there! Hi! Do you hear me, young Moran!’

I looked all around. The voice came from the road. I couldn’t make out the figure at first, leaning in a broken gap of the wall above the lake, but when he called again I knew it was Eddie Reegan, Senator Reegan.

‘Hi there, young Moran. Since the mountain can’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet will have to come to the mountain. Row over here a minute. I want to have a word with you.’

I rowed slowly, watching each oar-splash slip away from the boat in the mirror of water. I disliked him, having unconsciously, perhaps, picked up my people’s dislike. He had come poor to the place, buying Lynch’s small farm cheap, and soon afterwards the farmhouse burned down. At once, a bigger house was built with the insurance money, closer to the road, though that in its turn was due to burn down too, to be replaced by the present mansion, the avenue of Lawson cypresses now seven years old. Soon he was buying up other small farms, but no one had ever seen him work with shovel or with spade. He always appeared immaculately dressed. It was as if he understood instinctively that it was only the shortest of short steps from appearance to becoming. ‘A man who works never makes any money. He has no time to see how the money is made,’ he was fond of boasting. He set up as an auctioneer. He entered politics. He married Kathleen Relihan, the eldest of old Paddy Relihan’s daughters, the richest man in the area, Chairman of the County Council. ‘Do you see those two girls? I’m going to marry one of those girls,’ he was reported to have remarked to a friend. ‘Which one?’ ‘It doesn’t matter. They’re both Paddy Relihan’s daughters’; and when Paddy retired it was Reegan rather than any of his own sons who succeeded Paddy in the Council. Now that he had surpassed Paddy Relihan and become a Senator and it seemed only a matter of time before he was elected to the Dáil, he no longer joked about ‘the aul effort of a fire’, and was gravely concerned about the reluctance of insurance companies to grant cover for fire to dwelling houses in our part of the country. He had bulldozed the hazel and briar from the hills above the lake, and as I turned to see how close the boat had come to the wall I could see behind him the white and black of his Friesians grazing between the electric fences on the far side of the reseeded hill.

I let the boat turn so that I could place my hand on the stone, but the evening was so calm that it would have rested beneath the high wall without any hand. The Senator had seated himself on the wall as I was rowing in, and his shoes hung six or eight feet above the boat.

‘It’s not the first time I’ve had to congratulate you, though I’m too high up here to shake your hand. And what I’m certain of is that it won’t be the last time either,’ he began.

‘Thanks. You’re very kind,’ I answered.

‘Have you any idea where you’ll go from here?’

‘No. I’ve applied for the grant. It depends on whether I get the grant or not.’

‘What’ll you do if you get it?’

‘Go on, I suppose. Go a bit farther …’

‘What’ll you do then?’

‘I don’t know. Sooner or later, I suppose, I’ll have to look for a job.’

‘That’s the point I’ve been coming to. You are qualified to teach, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. But I’ve only taught for a few months. Before I got that chance to go to the university.’

‘You didn’t like teaching?’ he asked sharply.

‘No.’ I was careful. ‘I didn’t dislike it. It was a job.’

‘I like that straightness. And what I’m looking to know is — if you were offered a very good job would you be likely to take it?’

‘What job?’

‘I won’t beat around the bush either. I’m talking of the Principal-ship of the school here. It’s a very fine position for a young man. You’d be among your own people. You’d be doing good where you belong. I hear you’re interested in a very attractive young lady not a hundred miles from here. If you decided to marry and settle down I’m in a position to put other advantages your way.’

Master Leddy was the Principal of the school. He had been the Principal as long as I could remember. He had taught me, many before me. I had called to see him just three days before. The very idea of replacing him was shocking. And anyhow, I knew the politicians had nothing to do with the appointment of teachers. It was the priest who ran the school. What he was saying didn’t even begin to make sense, but I had been warned about his cunning and was wary. ‘You must be codding. Isn’t Master Leddy the Principal?’

‘He is now but he won’t be for long more — not if I have anything to do with it.’

‘How?’ I asked very quietly in the face of the outburst.

‘That need be no concern of yours. If you can give me your word that you’ll take the job, I can promise you that the job is as good as yours.’

‘I can’t do that. I can’t follow anything right. Isn’t it Canon Gallagher who appoints the teachers?’

‘Listen. There are many people who feel the same way as I do. If I go to the Canon in the name of all those people and say that you’re willing to take the job, the job is yours. Even if he didn’t want to, he’d have no choice but to appoint you …’

‘Why should you want to do that for me? Say, even if it is possible.’ I was more curious now than alarmed.

‘It’s more than possible. It’s bloody necessary. I’ll be plain. I have three sons. They go to that school. They have nothing to fall back on but whatever education they get. And with the education they’re getting at that school up there, all they’ll ever be fit for is to dig ditches. Now, I’ve never dug ditches, but even at my age I’d take off my coat and go down into a ditch rather than ever have to watch any of my sons dig. The whole school is a shambles. Someone described it lately as one big bear garden.’

‘What makes you think I’d be any better?’

‘You’re young. You’re qualified. You’re ambitious. It’s a very good job for someone of your age. I’d give you all the backing you’d want. You’d have every reason to make a go of it. With you there, I’d feel my children would still be in with a chance. In another year or two even that’ll be gone.’

‘I don’t see why you want my word at this stage,’ I said evasively, hoping to slip away from it all. I saw his face return to its natural look of shrewdness in what was left of the late summer light.

‘If I go to the Canon now it’ll be just another complaint in a long line of complaints. If I can go to him and say that things can’t be allowed to go on as they have been going and we have a young man here, from a good family, a local, more than qualified, who’s willing to take the job, who has everyone’s backing, it’s a different proposition entirely. And I can guarantee you here this very evening that you’ll be the Principal of that school when it opens in September.’

For the first time it was all coming clear to me.

‘What’ll happen to the Master? What’ll he do?’

‘What I’m more concerned about is what’ll my children do if he stays,’ he burst out again. ‘But you don’t have to concern yourself about it. It’ll be all taken care of.’

I had called on the Master three evenings before, walking beyond the village to the big ramshackle farmhouse. He was just rising, having taken all his meals of the day in bed, and was shaving and dressing upstairs, one time calling down for a towel, and again for a laundered shirt.

‘Is that young Moran?’ He must have recognized my voice or name. ‘Make him a good cup of tea. And he’ll be able to be back up the road with myself.’