By now Kevin had realized that Festus would not leave till he’d made a thorough examination of Henry’s testimonials, so he went into the house and told Maureen to put on her finery, that he would ask Festus in for a drink as soon as they had dealt with Henry.
He got ropes from the shed and handed them to Festus. Then he put a mask over Henry’s eyes and, with the aid of a bull staff hooked to his nose ring, led him out to the nearest field. They cast Henry without too much trouble, and when he was lying on his side Festus touched his scrotum with his hand. At first Henry tried to kick with one of his hind legs, but the ropes held him prisoner. Then, as if he had suddenly changed his mind, he lay still, breathing heavily against the hard ground.
“There’s nothing the matter with Henry. He’s beginning to enjoy it,” said Festus, noting the bull’s enviably healthy erection.
“It’s interesting that a bull’s, though it lengthens, doesn’t thicken as much as a stallion’s,” said Kevin.
“Yes, a bull has a lower coefficient of expansion.”
“In that case a man is more like a stallion.”
“Do you think I should give him a helping hand out of his misery?” Festus asked, caressing the great penis with his fingertips.
“It’s an odd thing to do on Sunday morning, and neither of us has yet been to Mass.”
Henry groaned with enjoyment as Festus continued to stroke him. Kevin moved sideways out of the firing line, but there really was no need, because whatever Henry had been suffering from it was not ejaculatio praecox.
“He’s a true gentleman,” said Festus, beginning to recognize the impossibility of the task he’d set himself.
“He knows the difference between oats and onions.”
“He knows the difference between the temperature of a man’s hand and of a cow’s vulva.”
“Will you come in for a hair of the dog before you go?” Kevin asked when they had led Henry back to the yard.
“I can only stay a minute. I promised to meet the widow for a quick drink and a twankydillo after late Mass in Clonaslew.”
Kevin poured large whiskeys and put plenty of water in his own because he was not a spirits drinker.
“Take off your coat and sit down,” he said, wondering what could be keeping Maureen.
“Do you really think it’s a sin to wank a bull?” Festus laughed.
“I suppose it would depend on whether you got pleasure from it.”
“You don’t think I need confess it, then?”
“Not unless it troubles you.”
“There are worse sins in the book than wanking bulls.”
“Buggery and bestiality,” suggested Kevin.
“There’s worse than that.”
Kevin looked at him, wondering if he were going to say incest. He waited for a moment, but Festus seemed to have lost the thread of his thought.
“What is the worst sexual sin, then?” Kevin asked.
“Congressus cum Daemone, intercourse with the devil.”
Kevin gave a roar of a laugh, but Festus stared at him as if he were too witless to recognize truth when he heard it.
A clomping on the stairs warned Kevin that Maureen had finished her toilet. She appeared at the door in ladderless stockings, high heels, and a black taffeta skirt with big red flowers above the hem. And as if that were not enough, she had put red war paint on her cheeks. She looked across at Festus like a gypsy at a horse fair about to ask a man to cross her hand with silver.
“You know Maureen?” Kevin said.
Festus took her hand, and she vanished into the parlour as if she had suddenly taken fright at his touch. After two or three minutes she came out again with a plate of sweet biscuits and offered him one.
“No, thanks, I don’t eat sweet things when I’m drinking,” he said kindly, but Kevin could see that he thought her odd.
“I’ll make you a cup of tea to have with the biscuits, then,” she said.
“No, thanks just the same. I must be leaving in a minute.”
“Have another hair of another dog,” Kevin said in an attempt to keep the party going.
He poured Festus another whiskey, and they both talked about mart prices while Maureen sat at the table, loudly munching the sweet biscuits. After a while Festus rose to go. Kevin went out to see him off, and when he came back Maureen ran to him sobbing. He held her unwillingly, annoyed because she had embarrassed him in front of Festus.
“He never once looked at me,” she kept saying through her tears. “And after me putting on all my best things.”
“Pull yourself together,” he said at last. “If you don’t dally, we’ll make late Mass in Killage.”
Chapter 3
Kevin was not a man who accepted one season and rejected another. He loved luxuriant summer, but he loved naked winter too, because in the course of the year there was a time for every purpose under heaven.… a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.… a time to break down and a time to build up. As he looked round the bare hedges and faded fields poached black in gateways, he recalled his old winter pleasure of stall-feeding cattle in the short days, and he realized that now his pleasure had receded, that when he pulped fodder beet and rolled oats and put them in buckets, his mind ran implacably in a slurry gripe from which there was no escape. He knew that there was a time to keep silence, but he wondered if there was a time to speak. Between him and other men, even Festus O’Flaherty and Murt Quane, there was empty reticence. When they looked at him, they saw the shell of the man they had known for years, but they did not see the man he had become. He was the custodian of a secret which set him apart from his friends, a cancerous secret that by a process of metastasis drew all strength and purpose from his thoughts.
At times he would say to himself that he was like any other man, that many an Irish countryman had known his sister’s flesh, that he himself differed from the others only in knowing what was forbidden over a longer period. He wasn’t different; he was merely worse. Was it now too late to escape the fury that had probably already been unleashed? The pain in his testicles had worried him, but for the past few days he had been free of it. Was that because he had not touched Maureen since she told him that she was pregnant? Was there, in other words, a means by which he could recover his former self? Or must he sit under the heavens like a rock in an open field waiting for the bolt of lightning that will split it?
Huddled in the tractor cab as he spread brown slurry on hard ground, he asked himself what form his punishment would take. Sickness—a gripe in the bowels followed by a slow and terrifying death like his mother’s, an end of screaming and praying for release? A seemingly meaningless accident—a windy day and a beech tree falling on him in the lane? Blighted crops or foot and mouth disease among the herd? He recalled the Capuchin missionary raising the roof of Killage chapel with fearful thunder:
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.… For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.”
Did the same jealous God visit the still uncommitted sins of the sons on the mothers as well? He wished that he could settle once and for all the only theological question that ever plagued him—Did God make Man or did Man make God? It was a question which each man must answer for himself, a question on which the opinion of a fool was as good as the opinion of a philosopher. He thought of his life, and knew that though he might flirt with the idea of a godless universe his nature must ultimately reject it. He was a prisoner of time, of place, of the singleness of his own experience.
At dinnertime Maureen told him that she was going to write to Concepta. “I must confide in someone or I’ll go mad,” she said.
“Well, don’t invite her here. I can stand her even less than I can stand her ass of a husband.”
“But she said in her letter that she was coming anyhow.”
“I don’t want you to tell her anything.”
“What will I do, then?”
“I’ll find another man for you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“What about Murt Quane?” she asked without looking at him.
He peeled four potatoes, dipped his knife in the mustard, and spread a thin lick of it over the lean beef. Maureen never mashed swedes. She always served them in thick slices, so he mashed both swede and potato together with his fork, savouring the sweetness of the steam that rose into his face. Maureen’s spoon rattled in her soup mug, but still he was silent, because Murt Quane was his best friend, closer to him than Festus O’Flaherty. Murt and he helped each other whenever farm work required cooperation, they lent each other machinery, and in winter Kevin often went to Quane’s to ramble. Murt was five years younger than Kevin, and like Kevin he was big-boned and handsome in a rough-cast way; but more important he shared with Kevin a dry sense of humour that enabled them both to talk seriously while knowing that their conversation was leading inevitably to a burst of raillery and the release of glorious laughter.
Perhaps another reason why they enjoyed each other’s company was that neither of them was encumbered by a close relationship with a woman outside the family. Like Kevin, Murt lived with his sister, but she was a sister, Kevin knew, who had not taught him the way to her bed. He had a girl friend in Roscrea, a farmer’s daughter with a degree in agriculture, whom he met on Sunday evenings, but, as he never mentioned her, Kevin assumed that he sought her company merely for her agricultural conversation. Kevin had once seen her picture in The Farmers’ Journal. It had been taken at an IFA dinner dance, and from it he could see that her greatest asset as a woman was her Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree. This discovery did not displease him, because he himself did not mind being a bachelor as long as he had the eligible Murt Quane for company. For reasons of his own, Murt seldom came to Clonglass to ramble, and Kevin felt that to invite him now might seem strange. Besides, their friendship was precious, too precious to jeopardize, even to get Maureen out of a quandary.
“He’s the right age,” said Maureen, sucking the last of the barley from the bottom of her mug.
“He’s got a woman already.”
“Who?”
“A girl called Polly Nangle from Roscrea.”
“You could ask him up this afternoon to help you with the shed.”
He broke a rib off the joint, and holding it in his left hand, he began tearing the meat from it with his knife. When he had finished, he chewed the soft end of the bone and then sucked it like a man prospecting for marrow.
Aware of Maureen’s gaze, he thought that her idea might be turned to advantage. The shed was ready for roofing, and for main rafters he had bought secondhand iron girders which were too heavy for one man to handle. He could ask Murt to give him a helping hand and at the same time placate Maureen while he was thinking of a more practical solution. Of one thing he was certain: he would not involve his friend in anything that he would not wish upon himself.
“I was thinking of asking him to help with the girders next week, but since the day is dry I’ll go down to Larch Lawn to see if he can come this afternoon.”
“He could have his tea here,” she said enthusiastically. “I’ve got ham and tomatoes and a sponge cake I bought in case Concepta decided to surprise us.”
It was two o’clock when he swung into Quane’s immaculate farmyard. He was surprised to see Murt’s sister, Elizabeth, coming out of the garden. She taught in a primary school in Killage, and he expected her to be still at work.
“It’s well for some.” He smiled. “Five half-days and the week is over.”
“We deserved our break today. We had the inspector in this morning and then the manager, who said that we could close early.”
He seldom spoke to Elizabeth alone, and now he looked over his shoulder as if he expected Murt to come to his assistance. She always made fun of himself and Murt, pretending that she knew nothing of farming, that their very conversation was Greek to her. She looked at the aluminum basin in her hand, waiting for him to declare his business.
“Have you seen Murt?” he asked, hoping that her reply would not be too complicated.
“I think I saw him go into the dairy five minutes ago. If you have a look round, you’re bound to find him.”
“I’ll be seeing you,” he said with a little smile, glad to get away.
He found Murt in the pulper house pulping turnips, and he leant for a moment against the doorjamb listening to the hum of the electric motor before he spoke.
“I’ve just seen her,” he said.
“And what do you think?” Murt switched off the pulper.
“She’s lovely.”
“Would you like to try her out?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
They both returned to the yard and walked admiringly round Murt’s new tractor.
“It’s the roomiest cab you’ve ever seen,” said Murt, handing him the key.
Kevin jumped in and started the engine, eased forward, reversed, and did a complete turn.
“She’s quiet for a heavy tractor. You won’t need earplugs, and that’s a fact.”
“She’s got one fault and it’s serious. The PTO shaft keeps revolving even when the lever is in neutral. I’m taking her back to the garage to ask them to fix it.”
“Will you be selling the old one?”
“No, I’ll keep her for light work.”
“Are you two still talking about foggage?” Elizabeth laughed as she joined them.
“I only talk about foggage in the autumn, but Kevin talks about it all the year round. He’s giving a lecture about it to the Mountmellick Macra next Sunday.”
“Do you want to come?” Kevin smiled at her. Now that Murt was here, he felt that he could relax in her company. She wasn’t as pretty as Murt was handsome, but she was clean of limb, straight in the back, and light on her little feet.
“If you want to know about foggage, Kevin’s your man,” Murt said.
“What were you talking about then?” she asked.
“Timothy,” Kevin laughed.
“Timothy who?”
“Not the friend of St. Paul but the companion of cocksfoot and fescue.”
“Ah, a species of grass. I’m not as innocent as I look.” She smiled.
“Kevin is coddin’ you,” said Murt. “We were discussing PTO.”
“Please turn over?”
“The power take-off shaft of the tractor, that little rod at the back that keeps revolving so that you can work anything off it, from a mower to a cement mixer.”
“You’re like two schoolboys with a new toy. You won’t be happy till you’ve broken it.”
They both watched her disappear into the house, and as they talked, they could hear her piano music flowing like coloured streamers through the open window.
“I’ll be up in half an hour,” said Murt as Kevin got into the Mercedes.
He drove down the tree-sheltered lane, remembering it in summer when the rich foliage made a dark-green arch that kept out the sky. Yet darkness was not a quality that he associated with Larch Lawn. It was an airy, well-ordered place, and Murt’s and Elizabeth’s badinage gave it an echo of laughter. The house was new, built by their late father less than ten years ago, and it looked as if it were situated in open parkland, as if it were not a farmer’s home at all. Clonglass on the other hand hunkered behind a defensive line of trees. The house was old, stone-built and slate-roofed, and the trees to the north darkened the kitchen on the brightest day of summer. It would be wrong to say, however, that Clonglass was dark and Larch Lawn light; more true to say that Clonglass was silent and secretive and Larch Lawn open-hearted, a place the world could see from the road without wondering what went on inside.
Murt and Elizabeth, though only five years younger, behaved as if they belonged to a different generation from Maureen and himself. They were brighter, more confident, with greater expectations from everyd
ay living, and Elizabeth brought the world at large into the house, talking knowledgeably about television and the newspapers, illuminating each topic with the glint of her personality, whereas Maureen talked mainly of hens and the farmyard. Perhaps they differed because of their different upbringings. Kevin’s father was a stern, tight-fisted man who, in spite of his worldly talk, had failed in everything he turned his hand to, whereas Murt’s father was a jolly, companionable sort who always went for a drink on market day and after Mass on Sunday. With neither huffing nor puffing, he doubled the acreage of his farm, while Kevin’s father was forced by bad management to sell a fifth of his, including the never-to-be-forgotten Grove. Since taking over the farm from his father, Kevin had more than recovered the lost ground, but he had not recovered what little respect he once had for the old man. He was a shadow that could not be penetrated by light, a putrefying afterbirth that could not be shed. All he was good for was lambasting Dev, wasting electricity, and pouring whiskey down his withered gullet. He never swallowed whiskey when he had to pay for it out of his own pocket.
Kevin did not want to think about his father, so he visualized the black ribbon in Elizabeth’s hair which matched her black blouse which went well with her tight white skirt. There was nothing more attractive than a young woman in a black blouse and white skirt. He had seen such a woman in O’Connell Street last September when he was up for the All-Ireland, but she had puffy feet that swelled over her sandal straps, and her back wasn’t as straight as Elizabeth’s. He wondered what Festus would make of Elizabeth. He once said in Phelan’s that all women were at one of two extremes—they were either angels or termagants. They were angels if they belonged to someone else and termagants if they belonged to you. Now, that was a gross oversimplification. For a man who birled a new woman every week, Festus knew nothing about the sex. He, Kevin Hurley, knew more. He knew, for example, that women, like cattle, thrive on good treatment. They should be fed well, properly bedded, and spoken to in loving kindness. If all men treated their women as he treated his dry stock, wives would not lose their sweetness after the first year of marriage. The world was going to the dogs, and men had only themselves to blame for it. They had lost the art of wife management. Now, if he had a wife, he would know what to do with her.
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