New Irish Short Stories

by Joseph O'Connor

  He noticed her moving to the fireplace but did not think anything of it and so was looking away as she placed black soot from the chimney with her thumb on his forehead.

  ‘Now, there,’ she said. ‘You have ashes. And nothing to worry about.’

  He stood up as the children gazed at him in astonishment.

  ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘I just did.’

  He went to the mirror. The black smudge on his forehead looked exactly as though he had received ashes at the altar rail in the cathedral. He almost laughed.

  ‘No one will ever know the difference,’ Nora said.

  The children glanced from one to the other and then went back to eating their breakfast.

  ‘Neither of you is to say anything about this,’ Nora warned.

  ‘If anyone found out …’ Maurice began.

  ‘You go to school,’ Nora said.

  A few times that morning in the staffroom and in various classrooms he had the impression that the ashes on his forehead were being studied carefully by colleagues or by students. But in the bathroom during a break when he looked at them himself again he could see no difference between the colour and texture of the soot on his forehead and the holy ashes which most of the others wore. The idea of it put him in good humour until later in the morning when he grew tired and felt desperately in need of sleep, having to suppress yawn after yawn in the classroom, and then he felt that what Nora had done was wrong and disrespectful. He was almost angry at the thought that she would not listen to him if he came home at lunchtime or at the end of the day and began to complain about it.

  Later, as he sat in the staffroom during a period when he had no class, and Christian Brothers wearing ashes on their forehead came in and out of the room, he smiled to himself. How little they knew, these Brothers, he thought, about the secret life of the teachers, the things which married men had to tolerate! He had to concentrate hard on the copybooks he was correcting to stop himself laughing.

  At the end of the day’s teaching as he was walking from one of the classrooms which were in a building away from the main building, he saw his brother Tom waiting for him. Since it was Wednesday and the Enniscorthy Echo where Tom worked had gone to press, Tom would have time on his hands. But Maurice knew by the way he was standing that this was more than a social call, more than a casual way of meeting so they could go for a drink or two in Mylie Kehoe’s before Maurice went home.

  Maurice made a signal to Tom that he would be with him in a moment, and then he dropped some copybooks back in the staffroom. By the serious way Tom had nodded to him, he knew that this visit was about Stephen, their younger brother who had TB. Something must have happened. He lingered in the staffroom, arranging the copybooks and then rearranging them, and checking if there was anything else to do, because he dreaded going back out to the school yard and finding Tom waiting in the shadows. When he went to the bathroom, he barely glanced in the mirror; suddenly the ashes and their origin had ceased to be of any interest.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked Tom when he found him outside.

  ‘He’s been bad over the last few days.’

  He noticed the ashes on Tom’s forehead and realised that Tom must have been at eight o’clock mass and must have looked for him there. He wished now that he did not have the smudge on his forehead; it would be hard to explain how it got there. They walked silently together over the railway bridge towards the bottom of Slaney Street.

  ‘I can’t go down. Nora is terrified about the children. She went and asked Dr Cudigan,’ Maurice said.

  ‘That’s all right. They understand that. No one blames Nora for that. I had to call into Uncle George, King George, this morning after mass. Someone told me that he has a coffin at the back of the workshop and it has some flaw in it and that he said to someone that it would do for Stephen when the time came. He’s one big ignorant gobshite.’

  ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘I told him that there’d be no coffin for him when I was finished with him, but we’d sew him into a sack and send him wriggling down the river. I told him if he thought we had disbanded and gone all political, then he might be right, but we’d make an exception for him. And I’d know the boys to pick. I wouldn’t have to ask them even. I’d just make a sign, and he’d be gone down the river and he’d be found washed up in Edermine.’

  ‘Did you really?’

  ‘I did. I did all right.’

  ‘He denied the whole thing and then he said that he wouldn’t do it again. He is a big eejit.’

  ‘Did Stephen hear about it?’

  ‘No, none of them heard about it.’

  They walked along Slaney Place.

  ‘But Stephen heard about something else and so did Mammy. There’s a drug, it’s been discovered, and it does the trick. I have the name of it written down.’

  ‘A cure?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Who told him?’

  ‘It was in the Irish Times. Freddie Sutton brought it to the door. And it’s on Stephen’s mind now that this drug can be got.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s not available to everyone yet, but it will be, or it might be. I don’t know when. But some people can get it. They’re trying it out on some people and it’s working.’

  ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘I have it written down.’

  Once they were sitting at the bar in Mylie Kehoe’s and had ordered two pints of ale, Tom showed him a slip of paper with the word ‘streptomycin’ on it.

  ‘Sounds like something you would use for cattle,’ Maurice said.

  When their drinks came they sat at the bar for a while without saying anything.

  ‘So?’ Maurice asked eventually.

  Tom sighed.

  ‘So Daddy was in Frongoch with Jim Ryan, and you introduced him on the platform in the Market Square, and you must have met him a few times. I know he’s only a month or so as Minister for Health but he must know about this drug. It’d have to be a priority.’

  ‘There were hundreds in Frongoch.’

  ‘Daddy says they took Irish lessons together and they were in a punishment cell together. Or maybe it was the same thing.’

  ‘Don’t insult Irish lessons. I have just spent the day with them.’

  ‘Don’t insult punishment cells, you mean,’ Tom said. ‘The one thing I could never do was learn the first national. It’s hard enough to talk English.’

  ‘Was that the time in Frongoch when Daddy shouted “Is liomsa é” when the guard asked whose bed it was, and the guard said “Lumps or no lumps, you get into it, mate”,’ Maurice asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tom said, ‘it was that time all right. And Jim Ryan was there too, and now he’s Minister for Health.’

  ‘You know, I just introduced him once, and I met him another time, but we’ve never actually talked,’ Maurice said.

  ‘They want you to go up to Dublin and ask him.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘But I said I don’t know him.’

  ‘Daddy is going to contact Sean Flood, and he will decide what would be the best day. He’s going to do the introductions.’

  ‘But he’s just a backbencher.’

  ‘They’re in the same constituency, and they know each other. Anyway, we’re waiting to hear back from Sean. Can you get a day off?’

  Maurice nodded in assent.

  ‘A day off for good behaviour,’ Tom said. ‘Speaking of which, I didn’t see you at mass this morning.’

  ‘I slipped off as soon as it was over.’

  ‘Where were you sitting?’

  ‘I was at the back.’

  ‘Funny now,’ Tom said, ‘I didn’t see you going up to get the ashes.’

  Maurice sipped his drink.

  ‘And you slipped off before it was over?’ Tom continued. ‘That’s a bad example for a teacher to be giving.’

  ‘That’s not what I said. I didn’t slip off
before it was over,’ Maurice said and smiled. ‘I waited until it was over, and then I slipped off. Journalists should listen.’

  Tom looked at the ashes on Maurice’s forehead.

  ‘You slipped off anyway. I’ll say that for you.’

  When Maurice arrived home, Nora was in the kitchen. She turned when she saw him.

  ‘Ash Wednesday, that’s a nice day to go drinking,’ she said in mock anger.

  ‘How did you know I went drinking?’

  ‘They can smell you in Ballon.’

  She laughed and moved towards him.

  ‘I don’t know what this house is coming to,’ she said. ‘No religion and falling home from the pub at closing time.’

  ‘It’s not closing time. It’s only six o’clock.’

  She laughed again and put her arms around him.

  ‘And your ashes are a work of art. Did anyone admire them?’

  ‘The whole town,’ he said.

  Later, he told her what Tom had asked him to do.

  ‘I saw the article in the Irish Times too,’ she said. ‘Vera Irwin showed it to me. But the drug won’t be available for a year or more.’

  ‘Yes, but it must exist.’

  ‘That’s what Fianna Fáil is for,’ she said.

  ‘It’s for more than that.’

  ‘Well, you’re in the party. If you weren’t in it, it would be different.’

  ‘I have never asked them for anything before.’

  ‘Well, this is important. What else could be more important? It’s worth trying. I mean, you can’t even go in the door of the house where you were born.’

  He glanced away from her.

  ‘You didn’t go down, did you?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t even have to touch the person, that’s what Cudigan said. You don’t even have to touch them. It’s in the air. It’s the most frightening thing.’

  That Friday during a break between classes he found Brother O’Hara in the staffroom and asked him if he could take the following Wednesday off.

  ‘Of course you can,’ Brother O’Hara said. ‘As long as you’re back on Thursday.’

  ‘Just one day,’ he said.

  He wished that he could seem as nonchalant and relaxed as Brother O’Hara whose face darkened now as he noticed that there was a problem.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah no, just I have to go to Dublin. But I’ll give the boys work to do so they won’t make a nuisance.’

  ‘You’ve never taken a day off in all my time here.’

  ‘So it’s all right then?’

  ‘Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?’

  ‘Ah no, nothing.’

  Suddenly, Brother O’Hara moved towards the door and shut it and moved closer to him and spoke in a hushed voice.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  Maurice was alert immediately to what the Brother meant.

  ‘I’m absolutely fine.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do?’ the Brother asked.

  ‘No,’ Maurice said as he held his gaze.

  Since he knew that everyone in the town was aware that Stephen was sick, it was clear to him that Brother O’Hara wanted to ask him about it but felt that he could not, or should not.

  ‘That’s fine, so,’ the Brother said. ‘We’ll see you on Monday and Tuesday and then on Thursday and Friday. I might take a few of your classes myself on Wednesday. I might learn something.’

  The following Wednesday he got out of the train at Westland Row and walked to Kildare Street where he asked at the porter’s desk, as he had been told to do by Tom, for Sean Flood.

  ‘He’s expecting me,’ he said.

  ‘Are you another yellow belly,’ the porter asked.

  ‘I am,’ Maurice replied. ‘I’m from Enniscorthy.’

  ‘Oh Enniscorthy’s in flames,’ the porter replied as he dialled a number, ‘and old Wexford is won and the Barrow tomorrow we cross.’

  There was, it seemed, no reply from the number he had dialled. He checked through a book of numbers and tried another.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be there,’ the porter said. ‘Would you like to leave a message?’

  ‘He’s expecting me.’

  ‘Well, there might be a vote soon, so if you take a seat I’ll try again in a while.’

  He had visited the Dáil before as part of a delegation from the town. He remembered how nervous the others were as they waited to be taken beyond the porter’s box and how strange it was to see figures, ministers and prominent opposition politicians, whom they knew only from photographs and whom they read about regularly in the newspapers, walking the corridors. He remembered being led in to see the Minister for Local Government and the sense of occasion as each of them was introduced. They were taken by Sean Flood afterwards to the public bar where other TDs were buying drinks for constituents.

  He did not know what Sean Flood had arranged, whether he would meet the Minister in his private office, or in the bar or the restaurant. Now that news had been published about the drug, he wondered if others had come asking as well. Surely, he thought, Sean Flood would have advised him not to make the journey if he had believed that his request was likely to be dismissed or handled brusquely. It struck him for a moment that maybe he would actually have to say very little to the Minister, that he might be told that the drug was available, given the name of a doctor or dispensary to contact, and there would be nothing else to discuss. But he knew also that Stephen was bad, that the drug would have to come soon, or maybe it might even be too late. He resolved that he would make clear to the Minister that it was urgent. It might be better, he thought then, not to say too much about his own work for Fianna Fáil in case the Minister thought that he was involved in the party only for what it might give him in return but emphasise his father’s time in Frongoch, maybe even Tom’s time in the Curragh, although it might be best not to dwell too much on the Civil War.

  When he caught the porter’s eye, the porter made a gesture indicating that he had not forgotten about him, and then he checked a list of numbers and dialled again. This time there was a reply, and he spoke for a moment before putting the phone down.

  ‘He’ll be right with you,’ he said. ‘He didn’t even want to know your name. He’s expecting you.’

  As soon as Sean Flood appeared and shook his hand, Maurice regretted the many jokes which he and Tom had made about him over the years, about how long and repetitive his speeches to the local cumann were but how in the Dáil he had only ever spoken to ask them to open the window a bit. Or how he was the only GAA official who didn’t know the difference between a hurley stick and a shovel. He seemed friendly now as he explained that it was one of those days when there could be a vote at any time, when most of the ministers were in the house, but it would be impossible to pin any one of them down about a precise time for a meeting. He was going to leave Maurice in the visitors’ gallery, and he would signal to him from the Dáil Chamber itself if he should leave, if the time had come when they could get the Minister’s full attention in between votes, or if it seemed that a debate or an extended question time was going to hold business up. The opposition had grown long-winded, Sean said, they smelled an election, especially the Labour Party, and it was always hard to know what they would do.

  Maurice had presumed that an appointment had been made with the Minister, or at least he had been told why Maurice wanted to see him, but it seemed now, as Sean Flood ushered him into the visitors’ gallery and disappeared, that nothing had been arranged in advance and that it was maybe not even certain that he would meet the Minister face to face.

  The debate was about agriculture, and someone on the opposition benches whom he did not recognise was speaking passionately against the export of live cattle. The two or three men sitting close to the speaker seemed busy with paperwork. The Minister for Agriculture was on the government front bench with another minister. There were four or five deputies
scattered in the seats behind them. There was no sign of Sean Flood or Jim Ryan.

  As he looked around him on the gallery he saw that there were a number of men following the speech with fierce concentration. One of them was taking notes. He wished that Sean Flood had given him an agenda for the day’s work in the Dáil, or some idea how long this debate might go on and what might follow it. He was hungry and regretted that he had not had a sandwich in one of the hotels near the Dáil. He had been too eager to get here, he thought, and now he was trapped waiting for Sean Flood to appear in the chamber and make a sign to him.

  He studied the speaker, supposing him to be from Fine Gael, and then he looked over at the government benches. The Fine Gael people were different, he thought, they wore better suits and seemed more prosperous. The Fianna Fáil backbenchers, on the other hand, had a look that he recognised and liked, less arrogant than the Fine Gael deputies – they were softer in some way, like men who would be easier to approach, men who would send their sons to the local Christian Brothers school and be satisfied with that and whose sons would respect the teachers and the Brothers and do their best.

  Slowly the chamber was filling up. One of the Fianna Fáil deputies began to heckle the speaker and was told to sit down and obey the rules of the house by the Ceann Comhairle. Instead, he stood up and left the chamber, laughing and exchanging quick bantering remarks with those entering.

  Maurice turned to watch as the men who had been following the debate on agriculture beside him on the gallery stood up to leave. He noticed two or three people coming to sit in their places. When he looked back down into the Dáil chamber there were a number of figures who had recently placed themselves in the front row of the government benches. Among them was the Minister for Health Jim Ryan who was busy whispering to the minister beside him as order was called and an announcement came that a vote was to be taken on this stage of the Bill and that all those in favour were to line up, and all those against were to line up also. Since no one paid the announcement any attention, the Ceann Comhairle pressed the bell on his desk and called for order, but still he was ignored as deputies milled around each other at random, some taking their seats, others standing on the stairs.