The Dark

by John McGahern

  This was the dream you’d left the stern and certain road of the priesthood to follow after, that road so attractive now since you hadn’t to face walking it any more, and this world of sensuality from which you were ready to lose your soul not so easy to drag to your mouth either for that one destructive kiss, as hard to lose your soul as save it. Only in the mind was it clear.

  You turned away, back towards the town, not able to return to the room because of the shame if you were seen slink through the hallway, you’d have to wait till they were sleeping or the dance was over.

  You walked, it soothed and gathered back calm in some way, along the rotting network of the canals, stars caught between the invading grass and reeds, the flour-mills at the bridges and not many about under the lamps, your life and all life a strange thing.

  In the café, over cups of coffee, in Shop Street, you spent the last part of the night; here you’d sat with John O’Donnell after the Savoy; and tonight he was dancing.

  You envied the old waitress, she seemed asleep in everything she did, there were worse lives. All day she served nondescript customers that came through the swing doors, tired on her feet at the end, the one desire to get back to her bed and room, but perhaps it wasn’t as simple as that either, perhaps nothing was. When the café was closing, chairs being stacked on some of the tables, you made your way back to Prospect Hill. It was after twelve, and the dance should have been about over. By this time it didn’t seem to matter whether anyone was up or not to ask you about the dance. You felt like telling them the truth, and as violently as possible, it’d be some compensation.

  The next morning two letters were waiting when you came down; one from Mahoney, the other had been redirected, it was typed, with a Dublin postmark. When you tore it open it was from the E.S.B. You were asked to present yourself for a medical examination in Dublin on Monday, and if passed, you should be ready to take up employment with the Board almost immediately.

  It’d be pleasant to walk to work on a fine morning through the streets of Dublin, to have pay coming at the end of each week, to be free for ever from dependence on Mahoney, to be able to go to Croke Park Sunday afternoons, and to be free. Chained to a desk all day would be the worst part, but there was money for it, and freedom. Staying here at the University would be three years of cramming rubbish into the mind in constant dread of sickness and failure at the exams. You just couldn’t go home defeated to Mahoney.

  It was strange this morning leaving Prospect Hill in the rain, through Eyre Square for the last time or the beginning of every morning for the next three years, you’d have to answer the letter this evening, dallying was over, you’d have to answer it one way or the other. You’d have to choose.

  With a new detachment you watched the goalposts, strangely luminous in the rain, the green onion domes, and the first classes of the day. You’d have to make up your mind to stay here or leave before this evening, and then an absurd accident struck that removed all detachment.

  The Physics Theatre was full, the seats rising in stairs to the back, and the waiting crowd shouting and beginning to grow restless when a white-coated attendant entered with some apparatus for an experiment. The restlessness became directed at the little attendant. He was loudly cheered down to the table, feet were stamped, the theatre close to a football match when the lecturer red with fury appeared.

  In a second dead silence fell.

  “I won’t tolerate hooliganism in my class now or at any other time,” the lecturer, small with glasses, thundered, and there wasn’t even a stirring of feet.

  It was strange, the sudden deadly silence in place of the shouting, and his fury too big in some way for the small man with the glasses, several of the students who were dumb now could have taken him in their hands and thrown him out the window.

  “I’ll tolerate no hooliganism in my class,” the small lecturer who would teach physics through Irish and who’d told them in the previous class that he’d found no difficulty in following lectures in Germany once he’d got over the initial newness of the language, and he saw no reason why they shouldn’t be able to do the same through Irish, shouted again from the table, and it suddenly seemed too comic, the huge hooliganism too big in his mouth, and the students roaring a minute ago, quiet as mice before him, and you made the mistake of smiling.

  “Get out you,” he pointed.

  Whoever was next you stood.

  “No. Not you. The gentleman on your left.”

  It couldn’t be, you were suddenly bewildered, but stood expecting it to be someone else.

  “What’s your name?”

  The room swam, you were hardly able to answer, there was sense of bewildering unreality, everyone must be looking at you. You’d been quiet, but why had you to cursed smile.

  “Get out. I won’t take hooliganism in my class now or at any other time.”

  Awkwardly you got out of the bench, the others standing to make way, and you were alone on the wooden steps of the passage without strength to climb, sense of that mass to your left staring at you, and the shock and shame. You wanted to weep when you’d got through the door, it had happened too quick to comprehend, the shock was too sudden, and you stood dazed on the quadrangle in the rain.

  “The pompous little fucker and hooliganism filling his mouth,” but why had this cursed shame and misfortune to fall on you before any of the others. On the wet tarmacadam you went at snail’s pace towards the archway, trying to go over what had happened, and the crippling flush of shame when you did, over and over as you went on towards the archway.

  “Is there something wrong?” an older student approached in the archway.

  “He threw me out of the Physics class,” it was relief to tell.

  “Was it Brady?”

  “Yes.”

  “He always does that at the beginning of every year, what did he fire you for?”

  “There was a racket when he came in and I smiled or something after the rest were stopped. I hadn’t been doing a thing before,” you were hardly able to get it out, but you had fierce need.

  “Did he ask your name?”

  “He did. Does that make any difference?”

  “You’ll have to apologize to him and ask him to allow you back.”

  “And is it serious?”

  “Brady always fires someone at the start of the year.”

  “Does he let them back?”

  “He does. The only thing you’d want to watch is that he doesn’t fire you again. If he happened to get his knife in you, you might as well clear out.”

  “When could you apologize?”

  “Before or after some class. If I were you I’d leave it till tomorrow though. He’ll let you back all right. He proves himself like this every year.”

  You went down the tarmacadam, Brady’s cursed class in progress to your right, cut under the drips of the green oaks along University Road. The tar shone in the rain. The town faced you, smoke mixed in the rain above the houses. You’d to make up your mind. Either to go and apologize to Brady and face three years cramming here or go to Dublin to the job. It wasn’t Brady drove you, you’d go and crawl for him if it was worth it, only a fool stood up, you could go and crawl and savage him after if you got the chance and wanted still. But maybe it was the fall of the dice, you were meant to go, and if anything happened here there was no one to turn to, not Mahoney. It was better to go and it’d be better to do it at once and tell Mahoney.

  In the post office near Moon’s Corner you wasted several telegram forms till you were finally satisfied with,

  WANT TO TAKE E.S.B. AND LEAVE UNI., WILL WAIT FOR YOUR CONSENT

  They said at the counter that he’d have it in about two hours.

  30

  MAHONEY CAME THE NEXT MORNING, FULL OF A SENSE OF drama. There was an important decision to be made. He’d play in it to the last.

  “You want to leave?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, we’ll have to think about it, a rash decision now co
uld cause your whole life to regret it. We’ll have to discuss it, get advice about it, only fools rush rashly.”

  The suitcase was in your father’s hand, it was weird or strange walking with him in Eyre Square, this older man might as well not be father at all, and children were chanting Eena meena-mina-mo, Catch a nigger by the toe, outside the green railings.

  “I thought you wanted to be a doctor?”

  “No. The course is too long. The Scholarship only lasts four years, the fees are too high. It’d be impossible on the Scholarship.”

  “That’s to be considered alright,” a lot of the swagger disappeared, it was no longer a play, it might involve forking out money.

  “With the E.S.B., I’d be earning money straight away,” you’d learned long ago the kind of reasons to present, no use giving your own reasons, but reasons closest to where it touched Mahoney.

  “We’ll have to take everything into consideration. After I got the telegram I dressed up and went in to see Brother Benedict. He said that under no circumstances should I allow you leave. He said you had a brilliant career in front of you at the University, and that you’d rot in an office. That’s one opinion. What we’ll have to do is thrash the whole thing out, and come to the best decision, so that there be no regrets after.”

  He was impatient of any interruption, he gesticulated violently as well as raising his voice to drown the one attempt you made to say that you’d already decided. You’d take the E.S.B. and it’d be your own decision.

  “But what we’ll have to get first is something to eat. An empty bag can’t stand never mind think. After we see to the inner man we’ll see what way the road lies.”

  Over the meal in the restaurant he aired it.

  “This lad of mine wants to leave the University and go to the E.S.B. It has me worried. It’s hard to know what way to advise.”

  “A steady job has a lot to be said for it. He might waste years at the University and not do as good at the heel of the hunt. Drinking and dancing is what some of them I see are best qualified for on leaving here,” a little man in a tweed suit, spectacles on his nose, who was in the Good’s Store of the railway station, voiced.

  “The E.S.B. is the same as a government job, it can’t go down. He’d have a pay straight away, an increment every year, his chances for promotion, and a pension. In no time he’d be able to settle down and have his own little home,” was Mrs. Ridge’s contribution.

  “I don’t agree with that, he’s young, he’s plenty of time to worry about security. At his age he should take a chance. It’s the only interesting thing to do,” a young policeman, who was obviously dissatisfied with his own position, contradicted.

  “It’ll be his own decision anyway. I’ll not interfere. He won’t have me to blame in after years. That’s the only sure thing,” Mahoney bloomed in the attention.

  You watched Mahoney with cold and hidden fury, you’d been in this restaurant days and they’d learned more about you in this half-hour than all the days together. All this air of importance and wisdom breathed through their cigarette smoke was horrible, it was your life they talked about, but soon it’d be over.

  “I’ll not be going home till tomorrow and I was wondering if you’d be able to fix me up for the night,” Mahoney asked after the meal.

  “We’ll fix you up, but you won’t have a room. It’s either fix a bed for you downstairs or the double bed is big enough for two since it’ll be only for one night. That’s if you don’t mind,” Mrs. Ridge said.

  “Not at all. We’re easy. That has the whole thing solved. Thanks very much. You’re very good, Mrs. Ridge.”

  “That’s great. Everything is settled for the night, you feel easier, and do you know I was thinking that the best thing we could do is get a priest’s advice. The Franciscans of Galway are famous, they’re gentle the Franciscans, more like ordinary people,” Mahoney said soon as they were alone on the streets.

  “What good would that do?”

  “A priest is sort of on the fence. They can see better. We could go and put your case and I am sure we wouldn’t get bad advice.”

  “Alright so,” it would finish it, moments it seemed once talk had started that it might be better to take the risk and stay at the University. Chained to a desk in Dublin no matter what security attended it might prove no easier bed of roses, all this deciding was a horror.

  “I think if we’re to get advice, one of the Deans of Residence at the College would be best. That’s his job, to look after students, he’d know more about that kind of problem than the Franciscans.”

  “That’s alright so, as long as it’s some priest,” Mahoney agreed.

  You walked across the town, father and son, and when you met students from the University you were ashamed of your father, and then fiercely loathed yourself for being ashamed, there was no real reason, except stupid resentment of your own unique identity being associated with your father, you’d be linked with and associated with your father, instead of being utterly alone and free against a background of snow.

  “So this is the University,” Mahoney wondered. “A bit on the style of a castle. It’d cost a quare penny to put up a building like that nowadays, even if they had the tradesmen.”

  It was the University, you looked at it, the shambles of a dream. Never would you walk again with a dream through the archway and by the canal through the Spanish Arch and out towards the sea on the Long Walk. You’d swot towards the B.Sc. here or you’d leave it for the E.S.B.

  The Dean received you in his office without any waiting: the Dean, a tall lean man with eyes that weren’t easy to meet, they were cold and sharp.

  “I am a student here. I have a Scholarship. I have been offered a clerkship in the E.S.B. My father thought you might be able to advise us what to do,” you tried to put it bare as possible, awkward and a fool in the stumbling words.

  “That’s right, father,” it was relief that Mahoney was staying in the background.

  “Which would you like to do yourself?” the priest probed calmly.

  “I don’t know, father.”

  “What course did you intend to follow?”

  “Science I think, father.”

  “You don’t have any keen interest in it?”

  “No, father. It’d be easy to get a job out of it afterwards. I wanted to do Medicine first, but the course is too long. The Scholarship is only for four years.”

  “What do you feel about staying on at the University?”

  “I don’t know, father. It’s not like I thought it’d be,” you saw both of you look mean and shabby in the priest’s eyes.

  “If you’re a scholarship boy, you’ll probably do well at the University. If you did you’d get a much more pleasant job than the E.S.B. out of the University. So I think you should stay,” what he said was like shock of cold water, he was too clever to give advice, he was throwing down the gauntlet to see if you had the wish to pick it up and he knew you hadn’t. And you saw and resented his calculated probing or attack.

  “I’m afraid I might get sick or fail and there’s more in the house besides me, father,” and it sounded as lame as it was.

  “You’re afraid of failing?”

  “I am, father.”

  “You’d not have to worry about that in the E.S.B.,” the priest looked you straight in the face and you saw what he was doing and hated him for it. The Dean was forcing you to decide for yourself.

  “No. I’d not have to worry.”

  “Well, I definitely think you should take the E.S.B. so,” there seemed contempt in his voice, you and Mahoney would never give commands but be always menials to the race he’d come from and still belonged to, you’d make a schoolteacher at best. You might have your uses but you were both his stableboys, and would never eat at his table.

  It was hard to walk quiet out of the University at Mahoney’s side and see the goalposts luminous in the grey light of the rain and not give savage expression to one murderous feeling of defeat.


  Though not even that lasted for long, the rage and futility gradually subsiding as you walked through the streets of that wet day. What right had anybody or anything to defeat you and what right had you to feel defeated, who was to define its name?

  One day, one day, you’d come perhaps to more real authority than all this, an authority that had need of neither vast buildings nor professorial chairs nor robes nor solemn organ tones, an authority that was simply a state of mind, a calmness even in the face of the turmoil of your own passing.

  You could go to the E.S.B. If it was no use you could leave again, and it didn’t matter, you could begin again and again all your life, nobody’s life was more than a direction.

  You were walking through the rain of Galway with your father and you could laugh purely, without bitterness, for the first time, and it was a kind of happiness, at its heart the terror of an unclear recognition of the reality that set you free, touching you with as much foreboding as the sodden leaves falling in this day, or any cliche.

  31

  IN THE BEDROOM THAT NIGHT ON PROSPECT HILL THE ROSARY was said before undressing. There was morbid fascination in watching Mahoney take off his clothes, down to the long Johns, some obscenity about the yellow shade of the wool, and the way they stretched below the knees, the curly hair of the leg between that and the ankle.

  Memories of the nightmare nights in the bed with the broken brass bells came, and it was strange how the years had passed, how the nights were once, and different now, how this night’d probably be the last night of lying together.

  “That’s a relief,” he sighed as he sank down into a creak of springs. “The town wears you out. You walk miles without noticing, each street is so short.”

  “Not being used to the concrete probably accounts for it too.”

  “Well, we decided anyhow. So let’s hope for the best. It’s a relief to me too. The University had me worried. I’d never have told you though only you’ve decided this way. I wasn’t going to interfere with your decision. It had to be your own. But I’m the father to the others as well. I have to think about them as well. I was worried.”