Foggage

by Patrick McGinley

  “Ah, go ’way!”

  “It’s a strange thought, I admit. I’ve discussed it with many patients, but I’ve still to meet the man who enjoys the sphygmomanometer as I do. Have you ever seen a sphygmomanometer?” he asked enthusiastically.

  “No,” said Kevin, twisting in the bed with impatience.

  “It’s a strange yoke doctors have for taking the blood pressure. It’s got a pneumatic cuff you wrap round your biceps, but if you haven’t got an arm, you can wrap it round your thigh just as easily. The doctor keeps his finger on your pulse while pumping up the cuff until the pulse can no longer be felt. Now, it’s in this pumping action that my pleasure lies, so much so that I drove up to Dublin a few months ago and bought my own sphygmomanometer. If you like, I’ll bring it along tomorrow and take your blood pressure so that you’ll see what I mean.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my blood pressure.”

  Ignoring him, the Monsignor launched on a meandering discourse on systolic and diastolic pressure and the reason why he wore galoshes even in the middle of summer. The next thing Kevin knew was that he was being shaken by the shoulder.

  “You are weak, by Jude. You fell asleep right in the middle of my conversation. Now, the reason I came was to bring you viaticum, food for the journey.”

  “What journey?”

  “The journey into the world to come. But in your case it’s to help you get better.”

  “The only journey I’m going to make is a journey to Roscrea in three weeks to give a lecture on foggage.”

  “Of course, you’ll have to make your confession first.” The Monsignor kissed his ribbonlike stole and put it round his neck.

  “I’m not ready to make my confession,” Kevin said in alarm.

  He went to confession only once a year, at Easter, and then he went to the monks in Roscrea, where he wasn’t known. He did not trust the Monsignor. Perhaps Maureen had confessed her incest, and the Monsignor had come because he knew all about him. Maureen went to confession once a month, but surely she must have found some way of calling a spade an agricultural implement. She wouldn’t dare tell the priest that she was having it off with her brother. He looked up at the Monsignor and imagined his voice raised in weary admonition:

  A terrible sin, worse than masturbation, my son. In masturbation you are only destroying your own soul, but in incest, as in all fornication, you are pulling another soul down with you. Even if you find the grace and strength to give up your sin, how do you know that your partner will be able to do the same?

  The Monsignor suddenly changed tack. “I remember ten years ago I used to visit an old man who lived over in Derrycon. We used to sit by the fire while the bacon and cabbage boiled in the pot, and then after a good yarn and a good dinner the old man would come and kneel beside me and say ’Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,’ as if confession after bacon and cabbage was like sunshine after a shower. He was a walking saint, that old man. When he died, he went straight to heaven. God never tested him, because he did not need testing. But you are being tested, and if I were you, I wouldn’t turn my back on the chance to ease my conscience. You may not see yourself as a sinner, but in spite of what the theologians say, I’m convinced that a man can sin without knowing it, because sin is in his heart, in the baseness of his nature. What could be more natural than what Satan was doing in the Book of Job—going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it—but, because it was Satan who was walking, it was sinful. I’m not saying that you are a man of sin, but you are a sinful man. If nothing else, you’ve been going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. So, now will you make your confession?”

  “I’ll make my confession when I’m ready to make it. Now all I’m ready for is sleep.”

  “Take care that you remember to wake up.”

  The Monsignor put his stole in his pocket and hurried out of the room at the highly precarious angle of sixty-five degrees. Outside the window, the green of treetops rose above the sill and behind them a sky of unnatural blue with a becalmed white cloud in the centre. The weakness ran like thin liquid through his bones, and he closed his eyes, subdued by pain and the scornful phantoms that fled like spots before his eyes. When he woke, the day had changed. The green of the treetops had darkened and the white cloud had been replaced by a formless field of grey. He felt shaken and insecure. In this canoe of a bed, anything, even death itself, was possible. It was as if his tractors had been weapons of war, that without them he was a defenceless waif. He shivered under the clothes, not from cold but from the degradation of life’s infirmities. He banged on the floor with a mug in the hope that Elizabeth would hear, but the clomping tread on the stairs told him that it was Maureen who was coming to his aid.

  “Where’s Elizabeth?” he asked.

  “She’s gone to Killage or Larch Lawn. She didn’t say which.”

  “Will you make me a cup of tea propped up with a dash of whiskey?”

  “You’re beginning to sound like His Dotage, may he rest. I noticed the Monsignor left in a rush.”

  “Have you been confessing to him lately?”

  “You know I do the First Fridays.”

  “Have you told him about us?”

  “No.”

  “And how can you go to confession without confessing your biggest sin?”

  “I’m treating it as a reserved sin.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A sin to be confessed to a bishop.”

  “But you don’t know any bishops!”

  “Then, I’ll wait till I do.”

  “Oh, go and make my tea, you mad woman, and don’t aggravate my illness with your capers.”

  Dr. Blizzard came in the morning and gave him an injection in the thigh. After he left, Kevin lay on his back stewing in sweat, recalling the acrid stench that used to rise from the mare’s back when he took off the straddle after coming from the bog. Now he felt nearer the mare than his tractors. Snoddy was at the farthest end of the earth, and Elizabeth and Maureen no longer pestered him with their nocturnal claims. Sickness, while tethering him to the bedpost, had freed him from the slow attrition of their demands. He tried to move to a cooler place in the bed, but kept sinking back into the middle, pursued by pain. After a while he got up to go to the toilet, and as he looked out of the little window, he spied Billy Snoddy following Maureen into the yard. He crossed the landing to Elizabeth’s room to get a better look, but by the time he got there they had vanished from view. Where had they gone? Into the dairy? Into the stable? Or up into the hay shed? Had he really seen them or had he imagined it all?

  As he stood by the bedside table, his hand touched a redcovered book. It was a diary, Elizabeth’s diary, written in black ink in a small stubborn hand. He did not know if he should read it, but before he had time to decide he was halfway down the page.

  August 20th

  I saw a television programme about black holes in space that can swallow up whole planets. Does Kevin see women as black holes into which an unwary man might vanish without trace? I have learnt that he fears women, thanks to O’Flaherty. He told me that once he thought a woman’s natural juices were acid, like the stagnant water in sour bogs, and that he lived in fear of the corrosive effect they might have on his member. I hope that I have days to prove to him that women are exquisite; gentle and selfless as well as fair; that the much-feared vagina is a chamber for the performance of the most heavenly string music, not a dangerous tumulus full of sharp-edged potsherds; that it entices and enfolds rather than maims; that the invitation to sexual congress is as innocent as an invitation to afternoon tea (Another cup, Monsignor?), not an occasion for forced entry and robbery under arms.

  August 26th

  Today I was lying in Rowan’s Field reading Herrick, when I heard the word “Kevin” from the other side of the hedge. I listened hard as the voices drew nearer, and I realized that I was listening to Maureen and Snoddy.

  “If you don’t do it, I’ll tell the quare on
e,” Snoddy threatened.

  “What will you tell her?” Maureen asked.

  “About you and Kevin.”

  “There’s nothing to tell that she can’t guess.”

  “Now, don’t give me that. I caught you red-handed, flagrante delicto as the lawyers say.”

  “If you as much as breathed a word, Kevin would fling your stones to the crows. Have you thought of that?”

  Their voices faded as they walked away and though I listened I could hear no more. I am obviously the quare one, but what secret is there between Kevin and Maureen that I should guess but must not hear? And what did he want Maureen to do that might occasion the stoning of crows? I suppose I should ask Kevin, but he might be shocked at my suspicions. He is such an obviously good and simple man, the kind of man through whom the binding agent of civilization is bequeathed.

  He no longer felt three removes from life; the worlds of Maureen, Snoddy, and Elizabeth came spilling like a cataract into the bedroom. He took the diary back to his room and read it from start to finish. Elizabeth’s world was rarefied, full of dreams and music and observations that had never before been made at Clonglass. He was flattered to discover that she saw him as simple and good, incapable of deception, a man whose only fault must really count in her romantic eyes as virtue—his preference for the loud trombone as opposed to heavenly string music in bed. It seemed impossible that such a woman should sit at the same table and breathe the same air as Snoddy.

  Maureen came up with his tea at four.

  “Where is the Abominable Ruminant?” he asked.

  “Bringing in the last of the bales. I’ve never seen a man work so hard without a ganger.”

  “He’s no innocent. If he threatens you, let me know.”

  “Why should he threaten me?”

  “He might threaten to tell Elizabeth about you and me unless you lie with him.”

  “The brucellosis is giving you strange ideas. It’s not good for you to lie in bed with it alone.”

  He studied her big face, but she was laughing at him, giving nothing of herself away.

  “I’m powerless now, but I won’t be powerless for long. Snoddy may try something while I’m low, but hold him off for a week or two. Tell him anything that will keep him quiet, but don’t give in to him. If he lays a hand on you, I’ll horsewhip him within an inch of his life, and when I’ve horsewhipped him I’ll put him lying flat on a bogey and drive two six-inch nails through his briefcase.”

  “Do you want me to tell him that?”

  “No, I’ll tell him.”

  “Then, why did you tell me?”

  “I only wanted you to know my thoughts.”

  Elizabeth came and read to him in the evening, but though he heard the words they did not make sentences. All he could think of was the purity of her heart and the far from remote possibility that he might lose her. He knew from her diary that her idea of him was so divorced from the reality of his life that if she discovered the murky truth she would never again share a house let alone a bed with him. He closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep, and she closed her book and kissed his forehead before going down the stairs.

  Slowly, the pain ebbed from his bones and the beginnings of strength returned. He got up for an hour or two and walked in the yard in a heavy overcoat, but after twenty minutes he realized that Snoddy could knock him down by breathing on the back of his neck. He decided to go back to bed, to conserve his strength for his lecture to the Roscrea Macra.

  “You’re not going to Roscrea in your present condition to talk about foggage,” Elizabeth told him that evening. “The very look of you would frighten an ass from his oats.”

  “But the Macra asked me months ago, and I’m not going to let them down. I know the subject arseways. All I need is to get there.”

  “Well, you’re not driving to Roscrea by yourself.”

  “I was expecting you to take me.”

  “I have more to do than spend an evening in a bare hall watching you riding your favourite hobbyhorse.”

  “I’ll get Festus to drive me, then.”

  “No, you won’t. I don’t want you out drinking with that overgrown schoolboy. If you must get there, I’ll drive you myself.”

  That settled that. He was still weak and shivery on the evening, but he felt it his duty to propagate the Foggage Principle in a land of devil may care. He was a faint beacon in the mists of indifference, but in years to come he would be remembered for his foresight, and to be going on with, there would be a picture of Elizabeth and himself in the next Farmers’ Journal.

  They arrived in Roscrea on a warm evening of mist and rain, and as they were early he first had a drink to steady his nerves. When they got to the hall, he was disappointed at the poor turnout, but when he saw Festus O’Flaherty in the front seat flanked by the widow from Clonaslew, he took heart. He was glad of Festus, not merely for the sake of his companionship but because he now knew that no matter what went wrong he had audience.

  The chairman made a short speech of introduction, which Kevin was too distracted to hear. He felt shaky and uncertain, and he could see that Elizabeth was not herself. She was sitting alone on the end of a bench, smoking a cigarette through her long black holder, a certain sign of unease. He began his talk with a definition of “foggage” and took a sip from the glass of water provided for his convenience.

  “What I want you to take home with you this evening,” he continued, “is the knowledge that foggage is conserved grass, and that grass, which is the cheapest food, is milk and meat. Therefore, any means of extending the grazing season and shortening the period of stall-feeding is a boon to the farmer. And that is what the Foggage Principle is about—the extension of the grazing season by grass management into late autumn and winter so that the farmer can rely less on hay, silage, and supplementary feed. But if we are to make grass available to cattle in the form of foggage well into December, or even into January, we must be prepared…”

  While he was still only warming to his subject, a drunken voice from the back of the hall shouted, “Fuck foggage!” What he had taken to be a heap of old coats rose up in the form of a tall brutal-looking man. If he had been in good health, he would not have minded the interruption, but he hesitated in mid-sentence while everyone in the hall looked round.

  “Fuck foggage!” the man said again, as if he had discovered the mot juste and was sticking to it. “You’re a false prophet. You’re deluding the Macra, who are too young to know better. The Irish climate is too wet for late winter grazing. Think, dear Macra, of the effect of animals’ hooves on the sward and the soil structure. You’re off your pinhead, Hurley. Every farmer with a milligram of sense knows that in this country you must take your cattle off the land by November to give spring grass a chance to grow. Even your grandmother would tell you that you can’t have your grass and eat it. The foggage man pays the price of his fogology in a late spring the following year. So I say, my dear Macra, ‘Fuck foggage and all fucking fogologists!’”

  Just then Festus got up from his seat, drew a copper ring from his pocket, and held it up for all to see.

  “I’ve got a self-piercing bull ring here,” he said, “and if you don’t fog off this minute I’ll drive it through your nose and lead you from this hall like a suckling lamb on my little finger. I’ll give you thirty seconds to make a move.”

  The man gathered his raincoat round him and left without another word. Festus sat down, said a word in the widow’s ear, and resumed his torpedo-shaped cigar. The rest of the talk passed without incident, ending with questions and enthusiastic applause.

  “You did well,” Elizabeth said, taking his arm.

  “I’m dying for a pint,” he said with relief.

  “I want to go home.”

  “We’ll just have the one.”

  “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s smoky pubs and the smell of spilt stout.” Elizabeth looked adamant.

  “We’ll go to the hotel, then,” said Festus, who had
just joined them. “It’s only ten yards up the street.”

  Reluctantly, she went with them, but only because Kevin was parched after his talk.

  The hotel lounge was an empty cavern of dim lights, and they stood by the bar, wondering where to sit, while Festus ordered.

  “I’ll have a pink gin,” said the widow. “And tell him I like the pink in.”

  “I didn’t for a moment expect you to prefer it out,” said Festus.

  Kevin began telling Elizabeth about an even more sombre hotel in case she should spot the double entendre, but he could tell from the tilt of her nose that the damage had already been done. They took their drinks to a corner while Festus began recounting a case of incest between father and daughter which he had read about in the English papers.

  The widow listened as if his every word was meat and spirituous drink. She had dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark complexion, with a dark mole on her left cheek. Her lips were dark red, as if stained by claret, and her fingernails were painted the colour of peonies. Yet in spite of the overall darkness, she glittered like a dewdrop in the sun. Her middleaged neck supported a flashing necklace, her smile revealed two gold teeth, and her fingers twinkled with sentimentally valuable rings. What Kevin was most aware of, however, was the prominence of what Festus called her “iliac crests” and the way she discharged the scent of valerian whenever she moved her bangled wrists. He looked at Elizabeth to find contemptuous disapproval written plainly on her uncompromising chin.

  “The father was in the habit of masturbating his daughter with a sausage,” Festus said. “And once when she had finished, he ate the sausage.”

  “What did she say to that?” The widow fluttered dark overlong eyelashes.

  “How can you, Daddy? How can you eat a sausage without cooking it?” Festus mimicked.

  “I wonder why he ate it,” the widow pursued.

  “He may have missed lunch,” said Festus.

  “Enough is enough,” said Elizabeth, getting up. “Come on, Kevin, we’re for the road.”