The Dark

by John McGahern

  Let it happen, let it happen, and let it be over as quickly as possible.

  “What we’ll have to get you first is clothes and shoes. You’re someone now. We can’t have you looking the part of the ragman.”

  They went to Curleys, shop of the horror boots for winter.

  “Can we help you?” after the shaking of hands.

  “We want a whole new outfit for this fellow, he’s after getting first place in the University. Scholarship and all Honours in his Leaving. So we can’t have him going round like a ragman. Expense is no object. He’s going to be someone in the world, not like us.”

  “Congratulations, it’s not every day we have a genius among us.”

  He went red, such a swamp of embarrassment, he looked round frantic to hide first. Hatred swept against Mahoney: could he not shut his mouth. Three girls in the uniform of black skirt and cardigan were smiling from the women’s counter. He thought they were laughing at his cloddish father.

  A grey suit was bought, black shoes, a white shirt, and matching wine tie.

  “You must be proud today,” the manager said to the father. “You deserve great credit for the way you brought these children up.”

  “We only try to do our best, what more can we do,” he diminished but he bloomed in the praise.

  “There’s more than that to it. And now I want to make my own contribution to the happy occasion,” and he presented brown leather gloves with the compliments of the house.

  “The best shop in the town is Curleys. We got everything we ever wanted here, the best shop in the town.”

  “We do our best. We value and appreciate our good customers,” the manager was pleased too before his staff and came smiling with them to the door.

  “The next time it’ll be for his father he’ll be buying for, we hope, and driving round in a car,” Mahoney joked as he backed through the door, so absorbed that he almost flattened a woman passing with parcels. It brought him slightly down to earth, he restored a fallen parcel, and said, “Sorry,” to her murderous stare and mutterings.

  He was determined on a round of the town, every shop they were known in.

  Flynn’s where they got Ireland’s Own.

  O’Loan’s, the hardware shop.

  Even Cassidy’s where they got the luxuries of oranges and raisins for Christmas and Easter.

  “They have the money but not the brains. This’ll be a shake-up for them,” he boasted between the shops.

  “O’Carroll of Cavan had a son in St. Patrick’s and he could be learned nothing. As thick as a solid ditch. So the Reverend President sent for O’Carroll and said, ‘You better take away your son, Mr. O’Carroll, we can make nothing of him here,’” he began to recount.

  “‘That’s alright,’ said O’Carroll. ‘I’ll pay you what you want.’

  “‘But he has no brains, Mr. O’Carroll,’ the Reverend President said.

  “‘Brains, what does he want brains for, I’ll buy him brains, the best brains in the country. So keep him.’”

  Mahoney laughed loudly at his own story as they paused at the Public Lavatory in the Shambles, the cobbler’s shop in the archway and straw about an abandoned raker in Foley’s yard, the cattle pens all around, and lorries from Donegal with bags of cheap potatoes.

  “That’s one thing can’t be bought is brains. Only God can give brains. And they don’t come off the wind either.”

  He made no answer except some phrase of agreement. There was a certain cruelty in the way he watched his father caper but there was the pleasure of attention mixed with the frightful embarrassment of these capers from shop to shop, he was uncomfortable but half-pleased centre of praise.

  “The one thing to beware of is a swelled head. That’s the ruination of brains. Pride! But if you can keep a cool head you’ll show some of them round here how it’s done.”

  26

  THE DAY WOULD NOT END PROPERLY WITHOUT THE ROYAL Hotel, its promise of celebration in style. One day they’d dress up and go to town and dine in the Royal Hotel, it was come true at last.

  Mahoney ran the comb through his hair, smoothed his lapels, before he pushed through the swing-doors. He demanded the whereabouts of the dining-room from the girl at the cash-desk, trying to cover his unease by aggressiveness. The dining-room was half full, anglers from England for the Arrow trout, commercial travellers, people breaking their journeys. They looked about for a retreat in a corner, or by the river windows, but there were none vacant, and when they did settle for a table they found it was engaged.

  “First in first served. There’s no fence around it, is there?” Mahoney attracted the attention of the room by complaining loudly as the waitress led them to another table.

  There Mahoney sat at bay, handing the menu card across the table with an assertive flourish.

  “Pick what you want. It’s your day. It’s not every day people get a University Scholarship,” he said loud enough for the room to hear, a show of mild interest creeping over the faces, smile of condescending understanding.

  Why, why could he not be quiet, why had he to attract attention? What need was there to come here at all, the strain was too shocking, why couldn’t they have eaten in a cheap place or gone home? Resentment grew with hot embarrassment. He was beginning to hate the Scholarship. It had been dragged sick through town all day. Now everyone knew here too.

  “Whatever you think but shut up about the Scholarship,” the first direct protest came.

  “You care too much about what people know or think, that’s what’s wrong with you.”

  “I don’t care and shut up.”

  “Alright. Alright but there’s no need to get so hot. It’s your day.”

  He called the waitress, he was bothered and disturbed, the strange atmosphere, there was no union between them.

  “We want the best in the house,” he said.

  “The chicken is extremely good, sir. Or the duck?” her face remained impassive. He saw on the menu that the duck was the more expensive.

  “Duck. Duck for two,” he said.

  “What will you have with it, sir?” And the rest of the meal was laboriously chosen.

  It was not easy to sit through in quiet. Why had the father to try and bulldoze everything through by brute force? The girl was a person too even though she wore the uniform of a waitress. Could he not be quiet just as easy, and ask for what he wanted, the other person had need of dignity too, and he’d get his meal the same in the end.

  “You’ll have to learn to have more confidence in yourself if you’re to be anything in the world. People take you at your own face value. You must stand up for your rights. Never be afraid to go into any place and ask for what you want long as you have money in your pocket. I’m not afraid,” he said while she was away.

  He didn’t answer. This brute assertion made him sick.

  “She’s a person too,” he wanted to say but watched instead the shallow river flowing broken on its stones through the windows, long tresses of green weed swaying in the flow.

  The meal was served, embarrassment of not knowing how to use the different knives and forks. They’d been told in school to begin on the outside and work in, but if there happened to be a fault in the arranging, one knife where it shouldn’t be, he couldn’t think what a country ass he’d seem.

  He waited for Mahoney but he plainly didn’t know either, watching covertly round at the other tables to see what they were using, joking to cover his unease.

  “You’d be able to manufacture a carcass with all this machinery never mind a piece of bloody duck. But this is a meal in style. It must be one of the best hotels this in the West.”

  Mahoney was in the Royal Hotel, silver and a meal with sauces, he’d have to pay dear, he was determined that he was going to enjoy it. As people left their tables and others came, as the meal wore, he relaxed into a kind of pondering sentimentality.

  “We got to the Royal Hotel at last, after all the years. It’s a fine meal and a happy day. We’ve come
into our own at last. We’re celebrating in style and something to celebrate at last.”

  “It’s a fine meal. Thank you for bringing me.”

  A vision of how happy the others must be with their tea and bread, free in the house, no burden of what they were not accustomed to.

  “No, no thanks at all, it’s your day. We’ve had our differences over the years, there’s no house that hasn’t, but that’s not what counts.”

  “No. That’s not what counts.”

  “We still love each other after all the years.”

  “We do.”

  “We’ve not been rich but there’s love and no hard feelings and that’s all that matters. That’s what Christ preached.”

  “Yes. That’s all that matters,” pressure of Mahoney was driving him crazy, ground underfoot by it, and the walls of the room and people closing round, he’d have to get out of here, if it was only to see the empty street and gulp air on the bridge or watch the river flow out into Key and Rockingham.

  “Do you think we could go?”

  “It’s time I suppose. We’ll just get the bill.”

  He stood. Mahoney was left with no choice. He didn’t wait to watch the paying of the bill but waited out in the hall. He felt freer there, but he couldn’t be out of the place half quick enough, on the streets with air and people watching or going about their business.

  “Do you know what that cost?” Mahoney joined him.

  “No.”

  “Guess.”

  He guessed deliberately below the price and Mahoney thrust the bill into his hands.

  “A disgrace, no wonder they’re rotten rich. You pay for the silver and the ‘Sir’, and the view of the river as if you never saw a river before. Think of all the loaves of bread you could buy for the price of them two meals.”

  The shops were closing, a grey gentleness entering the light, and the blinds of the pubs were down. People who had no status to uphold were coming out to sit on the bridge. Girls with an air of secrecy about them were going somewhere dressed for the evening. Young men with oil plastering down their hair had come in from the country and stood at the corners with bicycle-clips in their trousers. Girls were sure to pass. Someone might get drunk and make a fool of himself. There might be even a fight or car crash.

  “It was a cost but we had to do it. We had to celebrate it. And it’s one you’ll remember no matter how high you go in the world.”

  He had to look solemn but he felt free after the hotel and wanted to laugh. He watched his father cycle by his side home, the head low into the wind over the dynamo lamp, pushing. He waited for him to pass the graveyard.

  “It gives me the creeps, that place! No matter what happens it winds up there. And you wouldn’t mind only there’s people dying to get into it,” everybody repeated themselves but suddenly at the old joke he wanted to laugh with him and say,

  “You are marvellous, my father.”

  27

  IN OCTOBER HE WOULD GO TO THE UNIVERSITY IN GAL WAY. THE prospectus was got, £4 sent to Merrion Square in Dublin to buy Matric. The Scholarship was worth £150, thirty weeks in the University year. They allotted it: £40 for fees, £90 for digs, £20 left for books and pocket money, it seemed barely possible.

  The whole work changed to the September reaping and binding of the corn with Mahoney, the wild vetch the cattle loved flowered ragged purple in the clean gold, briar and thistle hidden in the rows of fallen oats hurting the hands, but he was hardened by this to these fields between their stone walls.

  “What do you think you’ll do at the University?” Mahoney probed.

  “I’m not sure,” he couldn’t answer, he couldn’t know, it seemed half unreal that he in old clothes in the cornfield with his father would be at the University before long. The wind swaying through the ripe field, the clashing of the sheaves into stooks, that was all that seemed real.

  Benedict came from the school with a photographer, and took his picture before the front wall of the house. They wanted to publish it in the Herald.

  “You can’t hide your light under a bushel these days. It’s the age of advertisement,” Benedict said.

  “He’s off to the University and he doesn’t even know what he wants to do,” Mahoney complained.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that, he has some idea, I am sure. It’s better than to blindly jump at something. It might be no bad idea to go the University, you can spend some time before signing for anything, and look about you.”

  “There might be some truth in that. More haste less speed I often heard said,” Mahoney admitted, and it gave licence to not making a decision. The real days were the days in the field with the rooks black on the pale stooks in the distance, the pigeons clattering from the green oaks.

  The photo appeared under Scholarship Success with a write-up in which the school’s name was prominent underneath. It caused great excitement in the house. Mahoney bought a dozen copies, and posted some away.

  “That’s what’ll shake them up.”

  He stared more at his own name printed than at the photo. Was that his name, was that him? It was strange to think of people working to print his name and send the newspaper out to the world. Strange to think of all the eyes, in so many different faces, gazing at his name, what would cross their minds as far away as London.

  A Monday came for him to go. He said good-bye to the others in the kitchen, hard to smother back emotion, leaving them here, but they didn’t see it that way, they were possibly glad not to have to go. The fields through the windows, the stone walls, the trees he knew. It was the hour of the departure at last, the times he’d dreamt about it out of the swamp and suffering of the house, to simply go away, and now that it had come he’d rather remain. The terrified reality of the cleanness of the grain where the red paint had peeled off the gatepost as he went through, the night Mahoney with blobs of sweat on his forehead had first dressed the post in the kitchen, the August day he’d painted it red and protected it a few days later with barbed wire against the cattle. He didn’t know what crazy pressures drove him to leave but he left, his overcoat and a suitcase, the other suitcase on the bar of Mahoney’s bicycle.

  In the October Monday morning they waited for the bus outside Daly’s in Bridge Street.

  “You know where to go first. Mrs. Ridge of Prospect Hill. Benedict said to give his name and she’d put you up till you found your way about. You have the address?”

  “I have.”

  They stood at the stop. They were joined by others waiting. They made some conversation on the appearances of the others, the appearance and promise of the day, and in the intervals they watched.

  “Good-bye. Look after yourself. Write,” Mahoney shook hands hurriedly as the bus came in.

  “Good-bye. Thanks,” he wanted to say it now for everything if he could, no bitterness or anything else in some vision of this parting as both their lives passing utterly alone and lost in time, outside the accidental places and manner of their happening, and then one absolute compulsion to praise or bless.

  “Good-bye,” the father said again, simply.

  “Good-bye,” and he was in other people’s way, he had to get in. Though he took long putting the cases in the overhead rack the bus didn’t go, shaking from the heavy vibration of the running engine. He tried to waste time staring round the bus before he sat down, because all the good-byes were said, but eventually he had to look out. Mahoney was stiff against the wall, staring after someone’s shoes, obviously waiting to be released too, and stiffly he walked to the window when he caught his eye. He let the window down, feeling the vibration.

  “The bus is due in at twelve-twenty. In less than two hours you’ll be there.”

  “In about two hours.”

  “You’ll not find it go. You’ll be able to look out at the country. There are some great fields for mushrooms close to Galway.”

  “I must watch out. It’s lucky it’s such a good day.”

  “Write as soon as you get fixed up.”


  “I’ll write tonight.”

  The engine revved, it was put in gear, and nosed out from the footpath. The conductor buckled on his ticket machine.

  “Good luck,” Mahoney waved.

  “Good-bye. I’ll write tonight.”

  The bus crossed the bridge. He watched the familiar names on the lintels before it got out of the town, fleeting memories of days he walked between those shops, and then the country road and the fields through the hedges, and he’d said to watch the fields. Close to Galway there were great fields for mushrooms.

  28

  “WE DON’T GO IN FOR STUDENTS BUT BECAUSE BROTHER Benedict sent you we can’t see you stuck. You can stay till you get on your feet and have a chance to look around,” Mrs. Ridge said on Prospect Hill. She was large, heavily handsome, white hair tinged with blue and worn in a dead fashion, slowness and assurance in her every movement, the world a fixed and comfortable place.

  She asked much about Benedict as she showed you the room. “A very clever man and deep, liked everywhere, if there was more like him in the world it’d be telling,” she praised, brown linoleum under her feet on the stairs and the shining brass rails, one small yellow rug by the bed; cream coverlet, wooden wardrobe and table and chair, must be the same as many rooms, but it was yours, and utterly different. The corridor was bare and clean, smell of wax and soap, pink wrappings of Jaffa oranges on a nail beside the seat in the w.c. When she’d gone you opened your cases, and then gazed down on the passing street, as it went its imponderable way.

  You were given a meal in the restaurant downstairs, a Yale key, and you went outside, by the green railings of Eyre Square. You’d a place to stay. You’d money from the Scholarship. You were free. Woolworth’s across the Square was the same as the place in Sligo. A girl with a red scarf walked ahead, you started to follow, fascination of her shape as she moved, the cane shopping-basket swinging at her thigh. One day, one day, one day, you’d have a girl of your own, a world of marvel then. But now the University, one dream that would come to earth this day.